Swim, Bike, Run

Foxy Run Half Marathon

drexel13 — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 07:00:37 +0000

Last year burned me out on road-running, so this year, I thought I’d get back on the trails. I’ve been focusing mainly on distance, going up to 18 miles (mainly on trail) before this event, so I figured a half marathon should be more than doable as long as I didn’t go out too hard or try to kill it. The endurance training is hopefully for the Noble Canyon 50K in September, but registration doesn’t open up until July, so there’s not guarantee that I’m in yet. In order to stay uninjured, I knew I’d have to dial it back some for this race, so I made it the middle of a 20 mile training run. A 2-mile warm up helped set a reasonable starting pace for the 13 miles of racing – for which I planned to slowly ramp up speed and negative split the course. The plan also included a nice long 5-mile cool down, not just to hit my mileage goal for the day but also to help prevent muscle cramping and injury.

Things went mostly as planned, however I ended up forgetting my GPS watch, so I used my phone with a GPS mapping app to get the distance for warm up and cool down, and just believed that the course was about 13 miles because I didn’t want to carry my phone for the race. The only real problem with this is that I had to go purely on feel to gauge pace and effort. Interestingly, the race had two start waves, which is pretty unusual for trail races. I was in the first wave which was for runners who expect to average 7-9 minute miles. Since I was aiming for sub-1:45 finish time (<8 min mile), I figured starting in the middle of the pack for my wave would be a good way to keep from going out too fast. Just before the start of the race, the director announced that the first 50 runners would win a prize that they could pick off of the prize table, and I figured if I could manage my goals, I’d probably be in the top 50. This of course lead to a rather undesirable race mentality. Ideally, when I run I like to zone out – this is what usually happens when I’m just training. However, during races, I tend to get caught up in any and all metrics of my performance. For this race, I ended up doing a lot of accounting. At the first hard left turn, about a 1/4 mile in, I counted off runners and figured my position to be about 47th. My pace felt good and I figured I’d more than likely do more passing than getting passed, so a top 50 finish was likely. I stuck to the plan and slowly worked on moving up in the ranks, keeping track of my position as I passed (or got passed – it happened a couple of times).

I was holding about 35th place by mile 5 and I couldn’t see anyone in front of or behind me. The course is an out and back with a lolly-pop turn around and is actually a little bit shorter on the way back. At that turn around (about 7 miles), I saw one guy in front of me and one guy behind me. Slowly, I caught up to and passed the guy in front and saw another target up ahead – but knew the guy behind me was gaining. I stuck to my plan of slowly speeding up, but I guess I don’t know that for sure since I had no watch – I was definitely trying harder though. The guy behind me caught up just as I caught the runner in front of me, so I just maintained 34th position. There was a pretty long section of uphill where the guy who just passed me gained a bit more distance, but I caught him on a steep downhill where he went wide and I cut close to the inside of a turn in a sort of controlled fall. We ended up chatting for a bit and it turned out he wasn’t even entered in the race – so, I was #33 at that point by my count. That guy made for a good pacer, so I just stuck with him as much as possible. When we got to the last hill with about a mile to go, I passed one more guy, but fell behind my pacer a bit. There was a little more downhill where I mostly closed the gap again and could see two other runners just up ahead. I kind of thought they weren’t in the race either though, since one was male, running with a dog and the other one was female and looked to be running with the guy and his dog. When my “pacer” got right up behind the other two runners, he waved me up. He was maybe 10 yards in front of me and I got inspired to kick it into high gear, blowing by the other two runners (and the pacer). Then I heard the guy telling his dog “c’mon, c’mon!” and I knew he was trying to catch me, so I sprinted to the finish and avoided getting passed back (see photo to the right).

