stolen from conrad stoltz, xterra world champion...
S'More...
Monday, July 27, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
And Now...For Something Completely Different.
As of this week, I have decided not to do Ironman Canada/Kona this year. Too much dough. I realized that it would cost me around $5,000 to do both Canada and Kona, plus a couple weeks of vacation to do it right. Instead, I will do several other races, including a return to the Dirt...still working out details. It is actually a relief to save money and allow myself to focus on One key race and a few Benchmark races along the way. I'm excited about it! There are several races in California that I have not done yet and look forward to experiencing this year.
Instead of training for a 112 mile time trial and a marathon, I can focus on getting faster and building on my aerobic base that I have been developing my late start in February.
I will try to peak for Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Clearwater, Florida in November as my "A" race for this fall.
I have signed up for the Santa Barbara Long Course Triathlon on August 22nd, and will enter a few more races to fill the new gaps in my schedule.
Getting up early in the morning for one of my favorite rides: Swami's Ride plus an out and back to Mt. Soledad. This ride is a good benchmark that Slater, Keevin, Kurt and I use to gauge our dreamcrushing abilities...or lack thereof!
Thanks for stopping by!
SC
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Monster Weekend on Tap...
On Saturday I am joining my nuun/feedthemachine.com teammate Cyril Jay Rayon for an epic ride in the San Gabriel mountains. We will start at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena and climb up to Wrightwood, which unfortunately is about 66 miles away. All in all, the ride should be around 135 miles long, with over 13,000 feet of climbing. With 7 weeks until Ironman Canada, this will be one of my longest rides of the year. These are the types of rides that separate the men from the boys. Most people training for Ironman triathlons will do several rides in the 100-120 mile range, but few will go over 130, and even fewer will do those miles at a steady pace in the mountains, climbing around 2.5 vertical miles.
Cyril and I have logged hundreds of hours together over the past couple winters, mostly in the Santa Monica mountains. While training for adventure races we typically would knock out 5-7 hour rides with 20 mile brick runs in the mountains. That makes Ironman training much more palatable and exciting. It's all relative!
We are both peaking for our "A" races. Cyril is getting ready for Primal Quest, where he hopes to improve on last year's 4th place finish. Cyril recently won the 24 Hours of Laguna Seca mountain bike race, setting a new record. It was his 2nd mountain bike race in about 6 years. A month prior he did the 24 Hours of Hurkey Creek, but crashed badly and finished 2nd with his injury. Nice!
If I am motivated and lucid enough I will get off the bike and knock out my standard transition run before making the hour-long drive home to Huntington Beach. Rides like this take all day, over 7 hours ride time, so I will barely make it home before dinner.
Sunday's Torture du Jour is a 20 mile run at MAF Pace, which I believe is around 6:49/mile right now. In the 2 weeks post-Ironman, it is difficult to determine your true aerobic pace, as you are carrying fatigue that artificially lowers your heart rate. So while I may think I have a "jump in fitness" while running 6:30 pace at a heart rate of 149, it is more likely that I am not recovered yet.
After the long run I plan on a long Ocean Swim near San Clemente with HotWheels. If I am still alive we will do an easy spin together after the swim. Easy as in EASY!
All systems are go for a fast race at Ironman Canada.
I picked up some great information today on a Webinar held by Gordo Byrn/Endurance Corner (www.endurancecorner.com) Today's topic was Mental Conditioning for Ironman triathlon. I will share what I learned in my next post!
Stay Moist,
SC
Team nuun-feedthemachine.com
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Batteries: Recharged
It has been 2 weeks since Ironman Coeur d'Alene. I feel that I am ahead of the recovery curve and there are a couple contributing factors worth mentioning. If you have any ideas that you'd like to share PLEASE COMMENT below!
In the first week post-race, I wore Zoot compression socks daily and kept up on my elevating and icing regimen of knees/hips/calves/quads. In addition, although I was not training beyond Active Recovery walking and swimming, I kept my protein intake around 140g/day.
Most of that came from whey/banana/Rice Dream shakes with additional Glutamine and BCAA pills thrown in the mix. I consumed "reckless" amounts of antioxidant-rich blueberries and raspberries as well as daily steak and/or salmon and supplemented with 10g/day of Omega 3. Anti-inflammatory/recovery diet!
Most importantly though, was not rushing back into "training" while my body was still on the mend, both musculoskeletal as well as endocrine. People underestimate how ultra-endurance training wreaks havoc on our hormone balance. Nobody wants to talk about it...
