Kinetic Lake Anna Half Ironman
April 22, 2006
Our (my friend Dave & my) main questions heading down to the race were #1, would the race be cancelled because of the thunderstorms that were forecast for Saturday, and #2, what kinds of times would we be able to do. Never having done a half Ironman before we were really unsure what to expect on that -- I knew I could do the 1.2 mile swim in a pool in 31 minutes, but the bike & run were unknowns. In the few 50+ mile training rides we'd done, it had taken us around 4 hours - and when we were done, I can tell you, we were in no mood to run 13.1 miles. In the one half marathon distance training run we did, it took us 2 hours flat. But that was fresh. Six hours for the whole race looked like a daunting time -- looking at the times for last year's race, we realized that the kinds of times we were looking at would put us in about the 80th percentile or lower, quite a difference from the races we did last year , the sprint and olympic distance tri's , where we came in the top third or half or so without too much effort. But looking at the times for the Half, we realized that this was a much more serious group of people. But we didn't really care about that so much as whether we could a) finish it and b) as a secondary goal, do so in under 6 hours. That would require a bike of about 3 hours, a run of about 2 hours, a solid swim of about 35 minutes, and 25 minutes leeway to play with (and for the 2 transitions).
Race morning we got up at 5:15 for our high-carb breakfast, and headed over to Lake Anna State Park. It was cloudy but no rain and the streets were actually mostly dry despite the rain most of Friday. We got to the setup area, checked out the layout, dipped our toes into the lake (not as cold as we had feared) got our packets and timing chips, got body-marked, and began setting up. I pumped up my tires and had a problem with the valve on my front tire and got a little frustrated and tense. Then the setup got really frantic for me -- as I was wheeling my bike to the transition area, the back tire blew (it's possible that I overinflated it accidentally due to my frustration with the front tire, or the new tube I'd just put in may have been defective). So then I had to change the rear tube, which took a while, and then I was running late, and then I realized I'd left my race packet in Dave's van that had my race number and safety pins and swim cap in it, and then a referee told me I couldn't race because I was missing a plug for one of my handelbars, so I had to go over to the bicycle support guy, and then rush down to the beach for the final announcements from the race director. I saw Dave, said good luck, and barely had time to rip the tag off my wetsuit (a rental that, as it happened, was brand new) before the horn blew and the race was on. By this point, I felt like I'd already run a race, of some kind. But all I can say is thank god the tube had the good grace to blow BEFORE the race.
The water felt surprisingly warm when we dipped our toes in earlier, but diving in all the way, even in the wetsuit (mine was sleeveles) took my breath away. I plowed on and the feeling passed, and I bumped and jostled a few other swimmers but it wasn't bad, and settled into a pretty good rhythm, neither super aggressive for a 1.2 mile distance nor relaxed. I found a good pair of feet to draft behind for a good half of the first loop. Then it was out of the water, up on the beach, around the pylon, and back in the water for the second time around the bouys. Coming into the water, I was quite winded -- my heart rate mst have skyrocketed in the effort of getting in and out of the beach. Ideally that is something that I would have practiced -- the fastest way to get out of the water on a gradual beach; when to stand, when to keep swimming, when to porpoise dive, etc, and most importantly how to do it all without it feeling like a little wind sprint. But soon I settled back down to my normal rhythm. Going past one of the faraway buoys I did a 90 degree turn only to plow into a guy who was going straight; I looked up and realized this wasn't the buoy I was supposed to turn at -- sorry dude whoever you were. I found another swimmer I
also drafted behind for much of the second half of that lap. Soon enough I was at the beach again and the race was over. Overall I felt quite good about the swim. I was in my usual swimming rhythm, felt comfortable except for my wetsuit was too tight (should have tried it on when I picked it up at Bonzai but was in a hurry) which constricted my breathing a little, but not cold or tired.
