Going half way home.....

So this is the post that will sum up my race experience throughout my first Half Ironman Distance Race. I competed in the Lonestar Half Ironman, in Galveston Texas on March 30, 2008. I think the best way to do this is kind of like a favorite author of mine, Tucker Maxx. I will put it into time and date stamps and write a piece about each significant time of the entire weekend. After which I will comment on the experience as a whole.

Thursday 3.27.08

3:15pm - I left Dallas all packed up hoping that I hadn't forgotten anything. I had a partner with me for the ride and was curious to learn a little bit about who he was, and what his story was. He was another member of the Team In Training Team. His name was Jack.

6:50pm - I arrived in Houston at the hotel where I lived for almost 2 months. It was a weird feeling. As usual all of the business travelers looked at me like I am some kind of nut wheeling a bicycle into the hotel room but I don't care. They are the fat fucks who are simply sitting around getting more fat talking about how they should loose weight but not doing anything about it. To make a long story short Jack was a great guy and I was really excited for him. He was getting ready to do his first triathlon this weekend and was very nervous. I tried to give him all the advice I could. I reached back into my triathlon experiences and my first few were a great deal shorter than his. He was doing the Lonestar Quarter Iron, basically half of what I was doing. Some of the things I told him were this:

1. You have to simply swim .6 miles. This is about 1000m. I asked him how many times have you swam that distance in the pool? He answered quite a few. I said so what makes doing it in this race any different. Yeah, your in a wet suit, the water is a little more cold, there are others around you, but what is most important and what doesn't change is the distance. You did it once just do it again. There is no need to rush, if you get tired just do breast stroke. 

2. The other thing I said was you have done 2 century rides (1oomi bike rides) you will finish this race there is no doubt in my mind.

Needless to say he finished and was really excited. His entire family was there to support him and he was so happy when he was done too. I was truly touched by him and how happy he was. It was a great site to see and to be honest there were so many people around me in the same position. 

7:15pm - I got the bike put together and in spandex. I went out for a 20mi ride on the bayou trail in Houston right by my hotel. It was a wonderful evening. Then I went and ate a fat burger at a restaurant and was in bed by 9:30pm

Friday 3.28.08

5:00am - Woke up and went to my work meeting fast forward to....

3:45pm - Arrived in Galveston. There was a open water swim from 3 - 5 pm and I really wanted to make this so I rushed to get checked in the hotel. I was really excited. The hotel had signs up welcoming the triathletes and there was certain buzz about the place. I mean the first things you see are people unloading there expensive bikes, and walking them into the hotel. They are always pushing the way triathletes do. It seems like, and I do it too, that triathletes always like to push their bike by the seat and not by the handle bar stem. One would think this is more difficult but its kind of like a challenge to see how straight your bike will go and like a little game.

3:55pm - Standing in line at the checkout counter there are two guys my age almost in front talking about racing. I love to eavesdrop too. I have realized in my life that I am a competitor and I love to size people up. By no means am I a all-star triathlete but I like to compare myself to others. I know that some are better than me and that is all right by me. The beauty of triathlon is not about if you are the best its about personal improvement, achievement, and the satisfaction you get from training and racing. But hell, I still like seeing who I am better than and winning; who doesn't.

4:30pm - I make it to the dock with my wetsuit and my swimp3 and swim cap. I strap up and get loaded in. I talk with a lady coming out of the water and asks her how the water is and she says Excellent, and wonderful. I think even if the water is freezing fucking cold everyone should give her response. Cold water is only as cold as you let you mind think it is. Why do you think some people think 65 is cold and others don't. I get in for about an 800m swim and it was flawless. My first few strokes I floated and glided through the water like a hot knife through butter. I can now say that I love swimming in the salt water in a wetsuit. It was great.

I will fast forward to race day because I just realized that I will probably be here typing for like 3 hours and that would be shitty.

3/29/08

I go to dinner by myself after I pick up my packet and attend the race meeting. The whole time while I am doing all of this by myself, I have time to reflect and just get focused for tomorrow. I begin to think that I really truly have enjoyed training for this race and in particular the time I spend alone, by myself, in the pool, on the bike and running the roads. This always a time of deep introspective thought about your life. Its very meaningful to me and I enjoy it. It can be hard to explain what you are think about on a 3 hour run or bike ride but there is always something going through your head, its never just empty.

I eat alone at a Pizza restaurant. The pizza was good too. I always love to eat pizza or chipolte before a race because of my horrible experience at my first half marathon. I ate weird food the night before and had diarrhea every hour on the hour from midnight to 5am. It was a hard race. Thanks to sarah I was able to make it. She bought me imodium AD. So that is why I stick to pizza and normal food that I know my body can handle.

