I survived the Grand Columbian Half Ironman on Saturday.
I arrived at Grand Coulee mid-day on Friday and quickly noticed the smell of smoke from the nearby forest fire. I went for a quick dip in the lake before heading off to drive the bike course. As I drove the second half of the course it felt like I was heading directly into the fire with the dark grey sky and horizon.
As it turned out given the proximity of the fire to the Grand Coulee Dam and prevailing winds the race director make the decision to change the course of both the bike and the run. So instead of finishing the bike by the dam and running on the jeep trail below the dam along the river, T2 was changed back to Banks Lake where T1 was and the run was an out and back on Highway 155. My initial thoughts were great the bike will be easier as we don't have that long 10 mile climb, unfortunately I hadn't really thought much about the run (but it was much more difficult with several hills).
Now I was making the race time decision on whether or not I'd complete due to my strained calf. I decided on Friday night that it felt good enough to at least start the race.
I awoke about 6am (9:30 am start time) and choked down some food and got ready to go. I got the start just before the full Ironman distance competitors started and prepped my bike and then headed down along the lake to watch the swimmers head along the shore. It was pretty surreal as the smoke had drifted back over Banks Lake and the sun was heavily filtered by the smoke.
The start was a deep water start with the men starting 5 minutes before the women. I swam in my sleeveless suit and the water felt great. I had promised myself to go out harder than normal to try and better position myself in the pack. I pretty much did what I had planned and things worked out well as I finished the swim in 34:30 in 66th place which was 2 minutes faster than last year. My swim time was probably also aided (probably more so than my swim speed) by the fact that I pretty much swam a straight line the whole way around the course which made me feel good about my swim.
Transition from the swim to the bike was uneventful and I completed the transition quickly. Now this is a tough bike course. The first tough part comes just about 2 miles or so into the ride where you hit Almira Grade. This is a roughly 2.2 mile climb with approximately a 1000 foot elevation gain. For me this is a grind....grind...grind and the real bike leg starts when I get to the top. I was passed by about 10 riders up the grade all flyweight bike riders.
Once I got to the top I started to get into my rhythm over the next few miles of gentle rollers. Now on the original course there is an out and back before heading to a few more rollers then a nice descent into the town of Almira. With the course change we continued on the out and back road to what I will now affectionately refer to as the "uphill" rollers.
This is pretty much about 10 miles of stair step climbing which I think was harder than the long sustained climb on the original course.
Finally we hit a short downhill where we descended to Hwy 2. This is really where I started to feel good on the bike as I was finally in my element. This section along the hwy flat and smooth and I was flying along at near 30 miles an hour average picking off lots of riders ahead of me in a hurry.
At the end of hwy 2 we turned onto hwy 155 which takes you back along Banks Lake to Grand Coulee. Right about here my computer stopped working so I had no clue how fast I was going or what my cadence was. I think I eased up on the intensity. About 5 miles into this section another rider came up from behind and low and behold it was the lead woman. I took up the challenge and we traded places back and forth all the way back to T2 picking off about 6 more riders. I ended up finishing the ride (57 miles) in 2:47:02 with a 20.5 mph average in with the 26th fastest bike split.
T2 was uneventful and I headed out onto the run course. I was feeling good except for my calf which was now very painful with each stride. As a result I was compensating for the pain and about mile 2 my quad started to cramp from the change in stride to the point I was brought to the ground. At this point I was pretty much thinking my day was over. I spent a few minutes massaging the quad to stop the cramp and spasm and began running again. I kept rolling along and the cramp hit again around mile 4 so I was forced to stop and work out the cramp before continuing on. I kept moving but was frustrated as I felt great except for the pain in my calf which was significantly hampering my stride. As I headed back into Grand Coulee I knew I was going to make it and started to catch a few other runners in my age group and I pushed past them to the finish. I ended up finishing the run in 1:42:00 with the 27th fastest run split on the day which was both a positive and a disappointment. Positive as it was by far my fastest run leg in a half ironman which means I'm starting to get the nutrition and hydration figured out. It was a disappointment as I felt so great, that if I hadn't been bothered by the calf I felt I could have probably run 1:30 or so which would have probably put me under 5 hours overall.
In the end I finished up the race in 5:08:18. I was 26th overall and 7th in my age group. Overall I was very pleased given the very tough course and my sore calf. In comparison that time would have placed me 16th in this race last year which I think is a testament to increasing popularity of this race and the fact that it's attracting some really good athletes from around the country and other countries. Despite being a small race it had competitors from many states and Canada.
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