Wow, what a weekend! It was a fantastic time to celebrate with friends and family, and the tri club got to see a huge number of PRs set! Let's start with the week leading up, and we'll get to race day soon enough.
I had a few workouts during the week leading up to the race; nothing crazy tough but some good workouts that I'll likely want to repeat in the off season. I tried to take good care of my body, get plenty of sleep, and watch my diet to protect both my weight and my digestive system. I took it easy at work most of the week, and even went to a spaghetti dinner that the club hosted.
On Friday I had volunteered to run the BASE Performance booth at the expo, selling salt and generally hanging out with athletes from all over the world. It was a great time to meet some of my fellow ambassadors, as well as meet competitors and get comfortable with the surroundings for the race.
Last year when I attended the athlete briefing on Friday, I was incredibly nervous. I was hyper aware and trying to make sure I didn't miss anything important. This year I got to hear the athlete briefing three different times, and I really wasn't nervous at all. It was a nice change of pace, because it meant that I got a great night's sleep, even though N and I were staying at a hotel.
On Saturday I had alarms set for 4:30, but was up closer to 4. I had a quick breakfast of a Clif bar and a Bolthouse Farms shake, and set about getting things packed up to check out and head off to the race. Once we were checked out, we headed to the race with coffee in hand. We even left about 5 minutes earlier than we had hoped for!
Once we arrived at the race, I immediately went to get transition set up. I ran into a few friends along the way, and had enough time to chit chat since my age group was one of the last swim waves to go out. Once transition was set up, I took off for a quick warm up run. I got about a mile or so away from the race site and had a little bit of peace and quiet to stretch, clear my head, and whisper a few quick prayers before heading back to the transition area.
Once back in transition, I grabbed the necessary items for the swim, finished the last little bits of setting transition up, and headed out to our group tent to get a picture and get off my feet for a while. At this point I still had an hour before my swim wave left, so I wanted to stay as calm and relaxed as possible. I knew the nerves would come soon enough.
I hung out at the tent, we took a group picture, and I got to see my family for the first time that morning. My mom, dad, and sisters had all come up to see me race my biggest race of the season, and it was awesome getting to see how excited they were before I took off. We discovered that the race had been postponed by 15 minutes due to late arrivals, so I suddenly had a bit more time before my wave left.
I headed down to the public beach to get a quick warm up swim in. I had put my wetsuit on, thinking that I could use the buoyancy to my advantage. I tried swimming maybe 50 yards in the wetsuit before deciding to ditch it. I wasn't comfortable in it, I got overheated, it was restricting my movement and rubbing my neck every time I breathed. It was not worth the hassle, and the water was still over 72.
I ditched the wetsuit with N, said a prayer with my family, and said "See you later!" and headed down to the beach for the swim start. I met up with a buddy from Florida to hang with for the swim start, and I'm glad I did. I was nervous and shaking anyway, but I think it would have been much worse without a friendly face near by.
The horn sounded and off we went! The plan was to stay to the right of the yellow buoys, since they had arced out and created extra distance between the start and the turn buoy. Since I was so far to the right, I didn't really have to battle with anyone for position, though I did manage to run into a few folks on the way by. The first turn buoy came and went, and as I turned the corner I had already gone into swimmers at least two waves in front of me.
Since I was now part of a much larger pack, things got a little dicier. There was one gentleman in particular who was swimming pretty heavy handed, and didn't seem to be particularly inclined to stop slamming into me. I put on some pace to try to pull away from him, and managed to get out and away before the second turn buoy.
At the second turn buoy, things got dicey quick. We turned and headed back to shore, straight into the sun. There was no reliable way to tell where to go, all you could do was to find and follow the splashing ahead of you. Easier said than done, I was able to continuously find someone in front of me, even as I continued to move through swimmers ahead of me coming into the chute. Since it was so difficult to find where I was going, I found my pace lagging, but didn't want to waste energy swimming hard in the wrong direction. I waited until I could more easily spot a buoy, and really poured it on when I could.
I'm very happy to report that this swim time is 2:41 faster than last year's time, but I know it could still be better.
Swim time: 35:20 Minutes/100y: 1:40.4
Transition went very smoothly. There's always a load of people you have to run past in the transition chute, with all the wetsuit pulling and people walking there's a lot of traffic. I made it a pretty quick transition with a time of 2:48, and I'm really happy with that. I didn't forget anything, and I was able to catch my breath a bit before heading out for the bike leg. I could go faster if I needed to, but I knew this race wasn't about place so much as pace.
The bike went very well this year. While I was about 5 minutes slower on the bike over last year, that was the plan. In fact, the plan allowed for me to be up to 20 minutes slower this year on the bike, in order to save myself for the run.
I'm pretty sure I said it last year, and I'll say it again this year, this bike course is begging you to go fast. It's a smooth ride, straight ahead, with a few small rollers. The only rough pavement is on the country roads on the way in and out, so the majority of the road is very smooth. Although, the rough parts of the country roads were VERY rough this year. The road was littered with spare kits, nutrition, bottles, and tools that had fallen off of peoples' bikes as they rode over the rough pavement.
I knew my buddy from Florida would be catching me on the bike, but I wasn't sure where, and sure enough he caught me on the second time out to the turnaround. We exchanged a few words, wished each other well, and I told him I'd see him on the run.
