2012 2013 Diff.
Run: 6:11:42 6:08:52 -2:50
I did not swim with my watch but I had a pretty good idea that my swim was at least as good as last years. In fact I was confident that it was faster than last years. Even if it was faster it still would not have represented much of an overall increase in performance. A 10% improvement on a 90 minute swim would only represent a 9 minute improvement in your overall time. It has been said and proved many times you cannot win an Ironman on the swim but you can sure lose it there. In short the swim leg was far out of my mind.
I was well aware of my improvement on the bike. I had my polar watch on the bike so I could keep track of my heart rate and cadence. That is one of the reasons I do not use the watch on the swim. Why carry something you are not going to use. If I had a high end device that stored all your info then it would be worth while having it on the swim. You can down load the stored data and analyze it later. Since mine does not do that why worry about it.
So out of T2 and on to the run. Needless to say my confidence was pretty high. I was building on the confidence of my swim and the strength of a fast bike. I was at least an hour ahead of last year. In fact I was more than an hour and a half ahead of last years time.
The general run plan was to walk out of T2 for 10 minutes and let the heart rate settle down. Then a lite jog for a couple of miles and then into medium training pace heart rate for the remainder of the run.
One thing I did notice about the faster bike and swim, you start the run in hotter weather (Ha Ha). Things seemed to be going quite well. I felt relaxed and strong as I moved into miles 3 and beyond. I ran the entire first loop. I then slowed down on the first part of the second loop. I walked for 5 minutes and then ran for 5 minutes. After the turn I started to run and continued the run for the last part of the loop. So basically I ran 3/4's of the run course and did the 5 minute run/walk for only a quarter of the course. Last year I ran half and did the 5 minute run/walk for the other half.
I am still a little mystified as to why my run time was basically identical to last years.
| Split Name | Distance | Split Time | Race Time | Pace | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.5 mi | 2.5 mi | 31:22 | 8:14:38 | 12:32/mi | |||
| 5.5 mi | 3 mi | 36:04 | 8:50:42 | 12:01/mi | |||
| 7.1 mi | 1.6 mi | 25:57 | 9:16:39 | 16:25/mi | |||
| 8.8 mi | 1.7 mi | 24:05 | 9:40:44 | 14:10/mi | |||
| 10 mi | 1.2 mi | 16:53 | 9:57:37 | 13:50/mi | |||
| 12 mi | 2 mi | 31:16 | 10:28:53 | 15:38/mi | |||
| 15.1 mi | 3.1 mi | 43:26 | 11:12:19 | 14:11/mi | |||
| 18 mi | 2.9 mi | 45:07 | 11:57:26 | 15:20/mi | |||
| 19.6 mi | 1.6 mi | 28:06 | 12:25:32 | 17:27/mi | |||
| 21.3 mi | 1.6 mi | 23:18 | 12:48:50 | 14:12/mi | |||
| 22.5 mi | 1.3 mi | 14:44 | 13:03:34 | 11:30/mi | |||
| 24.6 mi | 2.1 mi | 30:51 | 13:34:25 | 14:54/mi | |||
| 26.2 mi | 1.6 mi | 17:43 | 13:52:08 | 11:04/mi | |||
| Total | 26.2 mi | 6:08:52 | 13:52:08 | 14:04/mi |
Looking at the splits I seemed to start ok. I am not sure why I was slower around miles 7 - 10. I do believe that I had a restroom break in there but I do not think that it took overly long. I did encounter the most disgusting port a potty scene ever on this part of the route.
I did seem to pick it back up again after mile 10. The run/walk would have started around mile 15 and continued until mile 21 or so. This is were I started running again. As you can see the pace picked up again. I still had a slow leg in there. My fastest leg was the last one at an 11:04 pace.
I have to think that a lot of the variation had to be mental. Given that I finished quite strong I feel that I left a little out on the course. Instead of finishing like I did I should have been able to push the other legs just a little faster.
My over all pace was 14.04 min/mile. If I could get it down to 13:30 the would have been a time under 6 hours. An average of 13:00 would have been a time 26 minutes faster.
Do able? We will see IM Houston is a mere 7 months away.
