So there it is, another race in the books. The last Half Iron distance race (1.2 mile swim, 56 miles bike, 13.1 mile run) that I did was almost 5 years ago, prior to my first Ironman….too funny when I looked it up… 6:17:21 at the South Carolina Half in 2007.
Overall I had an excellent race, and nailed my race plan…not totally perfect…never is…but really, really good…my race plan summary posted a day before the race is here:
https://irondaughterirondad.com/race-day-tomorrow-half-iron-sunday-july-3/
I’ll do a followup post with the more detailed numbers analysis, so for today, the race summary…the quick numbers:
Swim:Â Â Â 53:28
T1:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 7:38
Bike:Â Â Â Â Â 3:05:37
T2:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 5:36
Run:Â Â Â Â Â Â 2:05:16
Total:Â Â Â Â 6:17:33
At 4am looking out the hotel window, the roads were wet with overnight rain…rats…although not raining by the time I got into the car…so good…and as it turns out, never did rain all day, so excellent.
I was at the race venue by 5:15am, my daughter already there…how fun is that to be racing with your daughter 🙂 …and went through the pre-race setup and getting ready.
By 6:15 we were at waters edge for the 6:30 start, water temperature unknown…this is a small, pretty relaxed race…when I asked one of the officials on the beach about the water temperature, his response with a smile was ‘cold’…so I decided to go with my thermal cap under the race cap, a decision that I was immediately happy with when my face hit the water…cold!
The swim is 2 loops, and my race plan was to stay relaxed and easy for the first loop, which I did…barely kicking, next to no pressure on my arms, trying to keep my head in the correct position, and breath. You can see on the race map, where there’s a little squiggly line for the direction of the ‘current’…turns out, that ‘current’ was very significant, and on the return to the beach on the first loop, it carried me ‘way’ off course to the right…like when I passed the last orange marker buoy coming in my first thought that I was looking at the outgoing bouy…only to realize that it was the inbound one that I was at least 50 yard away from…I didn’t change my stroke though, stayed relaxed, and kept changing direction to offset for the current, and finally landed back at the beach in just over 26 minutes.
Not bad I thought, considering how far off course I was, headed out for lap 2…made a mental note to account for the current…was better, but still got blown off course, and ended up putting more ‘effort’ into my stroke coming in on the last leg to battle back to the course line…out of the water in just over 53:28 minutes I was happy 🙂
The bike course is all hills all the time, 4 loops, featuring a stiff 2 mile uphill. Maintaining around 210 Watts, on the flat’ish sections, 240’ish on the stiffer uphill, and off the power on the steep downhill once the speed exceeded my gearing at over 35MPH…that steep twisting downhill was a blast 🙂 …and then repeat 4 times. There was one, small aid station at the beginning of the steep uphill, so I ended up stopping each time to reload water and Gatorade rather than trying to juggle 2 bottles…maybe cost a minute each time for maybe 4 minutes total time.
Legs were strong for the entire ride, nutrition and hydration dialed in, and primarily working to keeping power down to the race plan power on the uphills…I kept leaking up to 270-300 Watts if I didn’t really watch it…so lots of power to spare for the 3:05:37 bike ride…about as close as I could have gotten to my race plan power with my gearing setup…so ‘excellent’.
The run course is 2 loops…mainly a soft surface path through the woods and compacted gravel out towards the Half turnaround. I felt well hydrated coming off the bike, although for the first few miles, my quads were feeling quite stiff from the ride…I guess a bit too much ‘push’ up some of those hills with my less than ideal gearing…so I stayed to the race plan of an easy first 3 miles to the 5K marker
…my legs were starting to ease up a bit, although by 10K I was starting to feel a bit dehydrated, so stopped at the next aid station to make sure that I got enough to drink, although by 12K, my right hamstring was threatening to cramp, so at the next aid station, took a salt tablet, lots of water, and that eased it up, as I stopped at the next few aid stations to combine the cups of water or Gatorade to make sure that I was getting enough
…by 15K I felt back in balance, made sure that I was drinking enough going in, and rolled along comfortably to the finish with a 2:05:16 run…cool!
