Black Diamond Half Ironman Triathlon

Last Saturday (9/13) my cousin Michael and I competed in the longest triathlon of our short tri careers - a half ironman (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run). It was the Black Diamond Triathlon in Enumclaw, which was the same place that I was supposed to do the Olympic distance w/ Ben last year. My mom and Loren were there, along with my aunt and uncle.

All summer I had been on a strict training schedule that had me working out 6 days a week, and towards the end, 14 to 15 hours per week. My swimming had greatly improved and my bike time was good, too, so I was feeling great for race day. My main goal was to finish and have fun, but I have to admit that beating my cousin was on my mind, too. He had beat me by 30 seconds at the Seafair tri.

My game plan was to do what I could in the water, figuring he's the swimmer in the family and I wouldn't be able to keep up out there, then I'd ride a conservative pace on the bike and save myself for the run at which point my marathon muscle memory would push me past him as we neared the finish. That was my game plan anyways.

As it turned out, I actually got out of the water a full minute ahead of him, which suprised everyone, especially me. At that point I was 31st out of 166. Then we left the transition area at about the same time and I let him take off ahead, smirking to myself, thinking "poor kid, he's gonna burn his legs out early and will be easy prey..." It was a long ride. 3 hours and 7 minutes out there. I was pretty glad to be done with that leg and onto the run portion. The run course at Black Diamond has lots of out and back sections which was useful for gauging my progress in catching up to Michael, but it can also be confusing... especially when there's nobody in front of me and nobody is telling me where to go. I was at about the 9 mile mark and was really opening it up when I ran right past this dirt road that I was supposed to turn on. The same dirt road that Micheal was hobbling down as he was running out of gas!

After about a mile, I started to think that something seemed wrong. I stopped and consulted the volunteers at a water station who confirmed my suspision. I WAS PISSED. By the time I got back to the dirt road turn off I had started to give up. My legs hurt, I was hot and tired, disappointed and a little broken. I was just going to walk back to the park and call it a day. Then I saw Loren, my mom's husband. He talked me down and convinced me that I had to finish. He was right, you can't go for 5 and a half hours, then just give up. So I sucked it up and ran my ass back to the park, around the lake and completed my roughly 15 mile run.

I still finished in less than 6 hours, which I think is a great accomplishment for your first half iron distance. It's hard to say what was harder, this tri or the marathon. Maybe they were harder in different respects. And I can't stop replaying that wrong turn in my mind and thinking about what a great finish it would have been... After 5.5 hours of racing to be coming down the home stretch... neck and neck w/ my cuz... both in pain and suffering from exhaustion... giving it that last final push... and beating him by 5 seconds right at the end!

Oh well, maybe next year.