Race Report: HITS Half Iron Distance Triathlon - Part 1!

I really meant to get around to posting about this, but I forgot. A few weeks ago, I switched from the full distance to the half distance tri. I haven't been able to put in the time I needed for it and was getting nervous that I'd be stuck doing it and then not finish. I imagine there are few endurance-related things that are worse than spending over 12 hours trying to finish a race and being picked up from the course, which is what I was anticipating.

Now, all that implies that I wasn't ready in any way, shape, or form for this triathlon. In fact, if you'd asked me about it point blank before the race, I would have readily agreed.

But it was fantastic. I certainly didn't PR (I PWed, but by less than 2 minutes) but it felt good. Like, really, bizarrely good. I'm not sure what happened, but I think I was better prepared than I felt I was. Also, just as you can have a really awful day, you can have really good ones and I think Saturday I had an incredible day.

I drove up to Kingston on Friday night a little bit later than I'd planned because of some work follow up that took longer than I expected. The drive was mostly fine except for scattered torrential downpours, but it was all still fine. My only real complaint is that I got there too late to forage for any sort of dinner. I could have, but it was late and raining a lot and I didn't think it was worth the risk. Fortunately, I'd gotten croissants from Dunkin Donuts (I know, guys, I know. I wanted bagels too but that was the best breakfast pastry the Penn Station Dunkin had to offer). They became my dinner instead of my breakfast and during-race snack, as I'd originally planned.

When I arrived, my friends Jessica and Moses were already there and they were kind enough to bring a spacious air mattress along for me. We stayed up making and laughing at fart jokes for longer than we should have and finally went to sleep a little after midnight, planning to wake up at 4.

The alarm went off at 4, as we'd planned. Moses jumped up and started getting ready with a lot more fanfare than I did. I slept for another 15 minutes. After we were both ready to go, Moses did light calisthenics while I took a catnap. And thus, the adventure began!

Triathlon in the Wall Street Journal! Discuss...

It's not actually that rare for triathlon and specifically Ironman to be featured in a Wall Street Journal article. The WSJ seems to have an affinity for Ironman coverage although I was unaware of this until I googled "Ironman Wall Street Journal" not five minutes ago. What led me to that particular Google search? Well, this particular article, which I saw posted in r/triathlon (the triathlon subreddit) a few days ago.

Take a read, if you can, though I'll go ahead and TL;DR for all you lazies. The article summarizes a struggle that's currently happening between Ironman branded races and independent long and ultra distance races. A long course triathlon is typically (and perhaps detrimentally) known as a half-Ironman. This entails a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 mile run. An ultra distance triathlon is traditionally known as an Ironman and entails double the aforementioned distances (2.4, 112, 26.2 miles, respectively).

For anyone I haven't lectured about this, it's important to know that Ironman is not a race distance, but a brand. Are all Ironman (or half Ironman) races ultra (or long course) distances? Yes. Are all ultra and long course races Ironmans? No. Much like all squares are parallelograms but not all parallelograms are squares.

The Ironman brand is owned and run by the World Triathlon Corporation and most people will recognize it as having a sort of (if not an actual) monopoly over the industry. As is stated in the article, many Ironman races sell out within minutes of registration opening. Independent races on the other hand, some most noticeably produced by HITS or Rev3, often struggle to register 100 participants despite the fact that fees are almost always lower than those of Ironman races.

That's the main takeaway, though there are a couple other good points made in the article. The fact that many finishers like getting a tattoo of the Ironman logo and that triathletes can only qualify for Kona (the holy grail of triathlon entries) by placing extremely well at an Ironman are two. Interestingly, the article does mention two independent ultra distance races that don't seem to hurt for registrants. These are Beach2Battlship, which I did last year, and Vineman. I think it is important to note, though, that both cap their registrations at around 700 participants versus the thousands that usually compete in Ironman events.

There is a really good quote at the end of the article that makes the point that after someone completes one or even a few Ironman events, the importance of the brand fades quite a bit. I related to this a lot. Once I'd done an Ironman, I didn't feel a particular need to pay the premiums for those events and looked to find something a little more affordable for my second. Although I think I might be able to qualify for Boston maybe, someday, I am infinitely less optimistic that I would ever be able to qualify for Kona. Therefore, it's not all that important to me if my long or ultra distance triathlons are independently run. On the other hand, one of my coaches at Everyday Triathlete was very intent on qualifying for Kona and it made sense for him to only compete in Ironman races to accomplish this.

