This was it. The day had arrived: March 27, 2010. I’ve been mentally gearing up for this day since I registered for this race 10 months ago on May 26, 2009. I’d say that I began my serious training and preparation for my first IRONMAN 70.3 at the beginning of 2010.

Of the four elements in triathlon, yes I meant to say four, I identified two liabilities to work on in my race preparation. One, swimming. Two, nutrition.

Since January, I’ve been swimming at least three times per week for about 5 miles/week. Each Tuesday, I swam on my own at LA Fitness, following the swim workout created for me by my coach. For my other two weekly swims each Wednesday and Friday, I joined a Master’s Swim program with the Escondido Swim Club. In the last four months, I have swum about 95,000 yards. My swim pace decreased from about 1:50/100 yards when I first began to my current fastest pace of 1:37/100 yards. I swam my fastest 1.2 miles in the pool in 41:37.

For as much as I could control about my apprehension of water, I did as much as I could in the pool to overcome any doubts and fears. Swimming, swimming, and more swimming. I definitely improved both my speed and my endurance.

The big question still lingering: How would I do in the ocean? Where the water is dark and cold. Where there are tons of other people around me splashing and kicking in my face. The day before the race, I downloaded a race preview talk given by professional triathlete and coach, Jim Vance. I planned to follow his advice to acclimate to the cold waters of the Oceanside Harbor:

1. Warm up prior to the swim so that I’m sweaty with the wetsuit on.
2. Dunk my face and head into the water and breathe to prevent hyperventilating.
3. Let my wetsuit fill up with water.
4. Choose an appropriate place to start in relation to the other swimmers based on my ability.

With respect to nutrition, I enlisted the aid of expert nutritionist, Kim Mueller, of Fuel Factor. She performed a diet and exercise analysis on me. From the diet analysis, she created a baseline meal plan for me of 2200 calories per day, along with a plan for extra calories to account for pre-workout, work, and post-workout recovery. In the last four months, I learned a lot from Kim about how and when to eat to fuel my workouts and races as well as recover from them. Armed with a new nutrition regimen for the last four months, I must say I have never felt better. In the past four months, not only have I maintained a sub-10% body fat percentage, but I have also felt great for all but two of my workouts and events. My nutrition and diet, the fourth discipline of triathlon, have given me confidence in my body’s ability to perform based on providing it with the most ideal fuel.

A week before the race, Kim gave me the best advice. I think it was the key for my mental outlook on race day. She said:

Just go out there and have fun. Enjoy each sport as you do them. You’ve already done the hard part and all the work. The race is the easy part.

This totally put me at ease. Along with the tips from Jim Vance, I felt very relaxed for my swim! I don’t think I have ever been more prepared for a race before. Swimming, cycling, and running had all peaked at the right time.

When the gun went off for the swim, I did not hyperventilate, but just swam as if I were in the pool, very relaxed. I thought about my race pace and what that feels like. The only hiccups for me in the swim was dealing with all the people around and getting bumped. A bit into the race I started to feel a little tired, and I told myself that the feeling was ridiculous given the fitness level I had attained through all my pool workouts. After assuring myself that the feeling was not true, it went away. And I knew I would have no difficulty finishing the swim. My goal was to finish the swim in under 45 minutes, but because of my hiccups in the water where I stopped swimming briefly after getting bumped a couple of times, I kind of put the sub-45 minute out of my mind, thinking it was not possible. I even felt some cramps beginning in my quads during the swim, which was kind of strange since I don’t really kick that much in my wetsuit. Finally, as I got out of the water and headed into T1 I looked down at my watch and saw that my swim time had been much faster than I expected. Later I would learn that my official swim time was 40:24. Because this time included the run to the transition area, it meant my actual swim time was under 40 minutes!

As I ran to my rack, the cramps in my quads were very painful. I hoped that they would go away on my bike ride. As it turned out, my quads never cramped during the ride. I headed out of T1 with not so great a transition time of 5:20. I had some difficulty getting my bib john off, so it slowed me down. In future 70.3 races I’d like to see my T1 time down between 2 and 3 minutes. Most of the bike ride is actually flat. So I zoomed at about 20-25 mph for much of the flat portions. I knew there were three hills on the bike course, the first one and steepest one occurring at mile 30.

Honestly, I didn’t respect these hills as much as I should have. The first one kicked my butt. Though it was the steepest, it was the shortest hill. One down, two to go. By the time I finished the third hill at mile 45, 2 hours 15 minutes on the bike ride had elapsed. It meant that I had to go around 11 miles in about a half hour. Translation: I had to sustain at least 22 mph to meet my goal of going under 2 hours 45 for the bike ride. I had to make a race decision about this: do I go for it or do I save some gas for the run? My quads were speaking to me also. They told me that as soon as I stepped off my bike they were going to cramp. I could feel it. Don’t ask me how I knew. I just knew. So I decided to go for it. I met my bike goal and finished the ride in 2:43:41.

T2 was much easier for me. I racked my bike, put on my socks, shoes, and visor. I grabbed a quick drink, my soft flasks of Infinit run mix, and a bar, and off I went. As I headed out on the run, I spotted Maria and Tony. The soft flasks did not cooperate and stay in my jersey pockets, so I decided to toss the bar to Tony so that I could hold on to both flasks during the entire run. As I rounded the second turn onto the streets of Oceanside, the cramps came back very hard. They were so painful that I had to stop and stretch.

This pretty much was my entire half marathon. I had vowed that I would never walk nor stop during a run, but now I have learned to respect those who walk or stop during a run. My cramp pain was so unbearable that running with any sort of normal speed for me was impossible. And so I hobbled, stopped, stretched, walked, and sometimes ran for the entire 13.1 miles. As planned, I stopped at every aid station for a small sip of water to chase my Infinit mix down. By mile 6 the cramps were extremely frustrating, and I started to eat potato chips and pretzels at the aid stations for the extra salt. I don’t think it helped any. For me, this half marathon was about mental toughness. No longer was it about trying to get a good time (my goal was going under 1:45), but it was about finishing this run respectably, which meant an all-out sprint at the finish line despite the pain. I dealt with the cramp pain, sprinted at the finish line and passed about four runners, and finished with my slowest half marathon time ever of 2:15:45. My total race time was 5:47:17.

Although I was disappointed with not having gotten my overall time closer to 5:15, I was very pleased with my race execution. There’s a lot of room for improvement, and I plan to do better at my next 70.3 in July at Vineman, preferably with no cramps at all.