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LongHorn Ironman 70.3 Triathlon Festival
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LongHorn Ironman 70.3 Triathlon Festival - Triathlon1/2 Ironman
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 Swim
Comments: I was happy to have a wetsuit this year. Not because the water was so cold (it wasn't) but because of the extra bouyancy. I felt like I was swimming faster than I normally do in the pool. And my time proved it despite the course feeling longer than it should have been. About half-way through, I got lazy with my sighting and began veering off course inside the bouys a little. Not a big deal on the straights but I did have to angle back a bit to round a turn bouy. Overall it was a decent swim for me and I was glad to be done with it. What would you do differently?: Maybe swim in my wetsuit before using it in a race? It didn't pose any real problems for me but it's a general no-no to try something new on race day.  Transition 1
Comments: Getting out of the wetsuit was interesting. I was able to take off my goggles and swim cap but then I also needed to pul the wetsuit zipper and undo the velcro. Having never done this before, it probably took me a bit longer than it should have but it wasn't a big deal since I got it done before the wetsuit strippers anyway. Yes, I said wetsuit strippers. You basically pull the wetsuit down to your waist flop on your back in front of a stripper with your legs in the air and they rip the sucker off of you. Pretty slick and I'm sure it saved me time fighting with it myself. My transition time was longer than I like because of the 2 transition-area thing. I was not allowed to really "set up" my T1 how I like. Everything had to be in a bag to start with and you had to stuff everything (including your sopping wetsuit) into that same bag before you left. That took time. What would you do differently?: Not much - I did pretty well considering.  Bike
Comments: As a lesson from last year, I made an effort to start the bike easier during the first 10-15 miles and then pour on some speed. The hilliest sections of the course are in the first and last 10-15 miles. It felt like a pretty easy pace at the start but I wasn't really paying attention to my speed. As a lesson from last year, I was paying particular attention to my nutrition. I didn't eat/drink enough last year and paid for it severely on the run. I did much better in that department this year. Once I found the end of the initial hills, it was time to start putting the hammer down. I glanced down at one point on a long flat and saw 26.8mph! The last 16 miles were hilly and took me about 47 minutes...an indicator of the hills and me cooling it off a bit to get my legs ready for the run. Transition 2
Comments: As I rolled up to the dismount line, I thought I heard someone yelling my name but there's just so much going on that I wan't able to look around to see who it was. Didn't want to risk a fall while getting off my bike. Turns out it was Jillian (and Madison)! I ran to my transition area, racked my bike, slipped my bike shoes off, took off my helmet and sunglasses, slipped my running shoes on, grabbed 3 gels and my hat and I was off. Quick and easy.  Run
Comments: I was very glad that I had my Garmin watch! Last year, I wasn't able to determine my per-mile pace until the first mile marker. It then took me 3 miles to get my pacing under control and I paid for it. THis year, I was able to monitor and adjust my pacing more frequently which helped a lot. I felt pretty good on the first lap and was able to hold a 8:16 pace. The second lap got harder and oddly it was harder for me to run down hills than up them! My quads started hurting bad. My goal was to not walk and of the run but at mile 11, I had to walk off the muscle craps in my quads. I was apparently pacing 4 other people who passed me running in a line as soon as I pulled off. They all gave me some encouragement as they passed which was nice. After a couple minutes of walking to get the acid out of my legs, I was back to running. Granted it was back to a 10 min/mile pace but it was faster than walking. I was able to run into the arena and across the finish line which of course felt amazing. Post race
Warm down: Massage, emergency blanket form medical tent (it was cold in the arena!), couple black bean burgers, and lots of water. Tried to find my wife and daughter but we didn't plan any meet-up points or anything so I never did catch up with her. That sucked. What limited your ability to perform faster: I had good training volume this year despite all the life changes (new job, new house, new baby), but I don't feel like the quality of the workouts was up-to-par. I either need to improve my running form to use less quads or improve my cycling if I want to keep the bike speed and be able to lay down a competitive run. Seemed to be no problem at Olympic distance but I continue to struggle at the 70.3 distance. Last updated: 2010-02-09 12:00 AM
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 2010-10-18 2:09 PM |
Extreme Veteran  569   Austin, TX |  Subject: LongHorn Ironman 70.3 Triathlon Festival |
| General Discussion-> Race Reports! |
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Athlete check-in and mandatory bike check-in were on Saturday so that's how I spend my Saturday morning. It's a 2 transition-site race so I had to prepare 2 different transition areas: swim to bike, and bike to run. I decided to bring my bike to run stuff with me and leave it overnight in the transition area on Saturday. Good thing I did! I'll get to that later...
My alarm went off at 5am on Sunday - race day! Since I was in one of the last groups to start the race, I decided not so get to the race site at 5am when transition opened as I normally do. Instead, I decided to plan on getting there around 6 to allow myself a good hour to get everything all set up. Unfortunately, i did not plan on sitting in a parking lot of traffic trying to get to the race site! Once I did finally get parked, I was able to accomplish everything I needed to in the 20 minutes I had before the transition area closed at 7:15.
After I was all set up, I found a porta potty, and then found some friends to hag out with for about an hour. I somehoW lost track of the gel i planned to eat before the swim start but I don't think it affected me much.
None. Huslting from my truck to the transition area via shuttle bus was warm-up enough!