Augusta 70.3 Race Report
I'm almost embarrassed to post this with all of the bad assery that is reported on this forum, but here goes.
I went into this event hoping to break 8 hours. I've had DNF's in the last two long course tris I've done for different reasons. (IMFL2017 Breathing problems on the swim got pulled at 75 mi on bike, Gulf Coast just a very slow bike time for no apparent reason). With IMFL2018 coming up in 5 weeks, I felt I needed some positive mojo going in.
Left Friday at noon drove as far as Macon had dinner at Carraba's and went to bed. Got up Saturday had breakfast at hotel, drove on to Augusta eating pretzels and drinking Gatorade all the way. Checked in took my bike to transition let some air out for temp changes and went to Subway for a roasted chicken sub. Went to the room, watched football and laid around.
Had dinner a small Italian place in N. Augusta grilled chicken and pasta. Went back to the room and went to bed.
Race was a rolling start based on projected time and self seeded. I had a 38 minute swim last year so I seeded myself in the 35-37 minute lineup. Did not hit the water til 9:02 foreshadowing a hot as hell run at that point.
Did the swim in 38:47 12th out of 23 in my age group
Made the long run up to transistion took 11:27 minutes putting on socks and arm sleeves.
Began the ride feeling well. Took a salt tablet before mounting and a hit of gel as I planned to take a salt tablet every hour to ward off cramps on the run. Was looking to have a 15 mph due to the hills and my still fat ass (236 lbs) Went over 3 sets of rail road tracks within the first 5 miles and promptly had a rear flat at the top of the bridge. Took 20 minutes changing the tire, as I had nowhere to work, and immediately set about trying to make up time. II did a fair job of taking nutrition during the ride. Planned to eat a bar every hour and a gel every hour staggering them 30 minutes apart and drinking at least one bottle per hour. The drinking and gels worked fine, but just couldn't make myself chew anything solid after about an hour and a half, so I just doubled up on the gels.Ended up with a disastrous 4:17:27 and 22d out of 23 with an official avg. of 13.3. 14.1 not counting the tire time.
T2 was 12:32, and I don't really know why. Just realized this while reviewing my time for this report.
Set out on the run and immediately noticed that I was running about 2 minutes per mile faster than I planned to in the beginning. Backed it way down and began my pace by running 7 minutes and walking 30 seconds. After the first 5k I moved this to running 10 minutes and walking 30 secs. and at about 5mi I felt like I didn't need to be walking that much considering the stopping at aid stations of ice etc and began just running from aid station to aid station. I was actually feeling pretty good and was taking a gu gel about every 30 minutes and a salt tablet every hour. I had no significant problems outside of feeling like I was running the Satan half due to the heat. At mile 10 my hamstrings began to cramp and I had some chewable salt tablets that seemed to stop the cramps before they fully developed. I finished the run in run in 3:09:28 with a goal of 3 hours. I spent too much time trying to get ice in the aid stations, next time I'll grab a cup and fill my bag on the go. In any event I was 13th out of 22 for the run and 15 minutes faster than my run at Augusta last year.
Final result: 8:29:18 20th out of 23. But without the tire change it would have been a 23 year PR and middle of the pack of my age group. So I'm satisfied with the performance part of my event particularly the run. This pushes me on with some optimism for IMFL in Nov.
Comments
Good on ya for getting that monkey off your back. You will need that confidence boost to handle IMFL. I suspect it will be LOT cooler for you on the run, with the time change and shorter day and all most of it will be after sunset, no? Also, the bike is a lot less hilly (I almost wrote "flatter" - not what you want at all!)
Stay in the training groove and show up to the start in Panama City healthy, then half the battle is over.
@David Holmes Big congrats on getting it done. While there is nothing you can do about getting a flat , you can certainly get better at fixing one. Practice a few flat changes and buy yourself an easy ten minutes next time it happens... The swim/bike/run is all relative to the individual , at IMFL your simply racing the 17hr clock , there is some free time to be had on your transitions, there is no need to rush , go over what is necessary, practice the motions, with smooth and deliberate actions. Like Al said stay focussed . Cant wait to watch you cross the finishline in November!
Thanks Gentlemen. Definitely need to practice tire changing.
Al the time changes at 2 a.m. after ironman ends at midnight. But I'm sure it will be cooler, and that has a significant effect on my run performance so hoping it will help me survive.
I've felt really comfortable on the swim lately so I'd like to shake that issue from last year. I don't really know why, but I feel my fitness in general is better this year. Maybe the weight loss helps.
What Fla gives up in the hills it usually takes back in the wind. But that's just triathlon. I've ridden every inch of the bike course numerous times including 5 Gulf Coast efforts so I know where to push and where not to. I'm just ready for it to be over at this point. Its been a long 2 years on both my family and myself.
Thanks for all the support you guys give. It means a lot to a back of the packer hoping to move to the middle.
Dave Holmes