8 hours of Triathlon report

Format:

There were a dozen or so solo women and the same for men in the 8 hour event, lots of teams and the same for the 24 hour event. The only requirement was that each person/team complete 800 swim, 9 mile bike (8.85 miles) and 3 mile run (2.8 miles) in that order then you could do whatever order the rest of the time. My goal was to complete 7 triathlons. after each half mile swim, bike and run loop, we had to run though transition around the clock to deactivate chip and run out of transition to activate our timing chip to count the loops. i.e. Demount and mount our bikes after each loop, and run uphill then downhill after each half mile swim. That was the toughest part.

What I did:

Swim, bike, run one loop. Then I continued to run 4 more loops, total bout 15 miles. Then I biked 3 more loops at goal IM pace wattage (175ish), good opportunity to refuel. Approaching noon, while watching the dark clouds roll in I decided it was time to get in the water. I swam 6 loops, 3 miles, in rough waters. The rez was open to boating creating waves and bodies chaotically swimming from buoy to buoy, only two buoys, so people were swimming into each other. Each loop plus the transitional walk/run took about 15 minutes. After my long swim, it was 5.5 hours into the event, I was ready to be done. Still short on biking, I took my time transitioning, put on sunscreen, fill Gatorade bottles and proceeded to bike my final 3 loops, still able to maintain IM pace intensity. Final dismount and with wobbling legs I finished my final 2 loops of running event time, 7:45, I had time to do one more swim.

Total: 8 swims, 7 bikes, 7 runs

61.25 mile bike, 21ish miles of running and 4 miles of swimming. I tied with the first place solo male winner.

Very fun event, which attracted people from all over the nation, cant wait to participate next year. I can improve with quicker transitions and prepared Gatorade bottles, they only had cups of gu2o and water so you had to refill yourself. If they have the same course next year, my goal is 8 total triathlons!