By my count, I was around #30 overall and the race director sent me to the prize table to take my pick. There were a lot of socks, and gels, etc. and I went for an 8-pack of Nuun, easily worth $45. That offset the already reasonable entry fee quite a bit! There ended up being a chip read error on my finish time and they had me coming in closer to 2:15 rather than about 1:42. After speaking with the race director and the timing guy, they were able to approximate my finish time as 1:41:54, just in front of the 3rd place female finisher. Upon seeing the corrected results, my accounting sucks, because I was 16th overall. They actually have me at 17th, but that guy I beat in the last few seconds is listed at 16th and I have the photographic evidence that I was in front of him. Also, I was never passed by a guy and his dog during the race, so he crossed the start before me as well. I’ve petitioned to have the results corrected, but I don’t expect that to happen and it doesn’t really matter anyway. My finish time below is based on the guy and his dog’s time – it might be a second or two faster, but I suppose I’ll never know. All in all, it was a pretty solid performance, especially considering it was just part of a 20 mile training run.

Time: 1:41:33 Pace: 7:45
Place: 16/255 Overall, 14/139 Men, 5/57 M30-39

Kendra Payne Memorial Triathlon

drexel13 — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 08:15:21 +0000

Four years ago, the Kendra Payne Memorial Triathlon (a.k.a. UCSB Triathlon) was the second tri I’d ever done. Last year, I decided to do it again, but got rained out. So, I thought I’d give it another go this year! Prior to this race, I swam exactly one time since the Carpinteria Triathlon - 800 meters, in Hawaii, a month ago. But that went OK and I didn’t even have a wetsuit on, so I figured a 500 meter swim with a wetsuit should, at the very least, be doable. I didn’t realize until well after the race that it was an 800 meter swim (in hindsight, my swim split wasn’t that bad). On account of the lack of swimming, months of only biking short distances at a relatively slow pace, and focusing on long, slow runs, I wasn’t sure what to set for goals, but figured having fun should be high on the list.

The swim was even colder than I thought it would be – probably about 52 F – but the first half went pretty quickly and smoothy. After that my arms started getting tight and tired, but I didn’t have any real difficulty. Also, there were surprisingly few collisions with other swimmers. There was a large section of the swim that went through some kelp beds which would normally freak me out, but I remained calm, potentially due to mild shock from the cold water. Once out of the water, we had to run up a couple flights of stairs to get to the transition area at the top of the cliff. This turned out to be quite draining, but getting switched over to biking gear still went quickly. I should also note that the transition area was on grass instead of asphalt, which was much appreciated.

Once out on the bike course, I was passing a lot of people immediately. That is always a good motivator, and looking at my speedometer, I was just a hair under 20 mph. I knew I’d feel good about the bike leg if I could average over 20 mph so I put in a little more effort and found it to be pretty easy to maintain. The second half of the bike leg went faster too, which helped my average pace quite a bit (note that the course is actually 16.5 miles, so the average is a little more than 20 mph). I have to give props to the old guys – I got passed by at least four 50+ year old dudes who were cruising! Those old dudes can ride! The odd thing is that I was passing dozens of collegiates and younger age groupers who had 15 and 5 minutes head start respectively.

T2 was also very fast, but while I was swapping shoes, I realized my feet felt like ice blocks. The running felt rather clunky at first, due mainly to the numb feet. My pace felt very slow, and was. Nevertheless, I was passing people left and right, and not getting passed, so that all fared well. About half way through, my legs loosened up and I was able to pick up the pace quite a bit. My feet were starting to feel better too, and by about 2 miles I was feeling normal and running smoothly. Too bad there was only about one more mile to go. The overall run time was slower than I would have liked, but the course was a little long and in the end I finally placed in my age-group in a triathlon!!!. I’ve come close before – frustratingly close – but it finally happened! That’s right, I took 3rd place of men 35-39. Interestingly, the medals they gave out are belt buckles (pictured above).

This seems like a good start to 2012!

