The Swim: I loved the lake. It was the cleanest lake that I’ve swam in. I went down to check out the water temp to see how cold it would be. I didn’t have a wet suit and I was nervous that I was going to need one. The water was not cold at all on race morning. It was just cool enough for wet suits to be legal to ware. While I was down there I did notice some of the lifeguards smoking cigarettes, how reassuring.
I was in the 3rd or 4th wave to go. I was nervous but glad to be starting the day. I remember telling myself to pause and soak in and enjoy this moment in because this is what I’ve been working hard to do for a long time. I remember making small talk with some of the other guys in my swim wave. When it was final our turn to start the race I remember making the joke, let’s go catch some green caps (that was the color of the swim cap of the group in front of us).
The swim start was good for me. I didn’t drown in all the fighting for position and I don’t think I swam over anybody in the process. I did notice that about half the group took off and the back half stayed back a few seconds. I guess the second group knew they were not good swimmers and didn’t want to get trampled.
The swim was a straight out and then a right turn and then straight back to shore, simple right? The first buoy seemed very far way and the whole swim course seem longer than 1.2 miles. But I always say that the swim course seem too long. I felt like I doing a good pace. I had not been in the water for almost two months. I did pass a few of the green caps about half way into the swim.
One new trick that I tried out during the swim was peeing. I felt that if I could take advantage of peeing now that I might not have to stop later on in the race. It turned out to be a good move.
As always, after the swim you had to run up a hill to the bikes. This hill was the biggest I’d seen that lead from the water to the bikes. My total swim time was just over 41 minutes. I was not happy at all about the time but I can’t complain because I didn’t go to swim practice.
T1: Pretty much in and out. It took me over 2:30 but I wasn’t in a real big hurry.
Bike: About one mile into the bike I was going down a hill and shifted into the big cog and that was cool until I started going up a bigger hill and need to get into the little cog. I went to shift and it was stuck. I went about 500 feet until I got off to see if I could fix it. I got it to shift and just left it in the middle cog for the rest of the race. I didn’t want to take the chance of screwing it up again. Luckily that was my only problem with my bike.
If I can make the joke, the hills were a BIG challenge. I remember some points on the course it would have been faster to walk up the hill than ride up. However once you got to the top going down made you fell like a little kid. On two of the hill I can remember going about 38 mph and praying that nobody pulls out in front of me or that I get a flat tire. When the hills were rolling was the best part because I could use my momentum from the down hill to get me over the next hill and so on. On the rolling hills I could really save some energy.
Nutrition on The Bike: I only took one bottle of gator aide and on bottle of water. We were handed bottles on the course. They had aide stations at mile 15, 30, & 45. I felt like I was in the Tour de France. I ate my first gel just before mile 15. I had two more gels and 2 Nutria Grain Bars. I went to eat one of the bars around mile 20 and dropped it. I went ahead and ate my other bar. Best I can figure I drink close to 85 ounces of fluids on the bike.
The last 6 miles seemed like 12 miles long. I don’t know if it was the sun or not enough calories but I was ready to get off the bike. My total time on the bike was 3 hours & 12 minutes.
T2: Total time was about 3 to 4 minutes. On paper that looks long but I enjoyed every second of it. I could have racked my bike and changed shoes in less than 2 minutes but I stopped and ate a protein bar. Plus I was tired. I remember eating the bar and looking at everyone running in and out as quickly as possible.
Run: The plan was to do a run walk. I would run for 3 minutes and walk for 1 minute. I did for about the first 2 miles. After that it was a fight to the finish. I was no longer running 13.1 miles, I was running from aide station to aide station. I took full advantage of the buffet that was out there. I would fell up on pretzels, cheesy crackers, gels, water, and gator aide.
The longer I was out on the course the hotter it got. I saw that earlier in the week it was going to be in the mid 90’s. The best way to describe the course was an out and back. It did have two off shoots that were out in back. I say that because I notice that on my way back to the finish the shade from the tress was becoming less and less. It was impossible to get cool.
When I got to the 3rd aide station I came up to a little boy that was sitting on a bucket. I notice that he handed the runner in front of me a blue towel. When he handed me mine I wanted to kiss him on the mouth. For the rest of the way all the aide stations had buckets with ice water in them for your towels. I had never seen this at any other race, but this was the only way to get cool. After the race I was telling one of my running buddies about how hot it was and he said that was how hot it was at the Chicago marathon.
The only time peed was near mile around mile 9 on the run when I saw a port-o-potty. I didn’t have to go but thought that about how much I drank on the bike plus the run that if I could go to the bathroom I would fell better and maybe run faster. The other reason was I could get out of the sun for a few minutes.
It was so hot that about mile 10 there was a nice guy who lived in one of the house on the route, turned on his sprinklers on and pointed them towards the road. Praise the Lord. I just wanted to lay down right there. As I ran / walk by, I could not thank him enough.
The last few miles I was full of emotion as I got near the park. My mind wanted to run in like a champ but I knew that I had nothing left. The sun had drained it all out of me. Once I was inside the park the last half mile was a huge relief. The crowd helped me to the finish line. They had signs post on the way in that had lyrics from songs that were very motivational. I finished in a time just over 6 hours and 44 minutes.
Overall it was a good race. I was not happy with my total time. The swim was slow but I had not swim in a month before the race so that was to be expected. The bike was the best part for me because I total suck on the bike and that was were I had the most improvement. I did spend a lot more time on the bike to get better and I was glad to see that pay off. The run was the slowest ever. When I run slow I’m doing 10 to 10 and half minute miles. My long run before the race was 14 miles long and ran under 10:30 per mile. So, for me to come out on race day and run 12min and 30 sec per mile is terrible. The only reason I think I ran that slow was because of the sun. I fell like that I could have ran a time close to 6 hours and 20 minutes. In a way I’m glad I’m not satisfied with my time so I will have ever more motivation to train harder for next time.
2 comments:
You do realize you just told everyone that you pee'd during the swim. nasty. :)
I'd rather pee in the lake than on the bike.
Everybody pee's while on the bike.
I heard of one guy at the race that pee'd on his bike and it filled up his right shoe. That's nasty. But his time was faster than mine.
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