So the race was turned into a Half Ironman Duathlon which consisted of these three phases; a 2.1 mile run then your 56 mile bike portion and finish it off with a 13.1 mile run. All 1998 starting racers walked to the race start area from transition about a mile away to the race run start area. People were sent off ever 4 minutes in their age group wave as it would have been in the swim. I wished K well as she was in wave number 4 as I was to start in wave number 8. She smiled as I shouted words of encouragement as K went by as I waited in the little starting corral.
Run 1:
I ran the 1st 2.1 mile run at a nice cruiser pace as I knew it was gonna be a long day out there. There were some hills and sand we had to run on during this portion as we worked our way to the transition area via a sandy boardwalk area. My first run time was 15:55 as I went over the transition chip mat and onwards to my tri-bike...
T1:
As I changed from my running shoes to biking shoes, then helmet, gloves, etc and a quick bite of a PBJ sandwich I walked/ran with my tri-bike thru the bike out chip mat in a time of 2:02...not the quickest transition but it worked for me. From the transition chip mat you had to run in cleats with your bike for at least 300 feet to the roadway where the officials allowed you only then to get on your bike and start riding...I didn't like that false biking split 40 seconds that took worked into my bike time numbers but we all had to deal with it that day.
Bike:
At the start of the 56 mile bike you head straight Northeast into the headwind on a gradual climb for about 10 miles before turning eastward on the bike loop. I controlled my biking pace to a comfortable endurance burn HR zone. It was at this point I realized just how competitive this Ironman midwest race was because age groupers were battling for limited qualifying 70.3 World Championship slots for the November Championship race in Florida. I was getting passed like I was sitting in a lawn chair that's how fast some of these racers were...anyhow I finally caught up to K at about mile 17 on the bike course as she was riding very strongly as I cheered her on and wish her well, great job honey!
At each of the four aid stations on the bike course I was able to grab a 700ml water bottle from the great workers (always thank everyone helping) of the race and cool off my body by pouring the water on the front & back of my body at 20mph. I noticed (k noticed also as did our friends whom raced also did) throughout the bike portion that a certain demographics of racers were riding in peloton "wolfpacks" as I call them which is totally illegal per USAT rules for tri/du's...I would say I was passed by at least 50 riders riding superfast in various pack sizes throughout the bike course...this really pi**ed me off as I pushed my own air the whole 56 miles. But the organizers & USAT marshalls are the ones to blame because I only saw 3 motorbike marshals the whole time I was out there and they were on really, really loud motorbikes...fools!!!
As I came into the bike dis-mount area and then ran in cleats with my tri-bike for 300 feet to the bike-in transition chip I stopped the bike clock at 2:31:04 for an average pace of 22.24mph...
T2:
I hung up the tri-bike on the rack and changed to running shoes again with my fuelbelt in hand and coolmax hat on my head I crossed the transition two run-out chip mat with a time of 2:10...an average T2 time.
Run 2:
As I headed out onto the 13.1 mile running course my legs felt pretty good as in the beginning I was running a 8:30 mile pace comfortably but as the hills approached and then by mile 6 on the Whirlpool Corporate campus my hip flexors just started to not work...I didn't have any cramping issues during the run at all its just that my legs had had enough of this for the day as they were tighting up on me all the way to the finishline. I was very unhappy about my run split of 2:09:34...I should have easily been able to run a sub-2 hour half ;-)
As I crossed the finishline with a total time of 5:00:44 I was more than happy to get this event over with because the distance, winds and intensely strong sunlight beat me down bigtime. As I recovered by the finishline area I watched for K to finish as she spotted me first while running to the finishing line with a total time for her of 6:05:00...she did great in her first 70.3 event :-)
b
below is a couple of my Polar HR graphs; one for the whole event and one just for the biking portion...click on the link for the bigger chart image...
http://www.twodogzdesign.com/msport08/steelhead.JPG
2 comments:
AWESOME JOB TO THE BOTH OF YOU!!! =)
It is very frustrating to be training so hard for a half IM that turns into a duathlon but the weather on race day is always unpredictable.... remember Chicago Marathon last year? Or IMUSA in pouring rain this year?
Anyway, you did super well! And so close to a sub 5h! =) Congrats! Do you guys have a revenge half in sight??
B--I know that eventhough you said the swim was your weakest event, you were looking forward to it. HOWEVA, even if you were to have the worst swim of your life, you STILL would have beat your 6:00 goal time.
I can't help but think that the 2.1m run + the 2.4 mile walk at the beginning of the race + the sand played into your slower run time. Those were all factors that you really couldn't have accounted for.
I thought it was a fantastic effort, and I loved the picture of you high fiving Steve! Say congrats to K for me. (I couldn't find her results, but I'm assuming she finished strong. It sounds like she did really well).
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