Timberman 70.3 Triathlon. August 23, 2010

Many of my posts in the last few years have actually ended up on Facebook. I've decided to transfer some of them over so they are saved for posterity. So without further ado, here are some older posts: From August 23rd, 2010 Lake Winnipi....Lake Winnepa...From some lake in Vermont... Since Joe was interested, I caved and decided to write a race report. No one is tagged (except for maybe my coach) so if you happen to find this, then you must actually be interested. If this is the case, I highly encourage you to get a life, open a bottle of wine and find something better to do than read about my GI issues and listen to my ego spout off about how great I am. If you happen to have nothing better to do, then settle in (this will go well with a nice Pinot or Meritage) and enjoy. Also, you have my sincere sympathies. I am always available to make suggestions on better things to do if you need help. Without further ado... Timberman Half Ironman takes place in wonderful New England. Not bad unless you consider the weather can be sketchy. Wouldn't you know, for the sprint on Saturday, the weather was incredible. About 80 and not a cloud in the sky. Come Sunday morning about 2am, I was awoken by the sound of a gentle summer rain. Nice but not good news. Back up a few days to capture the entire experience, we drove up after a week full of Navy-related festivities and over indulging so the week of focus on fitness was welcome. Time to get over the hangover. Friday was spent enjoying our cottage on Lake Winnipisaukee, a mere mile from the start line. We got seriously lucky on location although the place (as they say in New England) was "wicked smahhhhl". In Navy speak, that translates as "fuckin' tiny!" No worries - there's always room for two sets of tri gear, two bikes and two people. It's just tight is all. Friday was a brief ride of about an hour just to get 14 HOURS of driving out of our system. For the record, DO NOT go over the GW Bridge in New York. Wow. So yeah...ride not so good. Seriously hoping that the body will wake up in time to do 70.3 miles the day after tomorrow. Not only that but the 14 hours in the car extended to the bike. If you're married you know what I mean. Yes, we're still friends :) Saturday was spent with my little sister in Boston. It started with a quick swim in the lake where we quickly realized that even as beautiful as it was, it wasn't Hawaii although the beer cans at the bottom of the lake were a nice touch. After a drive to Boston, we had a great time at the aquarium and somewhere in the back of my head was this little voice that said, "wow, you really should be taking this race more seriously". Screw that, give me more chow-duh. Anyway, good to see this branch of the family after several years. Deployment does that. Moving on... We return to the Gilford area Saturday afternoon in time for Joe to get us in trouble for drinking beer on the resort premises - Miller light in cans no less. Shit I felt like I was 15 again except that it wasn't Keystone light. Again, maybe I should be taking this race more seriously. Mandatory race meeting results: bike separation is now 4 bike lengths. I'd like to take a moment now to thank all the cheaters in the world that have made life harder on the rest of us. Beer packed up safely away, we head back to our cottage for a pre-race meal of peanut butter toast - and beer. Dinner of champions. Quote was overheard, "I better set up my gear before I hammered. You never know what it's going to end up looking like." With another sixer of Land Shark, we're off to bed for the 5:15 wakeup. Transition doesn't close until 7:00 so we decided not to get there until the last minute. For you hard core racers out there, I highly recommend this tactic. In aviation we have a saying that if you give me fours hours to plan for a strike, I'll take four hours. If you give me four minutes, I'll take four minutes and give you the EXACT same plan. Same here. Don't get there early. Especially when it's cold (about 60) and there's the possibility of rain. As per our usual, we left our nutrition in the fridge so Joe headed back to the cottage to pick up bottles and sunglasses that were also left behind. Ironic in that when we left our cottage, we were making fun of all the people (Tim O'Donnell included) that we saw running before the race. We only made fun of him because he was doing these really silly high kick things. If you're a pro, aren't you supposed to do cool things? Just sayin' is all. So Joe gets back to transition about 7 minutes before it closes all nice and sweaty. OK, time to put on the wet suit. If you've ever tried to put on a wet suit already wet, you know how this went. Monkey. Football. Too bad I didn't have a camera on me to capture the moment as he did me the day before. Jerk. (I know you're reading this and laughing schmoopie...) Off to the start. Clouds are looming but we expect that the rain will hold off. I am furiously searching my horoscope and doing rain dances to ensure that God will not put me in both cold weather and rain at the same time because that would be cruel and unusual punishment. After a year in the middle east, He took pity on me. the rain held off. More on that later. No pre-race jitters. Just quiet confidence. A nice change being ready to go without all the fuss. So there are a few waves. 