Race Report: Black Diamond Half-Iron

Okay, I'm finally ready to write this up. Since doing the race, life has been just crazy. Unfortunately the day after we got back, I had to put my 17 year old cat Noggin to sleep, the last of our two "first babies" to go (our 14 year old dog died 2 years ago). Then it was a whirlwind getting ready to have my two step-sons and their wives here for the weekend, a very exciting visit for everyone in the family - the first time we've all been together under one roof. Wow! We all went to the Ducks-Cougars game together, which was great fun. Then just after they all headed back for Washington it was time for the robotics team practice and then boom! it was right into Asa's 10th birthday yesterday. On top of that, we unexpectedly fell in love with and adopted a 9 week old Australian Cattle Dog - Australian Shepherd puppy that we've named Sophie. Of course, life never settles down around here like I think it's going to. Just when one thing smooths out, we seem to add something else to add to the craziness.

So anyways, on to the race report.

If you've been reading the saga of my summer's experimental triathlon training, you'll know that I went into this race with a big question mark hanging over my head about how it would turn out. Half-Iron is just not a distance you can bluff your way through. Undertrain and it hurts. Bad. Overtrain and it hurts. Bad. Nail it just right and you can have a great day.

Very short recap: Did my normal base training through winter and early spring. In late spring, decided to take a detour and try and experimental triathlon training protocol called Crossfit Endurance that focuses solely on intensity with no slower-paced long endurance efforts in the swim, bike, or run. After several months of this training, I raced an Olympic distance event at the Portland Triathlon. It did not go so well from an endurance standpoint. At that point I decided to jettison the Crossfit Endurance protocol as I was sincerely worried about using it to train for the half-Ironman and having enough endurance to compete at that distance. Then embarked on a totally experimental and crazy self-devised and self-inflicted program to bring myself back up to HIM endurance levels in 5 weeks or less. At the beginning of this time period, just a simple 45 mile bike ride felt overwhelming. But toward the end of the training, I could start to feel my old endurance flowing back, giving me some hope that the race would be doable.

So it was that with 4 weeks of training and a way-too-short 6-day taper, I stood on the lakeshore at Black Diamond and contemplated the day ahead of me. Complicating matters was a nagging left hamstring injury I picked up when I tripped while trail running with my sister. What would the day hold??

Swim: 30:06

For starters, the swim in this lake is always beautiful. The race directors kindly start us off at 9:00 am, a lovely time of day to be standing on a lake shore in the autumn sunlight (as opposed to the cold and almost dark of a 7:00 am start). The weather would be as near perfect a day as God hands out in the Fall in Washington: 70 and sunny. The race is extremely well-organized and the volunteers are plentiful. All is well. The men go first, women and relay swimmers 5 minutes later. I take off at a comfortable pace, the HIM swim is always so nice. You don't have to kill yourself with speed like in a sprint, yet you don't have to swim for an hour like in an Ironman. I felt like I hit my groove like I had done in Portland and swam strong and smooth. Out of the water in 30.06, about a 1:25 pace per 100y, which is reasonable.

T1: 2:55

T1 went well, although I don't care for the long u-turn chute you have to run through with your bike (on grass and mud). A couple of years ago my cleats jammed up with mud in this transition area, but this year's dry weather made for much easier going. Out onto the course in 2:55, which sounds slow for T1 but was one of the faster T1 times (it's a long T1 area to traverse). All is smooth. Practice has made good work when it comes to transitions today. Still, I see in the race results that a couple of folks manage to have sub-2:00 transitions, so there's room still for improvement there.

Bike 2:53:14

I love this bike course. They've changed it up from a couple of years ago, but it's still a very nice course. Course description says its 57 miles instead of the standard 56, don't know what's up with that. Lots of long rolling hills (which I like!), very smooth pavement, very good course marshalling (no drafting going on that I could see due to plentiful marshalls doing their job), wide shoulders for a lot of the course. There are a couple of strange out-n-backs with turnarounds that you hit twice, and this slows you down when you're in the groove. Early on in the bike, I go by the campground where we were staying and Wayne and the kids (and dog) are all out cheering. That was a big boost to start the bike with.

For the most part, the bike is uneventful but not optimal. I can tell starting out that I haven't tapered for anywhere near long enough and my muscles are still feeling flat and a little tired. Nothing to be done about that as it was a limitation of my shortened training timeframe. Still, I manage to hold a 19.7 pace, which is reasonable for the day. My one regret is that as I pulled a gel out of my Bento box on my bike, another one went flying out. Being the nice little competitor that I am, I slowed to a stop, waited for cars to go past, circled back to get it, and carried on. Cost me about 2 minutes on the bike course though. I spend a ridiculous amount of time beating myself up mentally for taking the time out of my game plan to get it, alternating with being aghast that I would even consider leaving litter on the course in order to gain a minute or two. What can I say, you have lots of time to argue with yourself about such trivialities out on the HIM bike course. Eventually, I come around a bend and see the sun hitting the hills and turning the fields to gold and all is forgotten as I enjoy the sheer beauty around me and the fact that I'm still out here able to do this awesome thing. My head is back straightened on again for loop two of the bike.

