Cardinal Harbor 2009

Last year on my 40th birthday I had the worst day in my athletic life at the Cardinal Harbour ½ IM triathlon. The race included walking for >3:00 hours, being last in my age group, having Heather Golinck tell me to stop whining and run, having my wife pass me on the bike, swimming for 48 minutes and finishing in 7:38. That really sucked. There were a bunch of contributing factors including 95 degrees, working in California the previous week, flying home at the last minutes and mostly me being a pussy - wah wah wah.

My original plan this year was to not race again. I really didn't think that having another meltdown on the IM Louisville course (at Cardinal Harbor) was a good idea. Then I took off my skirt and signed up. So in order to prevent a replay of 2008 I decided to ignore the lessons of last year. I headed to California where I worked like a dog for the days leading up to the race. I worked at keeping the stress high by working my ass off in SJC. Then to make sure that I was really honed to an edge I gained 5 pounds then I got 4ish hours of sleep all week and then flew home at the last minute.

The morning of the race Jill and I got up at 5:15 and headed to Louisville. For breakfast I had 100 calories of Gatorade, an English muffin with PB (200 calories) , a Starbucks scone (510 calories) and a Starbucks breakfast sandwich (400 calories) for a total of 1210 calories.

We arrived very late at the race site (30 minutes before the race). I hauled all of the crap to the transition area and then setup.... well really just dumped the stuff out of my bag on the ground under my bike. I drank a bottle of EFS grape/EFS prerace/Cliff Apple 270 calories + 3 salt tablets. I then got on my new sausage wrapper aka Kiwami Torpedo and headed out to do a swim warm-up. Preventing the heart craziness of the past is always high on my mind. I swam for about 500 yards.

Finally it was time for the race start. I stood there and listened to Todd blab about the race. Took a piss in my suit... then listened to the girl sing the national anthem – she is awesome. Then Todd said all of fat old people would start in the second wave – 5 minutes after the first wave. OK fine. After the first wave there were a bunch of people swimming out into the river towards the first buoy. Apparently that was OK... so I did the same thing. Finally Todd launched the second wave. I clicked my watch 4 seconds early and started swimming. Everybody was pretty spread out so it was a pretty tame start. It took about 3 minutes for my goggles to fog up so bad that I couldn't see the huge red buoys 50 feet away. Not good. I settled into a comfortable rhythm and swam – very zig zaggy. There didnt seem to be much current today which made things better. I stopped to tread water, take up my goggles, and look for the next buoy. It turned out that I did this 3 times to figure out where I was. I made it to the turn around in 18:58. I then headed back to the start. Things went smoothly and I got out of the water in 35:25 (hey negative split). From there to the timing mat was another 50ish seconds.

In the transition area I started sorting out my stuff and getting rolling. I drank about 10-20% of a bottle of grape/apple (50 calories) and headed out. I really had to pee... but instead of going to the portaloo I just let it rip running out of transition. Other than piss shooting out of holes in my Rocket 7's it seemed OK.... and helped my time :-). The whole time in transition I could hear Jill yelling at me to hurry the hell up.... and I guess given the transition time of 2:29 she was right.

I got on the bike and got rolling... About 2 miles out onto the bike I took another drink of my transition bottle and promptly dropped it. Then a near disaster happened. I grabbed for the bottle and ended up going off the road at 20 mph. I went down the ditch. Up the next little bump... across the field then back on to the road. This was less than optimal. I think that most places on the course I would have been totally hosed. I tried to settle into my prescribed power of 250 but things were going a little bit hard. I averaged 255 watts for the first hour. There was a very fun little section of out and back at 1694. It has a nice downhill section on it where I got up to 45 mph. It is amazing how most people hammer uphill and coast downhill... when I do the opposite. Really the only thing to notice on the bike was that I eased up and let it rip onetime. That burgeoning skill I hope will save significant time in August. While that was going on my average dropped from 256watts down to 252 watts. I felt very solid on the bike... but I really wanted to run well so I didn't take up Jordan's offer to ramp it up to 260 in the last hour and I kept things at 254 (which is really more than he advised anyway … and would probably slap me for going 254 instead of 250). Overall I didn't really see to much on the bike. Almost no drafting. I did catch Gary at about mile 54 – and he promptly passed me back in the transition area. The one concern from the bike was the beginning of a soft stomach about mile 50. But I didn't worry about it and kept drinking. Overall on the bike I did 254 watts, 2:39, 21.2mph, 2 bottles @ 270 calories each, 1 bottle EFS shot 400 calories for a total of 940 calories.