I don't often get comments, but if anyone is so inclined, here are two discussion points:

1. If you have completed an Ironman or ever plan to, have or would you get an M Dot (the Ironman logo) tattoo? Why?

2. Would it be important to you that your first long course or ultra distance race be an Ironman event? Why?

Exciting Weekend Ahead

And finally, my first marathon of the season has arrived. Even more exciting, though, is that a number of friends have their own firsts to celebrate. Amortya is running his very first marathon in DC as well. He actually signed up for this way back in September so I think he's really itching to get out there and get this thing done. Even more impressive, it looks like he's on track to run a sub-4 on his very first try!

My friend Marilyn is also running her first marathon in LA despite being plagued by what is hopefully a minor foot injury. Looks like she's been smart about mostly resting up and just getting ready for race day so I expect her to knock it out of the park.

Monica and Dirk are running their first half marathons right here in NYC! And lucky for me, Rock n' Roll USA is on Saturday so I can make it back in plenty of time to cheer them on. With the exception of Central Park, NYC is a pretty decent first-time half marathon because the course runs through Times Square, which is thrilling. An additional bonus is that Jeremy will be handing out medals at the finish line! Monica has also had some injury trouble, but last I checked she's on to run.

Finally, my friend Maria is doing her first 70.3 in San Juan. This is early in the triathlon season, but weather in PR should be beautiful, if a little bit warm.

If you know any of these people, make sure you wish them luck. They'll obviously kick ass, but who doesn't love a little encouragement? Best of luck to everyone racing this weekend!

Race Report: Amica Ironman 70.3 Run

I was in the middle of transition in T2 when I saw my rival on the bike (to whom I've been referring as "Pink") run out before me! Considering I got into T2 first, I found this completely unacceptable so raced out without doing one key thing: taking off my bike shorts.

I may have failed to mention this before, but I wasn't wearing proper tri attire for this race due to typically poor planning. Instead, I'd devised a plan in which I'd wear tight black shorts for the swim and run and wear bike shorts over them on the bike. It was a great plan but would have been better if I'd executed the last part. No big deal, as it turns out. Also, I dropped Pink after maybe a tenth of a mile.

But back to the run. It consisted of two loops. Here's a handy dandy map. I've taken the liberty of marking the spots that were torture.

From approximately mile 1 to mile 2.5 was basically uphill. And the majority of that was in the sun with no shade and no water. At the end of the biggest part of the hill, I was grunting at every step. It wasn't my finest moment, but hey, I got up the hill without walking. As an aside, they were giving out wet sponges to cool us off and those were life savers. TMI Alert: I even put ice in my bra. It was hot!

This part of the course was so hard that I started to really worry about the Ironman and wonder how I'd ever be able to do twice that distance. Fortunately I spoke to another friend of mine who also did the race and he said it made him think the same things. AND HE'S ALREADY DONE AN IRONMAN. That made me feel a lot better. Plus, I really did come back to my senses once I got off that hill.

The second time was even more of a struggle and the only reason I made it without walking is that I read 5:40 on the clock as I was entering my second lap. I knew that if I managed to push through and not walk, I'd have a good chance of breaking 7 hours. So every time I wanted to stop and walk (which was almost every step at some point), I thought about breaking 7 hours. Even though my run had slowed to what couldn't have been much faster than a crawl, I made it up again.

But this time, my sense of dread lasted a little bit longer. I was in a "just get through it" mindset until about mile 10.5 when I had an epiphany: I was almost done. 2.6 miles was all that stood between me, a revenge medal, pizza, and potentially even a sub-7 hour finish. At that point, I went all out. I was passing people left and right. Many of them seemed bewildered by it, too. It was a fine time to turn on the jets. And once I reached the barricades leading up to the capitol building, I started an all-out sprint to the finish. The clock read 6:47 as I crossed and with my swim start taken into account, I finished in a little over 6:42. That's a full 26 minutes faster than the one I did in May!

The run itself came out to 2:10 and change, which I did not expect at all. There were points in that run when I speculated that my time would be 10-15 minutes slower than it was in May. Guess not!

All in all, it was a good race. Despite my battle with the run course, I'd do it again.

Race Report: Amica Ironman 70.3 Bike

Welcome back to the World's Longest Race Summary! Glad you've made it this far. When I last left off, I had just jumped out of the very warm Olney Pond and onto my bike for a nice, 56 mile jaunt.

I did this entire bike course without any knowledge of my speed. Upon dropping my bike off at transition the day before, I had been dismayed to find that my cycle computer wasn't registering any movement at all and did nothing but display the time (which was even 9 or 10 minutes off...so still worthless in that regard). Although I worried that I wouldn't ride fast enough without this knowledge, I knew there wasn't much I could do about it and simply resolved to race aggressively. Map of the course, not that it's very legible:

It was a nice course with some rolling hills. the only one that really stands out to me happened around mile 42. It was long and steep and at one point I felt like I was crawling! I started to wonder if it was just me until I turned the corner and saw a line of probably 10 to 15 other riders, all struggling like I was. That made me feel a little better.

