Race report for half iron

Just catching up again. Wanted to post my race report from the Pumpkinman, just so I have it on record here:

Pumpkinman Triathlon Festival 2010-09-12 South Berwick, Maine United States 50F / 10C Overcast

Triathlon - 1/2 Ironman Total Time = 5h 53m 33s Overall Rank = / Age Group = Age Group Rank = 0/

Pre-race routine:

Got up at 4, ate good size breakfast off eggs and fruit and vitamin drink. My head wasn't right and I just couldn't focus. Energy was still low as it's been for a while, but I figured adrenaine a caffeine would serve me well. I decided to write some notes for T1 and T2 since I felt like I'd forget to put my helmet on or something. Little did I know...

Event warmup:

Not much, just dynamic stretching. The shorter the race, the longer the warm up, so I figured a race this long doesn't need much if any warm up.

Swim (1.2 miles, 33:31, 1:35/100 yards)

Comments:

This was a great swim. I took it easy on the first loop and just cruised. Didn't find a draft, but there was pretty clear water most of the way. I hit every buoy so I knew I was going straight. After starting the second loop I felt great, so I picked it up just a bit while keeping everything pretty relaxed and smooth and really lengthened my strokes. When I exited the water, I felt totally relaxed, wasn't breathing very hard, and heart rate was very low. I had no coughing at all during the swim, which is amazing given the bronchitis issues I'd been having and each short swim I had done over the past two weeks resulted in violent coughing.

What would you do differently?:

Nothing, this swim exceeded all expectations.

T1 (6:34)

Comments:

This was a long uphill from the pond to T1. I knew I'd struggle with breathing/coughing if I hoofed it, so I walked the entire hill (probably about 300 yards). Once I got to my transition spot, I was experiencing some brain freeze trying to figure out how to proceed, and the notes I had written helped. I still took quite a while to figure out how to get everything on and get the bike started.

Bike (56 miles, 2:51:11, 19.63 mph)

Comments:

Based on how I felt when I woke up in the morning, I had decided to abandon my thoughts of pushing the bike in favor of taking it easy and seeing if my energy would hold up. I spent the first 30 miles on total cruise control, barely working into Z2. At mile 30, I felt ok, but the general energy level was dropping so I stepped it up just a bit but not too much. I did negative split the bike, but overall this was the easiest effort ride I've done all year. The big problem was that I didn't drink my calories or eat my Clif bar. More on that in the post race comments.

What would you do differently?:

Not too much, but given the run was so bad anyway could I have shaved some time here by pushing and still had the same run?

T2 (5:07)

Comments:

I made s'mores for everyone in my rack and caught up on some email while I was in T2. Seriously, T1 I expected to be slow due to the hill, but what the heck was I doing in T2? I still don't know what could have possibly taken this long. I guess my brain really was on vacation.

Run (13.1 miles, 2:17:19, 10:29/mile)

Comments:

I saw the clock on the way out of T2 showing 3:36 and knew even a 2:04 would get me my uber goal of 5:40, so I knew 9:20 miles would get me there. I was right on track through about 10k, in fact a bit ahead. Then I started slowing down a bit. It was great that I had hooked up with someone running his 6th HIM and wanted to run at the same pace, so we were encouraging each other and just running together. I didn't really have any leg or muscle issues, I just had no energy. Starting around mile 8, I began to get lightheaded, and at the mile 10.5 aid station, I dropped to the ground after getting water. I spent about 20 minutes eating pretzels and resting until I felt ok, and then walked and ran the last 2.5 miles to finish.

Post race

Warm down:

Drank lots of gatorade, stretched a little, let my boys wear the finisher medal, and enjoyed the turkey dinner.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

Not signing up for the aquabike?

I retrieved my bike out of transition and found that I had only drank about 2/3 of my calories. Apparently when I took the last draw on the straw and it was empty, I was using the water straw but thought it was the calorie drink straw. Maybe this was the cause of the huge energy drop on the run. Or maybe I just need to swim/bike/run more and be fitter!

