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 Swim
Comments: I felt fine. Despite the fact that I live in upstate NY and most of my open water swims are done with a wetsuit, not having one for this race didn't bother me a bit. My first HIM was in Florida without a wetsuit so I knew I could make it. The water was incredibly warm, there was no noticeable temperature difference between the air and the water. It was a wade/deep water start, you could wait in neck deep water if you wanted to. My goal was to just focus on form, make it around the course and exit the water feeling good. My swimming volume for the previous month or so was low so there would be no speed records set. From the start to the first buoy these was a lot feet and elbows to deal with, as well as weeds which I found out later is called Hydrilla. Aptly named stuff. It was very congested to the first buoy, but I took that as a good sign as it meant I hadn't been dropped from the main pack yet. Then we turned into the sun and my navigation got screwy. I have serious navigation problems. I'm going to have to work on it over the winter, but I'm not sure how. I felt fine for the first half. I knew I was slow but I didn't care. I even managed to draft of off 2 different guys for a while. About halfway, my right hip started hurting pretty intensely. I've had this flair up while running and biking, but never while swimming. Very odd. It forced me to slow down more and I started getting worried about the rest of the race but I managed to put things into focus and just get on with the task at hand. It's funny how being in deep water a couple hundred yards from shore without a wetsuit can clear ones mind. I was having one kind of trouble: music. When I swim in open water I try to get into a rhythm and having a song play in my head helps with that. For some odd reason, I couldn't latch onto a good song. First it was the disco songs from the Chicken Little animated movie, then YYZ. While YYZ is certainly a better song than the previous ones, it's kind of hard to get into a swimming groove with a song in 10/8 going through your head. So, why did I have a slow swim? Blame Canada. The swim exit was staffed by an excellent group of volunteers who were helping us out of the water. The exit was a longish hill up to the TA so the help was appreciated. And who did I see but Bill and Shaun! I do recall Shaun grabbing my arm and saying something encouraging, but I have to admit I was focussed on my hip and testing to see if I'd have any pain walking. I did manage to hit the lap button on my watch and as I looked at it I was surprised at how slow my swim was. I knew it was slow but 51 minutes? Wow... What would you do differently?: Site more frequently. Maybe up the effort a bit. I'm always concerned that any time gained due to extra effort put out in a long swim will come back to bite me later. The (energy cost/time gained) ratio gets very big very quickly in the water.  Transition 1
Comments: I don't remember much about the run up the hill except thinking "that wasn't bad at all" once I was at the top. I do recall hearing a lot of cowbells and silently thanking Shaun. Upon entry into the transition area, I was presented with my customary T1 view of my bike clearly standing out amongst the many empty rack spaces. :) All in all this was ok. I wasn't trying to set any records, just get through it. What would you do differently?: Nothing. I made it from the swim course to the bike course without injuring or embarrassing myself.  Bike
Comments: "It's a fair bike course." - Keith Jordan, RD. By 'fair' I assume he means 'reasonably challenging and interesting'. Because that's exactly what it was. Whether you are someone who's out to win the race or just complete your first HIM, this is indeed a fair course. It's just technical enough with flats, climbs and descents that will leave you knowing you just rode your bike for 57 miles and it easily could tempt you into riding those miles too hard. This would be an easy course to go too hard on. Don't go too hard and you'll be rewarded with a great ride. It also has some nice scenery, although it doesn't compare with the northeastern US. It was very cool for this Yankee to ride past ranches and cacti, the odd shack notwithstanding. Tons of volunteer coverage on the course which was just great. There were a lot of turns on this course and yet every one was covered with at least a few volunteers. All crossings that warranted police presence had it and even the cops were smiling and acknowledging the racers. That's fairly rare in my experience. Don't know if it's a Texas thing, a Travis County thing, or a Longhorn thing, but it was noticed and appreciated. I mostly stuck to my nutrition plan and I think it went just fine. Eat every 20 minutes with 1/3 of a Clif bar each time for the