Everything was going along great until I injured my left leg running. Between the beginning of June and race day, I backed off any hard bike training and stopped running. I couldn't even run if I wanted to, the pain was so bad. I couldn't stand on just my left foot without my leg shaking and giving out on me. I had no idea how I was going to get through the run course at the race, but that didn't matter. Last words from my coach were "race aggressive on swim and bike, see how leg feels on run. If any pain, shut it down so New Zealand not compromised". So that became my plan.
The week before the race, I took off work. I really needed a vacation. Working 12 hour days, weekends, 4th of July... It was getting to me. Jaw and I took the RV up the coast and camped, rode a little, walked, slept in, etc. Thursday we came home, I packed up my race junk and we left for Windsor about 3 AM on Friday. Wanting to avoid all the Cali traffic, it was a nice road trip up north. We took some back roads to get to Windsor and it immediately became clear to me why the race is so popular. The area is so incredibly beautiful. Saturday Jaw became sherpa extraordinaire and came with me for a little practice swim, short ride to verify all on the bike was OK and packet pick-up. He was so amazingly supportive through the whole day and my usual pre-race neurosis were less than usual (although he'd probably say I was a wreck :) ).
Swim:
This course suited me for a couple of reasons. The water was as calm as can be and the course is a simple out / back. Some people like it because the water is so shallow you can stand up and walk / rest if you need to, but when I made the turnaround and my hands were hitting the bottom of the river, I found it really annoying and was praying for some deeper water. I had been working on my swim a lot and while my swim time still wasn't stellar, it was my best swim time (time per 100 m) in a race to date (excpet for the half at the Triple T, but I'm convinced that course was waaayyyyyy short). I was feeling very good on the swim. Pulling hard, breathing easy, good technique. I even passed a girl in my wave towards the finish. Woooo! I was hoping for a little better time, but I'll take it. Out of the water, short walk to my bike (longer walk to the bike start) and I was off...Swim: 37:09 (1:55 / 100 m; 39th in AG)
T1: 3:38
Bike:
Beautiful course!!! The weather was mostly overcast the entire ride, which helped me tremendously. I don't do well in the heat. I tried to settle in, but was anxious to get off the main road and make the sharp turn into the backcountry. I got to the turn and managed OK, but then dropped my chain on the 1st big steep climb. Instead of losing it, I just did a quick glance behind me, turned around back to the bottom of the hill, re-set my chain and up I went. No worries - rookie mistake, but all is OK. Now, I tried to settle in, but the roads are very very very bumpy and everything on my bike was rattling. So, I stopped briefly to check my between the bars aero bottle and sure enough, the velcro (I recently purchased a Profile Design HC Aero Mount / Bottle) was loose. So, I tightened that up and NOW, I was ready to rock-n-roll. Still, the roads were very very very bumpy, but damn beautiful so no reason to get all upset. Finally around mile 40 something, the roads cleaned up a bit and just my luck, I hit one little bump and my bottle finally flew out of the holder. Oh crap - I was too in the zone to go chase it down and frankly, I think it fell off the overpass into the valley below. I was past all the aid stations, but had about 1/2 bottle of water with me so figured that was good enough.
Bike: 2:49:47 (19.79 mph; 13th in AG)
T2: 5:24 (I was in no rush... :) )
Run:
Beautiful Course!!! I put on my pillow shoes (i.e. Hoka's) and actually started running out of transition. But just past mile 1, my leg reminded me that it was not happy and I came to a screeching halt. It's the type of pain that stops you dead in your tracks. I talked to my leg... told it just get me jogging from aid station to aid station and I'll let you rest and walk through each aid station. This worked a bit, but at some points the pain was too much to handle and I walked some between aid stations as well. As my coach said, if it was too much, shut it down so I can train properly for IM New Zealand. At some point while I was hobbling along, I noticed my toes were on fire and hurting, but too scared to stop and take off my shoes, I just put that out of my brain. I saw my good friend Jay from Chi town around mile 10-ish... he looked good and strong and gave me a bit of energy boost (thank you Jay!) Around mile 11 or so, I figured I could be done in 20 minutes so I started jogging and told myself it's flat and straight to the finish so just try to get in some sort of rhythm and get 'er done. And so I did. I got passed by so many people on the run course, but it didn't bother me. This wasn't a race for time.
Run: 2:30:21 (11:28 min / mile; 54th in AG)
Total: 6:06:19
Side notes:
I didn't have any GI issues at this race. I don't know if it's due to changing my diet or being in a better mental state of mind, but I was very pleased with this.
Since starting triathlon in '06, I've only done four other half ironman races and this time was actually my fastest. My other halves were: American TTT in 2010 (6:21), Pucon Chile in 2009 (6:20), Las Vegas Half in 2007 (6:16) and Steelhead in 2006 (6:06:37). I sort of wonder what I can do when I'm actually not hurt...
Omelette Express in Windsor makes the most amazing day-after race omelettes you'll ever eat!
Cheers and XO!
Mer
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