TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED (Page 24)
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2013-09-06 3:41 PM in reply to: kcgolf |
27 | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Hello team! Wow, time keeps flying and I realized it's been forever since I read the forum or posted. Race day is tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. I'm predicting a long slog. Feel very underprepared, but doesn't everyone? Good luck to all the racers this weekend! I'll report back Sunday or Monday to let y'all know how it went. Mike |
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2013-09-06 9:53 PM in reply to: MikeMcK |
Veteran 206 Hilliard, OH | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Bib #249 for Rev3 Cedar Point. Good luck to all those racing. It should be a great weekend! |
2013-09-06 10:56 PM in reply to: mkennedy0525 |
Veteran 430 Bendigo, Victoria | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Good luck to those competing this weekend, especially those doing Ironman! RFP all the way!!! |
2013-09-06 11:01 PM in reply to: kruzmeister |
Veteran 430 Bendigo, Victoria | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Hey Tim, how do I upload that Fink training plan you sent me to my BT account? Cheers. |
2013-09-06 11:20 PM in reply to: kruzmeister |
Veteran 430 Bendigo, Victoria | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED G'day Team, I hope everyone is looking forward to a fun packed weekend. Just thought I'd mention that I have decided to do some fund raising whilst training for Ironman Australia. As most of you are aware by now, I have bipolar disorder. Things were pretty difficult in the past but are getting better now, especially since I started doing triathlon, I seem to have found myself again. Anyway long story short, I want to fund raise for a charity called the Black Dog Institute that does research into bipolar disorder, depression and other mood disorders and helps raise the profile of mental illness to the public. There is still a great deal of stigma and discrimination out there and if I can help in any way to dispell those stereotypes and let the public know how totally awesome we folks can be, well then that's a huge step forward and a huge goal realised. If you'd like to donate, you can visit my Everyday Hero Page - https://give.everydayhero.com/au/kruzmeister which is an Australian site but I believe it takes international donations as well. This is all a legitimate fund raising site and you will be able to claim your donation on tax via receipts etc. Also as an incentive to those who choose to donate, I am offering two of my landscape prints to be able to be won. The first will be presented to the winner who's name is drawn out of my stinky bike helmet the day after Ironman Australia, everyone who donates will be eligible for that. The second one will be presented to the person who donates the largest amount. Each image will be a 20x30 inch unframed metallic print of your choice (valued at $200). I will pay the cost of shipping also. You can see my landscape photography here at my website - http://simonebyrne.com.au You can also visit the Black Dog Institute's website to read more about what they do here - http://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/ Thanks for reading thus far and many thanks in advance for your generosity and support! Cheers! P.S. The Team Black Dog Australia's colours are orange, grey, white and black and so I am trying to get my tri kit together. I am looking for a bright orange helmet. I know Rudy Project do one, but that colour isn't available in Australia, I was wondering if any of you know where I could get one? cheers! |
2013-09-08 3:21 PM in reply to: MikeMcK |
27 | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Whew. Okay. The good news is I did not come in dead last. That's right, there were three chumps slower than me. But in all seriousness, I'm surprisingly happy with such a low ranking. I know I was slow going in and had predicted a finishing time around five hours. The breakdown: 0.6 Mile Swim: 25:57 T1: 3:41 39 Mile Bike: 2:49 T2: 1:26 10k Run: 1:17 Overall: 4:39:04 Because of the non-standard lengths on the swim and bike it's hard to compare, but the run was a PR. When I did an Olympic in '09 the run took me 1:32. So I went faster with a much longer ride. The day started out late, there was a half-ironman at the same time and they began at 7am. Meanwhile us Olympic Plusers hung out until 8:30. Not bad since I got to sleep in before a race. The water was 71 degrees, so I did wear my wetsuit for the buoyancy. I do think this helped. I was nervous about getting smashed so I started the swim far in the back. I ended up passing a few people, but mostly took it easy since I wasn't sure if I'd have the strength for the bike if I went all out. Got kicked a couple of times and one woman who was zig-zagging ran into my left side