Place: 91/311 overall, 79/205 Men, 3/137 men 35-39
Total: 1:29:22, swim 16:10, T1 2:07, bike 48:24, T2 1:13, run 21:28

Christopher Daily 5K Turkey Trot (2011)

drexel13 — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 08:30:11 +0000

The final race in my series of 10 (now 11 actually) to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society was the Christopher Daily Turkey Trot. This is a 5K race in Saratoga Springs NY, near where my parents live and this is the third year my family has participated in the race. It was not as cold as last year but very damp so once the race started, my lungs felt phlegmy pretty quickly. Between the limited training, lingering burn-out, cold weather and hilliness of the course (I forgot how hilly it is – again), this ended up being my slowest time yet for this event by about 30 seconds. What a pleasant surprise to find out that my time was still fast enough to get 2nd in my age-group – up from 3rd place the last two years. That’s part of the appeal of this race, I suppose; it is generally populated by high-school and college track athletes, so there’s not too many fast guys in the older age groups. Not a bad way to finish the year and the fundraising!

Time: 0:19:42 Pace: 6:21
Place: 47/2986 Overall, 40/1461 Men, 2/117 M35-39
Age Graded: 65.2%

Shelter Island 5K

drexel13 — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 07:30:22 +0000

This one I was talked into doing less than a week before the event. My wife and a couple friends of ours signed up because there is a champagne brunch included with the entry fee. So this is my #10 of 10 events to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Because of recovery time and some recent travel, I hadn’t run since the 5K last weekend, so I didn’t know what to expect. My first mile was way too fast at a 5:40 pace (according to my GPS, I went out at a sub 4:30 pace). The rest of the race was more consistent at about a 6:20 pace despite holding onto a poop like it was money for the second mile and feeling a bit like I was going to pass out by the end of the third mile. Overall placement was pretty good, but it’s a tough age-group.

Time: 0:18:54 Pace: 6:06
Place: 18/993 Overall, 18/??? Men, 6/54 M35-39
Age Graded: 68.1%

Remission Rocks – 5K

drexel13 — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 07:00:06 +0000

For event #9 of 10 to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, I ran a 5K charity that benefits the LLS through Team in Training. How meta is that? My friend Brad from the VineTeam put on this short trail race as part of his fundraising for IronMan New Zealand in 2012 (he’s raising $20K for LLS). Going in, I was not sure about goal times since racing so fast and short on trails was a first for me and I was unfamiliar with the course. Also, I’ve been lax on exercising lately and eating a ton so there was really too many variables to make a good finishing time estimate. It turned out to be a lot more technical than I thought it would be, but it was a fun and challenging course with a lot of turns, loose sand and rocky areas. Certainly, the choice to wear the trail running shoes was the right one. Hills were fairly numerous as well, but they were short. I managed to keep up with another friend from TnT, Felipe, for about 3/4 of a mile, but his pace was just too fast and it was so cold my lungs were burning. For the first mile I had a solid 2nd place, but took a wrong turn and dropped a spot. I spent the rest of the race trying to catch that guy but just couldn’t manage it. Still, 3rd overall is pretty good.

Time: 0:20:37 Pace: 06:39

Place: 3/64 overall, 3/30 men, 2/15 M30-39

City to the Sea 1/2 Marathon (again)

drexel13 — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 07:30:56 +0000

This was event 8 of 10 to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in memory of my friend Adam Milne. In 2007, I ran this same half and have been wanting to repeat it ever since because it is a fast, fun course (and is my half marathon PR). Originally thought I could train to break 1:25 and qualify for the NYC marathon, but I was not able to train properly. Two marathons and a 1/2 IM really took it out of me. So, if I don’t do a marathon in 2012, that would not be the worst thing.