first 2 hours, then switch to gels. Drink every 10 minutes alternating Gatorade endurance and water. I got one water and one Gatorade at the second aid station. Mile markers every 10 miles which was helpful because I didn't have a cyclcomputer with me. I wasn't going to be a slave to the speedometer. This was done on RPE solely. Saw lots of bike debris on the road: yellow Aerobottle poofies, a few behind the seat 2 bottle holders and at one point even a Podium Quest dual chamber system! I would have stopped for that one, the things aren't cheap and there was still a long way to go in the race. I'll bet that person paid for that decision. At one point I was a Mavic car pull over and the driver get out to retrieve a full bottle in the middle of the road. That was indicative of how this race was put on. Lots of people paying close attention to lots of details and doing whatever they saw needed to be done. To the gentleman in the aero helmet who was struggling up a very short hill somewhere after mile 40, swearing about the bike course being way to hard and insulting whoever designed it: sir, you either went too hard or were undertrained for the race. The course was fine. There are plenty of HIM bike courses out there with much more climbing. I hope you have or will come to the realization that your ire on that hill was misplaced. Saw Sue around mile 45 or so, she wasn't feeling so hot. Felt bad for her. She still had a seat at that point. My hip reintroduced itself at mile 50. Nothing major, certainly not as bad as in the water, but it stayed that way for the rest of the day, just to let me know it was there. Mile 55 brought what I consider to be the only hill of any significance. I actually smiled going up it. About halfway up I looked and saw that to the right, on the other side of a fence, was the run course. A little quick math and I realized that these people are among the first competitors. My smile faded and I had a little talk with myself. "Hey self, are some of those fast people walking up that hill?" "Yup" "And isn't this a 2 loop run course?" "Yup". "Crap" "Yup." At the top of the hill was a woman dressed as a devil who was yelling encouragement to people. She just made my day. Turns out she's dgunthert's wife. She's better looking than his avatar too. ;) What would you do differently?: Not much. I was slow, but I expected to be. I finished and felt ok coming off of the bike which was the goal. Transition 2
Comments: Say Aaron coming into T2. He yelled something at me. I yelled something back. I realized his race was all done and felt really bad for him. I took my time again here. A minute or two wasn't going to matter much one way or the other. Turns out I should have taken a little more time because I forgot to put on my number belt. Dummy. What would you do differently?: Put on my number belt. That makes 2 races where I've forgotten this. Dummy.  Run
Comments: Heat and hills. I think I could have handled one. Both, no way. I started running easy, felt ok, no back pain like at FLT a few weeks ago which gave me a real mental boost. Then I got to the first uphill and my calves started to cramp. That NEVER happens to me. I had been taking salt tabs on the bike and drank a lot of Gatorade so it really surprised me. A side stitch also developed. Wah. I ran out of transition and said to the kids at the first aid station "is it too late to put together a relay team?". Thus began my strategy of using humor to keep myself from falling down to the ground screaming "Make it stop, please, just make it stop!" This report is getting ridiculously long and I seriously doubt anyone will read this far. In the unlikely case that you have, the code word to prove it is "Booger". I started with a plan to run easy to start, pick it up a bit after 15-20 minutes, walk the aid stations and save something for a good push on the last 5k. The first hill revealed that for the hopeless fantasy it was, so I figured I'd go with a Gallo walk strategy: 9 minutes running, one minute walking and walk the aid stations. 59 seconds into my first walk session I amended that to 8 minutes running 2 minutes walking. This worked well for most of the first loop. I tried chatting with a few people but it was too hard. They weren't interested and I didn't really have the energy to talk. Yes, Dudley, it was THAT hot. At each aid station I took 2 waters, one to drink, one to pour on me. I took every sponge offered me. Coming back towards the TA I realized I had forgot my race belt and race nubmer. Great! At least the course went right past the TA entrance. I then saw Fleeb and some other BTer's who yelled something like "you look great!". I wanted to yell out "You're a lying sack of &$!