I completed my first ever half Ironman last year in Victoria on Sunday, June 2.

The day before the race, I spent as much time as I could in the village soaking up as much info as I could to make the race as seamless as possible. I watched the athlete briefing, the open water swimming basics, and even stayed for the pro panel. The last question to the pros was do you have an inspiration or tip to give. One of the pros gave an answer that really stuck with me: Don't worry about the things you can't control on race day.

The morning of the race I got to the parking lot which was on the other side of the lake from the start, there were shuttle buses to bring you to the start so I took all my gear, which I had carefully checked and rechecked the night before, out of the car and got on the bus. About half way to the start I realized I had forgotten my wetsuit in the car! So I'm off to a great start already - it was warm enough that I could have done it without one but I wanted to do it right - taking the shuttle back to the parking lot would mean that I got back to the start line just in time and the transition area would be closed. Obviously, this was something I could control but I wasn't going to worry about it - I would just have to take an extra couple minutes on T1 to fill my water bottles and pump my tires.

I got back with the wetsuit in time and when I got into the water to start my race I proceeded to forget how to swim. I'm not sure what it looked like exactly, but I felt like a wounded seal thrashing about, incapable of finding my rhythm. I couldn't keep my face down, it was brutal and I was telling myself that I had an hour and ten minutes to get around the course, I could probably do the breast stroke all the way around and make the cutoff. Water was getting in my goggles so I stopped to tighten them and then they snapped, but I told myself I've swam in a lake hundreds of times without goggles and it wasn't a big deal. So now I'm swimming poorly with broken goggles in my hand and I didn't want to drop them for fear of getting a course violation for littering. I swam over to one of the paddle boarders and handed them to the guy. Fortunately, after a couple hundred meters, I found my rhythm, started passing people and before I knew it I was out of the water in 39:18.

T1 was a little long since I stopped to pump the tires and fill my water bottle, I only have one cage on the tri bike and I hadn't purchased a front mounted hydration system yet. Just after the first aid stop, one of the bolts on the cage came out and my water bottle was bumping against my leg so I took the bottle out and was holding it between my aerobars, this was less than ideal but I figured at the next aid stop I could get the cage duct taped to the frame at the very least. After bouncing around for a few kilometers, the other bolt came out and the cage was gone. Now I had to decide what to do with my water bottle, I thought I could chuck it at the next aid station and I would just have to chug a whole bottle at every aid station. That's when I got the idea to just shove the bottle in the top of my tri suit - brilliant! So I finished the bike with my water bottle in my top in 2:56.

The run was pretty uneventful and it's a great course - two loops around Elk Lake on a soft trail but about 5 km from the end I just wanted it to end and I started hating it. It took a lot to get to the end - every km marker made me angrier, it was tough being inside my head for the last half hour but I crossed the line in 1:56 with a finish of 5:42:44.

Despite all the setbacks, I was super happy with my race and I didn't worry about the things I couldn't control and I got a Finisher Pic that put the last one to shame! (pre Purple Patch tattoo)