The second week post-race is tricky because you want to get back to "training", and you feel like you can, but your body is still recovering. I am glad I had the discipline to at least make it through 2 weeks of a solid recovery protocol and feel that I am ready to resume my normal frequency this coming 3rd week. According to Mark Allen, I should wait until the end of week 3 to get back into "Ironman Training" but I will ramp it up starting tomorrow, focusing on frequency above all else.
After analyzing what I did right/wrong in my leadup to CDA, I found that many workouts were "bagged" due to my move from Irvine to Huntington Beach, and HotWheels' move from Redondo Beach to our new place...double-trouble!
Finding a place, packing, moving (refrigerators in and out of U-Hauls and up flights of stairs a couple hours after a 20 mile long run!?), and unpacking takes more than just a few days, and the stress is certainly a compounding factor.
In my next post I will get into more detail about my training plan for IM Canada, but suffice it to say that I will roughly Double my swim training (if my shoulder allows it!), as well as increase my cycling by about 30% and my running by about 20%.
I'm excited about racing, but also the process of getting to the next level. With 8 weeks to go until Ironman Canada, I have some of the most epic sessions of the year planned to get me into much better shape that what I brought to Ironman CDA.
Quote of the day that I stole from a Tweet by Tony Robbins:
Everybody want to be somebody: nobody wants to grow."
-Goethe
So true isn't it?
Push yourself through a limit today
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
IRONMAN Coeur d'Alene Idaho Race Report
Background
Starting on the beach with over 2,400 swimmers was nerve-racking, even though this was my 3rd Ironman. The cannon went off at 6:59 and the wrestling match began. For the first 800 meters, instead of swimming it was more of a survival situation. People clawing over each others legs, grabbing ankles, swimming over each other, locking arms...2,400 people in a battling for space swimming along a line of buoys.
My training partners Slater Fletcher, Keevin Blue and I kid each other
about "crushing dreams" on tough workouts. Apparently my dream crushing skills are so strong that I managed to crush MY OWN dreams this past
weekend at the 2009 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene! And I am not joking either.
Prelude
Training has gone according to plan, without any injuries since March. My
key benchmark workouts indicated I was ready to go 9:30-9:40 at the race.
I figured a 1:05 swim, 5:00 bike, and 3:20 run plus transitions would get me there. All were conservative figures that I could knock out on any given day at my "steady"
heart rate without a problem. I was going to under-promise and over-deliver!
A close examination of the past 6 years' race results showed that as long as I finished under 10 hours I would qualify for the Ironman World Championships in Kona. Qualifying for "the big show" was the prime directive and motivating force to get me out the door every day. I told myself I would not allow ego (an overzealous "fast" bike split) get in the way of a "perfectly executed" and balanced race. I had the false assumption that 9:50 or under would be a Slam-Dunk. Wrong-O!
The Swim
The swim was two loops of a 1.2 mile rectangular course. After the first lap, athletes exited the water, ran around 50 feet down the beach across a timing mat, and
plopped back in the 65 degree lake for the 2nd and final lap.
At 32:45 I exited the first lap and was a bit disappointed, but realized that the first half mile must have been very slow with the wrestling and constant sighting/heads-up swimming. I put my head down and hoped for a sub-30 2nd lap.
Those hopes quickly vanished as the wind and waves picked up and we were forced to swim into waves, current, and wind for the next 900 meters. Every breath was met with a wave slapping me in the face, and every stroke was an awkward stab into the diaganol waves. Not fun! I have years of ocean swimming and surfing experience, but typically you do not swim straight into windy white-caps for 900 meters. I finished the swim in a sub-par 1 hour 10 minutes.
After the race I learned that everyone would wind up with swim splits 5 to 10 minutes slower than usual.
The Bike
I set off on the bike knowing that I was "in my element" and could record a top 20 split overall at a comfortable pace without nuking myself for the run. Assuming conditions were typical, 4:55-5:05 was the range I was shooting for on this day. On a course with over 6,000 feet of vertical gain, managing my pace and precisely timed shifting would be the secrets to achieving my goal. Carrying momentum on and after the downhills would be a key advantage for me, given my size.
Unfortunately, I learned a mile into the 112 mile ride that shifting was going be a problem. A BIG problem. I was unable to shift my rear cassette lower than the 19. Occasionally it would skip on it's own a bit lower, but only randomly. Nightmare!