At the start, I was all the way up front… next to the 1:30 pacer. I have no idea why everyone else lined up so far back, but I was specifically told by the 1:30 pacer to line up next to him. So I did, and there are a series of awkward looking photos as a result. Clearly, I was not the fastest person there (nor did I really think I was) because when the gun went off I was nearly trampled by the exceptionally fast runners. My strategy was to just run it as fast as I could, at an even effort level. I was actually on pace for about a PR for the first 10 miles, but then sun came out and the course got hilly (rolling) so that slowed me down a bit. The last 2 miles were pretty painful; I can’t remember last time I tried that hard at a race. In the end, I did much better than I thought I would given the lack of real speed training and felt good about keeping my pace and effort up despite being in zone 4 heart rate the whole time. There were double the number of entrants compared to the last time I ran it and I placed better percentage-wise too. Also, I got another top finisher mug, so that’s a cherry on top.

Time: 1:28:26 Pace: 6:45
Place: 37/1199 overall, 31/519 men, 12/78 M35-39
Age graded: 69.2%

PHOTOS

Carpinteria Sprint Triathlon (again)

drexel13 — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 08:20:21 +0000

Four years ago, the Carpinteria Sprint was my first triathlon. As the 7th of 10 events to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, I decided to repeat this triathlon. All morning, it was drizzling and roads were wet so I wasn’t looking forward to this. I even considered skipping out, but thought better of that considering that weather can be a great equalizer. Standing around before the start, lots of the other participants were oohing and ahhing at the waves rolling in. I guess I’ve been in San Diego too long to be troubled by a couple 4-foot waves. Having only swam once since Vineman, this was not my greatest swim, but it felt OK overall. There was one thrasher that I couldn’t keep away from though. If I sped up to pass him, he’d start swimming on top of me. If I slowed down to let him pass, I’d be on his feet in just a few strokes. Finally, I just swam more to the outside which probably cost me some time, but saved my sanity an probably a bloody nose. The long, beach-jog back to transition is included in the swim time, so that helps make the split much less impressive, but I did end up in the top third of swimmers – almost the top 1/4. That is really good for me (must have been all that time off from swimming).

T1 was pretty standard. Everything was starting to get pretty wet though, so getting my socks on was a little more of an ordeal than usual. The sprint event racks were furthest away from the bike out/in and my wave was almost at the very end, so the transition time includes a long trot out in cycling shoes, pushing my bike. I feel like I’ve begun to master this trot though.

The wet roads really slowed me down on the bike at first. It was frustrating to not even be hitting 20 mph on such a short and flat course, but I knew riding through all that water was slowing everyone else down as well. On the back stretch though, I was able to cruise at a comfortable 27-28 mph even though it felt like it was into the wind. That certainly helped make up time and I didn’t find cornering to be too bad on the wet roads, so I hardly had to slow down for that. Pulling up to the transition area, I remember thinking I felt more wet after the bike ride than after the swim. While my bike split was barely a PR for this course, given the weather circumstances, I feel pretty good about it. My split was good enough to be in the top 5% anyway.

For the same reasons previously mentioned, T2 includes another long trot 90% of the way through transition. When I got back to my rack, I looked around and saw only one other bike racked-up from my age group. This had to mean I was in 2nd place, which made me quite nervous since there was still a 5 K run to go and my running has not been very quick as of late. I swapped out my gear as quickly as possible and headed out for the run.

