I don’t have a good track record for writing my race reports on time so I think it’s pretty good that this is going up only a week after the race.

I had very high expectations of myself for this race, especially since my first 70.3 race last March at Oceanside did not go as planned. I wanted to finish this race well under 6 hours and close to the 5:15 mark. Overall, I am very pleased with my results and the execution of my race plan. My official race time was 5:21:53.

Pre-race: I arrived in Windsor on Friday, two days before the race and just after finishing a crazy week of work filled with sleepless nights and super important meetings. I think I had about 8 hours of sleep in about 72 hours. I worried that my lack of sleep would negatively affect my performance. Other than a lack of sleep, my pre-race was worry-free thanks to Jay for driving up my bike and race bag

After a short one-hour flight into San Jose, Maria and I drove up through Friday traffic and barely made it to the Athlete Dinner. It was a really good pasta dinner sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce for the city of Windsor. After dinner, we checked into the “not so comfortable” Comfort Inn in Santa Rosa, met up with Jay to take care of bike stuff, and then hit the sack for some much needed sleep.

Saturday was devoted to a morning one-hour workout bike ride and run with Jay and Mikey. It felt good to move around as I was still feeling lethargic from sitting behind a computer all week long with no sleep. After the morning pre-race workout, Jay and I checked in, looked around the race expo, bought some souvenirs, and dropped off our running gear at T2 located at Windsor High School. By the way, don’t bother with the pre-race course talk. It just made me nervous listening to all the warnings about the dangerous turns on the bike course. That’s not the kind of stuff you want to get lodged in your head before a race. We all ate lunch at Quizno’s, and then took a nap in the hotel. Later that evening Jay and I got our bikes and swim gear ready for the race. I had forgotten to bring an air pump, so I was a little worried about finding a pump before the race.

Swim: The next morning Jay and I left for the swim start/T1 at 4:30 am. The start was located at Johnson’s Beach at the Russian River Resort area. As soon as we arrived, I had to dart behind a building to go to the bathroom. I could wait no longer. Sorry, Guerneville peeps. There were no race refs around, so no penalties for me. I borrowed an air pump from some professional women triathletes, which alleviated my final worry of the morning.

I found my row and selected a spot to set up my transition area. Mentally, I made note of its location, which was five rows up from the porta-potty on the side of the Bike Out path. Wave 12 started at 7:58 am, so I had about three hours to kill. I did that by going to the bathroom about 6 more times. Good thing I brought some toilet paper.

At about 7:00 am I saw Maria. You can’t start a race without a good luck kiss! Warming up was pretty much non-existent. I had no running shoes, so I did a couple of jog laps back and forth in my sandals, and then I put on my wetsuit.

I was feeling a little nervous, as usual, about swimming. But as soon as I got into the water, it was amazingly warm 72.5 degrees. And because it was a freshwater river, it felt like swimming in a pool. I started to feel more confident. Finally at 7:50 am Wave 12 got into our starting area. I positioned myself to the right and a little rear. I think I get the best results starting there since I’m not going out to lead the swim. My goal for the swim was to do it in 35 minutes.

When the horn went off, I felt good and started out strong. With no clock to look at, I typically gauge my swim based on my perceived effort. For some weird reason, I felt tired for most of the swim. The water was shallow in many parts of the swim course, so I actually stood up and walked at some points. This helped me catch my breath. When I reached the turnaround point, it was about 19 or 20 minutes into the race, and I thought my swim was pretty much toast. So I buckled down and swam a little harder to get back to T1. Later I was surprised to learn that my swim was 37:24, which was almost a full three minutes faster than Oceanside. I chalk up the tired feeling in the water to perhaps a greater perceived effort. One thing I did differently in this race was to kick minimally. I think this saved me from getting any swim cramps before the bike ride. With a wetsuit on, you don’t really need to kick. I feel that the additional effort spent towards kicking doesn’t really increase my forward movement all that much in a wetsuit.