This of course meant that I would spin out my gears at just 24 miles per hour, and I would be unable to pedal on descents or flats with a tailwind. I stopped before a long descent and tried to diagnose and fix the problem, but to no avail. I manually lifted the chain and placed it on the 12, my lowest gear, and descended. Hoping that the problem would rectify magically. It didn't.
Before the race, I did a short shake-down ride on the race wheels I had borrowed from a friend: a Zipp disk and 100mm deep front wheel. Everything seemed kosher, except a slight skipping from the 21 to 25. It seemed to be ok if I soft-pedaled more than usual while shifting, but not nipping this problem in the bud would be my undoing. I sabotaged my own race. I Crushed my OWN dreams!
I spent the next 110 miles riding tiny gears on a course where I could have gained massive heaps of time on the rolling hills, flats, and descents. At 180lbs, one of my strengths is pushing big watts at a lower heart rate than most racers. I spent an enormous amount of time, money, and energy on perfecting my aerodynamics to ensure that those watts would translate into a 4:50ish bike split at the lowest energy output possible.
Not on this day. (sound of dream being crushed)
Dealing with this fiasco was difficult emotionally, but my splits along the course said I would still finish the leg somewhere between 5:05 and 5:10. Not the end of the world, and I figured (constantly) that I would still be able to finish the race around 9:40s.
I decided to focus on what WAS under my control at the time: sticking to my fueling plan and trying to have the discipline to not make up for the time I was losing on the flats and downhills by climbing too hard. I kept my heart rate under 150 for 99% of the bike ride and forced myself to keep a positive attitude.
I wound up finishing the bike leg in 5 hours and 10 minutes, about 15 minutes shy of my goal. After riding the course, I realized that my goal was a bit soft and 4:50 would have been no problem with a full range of 10 gears and not stopping for X minutes to try to fix my deraileur. The angel on my right shoulder told me during the ride that this was a blessing in disguise: I was forced to rest, keep a high cadence and low watts, ensuring more energy for the run. Would he be right?
Running out of T2, I knew that I was still right on target for my Kona spot. All I "needed" to do was run under 3:35 to break 10 hours, and I knew at my fitness level that even 3:20 would be very easy with the day's cool temperatures. I felt confident and focused on the mission at hand. I would pace myself according to the Game Plan and not get caught up in the emotional ups and downs.
The Marathon
With a 3:20 marathon in mind, I felt totally in control as that pace is roughly one minute per mile slower than I had ever run in training for this race, barring long hills.
At the start I set out at around 6:45 pace, my "steady" training pace for approximately 7 miles. That felt easy and I had to hold back to not run faster.
After tapering for 3 weeks I felt fresher than I had in months. You never feel "normal" in an Ironman marathon, but I knew what to expect and focused on one mile at a time.
By mile 8 I had some unresolved stomach issues that began after taking some EFS gel at the end of the bike. I had run out of Vitargo on the bike and only had EFS as my backup. At 400 calories per flask, with electrolytes and aminos, on paper it seems like a great product. In fact, I had experimented with it in training and found that as long as you dosed it very carefully, and frequently, it worked. Not quite Vitargo, but it would be an easy way to carry 800 calories in a small package.
I apparently took a bit too much and my stomach bloated terribly. I was unable to down water or food for the first 8 miles of the run. Instead I sipped at aid stations every mile and just waited confidently for the bloating to go away. It did not. So bathroom stop #1 for #2 cost me 2 minutes. I felt better and kept trucking, still "on pace". I slowed down slightly to lower my heart rate and allow my body to better digest the calories that it needed. Again, I was on pace for a 3:20ish marathon, sub 9:50 and my Kona slot. I was going to play it conservatively all day and do nothing to risk my chances.
At mile 15 I hit my special needs bag and grabbed my bottle of Vitargo and nuun. That bottle was a life-saver! I was immediately comforted and energized, and I knew that I would be good to go for at least the next 90 minutes with a two-scoop bottle of Vitargo. Knowing that you are taking in the best fuel that has never let you down is a huge part of the mental game in Ironman. I always train with nuun, which was not on the course at this race, so the taste alone of the nuun told me that I was getting the electrolytes my body needed and that I was "good to go" for the next hour at least.
Clicking off the miles, I continued to do the math, and realized that I could run 7:30ish pace easily between aid stations, walking through each one to take in water and after mile 20, chicken broth for electrolytes. At around mile 24 my hamstrings began to get tight and I slowed down to about 7:45 pace between aid stations, taking an extra couple walking steps to ensure I was still hydrated and had electrolytes. I knew it "ain't over til it's over".
