The Big 'N

Well here it is/was. The Tri-Tyler Half. This was my “A” race of the year, if you want to call it that. It was also my first half Ironman after doing triathlon for 10 years and quite a daunting undertaking. For someone that is used to racing Olympic distance where it’s basically an all out pain fest for 2 hours the prospect of taking that pain and DOUBLING it isn’t particularly appealing. Nonetheless I was actually pretty excited to give this distance a shot and see how I liked it.

I stuck to the tried and true training regimen I’ve been using this fall which is essentially training whenever and wherever I get a chance. The week or two before I was working a ton and literally would look at my watch and see that I had a 20 minute break and so I’d go run for 17 minutes. Race day would show how effective this method was when applied to a four hour race. In all honesty I knew I had put some good workouts in earlier in the year and that I’d gained fitness from each of my races so I knew I could go out and compete.

For this first year race, Steve Farris put together the gnarliest course he could. Labeled as “The Toughest Half in Texas,” Tri-Tyler has nearly 3000 feet of climbing on the bike including Tyler’s infamous, “The Beast” climb. The run was along the Rose City bike course and had about 1.5 miles of flat book ending the out and back course with a solid 9-10 miles of constant rolling hills in the middle. It would be a race of attrition, that was no doubt. To add to the difficulty of the course there was also a stellar field of athletes lined up to race. I would argue that only Galveston and Austin 70.3 had deeper fields in Texas this year. Pro’s Nick Waninger, Brady O’Bryan and myself were there along with Ben Hall, Seth Cooke, William Ritter, Clay Emge, Ben …. and a host of others. (My apologies if I didn’t include your name here) It was the type of field that I knew I could either win or finish outside the top 10 depending on the kind of day I had.

Swim- 27:19. A HUGE breakthrough in my swim for me. I know I’ve been capable of swimming times like this as per my workouts in practice I just hadn’t been able to get it together in a race. I was finally able to swim to my ability and was quite pleased with this effort. Ben Hall took it out at the start and I was on his hip for a bit. Then Nick went to the front to surge and I lost contact. Nick, Ben and Brady ended up coming out of the water about 1:30-2min up on me. I led the 2nd pack into T1 and was quickly out on my bike.

Bike- 2:20:49 (2nd fastest) I had been warned that a 70.3 bike effort isn’t much slower than an Olympic so I tried to go out at a solid pace and start working from the get go. I knew I had guys up the road and was hoping to make up some ground. I caught Brady about 5 miles in and we rode together until mile 12 when Seth Cooke came by like a freight train. Now I knew this boy could ride a bike but was a little shocked to see him so early in the race. However I knew this was my ticket to the front. I accelerated and Seth and I were able to work together for the next 20-25 miles of the bike. I tried as best I could to take some pulls and share the load but he definitely did much more of the work than me. (Note:  though this is a non-draft race there is definitely benefit to being around other cyclists and pacing off of each other. Since we were operating under age group rules the “draft zone” was a mere 3 bike lengths, which is much closer than you’d think when going 24+ mph). Somewhere in there Brady dropped off and starting up The Beast at mile 30 we saw Nick up ahead. I led up the beast which is a half mile climb kicking up to 18-20% the last 200m. Coming over the top I saw Ben Hall off to the side messing with his bike and realized he must have had a mechanical of some sort. (I found out after the race that he broke his chain at the top of The Beast while leading the race by about 2 minutes. That’s what he gets for trying to put out 800 watts. Kudo’s to him for getting back on his bike and finishing the race). Seth floored it from there and I just did all I could to hang with him until we caught Nick at mile 35. At this point the fatigue was definitely starting to set in and I couldn’t do much but hang off the back of these  two guys. Seth put in another surge around mile 45 and Nick and I let him go, banking that we could catch him on the run. I was so, soooo happy to finally see transition ahead. My back, hips, butt, quads, everything was hurting big time.

