Swim Portion:
The swim was good. I was pleasantly surprised that the pool was cold and I knew at that point that it was going to be a good swim. The only problem was, that the race organizers let the slow person go first or ahead of me (I asked her about her time and she said she was only a 24 minute 1500m swimmer. I then asked her what happens when I catch her and she said to tap her feet and she will pull over at the end wall and let me go by. This did not happen.)
So, after approximately 200metres I caught this girl and touched her feet several times for one length, thinking she would pull over at the wall, she did not. So the next length I got half way up her and touched her on her thigh. Once again she did not let me by. So on the third length of following her I hammered down the 25m and passed her. But even at this point she would not settle back into swimming behind me and we swam partially beside each other. Finally after I recovered enough, I pushed a bit more and moved away from her. For the next, 1000m I felt good and felt like I was pushing. The guys that started at the other end eventually caught me and passed me and then about 200m after following them I passed them again. I was out front and stayed out front for the remainder of the swim. (I also lapped the girl who started at my end and went through the same fiasco as the first time but I was better prepared for it and had a much better time passing her. But I think I wasted more energy passing her than I would have liked. I ended up swimming the 1500m in 22:50. Which I think considering I had not been swimming very much leading up to the race due to colds, that was pretty awesome.
T1: Now coming out of the swim and remembering that it was about +3~4 degrees outside I took my time to dry off and I proceeded to put on a shirt, a long sleeve shirt, my no limits jacket (the older one) and then I put on my cycling shoes that already had the booties on them and then of course the helmet and took off. I also wore my ski gloves. (I had remembered back quite a few years ago when both Rob and I froze on the bike in similar weather and had to quit.) I also had decided that I did not have to worry about my transition times for this race. My time in T1 was 3:30. (I also know for a warmer weather race I could take 2:30 off my transition time.
Bike:
Well getting away on the bike I quickly realized that I was so glad to have my ski gloves and booties on. There were some guys out there that just wore a singlet (that they had worn swimming) and a jacket. They looked really cold. The first part of the bike I just tried to take in some liquid and get into a rhythm as best as I could. My head was cold (as I did not wear a toque) but that quickly passed. The first hill out of Hinton seem to take a lot to go up and I suspect my HR was through the roof at this point. My breathing felt good and my legs not bad. I got out onto the highway and tried to push. The wind was in my face, and as you know it is uphill pretty much the whole way out. At about the 10K mark I took in my first gel (Hammer gel) and then got back into the hard grind it was up the hills. There were a couple times were it flattened out a bit, when I thought I would get a break and then there was the wind. So no easy way out on the way up. I talked my way through a lot of the uphills and just told myself to get to the turn around. I got to the 20K mark in just over 45 minutes. At this point I was amazed at the time and was thinking it better not take me another 45 minutes to get back to town or I may die. It wasn’t until probably on the way back into town that I started not to feel to great. (I was flying down the hills but something wasn’t agreeing with my stomach.) On the last 20K, I threw up at least 3 or 4 times. Not very much each time but enough to wonder what the hell was going on. I remember at about the 30 K mark to take my last gel (Clif Shot) as I needed this for the run. I can’t remember exactly the last time I puked on the bike but I think it was before I left the highway and I think before I took the last gel in. But coming off the bike I did not feel very well and was not sure if I could take anything else on (ie. food). But the positive thing, that ended my ride, is that I came back in just over 30 minutes for the last 20K. That is approximately a 15-minute negative split.
T2: This transition was not to bad and I spent a little more time than usual because of the cold weather but I was about 2 minutes here.
Run:
At the start of the run my stomach did not feel very good and after taking a swig of my little bottle (Heed mixture) I immediately felt ill and decided not to drink any more during the run. In addition to this my calves hurt quite a bit at the start and for most of the first half of the run. On the way up the long hill (between km’s 1 and 3) I actually stopped to tried to stretch my calves as they hurt so much. That seem to help a little bit but once I got into the trails even the slightest incline hurt my calves and I could not go very fast. I just kept telling myself just get to the turn around and you be able to hopefully pick it up at that point. At the turn around I decided that I was going to try and catch the guy that I had ran with up to about the 3K mark. He (Roger) was about 200 or ahead of me at the turn around. (Time at 5K: 26:38) So, as I went back my calves still hurt but not as badly, so I decided I would speed up. Once I sped up, I new things were going to hurt and I was fine with that; however, my quads felt like they were going into lactic acid right away (and I wasn’t even going that fast). But I pushed on, in the trails as they wound around I could not see Roger for a lot of the time and I thought I had lost him. But when I came out of the trail I could see him about 100m up on me with 3K to go. That is when the wind got me coming down the hill. I tried to push really hard coming back down the hill (and I could see Roger looking back every so often) and thought for the last 2K that I could catch him. My legs hurt a lot and my stomach wasn’t much better but I kept trying to go get him. In the end, I just missed passing him and he ended up beating me by one second. My last 5 K was 23:44, which is not very fast but it is still almost a 3-minute negative split.
Total time: 2:33:17, 12th overall, and 6th in my age group.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment