Patriot Half Race Report - Withrow
Total: 5:38:31 (130/505 overall, 15/49 in 35-39AG) [HIM PR by ~24 mins]
Swim: 41:34 (297th)
T1: 2:25
Bike: 2:52:11 (183rd)
T2: 3:09
Run: 1:59:15 (133rd)
I was relaxed coming into the day and only had one goal for my race... Break 2 hours on the run! I told everyone that was my goal and that's what I was going to do... At registration for the race, I had to get them to change my category from Clydesdale to AG because I am now a svelt 190lbs vs 215lbs when I registered. FWIW, I would have taken 4th place had I stayed in the Clydes.
Pre-race: I saw several EN peeps before the race which was cool. I watched the Crucible of my Race-Rehearsal on my iPad on the drive to the race. I pretty much nailed the RR 2 weeks earlier with 204NP (75%) with a 1.01 VI on my bike. I knew I had to bike really easy since I'm such a weak runner... I saw Coach P just before swim start and thanked him for the Crucible. I told him that my only goal for the race was to break 2 hrs on the run and I was going to swim and ride as easy as I needed to to hit my run goal. He said it that I could push it harder than 75% on the bike as long as I rode steady... He also mentioned that it was "Bad-azz" that I chose to be the only person in the whole freakin' race to not be wearing a wetsuit... I realized that I forgot to put my HR monitor on, but didn't really care because I never look at it during a race anyways.
Swim: I thought I would be ~35 mins on the swim. I chose to wear my Xterra speedsuit instead of my wetsuit because I wanted to get 1 race under my belt without a wetsuit before IMLou... I was literally the only person without a wetsuit. I lined up far outside to the right which was probably a bit of a mistake. I don't mind getting mixed up in the blender, but I was way outside and didn't even get touched once. The problem was that I stayed outside and maybe drifted further out. No drafts and I was never was able to get into the main lane. At the first left turn bouy I think i was at least 50-100yds wide and had to swim at least a minute just to get back to the bouy. I made the same mistake at the next turn still staying wide to the right. I stayed wide again the whole way back to the finish. I was thinking the extra distance probably slowed me down to 38 min or so, but when I saw 41:30 on my watch as I approached the timing mat, I couldn't believe I was that slow...
T1: I got my shoes and helmet on quickly when I looked down and saw an extra bottle of water on the ground. Crap, I forgot to fill my aerobar drink bottle with the water that is in the cooler in my car. Doh! I quickly cracked the warm bottle open from the ground and dumped it into my bottle, spilling most of it on the ground. I powered on my computer, grabbed my bike and was off.
Bike: Doh #2! I started my bike computer as I crossed the timing mat, mounted and headed out onto the road. I got down on my aerobars and looked at my computer. No Power, No Cadence... I panicked a bit, but tried to keep my cadence up and my power down. I started clicking into my Garmin Edge 500 settings and had it rescan for my Powertap. It found it, phew, crisis avoided and I only lost a couple of minutes of data. I couldn't seem to keep my power constant for a while. Too high, too low, it was frustrating, but in hindsight, it only took a couple of minutes. I was riding at what seemed to be an easy pace and even though I planned to start at ~200W and dial it up to ~210W after a half hour. I was riding at 225W instead and heard Coach P over and over in my head saying to push it a bit more on the bike so what the heck, 225 was my new number. I wanted to keep my cadence between 85-95 for the whole ride and largely succeeded with that. I grabbed a water at the first exchange and got my bottle filled up. I went through my 2hr bottle of Infinit in a little over 2 hrs (560 calories). I drank water the whole time, but wished I had done a few more calories (2.5 hr bottle might have been better). The only weird squiggles in my power file were the 5 times when I peed on the bike (yes, 5 times!). I dialed it way back the last 1.5 miles and stretched my legs, etc. I don't need RnP to do a crucible on this ride because I know I nailed it. VI 1.01, NP of 226W (83.6%), Peak 60 min was 230W (85.2%) from 1:44-2:44 (of 2:52), avg cadence was 93 with 70% between 85-100.
T2: Nothing unusual here. I knowingly took an extra 30 seconds or so to reapply sunscreen on my shoulders ( I had sever sunburn from my last race 6 weeks ago that still hurts because I damaged my dermis). I also grabbed my fuel belt which had 20oz water bottle and a gu flask with 5 Powerbar Gels.
