I drove up to Lubbock, Tx on Friday morning which turned out to be a fairly pleasant drive. I purchased the complete volumes of This American Life 1-370 and put them all on my iphone earlier in the week. Credit has to go out to Ira Glass as my co-pilot for the round trip. Arrived in town and checked into my "economy" HoJo accommodations which turned out to be decent at only 60+tax a night. I still can't believe I drank coffee from the maker in the room... i got a little grossed out after I considered how often that thing is cleaned and not even considering what fluids people have possibly run through it. Yuk. Picked my packet up friday and retired to the room for the first 8 hours of sleep in maybe 2 weeks. I've not been deprived of sleep lately, but i normally only get 6.5-7. Saturday I went to the race site and swam in the lake for ~15min and got in a easy 45min spin along with driving the run and bike course.
3:00am Sunday - Wakeup and eat 2 bowls of cheerios + chocolate soy milk, 1/2 english muffin, 1 cliff bar, 1 20oz bottle of gatoraid G2. Pack up and head out to the race course blasting Journey - Don't stop believing, Toto - Hold the Line and Fleetwood Mac - Go your own way!!!! Classics baby. As Derick told me, getting to the race course early and before the masses is very important. Post-race I talked to 3 people who very narrowly made it to the transition in time for their wave due to the traffic. Anyways, did all the pre-race transition stuff and chilled for a while people watching.
6:30am Sunday - Exactly 10mins before my wave I need to use the restroom. Actually I HAVE to use the restroom and place myself in queue.
6:38am Sunday - I finish using the restroom exactly 2 min before my wave start (6:40). I dash madly to the start line and make it with a full ~15seconds to spare.
Swim: 34m53s
I had a little too much adrenaline flowing from the mad dash and put down a pretty hot pace for 200yd or so. I settled in after that to a comfortably brisk pace and found some nice feet to follow to the first bouy. At the bouy this dude proceeds to roll over into a backstroke so I have to leave him to his 2000yd medley antics. After making the turn I got back into pace and found myself alone and in between packs. The goggles I was wearing were also a little too tinted which made sighting the bouys and distinguishing them from the orange swim caps hard. I swam the entire back stretch alone, unable to catch the small pack ahead and unable to latch onto a couple of fast swimmers from the wave behind mine who came ripping past me. Sigh. I make the left turn into the final stretch and battle my way through the 6:35 wave floatstam. Overall a fairly disappointing swim, this effort level should be producing better times.
Bike: 2h32m09s
This bike course varied from screaming fast to mind numbingly laborious. The first 2 miles include a couple of steep climbs about 1:30-2:00 min in duration before you get to about of 8 miles of flat farmland riding. At the bottom of the second climb I witnessed a guy violently ejecting the contents of his stomach at the side of the road and another dude 10 feet up the hill and lying under his bike. Needless to say I cranked up my level of vigilance while ascending this little monster. I settled into a good rhythm and began listening to the pace which my body wanted to run. Most of the course consists of out and backs were you traverse the same roadway South, hit a turnaround and proceed back north. This provided for two long tailwind sections and two long headwind sections. I was pulling down 30-35mph on the flats with a tailwind and then with a 180 degree turnaround that speed went to 18mph with a headwind. This route is also characterized with 8 steep climbs mostly in and out of the Ransom Canyon. On the steepest downhill I hit 46.7mph in a tight tight tuck. Overall the bike was very good, I biked smart, controlled the effort while pushing my limits reasonably.
Stats:
Avg watts: 219
Norm watts: 227
KJ: 1983 (~cals burned)
Avg Speed: 22.3mph
Run: 1h37m
Ouch.... well... Ouch at 11miles. BTW it rained the last 10 miles of the bike in a steady drizzle which also means that the transition area got a lot of rain and this my shoes played the role of rain gauge. Judging from the 1/4 cup of water I poured from my shoes and the 1/4 I rung from my socks I'd estimate 0.2" of rain. I love running in the rain... simply love it. I've gotten out of the bed at night to put on my running shoes and go for a jog during a storm. BUT I do not like running in wet shoes. Odd huh? I like even less having to start a run with water laden shoes. It was like running on a leaky undulating water bed for 2 full miles untill they squished sorta dry.
I ran the first 3 miles maybe a tad hot, but I wasn't running irresponsibly. Races are all about coming as close to your limits without degrading performance and running is where being able to endure a little pain and suffering can pay huge pace benefits. This is also where you can blow yourself to absolute bits, crash and burn, explode, lose the wheels to the wagon etc. I stayed on the green side of this line through all three of the torturous climbs and the long out and back false flat section. I wasn't running strong and had to place considerable effort into maintaining turnover rate and general form. All fine and dandy till mile 11. It hurt, my hip flexors were quivering and running like frankenstien fleeing the villagers had taken a toll on my quads. I can only estimate but I think the last two miles were probably in the 10min/mile range which probably cost me 4-6min on my total time comparing to a even run split. I ended up suffering and making deals with myself. Run to the mailbox and you get 5s walk break. Jog to the driveway and you can have pizza on monday. You get the drift. Amazingly in these last two miles no one in my age group passed me.... but there were SEVERAL people ahead of me which I should have been able to catch and pass. But that is racing and i wasn't stronger than them today.
Final Time: 4h47m56s - 8th place in my AG and lucky 77th overall
A 4:39 would have gotten me 3rd and 4:24 1st place... A podium is 100% within my abilities given another year of training.
I finished and sat down for 30 minutes while being delivered gatoraid by the most purty Texas Tech nurses in the med tent. Grabbed a powerbar, beer, a melon portion and headed home.
Overall I loved the race, great weather (except for the headwinds on the bike), challenging course all done by a very good race group. The finishers T-shirt is also pretty kick ass. Photos to be posted when they come available.
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