White Lake Half II - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

The swim went well for me. I was hoping that I would be a little quicker than I was but everything went well. I was able to use the people around me for sighting for a good portion of the swim. There were two times that I lost the group and ended up having to correct my line.

My problem with swimming is that my shoulders are not very flexible so during the course of a long swim they start to ache from trying to keep my stroke long. Obviously that doesn't work that well either so I end up with a shortened, inefficient stroke that slows me down. It also creates issues on the bike.

I'm a slow swimmer and probably always will be unless I can somehow dramitically increase my shoulder flexibility. I really need to work on that before B2B so that my shoulder pain isn't as bad.

I wasted way to time trying to deal with all the grass and dirt stuck to my feet and trying to put on socks. Once again something that would come back to haunt me later. Other than that fiasco I can't think of much that was abnormal. The wetsuit came off without any problems and I had my helmet on quickly.

Definitely start doing all my rides without socks.

I was the most worried about the bike going into the race. I hadn't been doing much on the bike except for a few rides in the past month and a half. I spent the winter doing run training almost exclusively (aside from swimming) so my longest ride going into the race was 49 miles. I was fairly confident going in that I would probably be as comfortable on the bike as I have been for any other race. But the difference in the volume of training that I did for B2B last year was huge and that was just sitting in the back on my mind.

I started off feeling pretty good. I averaged 20 mph for the first 20 miles. The roads for most of those were making me wonder what I was doing out there. Bump after bump after bump! The funniest part of all was that I started hitting my mouth and nose and visor on my aerobottle straws. This was the first race that I used the Aquacell and couldn't figure out why I was all of a sudden hitting the straws. It took a couple of miles realized that the small bottle of the Aquacell had been bounced almost completely out of the big bottle. I spent the next few miles pushing it back down every couple of minutes.

I could feel the slight headwind on the long stretch down 210 and decided to keep things easy and didn't try to push the pace. I ended up finishing in the amount of time that I figured I would so I was okay with the preformance.

The biggest problem was trying to deal with the shoulder pain that persisted from the swim. It was not too bad through the first half of the bike but kept getting worse the rest of the way. That meant coming out of the aero postion more and more frequently to stretch everything out.

Train more. A lot more! I think that I was off on my nutrition as well. I probably didn't take in enough fluids and waited to long to eat some solid foods. I really need to work on that since I had the same issues at B2B last year.

Nothing too exciting here. I don't think I will waste time with a fuel belt from now on though. It hasn't proved much use in my long races.

No fuel belt.

I was hoping for a decent run but it wasn't going to happen. Since I had a great base coming into the race I was thinking that I might be able to do the run in 2 hours if I didn't trash myself on the bike.

I could tell almost immediately that this wasn't going to be pretty. The heat by the time I got off the bike was already making breathing more difficult than normal. I left my Garmin on the bike so I have no idea what pace I went out at but it certainly didn't feel that fast. I ran the first two miles and walked te aid stations taking in water and using the ice sponges to try and cool off some.

I wouldn't make the mile three mark before the wheels started to come off. I decided to switch to a run/walk before I got the the aid station at mile three. The fluids I was taking in weren't going anywhere. They just sat in my stomach sloshing around and making me nauscious. I was also starting to feel the effects of a blister that would end up covering almost the enitre ball of my foot.

That set the tone for the rest of the day. Energy leaving my legs on every run section and a blister that kept feeling more like a knife. I hit the turn around in 1:06 and was happy to know that I was on my way back. I finally started to take in Coke at mile 8 and it started to help me get some of my energy back. I continued with Coke, water and ice sponges at every eaid station after that.

I was able to run out the last half mile at a comfortable pace and finish with a smile on my face. I might could have pushed the running a little more but I was on the verge of cramping my right quad and the reward just wasn't worth the damage that would cause. At least I had a lot of people to commiserate with out there!

Everything?

Got in the lake to cool off! Sat around for a while on the wall at the lake and had some cookies and water. Finally felt like getting up and going to get my stuff together to head out. The thunderstorm started to roll in about that time. We got started walking back to the car as the rain started. But I was moving like a snail with my foot and we didn't make it back to the car before the bottom fell out. On the way out we got behind the Setup Events truck that was offering people on the course a ride back but nobody was taking up the offer.


Lack of training.


Setup always puts on a great race. Not sure that I have any desire to come back to White Lake anytime soon though. It's a great race atmosphere and overall I enjoyed the race but I'm almost done with long course races. Maybe they will resurface the roads in a few years and give it another shot.