In loop 2, the old hip starts giving me hell with the hamstring injury. I make a big promise to my hamstring that if it will hold together for the next couple of hours, I will give it a couple months off from all biking and running and let it truly heal up. All of the looping and out-n-back on the course lets me see where the other women are at. There's a bunch in front of me, but many of them are relay riders that I start reeling in. I can see a few really smokin' fast ladies out in front and I imagine there are a few behind me that either will or won't catch me until the run. It all makes for fun headgames on the course. I pass two women in the last mile of the bike course that passed me earlier, just for fun.

T2: 1:50

My cheering section was there again, giving me some great energy. I could've been faster in T2. I changed socks. Then forgot my hat and went back for it. Oh well.


Run: 2:12:19

Well, what can you say with a sucky run time like that? I just didn't have the endurance to run at the kind of pace I would've liked to. Only one run over 10 miles in the last 5 months is probably what I'd lay that at the feet of. But on the bright side, the weather was gorgeous, the course is very very pretty, and I had the extremely pleasant company of a relay runner (and Ironman) from Canby, Washington who kept my mind off it all with some nice chatter about various HIM and IM races.

Unlike my HIM of a couple of years ago, I executed my nutrition plan flawlessly and had no bonk to contend with. In the last mile or so, I left whatever I had left in my legs on the course, and broke into a sprint when I saw Wayne and the kiddos at the finish line.

Finish: 5:40:37. Very very close to my last HIM time - 55 seconds off. 3rd in my AG, 3rd overall Master's Female, 15th woman overall.

With what I had going into the race and all of those question marks, it felt like a respectable time to turn in. Doing this time now with so little preparation jammed into a few weeks makes me feel like I need to come hit this course again in full form and see what I can do with it. I continue to feel like my Crossfit training has been a real asset to my triathlon training this season, and I can't wait to see what I can do with another year of that under my belt as well. As always, I'm grateful to be out here, to feel strong and have this body that can do such an amazing thing, that's the real gift of the day.

They're Baaacckkkkkk

Just a quick update before I hit the hay... we got back from our weekend of tri-ing. Hubby did great in his 1st Oly distance triathlon (with a time of 2:46, awesome!), and also celebrated his 46th birthday over the weekend. I had much more fun than expected in my half-Iron distance race, placing 2nd in my age group and 15th overall female. Race Reports to follow....

Moonrise

I've come around on my slingshot ride of orbit and am now entering the taper. Sheesh, no wonder I feel so tired. I finished updating my workout log for last week. 21.5 hours. Insanity. I never trained that many hours for the Ironman! Five of those hours were karate (no slacking for us brown belts) and one was Crossfit (meant to do two this week but there was just no way to slot it in). The other 14.5 were all tri training.

And now that it's over, I've spent a few minutes wondering if it was the right way to go about this. It's a bass-ackward way to train for a HIM - do all of your sprint and high intensity work for 4 months, then go back and try to add in a base. Still, I can't help but feel a little bit hopeful that it actually worked. My last long bike ride on Friday was 65 miles and it felt pretty decent for the first 55. That's a long cry from the horrible 35-miler I put in just a month ago. So the endurance has definitely snapped back, if not all of the way at least part of it. And I did a 6-mile tempo run this week that actually felt semi-decent.

So, I'm hoping that this all adds up to a half-Iron that's not half-bad. If anything, I'll be happy if I nail my nutrition and don't end up with a bonk midway through the run like last time. I would be really ecstatic not to repeat that nightmare, at the very least. Repeat to self: Must not forget gels on run. Must not forget gels on the run.

For now, it's taper, rest, let those muscles absorb all of those hours of training and snap back strong and sure. And I tell myself also to enjoy the fact that at 43 I can throw a 21+ hour week of training at my body and still take it. That in and of itself is a victory of sorts, just as standing at the starting line healthy and whole always is, to me.

Black Diamond Half-Iron Race Report: Nutrition Lessons

Black Diamond Half-Iron Distance: First up, the good news: I set a PKPR (post-kids PR) for this distance at 5:39:42, and an all-time PR at this distance on the bike course at 2:52:11. I also had the 2nd fastest women's swim split. Given that I had very low expectations going in, with only two bike rides over 50 miles this summer, and one long run of 12 miles or over, I am extremely happy with my overall performance. I'm especially excited about my continued improvement on the bike in every race this year. The bad news: other than my lack of training, I was really held back by poor race day execution (transitions and details) which led to a nutritional crisis and almost my first DNF ever. You would think after 21 years in the sport, I'd be above these stupid little mistakes, but you would be wrong on that one.

