Just recovering from an awsome and painful weekend in Sylvan Lake, AB, Canada where I have finaished my first half Iron Man distance race. I have to tell you that as much as I have trained now for the last 2 years, I was not prepared for this event at all.

When I woke up at 5:55 AM to get ready for the event I felt great, full of excitement. Had a couple of granola bars and hopped on my bike to the starting line. Set up my transition, registered and sat back and relaxed. It was a beautiful morning, warm , no wind couldn't be better.

When I got into the water still felt great, the water was still not too cold, my new wet suit felt great. At the starting horn took off, and tried to take it easy until the fast swimmers were past. As I am not that great at sighting I decided to follow the feet of someone in front of me. Unfortunately I followed someone who must have a similar problem, because when I finally tried to find the bouy I was way off course to the right. When I got out of the water my right hamstring started to tweak a little. T1 went smooth and off to the bike I went.

The bike started out great. It was fairly flat and I was making up time and passed quite a few other racers in the first 20k. Then, that one moment where everything started to go down hill. I passed the first aid station and just kept on going as I still had a full bottle of gatorade and water in my aqua rack. I went over a set of rairoad tracks and both bottles fell out. I should have stopped, but I decided to leave them. So I went the next 20 km with no fluid, and the temperature started to rise.

Then at about 55 km the hills started. I believe there were seven in all and each one was got more and more difficult. My legs were really starting to cramp up. At one point when I tried to stand up and stretch my hamstrings felt like elasticbands and pulled me back down. The last 10 k were very difficult and thoghts of DNF starting coming into my head. At T2 I couldnt find my energy bars and my legs were really starting to hurt.

Off on the run and things really started to go down hill. It was really demoralizing seeing other atheletes crossing the finish before I had even started to run, but I kept on. Again the heat was very hot(it got up to 36degrees C i believe)and everything drank started to just sit in my stomach. And more hills!!! At the halfway turnaround I had to take 5 minutes and sit in the shade as I thouht I wasn't going to be able to go on. But I got up, walked most of the way but was determined to make it under 8 hours. The day before I was gunning for 6. With about 1k I saw that I had passed 8 hours but decided to run the rest of the way. When I got near the finish line I heard the race announcer calling my name and saying that the race organizers were keeping the line open longer than was originally planned. I crossed the line in 8 hours 4 minutes, and for the first time my whole family was there to see me cross the line. I felt great, even though I felt like I had just been run over.

After a couple of days now to recover, my body is getting back to normal, and I am now thinking how I can beat this course next year that beat me up so much this year. The event was very well organized and all of the volunteers were amazing. If you are looking for a challenge next year, I would highly recommend this race to any one.