Kinetic Half Ironman Race Report

Before I get into the race details here is what happen to me 5 days prior to the race during what was to be a nice relaxing 90 minute trail run.  As you can see from the picture below (no my ankle is not freakishly big)  I rolled the hell outta my ankled over a tree branch and tore ligaments.  I was pretty angry with myself "I can't believe I did that".  With a race in a week the focus went to just getting the the start line, as normally focus is getting to the start line in the best condition possible, I just wanted to be able to start the race this time.

The healing process.  ICE ICE baby.  I also tried to keep my foot elevated at work all week sitting at my desk.  I bought a piece wild caught Alaskan salmon (omega 3's) and just ate servings of that all week.  And I just tried to eat exceptionally all week (no junk food).  I took my MultiV Supplement(lot of iron) every morning.  I did not run all week.  I massaged and stretched everyday.  By Thursday, the swelling was down 80% and I was able to get in a swim and a bike.  That was all I did all week.  By Friday the swelling was down 90% and bruising along the foot was becoming very visible.  But happy news I was able to swim, bike and run on it!

Friday for lunch I had a mixed bowl of brown rice-black bean-broccoli-avocado and for dinner the same with the addition of two small sweet potatoes.  I woke up around 4am Saturday and ate a bowl of oatmeal with granola and walnuts and sipped on some Carbo-pro.  I stayed at my Aunt & Unlces house in Warrenton, which is 1 hour away from Lake Anna.  I left the house at 4:45am to give myself about an hour to get ready at the race site.  Last year I did this race and I was very late (mostly due to the packet pick up line) and I barely made the swim start, so I was taking no chances this year and picked up my packet the day before.

The weather was overcast with a few sprinkles here and there, temps in the upper 60s lower 70s.  Except for the wet roads conditions were almost ideal for a fast race.

We began the beach start swim at 7am.  This was the first time I've swam open water since last year and I WAS RUSTY.  I felt comfortable the first 1000 meters, then it just started to feel like I was swimming forever, time was going by slow. I never found a solid rhythm and never found anyone to swim behind, which is not good.  Drafting in the swim is legal and can save a good 30% energy.  I found myself swimming a bit off course a couple times.  My official swim finish time was 32 minutes (4 minutes behind the fastest guys).  Looking at the swim splits, my thoughts are that either we were swimming against a current or the course was about 150 meters long.  I'm okay with my swim time, although I feel I should have been below 30 minutes. I will need to do open water swim training a lot this year.

Now onto the good stuff.  I grabbed my Planet X Exocet bike and my LAS helmet and I was off.  Unfortunately I could not get my cyclocomputer working during my pre race setup so I wouldn't have any clue as to how fast I would be cycling the entire race. Cyclocomputer was working fine Thursday so I have no idea what happened.  Anyways I was going to bike HARD as it would be my only chance to win this race.  The first 5 miles or so were not good for me.. I couldn't get my feet in my shoes, dropped a bottle, and I dropped my chain and had to stop for a minute and put the chain back on.  It was a rough start.  Luckily my friend Ryan (also on Team Planet X) made his way up to me and we killed the the 56 mile bike course together.  I had to be extra cautious around the corners on the wet roads.  There were a couple hills and false flats to deal with.  I suck on hills. I train on flat windy roads, so no surprise there.  We were able to pass everyone except for one guy, who we happened to catch at the transition to the run.  My bike split was 2:16.

I started out on the run in 2nd place overall.  My legs felt horrible the first 2 miles.  I was happy to hear cheers for Team Aquaphor out there from the spectators.  This was the first race I used the Team Aquaphor race kit.  I use Aquaphor pre-race on my legs and arms and face.  And post-race on my blisters.  There is one hill we had to battle with 3 times and the rest of the course was rolling.  Once again I suck on hills.  I was passed by the race winner about 3 miles into the run.  I just couldn't get my legs to fire and I struggled for 13.1 miles and saw a couple other guys pass me.  I wasn't tired and I had no GI issues or cramping issues.  My legs were just not ready to go ironman hard.  My run split was 1:32.

I finished in 6th place and 1st in the age group category.  My overall time was 4:23. http://www.setupevents.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=event_results&id=2374

Race nutrition was pretty spot on.  I drank 3 bottles of carbo-pro, 1 bottle of water, 4 salt tabs, and 2 powergels.  During the run I carried a bottle of water with 400 cals of CarboPro-1200 mixed in.

A decent start to the race season.  Next race for me is Eagleman 70.3 Ironman in Cambridge, MD one month from now.  I think my endurance is at a good place right now. I will work on my speed the next few weeks before that race.  But for now I need a few days rest and recovery to heal these muscles and heal these cuts on my feet from racing sockless in the KSwiss Ruuz.