Hits Half-Iron Triathlon ReportApril 15, 2012
Swim 1.2 mi, Bike 56 mi, Run 13.1
Total Time:
6:48:23 (2nd place out
of 3 in Clydesdale Div)
As the training volume
increases in preparation for Ironman CDA in June, the training plan affords for
some practice events to get in a swim, bike, & run in one day and also a
chance to work on transitions and pre-race jitters, plus managing everything in
one package. For this year, sister
Gretchen and I discussed a few options for a 70.3 event in March/April and
decided to try a new event at Lake Berryessa in wine country of Napa , California
I loaded up the van and
headed out for the long drive south. The
weather was very wet and cold on the drive down. Even snow in southern Oregon
Arrived at Chapparal Cove on
the west side of Lake
Berryessa Vancouver
I got things settled with
the camp with my tent and sleeping area and cooking/eating area under my EZ-UP
awning.
I then made my way over to
the athlete’s dinner they had prepared.
It was a pasta dinner with 3 different kinds of dishes; bow-tie pasta
with pesto sauce, penne noodles with a meat/tomato sauce and penne noodles with
a tomato/vegetable sauce, along with salad and rolls. It was pretty small time, but the food was
good. I think there were about 200
athletes attended the dinner. We then
had an athlete’s meeting that started out in the open, but after the rain
started, everyone squeezed in under a 10x30 awning.
I met a couple of guys from
the close town of Fairfield Harrisburg ,
PA and their friends from San Diego
At night, after the
generators had stopped, it was quite comical to listen to the very loud and
obnoxious frogs croaking down by the water.
There were so many. They would
stop for a moment and it would be deathly silent, then one would start
croaking, then a few more and in seconds, hundreds would be at it again. This went on ALL night until sunrise.
It was also bitterly
cold. Brrrrr. I snuggled into the sleeping bag wearing a
long-sleeved shirt, pajama pants and socks (I never wear socks to bed) and a
stocking cap. I had my down sleeping bag
that I complain is much too hot and a fleece blanket over that. This time I was thankful for the insulated
bag as it kept me pretty comfy all night and I slept pretty well.
Got up at about 6:30 and headed over to transition and then the swim start. It was a crystal clear morning and the sun was just coming up over the mountains. It made for a golden shimmer on the surface of the lake. Gorgeous. It was also about 47 degrees. Brrrr. I felt for the athletes putting on their wetsuits and getting ready to jump into 53 degree water. I was in shock to see a few people braving the water without wetsuits! Are ya kidding?
The horn sounded and the
first victims in the water were the sprint distance athletes. I could hear gasps of cold shock and “oh my
word!” screams from the participants.
But most just put their heads down and went for it. A few swimmers put their faces in the water
and declared right then and there that they weren’t going any further and
jumped out of the water about as fast as they jumped in. That was sad to see and especially the
swimmers who had to be brought in by jet-ski.
Feeling uncomfortable in the water is not a very good feeling.
I was cold just watching the
chaos so I decided to head back to camp and cook breakfast. Mmmmm, breakfast burritos. They were pretty good considering I kept
things pretty simple for this trip.
Nothing extravagant.
After breakfast, I hopped on
my bike for a quick ride of the run course.
I just rode the 10k of the olympic distance event. Not too bad but I noticed there were some big
hills. Hmmm, I wonder if the
half-marathon will have a bunch of hills?
Gretchen and Brad and his
kids Rachel and Ryan arrived and it was great to see all of them. Made the joke with sister, “so what’s new
with you….” Last Friday she and Brad got
married. Hah! Very happy for them.
After getting checked in, we
all piled in the van and drove the entire bike course. I am sure glad we did, because I made special
note of all of the hills we would have to climb. OMG.
There were lots and lots of them.
You have to be kidding me. One,
which was very, very steep, and on a road that was hacked up with broken
asphalt was over 7 miles long! Then the
downhills were very steep with technical tight turns. If a rider wasn’t on his game, he could crash
hard and wind up dead.
We also drove the run course
and I was shocked to see that the entire course was littered with hill after hill
after hill. This was going to be very
rough. My game plan shifted from a
strong showing and PR’s all the way around, to, “gee, I sure hope I can survive
this event.”
Race morning came. I had been awake since 2:20am. I think it was the thoughts of all the hills
that had me nervous. Maybe it was the
idea of swimming in 53 degree water and wishing I had a pair of neoprene
booties and gloves. But I can’t dwell on
that now, it is time to get my stuff together and prepare for the day.
