Well, the odyssey is over and in summary this was a great experience. My main target time indicated earlier was 5:59:00, with a “good day” goal of 5:45:00. I ended up beating both of them. My overall time came in at 5 hours, 44 minutes, 6 seconds. I will take that any day in my first 70.3 race. The race was scheduled for 3400 participants, but the final finishing number was 2509, with 370 in my age group finishing.
Swim Goal time was 30 minutes, and I blew that out of the water with a 25:07 swim time. This was good for 55th fastest in my age group (35-39) which had 370 racers, and 389th in the entire race. This was my first mass start in the water (holding a rope until the bell) and it was pretty hectic for the first 4-5 minutes. Once I was able to get closer to the shoreline (and the shortest distance) I was able to get some space, find a good rhythm and felt very comfortable the entire swim. If I pushed it I could have gotten under 24 minutes!
Transition one was planned for 4 minutes, and for some reason I took 5. Not sure what took me so long. Need to improve that one for sure.
The bike ride had two goals, primary was to average at least 17.2mph which would get me in at 3:15:00, and if I had a good ride to ride at 18.6mph which would mean a 3 hour flat ride. Even by following my plan of taking it easy the first half of the ride I was able to smash both of those goals. Final ride time came in at 2:51:33, a 19.5mph average. Must have been a fast ride for a lot of people as that time was 980th overall and 172nd in my age group (still in the top half). Ride was flat for the first 15 miles with a slight tailwind, and the weather remained cloudy most of the time. Once you turned north on the course the wind became a cross/headwind and the terrain became full of rolling hills. I had no problems with the length and slope of the climbs. My hill repeats and the terrain near my house definitely paid off here. Most of the uphill's I was passing guys around me, and on the downhill sections is where the aero bikes would catch me. One thing this ride put in my brain, its time to step up to a real triathlon specific bike with good aero wheels. I could have shaved a lot of time with the same effort. Took it easy the last few miles and got into some higher gears to increase my cadence before the run. I think this really helped as my legs felt totally fine coming out of transition.
Transition 2 came in at 2:28 and I planned for 3 minutes, so that was a good transition.
Now the run. This is where I struggled a bit. My goal time was a 9:30 pace which would bring me in at 2h 5 minutes. I ended up running a 2:19:21, which was pretty close to my ING Half Marathon time in March. I felt great at the start. As the winner Greg Bennett mentioned it was mentally a very tough course. Two loops, four straightaway's each loop that were somewhere in close to 1 3/4 mile each. It was a great scene in downtown Augusta with the crowds, but it was a challenge to not hope that the NEXT block was going to be the turnaround (when it was always about 7-8 more blocks down). The sun was out by then and the temps were up in the mid 80’s. I didn’t ever feel overwhelmed, but after running the first mile around 9 minutes, I just could not keep that gear turning. At the 7 mile split I was averaging 10:48 min/mile pace, and my final 6.1 mile split I lowered that a bit to 10:26 min/mile pace. So to find something positive, at least I had a negative split for my pace.
5:44:06
I am very pleased with the result. Looking at the overall trend, I was in 389th place (55 in Age Group) after the swim, 909th place (172) after the bike, and 1207th overall place (213) at the end. By percentages I finished in the 51% bracket with all men in the race (926 of 1,808). My time percentile versus the entire field (percentage placement within the entire race field) was 15.13% on the swim, 38.9% on the bike, and 61.37% on the run.
In order to get competitive it is pretty obvious where I need to improve, however I have come a long way from just finishing these races. Swimming is right where I need to be, Bike could use some improvement however a better aero setup will pay off to get a few mph added, but my run needs the most work. If I can get my half marathon pace down to 9 minutes and my 10k splits into the high 7’s, I can start competing for age group placement next year.
So next up. What to do with the upcoming months (running plan) and what races to look at next year.
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