Syracuse 70.3

Today I raced in Ironman Syracuse 70.3 (half-Ironman distance).  It was a good race to test the waters and see how my training is progressing so far.  This is my first "real" Ironman event (Ironman as the official sponsor -- I have a new car sticker on my car to prove it....and yes, there was room for yet another sticker).

There was a magic feeling to the whole thing as I checked in yesterday and racked my bike.  This was IRONMAN!  The infamous M-Dot logo was everywhere.  It was like arriving at Disneyworld for the first time.

Despite my excitement, I entered the race with a lot of apprehension, along with that "what am I doing?" thought floating through my mind.  I set my goal to do the race at Ironman pace -- easy -- never pushing too hard.

The swim was amazing.  The weather was perfect, the lake was calm, and I had probably the best swim of my life.  At the start, I almost always freak out a little bit.  My heart rate goes too high and it takes me a good 10 minutes to start settling into my pace.  Today, I took some deep breaths before the swim start and did the front crawl while keeping my head above water until the people around me thinned out a little.  I didn't experience any panicking at all.  I swam easy and, at the end of the 1.2 miles, I felt like I could keep going.  And I only missed my swim PR by about a minute, which was set during a race when I was swimming all out!

In contrast, the bike sucked.  And here is why.  First off, at about mile 6 or 7, there was a very nasty hill that wouldn't die.  As a result, since I am a spaz on my bike and can't balance right to reach for things while going uphill, I got behind on my nutrition.  By the time I got to mile 40, I began to feel like crap and wonder how in the world I was going to finish this race.  I began to doubt my fitness and my preparedness for Lake Placid.  And then I realized I had not eaten according to my plan.  Once I gobbled down some pretzels, Powerbar bites, and sports drink, it was like someone breathed life back into me and I felt fine again.

Secondly, I had to stop three times on the bike due to my stupid bike chain deciding it didn't want to shift from high to low gear, and protesting by slipping off the gear rings.  It is an easy fix, just a pain in the butt -- and you get grease EVERYWHERE (thank goodness for Wet Ones!  I keep them in my bike bag for such occasions).  And it made me very reluctant to shift out of high gear for the rest of the bike, so I had to work harder at times in a higher gear when I should have shifted down, rather than take my chances and have the chain slip again.

I finished the bike and was genuinely worried.  My legs were rubber.  It was hot.  And now I had to run 13.1 miles.  To my surprise, however, my legs went into robo-run mode and I felt like a rock star.  The run course was very hard -- definitely the hardest run course I've ever experienced in a triathlon, and on the list of my top three of any road races.  There were lots of hills -- including one hill that you HAD to walk up, the incline was so steep.  And then there were dangerous aspects that I didn't really like in the race -- such as patches of the run on green lawns full of divots and holes, just begging for an ankle to fall into.  And then there was the part when we had to run on the side of a hill, trying not to wrench our knees as we went.  I thought those aspects were actually irresponsible on the part of the course planners.  But that's just me venting.

I just felt good on the run.  And don't get me wrong, it wasn't my fastest run; the difficulty of the course accounted for that.  But I was strong and just let my feet go.  I had enough left at the end for a strong kick and sprint to the finish.

Overall, I feel good about my performance.  The course was hard.  And when I was done, I was glad to be done.  However, I finished strong and was not wrecked.  If I had to go further, I could have.  It would've been hard, but I could've done it.  So with a few more weeks of training, I think I am in good shape for Ironman.