Vineman IRONMAN 70.3 - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Started out close to the front of the pack, trying to avoid all the thrashing at the back. That seemed to work ok, but my breathing got a little out of whack trying to stay in front. Had to slow down a bit, and even did a little side stroke to get caught up on my breathing, and get my heartrate back down. Rest of the swim was pretty uneventful, the weirdest thing was touching the ground when you were swimming - in many places the river was only a couple of feet deep. Even saw lots of people walking, rather than swimming. For some reason, that just seemed wrong.

My swimming has not really improved in the last two years... I guess I either need to join up with a masters class, or just get used to having lots of people to pass on the bike.

T1 went well - considering the long run with the bike, and having to pack up all the swim stuff and hand off to my wife.

First half of the bike was awesome - I was on the top of my game, and the only people to pass me were the real hot-dogs, with the high dollar bikes and the wop-wop-wop-ing disk wheels. I passed lots of people, and traded places with a couple of females about a dozen times - I would pass them on the flats and downhills, and they would pass me on the hills.
I had planned on meeting my wife at the 101 intersection - it gives her something to do, and is a nice break from the pace. As I'm coming down the hill, probably doing close to 40 mph, I spot her, and plan my approach. I figure I'll scrub off most my speed on the road, the move into the gravel, and lock up the back tire, to add a little "flair" to my entrance. I carefully unclip my left shoe on my approach, and make the perfect "motocross" type of entrance. As I'm sliding in, I adjust my course just a little, and just as I'm coming to a start, I feel the bike start to "highside". No problem, I'm stopped, so I'll just put my right foot out to catch...... Wait, I didn't unclip the right foot..... So, you know the rest of the story - As I pulled up, making this glorious entrance, in front of about a dozen volunteers, police officers and my wife, I came to a sliding stop, and then very gracefully fell over.
Luckily, the only thing damaged was my pride, lost most of the water out of the profile aero bottle, and the chain fell off. A quick fix, a quick hug and a kiss from my wife, and I was off again...

I guess I must have looked worse than I felt, cause I actually a guy ask me if I was alright as he passed me a little later on.

That little event took a little steam out of my bike riding spirt. I tried to mentally get back in the game, but I found that I was really starting to have a sore back, and I began to think that I may have pushed a little too hard the first half. We were now moving south, against a 5 or 10 mph headwind - so I felt like my speed went down dramitically every time I got out of the aero position to stretch out. I had held a 18.4 mph average on the first half, and on the second half, I watched my average speed deteriorate... First 18.2, then 18.0, then below 18, then the Chalk Hill climb sucked even more life out of legs. I had two different leg muscles trying to cramp up, slow I slowed down even more, and focused on hydrating.

Once I got past Chalk Hill, I picked up the pace a bit. I still knew that I had to take it easy, to keep the leg cramps from coming back, so I jsut settled into a comfortable pace. Lots of people were passing me now, and that was a little demoralizing.

Finally, the end of the bike ride - tried to "bunny-hop" the speed bumps going into the school, and then unclipped and started running into the transistion area.

More long training rides - I only had one 75 mile ride the entire year, most the other rides were only 30-45 miles.

Stats- Average pace (including transistion runs) 16.8 mph.
Maximum speed 45.6 mph
3 hours, 18 minutes (including transistion runs).

Had some slow people in front of me, couldn't run with the bike until they had found their rack... Then I picked up the pace. Actually found my rack the first try, and racked the bike, changed shoes, took off my helmet and loaded up my waterbottle. I had put an ice chest at T2 the day before, with about 3 pounds of dry ice - hoping it would keep the bottles at least cold, if not icy, for the run. Last year the run was incredibly hot, and I wanted to carry my own water. Unfortunatly, this year it was much cooler - and I apparently OD'ed on dry ice - the bottles were completely, entirely, frozen. I put one of the bottle in my fuel belt, but after 1/2 a mile or so I tossed it - no sense in packing a 4 pound block of ice around with me for 2 hours....

Less dry ice...

As I started out the run, my feet were pretty "dead". I remember thinking "whose feet are these, they sure don't feel like mine?" I chalked this up to not enough long bike/run bricks, and just concentrated on keeping moving. Not all the miles were marked, so I averaged the ones I did not have readings for.
1 8'21"
2 8'55"
3 9'43"
4 9'59"
5 9'04"
6 9'40"
7 9'40"
8 9'40"
9 9'37"
10 10'19"
11 10'06"
12 10'01"
13 9'29"
13.1 50"

Not exactly negative splits, but probably the best run I could hope for given my level of training. The main thing I remember is being incredibly happy that the heat did not come - last year the run was such torture, I was very thankful that the delta breeze kicked in, and the temperatures stayed in the low 80's. On several occasions I did the math, and realized "if I can do this last 10k at 8 minute miles, I can break 6 hours!!!". After a couple of futile attempts, I realized that I did not have a single 8 minute mile left in my body, let alone a string of them.

The run course had lots and lots of hills. I did my usual "modified galloway" method, which I decided should be called the "Schmidt method" since I came up with it. Basically, I run as far up the hill as I can, without spiking my heart-rate, then walk the last 50 feet or so at the crest. I find that I lose very little distance compared to the runners that slug it out all the way to the top, and I feel that I am just a little "fresher" once I start in running again.

More long training runs and brick workouts in the heat.