I had a very good race at Ironman 70.3 Musselman. I know this because I was wearing my Garmin watch and was able to figure out my time. Unfortunately, the Ironman organization had their timing system break, and more than half of the athletes in the race, didn’t have a swim time.  I was one of the athletes with no swim time.

Normally, I race without a watch. Yesterday, was the first 70.3 race where I used my watch. I wore it, because I wanted to use it to help pace my run.  I am so glad that I chose to wear it.  Without this decision, I would never have known my overall time in the race.

The great news is that I had a fantastic race.  I had a solid swim, that involved a lot of contact and swimming around other athletes. A very good bike leg, where I was pleased with the fact that I stay patient, so I could save some energy for the run. My run was easily my best executed run of any long course triathlon that I have ever done.  My overall time was a 70.3 PR for me. It was seven minutes faster than my PR, at the same race last year.

I believe that my time would have been good enough to place top ten in my age group. Unfortunately, I will never know where I placed, because of the timing errors by Ironman.  To resolve the issues, Ironman made the decision to create two races; one being the regular triathlon for those athletes with a swim time and another ‘bike/run’ race, for us athletes without a swim time.  I was told I finished top 5 in my age group in that bike/run race.

While it is extremely frustrating that I will never know where I finished in my age group in my best ever race, I do know I had a very good race. I am happy with that.