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Timberman 70.3 Race Report

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

Leading up to the race, I was in a very strange zen calm.

I normally get jittery butterflies throughout the week leading up to race morning, but not this time. I was as cool as a cucumber. It was a little odd even. I knew I wasn’t as prepared as I would have liked to be. (I may never meet the standards I set for myself, but that is a different conversation. As long as I get closer and closer each time). I was totally at peace with it and had a great game plan to compensate and take everything in stride. I was happy. I was confident. I was ready to roll.

I woke up early on Saturday to watch the sprint and cheer on some other team mates. It was nuts watching people that normally crush 70.3′s and IMs to battle it out in sprints. A lot of the guys that first came in off the bike looked like they barely touched the brakes before they came flying in to T2, dismounted, and kept on sprinting. Wicked cool to watch.

Packet pickup, racked the bike, and did all the final preps. Still no butterflies. Just a happy calm. I couldn’t explain it, but I liked it. I want to figure out how to repeat that pre-race mood.

All day I focused on hydration and eating well. I think that was my major flaw in preparing for Rev3 earlier this year, so I wanted to knock that problem off right away. Nothing crazy to throw my stomach off, just gatorade, fruits, veggies, and a subway sandwich. I woke up at 3:30 on race morning to release some fluids, so I knew I was on the right track.

After finally getting to the race start, I could just feel the little flip-flap of a few mini butterflies. Nothing major, but enough to not make me want to eat. I knew that I would need some calories in me before the swim, so I sucked down a GU. I think GUs as pre-race nutrition are totally under rated. I can normally barely chew anything without feeling like I’m going to vomit on race day, but the GU slid right down the pipe into my belly. I was a happy camper.

Leading up to the race, I was able to keep my HR pretty low too. All under 80 (usually around 50 on a normal day, 90-100 on other pre-race days), so I was happy.

After waiting what seemed like forever for my wave to start, we got called up. This big beautiful blond was there in the water to greet us. (S)he even let me get a little squeeze of those honkers. I did ask first. I’m a gentleman after all.

The announcer counted down, called out GO GO GOGOGOGO and we were off on the swim. I kept waiting for the zen-calm to wash away, but it stuck with me. I drafted off of a lot of people’s feet and held a pretty tight line to the buoys. As I leapfrogged passed slower swimmers in earlier waves, I felt really good. Definitely not the fastest swim of my life, but best as far as pushing it just enough and staying mentally focused on the next 69.1 miles.

Time: 38:25 (~2:00 min/100m)

T1 was fine (once I found my bike). Even with lettered rows, the huge transition area was a little tough to navigate. Once I got there it was: sock, sock, shoe, shoe, glasses, food, helmet GO!

The bike course was beautiful and just as described. Hilly first and last 10 miles, but nice and smooth flat roads all the way through the middle. Beautiful scenery too. It was hard, but nowhere near as challenging as the Rev3 course. I felt strong all the way through and especially loved powering across the flat and freshly paved sections in the aero bars, which is still a really new feeling for me. Timberman is worth doing just for the bike course alone. It was a blast. I felt like I was playing a video game. I want to do it again right now!

Oh and yes, the new Cervelo is AWESOME to race on. Speedier. Smoother. And Sexier. (But I still love you Fuji. You will always hold a special place in my heart, especially when cyclocross season comes around.)

Time: 3:01:33 (18.5 mph)

I just missed breaking the 3 hour mark! Oh well. There is always next year.

Jumped off the bike and felt pretty good. The hips weren’t bothering me, and I just kept moving. It took me about a mile to really get my legs under me, but after that I felt pretty good.

I didn’t even realize how hot it had gotten until I pored some water on my head and realized how good it felt. I played it save and walked every aid station to grab a sponge and 2-3 cups of water. One for my head. One for my belly. And another to fill up any empty fuel belt bottles (just in case). I didn’t want to repeat any pounding dehydration headaches from Rev3, so went a little overkill on carrying the water. I would have rather finished with a completely full fuel belt than with I had something to drink between aid stations.

