LongHorn Triathlon Festival - Half Iron - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

::Plan::

Start toward the outside (right) and the front, start with an over-emphasized reach and roll to force my focus on body position and mechanics rather than on effort, breath every 3 strokes, sight every 6 strokes, and increase my turnover after the last turn.

::Reality::

Everything went according to plan. Because of this, this was the first lake swim that I genuinely enjoyed. I was able to pick a line that was largely free of people, yet close enough to the optimal line that I wasn't swimming too far. The disadvantage to this approach is the lack of drafting opportunities. But since I'm no good at drafting, I would rather have open water than a little bit of help.

The only "issue" that I had to deal with was the sun popping out from behind a cloud on the first out section - I got blinded during my sightings for a few minutes until the clouds blocked the sun again.

About 100m-200m from the finish, it started getting a bit crowded - I both kicked and got kicked, but nothing that really slowed me down.

Anyway, this was a good, consistent swim for me. My open-water swimming pace is starting to creep toward my pool swimming pace (1:35-ish over this distance), which is very encouraging (this even considers the reputed 200m-300m shortage of the course's distance).


I think I could have increased my overall effort a bit without adversely affecting the rest of the race, but doing so wouldn't have really improved my overall performance, so it's probably a moot point.

The one strategy that I could have changed was sighting every 9 strokes instead of every 6. I swam pretty straight and never needed to really correct my course. Going with every 9 would have allowed me to relax even more.

::Plan::

Jog (don't walk), but otherwise take my time; eat one Gel and a gulp of water before leaving transition; and put my bike shoes on first (not a flying leap sort of guy).

::Reality::

I actually had legs when I came out of the water, so jogging up the hill to transition wasn't a problem - I even got to steel a kiss from the wife along the way this time. :-)

I'm not used to wearing my race number belt on the bike, so I had to convince myself that I was really supposed to take it along with me... despite the fact that I intentionally setup my area so that it would be obvious to me.

My rack spot was fairly close to the bike in/out (between rows N and O), so I didn't have to trot too far in my bike shoes. This was a fairly uneventful transition.


Other than consider wearing my race number belt under my tri top for the swim, there's not much that I would change about this transition.

::Plan::

Average 18mph by coasting the downhills and spinning (90rpm) the uphills, eat a Gel every 20mins (carried 8), drink a mouthful of Accelerade with every Gel and every 15mins otherwise (carried 2 x 24oz), and accept a bottle of water at every handup and drink ~8-12oz and toss the rest to the shoulder.

::Reality::

In hindsight, I did everything that I intended to do, but it took much more effort than I was expecting. As a result, I averaged in the low-17's - not surprising/unexpected, but a little disappointing, especially given how much it took out of me.

Most of my bike training is in the early, early morning (3am-6am), so I'm either on the trainer or the wind has yet to get going for the day. Therefore, the wind really threw me for a loop - it felt like a persistent headwind for 70-80% of the course. I'm sure a large part of it is my lack of experience with riding in it and the fact that I ride on a 24-year-old steel frame (it's a good bike, but not wind-/hill-friendly), but the comments/curses made by those that I passed or by those that passed me validate my observations.

Additionally, while none of the singular hills were anything that I haven't ridden before, the cumulative effect of all of the climbs really got me. All in all, the course was an appropriate challenge for me, but my lack of bike training really hamstrung me on the run.

Regarding nutrition, I need to find something other than Accelerade - it completely trashes my stomach. I didn't have time before the race to try something new in the context of a long bike, so I just went with what I knew. By the end of the bike, my stomach wasn't unlike a washing machine into which an entire box of detergent had been poured.

Otherwise, the only other thing that stood out to me about the bike was that it was crowded. Way crowded. How could you _not_ draft? And I was in the 11th wave - I can't imagine how the preceding waves felt.


Honestly, other than replacing my bike and/or training more, there's nothing that I could have done to materially affect my bike performance. Yes, Icould have made an effort on the descents, but who knows how that would have further affected my run.

::Plan::

Get out of the shoes while moving, do a moving dismount, jog (don't walk) to bike rack, take a swig of water, get dressed, and jog out.

