iron eyes for the normal guy

dL Florida Half-Ironman

There were challenges preceding this race that made it difficult to have the best of days. Approximately 1 month before the race, I started to have issues with my left knee. After having to stop mid run a few times I decided that maybe I needed some PT to see if they could help me solve the issues. I tried to see the great PT I had in the past, but he was all booked up. So, I just looked through the phone book and found one about a half mile from where I worked. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem very knowledgeable and after going there a few times, it seemed like they were really not doing anything to help me. So, I decided that I would just take it easy for run, stretch a fair amount and work on my balance, which was one of the issues that caused me problems in the past.

Another challenge was getting my new TT bike. I had planned on having it a month before the event so I could tweak and make any adjustments necessary. Then there were a series of issues; bike shipped later than expected, parts went missing in shipment at the UPS facilities, needed new parts shipped, delivered to bike shop, and then the zipp rear wheel had a shimano freehub body which needed to be replaced by a campy one that they had to order. So I didn’t pick my bike up until the day before we departed and I just prayed everything would work properly once I arrived in Florida.

The final challenge was work, I was working on a 100 page workbook that was taking long hours to complete. For nearly 2 weeks before the event, I was working 10-12 hour days and I had to work one entire weekend day before the event. Training was dramatically affected, but the training before this challenge had been good, so I was hoping that would be enough to propel me to have a good time.

Regardless of the event I always have my goals that I want to shoot for. For this event I was hoping to be around 2:15 for the bike, and 4:45 for the race. Perhaps they were a little too lofty of a goal, but I thought I might be possible.

We departed to Florida on Friday at the ass-crack of dawn. 6:30am flights are not fun. Arrived and put the bikes together to go out and see how the new ride feels. I must say I didn’t like the way it felt to begin with. The shifting wasn’t working well and my neck was already hurting after about 15 minutes, how was it going to feel after 2+ hours? I made a few tweaks, moved the seat a little more forward and rotated the bars a bit in the hopes it would feel a little more comfortable.

Pre race: Triathlons start way, way too early. After getting up at 4am, 2 days before, we had to wake up a 4am again, ouch… So, with everything leading up to the race, I was just going to give my best effort and see what happens.

Swim: Other than almost losing my timing chip as soon as I started swimming things went okay. I felt I was going pretty well. My sighting wasn’t as great as it could be. As I departed the water I saw I was at 44 minutes. It was what it was. Later on spoke with a few others and saw the time, and they all seemed slower than normal so maybe the course was a bit longer.

Bike: Now it was time to get down to business. Let’s see how fast this bike is going to be. The plan was to keep the HR at around 155 and I did that for the most part the entire ride. There were a few rollers where it would rise to over 160, but then I would settle it back down to my zone. So, in that zone, I was cruising 25-26 mph so I thought I could sustain that and have a good ride. Since I initially started in the 13th wave for the swim, there were plenty of people to pass. I always like passing people and I passed hundreds and hundreds of people. Of course, I liked that. Anyway, bike time ended up being 2:17. Pretty pleased with that.

Run: The course was 3 laps with a few miles on a grass and sandy path. As I first started the run, it was feeling extremely hot. Perhaps this was due to having plenty of breeze on the bike. I was thinking survival mode, just try to get into a rhythm and the finish will arrive. The first few miles were really tough. I wasn’t really keeping track of my pace, but it felt slooooooooooooow. There were lots of people passing me. Eventually after a few of the aid stations and getting enough ice on my head I started to feel I was going a bit better and started to pass people. Then the first lap was over. Yeah. Only 2 more to go. The following laps went okay, should have been faster, but with the heat, the slowness of the sandy/grassy, and the time at the aid stations to refill and cool down, the time ended up being a little less than 2 hours. Not great, but with the heat and the fact that I hadn’t been able to run much at all preceding the event, I was okay with it.

Overall: My time was 5:08, a few minutes slower than when I did Mooseman last year, but perhaps next time will be better. I was happy that my knee was feeling good. Hopefully, it will stay healthy and strong. So, for now, looking forward to Roth, a little apprehensive about doing the marathon, but I hope to get a few long runs in so I will have confidence in my run.

posted by dadalu @ 6:09 PM 3 comments

pam's fla 70.3 report

70.3 Ironman Florida - May 20, 2007

Leading up to Roth, for my half-iron "race sim" training race, this year I picked the Florida Half-Ironman.

