It may sound ridiculous but even though this was my slowest swim and run and overall time for a Half Ironman distance triathlon, this was a good race and worth the trip all the way to Haines City, Florida (halfway between Tampa and Orlando – also known as “Nowhere”, FL). Racing buddy Scott Schiffer, who has family in Tampa, generously picked me up at the airport, and we have two full days to casually travel, pick up race packets, eat at a good fish restaurant…
We pick up our bikes from Tribike Transport (I know, I know, it’s expensive, but I fly with my bike so infrequently and the hassle of disassembly and reassembly and the round trip airline cost for a bike box, plus the worry of damage… just easier to have the bike shipped down by truck and taken “home” to NYC bike shop). And eat dinner again (good Mexican, but dangerously spicy pre-race; fortunately, no problems).
Some 1,900 racers showed up, from everywhere: big contingent from Brazil, a team from Britain, on my age-group’s bike rack Dave from Ottawa and two guys from Germany. In our hotel we shared breakfast with Dan (or Dale?) from Phillie: 76 years old, attempted 6 full Ironman races, DNF’d twice (failed to make the maximum time cutoffs) but signing up for more, anyway – and going to Kona this fall. I really admire that persistence. And courage. Lot of first-timers at this distance, too – and some first-time triathletes. (Pretty scary to start with a 70.3, IMHO.) And some experienced guy who saunters in to rack his bike at 6:20 before Transition closes at 6:45, from Gainesville, FL; he’s done this a few times before, I’m sure, and I fully expect him to podium.
Fresh water lake – which we practiced in the day before – for the 1.2 mile swim. The temp is 79.6 degrees, so wetsuit illegal. I have a swim skin, which I’m not sure is effective (I’m already pretty streamlined in a one-piece tri suit) but I’ll take what I can get. Guy waiting ahead of me in the starting wave for the gray-swim cap age group (a cruel color choice!) is on the USA Team and I fully expect him to win; only later, when he comes in 15th, I realize that he’s among the finest at the Olympic distance, and THIS is a different animal.
We stand in the weedy mud and OFF WE GO. I am pretty relaxed, planning to be smooth and build speed, and so close to the first sighting buoy in this counterclockwise “M” course that I end up leaving the buoy to my left – but I get a lot of clean water, passing folks with purple and even red swimcaps (okay, they are among the Very Slow, but it’s still gratifying – and maybe THAT’s why I don’t swim harder), until the first turning buoy – and then I’m working to avoid people doing breast stroke, even getting my head smacked by a woman doing backstroke (another good reason to put on goggle UNDER the swim cap) and the buoys are more crowded and I’m sighting a lot more to make sure I’m lined up in the right direction to get around the big orange cylinder buoys at the “V” part of the course, and this is only halfway? – my arms are high and relaxed on the recovery and I’m rotating smooth and a full finished stroke and engaging those hips (in retrospect maybe not catching and pulling with enough power, because I’m conserving for the rest of the race and passing people, right?) and it feels great except for the lousy shallow finale (swim or stand? Sink into mud. Stand? Sink into mud). But I later found that i had a lousy result: 42 minutes, 25/83 for AG. (Turns out, I swam an extra 1/10th of a mile – so my pace was 1:50 min/100 yds. – apparently my sighting needs a lot of work!
Oh, well. It felt great. Which is part of a successful race, in my book. (And a sign that I need swim lessons again. Good, the season is young.)
