Half IM details

Part for Joe G to read and half for me records for future races:

Breakfast: starting about 2:45 before race start, 2 plain waffles, 1 cup Earl Grey tea with honey, 1 banana, most of a 32oz bottle gatorade, 2 spoonfuls of peanut butter.

In hour before race start: 2 Hammer gels and water. Felt satisfied, but not "full."

Swam 200m warmup from the swim finish over to the boat dock where we started. Solid warmup. Told myself repeated to "harden the F#ck up" and I did puke or gag even before the race. Most people had no warmup. I think maybe 10 of us got any warmup.

Out of water, jogged easy to transition. Took a long time to get everything going, but dry socks with baby powder in them went on nice and smooth. Feet stayed dry on bike. On bike I ate nothing until mile 5.5 where I took in first set of Enduralytes, then a GU. After mile 12 or so I started on the Clif Bar. Ate half in a few small bites. Puked in mouth a little. Put Clif bar away for 30 miles. I more enduralytes about mile 24. I also mixed in 2 more GU's and 2 sets of 3 Clif Blok blocks (Cola flavored). First 28 miles I think I did in 1:24 or so, I think I'd avg'd about 19.2, which means to avg 20.3 I smoke round 2 of the course. I felt good and went hard when I did. I lost the yellow spongee thing in the aerodrink bottle 4 miles into the bike. I forgot to set one of the rubber bands over the top of it at the start. Oops. Oh well.

At mile 28 turnaround, I wasted 90 sec to get bottles with my gatorade in them. I took my last enduralytes (I think I had 4 pills) at mile 45 or so. I grabbed a bottle of cold water at a water station at mile 44 (just chunked a bottle they gave me and grabbed one on the go). Used it to cool my head a couple times and hydrate. I ended up drinking about 4 24oz bottles gatorade, 1.5 bottles water. Never felt "full" nor thirsty. I guess my approach of going back to basics to get past nutrition problems worked.

I took my last GU on the bike with about 2-3 miles to go. I packed all my food trash in my aerobottle so I didn't have to empty pockets at transition. Feet out of shoes and hopped off cyclocross style. At T2 I was about 20 min ahead of plan. Sweet! I was off bike in 2:48 for 56.6 miles incl the 90 sec stop where I lost time.

T2: fairly good, put on sunscreen, grabbed some food, new socks, and was off. Bec took a bunch of picts of my in T1 and T2, but I was bending over in nearly all of them. No comments from the peanut gallery.

Started run feeling really good. Just drank water for first 1.5 miles, filled bottle with cold at first stop about 0.5 mi out. Mistake was to end up having only 1 bottle with water in transition. I needed 2/3 of it for getting grass/sand/rocks off my feet before the bike. Need 2 full bottles next time. Also, need to not hog all the sunscreen so wife is without and she doesn't get burned. The race folks had sunscreen to smear on for racer (and public I presume), but Bec didn't know. I feel bad about that.

I ran about 3 miles and started eating some Sports Beans. Tasted good. Worked down a package over first hour of run. I tried to hit the gatorade as often as possible, but I can't pound a cup or two without feeling bad. I did try an orange slice, but it was sour and I spit it out and chunked the rind in the woods. Awful!

I had an extra empty GU in my pocket after the run, so I think I ate 2 on the run, but don't remember. After running an hour with little food, I was getting nervous of the bonk. I evidently ate 2 GU's (incl my last Honey Stinger Chocolate, which is doper heaven). I also ate 2 cola clif bloks while walking in the shade when feeling like ass at mile 11. Then I ran well to the line. Half marathon was 2:01:45, or 9:18 miles (seems a little quick). They were supposed to have bananas on the bike, but had none, and the same with coke on the run. Oh well.

Mile paces, mostly correct with some late stoppages of the watch when I ran past the mile marker, also some miles I walked more then others and some I lost 20-25 sec for filling my bottle up. I walked a couple times up the hills between mile 2 and 6 and walked a lot between miles 9 and the start of 12. Pretty consistent for the most part.
1- 8:56
2- 9:27 (lots of short 8% hills between mile 2 and 6)
3- 8:58
4- 9:20
5- 9:23
6- 9:24
7- 7:44 (mostly down hill, plus ran to where Bec was watching)
8- 9:27
9- 9:54
10- 10:00
11- 11:16 (suffering bad in mile 10 and 11)
12- 8:16 (got my shit together, smiling, pumped I was finishing)
13.1- 9:49

I felt completely coherent and aware of everything until mile 10 when we were all walking a lot. I felt good last couple miles and held a coherent conversation with Bec after the finish. That was good in my book.

Couple notes: One guy in age group ran with headphone (penalized?). Bec said the announcer said first time penalty in a half IM is 4 min, then 16min for violation 2, then DQ. They also didn't enforce the wearing a shirt rule.

One of the first cyclists, who was very fast and I think 2nd or 3rd anyway, was told the wrong direction at some point on the bike and was 23 min ahead of the second rider. They didn't even have the mat ready for him. I do not know if he was DQ'd (riders should know the course) or just penalized.