By the 6 mile mark my shoes were drenched. 10 pounds each and squishing with every step. It made me with I had those special tri shoes with the drainage holes in them. (As if I need another excuse to buy more gear…)

My pace was far from t anything spectacular, but I was able to keep running all the way between water stops, so that counted as a win for me. My run was definitely the weak point going in to the race, so I was just hoping for the best. I felt good after the first 10k, but then it started to hit me. The hockey team that was handing out snowballs from the pile of ice they had on the side of the road were my saviors. I was baking out there but dumping a hand full of ice down my top felt A-Mazing.

Time: 2:25:14 (11:06 min/mile)

My half marathon time alone was pretty sad, but considering everything, it wasn’t half bad. It even brought me to beat my old PR by 9 minutes! Still not quite at that sub-6 level, but I have it in my sights and hopefully will nail it next time around.

Overall Time: 6:11:24

And the best part is that (other than some more training) there probably isn’t too much I would change about the whole weekend. It was perfect and want to do it all over again!

Now I’ve had two easy days before coach starts busting my ass again. Tomorrow is tempo run time to get my butt in shape for my Ragnar Ultra Marathon Relay! More news on that coming soon. Sit tight.

Tags: 70.3, half ironman, Race Reports, timberman | Posted in Ironman, Race Reports, Triathlon | 10 Comments »

Race Report: Rhode Island 70.3

Monday, July 14th, 2008

I’m wicked sore, and am going on vacation tomorrow, I wanted to get something out there quickly to give you an update on the race today.

Race prep went down pretty easily. Since I dropped off almost everything yesterday, I just had to show up with my wetsuit, goggles, and chip down in Naragansett. We didn’t end up getting a hotel in RI, so my girlfriend (who can be thanked for all the awesome pics) got up extra early and left Boston at 3:30 a.m. to get to the race start, an hour and a half away.

Even though the first pro wave went off at around 6:00, I wasn’t going off until the very last wave, more than an hour later. It was nice to have some extra time to get mentally psyched for the race and run through my plan.

I’m not sure why I’m standing really awkardly like that. I think I might have been peeing and didn’t want to stand in a puddle of my own pee. Haha. You can make out the swim buoys off in the distance behind my right shoulder.

The time finally came, I got rounded up with the rest of the 19-29 men, waited for the cannon to go off, and off we went. It was my first running swim start and it was pretty cool. With all of the waves crashing in to shore we got to dive through the waves, which was pretty cool. The water further out was a little choppy, but it was surprisingly warm.

Other than that, it was pretty uneventful. I held a solid pace, stayed on course and came out with a pretty solid time of 36:47. As soon as I got to shore and stood up, I saw Chris swimming in right next to me. It was good to see a familiar face.

T1: 4:58 (1:56/100m)

A lot slower than my normal transitions, but I had to re-pack everything into a bag to be transported up to Providence for me to pick up after the race, so it took a little longer.

Bike:

I felt really strong, and was passing a lot of people in front of me from my swim wave and from all of the waves ahead of me, keeping my HR pretty low at around 145-155. I totally came up with those numbers out of nowhere, but figured it would be a good idea to stay about 10 bpm lower than what I did at the Mooseman Olympic.

The rolling hills let me pass a lot of people who weren’t from New England and were used to riding on anything else but flats. I also blew past tons of people on fancy carbon bikes and aero helmets. It is definitely an ego boost to casually blow by these guys on a clucky ‘ol road bike. Besides a dropped chain, everything went pretty smoothly.

At about mile 50 I did the math and realized that I was REALLY close to meeting my “A” goal of breaking 3:00 on the bike. It almost wished that I hadn’t figured that out since I probably went way too fast on the last 5 miles on the bike instead of resting and staying loose for the run. Oh Well!

I ended up finishing the bike in 3:01:51. SO CLOSE! (18.48 mph)

T2: 3:07

Run:

Since my knee was definitely feeling a little tight during the bike and I was a little worried about it, I decided to just take it REALLY easy for the first of two loops on the run. I was going almost awkwardly slow, doing something in between a slow jog and a shuffle, but it kept my knee feeling alright as long as I kept it moving so it wouldn’t tighten up on me.