and then my right side a minute or two later. Both times it was almost perpendicular. I'm guessing she had some trouble sighting. Transition was slow, but I expected that. I wanted to be sure I left with everything so I took my time. Last year I forgot my cycling gloves so I was anxious about making the same mistake. The course map said the bike route was mostly flat. It lied. According to Strava, there was over 3000 feet of gain, and I believe it. That's not Lake Placid or anything, but it was a lot of up and down, both steep climbs and slow, long climbs full of false flats. True, there was some opportunity for fast decants, but on my '05 stock Specialized Allez I can't take advantage like those on the TT bikes. Plus my wonky drive train kept me out of the middle ring for most of the race. Which was fine. Even at ~14mph I was faster than many of my training rides on much flatter routes. Passed some people on the bike, got passed by more including three racers running a straight up pace line. Seriously, it was like watching Team Pursuit the way they were switching pulls. Very annoying, but what can you do? I had to race my race. T2 was good, except for my neighbor who threw his wetsuit onto all of my stuff. Guess he was going for a world record so he couldn't be bothered. Because of this I started off in wet shoes, but it really was the last thing on my mind after a half mile. Almost instantly my calves seized. I should have done more brick workouts to train my muscles for the transition I guess. I kept shuffling along (relentless forward progress, after all) and took a banana at the first water station. The stiffness went away and I kept going. I decided before the race I would run walk, walking 30 seconds every 4.5 minutes. That's a little more walking than I do in my training runs, but also I figured I would need it after the ride. The run was an out an back with a sharp climb, a decent, a mile-long climb, and then a little bit of flat to the turn around. It went fairly well except for one unmarked section where I convinced myself I had left the route. In the end I ran faster than I did in training, so I was pleased with that. I'll start working on my speed next week so I can try and improve in that area. I knew I wasn't going to do anything but finish this year and I did that, so I'm happy. Maybe next year I'll do it again and try to set a course PR. For now I'm thinking about a half-marathon in October and then maybe Syracuse 70.3 next summer. I'd still like to go for Ironman Kentucky (which never seemed to sell out this year for some reason, what's up with that?), but I'll just have to be sure I can devote that much time and money to racing. And buy a Cervelo time trial bike so I can get aero. I know I was a half-lurker this summer, but I do want to thank everyone on the team for their help and support. Even just reading your stories kept me going when I was thinking I was considering quitting earlier in the summer. Seriously, thank you so much! Mike |
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2013-09-08 3:55 PM in reply to: MikeMcK |
Extreme Veteran 845 | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Great job Mike! You hit it on the nail when you said you have to race your race so don't worry about anyone else. I had an Specialized Allez and loved it. If you decide to do Louisville let me know as I completed that last year and can give you all the info about it. Kathy aka KTC |
2013-09-08 6:58 PM in reply to: krazytallchick |
Extreme Veteran 845 | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Hey Lou, did you get signed up for IM Chattanooga? To keep everyone in the loop, supposedly it sold out in 3 minutes, but there is so many stories going around on when exactly it did sell out. It all started out when WTC was giving early registration to those who were a part of a tri club in the area. If you were a member of that club you were able to registrar before everyone else. Because so many people were trying to sign up and was in a holding path after entering all their information and then was bumped out of their registration WTC is trying to make it up to them. If WTC was able to see that you were trying to register and got booted out they are giving them a week to decide if they want to sign up for Wisconsin, Florida and one more IM in 2014. I guess because of that and Active.com screwed up registration that they pushed back on-line registration for Wisconsin a week. Kathy (KTC) |
2013-09-08 8:39 PM in reply to: krazytallchick |
Master 1790 \Windsor, Ontario | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Michelle Kennedy Team RFP bib #249 Rev3 Cedar Point Swim 1:42:47 Bike 8:48:41 Split 7 last update on run for 5:02 13:54:49 into the race RFP MICHELLE YOU GOT THIS - SENDING EVERY IUNCE OF MY ENERGY YOUR WAY |
2013-09-08 8:52 PM in reply to: 0 |