Event comments:

This was an awesome race top to bottom. Well organized, great volunteers, super course.

Season over

Planning a local 5k for Oct. 30th, just for fun and to track progress through the winter.

Back from Pinehurst and training at home again. Got a long run in the North Carolina heat and it was a learning experience. Go slow and hydrate! It was interesting to do my long run one week at 92 degrees and then my first long run back home was at 36! Ah, New England...

The weather is finally co-operating though, and I'm starting to get some longer rides in. The bike setup feels good.

I've got my training plan down for the HIM with help from Leigh. It seems light on volume but she assures me there's enough with the quality work I'm doing, so I'll just follow the plan. Essentially the key workouts are a hard bike (hour TT type ride), a hard run (variety of speed work), long bike (up to 3+ hours), and a long run (90 mins max). Other weekly work includes at least one other mid-long ride up to 2 hours, and a few more runs including some short bricks. The swimming is as I fit it in, with emphasis on lake swims as often as possible.

Not much going on except training again. I'm finally back in the water with a few pool swims. The plan is to do a few swims a week early morning in the PEA pool. It's good because everyone at home is still asleep while I'm drowning so the cost to the clan is low.

I finally got outside on the bike, and found my set up is way too aggressive for the road. I'm thinking of undoing all the tri stuff and just set it up as a road bike and wait until I get a tri bike to go all aero and such.

I'm still not sure about doing a tri this month, but I probably will. Next week is a golf vacation week, so no swimming or biking while I'm away but maybe a few runs.

The half marathon is behind me. Very disappointing day, but lots of valuable learning. Where to begin? The race was at 11:00 AM, which is a weird time for me. I made a huge mistake eating only a light breakfast at 7 and then nothing more before the race. Long story short - I was doing fine until about mile 8.5 and then I bonked. There were some trips to the woods (and not for #1!), and the run was basically done. I finished, but slower and in a lot more discomfort than my training runs at this distance.

I admit during the ride home there were some serious doubts about continuing on this journey, I mean if I bonk in a half marathon how am I ever going to go long in a triathlon? But with a few days of perspective and some great folks giving me sound advice, I'm re-energized to get back after it.

I'm also debating adding a triathlon next month to get this taste out of my mouth and taste a little success.

Race prep in progress

Only a few days left to the half marathon. At least I know I'll PR! I still have this low level stuffy head of some sort, so hopefully it goes away this weekend.

I'm not doing too much of a taper, but I'll cut today's run short, take Friday off, and do a really short run on Sat.

I've got a plan for the race, so hopefully I can stick to it and have a good outcome. The idea is to stay disciplined and keep the pace slow for the first two/three miles, and then slowly ramp up and finish the last 5k as the fastest. We'll see how the hills affect me.

My sherpa, Zack, was planning to come cheer me on, but he has a Jiu Jitsu obligation so he is very disappointed. I told him this isn't really a race but more of a checkpoint, so he's ok with it. Stay posted since my next race is a sprint tri and he's doing the kid version. That should be a blast.

Starting point

I've caught the tri bug after a very eventful first sprint last fall. Race report is here if you want some comedy. My "A" race for this year is a half ironman in September, which is quite a stretch given I'd never run before last fall and couldn't swim with my face in the water until the sprint last year as well.

At this point, my goals for the year are really to avoid any serious injury setbacks and to teach my body what it means to train in this crazy sport, and of course to finish that half iron in a decent frame of mind. I really needed to work on running this winter, so to force myself to stay with it I signed up for a half marathon on April 11.

It's now 9 days until the half marathon. After staying very consistent all winter I'm looking forward to the race to see where my run fitness really is. I've developed a bit of a cold with some nasal drip, so hopefully this will go away quickly - or maybe I'm destined to be sick for all my races!