Let me backtrack for a minute: while standing around waiting for the start, I was hanging out with my friend Ricky Ho. If you don’t know Ricky, suffice it to say he is an insanely fast runner (sub 3-hour marathoner and can do a 5K in about 16:30) who also happens to be the same age as me, so when he’s there, I’m pretty much automatically one place lower. Another friend, Matt Trost (Matt & Ricky were both on my 2010 R.U.T.E. team) came over and pointed out that the worst thing about racing against Ricky in a triathlon is that you might beat him out of the water and off the bike, but then you have to worry about him catching you on the run. Now, back to the run: not only was I worried about maintaining my placement, I was really worried that Ricky would catch me (it was not his bike racked-up). The first two miles kind of meander through some neighborhoods, then it pops out onto a main road, right before the turn around. From there it’s a pretty straight, and slightly downhill, stretch to the finish. One guy passed me in that first two miles, but he was in a younger age-group and was only about ten feet in front of me when I hit the turn-around. As soon as I started heading back, I was checking the calves of the people still running out. I felt like I was giving it a lot of effort and was worried I couldn’t keep it up, so I wanted to know if there was anyone in my age-group who was within catch-up distance (your age is written on your calf for the race). There were about five or six people who were potential candidates to pass me but none were in my age-group. Just as I was feeling some relief, I saw Ricky. And he was bookin’ really fast. Now, I was concerned that not only would he catch me, but it would be right before the finish. As I got closer to the finish and he continued to not pass me yet, that dread only got worse. This turned out to be good motivation though and I was able to eek out a little more speed. With about a quarter of a mile left, I passed the younger guy who had originally passed me, and once I got around the final corner, I launched into an all-out sprint – every step wondering if Ricky was going to pass me. Well, I ended up finishing only about 20 seconds ahead of him. For the record, Ricky had the fastest overall run; mine was sixth (and a run PR for this course).

About 10 minutes later, the preliminary results were up and I was in 2nd place for the men’s 35-39 age group. I figured I should stick around for awards so I grabbed some free food and hung out for a bit. For about 40 minutes, I was elated! I had finally placed in a triathlon after four years of trying. Then I went and checked the results again only to find out I was now in 4th place. How that happened, I don’t know. As I said before, there was only one bike from my age group in T2 when I racked-up, and no one passed me on the run (except a 30 year old that I passed back and it wouldn’t matter anyway). Supposedly two guys had timing chip issues which is why they didn’t appear in the results at first, but unless they racked up in the wrong place (which is a time penalty BTW) then something is not right here. This is still really disappointing to me as I write this…

Place: 32/471 overall, 28/250 Men, 4/31 men 35-39
Total: 1:04:26, swim 13:28, T1 2:47, bike 26:23, T2 2:04, run 19:30

Do not adjust your set…

drexel13 — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:12:20 +0000

~~I’m messing around with new web-hosting services and I’m kind of stuck at this point for now. The old site is still up and functioning, but for how long I do not know. You can access it here:~~

~~http://web.me.com/dyot13/racing/Race_Log/Race_Log.html~~

Update 9/17/11: I’ve taken the old site down. This new one contains all the old info and comments. I’ll be adding back pictures and fixing links over the next few… days? weeks?

