Long-Winded Miami Ironman 70.3 Race Recap

I don’t usually write recaps for any of my races. What’s the point? I don’t have sponsors to thank and I usually don’t want to subject other people to the tedious and overly critical thoughts behind all of my race-related decisions and preparations. Every athlete has these thoughts, but usually when they tell anyone, it makes them seem like a highly neurotic person with an unhealthy obsession lol. I guess I’m breaking tradition by writing this, but then again I also broke tradition earlier today by racing a Half Ironman. Everyone knows I don’t partake in such races. They’re long, hard, require too much training, require actual nutrition during the race, and demand a more thoughtful pacing strategy; as opposed to my usual and in my mind “highly effective” balls-to-the-wall method. So why a Half Ironman, you ask? After qualifying last year for the Boston Marathon and World Championships in Olympic distance triathlons, I wanted to set my sights on a new goal. Ironman training is not realistic, but I figured a Half Ironman was doable and presented itself as a new challenge. Contrary to popular belief, this would not be my first 70.3. I actually did one 3.5 years ago back when I was a little runt in the triathlon community. It was Honu 2013 when it was still a Kona Ironman qualifier for age group winners. I remember having the most laughable training schedule. I would spend most of my time running and I would ride 50 miles once every 2 weeks. No other bike training. Just a hard 50 miler every other weekend in Kona. As far as swimming was concerned, I wouldn’t do any structured workouts. I would walk out to Brown’s Beach in Hilo on the jagged rocks with curled toes (like a haole) and swim in waters only rescue divers are dropped into. It was an interesting training regimen but I don’t think I should write a book about it, so lets move on. I remember having a decent swim and going all-out psycho race mode on the bike. I averaged 1 mph faster than I thought were possible at the time, but I hit the wall at mile 40 (0f 56). That overzealous attitude to pass everyone on the bike, coupled with poor nutrition, lead to a run afterward that can only be characterized as a passionate asthmatic foot shuffle for survival. I was disappointed with my 3rd place finish in the 25-29 yr old age group since I missed out on qualifying for Kona Ironman World’s. I didn’t even consider the fact that I could have accepted a slot in the Half Ironman World Championships......And here I am 3 long years of training later trying to do it all over again. Conventional wisdom would tell you, “To improve is to change,” so I did this time around. I knew the bike leg would be the most crucial since it’s at least half the total race time. Over the last few years, I have seen noticeable improvements. I don’t have a coach, a team, or sponsors. I simply use my own experiences of success and failure as a guide. I have determined 9 hours/week of training to be optimum for Olympic distance triathlons FOR ME. It may not sound like a lot of training, but I do quality workouts and have a busy work schedule. I generally work 12 hour shifts, train after work, have dinner sometimes as late as 10 or 11PM, and then wake up and repeat. If I have any weekends off, I try to get in heat training. In those 9 hours of training, I have always biked about 40 miles/week with running being the majority of my training. This year I have made an effort to reallocate my training time. In January of this year, I started cycling 60 miles/week and cutting back the running. When I bought an account on Zwift a few months ago, I hit a few weeks of 80 miles or so. Most of my training runs in preparation for this race were brick runs and went fairly well. I did absolutely no swim workouts and would simply try to get 1 hour of monotonous lap swimming in each week just to set my mind at ease. It’s difficult to train alone; even more so when you are trying to do swimming workouts. I have dislocated my shoulder twice in the past 4 years and it sometimes cramps up when I’m swimming long or hard sets. It has been a nagging injury that I have long ignored and I probably should get it checked out if I aim to put in the amount of training required to see any real swimming improvements. Given the time of year for the Miami race (2 weeks after Kona Ironman World’s), it is generally a less competitive field. It appeared to be an easier race for those seeking a qualifying slot. Last year’s winner in my 30-34 yr age group was only 4:27. This sounded within reach; in fact, I figured it would be kind of easy. 6 days before the race, I was getting up from a seated position and noticed my right quad muscle (pretty much upper thigh near the waist) felt tight. I didn’t think anything of it but took the day off to be sure. The next morning I couldn’t walk! That made standing up for 12 hours and working quite the task. I had to do my best with Aleve to get through my day and act normal