#" but there were kids around so I just said "I feel awful" but I tried to say it as positively as possible. Just because you're miserable and in pain doesn't mean you can't be positive and have fun. I ran back inside the TA and got my race number which added probably a minute and a half to my time. Yeah, that's what blew my race. If it wasn't for that minute and a half... I ran off course not long after that. I was so out of that I missed a clearly marked turn by some volunteers giving out sponges. They yelled to me which got me back on course and I missed another turn right away and they yelled again. How could I have missed the hundreds of blue sponges on the ground along the course? I really was starting to fade. Then I came to Devil's Hill. I don't care what it's actually called, it will forever be called that by me in honor of dgunthert's wife. That's when my "walk up hill" strategy started. One person ran by me at that point. I would have hated him, but I didn't have the energy. I was also too busy pretending I still had the ability to go under 2:15 for the run. At the top of the hill Devil Girl looked at me and yelled out "BT!!" which I did not expect. I remember thinking "Devil Girl is a BTer? If I wasn't so miserable, I'd be really happy." Starting the 2nd loop, I came up on a guy in my age group who was walking just ahead of me. I pulled up to him and said "We'll run to the bottom of the next hill, let's go". He started running with me and we ended up sticking together and motivating each other for the rest of the race. If you look at the race results, we finished at the same time. When we got to the top of a hill, one of us would say "ok, let's go" to get the other running. By this time the strategy was walk up hill and at aid stations, run on (most) flats and down hill. The last few miles are fuzzy but I remember seeing the 10 mile sign and thinking "just a 5k left, we can do a 5k" and at the 12 mile sign thinking "I can do anything for one mile". Put together a decent jog for the finish chute and was greeted by BTer's yelling and sticking their hands out.There is a singular feeling that accompanies being cheered down the finish chute of a long, tough race by friends who know and appreciate what you have and are experiencing. Thank you for that. I don't feel bad about my time on this "run" because anyone who finished this deserves credit. This was hard. Really hard. Harder than the Musselman run last year with similar temps? Yeah. This was hillier, the humidity was higher and there was less shade. I've done 3 HIM's now, all of them with temps in the mid-90's during the run (what did I do to deserve that?) and this was hands down the hardest. Heat and hills. With God as my witness, someday I will do a HIM where the run isn't a death march under a blazing sun with temps in the mid-90's and I WILL post a sub 2 hour half marathon. Dudley hasn't told me if we're doing Timberman or Tupper Lake next year. Maybe that'll be the race... What would you do differently?: An aquabike. Actually, nothing. This was hard and pulled it together and finished under my own power. It wasn't pretty, but I'll take it. Post race
Warm down: Gender 311/450 - gotta create a field for this. Once across the line, I sat down in the first chair I saw, shook my running partners hand and just sat for a minute. I got up and started to walk towards the exit, then found another chair and sat there. I realized how hot I felt and put my iced towel from heaven in another barrel of ice water then over my head. Got up, left the chute area, looked at the medical tent and then realized i was standing still but had no idea how long I'd been standing there and that I felt really, really bad. So, I walked into the medical tent and looked around. A woman asked me if I needed help and I couldn't answer her, only nod. She asked if I wanted to sit or lay down and again, I couldn't talk, only point to a cot. As I was laying down I was able to croak out "hot". They iced me down, got me some Gatorade and I recuperated there for probably 15-20 minutes. Felt fine after that. One thing remember from my time on the cot was being really frustrated with the bass player of the band that was playing. They were playing Blister In the Sun and he/she was butchering the bass line. You can't just leave notes out of that. It's not a technically hard bass line. If you can't play it right, don't play it at all. But I was slightly delirious at the time, so it could have just been me. After I left the med tent, I got something to eat and hung out with the BTers. Watched Marcy and then Sue cross the finish line! Very, very cool. I don't think I was mentally 100% for the rest of the day. What limited your ability to perform faster: Did I do this race to my potential? No, not at all, but I didn't train to do it to my potential. I trained to complete it. Given my fitness coming into the race, I think I executed ok. My placement improved with each