Goleta Beach Duathlon

drexel13 — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 08:20:41 +0000

Originally, the Goleta Beach Triathlon was supposed to be a 1/2 IronMan distance and I was signed up for it, knowing full well that it was only two weeks after a the Vineman 1/2 IronMan. When the race director announced that they couldn’t get the permits for the longer distance and had to limit the race to an Olympic distance, I was initially disappointed, but that quickly turned to relief when I realized I didn’t have to do two 1/2IMs in two weeks. Also announced, was a duathlon event, which is appealing to me since it cuts out my weak leg – the swim. After finishing the Vineman 1/2IM, I was really glad that I was not doing that distance again for this next event. By the way, this is event number 6 of 10 to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and honor the memory of my friend Adam.
So my grand scheme was to cherry-pick this duathlon, win my age-group and potentially place well overall. Surely after a 1/2 IM, and two weeks off/easy this duathlon would be a breeze. That plan went down the drain a week before race day when I ended up with some pretty severe food poisoning. I collapsed a couple times, ended up in urgent care, got 2 liters of saline, some morphine and dilaudid – all at the great inconvenience of my wife as well (she really deserves recognition for being able to get me into the car in the shape I was in, then staying up all night at the hospital with me). It was five days before I could really eat anything substantial so I was dropping weight real fast. The day before the race, I thought I was OK, ate a pretty normal amount and even felt like I had some appetite again. Things were not quite as good come race morning though and a general lack of energy had me doubting my ability to actually complete, let alone compete in, this event. My overall health felt like it had been set back a step or two. Even the short bike ride over to the race site seemed difficult, so I really thought I was in for a jog-coast-jog rather than a real race.
When it came time for the duathlon start, the run director gave us an overview of the run course since most the sprint division messed it up and cut it really short. Then, we were told that where we were standing was the starting line and “ready, set, go!” So we were off! I went out a lot faster than I thought I could and was cruising along pretty good for the first 1.3 miles, then the run a lot more effort as we ran through sand along the beach. For the most part, it was pretty hard-packed, but the tide was on its way in, so we were quickly running out of good space to run on and getting inched up into the loose sand. At the end of the first run leg, I was miraculously in 4th place overall.
First transition was fast and easy as you’d expect in a duathlon. I even managed to get out before another guy, moving up to 3rd overall for the time being.
When it came to the bike ride, I was just plain not fast enough. The first 4 or 5 miles were slow, albeit over wet and bumpy areas of bike path, so it wasn’t just my weakened state holding me back. When we got out onto the roadways, I was able to pick up the pace quite a bit. I was still being passed by other duathletes though, which was kind of disappointing, but there wasn’t really much I could do about it. One thing that really irritated me was this one older guy came cruising by me, intentionally drafting off the person in front of him. Not only that, they were both riding in the middle of the road where the pavement was smooth, and while that makes for a nicer and faster ride, it’s actually called illegal position – you have to stay to the right unless actively passing. In the end that guy did get penalized two minutes, but he should have been disqualified since he rode that way for several miles that I saw. I myself, managed an average of about 21 mph overall, without cheating, and kind of handicapped, so I felt pretty alright about that.
Heading back into transition, I was 7th overall, and thought if I could at least hold my position, I might end up placing within my age group still. T2 was smoother and faster than T1, as you might expect and all there was left to do was run just a little less than a 5 K (the run was only about 2.75 miles both times).
Oh how the second run leg sucked. Right off the bat, I was feeling slow and fighting calf and quad cramping. I was probably averaging about a seven minute mile on the paved section, but when I hit the beach again the tide had come in far enough to complete cover the hard packed sand. So, we all had to slog it through 1.5 miles of loose sand. The last half mile, my right quad was infinitesimally close to balling up into a giant cramp. I just kept telling myself to hold on just a little bit longer and was apparently able to manage that. Somehow I must have passed one other duathlete during the run because I ended up in 6th place overall and took first in my age group. That was only out of two people, but man I would have been upset with second place, so yay me! Not bad for a guy who crapped off 5+ lbs this week.

Place: 6/37 overall, 5/26 Men, 1/2 men 35-39
Total: 1:52:09, run 17:01, T1 1:20, bike 1:12:28, T2 1:06, run 20:14

