Training:
The Augusta Half Ironman was the major goal for the year. Training for this event was on and off with very little time specifically devoted to getting ready for THIS event. Instead I just tried to stay in shape and have no long stretches of inactivity. I began the year focused on the Greenwood Olympic Tri in early June and as a result I was flying in the early part of the summer and late spring. I feel like I hit a peak both mentally and physically for this event and after I found it hard to stay focused on training for the much longer Half Iron distance. Also it didn’t help that my partners from last year were pulling out of Augusta and as a result I didn’t have the same support group to lean on and train with like I did last year. During the summer I continued to train and really tried to focus on my running. I decided to cut way back on my swim training this year for Augusta because I thought the conditions of the swim, down river and wetsuit legal really negated that leg of the tri and allowed for good times with little effort. I did work on swimming at the pool a least once a week at lunch but not nearly the amount of time I spent on it last year. I also don’t think I put in the miles on the bike like I did last year but what I did do was a lot more focused on TT type efforts with aero bars on the bike. I rode the course twice before the event but that was about the extent of my long rides. The typical training ride was around two hours on the weekend and hour and a half on weekdays with an occasional longer ride thrown in. Last year I did a bunch of riding with the Wed. night group but this year I started riding by myself on Wed nights to squeeze in a few more miles. This allowed my mid week ride to go from about an hour and a half to two hours or 28 miles to 35 miles. I think this helped with TT type efforts but by not riding with the group I really lost some top end ability, good thing you don’t use your top end that much in a tri so in the end I think this was a good move but I did miss the group. My running was what needed the most improvement and that is where I focused most of my attention. I cheated the swim and bike in return for more leg pounding. Early in the year I was running a good bit. In February I ran a half marathon and built up a pretty good base continuing to run mornings with Ryan, Jennings and Adam. By June my running had really improved and my results from Greenwood showed. By mid-summer It was just so hard mentally to run due to oppressive heat and humidity so my runs became more about just getting it done and less about getting it done quickly. My times slowed but I figured that was ok because my race pace for Augusta was 9:12. I did far less brick sessions this year also and entered the event feeling under prepared both mentally and physically.
Race:
Last year my nutrition plan was a disaster so this year I needed to change it. During last year’s race I had no idea what to expect so I was very concerned that I needed to eat and drink a lot. Well this was not the smartest strategy and during training and Greenwood this year I learned that for me less is better. After a big pasta dinner the night before I had two bananas and a granola bar for breakfast. At 6:15 Dad, Kenzie and I headed to the transition area to set up. After this we went back to the ESI office where we hung out for about 35 min or so then it was time make our way to the swim start for my start at 8:40. I began to get nervous walking up and seeing all the people and knowing I was getting ready to start something that I didn’t think I was prepared for and was going to hurt. Kenzie and I put on our wetsuits and started to do our… Hold Up what’s wrong here? Kenzie is that wetsuit on backwards? Indeed it is, Kenzie I said, you got it on backwards, the zipper goes in the back. Good thing she still had time to take it off and put it on correctly. After a few minutes of waiting around my wave finally made our way onto the start dock. I was thinking only one thing. Take it easy and just get through the swim. I had given myself a goal of 30 min. for this leg of the event which would be three min. slower than last year. I jumped in the water and started getting ready to get going. The gun went off and away we went. I was in large group of swimmers right away but contact was minimal. I was surprised to see that by the midpoint I was still in a large group. I thought this is going well and maybe my time will be decent. I could also tell that I was having a “good day”, I wasn’t struggling to maintain pace and it seemed easy. Before I knew it I located the swim exit and started moving closer to shore. From the start I tried to stay as deep as possible to avoid contact with others, avoid trash and weeds in the shallower water and take advantage of what I thought would be a faster current towards the middle of the river. So while I may have swam a little farther by having to swim back to shore It probably evened out due to the other factors. I could really feel the current when trying to swim at an angle in the river close to shore when entering the boat ramp exit. Maybe my current theory was wrong! I exited the water and rather than running up the ramp and through transition I decided so slow it down and compose myself. After making it up the hill I began to jog to the wetsuit strippers, they quickly helped me out of my wetsuit and I was off to the bike. My official time for the swim was 28:19. Much better than I had planned and I did it while really not putting that much into it. I suspect everyone was pleased with the times on the swim as for this event. The river really does make the swim easy. T1 was 5:25, like I said I was taking my time.