The bike boxes and
individual transition areas are the best I have ever seen. Each athlete had their very own, nice and
wide, bike box with a footstool, your name/number on it and plenty of room for
storage and setting up your stuff. Many
events you have literally no space and after T1, your stuff gets scattered and
it is all crazy.
For the race I wore my
Ironman tri shorts, 2XU compression sleeves, new Under Armor sleeveless top,
Fox bike jersey and a neoprene cap for the swim. On the way down to the water I wore sock and
my sandals. I stowed the socks and
sandals by an orange cone near the swim exit that I would retrieve for the
jaunt up to the transition after the swim.
1.2 mile Swim:
(39:15—1:49/100 yds)
I did a warm up swim. Actually, it was more like ‘get my face used
to the needles swim.’ Brrrr. It did feel like needles on my feet, hands
and face. Ugh. I am so sick of freezing my butt off.
Here came the start and it
was time to go! Leading up to this, I
had worked on my swim so much in the off season, but what you can swim in a
pool doesn’t always correlate to swimming in open water with hundreds of other
swimmers around. I had a difficult time
on the swim. For starters, it was so
hard to regulate my breathing due to the cold water. This caused my form to suffer and I was less
efficient with my stroke and body position.
Secondly, I was hitting a lot of swimmers. A hundred yards into the swim and I was still
protecting myself from grabs, jabs and kicks.
I had finally had enough and swam out of the mosh pit and into some
cleaner water. And lastly, my navigating
sucked big time. I was swimming in a
zig-zag pattern. I would look up and the
red guide buoy would be to my left, so I would compensate. 10 strokes later I would sight again and now
the darn buoy would be on my right! I
was also swimming into the sides of other swimmers. That broke my rhythm and made me have to stop
for half a second. I finally found some
feet to follow, but I still had difficulty following. After about 3/4s of the swim with these
troubles and trying to fix them, I finally gave up and just focused on getting
to shore and moving on to the next item.
Popped out of the water,
found my sandals and trotted up to the transition. Once again I had trouble with dizziness while
bending over taking off my wetsuit. I
honestly felt myself losing my equilibrium.
I had to stand there for a few seconds to get my bearings. Then sat down on the transition stool and
finished getting my gear changed.
Grabbed the bike and headed out.
56 mile Bike (3:29:25—16.0 mph)
As I was leaving transition
I heard the announcer say that the female leader was heading out on the
bike. I figured that must mean I am near
the front of the pack (I was 22nd on the swim out of about
140). I got settled on the bike and got
my arm warmers positioned things looked pretty good.
Usually when I get on the
bike after the swim, it seems as if I am standing still because I get passed a
lot. But that didn’t happen very much
for the first 10 miles this time. In fact,
I passed the female leader about 2 miles into the bike and she didn’t pass me
back until about mile 18. It was a cool
feeling to finally being able to hang with other riders. I was able to rock the pace and for the first
hour I was averaging about 18 mph.
Ugh. I was so cold though. I couldn’t feel my feet (not just my toes,
but my whole foot!). It was also foggy
once we got to the tops of the hills. My
sunglasses were useless as they kept fogging up so I stowed them in my bento
box and pulled out at about mile 45.
The hills were
relentless. There were so many of
them. Just annoying steep climbs. Then after turning onto a crappy road, here
came the real doozy, a 7 mile very steep climb.
This was insane. I was in my
lowest gear, standing on the pedals and laboring with each turn of the
crank. My thighs were starting to burn,
and this was only mile 33! One rider in
front of me fell over when his chain popped a gear and he came to a complete
stop with his shoes clipped into his pedals.
Ooops. He was okay so I kept on
going. He passed me back just 3 minutes
later.
After this big climb I was
really getting fatigued. My legs were on
fire. I was drinking Infinit for
carb/protein/electrolyte, I also had 3 gels and some snickers bites plus my water. I think this combo works okay but I need to
keep practicing with it.
I started getting a bit
irritated with the bike course. There
was one section of road that was absolute primo asphalt. Very smooth and a fun road, but this lasted
for about 12 miles. But the rest of the
course, was some of the worst roads I have ever been on. Broken asphalt, pot holes, bumps, partitions,
just crazy stuff that drives you nuts.
It was ridiculous in my opinion.
After each bump I would grimace expecting my tire to blow or rim to
bend. Thankfully none of that happened.
After the big climb we had
to descend a very steep and technical section with hairpin and decreasing
radius turns. A rider had to be on his
game or he could lose control and wipe out.
Also, riding the brakes wasn’t a good idea since it could cause them to
overheat and cause other problems.