leg, so that says something. The demands on my time this spring and summer were generally just too much to put in consistently big training hours week after week. Hopefully next year I'll only have one job and more flexibility in my schedule that will allow me to train more for long distance. Event comments: Keith Jordan and his crew do an absolutely amazing job. Many race organizations can't pull off something like this after years of experience in one venue. Endorfun did a world class job and it's their first time in this city. Any race that still has ice at every aid station on the run 7 hours in, with temps in the mid 90's is doing it right. The attention to detail and sheer dedication to athletes *and spectators* is just overwhelming. Everyone involved with putting this race on should be proud of themselves. You did a fantastic job. No one organizes or runs half iron distance triathlon races/festivals better than Keith Jordan and Endorfun Sports. Incredible volunteers. Just incredible. Austin is an awesome city. I just fell in love with the area. Now the nitpicky: I would have appreciated more buoys between the turns on the swim course and the weeds at the beginning were kind of a hassle. That's all I can think of. This race was practically perfect. Last updated: 2007-06-26 12:00 AM
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1000F / 538C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 432/696
Age Group = M40-44
Age Group Rank = 69/87
Flew into town Thursday night. It was actually cheaper to stay Thursday night to Monday morning than Friday to Sunday due to the lower airfares. Go figure. And, the nice young lady at the Delta ticket desk didn't charge me the oversized luggage fee for the bike box. Bonus!!
Got in late, by the time I was driving out of the airport it was about 11:30pm. This was my first time in Austin and I immediately liked the feel of the city.
Friday I took it easy. In the morning I did some BT email support, assembled the bike, got in a short run and went downtown and wandered around a bit, had at great lunch at a place called Veggie Heaven then back to the hotel for a nap, more support email and some other work. KGSR officially became my favorite radio station of all time.
Then it was off to the expo. Met Kevin Koskella aka TriSwimCoach. Very, very nice guy. I also met the first groups of I have no idea how many BTers for the weekend. Wow. I'm not even going to try to mention everyone because I'll omit someone and I don't want to anyone to feel slighted. All I can say is, I enjoyed meeting everyone so much.
Had dinner plans with Fleeb, but he left Ft. Worth later than he had expected to and I had plans to see Slaid Cleaves at The Cactus Cafe so dinner didn't happen. Slaid was great. I didn't realize the history he had with the club, that this was very much a "home" show for him. It wasn't disappointing. On top of being a first rate songwriter, he's a very engaging performer. Cleaves is from Maine originally, we're about the same age and it turns out he used to play the same cover circuit I did in New England way back when. Odd. The band was just perfect. Consisted of Michael O'Connor on guitar and Ivan Brown on bass. O'Connor is one of those guitarists who only plays exactly what should be played. Nothing more, nothing less. It wouldn't occur to 99.99% of guitarists to play what he does, but once you hear it you know that nothing else would fit quite as well. It was worth the 16 bucks just to hear him. Ivan Brown is probably THE first call bassist for every singer in Austin. His song "He's Six" was a show highlight. The only downside of the night was that I kept turning to the seat next to me expecting to see Julie there. She would have loved this show and it was disappointing not to be able to share it with her.
Saturday morning I took it easy. I wanted to see the folks doing the Sprint and Oly, but slept in because I knew that I wouldn't sleep well Saturday night. Went for a ride to check out the bike and see a bit of the area, then worked for a bit and drove downtown and the east side of town. Saw some amazing homes in one neighborhood. I forgot my wallet in the room, which I didn't realize until I was at Whole Foods though. Damn.
Went back to the room, collected my stuff and it was off to the Expo again. My mission today was to give away as many cowbells as possible. I wasn't taking any home or letting them go to waste, but they weren't flying off the table like at Lone Star. Met lots more BTers, some regional TNT folks and finally met Keith Jordan, RD extraordinaire. He already looked exhausted and he had a half iron to finish setting up for and put on the next day. I also said hi to his mother in law who I met at LoneStar and Mooseman. She runs the race logo'd gear concession and is just as nice a person as you could meet.