When I stopped at the water stations and started running again, I could tell that my knee was tightening up really fast, so I just tried to find one really slow pace, have a nice open stride, and keep moving forward because starting running again after stopping hurt like a BITCH. The hardest part was running up the MONSTER hill at mile 2 and 8. This thing was practically straight up for what seemed like half a mile.

This was the hill that the X Games used for street luge when they came to town. Yeah. Seriously. This thing was no joke and I had no choice but to keep running up it, even though it was only slightly faster than walking up.

First lap – felt good. Wicked tired, but good. I think my first lap was about 1:05.

Second lap:

Just like the first, but a LOT more painful. I kept moving except for really quick stops to take in as much water as I could and strap some cold sponges in to my race jersey.

Because I was the very last wave, the second lap was a lot more lonely since a lot of the faster/earlier racers had already finished by the time I hit the turn around but the volunteers and spectators were still out there rocking it. It was great to see all the locals out there supporting an inaugural event like this.

Except for a brief 400 meter stint at about mile 12 where I walked, I kept on truckin’ the whole time. Definitely the hardest run of my life. I wanted to just stop and lay down on the pavement after every single step I took.

The finish line was the greatest place in the world. It was by far the most emotional race that I had ever done, and it felt amazing to run through the chute and hit that line.

I finished the run in 2:33:27 (11:42/mile) for a total time of 6:20:10. It wasn’t the time that I was hoping for a few months ago, but I was really psyched given the obstacles.

I couldn’t walk too well, but sucked down a whole lot of Gatorade and water and layed out in the shade. I probably looked light a nightmare, but was too distracted by the amazing feeling of finishing to pay attention to all of the pain that I was in.

Here is a pic of the race finish (sans spectators) right under the state capitol.

Overall:

Amazing race. Really well supported and it was an absolute blast. It was the most pain that I had been in in a long time, but was absolutely worth it.

Oh and I think that I may be classified as a “heavy sweater” now given the salt farm that I grew over my entire body. Check out this sick pic of my tri shorts after the race with the salt crystals all over the place. HI larious.

That is all. Now off to bed and stretch and head off on vacation until next week! Check out some more pictures from the race on my Flickr page on the badge on the right.

Tags: 70.3, half ironman, ironman rhode island, Triathlon | Posted in Race Reports, Triathlon | 16 Comments »

Countdown to Rhode Island 70.3

Sunday, July 13th, 2008

I dropped off my gear down in Rhode Island this afternoon. T2 is in Providence, and T1 is about 30 miles south, down in Naragansett, so it was kind of a pain to organize everything. Check in was pretty much a disaster, waiting in line for almost 2 hours to pick up my t-shirt, chip, sign my life away on the regular waivers and otherwise do stuff that should take only a few minutes. I guess I can’t expect TOO much from a first time event, right?

I saw Chris while I was hanging out in line, and he gave me some shit for dragging a chair with me all the way through the line, but I wasn’t going to stand for 2 hours like a chump and let my already beat up legs work any harder than they have to before the big race!

Here is me in line, taken by Chris with his snazzy new iPhone, with a big doofy smile.

Speaking of beat up legs, my knee/IT band isn’t doing much better. I went for a short run earlier this week and the first mile was fine. I went super slow and my legs felt a little heavy from not using them much lately, but almost thought I was fixed and all of the soaking/stretching/foam rolling had actually helped…. until I hit that dreaded one mile mark and it all went to shit. It immediately started hurting and I ended up limping pretty bad and walking back home. It sucks, but what can ya do?

It is a little late to back out of the race now, but at least I know my swimming/biking will be pretty good. I’m just going to go along with the race as scheduled and hope that 56 miles on the bike will help loosen things up and will let me have a pretty pain free run. The day will completely depend on how mile 2 of the run goes, but either way I’m pretty determined to finish as long as it doesn’t involve completely destroying my body. I’m not above limping/walking 12 miles.

Spirits are high, standards are low. Either way I’m totally psyched for what should be a really awesome race.

Tags: 70.3, half ironman, ironman rhode island, Triathlon | Posted in Race Reports, Triathlon | No Comments »