iron eyes for the normal guy

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