I really enjoy hanging at a BT booth at race expos. It's just great to be surrounded by so many people getting mentally prepared for a big race. Some of my favorites are the ones who've been training on their own for their first tri. They're so nervous and excited and willing to soak up any information they can get. It's great to see their husbands/boyfriends/wives/girlfriends/parents so excited for them. It's easy to forget what a big deal it can be (and was for me) to do ones first triathlon. Not that I don't appreciate it, but seeing and talking to a steady stream of people about to race for the first time really brings that unique mixture of excitement, uncertainty, hope and fear home.
Went with Aaron to drop off bikes in transition and check out the lake. It was good to hang for a while with him. I missed Haley at that point. Someday he, Haley, Julie and I will get to spend some time together. Preferably in Hawaii. :)
Then came a quick stop at the hotel to make myself presentable and off to the BT dinner. I got a little lost on the way there, not too bad though and I recovered quickly. That's one of the things I was loving about Austin. I get lost looking for the bathroom in my own home. But in Austin I could find my way around and the few times I did take my normal (wrong) turn, the streets are set up so that I could recover relatively easily. I like that in a city.
The dinner itself was great. Too many people in too tight a space for getting up and mingling so I made one quick circuit of the room and then sat down with Sue, Shawn, Lynne and some BTers I had just met. A nice mix of old and new friends. Dinner was just great. I couldn't get over sitting in this room with all those great people enjoying each others company and getting excited about the race they had just done or were about to do. A few years ago when Ron started this, it was a big deal when there were nearly 50 people on BT at once. Here I was having dinner with that many. And I think I only got asked one "hey can I do xxxx on BT?" question the whole night :). I had had a big lunch and planned to eat fairly small at dinner, but Sue's salad and lasagna was too good and I ended up eating more than planned. We took a great group picture outside after dinner, can't wait to see it, then it was back to the hotel to pack the transition bag for the race on Sunday. I did have to stop on the way to the hotel to buy a poofie for my aerobottle and an M&M minis container for my salt tabs.
Alarm went off at 5:00. I showered, had an ensure and a banana and left the hotel. Got a really bad cup of coffee on the way. By the time I got to the park, the line of cars was pretty long but it was moving and I got a parking spot at the race site without any problems.
I ran into Bill and Shaun, talked for a bit and then set up transition. I'm a big fan of the assigned transition spots. It's got to be a killer amount of of work printing, applying and then removing the labels from the bike racks, but this is an Endorfun race. They pay attention to the details and get them right, hard work or not.
When I went to bodymarking Shaun was in the middle of the volunteers (he's easy to spot) and I yelled out "I want to be bodymarked by the big, sexy guy right there!" and he replied with "Come here baby!". There were a lot of people around us, but for some reason we were given plenty of room for him to bodymark me.
I ended up in the porta potty line for the ones with no paper. No one in line at the time realized that it was only the dark blue ones with this problem. It came to my turn and I made the decision to go for it. This could have made for a very long day, but I just thought"You walked in here wearing two socks, and you are walking out of here wearing two socks. Now think.". Well the paper was gone but the tube it came on was still there. Ta-da! Lesson learned: always remember to bring flushable wipes to races. Always.
Then it was off to wander around and find people. I made my way down to the swim start and waited for the first wave to go off when I realized I had 2 full boxes of cowbells in the trunk of the rental car. Crap! I saw Sue and asked her where Shaun was, I figured if I got him my keys he might be willing/able to get the cowbells and drop them off at the volunteer tent. Sue said he was working the swim exit, then handed me her flip-flops and asked me to give them to Shaun. 15 minutes before a HIM and I'm a footwear delivery boy. It's a good thing she's cute.
I got my car keys from transition, found Shaun at the swim start, explained about the cowbells and asked if he'd get them. He agreed. For that I owe him forever, otherwise I'd have hundreds of cowbells in my home and my children would find them and use them (shudder). Rule #1 of the cowbell game is you don't dip into your own wares, num sayin?
Stayed at the exit for our national anthem and then to the swim start to watch the first wave go off. And to start a very, very long race of my own...