I get back to the Hotel at about 8:00pm. I get into some comfortable clothes and want to watch my What It Takes DVD. I put it in my work computer only to find out it doesn't play DVD's. Needless to say I got that fixed this past week. So I end up going to bed at about 8:30pm. Right before that another TNT team mate who I am sharing my room with comes in. I wish him luck and I say I am going to bed.

Sunday 3/30/08

4:30 am -- I wake up from my wake up call. This is when the routine begins. One key thing about racing in endurance sports and especially triathlons, is that alot of things can go wrong on race day. Think about this, I will be doing an event that lasts close to 6 hours. I will have 3 different events which I will compete in and all of these 3 events have there own accessories. You could have your goggles break, bike break, sunglasses break, shoes break, etc. etc. You could have stomach problems or multitudes of other things go wrong. So my motto is:

Stay In Control, But Never Forget What You Control....

What I am trying to say by this is that don't let things outside of your control upset you and get you down, and also don't be a victim to something that you could have prevented. This is why I have my routine.

My routine is like this any race I do its the same. When its starts to go awry I get worried....

1. Wake up, shower.

2. Shave

3. Put on Comfortable clothes.

4. Make Breakfast. I always try to eat breakfast about 2 hours before the race. The reason for this is that I have learned how my body processes food and that I need time for it to really settle and sometimes an hour isn't enough. Eating breakfast causes that gastro intestinal reflex and makes ya shit to be blunt. You don't want to have to do this during a race so, to get it all out I make sure I eat well before the race, and I eat the same thing I do on almost every training day. I eat a cliff bar, instant oatmeal, and a banana. Sometimes I will add in some peanut butter and wheat toast.

5. Drink water and gatorade.

6. Go through all of the stuff I layed out the night before that I am going to need for the race. I pack the night before so that I can check it off again the morning of and will not be in a rush and forget something. This is another reason I wake up so long before the race. I mean the race didn't start until 7:45 and transition didn't close till 7:30am. Being rushed on race morning is a horrible thing and should be avoided at all costs. One bad outcome of being rushed is obvious, the other not so much. Sure you may forget something important, but chances are you will get it and only be delayed in arriving. What would affect me the most is the mental effect of being hurried. The long distance triathlon is such a mental game that when you are rushed in the morning it puts you in a agitated state and hurried state. For me this is negative. I preform better when I am calm and resolved. I want to feel the nervousness throughout my body.

7. The routine is now done off to the race.

Arrive at transition at 5:45am. I go to get my body marking done. I forgot to heed the comments in the race packet and put on my sun screen before they marked me. Needless to say my numbers rubbed right off. The whole time walking to transition I was listening to the music I listen to when I train. This helps to put me in the right frame of mind. I listen to weird music but it helps bring the memories back of training all the time. I rack my bike and set up transition as always. 

I then take a walk to the swim exit and follow the path all the way back to where my bike is racked at. I note the row I am in Letter B, and the best path to go. This is important to make sure your not lost when you get out of the water. I can tend to be in a daze after I swim hard for a long distance and then start to run. If triathlons were swim, run, bike, I think a bunch of people would fall over, I stumble around when I get out of the water sometimes.

So I am all set up and waiting for the race to start. Its only about 6:30am. I have more than an hour just to relax and think about the race ahead. Not in a rush, hurry or anything, this is a good feeling. 

7:15am I walk out of transition and towards the dock. The swim course begins to come into sight and take shape. All I think is Damn thats Far. Open water swim courses always look so much farther in person than compared to when you actually swim them. We have another pre-race meeting for 5 min and I am ready to go. I am in the 3rd wave. Its starts with Green Caps, Blue Caps, and then me Yellow caps.

7:40am they let the yellow caps hop in the water and tread for 5min till the start. Luckily I am wearing a wetsuit and don't even have to tread. I just float. So I wait a minute or 2 then jump in at about 7:43am. As soon as I get in, I piss myself. This couldn't had been better timing. I had been holding it until I got in the water. See the thing about a wetsuit is that it is supposed to let some water in but not back out and the warmth of your body in turn raises the temperature of the water and provides like an extra warm water blanket that surrounds you. They are great. My water however I didn't let in on my own, it was 98.6 degree urine with a bit of salt water. Say what you want, I was fucking warm.

7:45 am - The gun sounds and I was at the front of my swim group. They let each group go 5 min between each other. The Green caps started at 7:35, Blue caps at 7:40 and then us. I just start swimming knowing that I will be swimming non stop for 1.2 miles, in lightly choppy salt water that was about 67 degrees. I was doing my sighting about every 3 breaths or every 9 - 10 strokes. I swim pretty straight in calm water so I don't sight much if its calm. I get to the first buoy, and start my turn. I pop my head up and see a few blue and green swim caps around me. This gets me pumped up. I was feeling really good and strong. I had covered almost at least 10min of ground on some people.  After this site I feel into a rhythm and just kept trying to pass people or find someone at my pace. 

