I raced the New Balance Half Ironman today as a zen experiment. No HR monitor -- no watch. I was going to race it completely by feel and have fun. Julie raced a half iron that way (lost her watch in the swim) and qualified for Hawaii so I figured that I might be able to have some similar success...not exactly....





I am disappointed in my results -- I felt good throughout the entire race and was certain that my bike was much better than it was. The bike did not kick my ass like it had last year and I felt strong throughout -- even was having fun during it. But I was not in my aerobars much (had just put them on earlier in the week) and that may have made the 7 minute difference in my bike leg.

Here is my race report -- I will post pictures later today as they are right now in Ruth's camera. Until I saw my results, I was quite happy with my race and had a good time without getting my ass kicked. I guess I could have had a bit more of an ass kicking...

Pre-Race
I registered the day before and got my bike checked out. We were planning to ride a bit but it started to rain as we were standing in line and we retreated back to the hotel room. When the sun came back out, we took our bikes for a leisurely amble along the Goose Trail and then went out for a nice dinner.

Woke up before the 4:30 AM alarm went off and got a sweet parking spot. Racked my bike in a good spot and got chipped and body marked in plenty of time.




















Swim
The swim went well -- all the women started together and I focused on sighting. I swam the last half off it with someone whose pace was comparable to mine and came out of the swim feeling good.














T1
Nice fast transition. Nothing got tangled in my bike and it felt smooth.

Bike
I just really enjoyed the bike ride. I was a bit more social than I usually am and chatted with a guy near the beginning about his awesome spiderman jersey. I got dropped by the men over and over and then more and more women. There were a couple of times when I accelerated to drop some women who I had to leapfrog with. Of course the converse happened too :)

What I liked best about the bike was that I did not feel any sense of despair at any point. Last year when I raced it, I just dreaded some of the hills (we do the same loop 3 times) and every time I hit them this year, I just thought "bring it" and my legs never felt tired or weak. Only got one "good job" from some idiot dude at the end.














At the end of the bike was when people really started to accelerate. Jeff, I thought about what you said about "smelling the barn" as all these guys zoomed by me the last mile and giggled.

T2
I thought this transition went smoothly too but it was markedly slower than last year. The only thing I can think is that I put on my race belt in transition instead of while running out. I did put on my hat while running out though...














Run
While I was on my bike, I kept telling myself, "soon, I get to run around that beautiful lake -- twice!". I started the run feeling really good and looking forward to it. The first few km, I tried to keep pace with a woman who was running strong but I finally forced myself to drop back because I could not get my breathing in check. I also did not race with my usual hydration pack -- instead opted to use their stops and that worked well. At km 5, I noticed that there was a nice downhill and I told myself that the next time I see that marking, I would only have 5km to go AND it was a downhill gift.

Near the end of my first loop, I felt this hand on my left butt cheek. Now we are not talking a pat here -- we are talking a pat, grab, squeeze repeat combination. I was startled and wondered what Ruth was doing. With the hand still firmly attached to my unpleasantly sweaty backside, the guy who did it came along beside me and said -- while removing his hand "oops, you are not who I thought you were..." I replied, "no, I certainly am not". He then said, "oh well, guess the boost did not hurt" and he was right. So apparently I am not only a body double for someone but also an ass double. It cracked me up and was a nice distraction.

Coming through the first loop, Ruth yelled ":54 -- negative split it". Now that was my goal but the idea seemed quite preposterous at the moment. A guy I was leapfrogging with heard her and said "easy for her to say" and we laughed about it. But I really did try to negative split it but was unsuccessful. At the very end, a chick surged ahead of me with that evil R (for relay) on her barely sweaty calf. I developed a true dislike for those well rested Relay participants during the run.

So I finished feeling like I raced well and strong. I wish I had raced faster but as my coach reminded me, it was not a priority race and I have been focusing on distance, not half ironman speed. I am working to get over my disappointment about my bike and overall time.

There are lots of pictures of me actually smiling -- something I did not do last year :)