Last year after transitioning to the bike I didn’t feel normal on the bike until about 30 min into the ride. This year was different. Right away I felt good but I didn’t want to push that hard. The weather was overcast and probably in the low 70’s so perfect for the ride. The wind was not much of a factor but I do remember thinking it never had that much of a negative effect it seemed mostly a cross or tail wind. Because of my problems last year with nutrition I decided to go with two Gu’s and a granola bar on the bike. I took the first GU at the one hour mark and the granola bar midway followed by the final GU starting the final ten mile stretch. As with the swim I seemed to be ahead of my desired pace of 19-19.5 mph without too much of an effort so I decided to just stay with the pace I was at which was right at about 20 mph. My strategy going in was all about the run so I needed to conserve as much energy as possible on the bike I did this by staying steady and not trying to hold my speed while going uphill. When the road tilted up I just maintained the effort level and didn’t worry about speed like I would normally do on the bike. Also I made sure to coast whenever possible, if I was going over about 22 mph I would coast downhill saving my energy for the run. Overall the bike course was uneventful and I cruised through with a 19.97 mph average while only going 80% of my max HR according to my Garmin. Overall bike time of 2:48:17 faster than anticipated but easier perceived effort.
I rolled into T2 and executed a perfect dismount that drew several complements from the volunteers standing at the line. I thought I was going to bust my butt because the surface was still pavement at that point and I just knew my cleats were going to skid out from under me but they held and I maintained my dignity. Again last year when running the bike into T2 I knew I was going to have a horrible run but this time my legs felt good. When I got to my transition spot I quickly put on my shoes before realizing that I was getting ahead of myself. Unlike all the other tri’s I have done where I biked and ran in tri shorts. This time I was trying something new. I decided to ride in regular bike shorts and run in running shorts with no liner. I wore a pair of tight fitting synthetic underwear under my bike shorts that would allow me to strip off the bike shorts and put on my running shorts. I had experimented with this set up during a couple of bricks and thought this was the most comfortable option for me. I know I was that guy NOT wearing the tri suit, damn rookie. So I took the shoes off, pulled off the bike shorts and into the running shorts. Put shoes back on and grabbed another GU my sunglasses and hat and took off. T2 in 2:17 with the screw up. The run started good for me and my goal was 2 hours. I felt strong during the first mile and began to have thoughts of running straight through this last leg of the day. My first mile was 8:45 or so and I knew I needed to back off to my desired pace of 9:12. The plan was to run this pace for the first lap and then see what happens during the second lap. If I felt good I would pick it up from there. As I mentioned before in the month and a half leading up to the race my training fell of a little as I lost the enthusiasm for competing in this event. As a result my distance running faltered and my long runs went from 10-12 to 6-8 miles. I knew the run was the critical component for me but I was confident that no matter what, my run this time around would be much better than last year. Last year I ran a 2:33:xx this year the goal was 2:00:00. As I passed the first mile marker I remember thinking that I was already better than last time because I hadn’t walked yet. In 2011 I walked before the first mile was complete. By mile 7 of the run I still hadn’t stopped and was on pace to meet my goal however I was getting slower! The second lap was all about keeping it going and moving. I keep telling myself to not stop but by mile 9 I decided to walk the next aid station. I walked through this aid station and took on some water and an orange slice and started running again feeling better, I walked the next aid station at mile 11 and then another brief walk at 12.5 . While walking I began to see the runners in front of me who were on their second lap take the final turn to the right back to Broad Street and the home stretch. I zipped up my jersey pulled my number around to the front and gutted out the final half mile to the finish. When I crossed the line, unlike last year where I was on the verge of breaking down, all I could think about was finally getting to stop and that was much easier than my first one. I finished the run in 2:06:28 off the goal pace but I’ll take it. Now heading into this I told myself that a time of 5:40:xx would be good considering how unprepared I felt. When I crossed the line the clock said 6:40:xx so I had to do a little math to figure out my time. I started 1 hour and 10 min. after the clock started so my time was 5:30:46 I was super happy with that.
I was happy to complete my second Half Ironman but at this point I am contemplating retirement from exercise. The time commitment that is needed to pull of a respectable time in something like this is large. Thanks to Kenzie for being flexible while working out who gets to do what and when and not making me wake up early all the time. Thanks to Mom and Dad for always looking after the girls when we come home on the weekends and go for long rides and runs. Thanks to Jennings, Ryan and Adam for all bailing on me and leaving me to do this by myself, It takes the pressure off. Maybe I will just stick to Olympic distance! Also thanks to Dad for getting the ball rolling on getting Kenzie into the event after the close. It’s nice to have connections.
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