I finish the swim and exit the water. There are wet suit strippers there for us and I plop on the ground and they pull on the arms of the suit and off it comes like sheath off of a knife, fast, slick and smooth.

I run to my bike throw on my socks, bike shoes helmet, race belt and glasses. Then I realize the sun isn't even out so I throw them back down. This could have been a crucial error but I gambled and the gamble paid off The sun never came out until the run. I am out of the T1 in longer than I would like but no worries. 

I begin the bike ride and I am hauling ass over 20mph. I felt strong and began to just drink my fluids and figure out what times I was going to eat my food. I ate a gel immediately when I got on the bike, then I figured about 50min later I would have my cliff bar then another 50min I would have my gel, all the while drinking gatorade and water. I made sure that at each bottle hand off I took a bottle in. 

Well, I drank alot of fluid. So much that I had to stop and pee 3 times. Every time I had to pee, I tried so hard to stand up out of the saddle and piss myself and I don't know what the problem was but I just couldn't go. I don't know if its the pressure from the saddle on your but that transfers to your bladder or what. I mean how many times can you say all you wanted to do was piss yourself and you can't. I mean most people have the exact opposite problem. So I will just have to practice it sometime. I mean practice makes perfect. So stopping 3 times to pee didn't help my time at all. The first of the 2 - 28 mile loops was lonely, cold, and foggy. It was all the lead guys and not many people in front of me. At one point I felt all alone and it was quite. All I could hear was the humming of the sinusoidal wave of the high voltage lines running above my head along side the highway. It was all too eery. The second loop was much more fun. I mean I rode about 21 mph the entire time and passed tons of people from all the previous waves. Way more things to look at.

Now on to the run, I had a quick T2 transition and was off. I realized on the bike at about mile 45 or 50 that I should have ate more on the bike. I was hungry. Next time I will bring another cliff bar and 2 more gels. So first thing I do is pop a double espresso gel and have a water on the run. I start off a good pace and hoping just for an under 2hr half marathon. I just let my body fall in a groove. I drank and ate at the aid stations. I forgot how many more gels I had but it at least was like 3 more. I had some handfuls of pretzels a few times too. I felt good the entire run. No weird pains, or side stitches. This was a positive thing. What wasn't was the run course itself. It was a 2 - 6.5 mile loops. I hate loops in races. I run the same route all the time at home but in a race I just want to run one and be done. The run was nice scenery though. After mile 10 is when I begin to get bored. I wasn't tired, I wasn't sore, I wasn't in pain. I was just bored of running. What I wanted was my music. I really enjoy my music and it makes the miles tick away when I am running. If I would have had my music I could have probably ran another 6.5 mile loop. So I think in preparation for other races I need to do some of my long runs without the tunes. This will help to aid in this boredom. So at mile 11, I begin to chant, or say some sort of mantra. At this point I had to go to one more turn around and then the rest of the way was back to the finish line. I was chanting something along the lines of " Why Not Now!" It fell in real good sink with my breathing and just was kind of fun to chant it out loud. All the entire time anyone I saw wearing a white bib which signified the Half Ironman who was walking I shouted encouragement to them. I said things like don't quit now, and you can do it, simply its easier when you smile.

One prevailing thought through my head the entire time I was racing was how I thought in August 2007 that a Half Ironman was out of my reach. I remember on a 10mi run at 4:30am in October 2007  I realized how easy and fluid 10 mi runs had became to me. This is when I said to myself, I am going to sign up and run a half Ironman. So 6 months later I did, and I crossed the finish line felt good. The whole time I was training for it all I would ever do was visualize myself walking across the finish line hands in the air with a giant clock ticking above my head, red timing mats beneath my battered running shoes and a smile upon my face. This image became my reality on March 30th 2008. There are few things that you can think about and imagine for nearly 6 months that actually come true. How many times in your life has this happened to you? And if your lucky enough that you have imagined something for a long time then it comes true, then how many of those times have you and only your efforts been the cause of that visualization and image becoming a reality. This is why I love triathlons. I can do anything I want.

So My final splits are:

1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, 13.1 mile run

Total Overall Time - 5:18:52

1.2 mile swim - 36:45

1:54 per 100m

Transition #1 - 3:01

56 mile bike ride - 2:45:18

Average speed 20.3 mph

Transition #2 - 1:16

13.1 mile run - 1:52:31

8:35 per mile pace

Thats it folks, and BTW it is way easier than a marathon. I felt great the next day. Whens the next one. I love this distance.