Extreme Veteran 845 | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Congratulations Michelle on finishing your 1st Iron distance race!!!! Okay I jumped the gun but you just have a few more miles to go and I know you can do it! RFP Michelle! Edited by krazytallchick 2013-09-08 8:56 PM |
2013-09-08 9:31 PM in reply to: krazytallchick |
Master 1790 \Windsor, Ontario | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Congrats Michelle - you rock |
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2013-09-08 11:26 PM in reply to: kcgolf |
Member 160 Chicago | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Congrats to all that raced today! Can't wait to hear the stories. |
2013-09-09 3:11 AM in reply to: gdelamora |
Veteran 430 Bendigo, Victoria | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Congrats to Michelle and Scott for an awesome effort!! Well done!! Congrats to anyone else who raced this weekend, also! RFP!!!!!!!! |
2013-09-09 8:25 AM in reply to: krazytallchick |
Member 65 Orlando | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Yep I'm registered. That was one complete cluster of a sign up. IMHO they should either make this a 2 day event.. I mean 1/2 go Saturday and the other half go Sunday or stop all these early access reasons. This is not the only race that offered the team signups. Regardless every other IM u get early signups for tons of other reasons. I'm Florida sold out in 30 secs last year. Wonder how many spots were available 3? It should be the same chance to sign up if you have done 30 ironmans or the first. I'm extremely happy I am signed up, but very sad for my friends and other people I know who couldn't make it in the huge 3 minute window Originally posted by krazytallchick Hey Lou, did you get signed up for IM Chattanooga? To keep everyone in the loop, supposedly it sold out in 3 minutes, but there is so many stories going around on when exactly it did sell out. It all started out when WTC was giving early registration to those who were a part of a tri club in the area. If you were a member of that club you were able to registrar before everyone else. Because so many people were trying to sign up and was in a holding path after entering all their information and then was bumped out of their registration WTC is trying to make it up to them. If WTC was able to see that you were trying to register and got booted out they are giving them a week to decide if they want to sign up for Wisconsin, Florida and one more IM in 2014. I guess because of that and Active.com screwed up registration that they pushed back on-line registration for Wisconsin a week. Kathy (KTC) |
2013-09-09 10:17 AM in reply to: mkennedy0525 |
Regular 328 | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED |
2013-09-09 10:30 AM in reply to: ettringite23 |
Member 65 Orlando | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Awesome job!! I am hoping to be under 15:30 next year... Congrats!! |
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2013-09-09 4:55 PM in reply to: Lou_70 |
Veteran 206 Hilliard, OH | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Thanks everyone! I did it! Sometimes I think it is completely unreal and that some other person took over my body and did it. Then I try to move and realize that it was definitely me. The swim got moved from it's original location. I am so glad they had a back-up. The swim is usually in Lake Erie. We ended up swimming in the bay on the opposite side of Cedar Point. The water was choppy when we got to the more open area but it was swimmable. We basically swam around an island. That made sighting pretty easy. We didn't have a mass start since we started off a boat ramp. It was a time trial instead. I liked that even more. I didn't have much bumping, hitting, etc. My goal (if I were having a great swim) was 2:00. I was super excited when I looked at my watch and saw 1:42. I know that is slow for most people but that was a HUGE gift for me for this race. I had no idea what the rest of the day was going to be like and I wanted every extra minute I could get. Because they moved the swim, we had .6 mile run to transition. They told us we should get stickers for our cars that say 141.2! Yes! I am an Ultra Ironman!!!! The weather that caused the huge waves, small craft advisory and rip tide advisory included 20mph winds! Yep. And most of the bike seemed to go right into it. If we didn't have a headwind, it was coming at you from the side. Those with race wheels were really have problems. I managed to pull off an average of 16mph. My goal was to not drop below 15mph. With the wind, I wasn't sure what would happen. I was thrilled to see the good time (for me). Next was the run. I felt great going into it. I thought for sure I would easily run the first half and then see what happened from there. That is not what happened. I ran the first 3-4 miles and then started walking. UGH! I was tired and sore and knew I had enough time to walk the whole thing if I needed to but that would make for a very long