HIM Shepparton, 13 November 2005

The long version ...

Preliminaries: First off, a big thanks to Lynn for putting up with me getting up at 6am most days, for tagging along all day in the sun, for taking some great pictures (spectating IS seriously hard work), driving home (with a lead foot!), and being the best all-round support crew a guy could ask for. I owe you big time at your next race.

Thanks also to Mitch for putting together a great program. A tough program, but it did me well.

So, a half ironman ... swim 1.9k, bike 90k, run 21.1k ... do that as fast as you can. Let's just say I've trained more for this race, than any other previous race. Probably even more than for Ironman Canada a little over a year ago. On average, I'm swimming 9-10k, biking 200-250k and running 45-55k per week. I consider that to be a lot. But, it's all relative and I'm in Australia. Here, 200k rides and 20 hour training weeks are not unheard of.

The nutrition plan: 2 Up N Go's (like Boost) for breakfast, 2-3 bottles of sport drink on the bike, gels every 45 min, take whatever you can for the run. Note: liquid diet, a new thing for me at this distance.

The heart rate plan: On the bike, go easy and don't eat/drink anything until the HR settles in the 155-165 range, keep it there for the rest of the race.

Here is how it all went ....

The swim was rather uneventful ... I got in a good pack of about 5 or 6 guys and I sat pretty much at the back for the whole thing. Wetsuit felt great. One of the dudes in the pack had a habit of stopping to sight, so I ran into him about 30 times. Only got kicked in the head once but the goggles stayed on. Out of the water under 30 minutes, so quite happy.


(me on left)

Onto the bike ... 3 laps of 30k. Heart was screaming in the mid-170s so I knew I just needed to be patient. It took quite a while for it to come down, probably 15k. Very little wind, flat course, so it was a pretty quick pace throughout (well, quick by my standards, not the Aussie standard). Few rough patches of pavement, but generally pretty low stress. Had this weird pain in my left leg along the hamstring for the first lap, tried to stretch it out to no avail but it wasn't slowing me down. It went away after about an hour. Second lap the heart rate had settled so I pushed it to the limit (165) as much as I could. There was one section of the course where it felt like there was a head wind, but the leaves in the trees weren't moving. Starting to tire a bit at the end of the 3rd lap, but moving along alright ... race wheels will be a welcome edition. Got my money's worth in free High5 water bottles ... oh yeah. The P3 is very comfy.


(could i be more white?)


(excellent cornering skills)


(fun for all ages)


(where ARE my shoes?)


Off the bike ... 3 laps of 7k. Looked at my watch, it had been 2h 57m total, so I was ahead of what I expected. Right off the bat, I met up with a friend named PAIN. My friend would stay with me for the next 92 minutes. My vastus medialis (inside upper leg) was killing me. My stride felt awful. But, I couldn't bring myself to stop. After about 5k, it loosened up a bit, but not much. It was getting warm, but not hot. Dumped several cups of water on my head, grabbed the odd sports drink and coke when my stomach felt up to it. After the first lap, there were people everywhere and there was no telling who was in what age category or even what lap they were on. First lap, probably got passed as many times as I passed people. Second, passing more, but most were on the first lap. As I was nearing the end of the second lap, I could hear the commentator saying the lead male was in sight. I managed to hold him off and finish my second lap about 30 seconds before he finished. Had a minor celebration, and focused on getting done. The last lap was a struggle (see picture below) and I lost a couple minutes over my previous laps. But, all good. Very pleased with the result.

End result:
(4:28:23, 5th place in M25-29, 39th overall, top Canadian!)
Swim 28:47
Bike+transitions 2:27:26
Run 1:32:10


(nice helmet head)


(who's that behind the tree?)


(looking oh-so-fresh)


(looking strong in the finish chute)


(on closer inspection, maybe not)

5 weeks to do it all again.

16 weeks until ironman.