First time I have raced outside my home state, and I went "the whole hog" and went to the Half Ironman (now called 70.3 - as in 70.3 Mile total) World Championships at Clearwater in Florida USA.
The summary - I missed out on a PB or breaking 5 hours, with 5:30:42 which is mid way between my previous 2 attempts at this distance, 5:40 (2009) and 5:18:29 (2010), both at Geelong. I had qualified for the "Worlds" at Geelong in Feb 2010, with the "roll down". This was my 3rd half ironman in 22 months.
- Swim 40:59 - Instead of improving my previous 1.9km swim of 37:18 by 3 mins as I hoped, I was some 3 mins slower. But the water was fairly rough, and at the mid-way turn point it felt I had been swimming for ages, i.e. 20mins, turns out that's exactly how long it had taken. Swim = OK.
- Bike 2:34:06 - a new PB on the new TT bike, bettering the previous 2:48:33 by almost 15mins, which was itself 15mins better than my first attempt. Average speed ~35km/h. My 2-6th 10km splits were over 40km/h average. Felt like having done a sighter ride of 2/3 or the course earlier in the week was a real advantage. Even though it was warm, I only drank one bottle of Gatorade (my mix, not theirs!). Bike = Great, back on target for breaking 5 hours.
- Run 2:09:01 - Disaster! Well not quite, but I did fall apart on the run, this is supposed to be my best leg! First km = 4mins, too fast, but felt great. 2nd km, slowed to 4:45min/km, about my planned pace. 2.5km - really severe stomach cramps, try to run to 3.5km (or 2mile) drink station (each 1mile or 1.6km, and almost ideal interval), but can't. Walk for a couple hundred metres, feel OK, start to run, but can't run to 5km without walking again. Almost doubled over with stomach pain. Around this point I knew the 5 hours was gone, and I was just going to finish. Alternate run/walk for the remainder of the 10km lap, running only 500m before walking on some occasions. Around 8km I (slowly) catch a guy who is being interviewed by the cameraman on the back of a motor bike. Turns out he is one of two Nascar drivers in the race. When I pass him I hear him say "see, I'm not going great, everyone is passing me". As with many Ironman races they have water, sports drink (Gatorade) and Cola at the drink stations. At home the coke is "flat" (de-carbonated) which makes it drinkable on the run, you get a caffeine hit, and a different taste to gels and sport drink. Towards end of that 1st lap I try the Coke and realise it's not "flat", but I drink it anyway (it was hot) and the bubbles have a positive effect on my stomach, I burp and I feel better for a while. SO I keep hitting the Coke and it helps some. As I near the end of the first lap there is crowd cheering you on, one spectator runs with me for while. She says "keep going, only 1km to go". Unfortunately I have another whole lap :( The second lap was OK, but the legs were shot, I jog in 2:09, my worst result over that distance, but only 1 minute worse than my first half ironman.
Excuses :) - It was hot, and humid, Florida is a long way from home, and I had stomach cramps on the run.
In the end it was a great experience, I went to the World Championships. We made it though travelling with the bike, a big family holiday, and I recovered pretty quickly (ran 3 days later).
I think if I had broken the 5 hours I would have said that's the end of the half ironman distance for me, there is a lot of training (15-20hrs/wk for about 15 weeks). But as I didn't get the 5 hour goal, there is still a score to settle (one day).
Garmin Connect details: Swim T1 Bike T2 Run
