Pre Race: I had a hard time falling asleep the night before.
A lot of going through my head, am I fully recovered from Placid? Will I flat? What
if…??? You get it…
I am trying to develop consistency with my days leading up
to a race. I tried to emulate the same things I did in Lake Placid.I managed to get some pancakes at IHOP before heading up. Strawberry banana and chocolate chip...SO GOOD I had a
nice salmon dinner with mashed potatoes from UNOs, which was delicious by the
way.
As for breakfast, back to that consistency thing, I had 2
eggs, bacon and a bagel from Dunks, coffee and a banana that morning.
4 of the 6 people I was staying with heading to Ellacoya
around 5am to get into transition. Pretty normal stuff, body marking and
transition set up was a breeze.
Pancakes at IHOP |
Swim: 32:32 Before we actually started my buddy got the
announcer to give me a shout out about my mustache...”Bring that mustache to
the finish line” was what he said before the horn went off. The swim went well
overall, stayed with the lead pack until the first turn buoy and was dropped
shortly thereafter. Swimming into the sun was tough, but I have done this
course before, I was somewhat ready for that. Final turn into the transition
area I picked up the pace, got stripped and went to my bike.
Bike: 2:46:38 I came
out of transition ready to roll. I hopped on my bike rode with in my watts for
the first 10miles or so. The uphills in the beginning were tough and my heart
rate was very high. My HR was high the entire day to begin with. I pushed a
little bit harder getting out to flat portion of the course heading to the race
track(Loudon) I stuck to my nutrition plan, strayed from my watts and toward
the end of the bike I began to feel sick, nauseous almost. 3 Gu/hr +2 salt tabs
every 30min and water only on the bike throughout. I couldn’t seem to get my HR
down at all not even on the downhills it was still relatively high. I finished
the bike happy with a PR, still feeling fresh to run.
Run: 1:53:54 Bike was racked shoes and race belt on and off
I went. I felt great coming out of T2 and hitting 8min miles until mile 9 or
10. I was taking in my nutrition well, GUs water and coke with salt tabs. At
some point after the second loop, maybe around mile 7 or 8 I got that sick
feeling again and couldn’t stomach anymore GU. I ditched taking the GU and
stuck with coke water and salt tabs. At the turn around on my second loop, the
spectators were giving out beer shots and sure enough I decided to take one. I
figured it couldn’t make me feel any worse then I already was feeling. Once I
crossed the finish line I looked up saw Potts and he gave me my medal which was
awesome! Shook his hand and he gave me a congrats. It was awesome to see him at
the finish line handing out medals to the finishers.
Overall: 5:17:11 I was extremely happy with my PR. My
fastest half was 5:49 in Syracuse last summer, so to take off 30 minutes was a
great accomplishment. The only downside to racing 3 weeks after IMLP was that I
was very tired and a fought it all day. At times it felt like I was biking
still and my stride on my run as if I was walking. After the finish, there was
tons of food and everyone that raced got a free beer, which was all ok in my
book. The course is challenging, but the scenery makes up for it.
Post race beers and mustaches |
Garmin Splits:
Thanks for reading!
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