The Finish
Turning onto Sherman Avenue at mile 25.5, I opened it up and turned on the afterburners as the crowds cheered on and the finish line grew closer. On a sidenote, my watch told me I would finish in 9:49, since I started it at 7:00am. I found out on that last mile that my watch was off because the race actually started at 6:59! I watched the clock tick over from 9:50 to 9:51 from a distance and slowed slightly, with nobody behind me. For some reason 9:49 had a nice ring to it, and would have put me in the top 3 or 4 in my Age Group in most of the past races.
I sprinted across the line, thinking all along that I had executed a good race and had my ticket to Kona. My lovely and talented and wonderful girlfriend HotWheels was there in the finish line chute and gave me the bad news after I asked my overall and Age Group place. 53rd overall...and 12th in the 30-34 age group. Top 6 in my age group were all in the top 25. What? Holy $#&@! So my elation turned to shock, horror, disgust and devastation.
After I found out that the last Kona slot was 14 minutes ahead, I realized that is a) about how much time I lost on the bike due to my shifting problem; and b) a bit more than I probably could have gained on the run, even if I had pushed the pace. I doubt I had a 3:10 in my legs on this day. 3:15 would have been pushing it. I have only been running for 4.5 months after a winter spent nursing foot injuries. Gotta be realistic!
Could I have gone faster on the run? Yes, but everyone believes that. I won't know until next time. It's all Theory until you actually DO IT. However I will be *slightly* less conservative and more aggressive next time.
Ironman racing takes practice...and 6 years between races left me a bit rusty. Now that I have a good benchmark for the distance at this fitness level, I believe that with the same fitness and improved execution, sub 9:30 is achievable at my next race, even this year.
Am I pleased with my race? Given the circumstances and operational assumptions, hell yes. It was actually a Personal Record for me and a well-executed race given my goals and strategy. I did what I set out to do, in the face of adversity on a tough day. I know I am not the only one lamenting the "ould-haves". There were around 2,500 people in this race, and everyone at some point faced their demons and went through very low points. The satisfaction you feel at the finish line is correlated to the intensity of the pain, doubt, heartbreak and adversity you overcame during the event.
Had I qualified, I'm sure I would have patted myself on the back for executing a conservative race, albeit with critical lessons learned. Instead, I ponder the lessons and spend my recovery time self-evaluating and trying to learn something from my race autopsy.
As much as I was disappointed, I know how to better prepare for and execute my next race.
In an Ironman event, your age is marked on your left calf, so you can identify your age-group competition. Apparently, there was one case of "heartbreak" far worse than mine:
A glance at the results shows that the last Kona slot in the Men's 35-39 went to
Sam Picicci in 9:52:41...Chris Pollard, also 35-39, finished in 9:52:42. Sprint finish.
Aftermath
Learned some valuable lessons up in Idaho. I cannot wait to implement those in my next race against the clock. Which will be...
What comes next will be in my next post.
Starting on the beach with over 2,400 swimmers was nerve-racking, even though this was my 3rd Ironman. The cannon went off at 6:59 and the wrestling match began. For the first 800 meters, instead of swimming it was more of a survival situation. People clawing over each others legs, grabbing ankles, swimming over each other, locking arms...2,400 people in a battling for space swimming along a line of buoys.
My training partners Slater Fletcher, Keevin Blue and I kid each other
about "crushing dreams" on tough workouts. Apparently my dream crushing skills are so strong that I managed to crush MY OWN dreams this past
weekend at the 2009 Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene! And I am not joking either.
Prelude
Training has gone according to plan, without any injuries since March. My
key benchmark workouts indicated I was ready to go 9:30-9:40 at the race.
I figured a 1:05 swim, 5:00 bike, and 3:20 run plus transitions would get me there. All were conservative figures that I could knock out on any given day at my "steady"
heart rate without a problem. I was going to under-promise and over-deliver!
A close examination of the past 6 years' race results showed that as long as I finished under 10 hours I would qualify for the Ironman World Championships in Kona. Qualifying for "the big show" was the prime directive and motivating force to get me out the door every day. I told myself I would not allow ego (an overzealous "fast" bike split) get in the way of a "perfectly executed" and balanced race. I had the false assumption that 9:50 or under would be a Slam-Dunk. Wrong-O!
The Swim
The swim was two loops of a 1.2 mile rectangular course. After the first lap, athletes exited the water, ran around 50 feet down the beach across a timing mat, and
plopped back in the 65 degree lake for the 2nd and final lap.
