White Lake HIM II (5/14/11) Race Report
2011 White Lake Half II (5/14/11)– Race Report
Dusty Holcomb
Results: (Clydesdale Category)
· Total Time – 6:22:16 – 5th out of 10 competitors
o Swim – 47:19
o T1 – 3:30
o Bike – 2:44:28
o T2 – 2:06
o Run – 2:44:55
Race Report:
Well this race report will be much shorter than last weeks. My first HIM race was 5/7/11 and unfortunately the swim was canceled. Because of this Setup Events (race organizer) offered a 33% discount to the following weekends HIM race (White Lake Half II) to anyone crazy enough to try and do it on back-to-back weekends. My buddy Jody (fellow EN peep) and I decided that we are just crazy enough to try again for our first HIM. We both felt pretty unfulfilled last week when the swim was canceled. 6+ months of training for a first 70.3 race and we didn’t get to do the whole thing! So we opted to go for the race and just treat it like a long training day.
My goal was obviously to finish, and to finish in a reasonable time but not injure myself in the process. Just take what my body would give me. After all the lessons learned last week I knew that I could execute a lot of things better (i.e., actually remember my Garmin, etc.)
SWIM:
The highlight of the White Lake Half is the swim, which is in a beautiful and crystal clear lake. The morning of the race looked just like the previous week, a dense fog over the lake which led to a delay in the swim start. Talk about Déjà vu! Fortunately the delay only last 40 minutes until the fog lifted and they were able to get the race started. The swim was beautiful! I was slow, painfully slow my goal was to just stay smooth and not to stop swimming except to sight for the buoys. It was a great swim, my longest open water swim, and a truly beautiful morning. My wetsuit has full sleeves and I have really big shoulders so by the end of the swim my shoulders and arms were really tired. I could feel the wetsuit pulling a bit at my shoulders on the swim. I might have to look into trying a sleeveless wetsuit to see if that helps on longer races.
T1:
I developed some calf cramps the last 200 meters or so of the swim so I was slow coming out of the water and running into T1. I took my time in T1, definitely didn’t rush anything, I got my wetsuit off pretty quick but probably looked like an idiot trying to put on socks. I’ve got to condition myself to biking without socks. I don’t have tri-specific bike shoes and since I hadn’t trained riding without socks I didn’t want to try it in the race. Need to fix this before the next race so I can cut 30+ seconds out of my T1 time.
BIKE:
As soon as I hit the bike I knew I was on “dead legs” compared to the previous week. It took about 20 minutes before my legs felt reasonably strong. I had programed my power zones into my computer last week and used the same zones for this race. In hindsight I should have backed them down a bit since I wasn’t racing at 100% energy. My TSS = 81 and IF = 83%. VI = 1.02. I had a great ride and enjoyed every minute of it. I hit my power zones and just stuck to my pace, regardless of anyone else around me. My ride this week was only 45 seconds slower than last week which considering that the wind was stronger this week, I was riding a HED 3 in the back instead of a wheelcover over my powertap, and I was one week removed from the same ride I was surprised I didn’t give up more time. The key lesson learned from the ride was to make sure that I slow down more on water bottle handoffs. The first two went perfectly as the volunteers were great about hand with soft hands and moving with me, the last water bottle handoff I might as well have been trying to grab the bottle from a board. Needless to say I didn’t get a bottle at that stop… It was my fault for not slowing down more and recognizing that this one was different.
T2:
I came off the bike and was moving slowly running into transition. Just didn’t have much juice in the legs. I considered bailing on the run at this point but decided that worst case I would walk the whole darn thing. I wasn’t quitting. T2 was slow, just nothing was moving fast for me in transition the entire day.
RUN:
I headed out for the run and knew immediately that this week was going to be different than last weeks. I just didn’t have any juice in my legs. I hit my run pace zones, albeit on the slow end of the pace, for the first two miles and then reprogrammed my Garmin to have me run 3 minute, walk 1 minute intervals. I didn’t want to walk but I didn’t want to injure myself either so I decided to take what my body would give me on the run. It was much hotter and more humid this week and I was amazed at how many people were walking within the first mile of the run. I stuck to my intervals and just muddled through. I did make myself walk briskly when I walked, which for me is a 13:30 pace so I wouldn’t give up too much time. All in all it wasn’t a bad run experience, the miles seemed to slip by really quickly. The last two miles or so I was getting cramps in my calf when I ran but managed to get through these without any major problems.
Bottom line is that both Jody and I finished the race, had a great experience and pulled off doing the hard parts of two 70.3 races only one week apart. Not sure that either of us wlll do that again but I am glad we did it this week!
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