I mostly lurk here, but I wanted to post to thank you all for helping me finish my first 1/2 IM. I finished in 6:33, but it would have been much slower if not for the great advice I got from this forum. Thanks to everyone who posts here and thanks to Slowman for providing such a great forum in the first place.
The best advice I got was how to find a new rear cassette for my old 7 speed road bike. Two local bike shops told me it wasn’t possible to get lower gears, but with your help I found a new cassette by mail order. I went from a 11-22 to a 13-26. Without that 26 I would have had much trouble on the hilly bike course and I doubt I would have been doing any running.
If you want all the gory details of my race, I posted a long and rambling race report over at trinewbies.com.
Thanks again, Dawn