IM Florida 70.3 Race Report

The week leading into this race was totally crazy with Lindsay not sure if she was going to race because her sister hadn’t had her baby yet. Well all the stars aligned and the timing was perfect. Meghan had the baby which is now no longer called “Spawn” but Bridget and Lindsay was able to see Bridget and still do the race. We flew out together on Friday and crashed with some GMM tri friends from Vermont while down there which made it a lot more fun.

Race morning

I had my QT2 systems breakfast at around 4:20 for the 7:20 start. Applesauce, banana, bottle sport drink, and scoop of whey protein and some Starbucks. I was ready to rock. This race was huge with a transition area that seemed to be about a half mile long …crazy. My wave was second to last ---I wasn’t too happy about that as I hate going late like that mostly because you don’t really know where your competitors are. This was a non wetsuit swim as well. The gun goes off and I quickly found a nice set of feet to sit on. I was moving pretty good and tried to pass but I couldn’t get past him so I just stayed on his feet. I actually felt very comfortable probably too comfortable but I kept trying to see if I could get past him and I couldn’t so I knew I was moving at a good pace. I got out of the water in around 33 minutes which is way slower than my PR but I had anticipated this and knew the swim times would be slower on the day with out the wetsuit. I later realized that it really was a solid swim relative to my competitors. I used the new Xterra velocity speed suit----thanks Xterra!!!

I went as fast as I could through transition and saw lots of bikes still on my rack (all people who started in my wave or ahead of me) which is a good sign.

Bike

I was absolutely hammering the bike and feeling great, I’d look down and be going 26 mph and feeling super comfortable. I was flying. It was a constant stream of bikers out on the road and I was passing people for the whole 56. There was only one guy that I yo yo’d with for a lot of the bike who started in my wave and went on to be second in my age group and one of the top amateurs. I hit the 25 mile mark in 59:xx. Booyah!!!! I was cranking. I held a little over 25 mph avg speed until around 50 miles or so when I started getting a cramp in my left quad. The only mistake I made on the day was not drinking the 4.5 bottles recommended and only drank 3. Even though felt like I was drinking constantly –I just need to drink more (majority of my electrolytes come through my sport drink). The last 5-6 miles I had to back off because of my quad so I lost a bit of time the last few miles. I got off the bike in around 2:19 and my bike was the only one on the rack---that’s really cool.

Run

It was already crazy hot and humid. My quad was locking up/cramping pretty bad, I kneeled down to try and get it to release. I took 2 salt tabs (thermotabs) and kept saying “release” while I was running through the locked up quad---definitely some pain going on here. HTFU was repeated several times. In fact the whole run needed a pretty constant stream of HTFU’s because it was just brutal. No shade, 90 degrees, humid, lots of people were walking. After the first mile my quad released and I tried to get the tempo up. I hit the first few miles in 6:30-6:40 then struggled to hold 7s. The heat and the grass just made it hard to really stay light and fast. Half the course was on grass in kind of open field area that we did an out and back part of 3 loops. It was brutal. I got into bike racer mentality and decided that most people were suffering the most on the grass section so this was the section I would work the hardest. I really really suffered through those sections and then cruised the pavement section and went back to pushing the grass section each lap. Apparently I caught more people overall and in my age group on the run---that’s very cool as I usually lose a few spots on the run. Run times were slow with the heat and grass. I was around 1:34.

Finish was super satisfying, there really is nothing like finishing a long race after putting in your best effort. It was the kind of effort that I felt like if someone went faster than me on the day then my hat goes off to them because I was hammering and racing strong. I came in at 4:31. It wasn’t the time I was hoping for or near my PR but relative to my competitors it was solid.

I ended up 4th in my age group out of 254 and 30th overall out of around 2000. I was also 16th amateur. I am definitely happy with this result. I’ve never finished this far up at a big M-dot race. I want to thank my coach Jesse at QT2 systems for helping get this strong.

