Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Longhorn 70.3

I typically do not like to publicly post race reports. Probably because everyone and their brother does them, but I figured that I should do at least the biggest one of the year right?

I went into the HIM with high expectations. I had placed well in most of my races this year and thought that this would be no different. This race decided to knock me down a few notches from my high horse!! Lucky me it did because next year I will be smarter.

So here were my goals: Total time goal =5 hours

  1. Swim- somewhere around 30 minutes.
  2. Bike- under 3 hours and avg. over 18mph.
  3. Run- about 1:50

Here is how actually did: Total time = 5:25:46

  1. Swim- 24:38 (I have heard that the swim course was wrong and ended up being 300M short) This would make sense of my blazing speed in the water.
  2. Bike- 2:52 avg. 19.5mph

  3. Run- 2:01 avg. 9:17/mile

At first glance this is not bad and overall I am pleased with holding myself together but as I said this race humbled me and showed me just how much I still have to learn.

Probably the two notable things to talk about are: (1) I hit the wall at about 40 miles on the bike. I got depressed and started doubting myself. I knew I would hit it sometime but I did not know it would be so demoralizing and I wish I could have staved it off a little longer. (2) That at mile 55 on the bike I hit the last and the biggest hill on the course. As soon as I left the saddle to start up the hill my legs cramped up on me. The only way to keep going was to drop into a real easy gear and sit down. I think I was going about 5 miles an hour at one point. Anyway, I got to the dismount line and as soon as I stood up and jumped off the bike my legs froze again. The only thing I could do was to do a half squat and massage my legs. Finally I was able to get through transition and onto the run. By this time I was in too bad of shape to push it for fear that I would cramp and DNF. I took in as much liquid and electrolyte pills (they gave them out at the aid stations) as I could. After about 3-4 miles I was feeling good but my legs were so beat up from the cramping I could not get them to go any faster. I finished and some would say it was a respectable finish but looking at the numbers I should have been at least 30 minutes faster.

The biggest lesson I learned was to take more fluids on the bike. Including electrolyte pills which I only had four of them in 3 hours on the bike.

The greatest thing to come out of all this is that I cannot wait until my next one. Buffalo Springs 70.3 in June 2009. Can't wait!

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