The one thing I will say, though, is that there were parts of the course that were very rough. There were certain hills that I'd descend, reach probably 22-25mph, and then encounter patches of uneven pavement and potholes. I was very nervouse that I'd either flat or crash. A flat would most likely have meant the end of the race for me, because I didn't bring a spare tube. And a crash...well that could have resulted in many flavors of disaster. Happily, I avoided both.

I spent the last 10 or 15 miles battling it out with another woman that I started referring to as "Pink" in my head because she was wearing a pink helmet, pink top, and had a pink camouflage Quintana Roo frame. Pink would pass me on the flats and downhills and I would catch and pass her on the climbs. It was good motivation and I even managed to pull into the finish a few seconds ahead.

What I loved about the course is that it ended in downtown Providence, very close to the finish line. I absolutely loved making a grand entrance into the city and even having lots of spectators for the last few turns! I pulled into T2, parked Artemis (my bike, in case I haven't mentioned by name), took off my crap and turned my number belt around, changed my shoes, and scurried to the run start because I saw Pink fly right through transition and beat me there.

My worries about not knowing my speed were unfounded. I even think it may have helped, as a lack of knowledge has also helped my running in the past. I finished the bike in a little over 3:29, which was 24 minutes faster than my time at Bassman.

Race Report: Amica Ironman 70.3 Swim

The swim is quickly becoming my worst discipline. Unfortunately, I'm less motivated to work on it because it's not terrible enough to put me in danger of missing a cutoff (knock on wood). I'm still much more scared that something will go wrong on the bike and so have focused most of my training on that.

Here's one big difference between this race in 2010 and now: this year, I had a wetsuit. In this case, though, that was really more a reflection on my overall preparedness and less an actual asset. As I mentioned in my previous post, the water in Providence that weekend was too warm for wetsuits (with exceptions if certain rules were followed).

Once I had my transition gear in place and had stopped off at the porta-potties, I headed down to the water and took a practice swim. Even though I knew the water was warm going in, I was still surprised at how warm it was when I set foot in the lake. I'm not sure what the temperature was that morning, but the previous day it had been recorded at 81 degrees Fahrenheit.

I was in the third wave. The first and second waves were pro men and women and my wave was women under 29 and over 50 (the historically slower swimmers, maybe?) and started at 6:05 on the dot. As usual, I dropped to the back pretty quickly and did my best to swim in a straight line, which is to say, swam every which direction in probably the least efficient way possible. Here's what the course looked like:

Toward the middle of the first side of the loop, the sun was positioned in such a way that we were swimming directly into it! As if I wasn't having a hard enough time with sighting already.

I chugged along and took note as different colored swim caps glided by. Although I was curious as to whether or not anyone with my own swim cap color was still around, I wasn't interested enough to stop and look around.

My time was a little over 55 minutes, which was about two minutes slower than it was in May. Not great, but hey, I wasn't even close to last out of the water (which I was in 2010) so didn't care too much. I booked it to T1, dried off, put all my crap on (number belt, sunglasses, helmet, socks, shoes) and headed out for the bike. 

(Pre) Race Report: Amica Ironman 70.3 Providence

I'm going to try and keep this as concise as possible. As I mentioned in my previous post, when I last wrote about this it was overly long, to put it nicely. I think I included every detail I could remember. I haven't even read over it yet because I only imagine being overwhelmed by the idiocy of my race and my writing about the race. I'm sure it's valuable but I'll read it when I'm ready.


Artie, ready to go at T1



Aside from the differences in my preparation and performance, there were marked differences in the race course this year from the last time I did it. The bike course began only 6 miles from the finish line, which, I think, has always been at the Rhode Island's capitol building. In 2010 T1 was located on the coast of Rhode Island, about 50 miles away. This caused some logistical headaches for me back then. This year, though, I simply rode my bike to T1 and took a city bus back into town.



Transition: the big picture



While dropping my bike off at T1, I realized that my cycle computer wasn't working. After about 15 minutes trying to adjust it, I finally threw in the towel and accepted that I'd have to race without knowing my speed. I think this may have worked in my favor. What did not work in my favor and was a huge risk for me to take was the fact that I did not have a spare inner tube. But I'll discuss both those things later.

omg! This is happening!

