Now, on to the road trip and race report. I went up to the race site on Saturday afternoon with my sometime training partner Cliff. Even though the drive itself is reasonably short - less than two hours where we were leaving from, it's important to be able to coexist. Even more so when in sharing a hotel room. Cliff can be quite the conversationalist, so here are seven things I learned about Cliff on the trip to Peterborough:
1. Even though it was listed on his Ironman profile, Cliff is not actually a spandex model. He is in internet marketing.
2. In the months leading up to a race (PBO was an A-list race for Cliff) he will swear off coffee and beer. I don't know if I could find the strength to carry on.
3. The Canadian Death Race is on Cliff's list of life events to complete. He will also be competing in the Transplant Olympics in August.
4. Next week Cliff is making his (annual) pilgrimmage to Boston, most likely with nine other friends in a rented van. Talk about needing some entertainment.
5. Cliff wants a DVD player to watch all seasons of Arrested Development. Necessary for #4.
6. For race nutrition, Cliff will sometimes stock his pockets with frozen grapes. Great idea, but I don't know how he keeps them frozen.
7. Cliff is a champion sleeper. He slept in the car on the way to PBO, pounded down a solid two-hour nap once we arrived, fell asleep as soon as the lights went out after dinner, and slept over half the way back after the race on Sunday. I don't ever sleep well in hotels, and especially not the night before a race.
RACE DAY
Transition on race morning is always barely controlled chaos. Fortunately I managed to not forget anything this year and threw everything together in about ten minutes. The funniest part of transition? Skipping the lineup to the portapotties, and trying to find somewhere, in the middle of a park field surrounded by ~1000 of my closest friends, to apply body glide to the, ahem, necessary locations without threatening indecency and arrest. That done, I sausaged myself into the wetsuit and headed on down to the beach. Actually found Cliff right before the start and wished him luck. I never did see Darren until well out onto the course - read his account of the day to find out why.
Swim: 39:55 (2006 - 37:23)
Yep, this time is crap but it was no surprise. As a frame of reference, both laps of last year's Lake Placid swim were faster than this. What can I say - the yardage (metreage?) just hasn't been there this year. This is going to have to be a focus going forward, but I don't know what can be done to "fix it" in the time left this season. Only metreage will tell.
As an observation, the open water "spin cycle" at PBO is in many ways worse than a full IM. In an IM it's 100% beat-down from start to finish, speaking as a MOP'er. You know what you're going to get and at least can prepare mentally for it. In a half-IM with a smaller crowd, there are brief occasions where the water opens up. But, they're brief - usually less than seconds, and just as a rhythm starts to get a stroke or two, another intermittent beating starts. The taunting false promise of rhythm in the water is much more difficult (to me) to get used to.
Bike: 2:42:15 (2006 2:48:33)
RECANT: in the last race post (WellandQ) I admit that I slagged the race organizers for shorting me on the bike course. Strangely enough my bike computer says I was shorted again at PBO, again coincidentally by about 10% - 81km of 90 paid for. I do believe I owe the Welland organizers an apology, so this is it.
The bike course is not particularly tough, but it is the dictionary definition of "rolling hills". There really aren't any long flat stretches to unwind and let fly. Again, due to the shortage of quality training this ride was tougher for me than it should have been. The PB in the split owes entirely to the gains from the TT bike and the dorky helmet, over the road bike - traditional helmet combo of 2006. I made a real effort to keep the HR reined in - 150's in the, ahem, "flats" and no more than 160 on the climbs.
Run: the moment of truth - no spoilers here. Read on!
This is always where the truth is told. If you've not trained well (which I hadn't), hammered on the bike (which I tried not to) or not eaten properly (read on) then you pay the piper. There's no getting around it. My goal here, once I took stock getting off the bike was to knock off 5 min km's. Nothing flashy nor earth-shattering, but something I thought that would be achievable given the training inconsistency and the state I felt I was in off the bike. And to be honest, everything went well for about 14km. From 14-17 km it started to become work, and after 18km the wheels came off. Note: a cola-type beverage at an aid station really, REALLY needs to be degassed, or "flat". If not, the gas stays in and leads to vicious cramps. Lesson of the day. By the time I made the last turn around the soccer field I was waving the crowd to louder noise and grinning like a cat eating onions. I had brief thoughts of rolling across the finish line, a la Blazeman, but wasn't sure I'd be able to get up off the ground, so decided not to. The final run time of 1:47:32 was nearly nine minutes better than the last time I was at Peterborough, 1:56:31 in 2006.
A total finish time of 5:14:22 for a solid 12-minute PB. 119th overall, 27/66 in the age group. Congrats go out to Darren, who rocked the course in 4:26 and change, 8th overall and handily winning his age group, and to Cliff who also PB'd, on an afternoon that got very warm toward the end of the day. And a final round of applause for Trisport Canada who always manage to put on a great race.
10 weeks to go to Muskoka. Ten weeks to refocus, to put in time in the water and to refind the bike and run endurance that took the spring off. Is ten weeks enough time to find another 14 minutes? Let's see.
Peace.
