Patriot's Half Ironman Report
Race Report:
Preamble:
Coming into this race one of my friends told my mother ‘you know, this
is a half ironman… he’s probably going to puke’. So, as I figure it
that means that if I didn’t puke, I wasn’t racing hard enough, and if
I did puke I raced too hard. Either way, no win for me.
Intro:
Last year when I decided to get into triathlon, I signed up for Columbia
as my motivating goal. The day after Columbia (which was a blast for me),
I decided that since the Oly didn’t kill me I would try my hand at a
half-iron. I scoured the race reports on the MMTC website and decided on
Patriot’s. The flatness and the scheduling late in the season made
motivated my choice – it seemed like enough time to retool my training
for the distance and I figured flat was … well … easier.
So three and a half months later, here we are.
Pre-Race:
As those who follow the MMTC Facebook conversations on nutrition may
know, I’ve become a big fan of Dunkin Donuts bagels as a
pre-race/pre-big workout food. I find them super easy to digest (entirely
fiber free and very soft). I’ve had issues finding DDs in Virginia
before, so I stopped on the way in to work and got a bagel with butter to
have the next morning. Bon Fresco pickup for lunch and then Alec and I
left Columbia to get down to Williamsburg. We made good time and got
there at 3 to pick up our packets and drive the bike course. The bike
course drove well, though there was a long ‘bumpy’ section that later
prove to be interesting. It became obvious as we were driving the route
that those who called it ‘flat’ where either simply comparing it to
HoCo or being sandbaggers. It’s not really flat at all. Rollers and a
lot of long false flats. Nothing serious (~1200’ of elevation gain/loss
over the 56 miles), but still not flat.
We had Italian for dinner and then I retired to the Marriott for an early
bed. I tried a new twist on my race-day nutrition timing this race. I
woke up at 2am, ate my bagel (still good!), went back to sleep, then woke
up at 4:30, had a banana and got ready to leave the hotel. I’m not sure
how I like the new timing. I think overall it’s good, but I might add a
second bagel at 4:30.
Alec and I drove down to the race site and got our bikes ready. With my
Mini I was very jealous of all the Virginians with their jacked-up monster
trucks where the bikes just stood up in the capped bed. Headed in for
body marking and setting up my transition. This time I went for the Mark
Yost-inspired less is more:
• On the bike: helmet, with glasses and a fuel-belt flask of thick
mixed perpetuem (5 scoops), endurolytes in a mentos gum container
• On the towel: cycling shoes with socks, running shoes
• On the rack: race belt with my garmin 405 and running visor
The water temp was 74 degrees, so I wetsuited up and started to head down
to the swim start. I saw Danny and Deb, said hi, and continued down to
the swim start. The swim start/finish was a solid quarter mile plus from
transition – a really really long way.
The Swim (39:59, OV: 109/382, AG: 34/91)
The swim in the James was interesting. For one, the swim starts in waist
deep water. At the horn, 2/3rds of my wave proceeded to aquajog/dolphon
about 100 meters before it became necessary to swim. The first turn buoy
looked to be really far away from the start, and it took forever to get
there (also, the current pulled decently perpendicular to the path).
Someone drafted off me most of the way to the first buoy (poor fool) – I
know because I kept kicking them. A hundred meters or so from the turn
buoy I started seeing white caps (the women one wave behind me), so I
figured this would be another sub-par swim for me.
My vision is very poor without glasses, and I don’t wear contacts, so
it took me a while to spot the next turn buoy (I lemming’d till then).
I finally found it and found my own high point reference and started
swimming towards that (as opposed to the splashy dude in front of me). I
was so focused on that (and the current was so strong) that I almost swam
past the turn buoy. While the first buoy took forever to get to, the
second seemed to come immediately. Making the turn at the second buoy, I
simply couldn’t see the markers for the swim exit. I paused, looked
around, and decided just to follow everyone else. That turned out to be
sub-optimal, as everyone was swimming down current from the exit. Finally
I saw the exit and angled for that - ended up being probably 100m too far
downstream.