You know what's unfun? Waking up at 3:30am. The shuttle ticket I bought was for 4:15. Although they advised that shuttles would be running continuously through 5:15, my ticket did have 4:15 printed on it and I didn't want to take much of a chance. I showed up around 4:20 hoping to get on an early shuttle, even if it wasn't the first one.

Arriving at T1 before the race was a different experience than it's ever been before. For the first time, I felt like I belonged there. I didn't need to observe what people around me were doing because I had my own routine.

Brian had given me some suggestions for nutrition, so I modeled mine after that. I have two water bottles. One I filled with water and the other with Accelerade mix. In terms of solids, I got a couple of packages of Gu Chomps and emptied them into my itty bitty saddle bag.

Everyone was required to set up a "clean" transition, which meant that everything had to be on or hanging from your bike in a bag. I tried to stack my things as strategically as possible on my aerobars. Initially, I had my sunglasses and helmet on top of my towel with my shoes and socks hanging from a bag on my handlebar like so:



Rookie mistake

But wait a minute, what's the first thing I'd want to do after the swim? Dry off! At least a little bit. So I reversed the order and had my towel sitting on my helmet and glasses. I also added my race number in front of the main pile, almost on the gear shifters.

Finally, I was ready to go. I even had enough time for a potty break. Oh, interesting sidenote, the water temperature was too warm for wetsuits! We were given the option to still wear one but there were a couple of key conditions. The first was that, if you chose to wear one, you could not qualify for championships. The second was that anyone wearing one had to start in the last wave.

Hopefully, you've made it this far. I'd hoped not to do this and clearly I'm doing a terrible job of keeping this short. But I'll group the swim, bike and run as I see fit in separate posts. Stay tuned!

Ironman Approaches

Well, I'll be damned. I knew it had been a long time since I last posted but I had no idea it was approaching three weeks. Stuff is happening. In my last spate of posts, I didn't even get around to writing about my concerns about running or my century ride to Montauk! Both very exciting events. This summer has been a whirlwind of activity for both training and life in general and I'm doing my best to deal with it.

Last weekend I raced in the Amica Ironman 70.3 Providence. That race report is forthcoming. Very early in this blog (back when it was a different blog) you'll find a few very long-winded race summaries of just this event two years ago. Many things have changed since then and the outcome of this year's race reflected that. I'm excited to explain and reflect on it and August 11th.

Just this past weekend I had a different and unique experience attending my first triathlon camp with my new team and coach. It was fantastic.

The countdown to Ironman NYC begins. Here we go!

Change of Plans

Since early spring, I knew I wanted to race at least a couple of half distance tris in preparation for the Ironman. I did Bassman in early May and that went decently. My other two options (last weekend was, unfortunately, ruled out because of work) were the HITS triathlon at Bear Mountain coming up this weekend and the Amica Ironman 70.3 in Providence. That particular race is less convenient than the one at Bear Mountain. Plus, after meeting with Brian, I thought it conflicted with a crucial training camp he's doing the weekend of July 14th. Because of all this, I'd pretty much decided on the HITS tri.

However, I found out earlier today that the Providence half Iron is the weekend before the training camp! I can and now plan to do both! An added bonus: this is the race that I didn't finish in 2010. Two years later, you better believe I'll get my revenge.



I'm coming for you



Race Report: The Bassman Half Distance Triathlon

Well, it’s a week and a half late, but here it is. My overall impression of the race itself was very positive. I thought the race directors did a fantastic job and I was very impressed with how organized it was, considering the fact that there were sprint, half distance tri, half distance du, aqua bike and relay events. I was mildly confused only a couple of times on the run course and I'm frequently confused for no good reason at all, so that’s probably worth disregarding.

In terms of my own race, I did better than expected. I went in hoping to do the swim in an hour (sounds slow, but it actually took me a bit longer than that during my first half attempt), the bike in four hours (mostly I just wanted to make the cutoff) and the half in two and a half hours (going in, I thought this was optimistic). All that would have put me at 7:30 for my overall time, excluding transitions.

The swim was two .6 mile loops around Absegami Lake. The water was chilly but not nearly as bad as I expected it to be. After a few minutes of swimming, temperature wasn’t an issue at all. Honestly, aside from a general lack of enough experience with open-water swimming, I didn’t have too many issues at all. Sighting went, if not well, better than expected. I did a lot less weaving than I recall doing in past races. Bottom line: I have a lot of work to do in my swim, but this was a decent start. I completed my swim leg in 53 minutes.