T1 goes pretty well – took a chance with “something new on race day”: before put on helmet, throw string attached to sunglasses over head to keep sunglasses from sliding – it works better than as practiced; and run out in socks, then put on shoes before mounting line – hard to know whether it worked better than running in cleats, and I’ve not practiced shoes attached to pedals…
The 56-Mile bike ride is wonderfully flat, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve been warned that this is not coastal Florida and it has hills, but 531 feet of elevation compared to the 5,000 feet we cover in Westchester County over the same mileage? Rolling hills or no, the road surface is almost pristine (except for after Mile 45, when the road surface becomes a bit coarse) compared with the winter-ravaged roads chewed up with potholes on which I train, and I have never stayed in aero position for so long. And as Scott had predicted,my Garmin stop watch says I am completing 5-mile laps in 15 minutes (20 mph), sometimes 16 minutes, sometimes 13, and it feels in control and strong. I’m following my nutrition and hydration plan, finishing almost two bottles of water in the first hour, tossing the cheap bottle I bought at the previous day’s expo at the aid station and making a teenage volunteer squeal as I swerve in to reach for a replacement bottle (missed that handoff; get one at the end of that station; have to slow down more and PRACTICE that maneuver!); eating carb-filled bars a little earlier than planned because starting to feel hungry; salt tablets every hour…
Wind picks up at Mile 25 (Dark Sky weather app had predicted 13-14 mph winds), and a Brit who passes me says “That’s rather unfriendly, isn’t it?” But even with the wind, I’m keeping up the speed, and thinking I might be fighting for 6th or 7th place because I’ve passed more guys in my age group than have passed me. (Nope. The woman who shouted to her husband on my rack that “around 8 guys have left ahead of you” was wrong- she wasn’t counting the guys across the aisle of bike racks…). At mile 40 I realize how lucky we’ve been that it’s been cloudy, because the SUN comes out. And those predicted temps in the mid- to high 80s become real. Not too bad on the bike, with the wind cooling us (glad not to use the aero helmet’s plexiglass shield), but the run is going to be rough… Finished in 2:46 (20.15 mph), a PR for this distance; I had expected to be closer to 3 hours; all that time on the trainer this winter has produced results. And moved up six slots, to 19/83 AG.
But: it’s a three-part race, isn’t it?
T2 is very fast – slip on the racing flats and GO. First mile is supposed to be my slowest, but it’s downhill out of transition, and I clock in 8:15 which feels ok… (arghh! A rookie mistake!) – but that heat and humidity are more than rough and my heart rate rapidly climbs into the 150’s (zone 3) and then, incredibly, the 160’s (zone 4),p. And Mile 2 has a long, long hill… to be tackled three times on this looping 13.1 mile course. By mile 4, I am hurting… By Mile 6.5 i was wishing the race was done. And by mile 8 or 9, I’m not only walking the aid stations (“Water! Ice!”), but walking a 1/4 to 1/2 mile after them and praying for not sub-9 minute miles but sub-12’s…
To keep running, I had told myself when I got to That Hill I would walk, and there were a LOT of people walking (except for the wheelchair athlete somehow powering up it, inch by inch; what amazing strength!), but I. Did. Not. Walk. And I feel awful, but know that I am going as fast as I can and offering up my best and not looking at my watch and taking it one painful mile at a time and there is the blessed turnoff for the chute to the finish line (lots of people going for another loop – or two,) and they announce my name and home town and I am HOME across the finish line.
Thank God.
Lousy metrics (other than the bike ride): 2:08 run (9:38 min/Mile, a full minute slower than my best run at the end of a 70.3), 5:45:03 total time (10 minutes slower than the Poconos 70.3 two years ago – which was also painful.) BUT: between getting passed and passing other age groupers I moved down only two slots to 21/83 AG, 328/1,800 (approx) OA.
And as I said: it felt like a solid race. Dumb, beginner’s mistake to start the run so fast; I should have walked and gotten my heart rate down, not out of so-called “weakness” but to be in control. But at least I had a chance to learn that again before this July’s full Ironman. I’d like better results, of course – but I couldn’t give more than what I gave. It’s my first race of the season, my first complete tri in 18 months and my first 70.3 in almost 2 years; I had not trained in any heat; and I DID it. I own it. This was the best I could do, today. A PR on the bike is great. I. need to learn again how to tap into my running strength off the bike, but I know that is possible with more training.
Like I said: I know, it sounds ridiculous. But this was a successful race. And if I can learn from this one and the upcoming Devilman Olympic distance in May, I can get stronger in time for Lake Placid…