evening. Since my watch was set to beep every 5 minutes, I walked 5 then ran 5. This worked to get me past the 1/2 way point. Then the wheels started coming off. I was walking and when my watch beeped, I ignored it. Oh, I am sure at the time I came up with good excuses. I tried running some more and found myself looking at my watch after only 1 minute wondering if the 5 minutes were up. I finally made the decision to walk (it was less painful). I told myself that if I am going to walk, I will "walk with a purpose". I began walking determined to keep it at a 15:00 pace or better. In looking at my splits, I have 7-8 miles at the end that I was walking 12:30 average pace!!!!! The finish came and my parents, husband, daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter were able to walk into the finish chute and cross the finish line with me! That moment was PRICELESS! And yes, as I crossed the finish line I cried my eyes out! What an amazing experience. Finish time 15:03:36 I'll take that. Rev3 will be adding more and more races. I highly recommend them. They are very spectator friendly, less expensive than Ironman and don't sell out in less than 5 minutes. The staff is wonderful. The medal this year actually lights up! I think Ironman has some serious competition on the rise. Now time to plan 2014! What to do? What to do? |
2013-09-10 9:13 AM in reply to: mkennedy0525 |
Veteran 201 Long Island | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Hey all, Just caught up on all the posts. You guys are amazing! So much great info and help! Michelle, you are awesome!!!!! What an inspiration. I also ignore the watch!! It is so hard not to. I have done OLY Rev events and they are well done. I'll have to consider that if I feel I can ever get the IM distance done. I finally had a great race. I did an OLY out East in the Hamptons on Long Island. Second time. Last year, my chain fell off on a down hill, really??? I was so annoyed. I took 11 min off my bike and 5 min off my run. And didn't have to stop to pee. Maybe I was a bit under hydrated but it worked. I just made myself keep running, I did my 5:1 run walk and mostly kept to it. There were a few 15-30 sec un scheduled walks but I pushed through. I finally averaged over 15 mph on the bike. 15.4, a first for me. My legs were toast after the bike. I have heard of trainer road and I do have a Garmin, so Tim I might take you up on getting me started on that program for the long cold winter season here in NY. There were so many people I wanted to comment back to but I have read through again. So that's it for now. Could I request that we sign off with our names? It is so time consuming to keep going back to profiles to see who is who. If you are not comfortable with it, no worries. Great job everyone! Hey KTC, when is IMAZ?? ann |
2013-09-10 9:13 AM in reply to: mkennedy0525 |
Veteran 201 Long Island | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Hey all, Just caught up on all the posts. You guys are amazing! So much great info and help! Michelle, you are awesome!!!!! What an inspiration. I also ignore the watch!! It is so hard not to. I have done OLY Rev events and they are well done. I'll have to consider that if I feel I can ever get the IM distance done. I finally had a great race. I did an OLY out East in the Hamptons on Long Island. Second time. Last year, my chain fell off on a down hill, really??? I was so annoyed. I took 11 min off my bike and 5 min off my run. And didn't have to stop to pee. Maybe I was a bit under hydrated but it worked. I just made myself keep running, I did my 5:1 run walk and mostly kept to it. There were a few 15-30 sec un scheduled walks but I pushed through. I finally averaged over 15 mph on the bike. 15.4, a first for me. My legs were toast after the bike. I have heard of trainer road and I do have a Garmin, so Tim I might take you up on getting me started on that program for the long cold winter season here in NY. There were so many people I wanted to comment back to but I have read through again. So that's it for now. Could I request that we sign off with our names? It is so time consuming to keep going back to profiles to see who is who. If you are not comfortable with it, no worries. Great job everyone! Hey KTC, when is IMAZ?? ann |
2013-09-10 9:13 AM in reply to: mkennedy0525 |
