Official Longhorn 70.3 Race Report

What a freaking week. Actually, what a freaking last two weeks. I am just now back home and sitting on my couch with my feet up for what seems like the first time in years. I promised a more detailed race report, so here we go.

We'll back up to the week leading up to the race. It was one of the longest weeks of work I've put in, and to be honest, it could have been much worse. I had analysts on my team working well into the morning hours most nights, was eating lunch at strange hours while at my desk putting down whatever I could find. I was missing planned taper workouts right and left. It was the worst possible week leading up to a race you could imagine.

I didn't have a minute to even think about the race, my nutrition plan, logistics for me or my family on race day, nothing until I got on the plane to fly down to Austin on Friday night.

Saturday came and it was packet pickup and bike drop off day. I did a short 20 minute ride around my parents house to make sure the bike was in working order, and to shake the rust off of my legs after not working out in a couple of days.

Packet pickup was at the Sheraton downtown on 11th street and it was a zoo. Lines, cramped quarters, etc. This was the second year of the race, but first as a 70.3 branded race, which means the entrants doubled year over year, so there were some organizational challenges experienced throughout the week that I'm sure Keith and Endorfun Sports will have ironed out by next year. I've got the race survey in my inbox and am waiting for some time to provide meaningful feedback.

I ran into David in line and we met up in the Pro Q&A for a bit. The panel was a good one. Kieran Doe, Richie Cunningham, Tim DeBoom, Bjorn Anderson, Simon Lessing, Bree Wee, Pip Taylor, Michellie Jones, and Lisa Bently. The questions were sort of boring, but the crowd was big.

I left the pickup to make the 20 minute drive east of downtown to the race sight, and while I was dropping of my bike, I noted how freaking hot it was, and that it was 2p, the time I thought I'd be finishing my race the next day. 90 degrees. So much for the low 80s Austin had earlier in the week. I took a big sip of gatorade and figured I'd better step up the hydrating.

I was in wave 12 of 14, so my race morning started off around 5a, not too bad. Parking was a zoo, but I found a good spot on the side of a road an easy walk from transition.

Body marking went smooth and I entered transition and started setting up. David was racked a couple of rows away from me and found me right away. We talked and got settled and it went smooth. A quick trip to the port-o-johns and I was ready to go.

Two weeks ago, we got an email from the race director saying the lake was in the high 80s, so wetsuits weren't likely to be legal, so I didn't even bring mine. By some amount of magical influence (ie icing down the thermometer, or dropping it in the deepest point of the lake) the temps were measured at 78 making it wetsuit legal for age groupers to the satisfaction of the slow swimming masses. There was no way this thing was 78.

So the waves set off in 3 minute increments and eventually I was up. We waded into the water, and the gun was off. For the first minute I was swimming through weeds and recall them wrapping around my neck and shoulders. Some even managed to latch on to my timing chip around my ankle and stay with me well into the first half of the swim.

In these 70.3 races, the competition is very good. You get the most serious of triathletes so I wasn't surprised when there were several swimmers up around me as we made our way to the first buoy. It took only 4 or 5 minutes before we'd caught the waves ahead, and it was chaos the rest of the way. I found a few feet to swim on for a minute or two in the first half of the swim and tried to take advantage when I could.

Before long, I was sighting the finish buoys and was up and running into transition. I looked down at my watch when crossing the first timing mat and saw 23:0x and thought, oops, someone measured this thing a little short. Another nod to the slow swimming masses by the race director. I figured I was going to swim about a 28 or 29 minute swim, so I'd say it was 5 minutes short at my swim pace.

Swim 23:28 (AG - 6th out of 224)

T1 was cake. I took my time, put my shoes on there rather than on the bike because so much of the transition area was dirt.

T1 3:33

Right after mounting my bike, some idiot was trying to get clipped in and was looking down at his pedals and not where he was going. He took a nice 90 degree left hand turn right in front of me and I had to slam my brakes throwing me off my saddle and headed for the ground. I managed to get a foot out of my pedals milliseconds before I was headed over and managed to stay upright, though I drove my chain ring right through the back of my leg opening up a pretty good scrape.