I felt pretty solid going into transition. I dug out all of my crap. Sat down and put on my way cool compression socks (which multiple people made fun off). Slimed on some body glide and headed out. Jill yelled at me the whole time (again) to get rolling. My transition ended up being 2:33.

My stupid Garmin didn't lock but I started the timer and ran on. Finally about a mile? into the race the Garmin locked... and it hadn't been reset from the day before. So I reset it. After a minute I looked down at the watch and saw 6:50 on the pace. I thought “shit I messed up the display settings because there is no way I'm running 6:50 – I figured 9:00” after another minute I thought about it some more and realized that I was going way to hot. So I slowed down. I let my pace settle into 8:10ish/mile pace – which is still faster than the prescribed 8:23. But since it was so cool and I felt good I let it roll. In the transition I picked up the 270 calorie bottle of grape/apple which I carried until about mile 10 when I finally finished it. I did not drink/eat anything at any of the aid stations but did slow down to grab a cup of water to pour on my head. At one of the aid stations I picked up a glass of HEED instead of water which I promptly poured on my head. Heed is about as nasty being poured on your head as it is being poured in your stomach. The bottom line is that I ran 8:09 (according to the Garmin) for the run. I only had 270 calories during the run, but felt fine. I did feel like the grape/apple was getting very sticky and I was wanting to drink water (which I didn't do). The last mile of the race was very tough because it was in a field that had very thick grass. During this section I gave away 4 seconds/mile of average.

During the run I was passed by a guy who was absolutely hauling the mail. I had know idea who it was but I knew that I couldn't keep up with him for 400 yards (it turned out to be Max Longaree who did 5:49/mile). A little bit later I saw Shar and got to yell for her. I was also amazed by how fast Gary ran away from me during the run. After the last loop of the run a chatted with a guy who had been about my speed the whole time. I made some comment about him running away from me... he said haha he didn't think so … he asked how I was feeling … I said not to bad for a fat old slow guy... he said most people would kill for a 5:20 IM. At that point I thought that I was on track for 5:15. So... I was absolutely blown away when I got the finish line at 5:02:51.

Overall the race was
Place Place Name Age Time Pace Time Pace Time Rate Time Pace Time Pace Time Pace Time
1 22 Kevin Griffith 42 30:41.2 25:34 1:56.0 2:47:34.6 20.1 0:43.5 1:33:40.9 7:09 4:54:36.2**:36 4:54:36.2
2 32 Doug Maxwell 42 34:42.3 28:55 1:41.1 2:57:55.4 18.9 0:54.0 1:27:15.8 6:40 5:02:28.6**:28 5:02:28.6
3 33 Alan Hawse 40 36:02.2 30:02 2:29.4 2:41:01.7 20.9 2:33.8 1:40:44.0 7:41 5:02:51.1**:51 5:02:51.1
This seemed like a pretty decent effort. Clearly I left 2nd place in my age group during the picnic in transition. I don't think that I left very much on the table during the bike/run. Having the race at 75 degrees instead of 95 made a huge difference. The previous year only 1 person went under 5 hours. This day there was 31.

The one thing that I wonder about but cant figure out is why my Garmin had me at 8:09/mile and the RD had me at 7:41.

All in all
1.Swim wasnt as good as it should have been (maybe a couple of minutes)
2.Goggles problem need solution
3.T1 = hosed
4.Bike = good ride
5.Very worried about bike nutrition... maybe I had too many calories?
6.T2 = hosed
7.Run = awesome

Overall 5:02:51 … Wow!