Author: mktriguy

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…

So this is our local, very hilly race, so local that you can buy your entry the morning of the race, but I bought mine a few days ahead – my first race of the year, so I better commit.

I always hope for auspicious bib numbers: “3… 2… 1… Blast off!”

A civilized race starts at 9:30 a.m.  That gave me time to eat a LOT – BP coffee, fried egg, banana, and UCAN starch drink on the drive over. When I got there, it was really cold and windy – 35 degrees and 17-18 mph winds coming off the Hudson River; I was shivering as I walked from the high school parking lot. The running warm-up didn’t make me much warmer.  At the last minute – after doing some yoga actually raised my body temp – I took back my checked bag and stuffed my heavy running jacket into it.  Dressed for speed not for comfort (and not, as my sons would tell you, for fashion): T-shirt, long-sleeved shirt, light tights under tri shorts (side pockets for nutrition), heavy hat and light gloves. 

Sure enough, starting up the hill out of the village Main Street, I was warm in less than a mile and glad I had dumped the jacket (as, yes, Coach Debi had advised). This was the first time we ran the “normal” course – the last 3 times I had done this race, snow or muddy trails kept us off the aqueduct and out of Rockefeller Preserve, but there we were, trotting on through, only a short hill at the start (instead of the 4-mile ascent of prior years).

I was shooting  to start at 7:52, then descend to 7:25’s.  I stayed on track the first few miles, and it was silent and sparse, bare trees and beautiful quiet, and the folks around me are deadly quiet and serious…

And  I am in this to be steady and stay present and do the best I can, today, keeping an eye on my watch (okay that was a good mile) and my heart rate (hmmm, zone 3?  Let’s back it down a little), but by Mile 4.5 here’s that steep climb (oh, yeah, I trained on this with Dietmar and Ziv months ago, that was fun, this is a little less fun), and I get passed by a lot of younger runners, oh, well, stay present, imagining more than the mile I’m in right now is too big a picture.

Running along the river, chilly and windy but beautiful. By mile 6, we’ve had all of 2 water stops, but I have forgotten that I wanted to urinate, and we hit the road that loops around the Regeneron offices (ah, so much nicer doing this counterclockwise, bigger hill going down than up, and skipping that stupid parking lot!), and start climbing the Route 117 highway, I’ve slogged up here on my bike with Alan Golds, it’s somehow easier on the run (I later realize we ran with the wind at our backs!). I’m slower on the uphills, freaking out a little when I see at the start of one mile that I’m running at a 9:47 pace, but then my actual pace sets in –  my slowest mile ends up being 8:14 (which ain’t bad), and what the hell, a good mile here, a slower mile there.

OMG, here comes the lead runner, screaming downhill on the other side of the highway (second place comes a full 2 minutes later…), what an inspiration (me: “What, he’s 3 miles ahead of us?”  Younger woman passing me, “I don’t want to think about it…”), she’s not male or my age group, it’s okay… but by the time we turn and start the Mile 8-9 descent the wind is against us (who cares, it’s DOWNHILL)

I become convinced that the tall guy up ahead in in the blue jacket is in my age group, and I assume there’s at least 1 or 2 guys ahead of HIM who took off like rockets at the start, and another guy who is probably my age passes me, so here I am fighting for something like 4th or 5th place.  Oh, well, I will NOT look at the total time elapsed, and I might not meet my goals, but keeping my eye on each mile’s pace keeps me pushing harder.

By Mile 10 we’re climbing out of Phelps Hospital (I hate this hill). But lo! my calves are not cramping for the first time in the last 3 half marathons (stop thinking about it, it’s making me imagine they are cramping) and as we approach the old railway station (oh that upcoming hill killed me a few years ago, shut up, we’re on THIS mile), I grab my last sip of water from a gaggle of kids.

The wind off the river is pretty damn cold but hurray! the course doesn’t go around that stupid little lighthouse. I’m heading into Mile 12 and my calves still haven’t cramped up (no, don’t think about it!) and then through those quiet but flat suburban streets and then it’s UP that hellacious hill for the last 0.2 mile and the finish line looks so far away and I sprint as best I can and CROSS IT.

1:39:25 – slower than my best, but… faster than my prior five half marathons. And my fastest since 2014 (beating out 2015 by 1 second)!  If this is really 13.1 miles (despite my Garmin saying it’s a ¼ mile short), then I averaged 7:35 min/mile. (My Garmin also says it was 1,010 feet of climbing — but the course map says 1,643 feet).

