Hot, humid and crazy windy. That pretty much summed up the Ironman 70.3 Hawaii. I've been on island for a week getting some good hard training in so this race was a continued extension of the training. Coaches instructions swim hard and bike harder then cruise the run as close to 1:40 as possible.
Race morning started at 3:45 a.m. with the alarm. Forced down some food about 600 calories and got ready dressed for the day. Went to grab the shuttle bus to the start at Hapuna Beach Park and palms were being whipped around by the gusty winds.
Got to Hapuna about 5:30 a.m. and started doing final prep of my bike. Helped a few others who were fretting a bit about tire pressure, whether to attach their shoes to their pedals or should they put all of their stuff in a bag or leave it on their bike. Then headed down to get body marked. This race is pretty unique the bike racks are the ones they use in Kona so you just sit your rear tire in the rack and the body markings are big stamp numbers.
Had a couple final gels, water and applied sunscreen and slipped into my swim skin. Off to the beach to get a little warm-up swim in. The water was frothing from the offshore gusting wind but the water is amazingly clear as the bay is a sand bottom ranging between 10 and 30 feet deep.
I positioned myself near the outside buoy for the start away from the masses. Then without warning the cannon echoed across the bay and we were off in a churning mass of humanity. I was glad to be positioned where I was as it wasn't as rough as some previous races and I quickly honed in on the first buoy to make a right turn (about .3 miles). Things were pretty managable on the outside of the turn. The next turn was about 200 meters ahead and then another right turn. This is where things got interesting as I was on the outside of the masses I (along with others) were pushed further by the current and offshore wind but I managed to keep a pretty good tracking of the next turn about 1/2 mile ahead. I had felt pretty good the whole way keeping a good stroke cadence and swimming with a group from the first buoy. The water was so clear it was great you could actually see others swimming around you, turtles and fish. There was a report of a huge manta ray but I didn't see it. I exited the water and checked my watch and I was just over 34 minutes. Not quite what I was hoping but given the conditions I was pretty happy. Later I'd find out that I was 188th out of the water which is a huge improvement over my previous swims.
The transition from swim to bike is tough across the beach and then about 300 yards up a steep hill to the bikes. Off with my swim skin, helmet and glasses on and I'm heading out of transition. as I'm heading out a volunteer is yelling at me "where is your chip?", I look down and it's not there, time to panic. He grabs a chip records my race number and swipes the chip over the chip mat and puts the chip strap on my ankle. Big Mahalo to that man. As it turns out in my rush to get out of my swim skin I had grabbed the chip strap and stipped it right off as well.
Off on the bike I go, into my shoes attached to my pedals with no problem and up the hill to the Queen K Highway. Immediately I knew the wind would be a factor today and running deep dish wheels would make it that much more challenging. I knew in the first few miles that I had no cycling power today. My legs were just like dead weights. To add insult to injury my rear deraileur was not shifting so any serious pressure in the lower gears and it wouldn't hold gearing (gonna be a problem on the climb to Hawi).
Despite this I started chewing up the riders ahead of me. Through the turn onto Highway 270 up to Hawi. This is where the gearing and heavy legs were really a problem I couldn't get the big chain ring and right cassette gearing to really keep moving and in the small chain ring I could only find a really low gear that would hold so it was a slow slog up to Hawi to the turnaround. At the turn I locked into the big ring and high gear and flew back down from Hawi I was holding near 40 mph just trying to keep the bike from being blown off the road by the gusting cross winds. Finally back onto the Queen K and back to the Mauna Lani Resort. Ended up averaging 21.21 mph, finishing up the bike leg in 2:38:26. Not the bike split I was looking for but considering I had put in 230 miles on the bike this week while on island and the poor gearing I guess I shouldn't complain. I had ridden basically the 56 mile route earlier in the week as part of a longer ride and had ridden at 21.7 mph average not really riding that hard so I know I can fly on this course if rested. I had moved up to 104th place overall.
I had a good transition taking my time to get ready to run and off I went. I was pretty worried about how I'd hold up on the run in the heat and humidity. My coach had asked me to cruise the run and not expend too much trying to run as close to 1:40 in the half marathon as possible. My legs felt a little heavy out the gate and I missed the first mile marker so at mile 2 I got an idea of how fast I was running, 14 minutes I was cruising along at 7:00 minutes a mile and starting to really get comfortable. I decided to just go with it given my poor bike ride. As I went past a checkpoint at about 2.5 miles a number checker announced that the guy in front of me was in 110th place. I thought maybe I can work my way up to 80th place overall by the end. As the miles clipped away I was holding between 6:55 and 7:10 per mile on the rolling up and down course which snaked through the roads through the lava, the fairways and beach within the Mauna Lani Resort. At mile 5 I started catching the runners ahead of me in bunches. Some were really slowing and some had been reduced to a walk already. I just kept a smile on my face, focused on good form and kept on churning. I slowed a little between mile 9 and 11 but then picked up the pace again once I knew the end was near.
As I came to the finish since I was alone between other finishers the annoucer announced my name and then asked "How'd your day go today, Michael" over the loud speaker and I raised my arms in the air and gave the thumbs up as I came to the finish line. I ended up finishing the run in 1:34:04 with a 7:10 per mile pace. A little faster than my coach had prescribed but I think he'll forgive me for this sin.
Overall I moved all the way up to 60th place overall and 15th in the very tough 35-39 age group finishing in 4:53:08 a new PR by about 5 minutes. Not quite what I was hoping for but a good solid effort given the tough conditions and mechanical challenges with the bike.
After the race myself and some others I'd met while on the island went to the awards banquet which was a lavish spread with lots of food, beer and of course stories good and bad from the day. I was suprised that I had actually earned a qualifying spot for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships to be held in Clearwater, Florida in November but declined the spot.
Now for a few more days of training here in Kona before heading back to Seattle for my final hard week of training before starting my taper to Ironman Coeur d'Alene in just 3 weeks. I'm feeling good and looking forward to a great day and race.
Myself and James from Michigan I met and have been hanging out with while here this week. James finished two places ahead of me in our age group beating me by 1:56. He's an animal on the bike with 10th fastest bike split overall in the race. We're heading out for our recovery ride the day after the race.
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