Lake Steven's

Lake Steven's Half Ironman was this last Sunday. We drove up with Rob and Erin early Saturday morning. We hit the expo... the expo was a booth to buy parking passes and a booth selling bike jerseys, that's it. We attended the mandatory meeting and picked up our packets. From there we headed out to the lake to get in a 30 min spin and drop off the bikes. As Erin and I were out riding my bike started having issues. It kept skipping between gears and the rear cassette was rattling. I assumed it was loose. When we got back I headed over to the local bike shop and had them take a look. Apparently I wasn't the only person with bike issues. The shop was SLAMMED. Total chaos! So I dropped it off and we went to get some lunch. I came back an hour later and it was more crowded then when I dropped it off. Even Sister Madonna (the 78 year old nun) was there trying to get her tires glued up. Fortunately for me my bike was fixed and ready to go. I took it for one last spin up and down the street before checking it in.
Sunday morning came early. We were up at 4 and to the race site by 5. I got everything setup and was ready to go by race start at 6:38. The water was warm and pretty clear. The swim start was a little crowded. You had to jump off a dock and tread water, but we were packed into a pretty small area. When the gun went off it took a few strokes to get some space. Once out I found the underwater rope that runs the length of the course. This was nice because you didn't have to look up to sight much. The down side was I kept running into to slower folks from the wave that started in front of me. Overall the swim felt good. I felt like I was actually racing it for the first half rather then just getting through it. After making the last turn I started to get tired and lost focus for a couple minutes. This definitely cost me some time. Once I realized and snapped out of it I picked it up again to the finish.
Through T1 and on to the bike was smooth, no issues. Once I got going on the bike I noticed my heart rate was still pretty high as it usually is out of the swim. I decided to focus on my watts and not to worry about my HR. As expected after about 20 mins it started to come down. I had heard this course was hilly, but wasn't sure exactly what to expect. There were a lot of short steep hills with a couple longer sustained climbs. Scott had given me power ranges to stay in when hitting the hills and this was key on this race. It was frustrating on the first lap as people would fly by me on the hills, but I always caught them on the flats. Usually once I passed them back that was the last I saw of them. The entire ride I kept coming up on team mate Jason K. I would get within 50 yards of him then we would hit a hill and he would take off again. This happened up until about mile 52 when I finally caught him. He passed me back right away and that would be the last time I would see him until the out and backs on the run. Overall the bike went very good. I got in all of my nutrition and my pacing allowed me to run better then I have in the past.
Off the bike my feet were numb and they hurt as I tried to run through T2. Once out on the run they warmed up quickly. The run went by really fast on this course. I had a bit of a side cramp for the first 3 miles, but it went away after I backed off the amount of water I was taking through the aid stations. At about mile 6 another team mate, Jake, caught me and passed me easily. I knew he was coming and I knew he is a much faster runner then I am, so I accepted it and encouraged him as he went by. Right after that another guy in my age group passed me as well. This sent me into a mini pity party. I was in a funk for about 2 miles before I got my second wind. I think I was between miles 8 and 9 when I decided to push it for a while and see what happens. At this point in the race I had not met any of my goals. I had not broken 2:30 on the ride, I had not swam under 32 mins, and I was likely not going to break 4:40 over all. The only remaining goal was a PR. I knew I needed to pick it up if I was going to do this. The last 4 miles felt outstanding. I pushed my heart rate into zone 5 and my legs wanted more. In the last 5k I managed to catch back up to Jake. This gave me that little extra boost I needed to push the last hill. I came in at 4:43:33. This was a 1 minute PR over Hula man last year. I think this course was much tougher though. Overall the race went very well for me. Except for the couple of little things I am pretty happy with how I executed my plan. As always though I wanted to go faster...
Props to the entire Ironheads team! Congrats to Kaytee as the overall female age group winner. Also congrats to Jake B on his 45 min pr, and Heather R with her 56 min PR! Also, thanks to Jake and Jason K for keeping me motivated out there. These events are so much more fun when you have that comradery and friendly competition. I am so lucky to be part of such a great group of people.