I arrived in TX on Friday afternoon and hit the local supermarket for some food/fruit/water. My hotel was about 6 miles from the race start so everything was very convenient. My taper went well and things had been clicking for me. I felt well rested and ready to rock and roll. Of all my ½ IM races, I felt most prepared for this one. I had been working hard on my cycling since December and my swimming and running were peaking at just the right time. My goals for this race were to PR on a pretty tough course. Previously I had been 4:57 and 5:07 on this course with a run PR of 1:42:xx. My swim goal was 27:30, bike was 2:28, and run was 1:28, enough to get me under 4:30.

The day before the race I went to the race site and rode the run course, and the first few hills of the bike - it was pretty much as I had remembered it. On this day there was no wind and the temps were about 92, almost perfect. The forecast for Sunday was lower temps but a possible thunderstorm.

Race day arrived and on my way to the race start I could see the lightning off in the distance - yikes - looks like we might not have swim. I started prepping myself mentally for a 5k. Luckily the storm passed over and the race started on time with no problems.

On the swim I seeded myself to the right hand side of the start in direct line with the first right hand turn out to the buoys that you couldn't see from shore but were certainly a ways away. I hit the water clean, no banging or bumping and just floored it from the start, once I cleared the first turn I kept trying to find someone to draft but no one was around me. I swam pretty much solo until the 180 degree turn back to the East. This long stretch was where I caught some people from earlier waves and I just kept up my pace. About ½ way in, I relaxed for about 10 strokes to slow my HR down and get a little more roll into my stroke. Once I finished this 10 stroke relaxation, I went back to race pace, and after two strokes I upchucked. Weird, but oh well, I kept swimming. Not sure why I puked, but I just did. Soon enough I made the left hand turn back to the beach. I didn't see many white caps (my wave) so I felt like I had a good swim, it was relaxed, not too hard and I was swimming very easy the last 200 or 300m getting my legs ready for the run to the bike rack. Swim time: 26:05 / 60th overall.

My strategy on the bike had a few variables to work with: Number one I was to keep RPE at a good effort but not to get bogged down in any gears that I couldn't spin up another 2-3 revs easily. I kept that in mind the entire race. The other variables I had to rely on were HR (hoping to keep this around 140), and also watts (I wanted to average between 220-230). The HR and watts would put me about 90% of threshold, completely new territory for me. In the past I have biked around 125 HR for ½ IM races. The first few hills are steep, so I stand to use gravity to get me up the hills - this works well, keeping the HR low and the watts in line as well. After the hills it's a long stretch of flat into the wind but watching the watts/RPE/HR made it easy to control myself. A few guys from my AG go by me and some are just flying. I stuck with my plan and just rode to my effort/watts. Once we hit some of the first rollers, I was just looking at the power meter seeing that I was just above threshold and feeling ok. My legs felt good, HR was 140-142 and things were moving along nicely. I didn't see many packs on the bike and that was nice. The roads were mostly chip seal but you could find the nice wear spots from the cars and those were nice and smoothed out. I hit mile 30 just under 90 minutes and soon thereafter I started the spiral staircase climb. I had a few guys just rip by me going for broke up this hill, but I sat back, watched the watts, maintained them over the top and then passed all those hammer heads at the top. The flat out/back at the top was a non-issue since I drove I the course the day before and knew where the turn arounds were. I had one more climb to get through and that one was pretty uneventful too, as I just stuck to my plan and kept trucking. The last section out of the canyon was into the wind and that was a bear until we turned back East and then we had tailwind for the next seven miles or so - lots of people were smoked by this point as they couldn't push the effort any longer. The wind can definitely drill you at this race if you aren't smart about it. I hit the last hill into transition with the same easy standing effort - then I slipped my feet out of my shoes and glided into T2. Bike time was 2:43:07 / 161 overall. 139 avg HR/Avg watts 226 and IF of .89 - right on my 90% target.

I started the run as easy as I could. I felt like absolute crap - legs were dead and had very little energy. I had 3 guys just blast by me out of T2 like there were running a 5k. They easily put about 30 seconds on me in about the 1st mile. No way was I going to hold that pace for 13 miles, so I just let them go. I hit mile 1 at 7:04/ mile 2 at 7:10/ mile 3 at 21:40 (7:13 pace) and then we hit the two ½ mile hills. I didn't look at my watch at mile 4, but I stopped, drank an entire Gatorade, and ran up the second half mile hill, feeling slightly better. Once I got to the next aid station, my watch read 37:38 or 7:30 pace for 5 miles. I took in some more Gatorade, and had a little conversation with myself. It went something like this: "If you keep at this pace you will have a nice safe race, easily run under 1:40 and there won't be any pain involved. If you want to run the last 8 miles like a 10k, pick off some people, and possibly crash/burn at mile 11 or 12, then we have to turn it on now. It's better to burn out, then to fade away." Once I looked up I saw those 3 guys in front of me who had sprinted out of T2. Now they were in my sights and I took them all down, moving by pretty quickly. I hit the turn around at 46:30 and then set my sights on two things: one was to negative split the run and the next was to pass anyone I could see. I kept moving up like I wanted and passed a pretty good local guy at mile 11. With two miles to go, another guy in my AG pulled up to me and dropped me instantly. I was running about 50m behind him and once again had one of those conversations with myself again: "Mike, you can sit here and let this guy take you or you can move up to his shoulder and see what he does". I moved up to his shoulder and ran there for about 100m until he cracked like an egg. Sometimes a little pressure on people goes a long way. Anyway, as I kept moving toward the finish, I was picking up steam and by the end I was running flat out - almost like I was finally warming up. I hit the tape at 4:49:42 - far from my 4:30 goal, but a negative split run of 46:00 for the second half giving me a 1:36:xx and a 21:xx last 5k - I guess I was just warming up! : Run time was 1:36:41/ 7:23 pace/58th fastest overall.

Overall I ended up 74th overall, my highest placing in this race and a run PR of about 6 minutes or about 27 second per mile faster. In 2005, my time would have been good enough for 4th AG and this season, it was 21st! Talk about a stacked field!

Thanks for reading,
Mike