Colin's Patriot Half Ironman Race Report
Stayed at a friend's house in New Bedford the night before. I left work a bit early and tried to beat the rush hour traffic, but the ride ended up taking about 2.5 hours so I was a little late getting to my friends. We went to Italien place right after I got there and grabbed a nice pre race chicken parm.
Woke up a little before my alarm at 4:30 and had an Ensure with a couple bananas. Race site was only about 20 min from my buddies house so that was great. Ended up being one of the first people in transition.
Event warmup:
Did a real quick ride just to make sure the bike was good. Due to the weather, I hadn't ridden it since I put my race wheel + cover on so wanted to make sure it was good. The other NEMSer's and I went for a quick run and did about a 100 yard warm up swim.
SWIM
Time: 31:34
AG Rank: 6
Overall Rank: 45
Swim was very average. I'm a very big advocate of taking it easy on the swim and made sure I stayed disciplined and didn't push too hard. The start was rather uneventful and I really didn't have much contact at all. I was swimming straight and my navigation was good. I swam right next to one guy in my age group the whole way. It was kinda awkward at points because we were right next to each other for a long time and we were breathing to opposite sides so we kept looking right at each other. I was kinda hoping he was going to pull away a little bit so I could draft him, but it never happened. At the end of the swim, the ground was very rocky which I found out in the warm up so I was sure to swim as far in as I could which worked out well. As we came out of the water, he said "Thanks for pushing me" and I guess I'm glad I could help.
T1
Time: 1:02
Overall Rank: 1
Fastest transition of anyone for T1. I'm kinda surprise by this because my spot was one of the furthest from the bike out so I can to run with my bike for longer than most people did. I was able to get my wetsuit off without a problem and since I had my shoes on my bike, I was able to head right out after putting my shades and helmet on.
BIKE
Time: 2:28:28
Loop 1 split: 1:13:38
Loop 2 split: 1:14:06
AG Rank: 1
Overall Rank: 15
Avg Power: 274
Lap 1 Power: 280
Lap 2 Power: 268
Avg Cadence: 88
Avg HR: 168
Max HR: 190???
I knew I needed to pushed a little on the bike. That being said, I don't know when the heck my HR hit 190...I don't think that's right, but that's what my Garmin has. Since the course was so flat, I wanted to attach the hills so I did so. I came and rode the course a few weeks before the race, but apparently the route on mapmyrides that I uploaded wasn't right. However, the race course was WAY better. There was one really crappy section of bumpy road I was expecting/kinda dreading, but it never came, which was awesome.
I knew I was going to beat my firend Nate out of the water and that he would be catching me on the bike. I did my best to postpone that as long as possible. He passed me towards the end of the first loop and it was nice to see him. He was looking great and my fed off his energy. I averaged 280 watts on the first lap which was a little higher than I had planned, but was really happy to finish the first lap in 1:13:38. I did check that my power was a little high so I toned it down a little bit on the second loop.
Def made a major tactical error on the second loop. The only liquid source I had was my speedfil which had a cover over it. I thought I had filled it up to the top at the last aid station before the 1st loop ended. However, just about a mile after the 2nd loop aid station, I ran out of Heed. Uh oh! I realized I was doing the next 20 miles without any fluids. That was disappointing, but just kept on pushing. There was an aid station just before the end of the bike so I did take another bottle and took in a little before the end of the ride. Avg power for the 2nd lap was 267, which was a little low, but did put me at 274 for an average, which was just below my desired average of 275.
T2
Time: 1:37
Overall Rank: 11th?
Dismounted fine and was running with my bike and took my helmet off. Unfortunately my helmet clipped my sunglasses as I was pulling it off and they fell off. When I stopped to pick them up, one of the lenses was popped off. I just quickly told a volunteer to grab it for me and I decided to ditch my shades for the run, which I wasn't thrilled about.
So I got my socks and shoes on pretty well and took off out of transition only to realize I forgot my Garmin on my bike. Damn! Was only about 20 feet away and knew I needed it so I turned back and grabbed it. Despite all that, I still has one of the faster transition times so I'll talk. I think this is definitely the first time my T1 was faster than my T2. Pretty disappointed about this.
Run
Time: 1:38:11
Splits: 1: 6:41, 2: 6:54,3: 8:00, 4: 7:24, 5: 7:33, 6: 7:45, 7: 7:37, 8: 7:41, 9: 8:02, 10: 7:51, 11: 7:35, 12: 7:20, 13: 7:12
AG Rank: 3
Overall Rank: 22
Avg HR: 169
Max HR: 184
Not happy with my run. As I was coming out of transition, I was side by side with the guy that won my age group. We said nice job to each other and I didn't realize he was in my age group because he had compressions socks covering his calves. He came out at a really fast pace, prob like 6:15 and as soon as he did that, I backed off. I knew that was too fast and I needed to stay disciplined. Everything was going great for the first 2 miles and then out of no where, I got a cramp on the right side of my stomach. I have gotten these before, but normally they slowly come on. As a result, I took it easy and tried to work it out, but didn't have much luck doing so. Coach Patrick passed me while I was trying to work it out, which wasn't good timing. 
The rest of the run was a total battle with the cramp. I just kept trying to go as fast as I could without letting the cramp come back, but it kept sneaking back in. I did walk at the aid stations and put my hands over my head which did seem to help with the cramp. Since I already was cramping, I didn't take in any gels or nutrition during the run besides coke and water. Not sure if that was the right move or not, but I think it was. It was definitely hot out there and there was a lot of time exposed to the sun.
This was a very frustrating run. I don't like knowing I've got more in me and not being able to give it my all. I'm pretty shocked to see that time was the 3rd best in my AG and 22nd overall. I was shooting for around 1:31-1:32.
Overall Recap
Overall, I'm pretty happy with my day. However, the cramping was very disappointing and really put a damper on my outlook on the race. It was a super flat/fast course so I knew I would have a fast overall time, but it would have been nice to go sub 4:40. PR'ed by 17 minutes so I suppose that's something to be happy about. . This was my first time getting on the podium for a half iron distance race so I was happy about that.
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