Race day is over!

It is all over now.  The final race of the season is done.  I could blabber on philosophically about many aspects of the day, the race, the finish line but I think it is best to leave those for later posts.  Lets just focus on the details and mechanics of the race.

It was a gorgeous Austin morning.  Not too cold, mid 60's maybe.  My wife dropped me off at T2 and I immediately  headed for the port-o-potty.  Time to evac the GI track (about the nicest non clinical way to put it).  I went directly to the bus that took us to the lake and the swim start.  Split Transition areas always present unique issues.  The most obvious is having the right gear at the right place.  No use having your bike helmet in T2 ( the place where you stop your bike and start the run).

The race end and the swim area were only about a 2 miles apart.  The swim area had limited parking.  The race finish area had ample parking.  So everyone (participants and spectators) parked at the finish are and where bused to the swim start.  After the swim us participants went to T1 got our bikes and headed out and onto the bike course.  Spectators ether walked or took the buses back to the finish area.


THE SWIM

Got into the water a couple of minutes before the start time.  I immediately moved to the far right buoy.  It is good to start on the far side of the group.  As the field strings out you simply move into your place.  The faster swimmers will move ahead of you and the slower ones will be behind you.  By starting on the side you avoid the melee in the middle of the pack.  I used to start in the middle and get caught in the confusion.  i would then swim to the side and then find my way in the pack.  So when I was taught to start on the side it made sense to me.  Instead of starting in the middle and swimming to the side and then back into the middle, I just start on the side and swim into the middle.

My start went very well as the group thinned out I slowly moved from the far right of the pack and into a nice spot behind a group of about 3 swimmers.  I picked one that was going at a steady pace and stayed on his feet.  Only had a few hiccups during the entire swim.  The first occurred when we encountered the slow swimmers from the heat the started before use.  This happened about 300 yards in.  I lost sight of my draft for a moment or 2 as we passed through the slower group.  As we cleared the group I located my draft and continued along.  I lost him again only a couple of times but quickly recovered.

Then with about 200 yards remaining I lost him.  Totally!  I have developed techniques for "looking around".  Turning my head slightly and sighting to the front, rotating my hips a little more and looking under my left arm to see behind me are a few.  He was nowhere to be seen.  He had disappeared so suddenly that I thought he had drowned (I did not here a report of a drowning).  Only 200 hundred yards left,  I just picked up another draft and followed him.

Swim time 38:18  25th best in my age group

BIKE

The plan for the bike was a very low heart rate.  That meant keeping my HR under 140 beats per minute.  The lower the better.  This would result in a slower bike time than I have done in the past.  In fact it was my slowest bike split at the 70.3 distance.  Even at that I still finished in the upper half of my age group.  I started to think about Louisville and the 140.3 distance.  It was evident that my race strategy that my coach gave me was focused to the full ironman distance ( the strategy was very different from any other 70.3).  I started to think about how I would feel if this was a full ironman.  For example at the 20 mile mark, you are a little over a third of the way done a 70.3 (bile leg 56 miles), but only one sixth of an ironman (bike leg 112 miles).  I imagined how I would feel with still having 92 miles of biking yet to do.  Needless to say it was quite a shock!

I continued this throughout the bike leg.  At 30 miles; more than halfway!  Ironman only a quarter of the way.  50 miles almost finished, Ironman not even half way.  I realized that I was comfortably consuming mile after mile.  At the lower heart rate I was not breathing heavy.  I still felt strong, mentally as well as physically.  I realize that I have work to do (a lot of work) to prepare for Louisville next year but felling strong on the bike was a big confidence boost.  The mental workout I gave my self on the bike was the very best part of the entire race

Bike time 3:08:41  48th in my age group

RUN

Hot, Hot, Hot!  The plan on the run was to start at a very low Heart rate and build throughout.  Problem was,  I could not get it down.  I was supposed to be around 125 beats per minute.  I could not get it below 135.  I felt quite comfortable so I held it steady.  The route had a couple of hills and my HR elevated as I went up and fell as I went down.  So nothing really special here, I kept to the nutrition strategy except for the addition of more "natural" foods.  My run nutrition called for gels every 3 miles (basically at every water station).  I find that my body reacts much better if I add oranges every 2 or 3 stations.

The strategy also called for an all out effort on the last 3 miles.  So at mile 10 I started to ramp up a little. I brought the HR up slowly 140 then 145 then 150.  I paced off some of the faster runners.  As one passed me I ran with them untill I caught up to a person walking.  Sometimes this was only 5 or 6 steps, sometimes it was 30 or 40.  the last mile was an all out effort.  It was great crossing the finish line!

Run time 2:34:06 50th in age group

Over all I was very satisfied with the race.  I followed my strategy, adapted when neccesary and began to prepare my self for Louisville next year!