Pre-Race:

This is the race that almost wasn’t. I couldn’t decide until the last minute if I wanted to do the race or not. I took a day off work to do my long ride midweek, which forced me to do my long run this weekend. It was either run by myself in the heat, or do the race and eventually I decided on the latter.

I had a heck of a time getting registered. active.com wouldn’t let me register because it was too close to the race and the bike shop where you were supposed to drop off entries weren’t accepting them anymore either. I tried calling the number for the event series (which tells you to “call anytime”), but I got some girls voice mail and never got a return call. I finally winged it and saw that they had registration going on at the same time packet pickup was happening. I crossed my fingers hoping that it wasn’t full and made the 35ish mile drive out to Chisago Lakes to register. As luck would have it, they were still letting folks in. I figured, “Who in their right mind is going to sign up knowing that it was supposed to be over 100 degrees with a heat index around 110 today? Surely, there has to be openings.”

I got to the race area about 45 minutes before the race would start. I got setup in transition and said hi to a few of Carol’s co-workers who were doing the sprint tri that was also taking place. Then went to wait in the ginormous line for the porta-pottys. The minutes kept passing by and I knew it was going to be a close call. About five minutes before the first wave was going to go off (I was in wave two!), I was up. I did my business, grabbed my stuff quickly from the transition area and headed down to the beach.

Swim:

As most of you know, it’s been abnormally hot this July. I forgot the exact statistic, but it hasn’t been this hot of a month in Minnesota in a long time. As such, the water temperature was a warm 79 degrees. The race wasn’t USAT sanctioned, so you could wear wetsuits if you wanted. I opted to go without as I tend to overheat fairly easily. Most others that I saw heading to the beach weren’t donning them anyway.

Or so I thought. It turns out that pretty much everyone that was doing the half were all sporting wetsuits - it was the mass of sprint folks that were going without. I wondered how much time I’d be giving up without the floating crutch, but it was too late to go back and suit up anyway. Oh well.

The first wave of folks went out and I stood in position for the second wave. I started off in the front, but on the side since there were already people in the middle. The countdown comes and our wave hits the water! Folks were making a mad rush like there was some kind of prize to be won by the first person to swim the first 50 yards. I didn’t get it, but whatever. :) I think I was in a heat with fairly slow swimmers because it wasn’t long before I was out by myself. Normally I usually see one or two other folks around me, but really… this time it seemed really sparse.

I swam easily and comfortably. I reminded myself that this was a training day and a long one at that so no point in killing myself in the swim. The swim itself was more less uneventful. I managed to catch probably most of the folks in the wave before me. I got kicked pretty hard once in the shoulder. The guy was nice about it and stopped to see if I was ok. I think he thought he clocked me in the head. I assured him I was ok and not to worry about it.

On the last straight of the swim triangle, there was a bit more chop in the water. For whatever reason, it really messed with my ability to swim in a straight line? But eventually, the people on the beach started getting bigger and I hit sand.

I had a minor panic when I stood up and felt my timing chip fall off. I looked back and didn’t see it, but a second or two later I saw it float up. Phew! I didn’t need to waste time looking for that!

Time: 31:57 - 1:39/100m (1:30/100 yards) pace

T1:

The run up to the transition area was uphill, but wasn’t terrible. It’s always a little weird going from horizontal to vertical though.

I took my time in T1. I put socks on for the race. Got my stuff on and went off on my bike.

Time: 2:35

Bike:

Ooops! I forgot to take my HRM off my wrist and put it onto its bike mount (my HRM also acts as my bike computer). I stopped right out of T1 to fix that and kept on going.

The plan was to take the bike really easy as well. I really only needed to do a long run for training so everything else was just going to be filler. I took a good 15 minutes, but my HR finally did drop down into the 130 range.

“That’s where I’ll likely sit for Ironman so that’s a good place to be.”

So I ride for an hour or so and it’s nice and easy. But the course would turn and the tail wind would soon turn into a sidewind/headwind. I saw my speed slowly dropping and rode for a while at 15ish MPH. AND, I’m pushing harder to maintain that slower pace.

“I’m never going to get off this bike course if I’m riding this slow! This is going to take forever.”