And…. 2nd place!  2/27 AG, 107/702 overall.  Proving:  never give up. Also proving:  no matter how old those other guys looked… I’m older.

With my annual nemesis, Michael Kaiser — 1st in his age group. He’ll always be younger and faster…  (Note:  A civilized race has beer at the finish line.)

And: no injuries! (Though I pumped my arms so hard, my pecs still hurt three days later….) Now, onto Florida 70.3 (Half Ironman), in three weeks… same distance run, plus the swim and bike… Um, hooray? Yes. Hooray!

The best part of this race was hanging out with training buddy, tri guy Ziv Abramowicz, both before and after the race. If I hadn’t signed up with him, I might not have run.

The Friday before this Sunday race, I went to the doctor to address an asthmatic cough. I hadn’t thought of myself as allergic, but asked the doctor to check when last I was there, and sure enough, a year and two weeks ago, I’d been treated for the same thing. I guess the change into spring is a trigger. Anyway, this time I got antibiotics as well as steroids, and a cough suppressant, and by Saturday morning, I could run again.

The park in Uniondale was nice enough, and the race was well organized, but UGLY. Miles of the Jericho Turnpike, Wantagh Parkway and Carman Avenue? Really? And just to confirm these really were highways closed for the race, I ran past a dead cat on the shoulder at one point.

Was shooting for 7:20s or faster in order to PR, and started off at 7:40 min/mile in high zone 1,/low zone 2, but by mile 4, I realized (a) I was not feeling the love (not panting, but not strong) and (b) I was not going to go faster than 7:40. So I adjusted to that reality, stopped feeling disappointed, and just hung on. But by mile 9.5, here come those calf cramps again, and I’m struggling to stumble through 9:00+ Miles, and people I passed are passing me in droves, and that means they’ve been steady and I’ve not. I end up at 1:45:10 (8:02 min/mile) – my slowest HM yet, even slower than the much hillier Sleepy Hollow HM I ran 6 weeks ago “at a fun pace”instead of fastest.

Something has to change. I took “sportslegs” before the race to try battling lactate buildup, but forgot my chewable salt tablets in the car (note to self: don’t switch to the race-approved clear plastic bag in the parking lot). I had half a gel with electrolytes towards the end, but couldn’t stomach more. Maybe it’s my form; sent videos after I got home to Coach Debi, who said to work on a shorter stride and land on balls of my feet; or maybe it’s just that allergy season knocks back the best of us, including cyclist Chris Dudko (who told me that because of the pollen he had no power for his recent race, either). Maybe sessions again with the Mile Hugh Running Club. But I’d rather not give up on this distance.

This is not a dramatic tale; my slowest half marathon ever; but successful in a new way.

My second race of 2018 (following last weekend’s indoor relay marathon at the New York Armory),

and my third or fourth time at Sleepy Hollow. And I had a new goal: to have fun. Not to relax, not to go easy, but to watch my heart rate, do the course and ignore the splits, see if I could listen to my body and go by feel for most of the race and then burst into flame the last few miles. I wanted to run without a terror in my heart (or as my wife’s typo suggested, and as Coach Debi would agree, without a terrier in my heart). I quietly hoped I’d sneak up and seize my fastest race – but I wasn’t worried about it.

It was great seeing lots of friends at this very local race – Zander Reyna (a fellow Killer Bunny and triathlete, and incredibly disciplined at pacing this race – “The New Zander” he calls it), and Nicholas Moore (fellow tri guy who generously took my home after the race, even though he lives practically on top of Sleepy Hollow),

Dietmar Serbee (training seriously for the London Marathon in a few weeks, ready to SLAY this course, and indeed, 2nd place for AG),

Ken Fuirst (king of the 10k, never ran a HM, amazing results), my friendly nemesis Mike Kaiser (all the way from New Jersey, who ran steps behind me at this race in 2014 until passing me the last mile, then went on to a 3:20 marathon a month later and a 3:09 in Boston the next year), and Ralph Miccio (fellow Sunday-morning cyclist , riding alongside, chaperoning the runners and warning off the drivers; so GOOD to have a friend along the entire route).