Veteran 201 Long Island | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Hey all, Just caught up on all the posts. You guys are amazing! So much great info and help! Michelle, you are awesome!!!!! What an inspiration. I also ignore the watch!! It is so hard not to. I have done OLY Rev events and they are well done. I'll have to consider that if I feel I can ever get the IM distance done. I finally had a great race. I did an OLY out East in the Hamptons on Long Island. Second time. Last year, my chain fell off on a down hill, really??? I was so annoyed. I took 11 min off my bike and 5 min off my run. And didn't have to stop to pee. Maybe I was a bit under hydrated but it worked. I just made myself keep running, I did my 5:1 run walk and mostly kept to it. There were a few 15-30 sec un scheduled walks but I pushed through. I finally averaged over 15 mph on the bike. 15.4, a first for me. My legs were toast after the bike. I have heard of trainer road and I do have a Garmin, so Tim I might take you up on getting me started on that program for the long cold winter season here in NY. There were so many people I wanted to comment back to but I have read through again. So that's it for now. Could I request that we sign off with our names? It is so time consuming to keep going back to profiles to see who is who. If you are not comfortable with it, no worries. Great job everyone! Hey KTC, when is IMAZ?? ann |
2013-09-10 9:33 AM in reply to: avisser |
Veteran 201 Long Island | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Sorry for the triplicate post!! Mike, way to go. Great run after that long bike. I usually don't pass anyone and seeing as I am 51 my swim group usually goes out early and one thing I can do is swim fairly well so I am out early and it seems the whole race passes me on the bike. It is very tough mentally to just keep doing your race. Thankfully triathletes are very encouraging so many words of encouragement usually come. I can't remember the other person who commented on not being last. I can relate there as well. My first HIM in Agusta, I was the last finisher! Mostly cuz it was storming and they closed the race but it was late in the day anyway. WE DID IT!! Even if you start a race and don't finish, you trained and started. Most don't. So keep on One more question, not racing related. If you are posting and want to look back at previous posts, can you? I always lose my post. I am also new to my apple computer, so maybe it is me?? ann |
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2013-09-10 9:34 AM in reply to: avisser |
Veteran 201 Long Island | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Sorry for the triplicate post!! Mike, way to go. Great run after that long bike. I usually don't pass anyone and seeing as I am 51 my swim group usually goes out early and one thing I can do is swim fairly well so I am out early and it seems the whole race passes me on the bike. It is very tough mentally to just keep doing your race. Thankfully triathletes are very encouraging so many words of encouragement usually come. I can't remember the other person who commented on not being last. I can relate there as well. My first HIM in Agusta, I was the last finisher! Mostly cuz it was storming and they closed the race but it was late in the day anyway. WE DID IT!! Even if you start a race and don't finish, you trained and started. Most don't. So keep on One more question, not racing related. If you are posting and want to look back at previous posts, can you? I always lose my post. I am also new to my apple computer, so maybe it is me?? ann |
2013-09-10 2:11 PM in reply to: mkennedy0525 |
Member 160 Chicago | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Holy Cow! What an experience. I can't imagine how you felt to finally be able to cross the finish line with your family. Priceless moment that made it all worth it. Congratulations!!! Originally posted by mkennedy0525 Thanks everyone! I did it! Sometimes I think it is completely unreal and that some other person took over my body and did it. Then I try to move and realize that it was definitely me. The swim got moved from it's original location. I am so glad they had a back-up. The swim is usually in Lake Erie. We ended up swimming in the bay on the opposite side of Cedar Point. The water was choppy when we got to the more open area but it was swimmable. We basically swam around an island. That made sighting pretty easy. We didn't have a mass start since we started off a boat ramp. It was a time trial instead. I liked that even more. I didn't have much bumping, hitting, etc. My goal (if I were having a great swim) was 2:00. I was super excited when I looked at my watch and saw 1:42. I know that is slow for most people but that was a HUGE gift for me for this race. I had no idea what the rest of the day was going to be like and I wanted every extra minute I could get. Because they moved the swim, we had .6 mile run to transition. They told us we should get stickers for our cars that say 141.2! Yes! I am an Ultra Ironman!!!! The weather that caused the huge waves, small craft advisory and rip tide advisory included 20mph winds! Yep. And most of the bike seemed to go right into it. If we didn't have a headwind, it was coming at you from the side. Those with race wheels were really have problems. I managed to pull off an average of 16mph. My goal was to not drop below 15mph. With the wind, I wasn't sure what would happen. I was thrilled to see the good time (for me). Next was the run. I felt great going into it. I