After struggling through the
bike course I was glad to be done with it.
I cruised into transition with a time that was the slowest for me at
this distance, but still good considering how rough it was.
My transition was very slow. I seemed a bit flustered in fussing with my bike stuff and getting my run kit on and moving. I still had very little feeling in my left foot from the cold swim. It took me over 6 minutes in T2.
13.1 mile Run (2:29:59—11:26/mile)
Leaving transition my
strategy for the run was to simply survive.
At this point I didn’t care if I had to walk the entire distance and it
take me over 3 hours to do it. This was
going to be hard and I knew that. But
just like my coaches taught me, try to stay inside my box—that bit of the race
in which I still had control over. At
the present time, that box was the first mile.
I was going to run my long run pace +30 seconds per mile (about 10:40)
and then see where I would go from there.
Here came the hills about
3/4s of a mile from transition. Goodness
sakes. I need to get over my issues with
hills. This happens on training runs
too. I find all sorts of excuses to walk
the hills. I need to find a way to at
least jog up them. Once a guy starts
walking, it can build up lactic acid in the muscles and it makes it harder to
get back to running. Plus it is
painfully slow. I needed to dig a bit
deeper and started running again.
In the first hour I made it
5.25 miles. Not too bad, I just need to
keep going. The heat was getting to
me. It had warmed up to the mid 70’s by
now and there was no shade on the course.
It was hot and I was getting burned even though I reapplied sunscreen in
T2. I was sucking down my G2 gatorade
and also grabbing water at the aid stations.
The turnaround was at mile
6.55 and naturally it was at the top of a hill.
I had planned on calling Wendy at the turnaround, but we had a good mile
and a half descent so I didn’t call until about mile 8. She was very excited to talk to me and it
really boosted my spirits. I needed
that. I kept going.
For the climbs I would pick
a spot that I would run to, then walk a certain number of steps and then start
jogging again. This worked very well and
I was surprised that many times when the point where I decided I would run to
would come, I felt well enough to keep going, so I did.
The descents I would run as
best as I could and could cruise at about an 8:30-9:00 pace. Then there was the doozy of a full mile climb
between miles 10 and 11. Goodness, but
this part went relatively fast for me. I
think I climbed it in about 14 minutes.
Before I knew it, I was
heading into the finish and thankfully so.
I was hurting in so many spots it wasn’t funny. Finish!
I saw Gretchen at the finish and learned that she had to bow out during
the bike ride due to pain in her leg after suffering through that grueling
climb. A good decision since she is
still in training.
I found out I got 2nd
place in the Clydesdale division. Well
there were only 3 of us so there ya go.
Not plaque or trophy for me. Oh
well.
This has to be the hardest
triathlon I have ever done. All the way
around—swim, bike, run. Crazy. The freezing water, riding the bike on a
chewed up road with incredible hills and then a grueling run with very little
support and literally no MoJo from spectators and volunteers. But I finished and I actually finished well
on the run. It was a good experience and
will only make me stronger for IMCDA in 2 months.
As I write this just 2 days
after the event, I completed a 2 mile run and 2400 yard swim tonight and I feel
terrific. Not really all that sore and
my legs and other muscles fired like they were supposed to during these
workouts. Proves that my fitness is
getting better and the plan is working.
Technical notes:
Pre: Don’t forget to band-aid my nipples. Enuff said.
Swim: When the water temp is low and it is
authorized, use booties and gloves. They
make a world of difference. Used my
neoprene cap and that worked well.
Having difficulty with range of motion of my arms in the wetsuit. Need to do more open water swims prior to
IMCDA. Navigation and form should not be
compromised in open water.
Bike: Water in aero jug was emptied twice. Drank a full 2-hr bottle of Infinit, 3 gels
and 4 snicker’s bites. Should get in
more Infinit during the ride. Must work
on proper execution of bike pacing plan.
Don’t get caught up in what everyone else is doing.
Run: Used the NB1062 size 12D without
orthotics. Feet felt fine during the
run. Run belt had 3 jugs of G2 and
guzzled all 3. Took in water at aid
stations along with pretzels and potato chips.
Ate 3 gels. Used a dish towel
soaked with water to cool my head and neck and wipe away sweat off my
face. Counting steps worked well when I
was tired.
Overall: Took along my iPhone with the MapMyFitness
app running. Battery
life was at 2% when I finished after 6 hours.
Hourly updates were enjoyed by folks following facebook. During IMCDA I will have to decide which one
to carry (bike or run).
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