Wow, what a race! My goal was to break the 5 hour mark and what a close race that was...Official time: 5:02:49 (for 71.8 miles). The race officials said the bike course was 57.5 miles instead of the typical 56 miles. With that in mind I took it upon myself to do the math as if it were a 70.3 and low and behold 4:58:37 for the 70.3 distance... I'll take it!
Previous PR (personal record) was a 5:26:45 at Mooseman in 2012.
In the Princeton race I finished 15th of 156 in my age group (top 10% AG); 114th overall of 1943 who started the race (top 6% overall)
Much owed THANKS goes to:
- Barbie Tarrant for all of her support in training, the Christmas gift (power meter), keeping me sane from training through race day, doing some training workouts with me, and putting up with my craziness. Whenever I see you on the course, I get excited and find a way to push myself a little more.
- Cami Stock from Wild Blue racing who helped me with power analysis leading up to the race. (www.wildblueracing.com)
- Philadelphia Bikesmith for always fixing my bike and having it ready to rock this race to my best bike split at this distance by 20+ minutes. Especially Max, Richie, and Sean who all took care of me for this race. Contrary to any potential rumors out there, no my bike did NOT explode on the course. (http://www.philadelphiabikesmith.com)
- Raceday Wheels - inexpensive way to try race wheels and easy to use especially for people on 650s (http://www.racedaywheels.com/)
- Martin Kreibe - For being one of the quickest wetsuit strippers... I mean peelers in the World. It was too fast it couldn't even be timed... easily less than 1/2 a second and I was into T1
- T3 - everyone on the team keeps me motivated in the sport and always keeps the races fun. We had a great group to train with. There was a large amount of us at the race and we had an awesome BBQ after the race which other teams were most definitely jealous of. We just know how to have fun while reaching for our goals. (http://t3triclubphilly.com/)
- Levi from Giant Bicycles for providing food for our post race BBQ
- Philadelphia Fins especially Tom Uybarreta, Marty and the new coach Adam who in the last couple of months helped me find some of my old speed before the race when I was slacking on my own. (http://www.philadelphiafins.org/)
- Dan Anders for taking awesome pictures as always (here's a link to his pictures if you see yourself, you can download them for free because he's just that awesome! http://dananders.smugmug.com/Sports/Ironman-Princeton-703-Septembe/ )
- All supporters especially Barbie, Mom, and Dad. It is so much fun having you at the races and you guys make it out to sooo many (especially the long ones). Every time that I hear and see you, I'm able to give it a little more umph!
- Volunteers - we had a number of them from our team, but in general without volunteers we wouldn't be able to do the races. Thank you for making these races possible
- God - It may sound silly, but I did pray for a good clean race and for me to perform my best, and I believe I received some divine help; whether it was to relax me, or a little help, I must definitely thank God!
NUTRITION
I almost nailed Nutrition perfectly for this race. I could have used some GU on the run, but other than that, I nailed it for me... changes that worked for me:- I ate a bowl of instant oatmeal 4 hours before my wave swim start - this seemed great!
- I had 6 GUs (mixed with water in hammer squeeze bottle) all on the bike (I didn't have enough as I could have used one of these bottles with 2 or 3 GUs in it for the run).
- The squeeze bottle was new this year with some water and this helped a LOT!
- 4-4.5 bottles of Ironman Perform on the bike
- Carried a plastic water bottle to fill at every aid station so I could ensure I drank the water and had it between stations
- this was a random thought I had while in T2 and I was thinking WWBD (what would Barbie do) - it proved to be the most effective way for me to hydrate on the run in 5 seasons of triathlon
- I had salt tablets but that wasn't a change. Hammer Enduralyte pills (6 on the bike 4 on the run)
- Perform/banana/orange - I had about 1 each of these on the run.
SWIM
This was uneventful for me really, which was good. I am clearly not in the swim shape that I was in 2012, but I know how to get back to that easily. If it wasn't for Philadelphia Fins I would have been a lot slower than I was. Uneventful is great though, this means there were no fights in the water. Most importantly I remembered to smile for the camera!
BIKE
Merry Christmas to me. This is where I tried to improve the most and it paid off. I was finally able to ride faster than 18MPH on a long course...Highlights of the bike
- Vector Power Meter - best Christmas present ever, this truly paid off keeping me in the right zone!
- Flat course with a couple of rollers - beautiful for keeping a consistent cadence
- lots of trainer rides helps in this too to keep constantly pedaling
- Rode the first 5-10 miles off of feel and then used power data from that the rest of the way
- Passing groups of people is difficult when you have a late wave
- especially with the USAT official timing every move making me a nervous wreck
- When I was flat I was able to maintain a 90 - 100RPM
- Chasing my brother who also killed the bike helped push me along
- I realized at mile 50 I was going to be close to breaking 5 hours
- Continuous pedaling while coasting to prevent lactic acid build up
- someone told me about this this year and I think it helped a lot - zero cramps until race was over
RUN
Well coming off the bike I already knew what I needed to do to break 5 hours and this was well within the realm of possibility for me.- I started with someone who needed to run 7:00 min/miles to meet their, whoops this caused me to go out to hard as I only needed 7:20/7:30 min miles.
- This is typical for how I run though, by going out too hard.
- I didn't have any nutrition that I needed for the run (Whoops again, I didn't plan ahead well).
- Running with a water bottle and refilling it was ideal for taking in water throughout the run as I needed it
- I got this idea from thinking about Barbie. I knew she would be happy.
- Halfway point I saw Barbie and told her it would be close. Knowing exactly what I meant she explained to my parents, and we both became super excited for the next 6.5 miles had in store for me!
- Falling apart at mile 9 / mile 10. This is where I knew I was going to miss the mark of 5 hours despite the added distance.
- It took extra motivation but I was able to pick up my effort and come as close as I possibly could.
- Running without the overall time displaying during the run.
- I only knew my run time and my run splits. Trying to do the math and not knowing I was going to miss the mark actually helped distract me and allowed me to keep pushing.
Post Race
- Still my favorite part of every race is seeing Barbie and getting a kiss at the end of the race.
- Uncontrollable emotions - My face showed exhaustion and tears. After explaining to Barbie that these were tears of joy and how happy I was, she helped me get to the finish chute to watch my brother finish
- Post Race BBQ - this was simply awesome, we accidentally smoked out some of the people near the finish line. Great food and tons of fun! You could tell others wanted to join in and we welcomed them!
- Finish line area - I had so much fun being able to see everyone crossing the finish! High fives galore and there were some great finishes including some friendly Philadelphia racers pushing for an AG place
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