Mooseman is what I've done the past 2 years since it's local to Boston, but I don't do too well in the cold - and this year it's too close to Roth anyways. Daniel is heat-averse and I'm cold averse...I had done my time in the cold, so it was Daniel's turn to suck it up in the heat ;)

Expectations:

From what I'd seen from peoples' times the previous years. I knew the run was challenging for some reason and times weren't too fast. The swim would be without a wetsuit, so I expected it to be slower than the races I've done with a wetsuit.

The bike, on the other hand, was looking favorable. That is my favorite of the 3 disciplines, but I haven't been able to do as well as I've wanted in Half-Irons since I always pick the cold water/hilly ones. I've done well in olympics, but I've really wanted to clock a decent bike time in a longer distance race.

This year it took me a little longer to motivate as far as my training goes than in past years when I started my training enthusiastically in December/January. This year it took me until March to really get into it. In addition, my coach (Patrick McCrann) tried something a little different in my training plan this year. Instead of having me do long base miles earlier in the season, he had me working on my power on the bike and on my tempo work in the run and swim in February and March and started the distance in April. I was wondering how that would work. Turns out it worked very well! I had the speed on shorter distances and when I tried my longer workouts, I did them significantly faster than last year.

Pre-race:

I felt very excited - not nervous or anxious at all. I guess that happens once you do an Iron-distance race. At one point, a half-iron seemed eternal, but now I saw it as a training race for the Ironman. I felt stronger this year and finally felt like I had control over racing a 70.3 instead of it being about survival. Friday we got to the Orlando area. Daniel put together the bikes and we went for an easy spin to make sure everything was working. Saturday morning we swam at the training center in Clermont, and then we went to pick up our packets and drop off our bikes at the athlete's village in Disney World.

Swim:
It was my first open water swim of the year and my first race without a wetsuit. I seeded myself in the middle and I seemed to stay in the middle. I passed a lot of people in my AG at the beginning and then near the end some fast people from the next wave passed me. I figured I was in the middle of the pack like I expected. When I got out of the water my watch said 43 minutes. WHAT? I had done that distance the previous week in the pool and it took me 35! I thought about my friend Andrea's last race report and vowed to not be too hard on myself! Then I got back to the transition area and saw a ton of bikes still racked. Hmm - maybe it was long or tough for everyone. At the end I looked at the results, and I was smack in the middle of the pack for my division like I thought. I spoke to a guy who said he took several minutes longer than what he usually did, which was pretty much my case - so maybe it was a bit long or just choppy - oh well.

Bike:
I had the "magic wheels" on (zipp 404's courtesy of Landry's). No power meter this time, so I got an inexpensive bike computer and decided to go by heartrate (start in zone 2 do most in zone 3). My bike was feeling fast with the wheels, and I made it a point to eat and drink a lot on the bike since I knew that the run would feel pretty hot. My goal on the bike was to break 2:50 and I did! Ended up with 2:48 so I was happy with my bike time. I think I was 16th out of 96 on the bike.

Run:
Took me a few miles to find my running legs. I seemed to be doing 8-something min miles. They changed the run course from a few years ago. Two years ago it went through an ugly parking lot with trucks in it - it was 2 loops. This year it was 3 more scenic loops and approximately 2 miles of each loop was on grass-covered sand. It was comfortable on the knees, but definitely not conducive to a fast time! I also had to go into the porta-potty several times on the run so I prob. lost a few minutes there. Ended up with 1:54 which for me is a very slow time - hmm, I seemed to be passing a lot of people - so I looked at my rank in my division and it was actually higher than the bike! 13th out of 96...so I guess it was slowish for everyone.

Overall:
I ended up with 5:36 which is a PR for me by 9 minutes. I kinda wanted to break 5:30, but I'll take the PR. I do want to do another half-iron this year - maybe in August - so I can try again! Overall, feel pretty good and ready for Roth, though. Post race, I saw my friend Audrey and her boyfriend Ryan who came up from West Palm Beach - they were around the finish line cheering. I went into the lake to cool off, found Daniel and then we all went to eat. Figured I burned around 4000 calories so I could have that pizza, mac&cheese...and dessert too!

posted by supersonique @ 4:33 PM 1 comments