houseofdixon.com

Having successfully completed my first 1/2 Ironman distance triathlon, I now am confronted with the wonderful task of putting my experience into words. I’m not sure where to start so I guess I’ll just work through it chronologically.

Around 7:50am or shortly thereafter those who were interested came together for a pre-race prayer. This is always a good start to any race, and I find myself looking forward to this at all HPF races. Then at 8:00am the wave starts begin. Being that I am competing in the 1/2IM distance, my wave is close to the end, so I wait until around 8:30 to start…

“Dadadadadada…Charge” comes over the mini-megaphone to start my wave, and I’m off.

1st lap of the swim, I get jostled a bit, but fall into a groove early. The swim feels really good, and I find myself actually enjoying it. 2nd lap, still feeling good, I make the last turn for the final stretch of the swim and decide to pick it up a bit. I finish the swim in 30:12, wow that was fast (about 10mins faster than I had planned)…more about that later. I get my wetsuit off and make my way to the transition and my waiting bike and gear.

Using my best funny, cycling shoe induced, running style I exit the transition area and start pedaling, still feeling great. My plan is to play it safe and not go overboard on the bike, so I start of with a manageable pace between 19-21mph. Around mile 9 there is the biggest hill of the course and let me say, coming from Northwest Ohio, this is a killer hill. My pace slows as I ascend, my breathing quickens, my legs burn…I made it…with a smile on my face loving every second of it. The second loop starts and I am still taking it a bit easy, and I decide to keep around the same pace to save energy for the run. As I finish I look down at my bike computer to see an average pace of just under 20mph(19.8 to be precise)…I’ll take it because I now know I am hot on the trail of destroying my pre-race prediction of 6hrs 5mins. I leave my bike and put on my running shoes for the final stage (the 13.1 mi run).

The first 3 miles felt pretty good, although a bit slow. Then my muscles speak up and they are not happy. I slow to what Tiff calls a Slog or Slow Jog pace, and try to keep making forward progress. My mind and body are now beginning to work as one to slow me down. I decided earlier to walk through all of the water stops, which I did, and I’m glad for it, because I needed all the water, sports drink, and Hammer Gels I could get. After those first 3 miles I sort of walk/jogged the rest of the 10 miles. The best part is, I still knew I could beat my prediction time. As I rounded the corner exiting the trail and seeing for the 3rd time (the run was a 3 loop course), the finish line, I dug down deep and found a little bit of energy left for just a little itty-bitty baby kick to end the race. I finished in what felt like a blistering pace, but was probably little more than a slow jog…but I finished…I felt pain everywhere, tired, but also joy and happiness. I stood at the finish line and received my finisher medal knowing I had just finished the biggest, longest race of my life.

Now I before I get to my finish time I should go back to the swim just briefly. I mentioned I finished about 10 minutes earlier than expected. Well, in talking to others at the end of the race, Tiff, myself, and others were also 10 minutes faster than they had thought, so I may have to add around 10minutes to my time for the full Half-Ironman Distance. Although this is a little discouraging that the race may have been short, it succeeded in really giving me a boost as I went on to the bike.

On to my finish time…my prediction as you may remember was 6hrs 5mins…The official finish time was…5:36:19. This is 28min 41sec faster than my prediction…WOW!!! I had no idea I was capable of that kind of pace. I had an absolutely wonderful experience, and I can’t wait for my next race…

I’m hoping Tiff will write at least a little report of her own to tell you about her amazing day/Race PR, so I’ll leave that out for now…Also, Pictures are to be rolling in soon, and I’ll get those up as soon as possible…

I’ll be uploading more race photos later on.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 at 11:27 am and is filed under Cycling, Races, Running, Swimming, Triathlon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.