SUNSCREEN
6:30:29 (ish)
SWIM:
My wetsuit is working perfectly. The water was cold, but Alamitos Bay is always cold. I would say that it was not as cold as I have experienced before. After maybe 4 minutes in the water, the temperature was not anything I focused on. I pretty much bilateral breathed the entire time, and sighted maybe every 4th-5th breath. I generally swim pretty straight. The only issue I had on the swim was that at some point a small tiny drop of water got into my right goggle eye piece and everytime I breathed to the right, I would get a stinging salt water into my eye. (It would continue to bother me the rest of the day, including right now) Pace: 1:57/100m or 1:47/100yd
BIKE:
For the bike, everything I have read usually goes, "You went too hard out on the bike.", "If you feel you going a good pace, you're going too fast." etc etc. So, I had it in my mind that I would make sure I made the bike complete cruiser mode. If at any time I felt I could go up one gear, I forced myself to NOT go up one gear even if I felt like the ride was too easy. I think it worked out well. Even going what I considered so slow, I was still doing about 18 mph for a good tick, which settled into about 17 mph for most of the ride. I caught a headwind between miles 30-40, met Andy at mile 40 where I got a refill of water/perform and ate a caffeinated GU. Made my way back down to Whittier Narrows for a total of 55.07 miles. Pace 16.6 mph
RUN:
First.. I knew the run was going to be the sucky part. I had it in my head going in that I would only run 2 hours maximum unless I was feeling absolutely wonderful, then I would finish the whole 13.1 miles for a real half ironman. Well, that would have been achieved much better had I remembered to pack sunscreen! I would say that the first 9 miles or so were pretty perfect. True.. I had no Gu (bad mix up with Andy and they wound up not available), but I did have a Snickers bar (at the 40 mile bike stop I asked if Andy could get me one!) Must remember to pack a frozen Snickers in special needs for my IM race! However, without proper nutrition and the fact I was turning into a total lobster, at mile 10 I was going to have to start walking on/off, I decided that it would be best to just call it a day. Another 40+ minutes in the sun wasn't doing me any good and I know I need to eat more than just a couple swigs of Perform every 1.5 miles. I can also say that I'm pretty certain that the marathon of the IM is going to suck major balls. Pace 12:24 mi/min
RECAP:
Nutrition -- I ate ~3 eggs and 1/2 cup cooked white rice for breakfast. I wanted to get in a glass of chocolate milk before we left, but I was just too full off my solid meals, I couldn't do it. On the bike I drank 2x20oz bottles of Perform from a mix that made it 200 cals per 20oz. I also drank 2x20oz of water and a Gu w caffeine @ mile 40 on the bike. At the end of the bike, I ate a 220 cal serving of Snickers bar. Once I started running, I would stop every lap and take 2 swigs of Perform and 2 swigs of water.. I'm guessing 1 oz per swig. It was not enough, so at mile 5 I had another 220 cal serving of Snickers. After that, the only thing I had was Perform and water, and my hunger got increasingly worse. Eat and drink more than that on the run next time!
They say to take your Half Ironman time, double it, then add 40 minutes to the total to make your predicted Ironman race time.. If we assume the last 3 miles could have been done in 45 minutes (lets be generous), that puts me at a 7:15 Half Ironman time... for an estimated Ironman time of 15:10! I'm really not so sure considering I know about half of the marathon run is going to be a run/walk situation... but then again, we are adding 40 minutes to the total time, maybe that accounts for it. I'd love to have a low 15 hour Ironman, but we'll see!