PHOTOS

Vineman Half Ironman

drexel13 — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 08:30:41 +0000

The 2011 Vineman Half IronMan served as my fundraising platform for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through Team In Training. For months beforehand, I was dreading the potential weather as it is usually quite hot and humid in Sonoma County that time of year. Additionally, the weather had been unseasonably cool in San Diego, making hot-weather training impossible. Fortunately, there was a break in the weather up north for race weekend, and even with my 8:30 AM wave start (second to last wave), I figured I could get through at least half of the bike ride without having to worry about heat and sun. The other concern I had was water temperature for the swim in the Russian River. Near race day, the temperature was upwards of 76 F, which is darnn close to the USAT cutoff for allowing wetsuits – and I definitely wanted a wetsuit since I was already losing buoyancy swimming in fresh water rather than salt water. Luck was on my side again as the official water temperature was 70 F on race day, so it was wetsuit-legal.
The group I was traveling with arrived at the start before 5 AM so I had a bit of a wait, but on the upside I was able to secure the best possible spot in the transition area. After lots of waiting around it was time to get in the water. Immediately it seemed weird because I’m used to the salty taste of the ocean. We swam upstream first, though the river was barely flowing. At the turn around the river was very shallow and many people stood up and walked. I was swimming past the walkers, so I stuck with that plan until the water got less than knee deep. At that point I stood up just long enough to run a few strides and check my watch, then shallow-dove back in. My watch had read 21:20, which boded well since the swim was shorter on the way back and we were now going with the current. For a while, I was pulling myself along the river bed with my arms, but again, I was going faster than the walkers so it seemed like a good idea to keep “swimming”. Eventually the water got deeper again and the return swim felt really fast. I got out of the water in a little more than 38 minutes which turned out to be a 1/2 IM PR. While I was excited about that, at the same time I knew I was in for a tough time the rest of the race because I had said if I swam it fast, then I’d try for an overall PR. So, no slacking!
T1 was interesting because the bike course is point to point, meaning that there are two different transitions areas. So everything from T1 had to be packed up for transport to the finish which adds some time. Also, because my wave was so late, most of the transition area had been packed up and moved, so it was nearly empty. After reapplying sunscreen and wrestling all my wet gear into a bag, I was headed out for the ride.
The bike started well and the weather was still overcast and cool. There was a sharp (120 degree) downhill turn at mile 5 with plenty of carnage as I rode by. Though my heart rate was a little high I was managing over 20 mph pretty easily and didn’t want to slow down since I was on track for a PR. Then disaster struck 17.5 miles in. My rear tire started clunking, so I stopped to check it out and saw a nail sticking out of it. Sure enough, when I pulled the nail out, the tire deflated. This was the first time I had to deal with a flat during a race. I’m not sure if it was karma or premonition – there were several people I rode by earlier who had flats and I didn’t stop to help or bother to ask if they had everything they needed because I didn’t want to lose time and was worried about possibly needing my spare. The tire change went pretty smoothly, though I made no effort to be tidy about it, grabbing the chain with a bare hand to get it on and off the rear cassette. It took 5:01 to complete the change which is pretty good for a rear tire and the added stress of race conditions. The tire was a little soft afterward, but I didn’t want to risk just letting more CO2 out while trying to put more in, nor did I want to take more time to do it. I figured if it got too flat, I could stop again and fill it up a bit more. The rest of ride went pretty well, but it was almost 40 miles of trying to make up for lost time and worrying about that rear tire – or worse, getting a second flat since I only carry one spare. The weather continued to cooperate for the majority of the bike leg with only a few patches of sunshine here and there, but it was HOT when sun poked through. After about 40 miles, I started to get stomach cramps, like there was brick in my gut. This made fueling very difficult and I stopped eating anything altogether, managing sips of water and a little gatorade here and there. As a result, I only took in about 100 calories in the last two and a half hours. The cloud cover gave way with about 5 miles left on the ride and the temperature started to rise. Still, this was much better than the conditions I thought we were going to have, so I was thankful that it held out as long as it did. When I rolled into T2, I checked my bike split and saw that I still managed a PR on the bike (though only by a few seconds) despite the flat tire. I thought PR for the race was still possible if the run went well, but it was getting hot and I didn’t know if it would happen or not.
T2 was pretty quick. I had to pee and was going to use a porta-potty in the transition area, but they were all in use. So, I just held it the rest of the race.
There’s not a lot to say about the tun. It started well, but I kept fading, especially once the course got out into the exposed vineyards. It was was hilly, getting hot, and I couldn’t really take in calories. Most of the time, I was trying to calculate how fast I would have to run to make the PR. For the first half of the run, it still seemed doable, but the conditions (and my condition) were just not favorable enough in the end. I still finished strong though!
While I’m really happy with my finish time, I can’t help but be a little miffed about that flat tire. It would have been a PR if not for that flat, I would have been 11 spots higher (67/273) and averaged 20.2 mph on the ride. Still, I did way better than I thought I’d do here.

Place: 473/2052 overall, 373/1376 Men, 78/273 men 35-39
Total: 5:19:26, swim 38:20, T1 4:55, bike 2:51:28, T2 3:06, run 1:41:37

PHOTOS