I turned it up just a notch. I’m in the 140s now which is higher than I train at, and I really don’t want to be racing. But I didn’t want to be going 15 MPH either? I just told myself that I’d keep it up for a little while longer until the wind was more favorable. We did eventually turn again away from the bad winds, but the road we turned onto was terrible. It was hella bumpy I’d say for the next 15 miles or so. I’m going to need to see a chiropractor to put my spine back into place after that stretch of road. Bleh.

More pedaling and we turn again - it’s somewhere around mile 40 at this point? This time, the roads are smooth and we have what was that nasty headwind going in our favor now. Yaaahhooooooo!! I’d ride for the next 30 minutes or so around 25-27 MPH. I was in the big ring and the small cog pushing 85 cadence with HRs back down around 130 again. That was an awesome feeling!

Sadly, we didn’t get that tailwind all the way back to T2. There was about 5 miles more riding into the wind, but it wasn’t too bad. Soon enough, we were back to the base station and ready to hit the run. It’s start to heat up at this point.

Time: 2:46:32 - 20.2 MPH average

T2:

Again, I’m in no hurry. I changed shoes and tied my laces. My spectator friends stopped by while I was changing. I asked how their sprint went and they both had a good time. Maybe a couple more folks to be hooked on the whole triathlon bug. :) We said our goodbyes, I grabbed my race belt and visor and was off.

Time: 2:02

Run:

“Start off SLOOOWW. It’s going to be a long, hot day.”

So I start shuffling my feet, trying to go slow. It’s getting hotter at this point but not too terrible. Plus, it’s still quite windy and that’s helping to keep me cool. I approach the mile 1 marker and hit the lap time on my watch - 8:02.

“Gah! What part of SLOOOWW do you not understand? You can’t run your first miles this fast at IM because it’ll kill you.”

OK… lets try that again. Mile 2 - nope 8:25. Mile 3 - nope, 8:27. But just when I’m thinking to myself, “Self, maybe you can do something impressive here?” I start slowing down on my own. Similar HRs as I would see later, but just slower paces. 9:00, 9:12, 9:19 and so fourth.

I read someplace on their website that the run was flat. I need to hunt down whoever wrote that and have a talk with them. That run was NOT flat. Well, at least the middle miles were all rolling all the way. Not huge hills, but hills enough that it affects you.

There were lots of nice folks who turned their sprinklers on towards the street to give us some reprieve from the heat. It felt so good, but that eventually turns the shoes into sponges which isn’t so fun. I’d say my run felt pretty comfortable until mile 8 or 9. At that point, I was still holding pace, but it was just getting hot and I was ready to be done. I still had a decent amount left in the tank, but didn’t want to use it because I’d just get hotter. :P

“Just another 5 miles to go… Come on!”

I plodded along to mile 12. There was a guy on my tail that had been sitting there since the turn around. And there was a guy in front of me that was running faster than I was, but was taking walking breaks. He’d walk and look back and when I got closer to him, he’d start running to open a gap back up. He did that for about 2 miles. So with a mile to go, I decided to have a little fun and drop the hammer. I was willing to suffer for a mile and have the added benefit of being able to stop moving afterwards. :)

So I went. Went fairly hard and didn’t look back until I saw the finish area. I looked back and neither of those two were around anymore. I glanced down at my watch and had to do a double take. I’m almost positive that they didn’t measure that last 1.1 mile right because allegedly, I ran that last split in 7:01. No way. Something doesn’t jive. As much as I’d like to imagine that I could run that fast at the end of a 1/2, I’m too in touch with reality for that. :)

Time: 1:56:10 - 8:52 pace

Summary:

Overall time: 5:19:19. I actually was a little surprised at the time. Doing Ironmath on the course, I thought I was going to be a little over 5:30, so 5:19 was a pleasant surprise. I finished 42nd of 188 overall and and 8th of 26 in my AG. I’ll take all of those numbers for a long training day. One of these days I’m going to do a 1/2 to race a 1/2. Pushing harder on the swim and bike and not doing a race when it’s so hot… I think I have a sub-5 hour time in me somewhere. Given my effort and the race conditions today, I’m happy with my times in all three disciplines.

The heat was present but it wasn’t terrible. I finished just before the mercury hit 90 so I missed the 110 heat index - no complaints there. :) It was cool enough that the wind actually helped instead of feeling like a hair dryer, so that was nice.

Lastly, the pretty graph for Bolder and whomever else likes to see that sort of thing: :)