so I didn’t have every customer ask, “Why are you walking like a leg-dragging zombie?” I became highly skilled in the pivot technique. It’s a move where you don’t actually move. You just use your long legs to extend your good leg in the direction of your choosing and then lean, slide, or turn the rest of your body to make it seem like everything is behaving as one cohesive unit. My leg always felt worse at the end of my work shifts so I knew I needed to rest when I wasn’t working. Ah, the woes of an amateur athlete. I took 5 days off.....IN A ROW......No running....No biking....No hula hooping....Just bitching and moaning on the couch with an ice pack every night whining about the meaning of life. Determined athletes are like wild stallions. They need to be free to gallop. They don’t like to be cooped up in the barn. Shruti and I were going to Miami for many other reasons besides my race, so I figured I would keep an open mind about the race and not make a decision until the day before. I thought about all the money I had spent on race registration and bike transport. Went over all the time I had put in quality workouts with this race in mind. I also had deprived Shruti of 1-2 hours/week of extra quality time since I bumped my training up from 9 to about 11 hours for the 3 weeks before the race (leaving the 4th week as a taper week). Goals aside, I just wanted to be able to partake in the event. After 5 days of inactivity, I tested out the legs on Saturday afternoon after packet pickup. I biked for 5 minutes and ran 1.5 miles. Legs did not feel injured. They felt tired, but I knew it was just nerves, so I decided I would give it a shot. The water was a good temperature (79 degrees). Not cold and not uncomfortably warm. I felt pretty good on the swim actually. My plan was to stay relaxed since the swim is not about expending all of your energy. It’s about finesse. It’s about feeling the ripples of water hit your skin and controlling them like some sort of water sorcerer. It’s about moving your body in such an elegant way as if you were an amphibious creature with hydrophobic skin with the innate ability to move with the kind of grace and beauty that can only be described through Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Okay, so I don’t know jack crap about swimming. Sometimes I get the suspicion that the lifeguards on paddle boards are always staring at me and trying to determine if I’m coming up for a breath or trying to call for aid. Either way, on this day I heard classical music in my head as I dodged slower swimmers and navigated the buoys with utter perfection. I came out of the water in 31st (out of probably 300 plus in my age group). When I heard Shruti shout my place, I felt uplifted. I’m glad I didn’t know my actual swim time was 38 min. Upon post race results analysis, I have determined the top male pros were about 6 minutes slower in the swim this year compared to last year. Was the course different? (heard it was 100 yds long) Was there a current? Was I really bad enough to swim 38? Of course not! But does saying the top male pro beat me by 11 minutes in the water make me feel better? No, it certainly doesn’t. My transition times were very good for once, but that’s a boring story, so lets move on. The bike leg is my bread and butter. In training I had predicted that I could pull off a 2:13 (25.2 mph) although my goal was really just sub 2:15. My friend (Mikey), yee of little faith, had his doubts. “Biking 42 miles in training is different than swimming, biking the full 56, and running after.” If for no other reason, I wanted to nail the time just to prove it to him. The course was slow with a lot of turns for the first 6 and last 6 miles of the course. The remaining 44 miles were all smooth highway. The headwind was brutal on the way out, but I held onto the hope that I would enjoy a tailwind back. The wind gods spared us all. I felt no resistance on my ride back into the city. In fact, I was kind of bored because there was little I could do to go any faster :) I started the race in wave 5 of 26, so the race course was very open while I was racing. It made for a very lonely bike. Occasionally I would pick off someone but it took FOREVER. The most fun part about the bike was when a rider noticed I was gaining ground and they would pathetically attempt to get out of the saddle and stand into the headwind as if that improved their odds of fending me off. So classic lol! What a bunch of noobs! Did I mention I have always raced without any instruments? I had no idea how fast I was going. Even harder to get a sense of your speed and effort when you have no one around to size up. I’m just accustomed to racing by feel. Easier to do when you train primarily alone. Around probably mile 48 I started to feel hungry. My legs felt fine, but my body felt a little weak. I guess 5 scoops of Carbo Pro, 10-12 endurolytes, and 2 Expresso Hammer gels were not enough? I began to worry about the run, so I eased back on the effort