Harvest Moon Race Report 1/2 Ironman Distance

Today was my final triathlon before Ironman World Championships in 4 weeks. It couldn't have gone better! My goal was to have a solid swim and a great run. My swimming had improved a little since my last half ironman on 8/9/09 but my running had improved dramatically. Today was the day to put it to the test.

The Swim

The weather was cold but no wind to speak of so it looked like it would be a perfect day. The gun went off and after a few minutes of the usual getting beat up, things settled. I found the feat of 2 people and stayed with them for 75% of the swim. It was a good pace. I eventually dropped off but felt my swim was pretty good while using very little energy. The swim was short, always a good thing with my swim resume, by about 150-200 yards. My swim time was 27:40.

T1

T1 went smoothly. I put on socks which took a few extra seconds but other than that, it was smooth sailing. T1 time 1:31

Bike

The bike stared off pretty cold due to being wet from the swim. After 10 minutes, I was completely warm and passing a TON of people. I was the next to last wave to start so most the participants were up the road. This proved a bit tricky as some folks weren't riding the way they were supposed to. The were riding on the left so I had to do a lot of shouting that I was coming. After about 15 miles, things started to spread out. This allowed me to just lock into my aero position and go. I never pushed real hard. I went hard enough to set a solid pace but not hard enough up and affect my run. This really paid of toward the end. The final 15 mile section of the bike is pretty tough. This is where I passed the stronger cyclists and I was able to pass them hard due to taking the earlier, faster sections at a reasonable pace. I finished the bike in 2:23:01 for the 7th fastest bike split of the day.

T2

I flew through T2. I didn't need much so just threw on the shoes, grabbed my number, visor and gel flask and took off. Looking at the results, only 2 people got out of t2 faster so I made up time here. I got out in 39 seconds.

Run

I started off easy. I wanted to build into my run. There was no one behind me but one person was ahead of me. He was setting a great pace so I planned to use him at my carrot. I came through the first mile in 6:44. I hadn't gained on the guy in front of me but hadn't lost time either. My second mile was 6:40. Mile 3 was 6:18 and I had gained enough on the guy to realize it was Gordo Byrn. This is a guy who has an 8:30 Ironman with a 2:46 Ironman Marathon on his resume. I was feeling pretty good knowing I was keeping pace with him. Well, that was short lived. I was still running a strong pace, between 6:25-6:35, yet he continued to pull away. I just went inside myself and ran my race. I felt strong the entire way. I dug deep to have a really strong finish. My last mile was 6:10 for a total run time of 1:25:47 good for the 8th fastest run of the day. This was a half ironman run PR of over 4 minutes.

Overall

My final race time was 4:18:36 which was a 5 minute PR for me. I ended up 7th overall and 2nd in my age group (behind Gordo). There isn't anything I would change about how I rode this race. It was just a good day and I accomplished exactly what I set out to do with my bike and run. I'm feeling pretty good about my buildup to Kona. Can't wait to get there!!