Spirit of Racine Half Ironman Triathlon - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Fast swim due to the current. Gmaps shows it to be about 1.1 mile distance, so a little short, but not massively.

It was *very* shallow. Like, ridiculously shallow. I have no idea why the buoys were as far in as last year. There was no fog. It made swimming a bit hard at times, as my hand kept scraping the sand. And I had to avoid swimming into the people who stood up and started walking.

Not much, I swam this hard, didn't do anything out of the norm.

Good T1.

Wetsuit came off quickly. Did the "high step" and popped both legs out on the first try.

I had to strap the garmin on my wrist, so that takes a few seconds. Threw helmet on, pit stop in my back pocket, then grabbed the bike and took off.

Ran past the mount line to mount, as everyone again stopped right on the mount line to swing their legs over. MOVE PEOPLE!!!! Flying mount went smooth, feet on top of the shoes and pedaled up the hill. Took the right turn on Main Street before putting feet into the shoes and tightening up the straps.

Not much, except have a garmin 310xt, so I don't have to lose 15 seconds in T1 putting on the 305. Hurry up and ship it already Garmin! :)

I was ready for this. I had a plan to tear it up on the bike, based on the way my bike training has been going and knowing I was in great shape.

Started out good, got myself settled, and started the nutrition.

Schmize passed me and gave me this goofy look. WTH! No way I was letting that stand so I bided my time, and then sniped him back with the same look a few minutes up the road. We continued in this manner for a few miles, then I got up the road a little bit on him. Was about mile 30'ish or so, and I had ditched one of my two bottles at an aid station. Moved the seat tube bottle to the between the aerobars bottle holder I had ziptied on.

Went around a tight corner, and hit a big tar seam in the road that bounced the bottle out. It was right at the intersection, with voluneers/cops and a ref to my left looking right at me when it happened. Not to mention it's littering anyway. So I stopped, sprinted back to the bottle, grabbed it, ran back to my bike and jumped back on. Getting back up to speed and Schmize passed me again. Can't seem to shake that guy. :)

I made a push to get back up the road, and picked the pace up and started reeling back in all the people who passed me while I was picking up the bottle.

I won't get into the draft packs too much, but they were there. Fortunately was in one of the early waves, and had a good swim, so I was pretty far into the bike before I saw the first one roll by at about mile 40.

I sat up and called out the entire pack as it went by. The litany of excuses was enlightening. A few guys looked sheepish, but made no move to stop riding in the pack. A few claimed "I can't help it". "I can't drop them." "They're too strong for me." Whatever lets them justify it to themselves I guess.

Once I was out the back, I kept them about :15 to :30 up the road. The last bit of the course was mine, and I knew it fairly well, having done this race 4 times now. So I bided my time staying legal, then I made my move. I launched past the entire pack in the last 6 miles. Averaged 26 mph for about 15 minutes. Got them all back, unless there were a few who did manage to escape out the front.

Nutrition was:

nothing for first 15 min, let HR settle and get into zone.

After that, 1x325 cal Infinit + 1x100 cal Roctane per ~1hour. Mixed the Infinit in 20oz bottles as it was going to be cooler, and I didn't want to overhydrate and pee a ton on the bike ( which has happened in the past ). Got it perfect. Finished all my nutrition on schedule, no issues putting down the calories. And I didn't have to pee on the bike, which made it comfortable.

Make sure powermeter is torque zeroed on race morning. ( Or use a powermeter that autozeroes torque )

Go a little harder, I ended up slightly under my power targets.

Pretty happy with this. Could have been slightly better if I hadn't dropped a bottle and if I'd pushed it harder for the first hour rather than listening to a miscalibrated powermeter.

Though perhaps the latter was an inadvertently good strategy, as I way negative split the bike ( 22.5 mph first hour, 23.3 mph the remainder ).

Fast T2. Could have been slightly faster except I started to run off with my vittoria pit stop in my jersey pocket, so I ran back and dropped that at my rack.

Socks on, shoes on, grab visor. Go. Pretty simple. Gels were already in my pockets from before the race.

Remember to remove pit stop. Save 5 more seconds.

I started the run chasing Schmize, who I could see just up the road from me. I didn't see him duck into a portapotty at mile 1'ish though ( to change into his superman costume? ). So I kept chasing, trying my hardest to keep the gap or close it down. As I neared the turn around at mile 3.5, kept looking for him coming back, but he wasn't there? I was confused. Then I saw him, *behind me*! He was moving good though, and was flying along ( being superman ).

Managed to hold off the re-pass until about mile 5'ish, shortly before we head back into the zoo area.

Kept on plugging away and legs felt pretty good. Was reeling off mid-7 minute miles. Taking in water and heed at every aid station. Probably should have taken a gel, but was feeling pretty good with the heed.

I peed twice on the run, but I decided that I wasn't going to stop in a portapotty to do it. I was on a mission, and I knew I was well on my way to a huge PR, and I wanted every second to count. So I just kinda went while I was running, and then got a cup of water from an aid station to "rinse off". I didn't even have to slow down, to my surprise. Good "trick" to know, even if a little gross, but I don't think it's that different than peeing on the bike. :)

I made it through the turn around, and was still feeling ok. I pushed it up the two hills a little bit, as I was in my run groove and not fresh off the bike. I was able to still see Scott in the distance, and was trying to keep him in sight, but the rubber band snapped about mile 7'ish. I was still running in 7:40's pace looking at my Garmin, so I was happy with how the race was going.