the last 8 miles. Most of it was through the city anyway where it was hard to go fast around turns and through busy intersections, so I figured it was the best plan. I was surprised to find out that I biked exactly a 2:13! As I approached the second transition, Shruti shouted, “You’re in 3rd place and 2:30 behind 2nd place.” That didn’t really make me feel good, because I was expecting to be winning coming off the bike. My goal was to finish top 3 to secure a slot for the World Championships and I was already sitting on the bubble with a hot and somewhat hilly half marathon awaiting. I was in unfamiliar territory since this bike time was 14 minutes faster than the time I rode in my first half back in 2013. The goal was to run 1:27-1:29 and try to hold mid 6’s as long as possible. That’s a pretty hard thing to do for someone who comes roaring off the bike at over 25 mph and expects to slow his body down to a measly 9mph without a Garmin watch as a guide. It’s hard to get a sense of your pace in a brick run. I started my run passing 3 female pros and apparently averaging 6:08 pace for the first 3.3 miles which consisted of a big hill up a highway and a few off-road sections. I felt like I was “pacing myself.” Then at about mile 4, I started to develop a sharp pain on the inside of my leg just above the knee. I have only experienced this sensation one other time in a race but it was only an Olympic distance event and I had 1 mile to go at that time. This time I had 9 miles to go!! I had to shorten my stride and running downhill proved to be much harder than running uphill. I took in Gatorade at every aid station and even started drinking coke in hopes of somehow getting rid of the pain. I’m not sure if it was a result of muscle fatigue, lack of salt, or something else entirely. I felt my pace slowing but did my best to keep moving. One of the female pros passed me back and it was then I noticed she was running in what looked like a sports bra. All of a sudden I thought to myself, “Now I feel hot in this all black tri suit. It’s not fair that she gets to wear less clothing than me. I’m all about gender equality.” So I pulled my tri suit sleeves down so we could basically run like two sisters supporting the “Free the nipples” movement. When I got to the end of lap 1 and halfway point of the run, an official yelled, “YOU, GET OVER HERE.” Like a guilty dog that has peed on the carpet, I knew what I had done. I didn’t think it was a big deal but apparently they care more about this than they do about giving drafting penalties. The guy lectured me on the rules and made me pull my suit up. He probably held me for 30 seconds until he finally let me go. I’m probably the only person in history to get issued a penalty during the running segment of a triathlon. After the penalty, I took off again for the 2nd loop with a vengeance for about 100 yards until I realized my leg was still hurting. It was either getting worse each mile or maybe my mental strength to block out the pain had just become non-existent. My pace slowed considerably, and it was frustrating, because I felt OKAY. Not good enough to average 6:08 pace, but good enough to try and match other runners that were passing me. With 2 loops, it was hard to tell what place I was in. I figured I wasn’t in 3rd anymore. I wasn’t really worried about my slot at that point and I was just hoping I could make it to the finish line in one piece and finish with something respectable like a sub 4:30. I was rather delighted to find out I still managed a 1:31 run (6:58 pace) on a course that was hot, had 4 substantial inclines, included my time penalty, and with a gimp leg. I felt MUCH SLOWER. I was not so delighted though to find out I finished 8th in my age group and was a few minutes away from earning a slot. I find it rather frustrating that my time of 4:26 is faster than the winner from last year yet here I am going over the race in my head and wondering what the World Championships will be like without me if I don’t pull it together in another race. I’m thankful that I was able to put together some kind of a race when I thought a week ago that I would not be able to reach the starting line. I still have several questions regarding fueling strategies and why on earth my leg had such a horrible spasm so early in the run. I also would like to know if next year they’ll require me to wear a life vest in the water since I clearly have forgotten how to swim. I know I am physically capable and I can’t be mad at a 23 minute PR. I find it rather ironic and amusing that I qualified 3 years ago back when it wasn’t a goal in my sights. Now that I’m aiming for it and racing much faster, I failed to qualify; albeit a different age group! It’s important to evaluate yourself honestly and strive for improvement, but it’s equally important to find a silver lining. Considering I’m still kind of winging this triathlon thing, I’m fairly happy overall and now have a better sense of what it takes to qualify for World’s.