I told the guy he was an idiot, and went on my way.

The bike course was a blast. Rollers, wind, lots of turns. Because it was so variable, you were never doing any climbing or fighting the wind too long. It wasn't too hot that early in the morning and it was a pleasure. My meal plan for the bike was to take a clif shot block every time my stop watch hit a 20 min and a 40 min, and to take a gel when it hit the hours. I sipped water from my aero bottle whenever I felt like it and to wash down my gels and blocks, and tried to sip from my gatorade bottle every 10 minutes. I'd started putting just a few grams of whey protein into my first bottle of gatorade to promote digestion, and it seemed to work well.

The course was packed with riders, and I was overcoming people the entire way. It seemed a little like riding in the MS150 (more on the MS150 in a minute) because you are blowing past riders at a rapid rate all day wondering where the hell they are coming from. I guess that is a result of being the 12th of 14 waves and having such a short wetsuit legal swim.

I found myself riding with a few people for long stretches of the race. I'd pull ahead on flat or downhill sections, they'd pull away on climbs or when I was eating. Having that constant made me feel good. I rode through the first half of the course in 1:26 and was pretty pleased with that pace. I didn't have a computer on my bike, just my polar wrist watch (no HR strap) so I could occasionally look down at my speed, but the recording was intermittent so I knew the odometer wasn't going to be right. When I felt fast, I'd look down and be cruising at around 25 mph, when I felt slow, I'd only see 17 mph, so I knew I was moving well.

I tried to hold back a little on the climbs in an effort to save some legs, but other than that, was just riding comfortably. My cardio felt good the entire way. Legs did too. Back grew sore from being aero the entire way, but there were plenty of opportunities to stretch your back on downhills that had a sharp turn I'd have to break for anyways at the bottom.

Around mile 30, I was riding along up a slight hill when I dropped my chain. I thought about trying to pull it back on while still on the bike like I'd seen David Millar do at the start of the Prologue of a Tour de France a few years ago, but thought better of it. So I hopped off, spent a minute or so pulling it back on, then hopped back on and grinded my gears for a bit while trying to get going again before things were reset. I finished the climb and was cruising again.

During the second half of the ride, I looked around and felt like the scenery was very familiar. I figured the only way it could be was if we were on the same roads the MS150 used to roll into austin, and it turns out they were. Probably a good 7-10 miles toward the end was an overlap.

I ended up splitting a 2:43 which meant I brought the second half back in a 1:17 despite the chain incident. If I've learned anything in triathlon, it is that distances are never right, so who knows if the half way point was in the right spot.

Bike 2:43.04 = 20.6 mph avg (AG - 46th out of 224)

T2 was uneventful as well. I think I ran right past my spot on the bike rack for the 3rd or 4th consecutive race, but no big deal. Socks, socks, shoes, shoes, hat, number belt, go!

T2 2:39

I guess the run is where this thing got interesting. When does it not for me. I had to pee pretty bad, had tried to on the bike but couldn't relax enough to do it, and didn't think pissing all over my bike to save a minute was worth having a pissy bike I'd have to clean up when I got home. So I hit a port-o-john. One word of advice, if you have to pee after sitting in an aero position on a bike seat for 2+ hours, make sure your mouth is closed. You never know.

My plan for the run was to try to get comfortable as soon as I could, and hang on. I had no illusions of feeling golden at the end, so it was just a managed damage control march to the door steps of purgatory.

My HR shot up in the first few miles of the run from the excitement and change in motion. I think this may have led to my stomach shutting down a bit, because I noticed I slowly bloated as the race went on, and don't think I was absorbing as much of the fluid as I was putting down, but other than that, the GI track was good. No pain or cramping like last time.