So the race itself passed as planned, and despite the 4 ½ miles of uphill straight from the start I was in control, running MY race,

heart rate was at 154 (low to mid-Zone 2 but who cares because it felt RIGHT and when I went above I was huffing and puffing so I slowed down) and the rolling hills and downhills of Route 117 didn’t seem terrible at all, and able to chat with new friends (John, from Scotland, carrying water in a CamelBak and chatting about his 150km race in Chile last October; Bob Carey, big former football player, 61 years old who beat me by a minute and was delighted to discover he took third place for his AG; and John Lombardi in the same age group who came in right after Bob ).

(Bob Casey and Mike Kaiser, awaiting their hardware.)

And those stupid corporate parking lots and the climbs back to the road weren’t horrible at all, and I couldn’t believe that it was such a short distance to get to the train station and that the climb up to the last 2 miles was much faster than I recalled, and it felt AMAZING until those last 3 miles, when I poured it on to get faster and got hit with calf cramps (this time at mile 12 i stead of mile 10– stumbling but knowing it wasn’t for long!).

(With Ralph Miccio, guardian angel on a bicycle)

I finished in 1:43:22, avg. 7:54, 4 minutes slower than my two HMs last year, 5/23 AG, 138/652 OA.

But somehow a great race.

I still want to get a PR; I still want to go as fast as possible; but at THIS race I felt great, not wiped out all day at the end, able to bike the next day no problem. It’s a different way of racing, and it’s nice to learn that I have this option. Bring on the season, I’m ready.

Initially planned to do this final race of the season with Rivertown elites Kevin Carlsten and Jisk Hoogma, but they wanted to leave later than I did, so to preserve my calm, I went alone. But arrived at the same time, and parked almost next to each other. (They even drive faster than I do!)

A bit of an ominous start: as I check my bag, the security guard (clearly an off duty or retired cop) tells me that my bib number, 1013, is the code police use on the radio when they need backup… Cold start – 36 degrees. Felt very local, hanging out in the loose corrals, supposedly grouped by expected finish times. Another cop (” NYPD Marathon” shirt) notes that my number is the one a cop never wants to use… Stripped off the sweat pants and sweat shirt, but still in tights. (A guy in his later 60s is wearing track shorts and tank top, shivering at the starting line. My money is on HIM, and sure enough he passes me early on. But that’s OK, I’m running MY race.)

Horn blows, I’m near the front of the pack, we’re off around a park and little pond, then off through residential neighborhoods, almost no spectators, a good pace, feeling solid. My goal is to break 1:36 (which I’ve done, although that was 3 years ago), maybe even 1:35, and Coach Debi has told me to run 7:40 the first mile, 7:20s until mile 10 to avoid “blowing up”, then surge for the last 3 miles. Feels like a lot of gentle downhills at the start, but I’m not rushing it. Strangely difficult to measure my pace – the Garmin swings wildly from 6:53 to 7:40 within moments, and credits me for completing miles long before reaching the course markers – must be from the city geography.

So my first mile is spot on; at 5k I’m averaging 7:25s; at 10k, 7:21s (good!); but I’m not feeling the love, and despite reasonable nutrition (EAAs at 25 minutes and 59 minutes, and a gel at 1:07 – reminded by the digital monitors to eat), dropping to 7:40 at 15k (8 miles) and more and more people are passing me.

At mile 9 1/2, my left calf starts to cramp. I am stumbling, and yelling “whoa!” with each potential face-plant, and worried that my bib number is going to be needed (“I need backup!”). In an almost flat course, there’s an uphill, a ramp to cross a bridge, and the lead runners are running along the other side towards me, which means I’ll have to do it twice. At 20k, I’ve dropped to 8:09 min/miles. Kind of cool seeing the World’s Fair globe so close up, but I’m just this side of miserable and I’m not into sightseeing…

(A spectator, clearly another cop, shouts out, “Hey, love your number!”, then turns to explain to his friends. Shut up…). The temptation to quit and walk is rearing its ugly head, because the digital monitors indicate there’s no way I’m breaking 1:36, unless I can speed up to 7 minute miles, but when I try to accelerate the calf cramp gets more frequent (“whoa!”) so faster is not an option. So I slog the last mile or two, not walking, this may not be my PR but I don’t have to walk it. And push a little harder, nothing to lose now! Finish. Thank you. Done.

And I see Kevin and Jisk just after I cross the finish line.