::Reality::

Moving dismount worked fine, even with the limited amount of road that we were left with after that final ascent.

I was able to jog back to the rack without cramping, but when I arrived back at the rack, I found that the Gel wrapper that I left on the ground from T1 had attracted every fire ant in Texas. Not cool. At all. Not a single one of 'em found their way to my shoes, though - that's an act of God right there.

Rotating my race belt around from back to front caused me to rip one corner of the number off of the belt. Therefore, I had to spend a minute to bite a hole in the number so that I could secure it again. Biting through that race number material is harder than it sounds.

When I finally started trotting out, I felt twinges of quad cramps starting to rear their ugly heads. Visions of the Disco Olympic tri (CrampFest) danced in front of me. This was going to be a long run.


Not leave sugary trash laying around my area. Next time, I'll put it in Todd's.

::Plan::

Being new to this distance and given that I had never done a brick session that came close to these distances, I really didn't know what to expect. Therefore, I was going focus on keeping a fast turnover, not worry about time, and drink 1 16oz bottle of water + Nuun per loop. If I had anything left in me on the second loop, I would increase my effort as much as I could.

::Reality::

The difficulty of this run course was waaaay understated, I think. I've never run on so many hills!

I was able to start the run actually running, but by the first climb, I knew I was in trouble as my inner left quad started to get extremely tight and twitchy on me. The ensuing descent alleviated it somewhat, but we were thrown right back into another climb. Stronger tightness/twitching.

At the first "Energy Lab" aid station, I walked for a bit while nursing my Nuun water and massaging my left quad. About a mile later, the tightness/cramping/twitching had pretty much disappeared and I was able to resume a respectable cadence (90-95).

To make a long story short, the first run through the park section (including Quadzilla) wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but the tightness/cramping/twitching had returned - in both quads - and I couldn't get rid of them. The remainder of the run was spent at a slow jog and walking the crests of most hills. Somehow, I was able to reserve enough energy to actually run (9:00ish pace) the last mile or so from the top of Quadzilla to the finish line.


I was really expecting more from my run - the area in which I've improved the most this year (ran a 47:48 10k in an olympic tri several weeks ago and my long runs topped out at 15M at a this-feels-relatively-easy 8:00 pace). My lack of preparation for the bike, however, really put me in a deficit from which I wasn't able to recover. Lesson learned.

Even though I didn't meet my expectations, I'm hardly disappointed. This was a very challenging race for me and probably the single most difficult run course on which I've run (this would have made for a very hard straight half-marathon). That it only took ~15 more minutes to finish the run than my last straight half-marathon (on a fast course, too) not even a year ago (2:01 @ White Rock Half) is encouraging.

::Plan::

No plan.

::Reality::

I just tried to keep moving in order to keep the cramping from crippling me. Oddly enough, the banana that they handed out was pure gold, but the thought of eating a burrito or drinking beer made me want to puke.



Bike. I'm riding a 20-something year old Centurion Ironman... with girl-ish coloring, no less - something that generated some clever comments by those that passed me on the bike. I'm cool with it, though. It's heavy and hardly aero, however, so it's not realistic for me to expect stellar bike performances while I'm riding it.

Training. I used a 20-week training block. Most of it went really well, but the parts where my consistency fell apart were toward the end - the wrong time to drop the ball on training. My bike volume especially suffered. I did a 68M bike 7 weeks prior to the race, but never even came close to the distance thereafter.

Even so, given that this was my first race at this distance, I didn't have any expectations to finish under a certain time (I really wanted to break 6 hours, though), so I'm hardly disappointed. Quite the opposite, actually - I enjoyed myself to the extent that I was wanting to think about doing this distance again not too long after crossing the finish line (granted, it took a few hours of sitting down and air conditioning to get me there).



We couldn't keep our 1- and 3-year-old daughters out in that heat/dust, so we booked it out of there as soon as we could; I didn't have a chance to exploit any of the post-race offerings.

Obviously, transportation was a huge issue at this event, but I'm sure that the appropriate lessons were learned and that changes will be made for next year's event.