At 32:45 I exited the first lap and was a bit disappointed, but realized that the first half mile must have been very slow with the wrestling and constant sighting/heads-up swimming. I put my head down and hoped for a sub-30 2nd lap.
Those hopes quickly vanished as the wind and waves picked up and we were forced to swim into waves, current, and wind for the next 900 meters. Every breath was met with a wave slapping me in the face, and every stroke was an awkward stab into the diaganol waves. Not fun! I have years of ocean swimming and surfing experience, but typically you do not swim straight into windy white-caps for 900 meters. I finished the swim in a sub-par 1 hour 10 minutes.
After the race I learned that everyone would wind up with swim splits 5 to 10 minutes slower than usual.
The Bike
I set off on the bike knowing that I was "in my element" and could record a top 20 split overall at a comfortable pace without nuking myself for the run. Assuming conditions were typical, 4:55-5:05 was the range I was shooting for on this day. On a course with over 6,000 feet of vertical gain, managing my pace and precisely timed shifting would be the secrets to achieving my goal. Carrying momentum on and after the downhills would be a key advantage for me, given my size.
Unfortunately, I learned a mile into the 112 mile ride that shifting was going be a problem. A BIG problem. I was unable to shift my rear cassette lower than the 19. Occasionally it would skip on it's own a bit lower, but only randomly. Nightmare!
This of course meant that I would spin out my gears at just 24 miles per hour, and I would be unable to pedal on descents or flats with a tailwind. I stopped before a long descent and tried to diagnose and fix the problem, but to no avail. I manually lifted the chain and placed it on the 12, my lowest gear, and descended. Hoping that the problem would rectify magically. It didn't.
Before the race, I did a short shake-down ride on the race wheels I had borrowed from a friend: a Zipp disk and 100mm deep front wheel. Everything seemed kosher, except a slight skipping from the 21 to 25. It seemed to be ok if I soft-pedaled more than usual while shifting, but not nipping this problem in the bud would be my undoing. I sabotaged my own race. I Crushed my OWN dreams!
I spent the next 110 miles riding tiny gears on a course where I could have gained massive heaps of time on the rolling hills, flats, and descents. At 180lbs, one of my strengths is pushing big watts at a lower heart rate than most racers. I spent an enormous amount of time, money, and energy on perfecting my aerodynamics to ensure that those watts would translate into a 4:50ish bike split at the lowest energy output possible.
Not on this day. (sound of dream being crushed)
Dealing with this fiasco was difficult emotionally, but my splits along the course said I would still finish the leg somewhere between 5:05 and 5:10. Not the end of the world, and I figured (constantly) that I would still be able to finish the race around 9:40s.
I decided to focus on what WAS under my control at the time: sticking to my fueling plan and trying to have the discipline to not make up for the time I was losing on the flats and downhills by climbing too hard. I kept my heart rate under 150 for 99% of the bike ride and forced myself to keep a positive attitude.
I wound up finishing the bike leg in 5 hours and 10 minutes, about 15 minutes shy of my goal. After riding the course, I realized that my goal was a bit soft and 4:50 would have been no problem with a full range of 10 gears and not stopping for X minutes to try to fix my deraileur. The angel on my right shoulder told me during the ride that this was a blessing in disguise: I was forced to rest, keep a high cadence and low watts, ensuring more energy for the run. Would he be right?
Running out of T2, I knew that I was still right on target for my Kona spot. All I "needed" to do was run under 3:35 to break 10 hours, and I knew at my fitness level that even 3:20 would be very easy with the day's cool temperatures. I felt confident and focused on the mission at hand. I would pace myself according to the Game Plan and not get caught up in the emotional ups and downs.
The Marathon
With a 3:20 marathon in mind, I felt totally in control as that pace is roughly one minute per mile slower than I had ever run in training for this race, barring long hills.
At the start I set out at around 6:45 pace, my "steady" training pace for approximately 7 miles. That felt easy and I had to hold back to not run faster.
After tapering for 3 weeks I felt fresher than I had in months. You never feel "normal" in an Ironman marathon, but I knew what to expect and focused on one mile at a time.
By mile 8 I had some unresolved stomach issues that began after taking some EFS gel at the end of the bike. I had run out of Vitargo on the bike and only had EFS as my backup. At 400 calories per flask, with electrolytes and aminos, on paper it seems like a great product. In fact, I had experimented with it in training and found that as long as you dosed it very carefully, and frequently, it worked. Not quite Vitargo, but it would be an easy way to carry 800 calories in a small package.