On the run a few additional stops to say hello to a couple of my daughters friends that had come out to cheer us on, and then with my daughter who had decided to pack it in early on the run…but lives to race another day.
And the best part of the day…after getting up at 4am, and burning over 5,000 exercise calories over 6 hours, a wonderful dinner at a local steakhouse, with my beautiful daughter…it just doesn’t get any better than that 🙂
So tomorrow morning, all things being equal, my daughter and I will be at the start line at 6:30am Pacific time for the Subaru Vancouver International Triathlon, for a lovely Sunday morning 1.2 mile swim, 56 miles on the bike and a 13.1 mile run…in what is predicted to be a cool day…58F (14C) to start, 62F (17C) at finish…’with a few showers from time to time’, wind 5-10 MPH from the SW.
I did get in the ocean this week for a 30 minute swim to try out the temperature…it was definitely ‘brisk’…estimated to be 16-17 C (60-62F)…I’ve found in the past when it gets below 60F, I’ve had congestion/breathing issues…but was fine in the test swim, which was very good…although hands and feet were cold by the end…it’s a warm day in Vancouver today, so hopefully that’ll add a degree or 2…I do have a thermal swim cap, which I may use, although it can be tight with the race cap over it…so we’ll see what they have to say about the water temperature at the race meeting today.
The bike is 4 loops on the same course, featuring a very steep 2 mile hill. Going uphill is not my strength, since I’m carrying a few more pounds than the classic, perfectly formed triathlete body, and when I get ‘dropped’ on a fast group ride, it’s inevitably going up hills that I’m left behind. The gearing on my bike is suitable for ‘normal’ hills, but not setup for the very steep stuff, so my cadence going uphill here is going to be a lot lower than my best power range which is right around 90 RPM. I had considered re-gearing the bike for a couple of hundred dollars to get it setup for this race, but then decided to just ride it with what I have, since I’d then just have to put it back to my current setup again…and there’s the ‘break-in’ of a new gearing setup to get it dialed in.
First 3 miles easy, to get my running legs, and then see if I can get to and sustain my target pace of 9:00/mile (5:35/km) for the next 6 miles (10K), and then hang on for the final 4+ miles (7K) at whatever pace I have left. 9:00/mile (5:35/km) = 1:57 for the run, 10:00/mile (6:12/km)= 2:10…so with an easier first 3 miles, the run around 2 hours would be ideal.
The day after arriving, I did get in a good 40 minute run in the neighborhood, accompanied by 2 beautiful young women on the bike pacing me…somehow running around/with girls always brings out my best form 🙂
Today was a BIG training day, reminiscent of my
Following the flying, I was able to get in a 30 minute ‘swim’ with my granddaughter during her swimming lesson at the local YMCA. Although not my usual swim workout, my ‘splashing’ is much improved.
Next up we headed out on the bikes again…my son is relentlessly enthusiastic
…okay, it was Harley and not my tri bike…it’s a bike right!!!
And to keep up the high training load, I finished today with a 45 minute local spin, with an extra few wriggling pounds added to the bike, just to push it out to the limits.
Oh, and yes, there was that face-plant on my run yesterday…well actually more of a hand and knee event…3 hour bike ride, followed by a 1 hour run, and within the first mile of the run left a bit of skin on the sidewalk…some little round landscaping rocks were strewn on the sidewalk, so jogging along, I turned to see if there was any traffic before crossing the road to find smooth pavement, tripped, got one foot down in front before launching forward, landing on my right knee and right hand…ouch…and skidded to a halt.
If you see this tattoo on the course in your next race, take a good look, since you won’t see it again until the line for pizza after the finish line
Here’s how it looked, with the time, distance, and key workout:
The new USDA ‘Plate’ 
eems like something that went from a reasonable idea to an out-in-left-field-totally-irrelevant-to-the-mere-mortal-person idea…