Bottom line: 1:40:14. Not my fastest; indeed, my slowest; but none of the wheels fell off. Plus, among my peers (aging and slowing, alas!) I do pretty well: 5/63 AG, 264/3156 OA, 226/1575 males. And there may be a silver lining – Coach Debi thinks the cramping indicates something is wrong with my form. So, during the off season, I can work on changing my mechanics. And maybe I can still get faster…

Meanwhile, the off season has arrived. Done, done, done.

Three goals for this race in our little village: do a PR; if not, at least do better than last year; and beat my nemesis and inspiration James Condon. (He took first place last year; I took it the year before; I took second and he took third two years ago…). We only see each other at this race, which is full of small children and more casual runners, mostly doing the 5k.

We’re off, heading around the high school, and my target passes me in the first half mile, light blue sweatshirt and long, long legs (“Mr. Condon!” I shout, he laughs), and he quickly gets at least two blocks ahead. My buddy Dietmar, recovered from a great Chicago Marathon, generously runs with me for the first mile, then takes off, never to be seen again.

The second 5k loop on this hilly course is always a challenge, given the temptation to quit and just walk home, but once again Jim Nolan is at the first turn shouting encouragement, shaming me into finishing the race. I’m close to maximum effort, and that light blue sweatshirt is still far ahead, but nothing is impossible and I have that bunny to chase, and I realize that he’s slowing on the downhills, he’s tired like the rest of us and thinks he can ease up when it’s easier, but doesn’t know I’m still there, and I push off harder and let gravity do its thing, and by the end of the second descent I’m close, and as we make the turns through all those short backstreets I pass him a half mile from the end, my neighbors Anthony and Amy are cheering, and an older guy who I always see walkin/ jogging around town is finishing the 5k and says, “9”, must be counting the guys who are in the lead, and I am sprinting to get a safety margin against Condon making a surge, and the Finish Line is mine.

Cross the finish line: 41:49 (to be honest, for a 5.9 miles/9.5 km course). Faster than last year, slower than my best, but I am 1/9 AG (50-59), 8/44 OA. And it’s nice to be the Fastest Old Guy.

 

This was the shortest multi-sport race I’ve done:  2.2 mile run, 12 mile bike, 2.2 mile run.  As a French ultra-marathoner friend once wrote, “The shorter distances.  They are more violent.” So the strategy (other than to get out of bed at 5:15, not crazy early in the day but late enough in the season to think, “Really? Do I really have to do this?”  And that, my friends, is why I register in advance of race day: it forces me to get up and do the damn race…): to run really as fast as I can for the first run, imagine I am only riding the bike leg, and then with a slight pause to “find my legs” off the bike, go maximum effort again.  Privately, I was shooting for 7:00 minute/miles, and 20 mph on the bike.  So, that’s just over an hour, 1:10 to be precise, without including the two transition times.

Nice, small bunch of people:  some first time couples on their mountain bikes, some experienced and older and FAST people.  Bumped into Danny Secow, who I’d met at Westchester Tri last year.

I’m glad that I’ve aged out from your age group:  he’s unbelievably fast, and ends up in this race taking third place for his class.  (But I’m getting ahead of myself.)

The race itself is relatively uneventful, except that the initial uphill brings my HR all the way to maximum and it’s a short out an back on the east side of the Park, and I’m just pushing hard, and it feels good, and I manage to average 7:08s.  Though I am largely ignoring my watch, avoiding the distraction and potential worry about metrics, it beeps at the end of each mile, and I peek, because nothing wrong with getting encouraging news.

The bike is more challenging, not that The Hill is so terrible, but because by 8:40 a.m., the Park is filling up with people:  joggers and bicyclists and strollers and dog-walkers.  So even though I had been concerned about getting swept up in the danger of the other racers going too fast and too closely together, the danger turned out to be the pedestrians/civilians. Almost everyone were fine with my calling out “On your left!” or more frequently (because of the way the no-cars traffic seemed to work) “on your right!”  Some even thanked me.  Well, one did anyway… And one woman yells, not yet seeing me, “Oh, really?  I don’t friggin believe it!”

This is why I love New York.

Bikes get pretty spread out, though I did leap frog with one young guy in a black shirt and tights (even though it was a gorgeous sunny day, temps at 58 and went up to maybe 70), the downhill around the public pool is pretty technical and scary, and I was afraid if I wasn’t careful, I’d end up overshooting the transition area and do THIRD lap by mistake. Bike:   20.8 mph.

