The long awaited, much anticipated Wildflower Race Report. Long, but with a lot of pics!
Based on the amazingly true story.... You can find my Wildflower race report HERE.
This was a really hard day for me and by far my longest 1/2 Ironman to date. Give it a read or just look at the pictures. After all, if there isn't a picture, it didn't happen.... Saddly, all this happened!
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A few notes on the race itself.
- Swim: I'm pretty sure the course was short last year judging by everyone's swim times. I also found the water temp far more comfortable last year, but I think there was something more going on than that. I swam a low 33 last year and a high 35 this year, and I know I'm in far better swim shape this year, even though I was having a crap day this year.
I didn't quite feel like I was overheating in the FS, but I didn't feel fantastic either. A sleeveless top probably may have been the way to go this year, and with the T1 you have that option in the future.
- Bike: I'm with you on the heat. I had a crappy start but then warmed up and was starting to have a good day when I fell behind on my nutrition/hydration and specifically my salt intake I believe. I was literally sleepy on the bike, yawning. One of my more miserable 'short' rides in a long time, power was 25W off my RR.
- Run: what else can you say about the WF run except you need to be 100% dialed in heading into it or you're going to struggle. Only consolation is we had plenty of company this year.
My two big takeaways from WF were that I went into it over-fatigued, I didn't stick to the plan in my last month and crammed for it like you cram for an exam. Bad call. Given the absolute monster training block you had after O'Side, I assume you were carrying quite a bit of fatigue coming into WF as well.
2nd takeaway was heat/nutrition. I doubt many people were prepared for that hot of a weekend this early in the year, but given the history of WF we really probably should have been. When you race in conditions like that, you need to be extremely dialed in and disciplined about your nutrition. I assume you had a plan going into the race, but as for myself, I basically brought a solid B+ nutrition effort to a day that required A++ to succeed.
As I recall, this was your 3rd HIM, so chalk this one up to experience and lessons learned. This was something like my 8th HIM and I still made/make mistakes. Sometimes I suppose you just have to re-learn your lessons.
Dino - First, you have a beautiful family (and I don't mean your P5, even thought it is pretty too). It must be great to have them with you on race day.
I think that you hadn't fully recovered from the bug you had earlier in the week. Way fight to the finish even though you weren't at the top of your game. Good luck at CDA!!