Race Report? or Self Flagellation? No, No that's flatulation

I'm a masters athlete, that means I'm 40 years old. That's SUPPOSED to mean that I have attained a certain level of wisdom and experience. I've been doing triathlons for 4 seasons now. Saturday was my 4th Half Ironman.

Let's examine the closing of my last pre-race post. "My goal is to stay well within my heart rate range on the bike and see how it goes on the run."

Percentage attainment of goal: 0%

But I suppose I should start at the beginning. First of all, the weather report. Rich is doing a HIM so that means it's raining. I'm 4 for 4 with thunderstorms and HIMs. Fortunately this one was only during the setup and not during the race. I still got wet though so I'm counting it. At one point I was leaning into the mini-van when suddenly there was a bright flash followed immediately by a crash that echoed through the lake valley. A women in the parking lot was holding an umbrella and felt a spark. Lucky for her that was all. She must have raced because on the run I heard some spectators encouraging a women "lightning doesn't strike twice."

The weather did cause a delay in the start because they had to stop setting up the swim course and then had motor trouble on the boat. I think the course ended up a bit short based upon my time.

The swim.

We were lined up waist deep in the water on the boat ramp. I was suprised how many people were hanging back. There were probably 150 of us in all. The men started as one group. I found some open water after just a couple of bumps.

Found myself swimming next to a guy stroke for stroke. He's breathing on his left and I'm breathing on my right so every stroke there's this guys face. I thought, this is crazy, just get behind him. A couple of breast strokes later I'm drafting. Really having to take it easy because we were going the same speed. One hundred yards later I see a guy moving faster. I get on his feet and ride them for the last half of the first loop and the entire second loop. He was a straight swimmer and moving. The couple of times I lost his feet I had to goose it to catch up, but while I was behind him I was swimming easy.

Picked the right guy to follow. He finished 5th overall and won the 45-49 age group. No wonder he thought I was being negative when I thanked him for the ride and said "now to spend the rest of the day getting passed." I was out of the water in 28:54. A 1.2 mile PR (assuming it was 1.2). They didn't break it down overall, but I had the 3rd fastest swim out of the 15 40-44ers. Which only made my finish of 13th even more bitter.

Transition:
A couple of volunteers offered to strip for us, errrr to strip us. They were inexperienced and didn't quite get the wetsuits off in one smooth motion. I'm not sure it was faster than taking it off myself, but I give them credit for the effort. I guess maybe an inexperienced stripper is better than no stripper.

The Bike.





This is the hill out of transition. It doesn't look like much in the first picture but it climbs about 200 feet and the second picture is more representative of the slope. When I got to the top my heart rate was pretty much redlined - 170 bpm. There was no real opportunity to spin easy and bring it down. I spent the whole 3+ hours telling myself I needed to get my heartrate down. I wanted my average to be under 135, ideally under 130. I ended up at 145.

I did spend the whole bike getting passed. Nobody who swims faster than 30 minutes bikes slower than me.

The t-shirt has the motto "At Least the Water is Flat" - no kidding. The bike has at least 3700 feet of vertical.














These hills are representative of what we on the WHOLE ride. The real gem was a 300 foot climb (gentle but long) at mile 48. The inside of my left quad threatened to cramp on that one (and is still pretty knotted up).

The last few miles, including the big climb were on a four lane divided highway with shoulders. The rest of the course had no shoulders. They're pretty much unheard of in rural Kentucky. Most riders were riding in the right lane, getting passed by trucks hauling boats and horse trailers (not at the same time). I figured I'd rather flat on the shoulder than be flat on the highway. Got my wish at mile 52. In sight of the turn into the park. The change went alright, although I had to stop and refill it since I hadn't put in enough air - 5 minutes lost.

3:17 for a 17 mph average. Ugh, and that wasn't taking it easy enough. 3:12 on the bike computer for a 17.4 average.

The Ralk.

The Ralk (Run/Walk combo - mostly walk) began climbing that same hill out of transition. Once at the top we ran a 2 mile out and back 3 times, then back down to the finish.

I planned to walk the big hill. No sense totally killing myself in the first 1/4 mile.

It's all a blur of hot sun (I've got yet another creative burn pattern to prove it), rolling hills, and cursing myself for not saving more for the run.

At the beginning my legs were shot. Eventually they stopped bothering me. Then it was more a matter of will (or lack thereof) to get myself running. I think I let my nutrition slip away on the last 45 minutes of the bike - a man can only eat so many lemon lime cliff blocks. I probably should have stopped and eaten more during the run - perhaps I would have rebounded. I was afraid of getting bloated.

It was probably good training for CDA in that I just had to keep going even though I didn't feel like it.

It has caused me to reevaluate my goals. Actually I now have one goal for CDA: to finish within the time limit. Anything else is gravy. If a 15 mph bike will help me cross the line that's what I will do. I CAN NOT spend the bike trying to get the heart rate down in June. The one nice thing is that I don't encounter the real hills until mile 19 or so. That's plenty of time to spin easy after the swim.

Interesting (to me). In finishing a 2 fricking 43 1/2 marathon my average heartrate was 146. If I were to step outside and do that same 2:43 my bpm would probably be under 130. Clearly, something was going on.

Now to recover and start back at it. The Guru should be back in my hands Friday ready for the 5:30 bike ride Saturday. Anyone up for a century?