The run was rough, only because I wanted to go fast as I can, and I had pushed pretty hard on the bike, and on the way back on the last mile I’m thinking “Wherever I am near the podium, it won’t make a difference now:  whoever’s ahead is way ahead, and whoever’s behind is… Wait, that guy who was running towards me and was about to turnaround … He could catch me.”  So I am doing what I can as hard as I can, and I GET TO THE FINISH LINE.

(Short race, great to have a short race).

And the second run is in 16:25, or 7:24 per mile.  So the average of the two runs is 7:14 min/mile – almost as I had been hoping.

Final time, 1:08:18.  More notably:  Second Place for my Age Group!

This is turning out to be a good season.  Thank you, Coach Debi.

2/14 AG, 54/290 OA

 

 

This was planned to be my longest race of the season, fit my schedule, and was in a scenic part of Pennsylvania where I might have visited my cousins if their schedules had fit, so I didn’t even look at the course until just before the race:  1.2 mile swim in a big, clean lake; 56 miles through a lot of rolling hills and some short steep ones; and 13.1 miles of running four loops around a ridiculously hilly course.  (Add ’em up – 70.3 miles – a.k.a. a Half-Ironman® distance).  Ignorance was bliss…

Actually, I almost wasn’t able to race. On the Tuesday before the race, I “supplemented” a rest day (mistake no. 1) with kettle bell deadlifts, which I belatedly remembered are different from kettle bell swings (mistake no. 2) and hurt my lower back. A tweak in the morning, a growing awareness in the afternoon, hard to walk by evening.  Coach Debi recommended YouTube videos to stretch my QL. Man, they WORKED. Did it again Saturday morning, texted Kevin Carlsten (whom I had convinced to do his first 70.3), that I’d be ready by 2 pm, and we were off!

Small race – 750 people including the Olympic distance (oh, that would have been lovely…), 250 in our race. Set up in transition- and couldn’t find my racing glasses!  Oh, well, my regular glasses would have to do.  And couldn’t find my baggy of Ucan powder for electrolytes and carbs! Oh, well, I had a plan B: EAA crunchy tablets, more Huma gels than I really needed for both the bike and run, and chewable Saltstick tabs. So, overstuffed the Bento box with fuel (need a bigger one, even if it’s less aerodynamic!) hustled onto the line for the outhouses, went to the warmup area of the lake (a very shallow, very weedy lagoon – useless!) and shivered waiting for the race to start. But:  bumped into Rob Martzen, fresh from IM Lake Placid, and Jan Swenson, there to cheer on Fran – and Kevin again, with whom I buddied up for a bizarre swim start:  two at a time, “two seconds” from the pair ahead of you, sitting and pushing off from a dock!

The staggered beginning around a big, counterclockwise rectangle made for an immediate realization: very hard to find someone off whom I could draft. Because if I could catch ’em, they were too slow for me.  And if they could catch me, I’d better be ready to hustle to stick with ‘em.

I started comfortable and smooth, and building into a strong, deliberate, faster groove, sleeveless and loving the 73 degree water, breathing to the right on the first leg to avoid looking into the sun, alternating sides on the second and third leg, breathing  right on the fourth. And passing people, not knowing if they were my age group, but feeling (maybe for the first time) that I was in my element, for the whole swim. Felt like I had a current behind me, lifting me forward. Wasn’t prepared to climb a ladder onto the dock, and couldn’t find the rungs for a moment, but stumbled onto land, hooray!  Time, including stumbling across the transition mat while peeling off the top of the wetsuit:  34:50, or 1:49/100 meters. Solid, but more importantly, comfortable in a way I hadn’t known.

Pretty good transition (3:09), considering that I couldn’t get the wetsuit off my ankles… Because I had registered late (and was racked with those who picked up packets on race day), I couldn’t estimate how many in my age group had already left.  So I run out as best I can, assuming I’m in the middle of the pack.  (Mistake no. 3.)

