202 days left

Hey everyone,
     I'm posting this on Sunday, the day after I finished the White Lake Half-Iron Distance Triathlon!  So in this post I'm just going to recap the events, starting with leaving the house on Friday.  White Lake is about 1.5 hours west of Jacksonville and we drove up Friday evening and stayed at Camp Clearwater.  Camp Clearwater is a campground located right on White Lake and was about a mile from the race site, so a great location!  We got packet pickup done on Friday so I was able to sleep in a bit Saturday morning, luckily we brought the air mattress and space heater for our tent, because it was a bit chilly at night.  The morning of we woke up at 7, had a banana, and headed to the race site.  I was getting my transition area "perfect", when I heard multiple rumors concerning the cancellation of the swim portion due to water temps and a possible duathlon option (a duathlon would be just the bike and run), so I headed down to body marking where they told me that I could opt for a duathlon, or continue with the full Triathlon but that the water was about 53 degrees.  I told them I'd stick it out in the water and see what happened.  Got body markings done, picked up my timing chip, and got in my wetsuit with booties so that I could watch the first wave (of 8) hit the water at 9am.  My wave wasn't until 9:30 so I had some time to kill.
     At about 9:25 I eased in to try to get my body used to the cold water, but 5 minutes wasn't enough.  By the time my wave launched I only swam freestyle for about 5 strokes before I realized I hadn't been breathing.  I ended up doing a side stroke to keep the choppy waves (really choppy yesterday) from hitting me in the face so I could just focus on making forward progress and breathing.  I finally moved to a breaststroke without letting my face enter the water, then slowly eased into letting my face go under, and finally I got used to it after about 10 minutes to where I was swimming along freestyle just fine.  I ended up getting out of the water in 42 minutes, which is only a few minutes slower than what I usually do in the pool, I was really surprised by that (I felt like I'd been out there forever.)  The first transition didn't go smooth.  I finally got the wetsuit and booties off, but when I tried to mount the bike my sock had gotten stuck in the velcro straps on top of the shoe and I tried to rotate my foot to reposition it as I swung my other leg over, this caused the shoe to unclip from the pedal and the bike and I both crashed to the gravel.  My left knee was bloody and had some rocks in it and my right knee was a little bruised.  The bike's right shifter bent in about 30 degrees, but we both still worked so we set off on the bike course.
     The bike course is my biggest negativity about the whole race, I really wished I had been able to perform a bit better on the bike.  I was able to keep a 15mph pace for the first half, which was my goal, but the second half I must have dropped down to a 13mph average because it took my almost 4 hours to complete this segment.  My garmin watch that gives me the distance, speed, and time of day died before I hit 40 miles so I had no way to pace myself for the last 16 and that also meant that I wouldn't have it for the run either.  I rely so much on that thing for pacing and keeping track of my progress, that it was a severe mental blow.  I just shouted to bikers as the went by asking how many miles or what time is it to try to get some idea of where I was on the course and what I had left before starting the bike.  (The watch was supposed to last 20 hours, not sure what happened.)  I definitely thought of Kevin and the other 8 a lot during this portion of the ride and honestly think they might have been the only thing to get me past the watch, the injuries, and the amount of bikers flying past me.  I finally did finish the bike segment (STARVING) and was thankful I left some bananas near my running shoes.  This transition went much smoother, changed out my bloody socks and got my shoes on and hit the trail.  I was close to the railing in transition so my wife, daughter, Cody Gormley, and Andy Owens were they to cheer me through both of the transitions (which meant a lot, thanks guys!).  I was even able to give my daughter a hug on my way to start the bike course and she gave me these words of encouragement, "Don't hug me daddy!  You're all sweaty!"
     The run course went okay, again without having the watch I'm not really sure what pace I was doing but I tried to stick with running until I got to an aid station, at which point I'd walk the entire aid station (maybe 40 yards) and then continue running until the next one.  This worked out GREAT until I hit a wall at mile 10 and had to start walking.  Once I let myself start to walk, I tried to run a few times between miles 10 and 12 and I just couldn't break through.  My legs and body were just done.  I had passed Brandon Gillette around mile 9 and he caught up with me somewhere in mile 12 at which point it was his turn to motivate me to get to that finish line.  We were able to finish together side-by-side which was great, because he has been a serious motivator in getting me to start thinking about Triathlon and has been my training partner since day 1.  The run took my a little over 2 hours and 20 mins.
     Post half-iron consisted of Pizza, a brownie, some Cheetos, and sitting down.  I had to help tear down the camp site, but Amanda was awesome and drove my car the entire way back while I sipped gatorade.  Some cool points to note about this event though:
1.) 415 people registered (i.e. paid money) to do the White Lake Half
2.) 215 people completed it (a lot didn't start because of the water temp and others were pulled out due to hypothermia as well as other DQ's and such)
3.) 75 people chose to do the Duathlon and skip the swim

So all in all, I'm disappointed in my bike time and the walking on the half marathon, but I'm happy I got it done.  I'm well on my way to my full iron in October and can't wait to hang that medal next to this one!

206 Days Left

Well things have been pretty slow since my last post, coming off the high of finishing Azalea not much else seem worthy to put on here.  This Saturday I will complete (hopefully) half of the distance that I'll be attempting in October, 70.3 miles.  It is a Half Iron Distance which includes a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and a 13.1 half marathon run.  I'm hoping my training has prepared me enough, but I'm feeling good and excited about getting out and competing again.  This is also my first open water swim, so we'll see how aggressive the waters truly are.  In other news, I've been invited to join a Triathlon team here in Jacksonville with the local bike shop, The Bicycle Gallery.  I'm going to get all my Bike Gallery gear next week and I'll be racing and training in it for the rest of the season.  I'm very proud that I was asked to wear their logo during my races, they are a great shop and I've been riding with them since October.  I'm going to keep this short because I'm sure to write a long post Sunday after the race, at which point I should be half an Ironman.