15 or so. This is such a nice change from the usual mass start where you are literally trampled (in the water no less which in translation means: "nearly drowned by people who I would otherwise crush on the bike") by over zealous swimmers. This was so much more gentlemanly and I heartily applaud the race organizers for taking the time and effort to start the race in this manner. As a result, the 40-44 women were able to actually get in a groove without either getting bunched up or too strung out and as a side note, I was actually able to pass people on the swim. An absolute first. Swim took forever. They always do even when "gentle" as this one was. There were some waves out at distance but relatively speaking, a great swim. The only down side was that the lake is shallow so when you think you're close to the shore and can walk/run to the shore, think again. It's like the knight in Monty Python. It make take you forever so just keep swimming. Shore. Wet suit strippers. 'nuff said. Love 'em. Transition 1. T1. Put cold weather gear on a wet body. Good luck. Thankfully I still have that zen feeling from the start and instead of screaming "WHAT. THE. FUCK. AAAAGH!!!" at my arm warmers, it's more of an out of body experience where I'm saying to myself, "Wow, this really is taking forever and I wonder if they'll have coffee at the first aid station. Because coffee would be nice. yeah.....warm coffee. And beer. Or chowder. yeah, chowder would be nice." the nice thing about T1 is that there were lots of bikes in transition. Meaning, I didn't come out of the water last for once. The swim went very well. Head out for the bike nice and warm but was one cup of coffee/chowder poorer. You'd think that New England would be better prepared but no. I've never experienced a ride that had so little wind. Maybe I'm jaded between Hawaii and Va Beach but there was seriously no wind. Amazing. Hauling ass on the flats at 25 mph was amazing. There were some pretty challenging climbs but everything you lost on the climb you gained on the downhills. As a pretty good climber, I managed to make up about 6 spots on the bike moving from 15th in my AG to 9th. The back half of the bike threatened rain but thankfully it held off. Kept the door open for hauling ass about 40 mph down some really big hills. That just puts a smile on your face when you're crazy. We do things in races that we would NEVER do in training. Unless you're Hitch and then you brief training rules to fly in combat. That's an inside joke. My second half was slower than the first half due to some back issues but I still managed a pretty good time on a hilly course especially considering I'm training on the flats. FTR, still no chowder or coffee. But no rain either. God grants from time to time. Rain on the bike no fun at all. Transition to run. Much better. 2 minutes in an extended transition zone. Meaning 1) rack bike, 2) put on shoes, 3) take off jacket and crap, 4) leave. My coach said to run the first half "easy" meaning push the HR but save the best for the second half and speed up throughout the run. I forgot this. I ran really hard the first half and then remembered what he told me. Crap. this means I now have to run even faster. Course is hilly and it's now raining. add to that the fact that I've been inserting Gu as fast as possible in an effort to stave off the bonk which I'm prone to do these days (really low BF %) and the body finally said, "um yeah....not so much". This is grown up time. Coach says, "You gotta play through the pain." and I'm on board. After my experience with the Soma Half in AZ (Fall, 2007), I caved to the same thing (meaning a "rest stop) and lost several minutes so I decided to challenge the body and keep going. Mile 6 was decidedly unpleasant. Press on for another mile or two and the body decides I'm serious so "She called our bluff...OK we'll keep going". The gamble pays off without embarrassing consequences. But then the realization of my coached instructions kicks in and I realize I need to kick it up a notch. Perceived effort goes up, real pain goes up and I'm officially paying to play. Funny thing is the times were exactly the same (two loop course). Last mile of the race was a 7:00 flat. Dig deep I say. And seriously, after a year with the Army, I can do anything for 5 hours. End result was outstanding. All in all a great race and the result was a PR (thanks to no stop on the run). nutrition went well (up to a point). My half IM run has improved from 2:05 in 2007 to 1:46 this year. Swim better by 7 minutes, Bike better by 15 minutes. Can't ask for more. Would have preferred not to jump in the car for another 13 hour round and a trip through New York but this time, we went through Tappan Zee instead of GW. Also FTR, don't stop while on the NJ turnpike. The place sucks, it costs too much and there's no real coffee. Speaking of which, no coffee until we got back to the cottage after the race but I would like to add that the post-race food for Timberman was BY FAR the best I've ever seen. Nice. Spread. Cheese. And chowder. :) It's 10:00 and time to hit the rack because apparently rumor has it I have a day job and need to return on Tuesday. Thanks to my coach and to schmoopie for putting up with me for the 33+ hours we spent in a car together over the past 5 days. You're a trooper. 5:35 ain't too shabby either, camper! Good job now get back to work, Skipper!