Vegas Half Ironman!!!

I had a blast last weekend down at the Rage in the Sage half-ironman distance triathlon. Dad, Robby, and Sam drove down to Provo on Thursday and then first thing Friday morning we all took off to Vegas where we met up with Trey and Mary at the hotel casino where we were staying next to Lake Mead. After moving all our gear into the hotel room, we got back in the car to head out and drive the bike course. That was definitely a good move as the entire thing was just up and down hills with very limited flat stuff. While driving the course and analyzing it and my recent training (or lack thereof), I started dropping my expectations of what sort of time it would take me to do the bike. I had originally planned for 3 hours but with the hills and possibly wind, I got to the point where I was almost thinking I’d be closer to 3:20. After heading back to Las Vegas for race registration, we met grabbed some dinner, packed the transition bags for the morning, then went down to contribute our $20 to the casino before bed.
It took forever for me to fall asleep that night so 4am came extremely early. I debated hitting the midnight special $.99 bacon and egg breakfast, but opted to stick with my protein and waxy maize shake. We got down to the transition area shortly after it first opened and Trey, Sam, Robby, and I were all had race numbers close to each other because of our age so were all able to set up next to each other. After getting everything laid out and dressed into our wetsuits, we had time for a picture and then off to the starting line. We walked into the chilly 59 degree water right as they finished describing the course over the loud speaker and then a minute later they blew the horn and we were off. I felt like I was doing all right in the swim until I looked up at one point and noticed I was off course and had to turn back toward the group. I finally made the last buoy and next thing I know, I was up walking out of the water and checked my watch to see an ugly 40 min on there. I walked up the long asphalt boat ramp to my transition area finally unlatched my wetsuit in back after struggling with it the whole walk up. Mary was there as I walked in and let me know that Sam, Robby, and Trey had already come out of the water and were out on the bike course.
After getting ready for the bike, I took off with the goal of catching up to those guys and I knew Robby was wearing one of our red jerseys so I took the approach of just picking off every red jersey that I saw. With every red jersey I passed, I was starting to wonder whether I’d ever catch up to them. Finally as I was .5 miles from the turnaround, I saw Sam and Robby together as they were headed the other direction. This gave me a little extra boost as I was knew that I wasn’t getting left in the dust by them so I kept pushing up every hill. A few miles later, I come up a hill and see Trey up there standing on the side of the road taking a pee so we road together until we got up to same with about 10 miles left in the bike and Robby a few hundred yards ahead of us. Trey made a move and booked it up to Robby and they took it up the 3 mile long hill together before the long descent into transition where I came in a minute later and Sam just after that. I checked my watch coming in and was pretty pumped to see that my bike split was at 3:00:50 for an average of 18.6mph; much faster than I had anticipated while driving the course the day before. This was most likely due to having to catch up because of a slow swim.
We each wrapped up our transition about the same time and left out on the run together minus Sam who forgot his race belt and number so he went back real quick for them. Robby and I ran together for pretty much the first 5 miles of the course. We were pretty much dressed the same and stride for stride we kept the same pace so every single aid station and even other competitors kept asking us if we were twins. Apparently they didn’t notice the ages on our calves…or the fact that Robby’s legs are twice as big and buff as mine.
Around 5 miles in, Robby decided to drop back and run with Sam who was only 50 yards behind us so I just kept my same pace and hit every aid station along the way for a bite of banana, a gulp of heed, a gulp of water, and a refreshing splash with the rest of the cup. I felt pretty decent on the run and was able to keep my pace all the way to the finish. My run time was in 2:08 which came out at like 9:47/mile. My official time came in at 6:00:25 which was right in the range that I had been hoping for going in. I'm pretty happy with how the race went and my nutrition during it, and I think all of us are making good progress toward being ready for Ironman CDA!