thought for sure I would easily run the first half and then see what happened from there. That is not what happened. I ran the first 3-4 miles and then started walking. UGH! I was tired and sore and knew I had enough time to walk the whole thing if I needed to but that would make for a very long evening. Since my watch was set to beep every 5 minutes, I walked 5 then ran 5. This worked to get me past the 1/2 way point. Then the wheels started coming off. I was walking and when my watch beeped, I ignored it. Oh, I am sure at the time I came up with good excuses. I tried running some more and found myself looking at my watch after only 1 minute wondering if the 5 minutes were up. I finally made the decision to walk (it was less painful). I told myself that if I am going to walk, I will "walk with a purpose". I began walking determined to keep it at a 15:00 pace or better. In looking at my splits, I have 7-8 miles at the end that I was walking 12:30 average pace!!!!! The finish came and my parents, husband, daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter were able to walk into the finish chute and cross the finish line with me! That moment was PRICELESS! And yes, as I crossed the finish line I cried my eyes out! What an amazing experience. Finish time 15:03:36 I'll take that. Rev3 will be adding more and more races. I highly recommend them. They are very spectator friendly, less expensive than Ironman and don't sell out in less than 5 minutes. The staff is wonderful. The medal this year actually lights up! I think Ironman has some serious competition on the rise. Now time to plan 2014! What to do? What to do? |
2013-09-12 8:16 AM in reply to: MikeMcK |
Master 1790 \Windsor, Ontario | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Mike - nice work and way to RFP after you found the wet suit on your stuff and the bike issues must have been tough as well. Congrats on the finish. I like your plan for the fall and next year as well. IM Louisville is a time trial start to the swim where the athletes line up and jump in the water basically 2 at a time off two separate docks so they are able to allow more participants. This delays the sell out. Anyway - nice job and congrats. KC Originally posted by MikeMcK Whew. Okay. The good news is I did not come in dead last. That's right, there were three chumps slower than me. But in all seriousness, I'm surprisingly happy with such a low ranking. I know I was slow going in and had predicted a finishing time around five hours. The breakdown: 0.6 Mile Swim: 25:57 T1: 3:41 39 Mile Bike: 2:49 T2: 1:26 10k Run: 1:17 Overall: 4:39:04 Because of the non-standard lengths on the swim and bike it's hard to compare, but the run was a PR. When I did an Olympic in '09 the run took me 1:32. So I went faster with a much longer ride. The day started out late, there was a half-ironman at the same time and they began at 7am. Meanwhile us Olympic Plusers hung out until 8:30. Not bad since I got to sleep in before a race. The water was 71 degrees, so I did wear my wetsuit for the buoyancy. I do think this helped. I was nervous about getting smashed so I started the swim far in the back. I ended up passing a few people, but mostly took it easy since I wasn't sure if I'd have the strength for the bike if I went all out. Got kicked a couple of times and one woman who was zig-zagging ran into my left side and then my right side a minute or two later. Both times it was almost perpendicular. I'm guessing she had some trouble sighting. Transition was slow, but I expected that. I wanted to be sure I left with everything so I took my time. Last year I forgot my cycling gloves so I was anxious about making the same mistake. The course map said the bike route was mostly flat. It lied. According to Strava, there was over 3000 feet of gain, and I believe it. That's not Lake Placid or anything, but it was a lot of up and down, both steep climbs and slow, long climbs full of false flats. True, there was some opportunity for fast decants, but on my '05 stock Specialized Allez I can't take advantage like those on the TT bikes. Plus my wonky drive train kept me out of the middle ring for most of the race. Which was fine. Even at ~14mph I was faster than many of my training rides on much flatter routes. Passed some people on the bike, got passed by more including three racers running a straight up pace line. Seriously, it was like watching Team Pursuit the way they were switching pulls. Very annoying, but what can you do? I had to race my race. T2 was good, except for my neighbor who threw his wetsuit onto all of my stuff. Guess he was going for a world record so he couldn't be bothered. Because of this I started off in wet shoes, but it really was the last thing on my mind after a half mile. Almost instantly my calves seized. I should have done more brick workouts to train my muscles for the transition I guess. I kept shuffling along (relentless forward progress, after