I promise this post will be mostly light-hearted and upbeat,
but I am gonna start it off with just a bit of a soap box rant. Cancelling the swim was RIDICULOUS. I checked out the water the day before the
race, and again on race morning. Yes, it
was choppy. Yes, it was murky. It’s an OPEN WATER SWIM. The last time I did Gulf Coast(2010), the
water was MUCH choppier than here in NOLA.
Races take place with ocean swims almost every weekend of the race
season, and I guarantee most of those swims are at least as choppy as Lake Pontchartrain
on Sunday morning. And cancelling the
swim almost 24 hours BEFORE the race begins is just inexcusable. The organization for this race was severely
lacking. I talked to several other
racers at the expo, and it seemed that the information given out at each race
meeting (hourly)changed throughout the day.
And it’s all fine and dandy that every NOLA 70.3 from now on will be in
some protected cove, but how does that make me feel any better about my race
this weekend? And thank goodness I
didn’t stay at the host hotel, who provided shuttles TO the race site Sunday
morning for all participants, but offered NO RETURN SERVICE??
Ok enough already, let’s get down to it! Since no swim was in the plan, we had to
complete a 2 mile run instead prior to the bike. This was done in wave format, just like the
swim, with the added bonus of a time trial start, with 2 people leaving every 3
seconds. I chose to start at the tail
end of my wave, and afterward realized this may have been a mistake. My start time ended up not being until almost
8AM, but I finally stepped up to the mat and took off! Well, maybe not took off, but started J. My coach suggested doing the 2 mile preamble
at about 10K pace, or slower. I chose
slower, 7:30 it is. I didn’t want to
feel winded at all coming into T1, I figured losing 1-2 mins in that first run
was definitely worth it to keep my legs for the bike and run to follow. 7:30 ended up feeling a little uncomfortable
so I backed off to 7:45 pace and felt much better. I found a couple of guys running the same
pace and we chatted our way through the 2 miles without any difficulty. I came into T1 feeling GREAT. My time was 16:11, but the run was actually
2.1 miles, so I’ll take it.
Quick T1 and out on the bike. The winds were steady at 15-17mph throughout
the day, straight out of the north. I
knew going in that if they stayed that way I’d only have two sections of
straight on headwind, otherwise it was going to be crosswind all day. Which was fine by me. One thing about the windy season in the
desert, I felt the wind today was pretty much a non-factor! I was actually hoping for some stronger wind
to maybe hurt my competition! Anyway, I
wanted to really try and do what my coach has always told suggested I
do, which was negative split everything.
I took the first 15 mins of the bike really easily, just trying to find
my cycling legs, making sure everything was in order. After that, found a big gear and just kept a
steady cadence. Cursed, loudly, at the
occasional pace line that passed me, but as I started at the end of my age
group these were mostly the 25-29 males, so it wasn’t AS frustrating as it
could have been. Around mile 23 I picked
up a ‘friend’ who proceeded to ride DIRECTLY behind me. I let him hang out for a couple of minutes to
see if he was gonna pass, but he seemed very content to ride my draft, so I
slowed down and pretended to be drinking.
20, 19, 18mph. Finally he pulled
out and passed. I stayed my 4 bike
lengths behind and followed for a few minutes, but he just wasn’t going as fast
as I wanted so I put in a burst and passed him.
Within 5 mins he was back, right on my wheel. Again, I slowed and he eventually
passed. After two more rounds of this, I
just stayed back, as we were about to hit the first section of headwind. We hit
the headwind and BAM, I put the hammer down.
As I rolled past him I looked at him and gave him my best EAT SH*T
smile. I crushed the next two miles and
hit the turn around. Now with the
tailwind I was flying, and I saw he was still a good 90 seconds from the turnaround. I smiled and waved and kept going J Number 921, you short little man, wherever
you are, grow a pair and do your own work.
With just under halfway still to go, my legs felt great and I knew it
was time to start pushing a little bit more.
This is where my decision to start at the back of my age group might
have been a bad idea. By this time the
line of bikes had really thinned out and I was no longer seeing any 35-39 year
olds. It’s tougher to keep the hammer
down if you don’t see someone to chase, ya know? Anyway, the rest of the bike passed
uneventfully and I cruised into T2. 52 miles in 2:24, 21.6mph! Definitely feeling it a little bit, ready to
be off the bike, but looking forward to the run!
After a decent T2, I was out on the run. Time to see if any of that speedwork has paid
off! I cruised through mile 1 at 7:30
pace and had to slow down at least a half dozen times. Yes my legs felt wonderful immediately off the bike(didn’t
ride hard enough??), but I’ve got a long way to go! I slowed down just a bit more and tried to
keep the next several miles around 7:35-7:40.
I really wanted to negative split my run if possible. Hit the halfway mark right around :49, and
still felt STRONG. Definitely thought I
was gonna go under 1:40. Tried to pick
it up at that point and pushed the pace up to about 7:15, but after less than
30 seconds I’d glance down and be back to that 7:40 pace. Dang it!
Go faster Jeremy! I continued to
kinda go up and down til about mile 10, and that was when I started having my
first trouble of the day. Just some mild
GI cramping, I never had to stop or even walk, but definitely had several
spells where I slowed way down to try and let it pass. I also started to feel the fatigue at this
point, and my last 3 miles ended up with about an 8:05 pace. I finished up with a 1:41, so close! Not my goal but a 14 minute PR for a
Half-Ironman run! HUGE IMPROVEMENT!
Overall I have to give myself an A for this race. Things couldn’t have gone much better! My nutrition was spot on. My bike was right where I thought it would
be. I feel that personally I’m a little
faster runner than my time, but still a GINORMOUS leap from my last
Half-Ironman.
Now, I’m gonna play with the numbers, because I’m a numbers
freak. And I know this is all speculation,
because there’s no way to know that I would have had the same bike and run if
I’d have to swim, but… I finished in 4:24.
Minus the 16 minutes for the first run gives you 4:08. Add on 4 miles on the bike at 3min/mi(20mph)
gives you another 12 minutes. That
brings us to 4:20. I was prepared to
CRUSH this swim. My swim workout last
Thursday was 4x500m at 7:30 with 1:00 rest.
So, even with a choppy swim, I definitely should have finished this
thing in 4:5x. Again this is all
speculation but helps me put it all in perspective.
I’ve really been kind of dreading Ironman CDA since Hunter
was born. I’ve skipped a lot of workouts
to stay and spend time with Joy and him, and I definitely don’t regret
that! I’ll choose them over silly
triathlon any day! And I’d probably have
skipped even more if Joy hadn’t been pushing me out the door. Because I’ve missed so much I was really
feeling unprepared, but this race has given me oodles of confidence! Now if I can just keep that confidence for
the next nine weeks…until next time, cheers!