Run: As I was approaching the road out of T2 I saw somebody in an EN kit finishing his bike. I was in my Team ReserveAid Charity kit, but I yelled out "E-N" super loud and hoped I didn't make him almost wreck... I had my EN plan... First 3 miles ~9:00 min per mile, 7 miles at ~8:15-8:20, then hold on for the last 3 miles. I skipped the first aid station. At the 2nd one I grabbed a cup of ice to dump in my shirt and splashed a water on my face. I took my first squirt of gu at mile 2.25 and rinsed it down with water. A much faster friend of mine (LT) caught me at 2.75 miles. We chatted briefly and I was feeling great. I told him I was doing 3 miles easy then 7 miles hard, then I was going to see what I had for the last 3. I assumed he would go ahead, but when I sped up he said goodbye and dropped back. What was happening? I started hunting people down and passing them! I have never done this on a run before! Dare I say it was "fun"... I slowed at every aid station. Ice down the shirt, cup of water and was off. This probably took me 15 seconds early on, but this turned into 20-30 seconds as I got hotter. I was running ~8:30 pace, but my laps on my Garmin kept flashing right around 9 minutes from my slowing at the aid stations... At 6.55 miles I was at 57:00, right on track. I also thought this would be a flat run, but it seemed like the whole thing was uphill with a few of them slowing me a lot. I took gu's again at mile ~6.5 and 9.5 and had 3 salt stick capsules throughout, normally when my legs hurt after a big hill. I kept looking at my watch waiting for mile 10 when it started to hurt and unbelievably, I was still passing people. I knew I had made it past my "7" and now had to survive the "3"... I kept looking at my watch and doing advanced math and just knew I would break 2 hours... I had no doubts whatsoever, but it was starting to hurt. It sure seemed hotter than the 80-82 degrees that it was. I kept hearing the HIM podcast running through my head... "In a HIM, when it starts to hurt during the run, just push harder and go faster..." So that's what I did, I pushed harder... Then a few weird things that only made sense in hindsight started to happen... At mile ~11.5 a girl ran past me and said "are you okay?" Of course I was okay... "I'm fine, why do you ask?" She said "well, I thought you were swerving..." and she ran on. Then I turned off the road and into the camp for the finish. Things were starting to blur a bit... As I was running, I took my fuel belt off and dropped it near a picnic table to get later. I had to run harder... I went over a foot bridge before making the final turn into the finishing chute... I thought it was weird that so many people tried to keep me from cutting the corner to short and falling into the lake. They were all asking if I was okay... I don't remember the finishing chute and wasn't sure I'd make it through the 2nd set of timing mats... A close friend (BLee) later said when I finished he screamed out my name and I didn't even look at him. I remembered to stop my watch before the volunteers grabbed me and helped me to the ground. It said 1:58:30! Mission accomplished!
Post Race: I guess they took my timing chip off for me. I told them I was fine and my friend said that I wasn't... The paramedics apparently also thought I was lying to them when I said I was fine as they ushered me to the ambulance. When they sat me down, I just couldn't lift my head... My friend brought me the best blueberry muffin I have ever eaten in my entire life. He brought me a banana and a nutrigrain bar and a bottle of Heed. 10 seconds later I had downed all of that but still couldn't lift my head. They kept putting ice water towels on me and squirting me with water. They hooked me up to an EKG and brought me a bottle of water. I kept telling them I was fine, and they still didn't believe me... I tried to stand up and fell back down... They decided to take my blood pressure. "110/70" I asked? The guy looked at me and said "um, it's 70/40" I think we need to get you onto the stretcher but I declined. A woman showed up that looked a whole lot worse than I felt, so I decided to give her my seat... Refusing to get fully into the ambulance, instead I slumped onto the ground in the shade of the Ambulance and laid there for at least 10 minutes or so. I kept being doused with ice water and drinking what I could. My friends and the medic team were awesome! After about 10 minutes I was able to get up... I thanked the paramedics and headed to the buffet to get some real food...
Issues with my wife: I sat there and ate near the finish line waiting for my wife to finish. One of the girls on Team ReserveAid said she saw Jess with what looked like a flat tire but there were several volunteers with her helping so she didn't stop. I knew Jess would have a hard time changing a tubular, so I wasn't all that worried when she hadn't finished a half hour after her expected time. I wandered over to the transition area to get a head start on organizing our stuff when I realized that her bike was not in the transition area and her run stuff was still there. Uh oh... I ran to the car and got my phone... There was a text message on it from one of the nurses that said ''Hello, my name is Carmen I work at Morton hospital in Taunton. your wife is here and okay, but she needs you to call her ###-###-###''. I was still worried, but relieved to know where she was. I talked to Jess and got the brief story. I quickly gathered the stuff from our transition spots and found a race volunteer who quickly located Jess' banged up bike and was off to the hospital to pick her up. She was flying on the bike course and was on track for about a 2:45 or so split. At the bottle exchange on the 2nd lap, as she took the water handoff, some guy cut in front of her and clipped her front wheel. She went down, but she wasn't going all that fast so it wasn't bad. The volunteers helped her up and put her chain back on for her. She cut her knee but it wasn't bad so she mounted her bike and was off. About a hundred yds later she made a right turn and remembers thinking something didn't feel right with her bike and wham, she went down hard. She cracked her helmet and blacked out for a minute or so. 2 other racers stopped to help and one waited with her as the other rode back to the aid station to get help. They called the ambulance which decided to take her to the hospital when they saw her helmet. She has a concussion and road rash on her knee, shoulder, hip, hand, and elbow. She stayed in bed all day Sunday, but appears as though she will be just fine. She was actually just mad that she had to DNF because she really wanted that half-IM benchmark heading into IMLou. She's nearly as stubborn as her husband!
Conclusion: All in all, we had some hiccups on the day, but it was a really nice race venue. The volunteers were awesome and I really liked the race. The race director even called our house yesterday to ask how Jess was doing. I probably could have avoided the med tent by running about 5 minutes slower and stopping longer at the Aid stations, but I'm quite happy I chose the pain path instead. As painful as it was at the end, I actually enjoyed the run... This was the first race of my entire life that my relative place on the run leg was better than both the run and the bike! You runners out there really have know idea how big of an accomplishment this was for me since I have always considered myself relatively strong on the bike and swim but an absolutely weak runner. With that said, I've decided to throw all of my time goals out the window for IMLou... My new goal is to finish IMLou with a smile and not need to go to the med tent afterwards!
Comments
It was my first time volunteering at a triathlon, and it was quite eventful. I saw one other bike crash, made 3 bike repairs, saw a lot of interesting transition / bike mount / dismount styles, cheered on a bunch of EN folks, and was inspired by the competitors. Tell Jess I wish her a speedy recovery.
Nice run - I remember you telling Tucker and I that it wasn't your strength....seems you will be putting that behind you. When we get back from IMCDA, we'll have to hook up for another beer and this time bring Jess...Beers are on us!!!
As JT said lets get together for beers again soon.
@ John W. feel free to PM or call me anytime.