Ironman 70.3 Syracuse

I entered Ironman Lake placid as part of a package deal with Ironman 70.3 Syracuse as the preparation race one month before Lake Placid.  I heard the bike course was hilly and would be a good test for Lake Placid but no one spoke about the hill on the run course.

Race day morning was clear and chilly.  Bikes were racked the day before so I walked my bike over to the mechanics to inflate the tires.  People were queued up at one pump and I asked why no one was using the other pump.  Someone said they could not get the pump to work so I gave it a try and promptly suffered a flat tire.  The mechanics were not assisting anyone so I was able to get one of them to replace my bike tube.

This was a wetsuit legal race so I put on my wetsuit and walked over to the lake.  I had a good swim and partially removed my wetsuit as I ran across the beach.  This was the first triathlon I participated in that had volunteers working as wetsuit strippers.  I randomly selected a volunteer, laid down on the ground and with one yank he removed the wetsuit.  I grabbed the wetsuit and looked down and my ankle and noticed my timing chip was missing.  I quickly scanned the ground but didn't see the timing chip.  I ran to transition and yelled "I need a replacement timing chip" until an official showed up.  He had a large ring with chips and straps but it took him forever to assign me a chip.

My target for the bike ride was 2:30:00 hours and I finished in 2:45:00 hours for an average speed of 20.39 MPH.

Runners left transition and ran on a paved path that became a stone path in the parking lot.  Then runners ran on grass along the parking lot and ran on a mulch path that was cut through the brush.  On the other side of the brush runners got to the main road.  Eventually runners ran into a local neighborhood where they encountered a very steep hill.  Once they made it to the top of the hill they turned around and ran back to transition before starting the second lap.  The weather had warmed up nicely and I completed the run just under my 2 hour goal.

I checked with race officials after I crossed the finish line to find out what happens when an athlete loses a timing chip.  I was informed by multiple people that my results would be matched up with both chips.  Two days later my race results were listed a DNF.  I sent emails and called everyone I could find on the Ironman website to find out who could fix my race results.  A couple of days later I received an email informing me that my results were corrected.

To recap my Ironman 70.3 Syracuse race.  I had three first time issues in my fourth year of racing.
1.  A flat tire before race started.
2.  Lost timing chip after the swim.
3.  DNF race result due to the lost timing chip.

Any one of those issues could have happened at other triathlons so I'm not going to let them cloud my decision to race Ironman 70.3 Syracuse in the future.