Washington, NC Half Iron Race Report

I did the Washington NC Half Iron race on October 30th, 2010.  It was an awesome race venue. Here is a news article about it.  http://tinyurl.com/34c89je

I loved the race course and it was perfectly organized by Finish Strong!    Finish Strong’s motto is “Racing done Right”, and I can vouch for that!

Official Results:

Swim 1.2 miles: 35:49.5, pace of 1:42
T1:  3:00
Bike 56 miles: 2:56:49.6 pace of 19 mph
T2:  4:06
Run 13.1 miles: 2:23:56.3, pace of 11:00 min/mile
Overall:  6:03:40.8

Age group rank: 1 out of 2
Overall Female rank : 11 out of 21

Swim:

Brrr cold.  My feet did not feel cold in the shallow water while waiting to start.  But once we got into deeper water, OMG, it was take your breath away cold.   I swam hard just to try an warm up.   I focused hard on swimming a good line, too, becuase I wanted to get out of that cold water.   I even had a full wetsuit on, and still felt cold.    I didn’t hear if they announced the official water temperature on race day, but conditions at Bath, NC show a low water temp of 60 and a high of 65.   That makes this the coldest swim I have ever done!

This was a PR swim time for me. I swam too hard, methinks, cuz the rest of my day was just ‘off’.     I think my body was tense, and I was making those tense muscles work hard, and they did not like it so rebelled later on.

T1:

Came out of the water and tripped running up to the transition area.     Lots of people asked me if I was okay.   I said yes, laughed, and got up and continued on my way.

It was cold, and I was wet.  I pulled my wetsuit half way off, and started to put my jacket on.  It was really hard getting it on over wet skin.  I had to pee really badly, so I just started peeing in my wetsuit while I struggled with my jacket.    It was nice and warm, lol.    It was kind of gross when I pulled my wetsuit legs off.  I will spare you the details there.

Bike:

Great flat bike course. Not windy. Mostly smooth roads. Should have been fast!

I felt really ‘off’.  The course was flat and felt sooo hard. I kept pushing hard and only getting 18 or 19mph. I can usually put down a 20 mph speed on flat with no wind without killing myself. I kept looking for flagpoles hoping to see that maybe it was a very windy day, but every flag I saw was limp. So weird. I pushed way too hard and didn’t even get a great time.  Halfmax was a harder course on a windy day, yet I was faster that day with less effort.

Garmin Data: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/54913030

You can see there are alot of turns on this course.  They were all very well marked!  Great volunteers pointing the way waving bright orange flags at every turn. Thank you, FS Series!  Racing done right!

T2:

The last hour of the bike I had to pee really badly.   When I got to T2, I really couldn’t hold it any longer.     So, I just sat in the grass right there in transition and peed my pants.  It took a long time, but was great relief!   I also took the time to put on my injinji toe socks. I had practiced that alot leading up to this race, and got it down to 45 seconds.  I did not want toe blisters slowing me down on the run, and I figured the 45 seconds would be gained back in the run.   It did not matter much today, but I think on a good day, it would be worth it.

Run:

Great run course, mostly flat, went thru downtown Washington, NC, a quaint little town by the riverfront. Perfect weather.

This run was basically a slog fest for me. Every muscle in my body ached as if someone had beat the crap out of me, and I could not make dead muscles go fast.

I tripped at mile 4 and banged up my knee.   It was just a flesh wound, so did not impact my race, it just left a nice bloody battle wound. 🙂  Garmin data: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/54913033

Easy to follow run course!   Simple out and back twice, no need to think while in the pain cave.   Great volunteer support provided by some ECU sorority girls who were so sweet.   At the turn around for after the first lap, I asked some girls if I could trade in my legs for a fresh pair.  They said I could do that at the finish.    When I passed them the second time,  they remembered me, and said “Fresh legs just ahead”.  That was just awesome!

Friendly folks along the downtown area, too.  I asked one couple if they would run a mile for me, they laughed.  On the last lap heading back in, I asked an older gentlemen if he would give me a piggy back ride the rest of the way. He laughed and said “You look like you’re doing just fine”.

Post Race:

Hung around with a BT friend, “spot”.  He had a great race – Congrats!    I got an award for first age group.   It was a ceramic travel coffee mug.   Very cool and useful award.   I also got a really cool hoodie in my race packet instead of the usual T-shirt.  I love that they give out different and useful things instead of the same old crap!

Had a very hard time again driving home. I had to stop and rest and refuel with my traditional burger and fries (and a Frosty, too!).  I think I will do this race next year, but make a fun weekend out of it.

Other Thoughts:

Why I didn’t do as well as I had hoped:

• sporadic training the last month.  i took 10 days off after Halfmax.  Then I did a hard week. Then I kind of just winged it.
• poor sleep and nutrition week before race.  I am usually very careful about what I eat leading up to a race.
• I did not do any yoga the week before race. I usually try to do it every day to get myself all loose for race day.  I just didn’t have time or motivation this time around.

More thoughts

• maybe i just suck and am making up excuses
• maybe i should just be happy that I can do this stuff at my age and be happy because a six hour half ironman is  a solid finish time.  I have it in my head that since I did a full iron at 12 hours, I should be able to easily beat six hours at the half.  But, those were my ironman days…

Photos:

I did not take alot of photos this race.  I got there just in time, so I was rushed setting things up.   And afterwards, I was too sore and tired.