all) and took a banana at the first water station. The stiffness went away and I kept going. I decided before the race I would run walk, walking 30 seconds every 4.5 minutes. That's a little more walking than I do in my training runs, but also I figured I would need it after the ride. The run was an out an back with a sharp climb, a decent, a mile-long climb, and then a little bit of flat to the turn around. It went fairly well except for one unmarked section where I convinced myself I had left the route. In the end I ran faster than I did in training, so I was pleased with that. I'll start working on my speed next week so I can try and improve in that area. I knew I wasn't going to do anything but finish this year and I did that, so I'm happy. Maybe next year I'll do it again and try to set a course PR. For now I'm thinking about a half-marathon in October and then maybe Syracuse 70.3 next summer. I'd still like to go for Ironman Kentucky (which never seemed to sell out this year for some reason, what's up with that?), but I'll just have to be sure I can devote that much time and money to racing. And buy a Cervelo time trial bike so I can get aero. I know I was a half-lurker this summer, but I do want to thank everyone on the team for their help and support. Even just reading your stories kept me going when I was thinking I was considering quitting earlier in the summer. Seriously, thank you so much! Mike |
2013-09-12 8:20 AM in reply to: mkennedy0525 |
Master 1790 \Windsor, Ontario | Subject: RE: TEAM RFP (Relentless Forward Progress)- CLOSED Congratulations Michelle - awesome job Originally posted by mkennedy0525 Thanks everyone! I did it! Sometimes I think it is completely unreal and that some other person took over my body and did it. Then I try to move and realize that it was definitely me. The swim got moved from it's original location. I am so glad they had a back-up. The swim is usually in Lake Erie. We ended up swimming in the bay on the opposite side of Cedar Point. The water was choppy when we got to the more open area but it was swimmable. We basically swam around an island. That made sighting pretty easy. We didn't have a mass start since we started off a boat ramp. It was a time trial instead. I liked that even more. I didn't have much bumping, hitting, etc. My goal (if I were having a great swim) was 2:00. I was super excited when I looked at my watch and saw 1:42. I know that is slow for most people but that was a HUGE gift for me for this race. I had no idea what the rest of the day was going to be like and I wanted every extra minute I could get. Because they moved the swim, we had .6 mile run to transition. They told us we should get stickers for our cars that say 141.2! Yes! I am an Ultra Ironman!!!! The weather that caused the huge waves, small craft advisory and rip tide advisory included 20mph winds! Yep. And most of the bike seemed to go right into it. If we didn't have a headwind, it was coming at you from the side. Those with race wheels were really have problems. I managed to pull off an average of 16mph. My goal was to not drop below 15mph. With the wind, I wasn't sure what would happen. I was thrilled to see the good time (for me). Next was the run. I felt great going into it. I thought for sure I would easily run the first half and then see what happened from there. That is not what happened. I ran the first 3-4 miles and then started walking. UGH! I was tired and sore and knew I had enough time to walk the whole thing if I needed to but that would make for a very long evening. Since my watch was set to beep every 5 minutes, I walked 5 then ran 5. This worked to get me past the 1/2 way point. Then the wheels started coming off. I was walking and when my watch beeped, I ignored it. Oh, I am sure at the time I came up with good excuses. I tried running some more and found myself looking at my watch after only 1 minute wondering if the 5 minutes were up. I finally made the decision to walk (it was less painful). I told myself that if I am going to walk, I will "walk with a purpose". I began walking determined to keep it at a 15:00 pace or better. In looking at my splits, I have 7-8 miles at the end that I was walking 12:30 average pace!!!!! The finish came and my parents, husband, daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter were able to walk into the finish chute and cross the finish line with me! That moment was PRICELESS! And yes, as I crossed the finish line I cried my eyes out! What an amazing experience. Finish time 15:03:36 I'll take that. Rev3 will be adding more and more races. I highly recommend them. They are very spectator friendly, less expensive than Ironman and don't sell out in less than 5 minutes. The staff is wonderful. The medal this year actually lights up! I think Ironman has some serious competition on the rise. Now time to plan 2014! What to do? What to do? |
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