The course was a 2 loop 6.5 mile track with about 4 miles on a long out and back on asphalt, and a 2.5 mile loop on grass/dirt trails. Let me tell you, this thing was hilly. Ups and down the entire way, including Quadzilla which was on grass/dirt at miles 4.7 and 11.2. The course had over 2,600 feet of elevation gain and loss on it according to my GPS watch.

Eventually I settled in and was ticking off 9:45 miles, was just trying to quiet my mind. Don't think about the heat, the hills, the people, anything. Zone out, hit the aid stations, and snap out of it twice a loop when I ran past my family.

After the first 4mi on asphalt, I was feeling okay, but as we hit the grass, the steep sharp hills started, and my legs started to load up with lactate acid.

I hit Quadzilla and there was an aid station at the bottom. I had no plans of running this thing, so I loaded up on fluids and started the climb up it. My GPS watch had the entire climb half a mile long at a 9.0% grade, with the steepest part 0.3 miles 13.9% grade.

At the top of the hill, there was a timing mat and a guy reading out names. About a second after my name was read, I hear the guy call out Female Pro Bree Wee from Kona Hawaii.

As she approached me from behind, I turned around to her and told her I loved reading her blog (http://breeweehawaii.blogspot.com/). She slowed a bit as she got next to me and gave sort of a sheepish laugh and said something I couldn't make out. I couldn't tell if she was laughing at me, so I asked her if I was coming across as a stalker, and she laughed harder. She said, "no, I'm just having another really bad day, and I'm sure you're tired of reading about my bad days on my blog." I told her to hang in there, and she looked over at me, stuck out her hand and said, "thanks, my name is Bree, what is yours?" We shook hands at the top of Quadzilla, she asked if I was on my last lap, and we talked about the weather a bit. She started to pull away from me, so I said goodbye to her, and she said "bye Greg, it was nice meeting you!" Pretty cool. The next thing I know, she turned the juice back on a bit and was gone.

As the run went on, my legs just started to lock up. At the start of the 2nd loop, I could feel my form going, and my power was gone. I started taking walk breaks on the uphills, which was very frequently. I tried to stick to the plan of running the flats and downs, and walking part of each hill, and all of the aid stations.

I was doing math in my head and knew no matter what, my swim and bike had set me up for a PR, even if I walked the second loop. I really wanted to go under 5:40, and started doing split calcs to make sure I was on track. When I got back on the trails for the last loop, I was hurting. It was hot as hell, and my legs were loaded. I ran down to the bottom of Quadzilla and started my march up it. At the top I had about 1.5 miles to go, and I was doing a run 2 minutes, walk 1 minute run/walk to bring it home. I cycled through about 5-6 times, and on the last few cycles, really had to dig deep.

I crossed the line with one arm in the air, proud of my PR.

Run 2:21.31 = 10:48 avg (AG- 129th out of 224)

Overall 5:34.17 (AG - 76th out of 224)

Usually when I finish, I am in terrible pain. I always leave it all out there. Normally within a few minutes of finishing, I start to feel better. For some reason, after I finished I didn't start feeling better. I actually started feeling worse. I made my way over to the medical tent and sat down for a minute. Someone found me a gatorade, and Ingrid found me and we just sat for a few minutes. My diaphragm started to tighten up and breathing started to become an effort. The volunteers at medical took me to one of the 50+ cots they had laying around in there as soon as one became available and hooked me up to an IV bag of saleen. I started to feel good in a matter of minutes, and the breathing was fine as soon as I lied down. Another bag (this time of electrolytes) and I was in good shape.

Ingrid and I left the kids with my parents that night and went to the post race BBQ that evening at the Hills Cafe in Austin. The food was good, the beer was cold, and the live music was outstanding as it always is in Austin.

I loved the race, and look forward to doing it again next year. I know I need more power to have a good run on that course. I'll probably need to hit the weights, and drop my weight a bit more (I lost 11 lbs in training for this thing, racing at 171lbs) to improve my power to weight ratio.

I've been out of town all week and am just now ready to go for my first run (or workout for that matter) since the race. I'm going to start with the running this week with the help of David, and hope to improve their a bit.

Off I go.