T1 (4:39, OV: 217/382, AG: 51/91):
The exit had the same extended shallows that the start had so I walked in
the last bit. With the long run to transition ahead, I decided it might
well be faster to take off the wetsuit in the water and run with it over
my shoulder. Not sure it was actually faster, but I’m not unhappy with
the call. Into transition, saw Alec (who started 8 minutes after me, but
finished before me – he’s fast), and got my shoes on, perpetuem and
edurolytes in my jersey pockets, helmet on, glasses on and it was a go.
The Bike (2:43:11, OV: 96/382, AG: 28/91):
The bike travelled out to the first real road on a small bike path – it
was a bit sketchy because there was nowhere to dodge all the other racers
in a rush to get out on the bike. We came out and down to route 5, then
shortly thereafter crossef the bride over the Chikahominy river. Smooth
fast ride down to State Route 623. That was the bumpy rode I mentioned
before. For whatever reason, the bumpiness of the road really tired out
my legs, even though I was riding well below my power plan. My hips been
having serious pain for about two weeks (but just when running, not when
biking), but in addition to hurting the hip, my legs started to hurt as
well – like when you’re trying to stretch outside your limit of
flexibility. It was weird, and unpleasant – a very uncomfortable ride,
even after we got back onto smooth pavement.
There were three water bottle exchanges (water and HEED) on the bike (15,
30, and 45 miles) which were very staffed and stocked. I took a hit from
my perpetuem bottle every half-hour religiously and didn’t dip into my
salt tabs (I wasn’t sweating very much).
My plan had been to ride between 210 and 220 watts. With the discomfort
in my legs, I backed off that plan and ended up riding at 196 watts (VI of 1.03).
T2 (2:53, OV: 254/382, AG: 58/91):
In to T2, shoes off, shoes on, visor on, race belt on, and good to go.
Half way out of transition I realized I still had my empty perpetuem flask
in my jersey so I turned around and dropped it with my stuff. Next I hit
the porta-john for fluid exchange and was out on the run.
The Run (2:03:28, OV: 188/382, AG: 45/91):
Garmin, Garmin, Garmin. For a long time I’ve been trying to figure out
if the gps or the footpod on the Garmin is more accurate. Today I have an
answer: the footpod sucks. 3 miles in I realized the satellite wasn’t
tracking and that my footpod was tracking my pace as faster than I was.
The run course was really pretty and very flat. It was a 2x(out and back
plus a loop). Most of it was on pavement, but there was a two mile
section on the loop (so 4 miles total) that was crushed stone/off road
path. This was very pretty, but a bit hard on my hip. I think I started
out too fast (8:40s or so), and it blew my ability to kick up the pace
later.
A mile into the second loop my stomach starting bothering me and my pace
slipped from low 9’s to 10ish. Went for my endurolytes and found I had
ejected the container sometime on the run. This is the second time that's
happened - need a better alternative.
The run was incredibly staffed. There were 7 or 8 waterstops (and
remember, this is a loop course, so that means 14 or 16 effective stops).
Water and HEED (diluted) at every stop, flat Coke at most. Hammer Gels
and oranges as well. The volunteers were friendly too. I went water only
for the first 3 miles, then alternated HEED and water until mile 10, when
I switched to flat Coke and water.
I passed a good number of 35-39s on my way through the second loop. In
the last quarter mile a huge 38 year old saquatch-looking guy blew by me.
I briefly considered trying to race him down, but didn’t think I had it
in me so I let him go. Ran into him after the race and it turns out he
was racing as a Clyde. Lucky me!
Redux (5:34:08, OV: 131/382, AG: 35/91):
Overall this was a fantastic race. It was incredibly well staffed and
organized, and the course was both beautiful and fast.
While none of my individual performances were stellar (my bike and run
were each off where I though they should be), it goes to show that a
consistent B performance can still yield a good result, as long as you're
consistent. :-)
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