I've been surprised by how sore I've been this week after racing in Boise on Saturday. Even today some 4 days after the race I'm still pretty sore. Normally I'm sore for a day or so after a half IM but this time I'm still feeling it. I think there were a couple of culprits this time.
First the cold, even though it was really cold being wet for so many hours really takes a lot of extra energy maintain warmth and I was pretty shaky by the time I got back to my hotel and into the hot shower, pretty sure I had early stages of hypothermia and I know I wasn't alone.
Second I worked pretty damn hard out there. I swam hard, biked hard and ran hard and all that effort took it's toll. This is not to say I haven't worked hard in other races I know I was pushing the whole way this time.
Third I wore new shoes. Not just new shoes but a new brand and model of shoe. First off I'll say I really like these shoes but all shoes have a slightly different slip last and density and that changes the way your foot strikes, rolls and pushes off and that can very slight change can cause you to use slightly different muscles. In this case my lower calves have been really sore and that isn't something that normally gets sore for me. So I think it's the shoes. The shoes by the way are the KSwiss K-Ona. They are very comfortable, light in short they rock now I just need to get some more miles on them so my legs are used to them.
Overall I was really stoked with my race. It was a very consistent performance across all three disciplines which is nice not having to worry about making the race in one discipline. How even was it? I was 79th overall in the swim, 93rd overall on the bike and 68th overall on the run (out of 1500 starters and 1186 finishers and that includes 33 pro's).
Biggest surprise was my swim. This was a huge improvement relative to other half IM and IM races in terms of placement. I don't think I've ever cracked the top 200 overall in the swim. The bike left me scratching my head a bit. 93rd overall fastest bike is good but posting a 2:32 I would have expected it to be a higher placement overall, but to be fair it's my second fastest half IM bike split ever in really bad conditions and I really haven't come on form on the bike yet this year so the skies the limit on the bike. My run time was also really solid and I was a bit suprised that I was only 68th fastest run, but a 1:30:48 half marathon is solid and I felt like this was the first time I was actually racing the run (negative split the run by about a minute) so I'll take it.
This week it's some recovery time no real hard or long running just some shorter swims and a long bike this weekend. Then I start to ramp into another build cycle next week heading towards Vineman 70.3 in 4.5 weeks. If I can put together another even and strong effort at Vineman I think something in the 4:30 range is very possible. As always I will take what the day gives me at least I won't be wading through 12 waves of competitors as my group goes off second at Vineman.
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