Ah, the bike.  We had been told we’d be on the Poconos Raceway, but I hadn’t realized until we’d been riding a few miles that they meant a NASCAR raceway.  Pretty cool to be on such flat, well-paved tarmac, made to go zoom, including the banked roadway on the way back.  We get back on the regular road, played leap frog with a woman almost my age, passing her, she passes me, back and forth, until I failed to shift to a low enough gear to deal with the turnaround at mile 10, and she takes off.  I kept planning to say, “Damn, you’re fast!” but I didn’t catch up with her to say so until after the race finished…

I knew it was rolling hills, net downhill the first 38 miles, then a short sharp ascent in the village of White Haven, and the balance of 18-19 miles (it’s a slightly long course) is net uphill.  I had started out pretty much alone, passing a few people, feeling strong, but I had found early on that my injured back really ached when I climbed, so I was staying in aero position as much as possible.  I dropped from averaging 20-21 mph to 14-15 mph going up the steep sections, trying to keep my heart rate within zone 2 (131-141), working my nutrition, drinking most of my 3 bottles of water (OK, that may have been overkill and not worth the weight).  The roads are beautiful, the weather is amazing (breezy, starting at 69 degrees, reaching to 80), shady under the trees, beautiful sunshine.

But folks starting passing me. A lot of guys didn’t have their age marked on their calves, so I was assuming that the older-looking ones were my age group, and feeling like I was being repeatedly dropped by the competition.  (Another mistake…)  Every 70.3 race, I am reminded how LONG 56 miles can be, and was pretty spent and ready for the change of a run by the time I finished:  3:04:39, or 18.55 mph average.  Not my fastest, but solid, especially with that terrain.

Get off the bike, sit down to change shoes, and stumble out of transition area.  A terrific T2 – only 1:29.

But, my back, my poor back: I can barely walk!  I hobble, then walk, then jog, trying to get back to that good feeling I had the morning before, and amazingly, after around a ½ mile, it feels okay.  However, it feels exhausting.  I finish Mile 1, and I am ready to be DONE.  And it’s 12.1 miles to go…

Four, brutal 3.2-mile loops.  Steep hills out of the resort area (there’s an older, heavy woman sitting in a chair at the top of the first hill, cheering us on, God bless her), I’m averaging 9:30s, more hills, a flat section, then downhill where I’m averaging 8:10s (there’s a volunteer running in place, dancing and waving her arms as she shouts “To the right, to the right!”), to a turnaround where we cross the timing chip mats, back past the dancing woman (by the second loop it becomes unbearable to hear her…), up again, a short out and back to add mileage to the Olympic 10k course so our race will add up to 13.1, up, up, up a long hill, back down past the crowds near transition….

4 times.

By the second loop, I’m not only walking the water stops, but also walking the steep hills.  I wonder about quitting, but I stop to pee in an outhouse (losing another 2 minutes, but what does it matter, I’m so far behind everyone…. Another mistake), and stumble uphill.  Kevin and I pass going in opposite directions; I had thought he had passed me on the bike, and that he was almost done, but he was on the second loop as well.

By the third loop, I really want to quit, but manage to get through it.  As I finish THAT loop, I overhear a spectator say, “I mean, if he finished 6 miles, he could have friggin’ WALKED the rest of the race!” and realized that someone else had quit, it wasn’t me, and I only had one loop to go.  Kevin catches up, I gasp that I might walk the rest of the way, he goes on and walk/runs as well, I walk a lot more, depleted, passed by a guy in a green felt, pointed cap (dressed as either Pinocchio or Peter Pan, I’m not sure – but it’s like the NY Marathon, you know things are bad when the guys in costume pass you), and when I ask him, he confirms that he’s in my age group.  So I am sure that I am struggling for 6^th, 7^th or 10^th place, and I lose my give-a-damn. (Two more mistakes…)

So by Mile 11, I am walking as much as running, but I pick it up at the top of that last long hill, and stumble some more, digging deeper to reach that sweet finish line.  And I have survived perhaps the hardest run I’ve ever known, and my back is intact, and I finished:  2:05:56, or 9:37/mile, and a total finish of 5:50:01.  A good 25 minutes slower than my better races.

 

And then the shock:  4/13 for my AG, 77/239 overall!  I was in 3^rd place the WHOLE RACE up to somewhere between Mile 8 and 11 of the run!  If I hadn’t made all those mistaken assumptions about being the last in the pack, I wouldn’t have stopped to pee.  I might have worked harder, I coulda been a contender and on the podium.

Look, it might not have made a difference – I might still have “lost” to the 3^rd place finisher by a minute or two – but the lesson here is not assume, by default, that I’m alone in the race because I’m BEHIND everyone.  I might be alone because I’m AHEAD. (And also:  4th place isn’t really a “loss” after finishing a Half Ironman distance.)

Rough race.

Glad it’s over.

When’s the next one?