Monday, November 8, 2010

Ironstar race report

First off-
Huge thanks to Jim Opre for tolerating me a full 3 hours there and a full 3 hours back. When we decided on who was going to drive Jim said, "You better drive because I don't think it's safe for me to be driving with you in the passengers seat."
Huge thanks to Tim and Stacey Curran for lodging me this weekend. Great food and fun times!
Last HUGE thanks goes out Jack Murray and the crew at J&A's for getting my bike all race ready. Tim and Stacey are Jack's uncle and aunt so Jack made the call and got me the hook up.

Pre race-
We arrived fashionably late because we were....no kidding...about 3 minutes from the race site. Once we got there we loaded up all our gear and made the 1/2 mile walk from parking to transition. That kinda sucked. Once in transition the rack I was assigned to looked mostly full. The rule is that if you are assigned to a rack you need to rack your bike at that rack. So I paused because I knew what was coming, looked around and saw some holes in the rack that could almost fit a bike. Now here is what was coming. I say to all the guys in the area of that rack (all of which were in my age group) "Look here boys. There are 2 more of us that need to rack here so I would appreciate it if some of you would make some room for 2 more bikes." Instant attitude from people who think they need to lay out everything from their house for transition. I should have taken a pic because some of these guys had more shit layed out that Paris Hilton has in her closet. So...one space was made and I gave that to the other guy who was not very outgoing and I knew he would never ask for anyone to make room. He takes his space and I stand there for about 2 minutes. Waiting, waiting, waiting.....time for action. I address the crowd once more, "Ok boys...I have absolutely no problem with getting a USAT official over here and having them move your bikes to make me room. I don't need as much as some of you so all I ask is for room for my bike. If not, there is a good chance your bike is going to moved." Magically a spaced opened up and my bike was racked in no time.
I made it out of transition with 30 secs to spare.
SWIM:
The swim started 15 minutes late because of fog. The water was warm and the air was cold....race time temp was about 45 degrees and this caused fog. 15 minutes didn't do all that much but I could see the first buoy and that's all I needed. I love this race because it's a beach start. That means you run from the beach and into the water. Once you dive in you have no idea who's going to hit you or who you're going to hit. Good times!!!!!
Once to the first turn buoy things got a little crazy. We turned right into the sun and that added to the fog made sighting pretty bad. I just stayed with a pod of guys and by 1/2 way through the fog had lifted a bit and made for better sighting.
The fun part of the swim was that the water was low. People were actually walking through the water where it should have been 10 feet deep. I just kept swimming and ended up passing about 10 guys who were walking. I thought to myself that I needed to save my legs for the bike and I didn't need my arms all that much after the swim so this was a no brainer to me.....keep swimming!!!
Swim time: 35:41
Always room for improvement. Looking forward ot it.
T1: 3:04
T1 is always a joy at this race because it's cold and you need to add clothing while you are there or you won't make it past mile 15 of the bike. I added a skull cap, thermal vest, arm warms and gloves. This totally pay off!
BIKE:
The bike course here is not all that flat but not all that hilly. Just a bunch of roller with pretty much no flat. I nailed my nutrition and my hydration on the bike and that was a huge bonus for me getting into the run. I never was really too cold on the bike and seemed comfortable. The hard part was that my back was killing me on the back half of the bike. I think it's because of the wet suit I wore in the swim. My back was arched for so long while swimming it couldn't adjust to being in the aero position for very long. I ended up getting out of my saddle a lot more than I normally do just to give my back a break as I could not generate the power needed to get past the hill. I lost time on the back half but didn't think much about it. As people have told me and I tell people.....something goes wrong in a race, get past it quick because there's a lot more of the race to go and dwelling on shit won't help.
Bike time: 2:43:30 avg mph 20.8
I was looking for 21.5 plus but that just didn't happen. I could have pushed more but I knew I wanted to have enough for the run. When I say enough I mean enough to catch people in front of me and not just to finish.
T2: 1:19.....I lost clothing pretty damn quick!
RUN:
No time for messing around! I came out of T2 strong enough to separate me from the others just coming out of T2. Once that was done I started to focus on the guys in front of me. This race had a 3 loop run course so after the first loop I had no idea who was actually in front of me so I just told myself to pass everyone. So I did....I just moved from one person to the next and that kept me focused on what I was doing. I didn't once let my mind wander.
I stayed strong for most of the run. I had 1 "bad" mile and I'm not really sure what happened there. I think some of the mile markers were a little off. Here are my splits:
7:55
7:38
7:04
7:38
7:06
8:03
7:44
7:40
7:25
7:11
8:28
7:17
8:16....1.1 miles
Run time: 1:39:34 avg pace: 7:36
This was exactly what I was shooting for. Almost perfect. Felt good the entire time. If I felt great then I wasn't doing it right. No hydration, fuel or cramping issues at all. Just one little blister on my foot that I pushed through.
I PR'd my half iron run time by 6 minutes.

Overall: 5:03:10 - 1 minute PR. 2nd in age group
Loved the swim, was 1/2 and 1/2 with the bike and the run was fun. I am not sure I will of this race again as it was my 3rd time there but you never know. A big shout out goes to the race director and his crew, They totally stepped it up this year with a ton of volunteers and great race support. The finish line was done nicely and the post race massage was painful but appreciated.
Another big shout out goes to the announcer. She was maybe 18 years old and I think this was her first time around. She started out a little rough but warmed up with the weather. Nicely done young lady.


Finally-
My coach asked for a list of my 2011 races I have planned and so I thought I would share those with you as well.

Bandera 25k Trail race - 1/8
Mooseman 70.3 - 06/05
IMCDA - 6/26
More to follow as I find them.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

very cool! great race report. good job!

bozco said...

great time on your race. I was at race myself cheering for friends. Thought it was the craziest thing seeing people walking in the middle of the swim.

Chad Davis said...

Great time. Second in age group and a PR!