Harvest Moon 70.3 Triathlon

This was the culminating race for the year and the most scary for me.  Certainly when I started this triathlon journey almost 10 months prior, I had no idea if I would be capable of finishing, let alone race at this distance (70.3 Half-Ironman).  With the disappointment at the Boulder Peak, I definitely needed the Steamboat Olympic race to boost my confidence in jumping up another serious notch in difficulty.  Despite my lingering questions, my coach was confident that we would get me dialed in and that is exactly what happened.

With a mid-September race in Colorado, you never know what you are going to get.  The weeks prior to this race had been trending a bit cooler off of Summer's heat and into something more comfortable.  That would all change the few days before the race as a heat wave came through and we had race dag temps that would top out in the low to mid 90s.  Another surprise was that my Dad was able to fly in for the race, which was awesome!  It's the first triathlon race he has seen me complete, though he had made quite a few different bike races over the years.

My Dad and I set out in the dark for the race at 4:50 am after a quick breakfast.  One thing that has improved over time is my understanding of the race and the race preparation which has helped me feel more calm before the racing starts, but things seemed just like business as usual as I got prepared for the race.  The only real difference seemed to be a couple of extra complexities relating to extra supplies/food to coordinate taking on the bike and run.  The morning was cool, but not cold and once I got on the wetsuit and got in a warm up swim, I was ready to rumble.

My swim has been progressing over the year and I no longer feel like I need to stand in the back for the swim start.  I am not the fastest (FOP - Front of Pack), but I can hold my own against my age group in the middle.  The swim was actually pretty comfortable for most of the time, outside of just seeming quite long.  I was able to keep a nice pace that felt hard but that I could keep up without having to stop and rest.  My overall swim time was ~ 32:39 which was good enough for 4th in my AG for the swim portion.

The bike portion felt right at home and within about 10-15 minutes I was able to really focus on the 56 miles ahead of me.  The course is a pretty fun two-lap course that I know very well.  Power was pretty easy for me to dial in and the only tricky part seemed to be figuring out the extra nutrition component.  I had worked out that I would carry ~750 calories of concentrated drink mix in my front bottle, but I didn't want to necessarily toss away my other water bottle at the feed station to replace it with a cheap plastic one.  So, probably comically, I held the bottle in my mouth and unscrewed the replacement and dumped water while I was riding into my old bottle.  It was successful, but probably a bit dangerous and not very efficient.  I guess in the end it worked.  I got down all of the water/nutrition that I had planned on the ride.  Ride time was ~2:29:00 and 21.9 mph with 185 W average.

It was starting to get hot as I finished the bike, but I wasn't quite overheated.  I rolled into transition and started out on the run.  I had actually never run a half marathon before, let alone one at the tail end of a racing almost three hours already.  I have been comfortably running 10-11 mile runs every Sunday, so I wasn't as intimidated at the length but in the end it was challenging.  

I started off running 8:30s/mile but I was supposed to watch my heart rate more than the pace as the heat was nearly 84 degrees already and kicking up more.  This seemed to go alright for the first three to four miles, but at around mile four and a half or five my stomach just locked up.  It wasn't really a side cramp, it just felt like pins and needs in my stomach that made it hard to run or take in any liquids at the aid stations.  This because about a four to five mile stretch of jogging/walking as I tried to work through it.  I came through the half way point and had a quick chat with my coach and he yelled at me to take more salt, so I tried to hit the salt pretty hard.  Slowly my stomach came back to me, but the main damage was already done.  

About mile 10, I was jogging full time again and got back to around 10 minute miles but I had lost 20-25 minutes of time off my goal through this episode.  I finished with a run time of 2:12 with an average of 10:16/mile.

Total Half Ironman Time was 5:17:54.  This was good enough for 6th in my age group, though I dropped three AG places during the run and wasn't able to make the podium.  I will say that I was disappointed in how the finish went, but I am happy and proud that I accomplished a goal for the year.  This year was about experiencing and finishing and that is what I did.  It is so hard to turn off the competitive side and just celebrate the achievement of finishing as this was the hardest thing I think I have ever done.  Immediately after the race, I determined that I didn't ever need to race this distance again, and certainly I have no ongoing desire to try a Full Ironman, though looking back maybe another Half Ironman could be in my future.  So thankful for all the support I received along the way from my family, my coach, and my friends.  They all play a significant part in these types of things.

The last icing on the cake was that with the placing of 6th at this race, I ended up winning my Age Group in the Overall for entire the Colorado Triathlon Series that Without Limits Productions puts on for the combination of the three races (Sprint/Olympic/Half-Ironman).  I would have felt a bit more deserving of this award if I had been able to finish this race in a stronger fashion, but it is pretty cool.

Gavin's Birthday Party - 11 Years Old!

Every year seems to be a bit different with Gavin and his birthday choices.  Some years he has just wanted to do a small celebration movie/dinner event with a few friends and other times he wants a bigger crew with him.  This year for his 11th birthday we headed to Progresh which our kids have frequented fairly often.  It has awesome trampolines and jumping mats and slides that are set up kind of like a gymnastics room.  Here is Gavin jumping off of what seems like a cliff, but you end up landing on a trampoline below.

Here are few of his buddies with him lined up to jump over this pile of mats that they stacked up.

One of the more fun features of this place is the three story slide that you can go down on blankets.  Gage and I are rocking some pretty awesome helmets here!

After you slide down, you end up at the bottom of this bowl and then get up and head up the stairs for another round.  In the end, Gavin had a great time spending a few hours just hanging with his friends and burning off some of that endless energy.  Happy Birthday buddy!