So, on to the race. It was very cold on race day morning. I had expected it to be cold, but somehow it felt a lot colder to me than I had even expected. So after heading out on the bike to warm up before the race, I second-guessed my original plan of wearing my cycling jersey and arm warmers and instead decided to wear a jacket. I don't have any really good tight-fitting cycling jackets, so this was a painful decision for me, knowing I was sacrificing aerodynamics for comfort. I definitely think I need to get some cold-weather gear if I'm going to race longer distances this late in the season again, especially in the fickle Northwest. This jacket decision had consequences that rippled out later in the day. Since I was wearing a jacket and not my jersey on the bike, I decided to pin my race number onto my running shirt and not wear the race belt to hold my number. I've always raced with a race belt, so this was a departure for me (mistake #1). It would also mean I'd have to grab some gels for the run and hold them in my hand instead of having them in my belt. I made sure to put them by my running shoes so I wouldn't forget them.

I was worried about the swim being too cold, as the lake was 61 degrees on race morning. That turned out to be a non-issue though, and my new Blue70 long-sleeved wetsuit worked like a charm. I added a neoprene cap and was toasty and felt smooth and fast. With only one woman out ahead of me, I wove through the slower men from the preceding heat to a very nice swim split. It was slower than I estimated (30:47, when I predicted :28), but since everyone's splits were slow I think that was a swim course issue and not my personal speed. I was the 2nd woman and 13th overall swimmer.

On to the transition. Pulling on my jacket proved to be ridiculously difficult. Should've practiced it with wet arms, I had practiced arm warmers over and over, but again it was a last-minute decision to change. This left me with a very slow T1 of 3:37. On the other hand, I felt toasty warm and comfortable on the bike, even if I looked ridiculous in floppy jacket and aero helmet. However, the helmet kept my ears nice and warm as I had hoped. The bike course was really lovely. Smooth roads over most of the course, and the rolling hills that make me feel right at home. I felt powerful and kept a nice steady pace, rolling into a 2:52 bike split, which was 3 minutes faster than my estimated time. My nutrition felt spot on, and I was well hydrated and (here comes some TMI) even managed to pee on the bike, eliminating the bothersome porta-potty stops that slowed down my Ironman and last HIM bike splits.

T2 was not especially fast as I did change socks, but 2:11 was reasonable given the distance through the transition area that I had to run my bike. It was worth it to have comfortable feet on the run. I started out the run by keeping to my goal pace of 9:30. I didn't overamp the first couple of miles like I did last time at this distance, and was very happy with how my run course was going. There were some short, steep hills that were definitely a bitch, but I felt okay. At 30 minutes into the run however, I reached for my first gel and realized I forgot to grab them and I wasn't wearing a belt. There were no gels on the run course at the aid stations, only Heed (made by Hammer) and water. I decided to walk through the aid stations and try and drink more Heed than I normally would to keep my carbs up and blood sugar stable. This worked really well through mile 8, and I was having a pretty nice run. My first 6 miles was spot on a 9:30 pace at 57:03. After mile 8 however, the aid station (you pass it multiple times on this course) ran out of Heed and only had water. I still had almost 50 minutes to go and this worried me. Mile 9 went okay, but by mile 10 I was feeling slightly queasy and shaky. After that, I could definitely feel the low blood sugar taking hold and I hit the wall hard. I felt so shaky and my heart was hammering very hard, so I walked for awhile and tried to determine whether or not it was healthy to keep on or whether I should quit.

I've never DNF'd in a triathlon once in over two decades. But my pounding heartbeat and headache worried me. Passing out after the Ironman last year with such low blood pressure and dehydration had given me a good scare and worried me that I was able to push on for so long in that race with my body obviously failing. This is what was going through my mind on the Half-Iron course. Should I go on? I finally came to the conclusion that I was experiencing low blood sugar and not dehydration or anything life-threatening. So I started running again. Although the last two miles were very scenic, ending up on a lovely trail around the lake, they seemed to stretch out in a sort of miserable haze. I passed a couple of people who were experiencing very similar things and were walking, so I know I wasn't the only one caught by surprise when the aid stations ran out of carb drink.

In the end, I finished with a run split (2:10:56) only a bit faster than my last HIM run (2:12). I know I'm faster overall now, so this was pretty disappointing, and although I didn't have a lot of mileage under my belt, I think I could've done better if I hadn't messed up my nutrition. It's a good lesson to re-learn though, don't change things up on race day. If you remember nothing else, keeping your nutrition going in a long race is paramount.

Overall, I'm happy with my race. As always, the longer courses teach you a lot about racing, the importance of strong strategy and consistancy, and how tough you can really be. This one hurt worse than it should've, and I know I won't forget those lessons anytime soon! But on the bright side, I'm faster at 41 than I was at 38 and that's nothing to sneeze at. I'm also only a few minutes away from my all-time PR at this distance that I set at age 25. Maybe next time...