At this particular race for T1, we have to pack up all our gear into a bag. Then the race volunteers bring our stuff to the finish line for us. In addition to my usual difficulties removing the bib john portion of the wet suit, I spent more time than I wanted trying to get everything into my bag before leaving on the bike ride. There is still much to improve in my T1 transition. It was a slow 4:06.

Bike: Immediately at the Bike Mount area, there is a small hill. Some people chose to walk their bikes up the hill, but it seemed to small to me to waste time doing that. Before the race I put my bike into a lower gear so I basically just sprinted up the hill while trying to dodge the noobs who were walking and struggling to clip into their pedals.

Basically for the first 8 miles or so, I was pretty annoyed with just passing people and trying to clear a path for myself where I felt I wasn’t surrounded by other athletes. I worried a little about getting a drafting penalty, but fortunately the refs weren’t monitoring the start of the bike course too closely.

I encountered a sharp right turn at mile 7, and then I forgot about the immediate left turn. I almost ate it when my bike ran into some dirt. I thought about my time trial face plant at Fiesta Island last March for a few seconds, and was relieved that I didn’t lose control as I got out of the dirt and onto the road.

The bike course was much easier than that of the Oceanside race. There were some points where I was going 30+ mph. But given the rolling hills on the course, I was very pleased to sustain an average speed of 21 mph for the entire bike route. The weather was still overcast, which enabled me to maintain a fast speed with little effect from climate and heat. The advice given to me before the race was to go “slower” on the bike course and save some energy for the run.

I finished half the course (28 miles) at about 1:15. The weather was still relatively overcast, but the sun and heat were finally making their appearance. I decided to race the rest of the bike route in such a way that I could go as fast as I can without exerting a lot of effort. To maximize this, I pedaled hard on downhills and used the momentum to get up the rolling hills with ease. Despite the overcast weather, I stuck to my race nutrition plan and took a sip of my Infinit bike mix every 10 minutes even though I didn’t feel thirsty.

At mile 45 I went up the lone steep hill of the course at a relatively slow pace. I could feel the beginnings of cramps in my quads, the same situation that caused my Oceanside race to be so poor on the run. I continued to ride as planned, going as fast as a I could without exerting my quads too hard. The last part of the race heading back into Windsor was relatively flat. I know I could have gone faster with a little more effort, but I was afraid of cramping on the run.

Overall, I was very pleased with my bike leg. I didn’t ride as conservatively as I had planned. My time was 2:37, and I was shooting for 2:45.

Run: When I arrived to my spot at T2, I secured my bike to the rack and tore open my bag of running gear. My T2 time was much shorter than T1, 2:49.

About three-tenths of a mile onto the course, I felt the familiar pang of pain in my quads, especially my right quad. The cramps were here! Instead of panicking, I moved off the run course to stop and stretch for a few seconds. When the pain subsided I began running again.

After the first mile of running relatively slow, I had a talk with my negative self and asked if there was any reason why I should settle for less on the run? I had a goal of finishing this half marathon in under two hours, but my current pace was definitely putting me at the 2:15 mark again. I convinced my negative self to go away and just focused on maintaining a steady cadence.

At times I had to walk to prevent the cramps from taking over. As I reached mile 6 I felt my confidence return. I knew I had it in me to finish this run in under two hours so I continued at a comfortable pace that would allow me to do just that. It was not my fastest pace, but it was definitely a doable pace at which I could manage the pain of impending cramps while still achieving my time goals.

As I entered the finish chute, I passed about three people. Why weren’t they sprinting? Who knows? I took a last look at my watch and I knew my results would be good. I was very happy with my final time of 5:21:53. The run? Yea. I finished it in under two hours with a time of 1:59:47.

In addition to improving my swim time, I would also like to improve my T1 and running time. I feel like I’m on the cusp of going under 5 hours for this distance. If I can get my time under 5 hours, then I think I’ll have a good shot at qualifying for Clearwater in my age group. I know I can knock 20 minutes off my run time as I build up my strength and endurance for running after swimming/biking.

So yea. For me, I kicked ass in this race. And I’m pretty happy about it.