Challenge Penticton Half... Who's in... (Page 2)

So, how did the day go for those of you in Penticton? I heard the weather was ... challenging

It sure was!!

Swim was great, nice calm water. The water on nearby skaha lake did not look NEARLY as forgiving though, so glad it was in okanagan lake!

T1 went well, started biking RIGHT into a fierce headwind, and there were 40 full distance and 380 some half distance athletes already on the road ( half distance started 30 minutes after the full ) as well as the pros, but I wasn't worried about them.

All I did for over an hour at the start of the race was try to stay left as I passed what seemed like a parking lot of people. How the half distance athletes could be expected not to be in the drafting zone, your guess is as good as mine, so I just kept passing to make sure I wasn't in anyone's for 20 seconds, though to be honest a few people were making it tough with having 3-4 athletes wide, and some RIGHT ON the yellow line, not making any passing progress either :p

Once the half distance route turned off, around 35k in, things got a lot more quiet.

We had a hard headwind for the first 56k or so til the turn for richter pass, had a little help on richter pass, but before you knew it, headwind again. Must have been there for 1/2 to 2/3 of the race.

We had the skies open up a few times with rain, we got hail, I heard reports of thinger and lightning, but was too distracted by the stinging hail to notice.

One area where were were doing a bunch of technical descending on crap roads ( white lake ) was when I saw the worst of the rain, making the visibility much more poor as it was getting all over my visor.

Turns out I'd biked my way into 5th, and one guy I had passed managed to pass me back when we hit some more climbing. ( didn't matter, I knew he'd outrun me anyways )

The run, things got warmer, hot even at a few points. Lots of people passed me as expected. I didn't go too hard on the bike, in fact my plan went REALLY well, I just biked for longer than planned cause of the conditions, but stayed at the planned heart rate of 150-155, with a 153 average.

First half of the marathon was going pretty well for me, had a 2:10 split, but at this point I had a SLIGHT bit of tightness in the stomach, so I had to stop eating from aid stations, cause I knew what that meant.

This meant I lost more time as well, and missing the stations cost me bigtime in terms of energy. I was taking more walk breaks ( instead of just the aid stations ) to try to mitigate the damage, but I faded fast and hard, and 6k out I thought my race was over. Also, as soon as I tried to jog up a slight incline, me achilles felt like they were starting to cramp, so that was a walk moment too.

3.5k out I felt done, 30 seconds breaks were over, I was deathmarching, a good long 5-6 minutes straight, calculating how long it would take to finish at that pace.

Turns out it's just what I needed, light headedness cleared up, and I actually was able to run the last 3k not only without stopping, but did 3 of the fastest kms of the entire marathon.

Total time: 11:56:46

Swim 1:11:04

Bike 5:54:55 ( More like 5:48:something as this included both T1 and T2 times for some reason, which according to my garmin totalled about 7 1/2 minutes since I had to pee coming off the bike, and wasn't fast enough to pee myself )

Run: 4:50:48

Considering the fact that I had only trained the run to the point of the half marathon, and had a half marathon PR 5 weeks out, only managing a single 20 mile run after that, since I only DECIDED to do the full distance race 6 weeks out, and averaging 3-8 hours a week, only doing more volume for about 3 weeks before the race taper, I feel like I did pretty darn well for my first Iron Distance race, and I stepped up from just a sprint at the beginning of this year! :D

Sept 3rd I had to see the orthopedic surgeon about my leg hardware ( I've got 2 titanium rods on my leg from a femoral neck fractude requiring hip surgery to insert the rods to repair it ) and the hardware is all coming out this winter!!

Hope I can recover quickly and start next season strong!

Nicely done, Dustin.
It looks like you had a great day, and have managed to overcome the injuries that you've been dealing with.