Half Full 2013

So I have been bad about posting recently. I have been busy at work and my wife and I took a two week vacation, complete with a Disney cruise.  

Today I completed my first half Iron distance race.  It was supposed to be a 70 (70.3 with the swim shortened to represent the 70,000 young adults diagnosed with cancer each year).  They had to shorten the bike by three miles for this year due to construction on the bike course.  I've also heard it was to meet NCAA standards on the Olympic course, which shares portions with the half.   But 67 is close enough to 70.3.  And it's a unique distance.

Last year's race day conditions featured a high of 52 with rain showers.  The race staff warned everyone to prepare for cold temps.  Then came this week with its August-like tendencies.  

Swim: the swim was organized in waves with a time trial start in each wave.  Basically, two people entered every five seconds.  It was probably the best thing about the day.  It gave me a chance to get out of the way, find my rhythm, and find a good line before getting whacked.  The water temp was 74.4 which was wetsuit legal.  My swim was awesome and I cut another minute off of my time from last time.  All of the work I have been doing is really paying off.  The only real problem was that the majority of the swim was eastbound causing major sun glare off the water.  The buoys weren't visible until you were right on top of them so I just followed the crowd until I saw the buoy. It was also very congested as our wave was near the back of the start.   31:17

T1:  My transition wasn't as smooth as it should have been.  It was a pretty long way from swim exit to the transition area and I really walked slow on the concrete.  I could have run but I had a long day and a minute or two extra wouldn't hurt.  4:32 

Bike: This is a hilly course.  Two loops for the half distance.  The hills on the course weren't long as there were no categorized climbs but they were relentless.  There were very few flat areas.  As soon as you rolled off of a hill, the next was upon you.  This made for a very difficult course.  About 40 miles into the bike, the morning cloud cover and fog disappeared.  The sun came out and it was HOT.  There was very little shade or wind on the course which made it seem even hotter.  By this time the temps were in the mid 80s.  I started to really pull back at this time.  My Timex Ironman watch also told me it was time to let it go and just finish.  I dropped my chain about this time and when I looked at my time to see how much I lost, my watch said "memory full".  Well with no watch I just had to do what felt right in the circumstance.  I flew through the first loop keeping a speed of probably around 20mph average.  With about 15 miles left on the bike, I realized that I had 13.1 yet to run.  The heat came on quickly, something I really had not prepared for in my training.  The last few miles were slow, very slow.  I ended up averaging 17mph for the course.  Total time of 3:17.  

T2:  My second transition was purposefully slow.  I knew I was going to walk the 13.1  for most of it and my time goals were out the window.  I made sure I ate my transition food and drank my now hot water before going back out. 2:17

Run: For me it was more of a walk than a run.  It was scorching with the sun and humidity.  There were few truly shaded portions of the course and a lot of frying pan blacktop to add to the heat.  The course had some hills but they weren't as bad as some other half marathons.  The problem was that I was already blasted from the heat.  I walked many of the uphills.  At this point I was commiserating with many people in as bad or worse shape than me.  I pulled back enough to finish moderately strong but still enough that I didn't risk cramp or injury.  I have the Army 10 miler and the Marine Corps Marathon later this month and I did not want to blow it on a race this hot and miserable for all.    I managed an 11:30 pace but it was a stretch.  2:31

Total time: 6:26:xx   Original goal < 6:00:00

Holy cow was this a sweat fest.  Anyone who knows me can tell you that I melt in temps over 65.  I purposely don't race in the summer because of this.  This race was far, far out of my doable range.  I actually finished 12 in my age group so I wasn't close to last, but it sure felt like it.  Overall, I did not like the course and the race was very poor,y organized.  Communication wasn't very plentiful and there were no mentions of the relay for my wife in any communications.  The biggest thing that bugged me was that they kept announcing the 70 mile distance and kept spewing the fact that it was 70 miles for the 70,000 young adults diagnosed each year.  This was even after they shortened the course.  No large announcement was made.  If you did not look at the course maps and do the math, you still thought you were doing 70.  Even the race day announcer kept talking about 70 miles.  

Again, this race is for a good cause but the race management is sub-par to say the least.  I do want to give a huge commendation to the plentiful volunteers that were on the course.  Many were out in the heat all day and still were encouraging and had every intersection covered.  Same can be said for the police who tried their best to keep the insane drivers out of our way.  The course was open to traffic.  I also want to thank the person on the run who stood outside of their home with a garden hose offering us a hose-down to cool off.  I took advantage of that on both loops. 

Now my fun begins.  While on vacation, I signed up for the Challenge Family Atlantic City full iron distance.  It is June 2014 and will be a challenge. Hopefully not 90 degrees.