Two things I want to say about the bike: 1. I have no idea how people manage to lose entire spare kits and bottle cages on the bike. If you haven't taken the two minutes to look over your bolts and straps to make sure you're not going to lose anything, you probably deserve to lose it. I saw at least three separate spare kits, and two separate cages with bottles intact along the road during this race. Unbelievable. 2. I also have no idea how people race anywhere without the ability to bike handle. I saw one lady lose it on the turnaround because she couldn't figure out where to shift her weight to make the U-turn, and I witnessed countless others unclipping their inside foot to take the turn. Most races I've been to have a U-turn for the bike leg, in fact there's only one I've ever raced that didn't have a U-turn (Cicero).
Overall, even though I was slower this year, I'm still very pleased with the bike. Nutrition went to plan, speed went to plan, and I stayed happy the whole way through the bike. No mechanical failures this year, and a solid ride!
Bike time: 3:00:17 Average speed: 18.6 MPH
The run, while it didn't go completely to plan, went very, very well. I had a really good transition despite having problems getting my left shoe on, taking only 1:43 in the transition area. As I came out onto the road and was adjusting my race belt, something snapped and flew off of it, leaving me a little confused as to what exactly happened. Even in going over pictures and looking at the belt itself, I still can't figure out what happened to it. All I know is, it won't stay tightly cinched around my waist.
The plan was to run 8:00 miles until the turnaround, and then reassess as to whether I should push the pace or just hang on. I kind of blew that up in the first mile, running a 7:00 mile. I immediately pulled that back and found 8:00 miles for miles two and three. I had skipped the line for the port-a-potty in transition, as well as at the first aid station, and finally came up on someone just leaving the toilet at the second aid station and I jumped right in to take advantage. It turns out I had quite a bit to release, and lost about :60 to the forces of nature.
The first couple of miles my stomach was somewhat sloshy as a result of only taking in liquids on the bike. I had been warned that that may be the case before the race, but I didn't want to change the plan the day before the race. That phrase, "nothing new on race day" really has been ingrained into me, and I didn't plan on trying anything new.
Just before going into the toilet I had found my buddy, but peeled off before I could get to him. After coming out of the toilet feeling refreshed, I settled back into 8:00 miles and picked my way through the crowds on my way to the turnaround. I finally caught up with him around mile 4 or 5, exchanged a few words, a fist bump, and then was on my way again.
Due to the out-and-back nature of the run course, I saw a lot of team mates along the way, and was able to give encouragement and high fives to as many as I could. Some looked like they needed it, some looked like they were feeling really good.
At the turnaround I was starting to feel a little bit tired, and after a short reassessment I decided that I would wait until the next mile marker and see my pace, then decide whether to pick it up or not. That mile marker was seven, and I quickly discovered that I would just need to hang on the rest of the way home.
At mile eight I really started to fade, but made it my mission to get to mile nine. At mile nine was an aid station, so I decided that I would walk the aid stations from there on. I could feel blisters on my feet, my head was starting to overheat, and I needed to continue taking in water and salt if I was going to avoid cramping.
Well, walking the aid stations turned into walking the hills, and before I knew it my pace had slipped below 9:00 miles. Coming off the bike I knew I had a chance of going sub-5:30, which was my goal, but by mile ten I knew that wasn't going to happen. I would have had to run 7:30 miles the rest of the way in, and I was in no shape to do that. I decided to take things five minutes at a time, and get in as soon as I could.
Starting at about mile eleven I was feeling better. I had taken in a bit of sugar, had finally gotten the slosh in my stomach to dissipate, and was mentally ready to be done. I pushed myself through the last couple of miles, taking on the big hill at the end with a little bit of gusto. There was a competitor in my age group right with me on the hill, and we both wanted to beat the other. I came past him at the base of the final hill, but he picked up his pace to keep up. As we came up the hill, he got past me at the crest, and I went to speed up to try to get him into the chute. As I went to speed up, my right quad twitched and grabbed like it wanted to cramp, and I made the decision to pull back and avoid the cramp instead of gunning for a sprint finish.
Run time: 1:56:23 Average pace per mile: 8:53.1
Total Time: 5:36:31 Overall rank: 588 Gender rank: 459 Age group rank: 35
Total Competitors: 1979 Gender Competitors: 1303 Age group Competitors: 90
Ironman does their rankings per event based on your position following that event, so you don't really know how each individual event time stacks up, but I'm absolutely thrilled with my time.
Even after a bit of a struggle on the run, a bit of a slower bike, and feeling slow at times on the swim, I set a massive PR on this event. My run was over 40 minutes faster this year than last year, and my overall time dropped by 41:43 over last year! I'm super proud of all of the work I've done to get to this point, and super excited for the future as I continue training and improving. I don't know if I'll see gains like this ever again, but I don't plan to stop here. It was an amazing day, plus I didn't have to visit the medical tent for IV fluids this year...
Next up is Cicero, rescheduled from June to August 1. I had originally planned on doing Tri Indy this year, but since it falls on August 2, I will not be participating. I have high hopes for Cicero, both in terms of my time and in terms of my place, so it's back to the road for me. I've got more training to do, and more miles to go. I'll provide a training update next week, and a race preview for Cicero as we get closer. Later on...