The bike was definitely the most challenging part of this race and not because it was a particularly difficult course. I finished in 3:53, which was just under my goal. The course wasn’t especially hilly or tough, but I had issues with the nutrition and hydration. I’ll discuss this in more depth at the end. On a frightening note, one woman actually took a spill and broke her arm. It’s always scary to see something like that happen and to realize that, at a certain point, the only reason it wasn’t you was some measure of good fortune. Luck, as it were. Realizing that injury is something of an inevitability can be daunting and is something I’m wrestling with on the bike.

Finally, there was the run. The glorious, wonderful, final-stretch run. Although I went into the race believing all would be fine if I could just get through the bike, I began to doubt myself a little bit at mile 59.2. I worried that I didn’t have enough energy for the run. Fortunately, I was very, very wrong. The run was amazing and I was in the perfect frame of mind for it. It energized me, and I took it one mile at a time, knowing that only my favorite race distance stood between me and a half iron finish. Seriously. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a better mood starting a half marathon. It was especially interesting observing other runners. Judging from the looks on nearly everyone else’s face, I may have been the only one enjoying myself on that last leg. But then again, who knows what my face looked like. I finished the half in 2:14:16.

I achieved my goal, which was to finish. I made all the cutoff times and even did 22 minutes better than I hoped. Ultimately, though, I should have done better. I attribute part of this to a general lack of experience. I wasn’t totally certain when and how hard I should push. I attribute a much larger part to my poor nutrition/hydration plan. First, breakfast wasn’t nearly caloric enough. When I did my long bike ride the week prior I consumed double the calories I did before this race. And that was only for a bike ride! That was mistake number one. Number two was not consuming enough on the bike. Or the run, for that matter. It’s a good thing I was in such a good place for the run or I might have suffered more for that. Basically, I had a bagel for breakfast, four gels, some Mike and Ikes (don’t ask) and Gatorade. I know what you might be thinking:

Don’t look at me like that! It’s a learning process. And boy, did I learn. I realized just how bad a job I did with this when, the day after the race, I wasn’t sore at all. That can only mean that I had a TON left in me and just didn’t have the energy to tap into it. So that’s why I say I should have done better. I think I really could have.

But you know what? There’s this:

Mission accomplished. I'm on the right track, even if I have a long way to go. 

My Pre-Test Test (First 60 Mile Ride)

As you may have read previously, I signed up for the Bassman Half Distance Tri last week. I was (and still am) nervous about it, though I'm pleased to report that my fears were partly assuaged this weekend.

What scares me most about the race is the bike portion. At an attempt of the Amica Ironman 70.3 in 2010, I did not make the bike cutoff and thus was unable to start the half marathon leg. Granted, I'm in much, much better shape this time around, but that has done surprisingly little to shake my persistent fear of failure at Bassman.

Since my training started, I've gone on a few relatively long (40 miles) rides. But sometimes (especially last weekend) they go around the city, which is terrible for gauging how the ride will go under regular triathlon circumstances. Once I'd registered, I knew I had only one more opportunity to ensure that I'd have the ability to complete the bike course. (You might be wondering why I wouldn't make sure of this before registering for a half distance tri. For that, I have no reasonable answer. If I did things the right way more often, I'd find myself in many fewer frustrating, unfortunate and occasionally amusing situations. I'll save that introspection for another day.)

I knew this past weekend would be a pivotal one and that it would give me a good idea of where I stand in my training. I had the Verrazano Half Marathon on Saturday morning, planned a swim for later that day, and...a 60 mile bike ride planned for Sunday. The half went off without a hitch. The swim went well too, though I did it in a pool instead of the ocean because it was close to 40 (4.4 C) degrees out on Saturday.

I was anxious about the ride and calculated that I needed to be able to bike 58 miles in 4 hours and 30 minutes if I wanted to make the dreaded cutoff. That works out to 13.3ish miles per hour, which I knew should be very doable. The morning of, I puttered around the apartment, filling water bottles, devising some sort of nutrition strategy, and just plain old worrying. Once I had a bottle in each cage and some Shot Bloks in my tiny saddle bag, I was ready to go and headed off to Central Park.

And you know what? It was fantastic. I did 10 (yes, 10) loops of Central Park. I stopped when my cycle computer hit 58 miles so that I could make note of the time. 3:58. I knew I was in business. The whole ride came out to 62.4 in 4:15. Having the computer to monitor my pace was essential. I was doing hills at 9-11mph, downhills at 20-22mph, and tried to cruise at about 15. Here's another thing: it wasn't even hard. I wasn't sore on Monday and I wondered how much better I could have done if I had pushed it.

I didn't lose too much sleep over that. Mostly I was ecstatic that it really looks like I'll pull off Sunday's race. And even more exciting, I'm starting to really believe I'll be ready come August 11.