The Spirit of Racine Triathlon (formerly known as “Dairyland”) is a 1/2 Irondistance triathlon located in Racine on the eastern border of Wisconsin. It’s a 1.2 mile swim in Lake Michgan, a 56 mile bike ride through the countryside, and a 13.1 mile run along the coast. I wanted to use this race as a long training day in preparation for Ironman Wisconsin. My goals: Finish the race and not leave myself shelled so that I could get right back on your training plan. My guesstimate at my finishing time was just under six hours.

Pre-Race:

I woke up around 5 am so I could get some breakfast down before the race. It consisted of a blueberry muffin, about 3/4 of a Snickers Marathon bar, and a bottle of Gatorade. I checked the weather which showed it was a chilly 58 degrees at that time. The day was supposed to end up at 72 degrees and sunny later in the day, so I was hoping it would heat up considerably from the morning. My friend and I made our way to the transition area around 6 am. We setup our areas and pumped up our tires and made our way to the swim start.

Swim:

Due to some changes in conditions (I’m not really sure what those changes were), they changed the swim course from being one loop to being a straight swim which started about a mile from transition. I expected the water to be pretty chilly. In the recent days, I had heard rumors of it being anywhere from 58 to 66 degrees - pretty cold regardless of where you pick from that scale. The walk down to the start took longer than I expected and it wasn’t fun trudging through the sand and mud and in a wetsuit, but what can you do? By the time we got to the start, we were the next wave to go. That was ok with me since I wasn’t about to get in that water any sooner than I had to. It was going to be a long day, so I figured the swim would be my warm up for the day (assuming I was able to get warm). I’m normally a FOP swimmer, but that day I decided to start in the back, still on the beach. I didn’t want to know what the water felt like until I had to.

Although I didn’t hear anything, I’m assuming some horn went off and I followed the mass into the water. It wasn’t as cold as I had expected it to be which I was happy about. It didn’t take long to make it through the pack of people. I managed to find some clear water before the first bouy and settled into a nice rhythm. I took the swim nice and easy and didn’t ever feel like I was pushing at all. The water was pretty wavy and I was wondering if anyone was going to freak out and just bail on the swim. I feel totally at home in the water, but I could definitely see how folks might start to freak out with how choppy things were. I approached what would be the final bouy indicating that we should turn towards the beach and thinking to myself is this right? I didn’t think I had been in the water for long enough to have swam 1.2 miles. I didn’t have my watch on so couldn’t verify the time, but I just followed the crowds figuring that not everyone could be wrong. I made my way to the shore, found my girlfriend and gave her a kiss before I headed into T1 and onto my bike. Time: 25:42. Definitely short or we had a strong current (perhaps that was the change of conditions?) or both.

T1:

SLOW. But mostly intentionally so. I didn’t really care about my overall time, so I didn’t feel any need to rush. I took the time to dry off my feet and put on socks. I chatted a little bit with another guy next to me and wished him luck. Time: 2:59.

Bike:

The ride out of transition was kind of annoying. There was a nice hill to greet us right out of the gates and the first few miles had us turning every few blocks which was kind of a pain. A few miles in, I was able to settle into my aero position and just ride. I planned doing my entire ride at IM pace, so I wasn’t surprised when folks started passing me left and right. That was ok though. I wasn’t going to let them throw me off my game, so I just let the hammer heads go. The roads weren’t the greatest and I sat up a lot on my bullhorns a lot to let my arms absorb a lot of the bumps. I found myself pushing a little too hard towards the middle of my ride - probably from about mile 30 to mile 40. I made myself throttle back again and got my HR back down to training levels. I approached the end of my ride feeling great and not tired at all. Those long slow 80+ mile rides really do something for your biking endurance! Results - Time: 2:42:54 - Pace: 20.6 MPH. That’s still faster than I’m planning on averaging at Wisconsin, but I’m happy with that performance since I felt like I could have pushed considerably harder if I wanted to race the course.

T2:

I made it a point to get through this transition more quickly. Not because I wanted to race, but I had to pee like a race horse! Time: 2:09.

Run:

I wasn’t the only one that had to go because there was a line right out of T2 to use the Biffys. After a quick pit stop, I found my girlfriend again about 100 yards up the road and gave her another kiss and went on my way (I’d find out later that the women around her were jealous that their SOs didn’t stop to give them the same treatment, so I’m glad I was able to make her feel special. :) ). I hit the first mile marker at about 9:30, which was fast for me considering that included the time I spent stopping to hit the head. I kept my HR in check and I was keeping a fairly consistent pace which was verified by my watch and the mile markers. I did slow down a little bit over the course of the run - maybe 10 seconds per mile - but I was extremely happy with the pace at which I was running. The first lap felt great and I’ll admit that I did push a little harder than I had planned on the second lap. I thought it would be awesome if I could break 2 hours for a 1/2 marathon (this was only the second time I had run 13.1 miles for time) and I had a good chance at it that day! Results - Time: 1:51:12 - Pace: 8:29/mile. That was a great run for me!

My total time was 5:04:59. 58/155 in my AG and 252 out of approximately 1100. I also smashed my other 1/2 IM time by 20 minutes and did so in the middle of a base training week with really no taper or rest. Needless to say, I was very, VERY happy with my results! Hopefully, this is a sign of good things to come for IMMoo!