I apparently took a bit too much and my stomach bloated terribly. I was unable to down water or food for the first 8 miles of the run. Instead I sipped at aid stations every mile and just waited confidently for the bloating to go away. It did not. So bathroom stop #1 for #2 cost me 2 minutes. I felt better and kept trucking, still "on pace". I slowed down slightly to lower my heart rate and allow my body to better digest the calories that it needed. Again, I was on pace for a 3:20ish marathon, sub 9:50 and my Kona slot. I was going to play it conservatively all day and do nothing to risk my chances.
At mile 15 I hit my special needs bag and grabbed my bottle of Vitargo and nuun. That bottle was a life-saver! I was immediately comforted and energized, and I knew that I would be good to go for at least the next 90 minutes with a two-scoop bottle of Vitargo. Knowing that you are taking in the best fuel that has never let you down is a huge part of the mental game in Ironman. I always train with nuun, which was not on the course at this race, so the taste alone of the nuun told me that I was getting the electrolytes my body needed and that I was "good to go" for the next hour at least.
Clicking off the miles, I continued to do the math, and realized that I could run 7:30ish pace easily between aid stations, walking through each one to take in water and after mile 20, chicken broth for electrolytes. At around mile 24 my hamstrings began to get tight and I slowed down to about 7:45 pace between aid stations, taking an extra couple walking steps to ensure I was still hydrated and had electrolytes. I knew it "ain't over til it's over".
The Finish
Turning onto Sherman Avenue at mile 25.5, I opened it up and turned on the afterburners as the crowds cheered on and the finish line grew closer. On a sidenote, my watch told me I would finish in 9:49, since I started it at 7:00am. I found out on that last mile that my watch was off because the race actually started at 6:59! I watched the clock tick over from 9:50 to 9:51 from a distance and slowed slightly, with nobody behind me. For some reason 9:49 had a nice ring to it, and would have put me in the top 3 or 4 in my Age Group in most of the past races.
I sprinted across the line, thinking all along that I had executed a good race and had my ticket to Kona. My lovely and talented and wonderful girlfriend HotWheels was there in the finish line chute and gave me the bad news after I asked my overall and Age Group place. 53rd overall...and 12th in the 30-34 age group. Top 6 in my age group were all in the top 25. What? Holy $#&@! So my elation turned to shock, horror, disgust and devastation.
After I found out that the last Kona slot was 14 minutes ahead, I realized that is a) about how much time I lost on the bike due to my shifting problem; and b) a bit more than I probably could have gained on the run, even if I had pushed the pace. I doubt I had a 3:10 in my legs on this day. 3:15 would have been pushing it. I have only been running for 4.5 months after a winter spent nursing foot injuries. Gotta be realistic!
Could I have gone faster on the run? Yes, but everyone believes that. I won't know until next time. It's all Theory until you actually DO IT. However I will be *slightly* less conservative and more aggressive next time.
Ironman racing takes practice...and 6 years between races left me a bit rusty. Now that I have a good benchmark for the distance at this fitness level, I believe that with the same fitness and improved execution, sub 9:30 is achievable at my next race, even this year.
Am I pleased with my race? Given the circumstances and operational assumptions, hell yes. It was actually a Personal Record for me and a well-executed race given my goals and strategy. I did what I set out to do, in the face of adversity on a tough day. I know I am not the only one lamenting the "ould-haves". There were around 2,500 people in this race, and everyone at some point faced their demons and went through very low points. The satisfaction you feel at the finish line is correlated to the intensity of the pain, doubt, heartbreak and adversity you overcame during the event.
Had I qualified, I'm sure I would have patted myself on the back for executing a conservative race, albeit with critical lessons learned. Instead, I ponder the lessons and spend my recovery time self-evaluating and trying to learn something from my race autopsy.
As much as I was disappointed, I know how to better prepare for and execute my next race.
In an Ironman event, your age is marked on your left calf, so you can identify your age-group competition. Apparently, there was one case of "heartbreak" far worse than mine:
A glance at the results shows that the last Kona slot in the Men's 35-39 went to
Sam Picicci in 9:52:41...Chris Pollard, also 35-39, finished in 9:52:42. Sprint finish.
Aftermath
Learned some valuable lessons up in Idaho. I cannot wait to implement those in my next race against the clock. Which will be...
What comes next will be in my next post.
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