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 Swim
Comments: I had a minor faux-pas during the swim. A women in wave ahead of me and was doing the backstroke and tacking across the course and as she changed her tack she went right in front of me and then rolled over to swim the free style. It was just bad timing that my right hand came down right on her but. She jumped out of the water and I muttered out a sorry and I kept going. Oh well sorry again if you are reading this. I looked at my watch at the last turn and it was at 25 minutes I knew I had a chance to hit my 35 minute mark. I exited the water and I was on target with a 35 minute swim. Well I had my first glimmer of hope that I could do a sub 3 hour oly. What would you do differently?: I think in order to really improve on the swim I’m going to have to get some coaching advice. A good thing to work on this winter.  Transition 1
Comments: T1 was not as smooth as my usually transition. My suit got stuck on my timing chip for some reason. It threw me off a little. The longer swim also had me a little chilled and not as coordinated as I’m accustomed too. The long run out with my bike was a pain but I was stuck where I was.  Bike
Comments: WOW! Averaged above 19mph. What a difference some bike tweaks and year can make. I did well on the hills my strategy was to ride the up side of the hill with as much momentum as I could and coast the back side as fast as I could pedaling if necessary to maintain speed. I hit 35 mph on the downside of the hills. As I crested one of the hills the sun poked out behind a cloud and the view opened up to the light house the bluffs and the ocean. SPECATACULAR! For the first time today I knew why I was here. I was here to do what I set out to do and that was to complete an Olympic length tri. At the 20 mile mark I noted my time and figured I would have about an hour to do the run. That left me to average a 10 minute mile on the run. Certainly I’d have some cushion. Oh and about this time my hamstrings were screaming at me. What would you do differently?: I don’t think I could do much better on the bike. I ended up leap fogging between 3 other people. We passed many people and were passed by a few. Finally one the them said to me that they wished drafting was allowed since our pace was so close we would have all benefitted from a little drafting. Transition 2
Comments: T2 was pretty fast – even with the extra time to wipe my feet off I felt it was still a good effort.  Run
Comments: I was running a 9 minute pace on the first 2 miles and it was going great. Then I hit the hilly section of the course. I hit murder hill and saw 2 or 3 people give up ¾ of the way up the hill and walk. My legs were screaming at me but I kept my head down and grinded my way up. It wasn’t pretty and I’m sure I looked like hell and the grimace on my face must have told the story. I remembered reading Iceman Scotts race report about his ironman race and he said “Pain is only temporary”. I kept telling myself it’s only temporary. Well at about mile 4 the pain was gone! There I was looking out over Long Island Sound like I was on a Sunday morning training run and not a care in the world and feeling great. The guy next to me said “Hey I think we can do this under 3 hours”. I told him that was my goal at the start. So here I am yaking it up with some guy at mile 30 and feeling great! I’ve mentioned this before to people that I’m not a sprinter because by the time I warm up the race is over…..LOL. So I hit mile 6 and still have a little more to go. I turn it on a bit to make sure I’m in under 3 hours. I did it! Post race
Warm down: After the race I took a few minutes to just “catch my breath” and then I walked over for some cold water and a slice of water melon. I had the ART guy massage out my hamstrings a little. Other than that I just packed up and left. It was a little anticlimactic I think because of the 2 races going on it was going to be another 1 ½ before the HIM winner crossed the finish line and how much water melon can you eat. Event comments: I have to give credit to the athletes doing the HIM distance it’s a pretty tough course and to do it twice well you certainly earned it. Also the volunteers’, especially at the water stops, where so enthusiastic it was really a great moral boost even if sometimes all’s I could mange was a thumbs up. The RD did an outstanding job w/ the 2 event happening simultaneously. Last updated: 2011-02-18 12:00 AM
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United States
Event Power
50F / 10C
Overcast
Overall Rank = 97/175
Age Group = 40-44
Age Group Rank = 11/17
Let’s wind the clock back a day….
It’s Saturday and I go to the race for the packet pick up. I stay for the race briefing and try to get a couple questions answered about the run course. I figured it might be smart to drive the course to clear up my questions about the run course. Well the course is really hilly. I started to doubt my abilities and training. Also my rack was at the back of transition it was going to be a long run out with my bike.
I was really rushed for time the morning of the race. I thought I had left plenty of time for my setup in transition but quite frankly I just didn’t leave enough time. Thankfully my setup is not too complicated. The next issue was the bag check in – the line was huge. It was also located in the transition area. As I got in line for the bag check the RD said 2 minutes to race briefing and to the closing of transition. They sent a few volunteers over to the bag check to speed it up. I put my wetsuit on while I was waiting on the line then I finally handed over my bag and went the race briefing.
At this point the sun had started to rise and I got a chance to finally look around. What a miserable day! It was overcast and a light rain had started. I also thought I heard thunder in the distance a couple times. The sky was swirling w/ dark gray and black clouds. Oh my why was I here again……
I couldn’t do much of a warm up except to stretch my legs out during the briefing.