Lindsay also had a solid day in her second half ironman ever. She was 12th in her age group out of 86.

Green Mountain Triathlon Race Report

I raced the Green Mtn triathlon yesterday (5/4/08)in the Rutland area and got my first victory of the season! This was a low key pool triathlon put on at Green Mtn College by the adventure program students. It was very well organized and had great volunteers as well---thanks guys. Lindsay and I did this race back in 2002 but the course was different this year. Lindsay by the way decided to train this weekend instead of race as her masters program had dug into some of her training time over the last couple of weeks. The weather this past weekend had been pretty bad---cold and rainy. I almost didn't do the race. I was at the end of a recovery week so the timing was perfect to get in a race specific workout. I'm about 2 weeks out from the Florida 70.3 (half ironman). 2 weeks out from a half iron is excellent timing to get in some sharpening from a high intensity effort. When I got to the race site and checked in I saw a friend/competitor Paul Fronhofer from Ney York. Paul and I have raced together several times and we duke it out pretty closely on the bike. He is a very strong cyclist posting one of the fastest bike splits last year at Ironman Lake Placid. I think he went around 5:10 or so. Anyhow I greeted him and said "so we're gonna duke it today eh?" He said he was only doing the swim and bike because he had a fracture in his foot and can't run right now. I hope he heals up well. He mentioned a guy named Pat O'keefe would be here who won Lake George triathlon last year. Paul said Pat would swim about a 5 min 500 yard swim, wow that is crazy fast. Pat apparently was a division I swimmer in college. He was second out the water last year Ironman Lake Placid with a 47 min swim!!! Sick! I was actually relieved though that there were some strong guys here to really race it with. The head to head compettion is one of the things I love about this sport and I was going to get a chance as Paul, Pat and I would start near each other on the swim. The faster swimmers went last and each person had their own lane and there was maybe 50 or so people total and only 5 lanes. We were able to start the race around 10:40 or so. Paul ended up starting a few minutes ahead of me but Pat and I got to start at the same time which I was psyched about as he was my key competition on the day (but I was also competing with Paul on the swim and bike). We start and Pat is absolutely flying 2 lanes down from me. I think he lapped me once. I knew the lap counters were off when I hit the 250yard point and they didn't put in the half way card, they did on the next 50. I wasn't too happy about this but just shook it off. I hit 500 per my count at 6:20 but did the extra 50 anyway. I got out in 7:00. I knew this was off because all winter I was hitting 6:30 and 6:40s for 500 splits in my 800 time trials. Pat had gone around 5:10 or so and I needed to chase hard. Once on the bike my legs felt amazing---Jesse those BST sets on the bike are incredible. I have never felt so powerful on the bike. Mentally I was trying to keep it together as I let an additional 40 seconds go on Pat by doing that extra 50. I was going so hard on the bike but still not seeing anyone ahead of me. I just kept telling myself to recognize how good my legs feel and keep pushing as hard as I can. Finally I saw some people in the distance. I kept pulling them back and eventually passing them it was Pat and one other person. Awesome but then I realized Pat's twin brother was here racing too(no kidding) and I was hoping it was acutally Pat (it was). I caught him around mile 12 or so and had another 6 miles to keep putting time into him. Once on the run I couldn't belieive how good my run legs felt---I felt like a gazelle. I was absolutely flying faster than I've ever run off the bike. I hit the first mile in about 5:30!! I felt great. My coach is a genius!!! Once we got the results I had figured that Paul Fronhofer had beaten my bike split but it turned out that I outsplit him by 20 seconds!!! I couldn't believe it. The race was very well organized for this type of event. Nice job to everyone who raced!!! There were lots of people doing their first triathlon. I love seeing this and feel so humbled by their courage to take on a new challenge.


Here's the stats

1st overall
swim 6:20 / 500 yards
bike 48:31 / 18.5 or so miles
run 18:05 (on my watch)