I know, I know. I have been absent from blogging for what seems like forever. My job required me to be at a location that has not allowed me access to my blog…or much of anything else on the internet. I could have blogged in the evening, but I just find it much easier to do on the old lunch break! However, I recently noticed that they have relaxed the restrictions and I can start blogging again!
First things First…a race report.
This will be shorter than most since it was so long ago…and I can’t quite remember all the “heat of the moment” stuff.
Atomic Man 70.3 10/30/12
Overall Time – 5:07:12
Overall Place – 19/132
Pre-Race:
I had quite the cheering section for this one. Ashley, Mom and Jenn were all in attendance. Dad was out of town…I believe on one of his fishing trips. I had the normal peanut butter bagel with coffee and headed to the race site. Ashley took a little snooze in the car while I set up transition. I got everything set up, slid on the wet suit, and headed down to the water.
The Swim: 34:57 23/132
The water was insanely cold for this one. We swam in Melton Hill Lake, which is pretty chilly year around. I believe the temp was 65 degrees on race morning. The swim was a two loop course that consisted of running along the beach between laps. I stuck to my usual strategy of taking it pretty easy during the swim. I have found it is much better to be fresh out of the water than gassed and a minute or two faster.
Transition 1: 2:03
This includes a pretty good run to the transition area…I would say 100 yards. I got the wetsuit stripped off pretty quick and slid on the socks and shoes. I am going to be going sockless this year and have my shoes clipped in…should save me a good 20 seconds in transitions.
The Bike: 2:44:30 19/132
I really liked this bike course. It starts off with about seven miles of terrible hills…which turned out to be even more terrible than expected. They took a bit out of my legs, but after the hills are over you have about 42 miles of flat ground to hammer on! I had my overall pace right at 21 m.p.h which is where I wanted…but I didn’t take into account that I had to go back through the seven miles of hills to get back to transition. My overall pace dropped to 20.5 before all was said and done. I took in 40 ounces of Perpetuem and 20 ounces of water. Probably could have used one more bottle of water, but my stomach was super full.
Transition 2: 0:56
Really good transition. One of the faster ones for all racers on the day. Quickly slipped the shoes on and hit the road.
The Run: 1:44:44 27/132
The run course was on some rolling hills on the East Tennessee backroads. It was a two loop course and the 3.3ish miles out were mostly uphill, so it was a relief to run the 3.3 back to the start area. All the water/Gatorade/Gu stations had plenty of volunteers and were located every mile on the course. I started out running about 7:50 miles and that quickly turned into 8:15s. My legs were a little spent from the hills at the end of the bike course and the fact that the run started out uphill had me hurting. I could feel cramps starting to come on so I started grabbing Gu and Gatorade at every station. I already had about 10 ounces of gatorade in my water bottle I run with. At the turnaround of the first lap I started to feel a lot better. I kicked the pace up and manged to run about 7:45s for the returning three miles. The second lap was about the same as the first…suffer through the hills on the way out and pick it up on the way in. I finished right on my goal pace of 8:00 miles. I was actually prepared to run much slower than this so I was thrilled when I was able to hold pace without walking at all. My overall time goal for this race was to beat my first Half-Iron time of 5:37…so when I got about halfway through the run and realized I was going to crush that time I was PUMPED! I ended up knocking 30 minutes off 5:37 and couldn’t be happier with the time.
Post-Race:
I hung out for awards and got 3rd in my age group. I got a pretty cool transition mat. It will come in handy because most of the local races I do are in parking lots. I alway put towels down, but the mat will be much better. The ladies and I headed to Oliver Garden after a much needed shower. I had a great time and look forward to doing this race again in 2013!
I will try and get some pictures up at some point…I know the wifey got some good ones.
Thanks for reading.
Josh