Up the beach again, this time into the transition area at an easy trot, and over to my towel. Definitely took the transition a little slower than I usually do knowing that this was going to be, if I was lucky, a 6-hour race, and because I hadn't had time to make sure things were organized as well as I would have liked. On with my shirt, and then jammed a bunch of food in the back (too much, in retrospect). I forgot to set my split timer on my watch as I ran across the timing mat, but I looked at it at some point in the middle of the transition and saw it was at 33:00 something, which meant I had come at least within the neighborhood of my best time for the distance in the pool, 31:18. Later I found out my swim split was 32:30 which I was happy with. Even though I was wearing a wetsuit which is supposed to speed you up, I also had to deal with naviating, jostling other swimmers, the short beach run between laps, and most of all the less-than-straight line I know I followed throughout the course. (Not doing flip turns and getting the push off a wall is an unknown quantity to me; in theory it speeds you up but it may also tire you out on a long swim and I get my best times on 50-meter pools where you do only half as many turns).
Except for the first half hour or so, the bike ride was fine. The first 20 minutes or so of the bike was mostly uphill, and it made me realize that in training I usually get a bit more of a breather after my swims before biking, and that makes a difference. Then of course there were the guys steadily streaming past me. The number of people who are faster swimmers than me but slower bikers is just about zero, but the converse is much more common and they all passed me. I was thinking before hand of having a t-shirt made that said on the back in big letters: "Caution: Swimmer - pass with care" The rate of people passing me slowed down but there was a big burst at first, and it can be a little demoralizing even for those who have no ambition of competing with the guys on the $5,000 bikes (I have a bike that I'm very pleased with, would probably retail for $1,300 or something new, someone told me, but at this event I felt like I was riding a Huffy . There was a lot of really really nice equipment on display). Also I was drinking my Accelerade -- it was 55 minutes into the race and I knew I needed the liquid and the carbs -- but it was tasting really nasty, and I tried to eat half a Cliff bar and, though I usually like them, I could barely get it down. After that I stuck to bannanas and gels (which I don't usually like very much on training rides & runs) both of which went down really easily.
Another lesson: I vowed to get a racing belt next time, because my number, which was pinned to my shirt, was filling up like a sail. Who knows how much it slowed me down but it had a psychological effect. Plus I started to realize a lot of the bikers weren't even wearing their numbers, making me realize it was only really required for the run - damn.
Did I mention that it finally started to rain about 9 minutes into the bike? It continued to do so for about the next 2 hours ranging from steady rain to drizzle, but it was warm enough out and didn't really pose a problem. I barely noticed when it stopped; I was just glad there was no thunderstorm.
The first loop through beautiful Virginia farmland went quickly, and the second was more work. The riders of course stretched out; there was about a 20-minute period at one point where I couldn't see any bikers in front of or behind me. I had the hopeful thought that maybe I had been passed by my last biker. But then a wave of super-duper athletes on their super-duper bikes went 
raging by me. I noticed the "Q" marked on their calves and realized these guys were doing the Quarter IM, which started 30 minutes behind us, and were leading the pack.
In the second half of the second bike loop, which felt, at least, to be mostly uphill, I was getting pretty tired, and I could feel the lactic acid buildup in my muscles as they got tireder and tireder and weaker and weaker on the hills.
Did I mention that there was a 12-year-old kid doing the Half? Did I mention that he passed me on the bike about 10 minutes before the finish of the bike (never to be seen again by me). It's definitely important in races to stay focused on one's OWN performance and not get enticed into going too fast and tiring oneself out. In my own terms, I was very happy to see that my average speed, which I had been keeping an eye on throughout, remained above 30 km per hour, which meant that I would break my goal of 3 hours for the approximately 90 km of the bike leg. My bike split turned out to be 2:55:03, which I was very happy with considering my earlier doubts about being able to break 3 hours.
A nice final downhill ride back through Lake Anna State park, dodging the numerous people who were already on the run (many of whom, at least I could remind myself, were doing the quarter), and then back into the transition area, where I finally figured out where my bike tool kit and my bodyglide were when I tried to put on my running shoes (I'd forgotten, I stuck them inside). Good thing I didn't need the tool kit! I emptied out the garbage from the pocket in the back of my jersey (empty gel packs, bananna peel, water bottle tops, etc.), changed shoes, and it was off to the half marathon!