Run- 1:29:43 (OUCH) I managed a sub 30sec transition even with putting socks on but sockless Nick was already 10 seconds down the road. I kept a steady and controlled 5:55-6:15 pace the first 5 miles and caught Seth a little after mile 3. After mile 5 the slow and steady decline began. At the turn around I was only 50 seconds behind Nick but Brady was bearing down on me about a minute back. I did all I could but the wheels were slowly coming off and starting to roll away. As much as I think the term is overused by triathletes I think I was in fact “bonking”. When Brady came by me at mile 8.5 there was no surge from me to hang with him. I was just trying to keep one foot in front of the other. In the last 4.5 miles Brady somehow ended up beating me by 5 minutes. I came in 3rd with a time of 4:19:35. Then I lay on the ground for a long, long time.

Lessons learned:

1) A half ironman is a really, really, REALLY long race.

2) No, I will not be attempting an Ironman for a good, long while. (I’m thinking 7-10 years)

3) More calories. I took in about 750 kcal on the bike and another 200ish on the run but I think in reality, and especially with how difficult and hilly the race is I probably need closer to 1300-1500 for the whole race. I just didn’t bank enough fuel on the bike to carry me through the run.

4) I need to train harder. More specifically, I need to train better to run a good half marathon off the bike. It isn’t so much about speed it’s about strength. Being strong on the bike to push a good pace for 2+ hours and then strong on the run to keep the pace steady. 6 minute pace isn’t that fast but running it on a fatigued body for 13 miles makes it much more difficult then it seems. Hip and glute strength is a must to hold form when you’re body is breaking down.

5) I think-maybe-we’ll see-but I might like this whole 70.3 thing and give it another shot in 2013.

I am now in full offseason mode. Eating as much terrible food as I can and doing as little physical activity as possible. This is hopefully giving me more time to write so I’m going to try and post a blog every week or two. Stay tuned for more on a recap of this year, the importance of a break and my plans for next year.

Train to Race... or Race to Train?

My next weekend double was a spring/Olympic combo. The Rose City Triathlon on Saturday followed by the first ever TRIFECTA Triathlon at beautiful Possum Kingdom lake on Sunday. Fellow pro triathlete and San Antonioan, Robbie Wade and I journeyed together for the weekend and made the long hours in the car much less boring. Rose City was a sprint race that I've won the last two years and hold the course record for. Bringing my top competition with me may not have been the smartest move but when Robbie took a wrong turn on the bike and last 30-45sec I nearly defended my title. Leading out the run I ran as hard as one can (Which is pretty fast when an angry Irishman is bearing down on you). At last, my efforts were futile however when Robbie caught me with 1k to go then easily kicked by me in the last 300m. We both actually broke my old course record and he helped propel me to my best ever run split of 15:31 for 3 miles. I would have actually pr'd my 5k in that race if it was a 5k.

As much as I hate being rude we had to leave the awards ceremony early so we could jet on the 3.5 hour drive west for the pro meeting at 4 pm that afternoon. It was going to be a small field with only 4 men and 3 women competing. Gary Metcalf, the race director was kind enough to hook us up with a great homestay for this event. Thanks a ton to Judy Parsons and her husband for allowing 4 dirty, hungry triathletes to invade their beautiful home for the weekend! Seriously, their place was amazing and we each had our own little apartment suite with a bed, fridge, tv and bathroom. And a great view of the lake to boot! Here are a few shots of possum kingdom lake-

View from the swim start

A close look at Hell's Gate

I had a pretty good race. Though I could tell my lack of high intensity biking and the hard effort from the day before left my legs lacking a little pop. I came off the bike in 4th and was able to run down Peter Mallett from Austin to secure 3rd. Robbie won easily and Wes Anderson (aka: GI Joe stud muffin) came in a strong 2nd so I was happy to make a San Antonio sweep! It was a successful weekend of racing and I was very pleased to have two back-to-back strong performances.

Podium- Wes, Robbie and me left to right

Another 2 weeks saw me on the road again, this time with afore mentioned Wes, headed to the Houston Triathlon . A week of rain storms turned this event into an aquathon which didn't particularly favor me but a race is a race and we all must perform regardless. Well... I didn't exactly perform. I came in a very unremarkable 7th place. For whatever reason I just felt extremely flat that day and couldn't manage to swim hard or get my run pace much under 5:50's. Oh well, those days happen.

Three weeks later was my big (and first) half Ironman. I'll save that for a later post as I feel it deserves a race report of it's own. Suffice to say I completed it and it was hard!!!  More to come in a few days...