Roll Your Own 1/2 Ironman

Last Saturday, I ran a 1/2 IM that I designed and ran pretty much alone.  It was a good indication, I think, of how IMTX will be although I hope that my transition times are considerably less.  I'd like to note that this race was better organized than Jethro's Iron Distance triathlon of 2007.

I started with a 1.2 mile swim in the Downtown Y pool.  There are crazy people swimming lots and lots of laps at 7am on a Saturday and one woman doing water aerobics/treading water for at least 51 minutes.  I prefer to sleep in, thank you very much.

After rinsing off the chlorine, I changed in the Y and then finished transition in the parking lot with Anita's van.  25 minute transition.  Hopefully a minimum of 15 minutes longer than TX.  I hopped on my bike and pedaled down to the start of the Cap2Cap bike ride.  I was late getting to the Y and with the long transition, I missed the start of the 50 milers, so I started with the 25 milers.

This was a fabulous ride.  As I posted on Facebook, I much prefer racing a ride than riding a race.  I passed many riders.  So many, in fact, that I caught up with at least some of the 50 milers, which felt like a victory.  It was a beautiful day for a ride.  I stopped for a potty break 1/2way and lost 13 minutes to the portajohn line.  I considered peeing in the bushes, but just too many people.  I also stopped to allow several women to admire my bike.  I really am enjoying having a cool bike.  I'm not sure if it was just that people were riding instead of racing, but I was passing people like I have been passed all my life - like they were standing still.  THAT IS FUN.  I highly recommend it.  It may even be worth 6 months of speedwork.  Maybe.

I found the zen on the bike.  I averaged 16.2, which is awesome for me for a 56 mile ride.  Elevation gain was a bit more than I'll experience in TX and I had a good headwind coming home, which is fully expected for the return ride in TX (56 mile of headwind.  Ugh).  The Bike Coach has provided me with some different methods of approaching the wind, mostly just to get out of my head, so really good approaches.

The last 2 miles were up Main St with lots of stop lights, traffic and even construction.  That was ugly, but the hills were fine, shouldn't have many or any stop lights in TX.

Changing in the van resulted in a bit of a long transition at 13 minutes, but not too bad considering having to stow the bike and change inside the van.

And off on the run.  This is when I realized I'd not put on any sunscreen, nor did I have any.  So, new course - run home for sunscreen, water & a bathroom:  perfect!  So an extra 6 minutes or so for the rest stop at home and then back to Monument Ave to finish up the rest of the run.  The Saint stopped me for a quick kiss and Low Ryder joined me for a few VERY warm & sunny miles on Monument, which was great.  I  kept ever mile under 12, which is the game plan for TX too.

With all transitions, a couple of unplanned and unTXlike stops and many, many phone calls on the run, I finished in 7:58:29.  Conservatively, I'm sure that without the extra transition and 13 minute portapotty line, this time is equivalent to 7:30, at most.  That gives us a IMTX goal time of 16 hours, with hopes for better than that.

As long as it's under 17, it's a major victory, right?