I pretty much beat my plantar fasciitis with the help of Active Release Technique which Dr. Ron Tribendis did for me. Check out his website. He is great and is also a triathlon coach and athlete. He is also racing Ironman St. George. I still have some pain but it ebbs and flows and as long as I wear my strassburg sock it feels pretty darn good.
So how has my training go over the past 5 months well, needless to say I am very weak in my running ability. I didn't start running till the last week in Feburary and wasn't able to build as much base I would have liked. But I knew it would be tough to do IM St. G without running a bunch. But I like a challenge. My biking is mediocre. The rough winter we had in Texas made it really hard to get my riding in as my schedule planned, combine in a bunch of travel in March and Feburary and no daylight savings, I was pretty much hindered by that. Lesson learned, don't do an early season Ironman because with my schedule no daylight savings doesn't work well and I can't ride as much as I would like.
Now on to the race report.
Flew into New Orleans (NO) on thursday night. We got checked in and went out to have some fun. Myself, Morgan, and her 2 room mates were all there. We had some good fun at Pat O'Brians on bourbon street. Overall, that was the second time going to NO and I still have the same opinion of the city. Its dirty, gross, and there are a bunch of trashy people there. Imagine panama city beach trashy people combined with the smell of a bar mat or bar floor at the end of the night and there you have what bourbon street is like. Saturday I met the other team members for a swim at 10am. Unfortunately I slipped on the stairs entering the water and fell right on my arms and but. It hurt really bad. Tommy was right behind me and he said I was less than half an inch from cracking my head. That would have been really shitty so I will take bruised forearms and a scrapped wetsuit over that. The swim went great, the water was very warm.
Saturday I got my bike from Kristen and set it up, I road around for about 10 minutes to make sure everything was working right and in order. I thought I checked it all and everything was good, but alas, something would come to haunt me within the next 24 hours.
Race day--
Woke up at 4am and did my usual routine, shower, eat my oatmeal, get dressed. I was all packed up the night before so I just had my bag ready to go. My swim wave didn't start till 8:15 so I would be the second to last to go. I didn't like this because one it would be much hotter for me on the run since I started an hour later than everyone else. Also I had to wait around at the start for an hour.
Swim--
The swim start was finally here, the water was very shallow for the first 50M or so, so I did dolphin dives out to deeper water. I started right in front of the swimmers and did pretty well. The water was horrible, the waves in the lake were un-real, It reminded me of swimming in Australia. I couldn't believe it either. The lack of buoys was also not good. It made sighting very difficult. The race directors needed to put a lot more buoys in the water than they did. Also the course had a very weird turn and it was really stupid and with the waves it made it very tough to sight on the swim in. Not a fan of the swim on this course mainly because of the course layout and the lack of buoys then add in the waves, it made it horrible. I vote for mass starts and more buoys.
Swim -- 1.2 miles -- 34:35 -- 1:39/100
T1 -- 3:03
In T1 I didn't like the grass and much prefer concrete. With grass you have all this crap that gets stuck to your feet since they are wet and I had to stop and wipe them off with my transition towel. Not a fan of that.
Bike --
My plan for this race was to just go out and have fun, then when the wind was in my favor the whole time I thought it would be interesting to see if I could put in a good time. Well needless to say I did put in a good time but not my best. However, I did realize 3/4 of the way thru the bike my rear brake was pressing against my rim, I was wasting tons of energy. I did however have a normalized power of 213 and beat my 30', 40', 60', and 120' power peak records. I was really pleased with the power file. My HR that came with my power tap is not waterproof and broke since I wore it in the swim. I did the whole bike based solely on power which I do anyways but I also like to check in and see where my HR is at. The reason for this is that power while it is completely un-biased and a 100W is 100W no matter the temperature or terrain or how your body feels, I like to use HR as a gauge for how my body is doing overall, kind of like an engine temperature gauge. I was pretty much riding the whole time in my zone 3 power zone. I wonder how fast I would have gone had my brake not been on. What is weird is that I think when I picked up my bike by the seat post and carried next to my body I may have bumped the brake because everything was fine the day before... O-well, overall the bike was boring terrain, and a shitty course, no hills or no good scenery. Not a fan. The roads were pretty good condition though so that was a plus.
Bike -- 56 miles -- 2:37:26 -- 21.3 mph avg
T2 -- 2:25 -- same gripe about the grass and having to clean my feet off before the run.
Run--
I felt pretty good at the onset of the run and was optimistic about the race, however the first vital check I did of my body was this --
temperature it was really hot there and I could feel it. -- Negative
Energy level -- high and felt really good -- Positive
Attitude -- great -- positive
Calfs -- super tight and felt cramps were possible later in the run
So I started my run walk routine 10' running and 1' walking. This overall really helped to keep the cramps at bay throughout my entire legs. I knew it would be interesting running 13.1 miles when the longest I had ran in some 5 months was 8 miles. I kept a pretty good pace for the first 6 miles around 8:30 - 8:45 then at the half way point I started to really drag and had some cramps in my legs preventing me from running faster. I knew if I pushed it harder that I would cramp. I think I did pretty good with my electrolytes too. I take Enduro-Sharks and they rock. Next time a few more on the bike. However the temperature that day was hotter than I had trained in all year so that I think had some real impact. My body was not acclimated to those temperatures yet. We have had a very mild climate this year compared to last year and really no hot days yet.
I slugged it thru the rest of the run doing my run walk and had to walk a little longer than 1' a few times towards the end. The cramps killed me. I also think the cramps were from fatigue as well as dehydration. My legs just aren't used to running that far. So the marathon in St. G will be interesting. After St. G my training will be very running oriented, so I can have a better race in Lake Placid.
Run -- 13.1 miles -- 1:59:21 -- 9:07/mile
total time -- 5:16:48 -- 31st place out of 166 in my age group.
Not my best race but considering the factors I am pleased. Overall ready to go for St. G and this really helped me know I could put it all together and I recovered very quickly too. I had a massage on Monday and by Wednesday I was good to go. So the most positive aspect of this race is how quick I bounced back.
Next post will be the St. G race report. Till then.
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