There was a lot more traffic on this loop, since I was running through all the people who were coming in from the later waves and starting their first laps. The course got a big crowded in some of the narrower parts, but nothing too bad. The sun came out for a little bit and it got a bit warmer.

As I came around the turnaround, Holly told me Laura was a couple minutes up the road starting her run. So I ran up to her. She was looking good, moving along a good pace. Gave her a little pat on the back as I came by still trying to catch back up to Schmize.

I saw a lot of people that I knew on this lap. I managed to acknowledge most of them, though I was starting to feel the race catching up. A tried to at least give a thumbs up to everyone, if not say Hi. To those that only got a grunt, sorry. :)

The last three miles really started to hurt. I slowed to about 8's, but was still feeling okay, just the legs didn't want to turn over. I think maybe I hadn't gotten enough calories from heed, as I promptly slammed a couple cups of heed down, and then started to feel better. I never took any of my gels, which I probably should have done.

As I was coming back through the zoo, I was trying to catch up to Griz, who was having a great race. He was moving pretty good, so I had to work to catch up to him. Definitely pulled me along for a little bit there Griz, so thanks for that!

Was able to pick the pace back up for the final mile, thanks the assist from Griz, and just know that the pain would stop as soon as I crossed the line.

Shot out of the zoo and then the stride found a little bounce again. Coming down the hill into the finish felt great. Stride opened up, and the pain faded as it always does coming into the finish. All the aches were gone, and I just soaked in coming into the finish knowing that I had just shattered all of my previous PRs.

Schmize was already done, but was off to the side at the finish chute and shouting, so that gave me a last little boost up over the final bump to the finish line. All alone, nobody nipping at my heels, and it felt great to cross that line.

 

Lap Data 

Lap	Time	Distance	Pace/Speed	AHR	MHR 

1	07m 51s	1.00 miles	07m 51s /mile	144	152 

2	07m 04s	0.97 miles	07m 19s /mile	147	150 

3	07m 23s	1.00 miles	07m 23s /mile	146	148 

4	07m 28s	1.00 miles	07m 28s /mile	147	150 

5	07m 30s	1.00 miles	07m 30s /mile	149	151 

6	07m 38s	1.00 miles	07m 38s /mile	147	150 

7	07m 41s	1.00 miles	07m 41s /mile	148	155 

8	07m 43s	1.00 miles	07m 43s /mile	149	156 

9	07m 36s	1.00 miles	07m 36s /mile	147	150 

10	07m 51s	1.00 miles	07m 51s /mile	147	149 

11	08m 02s	1.00 miles	08m 02s /mile	146	148 

12	08m 10s	1.00 miles	08m 11s /mile	146	148 

13	07m 50s	1.00 miles	07m 50s /mile	148	155 

14	00m 21s	0.06 miles	06m 05s /mile	157	160 

Not much, this was great run for me. My 1/2 mary open PR is 1:35. I was only 5 minutes off that time, and it was a much flatter course.

I really wanted a 1:3x time, but just missed that.

While I was more rested for this than Rockman, I still had a fairly busy "Volume Taper" leading up, with a solid 4 hour bike ride on Thursday before.

Crossed the line, staggered over by the fence, as my legs suddenly decided they were done. Pulled myself back together, walked up the chute a bit, got my finisher's medal, turned in my chip, and got two bottles of water.

Promptly drank the first one. Walked around a bit, talked to people that I knew. Congratulated a friend, Sara Nelson, who had finished just ahead of me and had a seriously kick butt race.

Went back through the area, over by the Donkey convention tent, and hung out there for a few minutes. Then I started getting really cold, as the sun went away and a breeze picked up. All my warm clothes were back at the car.

I went to transition, got my arm warmers and leg warmers, as that was all I had. Then I decided I was hungry, so went and got food and a coke. Wolfed it all down in a few seconds. Then back to transition to get the bike and gear since I was heading to the car anyway.

Went to the car and got into long pants and pulled out a spare wind breaker running jacket I had. Felt much better at that point. Walked back to the race area, and hung out with the Donkey Nation cheering for everyone else coming in, Donkeys, other BTers, and other people that I knew doing the race.

Lots of stretching, as I didn't want to get stiff, so I kept moving around as much as possible.


Not much. A few things on the bike, as mentioned above. Nothing too serious.

This was a pretty darn awesome race for me. An 18 minute PR over Rockman time, with gains across all 3 disciplines.


I give this race a 4 this year, as I was a little disappointed in the drafting. Also the roads in the area are rather bumpy. Lots of seams in the pavement that were constantly jarring bottles loose and making the ride not as much fun as I could have been.

HFP puts on a great and a very safe race though. Solid organization, and the race venue is one of the best ( not just the site, but the way HFP sets it up ).

A lot of fun, and a lot of friends, so it would have been really hard to have a bad time.

Great prep, and a huge confidence booster going into the last blocks of IMWI training.