Slog in the Bog, My Pigman Half
Preface: I was planning on a season of short course racing, and was doing just that until my "A" sprint (if you can call a sprint an "A" race) was cancelled. I was not ready for my season to end in the middle of July, so I did what any good Tri geek would do...I signed up for a Half Ironman. Now, I could have done the Olympic distance race the same day at the same venue, but then I would have had to wait around the park for a long time for the post race give away's. When you are MOP like me, that's where the money is 
Pre-Race: The Pigman Long, AKA...the big pig, slog in the bog, and many other not so kind words has been going on for 15 years now. It is a great local race that has wonderful volunteers and lots of good swag. I like the race venue as it is only a 25 minute drive from my house, so I can sleep in my own bed, and sleep in until about 5am on race morning...which is really nice. I got up at 5, filled my coffee mugs and headed out the door. I had my normal pre-race meal for the season of Hostess powdered doughnuts...2 tubes instead of 1 as this was a longer race, and I drank about 40 Oz of coffee. I felt good 
I got my bike set up, nutrition on the bike and run set up, and grabbed my first piece of gum for the day (for those who don't know me, I chewed a piece of gum for the entire IMWI swim last year) and then went and hung out with some of the guys from Gear West Bike and Triathlon. After some joking around with the crew we all made our way to the water...I did a decent 10 minute warm up swim and then just floated around until my wave was about to start. I took in a gu roctain as the wave before mine started. This also gave me time to unload some of that coffee I had been drinking 
The Swim: 40:25 The big pig uses a time trial start, so I seeded myself at the back of my wave, that way everyone I passed, I actually passed. I had a good swim, not a great swim, but not a bad swim. I made two sighting errors that probably cost me about 2 minutes to correct my course and get myself back to shore. I was hoping to go 37-40 minutes on the swim and I went 40:25, so I had what it took to swim faster, I just screwed up a little...oh well. 
T-1: 3:05 I am not a fan of this races transitions...you run up hill out of the swim, and where my bike rack was, you run over 200 yards to get there. Once I got to my bike, I got my goodies together and hit the road.
Bike: 2:41:29 The bike on this course is all rollers. There are very few areas that are flat/even grade. One of the few areas is right out of the park. I had a nice tail wind and a very mild down hill/ false flat for the first 4 miles. I went against the EN grain and took a gamble by putting in some higher watts during this first 4 miles knowing I could make up the watts later in the ride. My goal watts for the ride were between 180-190. I was averaging 200 when I hit the corner. I turned right and proceeded to back off to around 170 as I had a slight headwind, but I had a lot of traffic to pass/draft off of. I worked my way through traffic and had a great split getting to the turn around. On the way back I had a nice tail wind and made good time with the hilly course by staying on my wattage goals. I hit the headwind comming back into town and then back into the park. There were a few Larger bikers out on the course as I was coming back into town (I was next to the last swim wave, passing mostly team participants from the 1st wave). I used there size and maybe not quite 3 bike lengths to help me with the wind
I made it back into the park and was ready for T-2. My nutrition on the bike was 525 calories of infinite and one Gu at about 4 miles out to set myself up for the run. I also took in about 40 Oz of Water on the course. It was cool on the bike and I had to force myself to drink water. I knew I was tanked up about right as I felt like I needed to pee just as I entered the park.
T-2: 2:28 I ran my bike up the hill, pulled my timing chip out of my wetsuit, put my socks and shoes on, and carried everything else out on the run with me.
Run 1:53:51 The reason I call this race "The Slog in the Bog" is because of the run. You run out of the park, take a left, go down a big hill (Kansas 70.3) and then you run in a bog...low land/flood plain. It is relatively flat, but it is baron of spectators, leaving you alone with your demons. I ran out of the park at my 8:30 pace and was able to pick it up after the mile 3 aide station. I was on track with my pace through mile 6 and then hit the turn around hill. At mile 7 I realized that my HRM strap had wore a hole into my chest and it was burning on fire!!! Knowing that my heart rate was right on track, I pulled the HRM strap down to my waist...where it continued to dig a hole next to my navel, but since I already had a hole there it was not nearly as bad. At about mile 9 I found my good friend "The Suck"
. I said hello, we exchanged pleasantries, and he let me know he would be staying for the duration of the run. I started watching my garmin like I do my Joule...pacing myself to keep my mind off the pain. As I ran up the big hill, I kept my head down, looked at the ground and my watch, and was able to run up it at a swift 9:30 pace. I walked the aide station at the top of the hill and pushed forward to the finish. The finish is a nice quad burning down hill and I enjoyed every painful step of it. I knew I had put forth a good effort when I had very little kick left in me for the finish and I could barely raise my arms for the photo guy at the finish line. My nutrition on the run was a gu roctaine at 45 minutes in and 4 enduralites at mile 7. I took in water at every aid station and put ice under my cap 2 times. The ice was more about "feeling" a new pain, not because it was hot.
Total for the race was 5:20:46
My thoughts for this race:
I entered this race to challenge myself. I needed to get off my lazy ass and do some real work. The short course plan is like out season part doux, harder than hell, but the pain is short in duration. I needed to test the metal a little bit and I feel like I did. I have never felt the Suck like this on a HIM, but I have never pushed myself this hard on a HIM before. I wanted to hit a 1:48 on the run, and tried to regain that pace many times as the miles ticked away, but in the end I think I succumbed to the suck and lost 5 minutes to the pain. It is easy to look back at a race and tear yourself apart, so I have to remind myself of the following...I scored a 13:39 course PR (10:30 on the run) and a little over a 12 minute distance PR. I did this on minimal training (in my eyes) and great coaching. Would I recommend doing a HIM on such short notice...HELLS YAH!!! 
Comments
Congrats on your PR!
Nice work indeed Ebe. I was there suffering with ya. Congrats on the PR
I kind of miss Big Pig in a sick sort of "I hate you and I want revenge" sort of way. Slog in the bog is good way to describe it, and both times I did that race the run completely kicked my ass. I like to pretend that I've finally figured out the nutritional woes that kept me underperforming on the run and finally seek my vengeance on that course... but maybe Pig will just have to have the last laugh in my sorted affair.
Anyway, major kudos to you for holding it together on the run and especially for running up the big hill, something I never accomplished at that race, and doubly especially since you really had been doing short course training for most of the season. With a longer stretch of more volume over the season I think you could easily knock more time off of all 3... more PRs to come!
Congrats on a great race!