Wow did my legs hurt! When we first started doing this I remember being shocked at the feeling you get in your legs when you try to run after a hard bike. But I had long since gotten past that on my training bike/runs, even the short 5k's Dave & I did after some of our 50+ mile rides. But after 2:55 riding hard at race pace, the brick legs were back with a vengeance! I must have looked like the most pathetic, decrepid nanogenarian as I left the transition area (didn't help that the path included a steep grass embarkment). But I shuffled along, comforted by the knowledge that it usually gets better after a few miles -- which it did, after about a mile or two. Of course, people were regularly streaming by me. There was one guy I noticed after a while who was ahead of me -- and for some reason actually not pulling further ahead. I ran behind him for about 2 miles and then when he slowed down at an aid station to drink I was next to him and we began chatting, and I ran next to him (Tim from MD) for the rest of the race, which helped to make the miles go by faster as we did some chatting and also gave me someone to suffer with ("my god, we've come around this corner and the turnaround point is STILL not in sight?!!!"). Tim was also a swimmer - a damned good one actually -- which explained why he was running at my pace.
After the second turnaround on the Y-shaped course (which we ran 2 loops of, or 6 out-and-backs), I saw Dave go by in the other direction which was also fun. I was suprised how close behind me he was considering that Dave was in the second wave to go into the water 5 minuts after mine, and I realized he was also running a pretty good race -- and in fact was sure to pass me on the run, he being a much stronger runner than I am. But as the run progressed I realized he was further back than I thought though he did do the run like 8 minutes faster than me.
Tim and I settled into a tolerable platueau of suffering and got through the first loop and the next 4 miles pretty well, but the last stretch seemed to go on forever and I began to seriously ask myself what in the HELL I was doing out there and how pointless it all was (and Triathlons ARE completely pointless - just like music and art and life itself I guess). But I never stopped running, not even in the aid stations where it was hard to drink from their cups without walking, because my personal experience in training is that once I stop deep into a long run all kinds of pain comes to the fore and then doesn't go away once I start running again. I took 3 gels during the run with no stomach discomfort or nausea at all -- they were quite enjoyable actually.
Finally we got into the home stretch, still running alongside Tim even though both of us had given up on conversation several miles back. We went down a steep hill into the finishing funnel, and I sped up letting gravity pull me as I always like to do running down hills, and then I saw a guy running slowly ahead of us and was inspired to speed up even more to pass him and then found that I coulud sustain the sprint-to-the-finish even though it turned out to be the longest finishing funnel I'd ever seen, going on and on through all kinds of twists and turns, I kept pouring on the speed and it felt great (even though I felt kinda bad that Tim might think I was just sprinting to get ahead of him which was not what I set out to do). 
Then, across the finish line (the announcer misread my name as I came across "from Arlington, Virginia, JAN Stanley" -- oh well). As soon as I stopped running, I instantly felt like I could barely move or walk, but I forced myself to pace around for a few minutes until Dave came across, and cheered him on, and then gave him a hearty slap on the back -- we had done it! Less than 6 hours!! We were half-ironmen!! (Let's see, the element iron has the atomic number 26, and half of 26 is 13, so, according to the periodic table, we are, yes, ladies and gentlemen . . . Aluminum Men!!)
My run time was 2:10:56, which I was pleased enough with, considering that I ran it in 2:00 flat starting fresh. That was a pace of just about 10:00 per mile, quite a bit slower than my usual relaxed training pace of 9:00 - 9:30 but good enough to let me make my 6:00 goal with time to spare. My final time was 5 hours, 42 minutes, 50 seconds. Out of the 204 people who finished the race, that put me in 108th place, or just above the 50th percentile mark, which I feel content with. But mostly I felt a deep satisfaction that I had set such a goal for myself and actually done it - corny but true.
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