Kinetic Half Race Recap - 7th out of 57 in Age Group!

4:46:47. I still can't believe that was my time for the Kinetic Half Ironman on Saturday. The scary thing is that it didn't feel nearly as mentally or physically taxing as my previous three HIM races. Maybe there's something to all this training I've been doing.

Unfortunately, Set-Up events somehow misplaced the chips for bib numbers over 400. This meant that they lumped the swim and T1 times together as well as the T2 and bike times. Here's the breakdown:

Overall Time: 4:46:47, 38 out of 478 (male & female), 7 out of 57 in male age group
Swim & T1: 37:17, 10 out of 57 age group
Bike: 2:31:40, 9 out of 57 age group - 22.2 mph (what?!)
Run & T2: 1:37:52, 12 out of 57 age group

My goals for this race was to have fun, be safe, test my nutrition plan, and race my butt off. Mission accomplished. I arrived at the soaked race site to overcast skies and a slight drizzle. The temperature would reach the mid-60s but it was pretty damn humid. The best news I heard all morning was that the water temp was 69 degrees, a far cry from last week's 56.

I did a brief swim warmup to get used to the water and waited for my wave to be called. This was the first race I've done that I was not in the first wave, which was due to the number of people in the 30-34 and 35-39 age groups. I started well right of everyone but with a clear line of the buoys. The 1.2 mile course goes out, over, and then back. It was breezy, so we swam into the chop on the way out which seemed like it took forever. After about the first 200 meters I settled into a nice groove and sighted every 7 strokes. I didn't draft that much, which is something I need to work on.

I got out of the water in 34:40, which didn't impress me but I still feel good about my time. Better than last week!

On to the bike and first I have to say that the course was absolutely beautiful. Rolling hills around the lake and through farms. I did a great job anticipating the hills and working through all of my gears. The hills are where I did my damage and I passed a ton of people who were just grinding. Notable sights were a dead rattlesnake, a dead possum with its guts exposed, and the overall female winner who passed me halfway through. We actually rode together for a while and I eventually dropped her, or rather she fell of the pace. I talked to her after the race and she was beyond excited.

My nutrition consisted of a sip of Clif Shot Endurylyte sports drink every five minutes and half a clif-z bar every 30 minutes chased with water. My official time had my a 22.2 mph average but my watch had it at 21.8. Either way that's a faster average than any bike split I've ever had and I did it on a hilly course over 56 miles. This is how I felt about that:

The run was three loops with two nice hills at the start and about halfway through. Coach Jim told me to be a "mental giant" and not run too fast at the start. What Coach Jim fails to understand is that mental and giant are two word not typically associated with me. Nevertheless I tried to scale it back despite my legs wanting to treat a half-marathon like a 5K. About this time nature called and luckily there were some porta John Kings around the course. Even with a long hiatus in loo I still manged to average a 7:19/mile pace.

So obviously I'm extremely thrilled with the result. I took almost 8 minutes off my HIM PR and this was on a hilly course. I still can't quite believe I was able to perform so well. I get a little break from training this week, which works nicely with my five-year wedding anniversary. Hard to believe my incredibly smart wife still hasn't figured out what an idiot she married.

SML Race Report - 2nd in Age Group But Not Quite Satisfied

This year is my fifth competing in triathlons and I've never experienced anything like I did yesterday at the Smith Mountain Lake Sprint.

I think I've competed in close to 20 races and I've been pretty fortunate with the weather. The heat and humidity at Patriot's Half in 2011 was rough. I've had close calls with rain but have never actually raced in it.

On Thursday, Set-Up events announced that the water temperature in the lake was 56 degrees and that it would likely mean the swim would be reduced to 400 meters. It didn't really warm up at all and at racetime on Saturday I believe the outside temp was only 49!

In order to get used to the cold, I decided to swim the entire swim course as my warm-up. 400 meters is about what I do as a warm-up in my typical swim sessions anyway. My wetsuit is sleeveless and towards the end of my warm-up I knew I was in trouble as my shoulders were numb. The bad thing about being in the first swim wave is that you have to stand around for a while after you warm-up as the pre-race ceremonies go on. By the time the gun went off I was literally shaking from being so cold.

The first 100 meters went okay, but after the turn buoy is was like that not only my body was freezing but my brain as well. For some reason I could only breathe to my left side and I was disoriented. I even had to resort to the backstroke a few times just to calm down. What should have taken me less than 7 minutes took just over 8.

What's cooler than being cold? Ice cold!

Into T1 and I had even more trouble. Because of the cold I decided to wear a long sleeve shirt and gloves. Putting them on wet is hard enough but my hands were so cold it made everything take twice as long as it should have.

Finally on the bike and I immediately hammered it to make up time.

I've never rode this hard in a race and all those threshold rides paid off. For the first time in a race I didn't get passed on the bike. In fact, after the swim I never got passed once the rest of the race. I was almost a full minute faster than last year, which is a lot given it was only just over 12 miles.

T2 was uneventful and I stormed onto the run. The plan was to hold back and let the last mile be my fastest and I executed it perfectly. My first two mile splits were right at 6:30 and my last was 5:58. My total time of 20:04 was a 5K personal best and over a minute faster than last year!

Despite the cold I did have a good time. It's pretty clear I'm not a cold water swimmer and I may need to think about buying a fully sleeved wetsuit.

Smith Mountain Lake Sprint
1:08:10
13th out of 196 men
2nd out of 15 age group
Swim
8:18 - 62 overall/8 Age Group
T1
2:46 - 82 overall/10 Age Group - OUCH!
Bike
36:04 - 16 overall/3 Age Group
Run
20:11 - 10 overall/2 Age Group