Challenge Williamsburg 70.3 Race Report
I almost didn’t write a race report for this race but
decided I would at least document some of the events for my own record and
share with other athletes how great a race the Challenge Family put on.
My Results
1.2 mile swim: 40:33
56 Mile Bike: 2:40
13.1 mile run: 1:49:57
Overall Time 5:19
Age Group Division 7 of 37
Gender 51 of 201
Overall 58 of 304
Quick Background: After 3 Full Ironman Races this would be
my first ½ Ironman 70.3 race. This was
not a priority race for me and tried to stay low key on all the training. I did all but one of my rides indoors preparing
for the race. Really only ramped up the
training volume 9 weeks before the race after coming off some great gains this
winter on the run and bike. I also
changed up my training for the half in order to guard against any burn out
leading up to the upcoming Ironman Maryland training I will begin in a few
weeks. I did this by keeping my long
rides at around 2 hours and doing the long run on Sunday instead of waking up
super early to get it done on Thursday. Swimming was kept to an absolute
minimum with maybe swimming 10 times in total with the max duration at around
30 minutes. I hadn’t done any swimming
since September 2013. All swims were
open water swims. Typical Saturday rides were 2 hours on the trainer with a
quick 5-6 mile run afterwards. I only
rode once outdoors prior to this race mainly to make sure I could still
actually ride a bike without falling over.
Race Logistics: Stayed at the Holiday Inn Express, which was
adequate enough, plenty of places to eat and close to the expo. The biggest pain about this race was the two
transitions. You had to pick up your
packet, and then drive 20 minutes to the beach to set up your bike and then go
back to the expo for an athlete meeting (my choice). This also made the race morning super early
with the first transition (T2) opening up at 4:30 in the morning. The Challenge Event organizers were great and
just about all aspects of this event were smooth. The Event was fully staffed as there was a
Pro race going on.
Race Morning:
Dinner of chicken and pasta the night before around 4pm, two
cups of Apple Sauce around 9pm, up at 3am (yawn) for a banana, protein shake,
half a cliff bar (couldn’t finish it cause I was nervous). Arrived at T2 to set up my run stuff and then
get on the bus to T1 for the swim. Very
nice two level buses were waiting for us and the organizers made sure the
Athletes doing the Half distance got priority.
My mistake that morning was not realizing that all like bib numbers were
not laid out next to each other. I think
they had groups of tri teams next to each other. Also, seeing transition in the dark and then
arriving off my bike in the light got me totally confused. Had a hard time finding my run gear off the
bike and probably lost a minute in transition because of this.
Arrive off the bus, hit the porto potty, got air in the
tires, set up my bike and then walked down to the beach. Had a bag of pretzels with me, a sleeve of
cliff blocks and a bottle of Gatorade. Spoke to a few ENers on the beach while
warming up and then it was off to the races.
The Swim (:40), No wetsuit.
Swam in Tri short and no top.
The swim was totally uneventful. I lined up wide to the left and had virtually
no contact the entire way eventually easing back into the pack. Swam super
easy. Felt like I swam the first half of
the race very well. The second half was
another story as no wetsuit and minimal swim fitness made it hard to keep good
form. I have swum 1.2 miles in a wetsuit
in 33 minutes. Water was warm and it was
already getting hot outside so keeping it easy seemed smart. The only contact with other swimmers that I
had was caused by literally not being able to see anything in that water and
people bumping into each other. On the
back stretch of the swim you could actually stand up in the water which was a
bit funny to me. Peed before getting out
of the water.
T1: (3:47) The first transition was a bit long as you had to
run across an open field to get to your bike.
Felt pretty good out of the water.
Lost some time as I decided to put on a bike jersey. Guarding against sun burn, no regrets.
Bike (2:40)
The bike is advertised as “Flat Flat Flat”. This is not totally true. There is plenty of flat but there were also a
few little hills in there. I had to put
my bike into the small ring twice.
Luckily for most of the hills there was an equal downhill. I went easy up and pushed the downhills
passing several people in the process. My
plan was to go easy for the first 30 minutes and then step it up a bit but
nothing crazy because of the heat. Ended
up right at .76 for the ride with a Normalized Average of 183 watts with an
average speed of 20.9 MPH. I also
adjusted my nutrition from 1.5 bottles an hour up to 2 bottles an hour because
of the heat and took in 2 gels for the ride.
Overall, the bike course was a lot of fun.
Bike Power Data: Normalized power of 183 Watts, Current FTP
240, IF of .76
T2 4:57 Got lost, changed into a tri top.
Run (1:49)
The heat, my god the heat.
I had a small zip lock bag with me that I had filled with ice at each
aid station. This worked great. Got a few volunteers to comment that I was a
“smart guy” for bringing a bag. The
volunteers at the aid station on the run were awesome. Each aid station had what seemed like 25 or
so volunteers offering up so many choices.
The challenge I have on a hot day like this is getting out of the aid
station. I feel like I need water on the
head, Gatorade in my mouth, ice in the bag.
Every other aid station I took a salt pill. Feels like that takes forever. Besides the aid stations I ran the entire
half marathon. At one point around mile
11 I thought I was going to puke, but then slowed down and hit the next aid
station to cool off again which helped right away. Run was steady most of the way.
Highly recommend this race.
Comments
@Eric, I mostly just carried the bag of ice in my hand. At times placing it on my neck or even my head. I would also hold the bag against the side of my stomach and squeeze the bag a bit which pushed cold water to come out which felt awesome.