What a great experience in competing in the 70.3 World Championships. I think this was a good step in my ultimate goal of qualifying for the Ironman World Championships in Kona. The Las Vegas course was the most challenging 70.3 course I have done and the competition was the deepest I have ever seen including the 5 Ironman events I have completed. There were 1000 athletes from the US and 1300 international athletes that were all very strong, fit, and serious. I have never seen so many $10,000+ bikes. I evaluated the pro finishing times from years past and I know I had to reset my expectations and add about 20 min to my finishing time so I set my goal to finish under 5 hours. I ended up finishing 4:58 and 68th in my age group out of 494. Here is a summary of my race.
Race Morning
I got up at 4:45am and Julie and I were planning to leave the room at 5am. I walked to the swim start the morning before to do a practice swim and it was about a mile walk from the hotel. Our plan was Julie was going to grab me a bagel and coffee and I was going to head to the race start to get my bike ready because transition was closing at 6am. I knew I was going to have a lot of time between transition closing and my race start of 7:28 so I figured a bagel and coffee would be perfect.
My first "SUCK" moment (remember my theme for the site is Embrace the Suck) was getting to the hotel lobby and seeing a complete downpour outside. It never rains in Vegas but this morning it was pouring.
Like and idiot I stuck to my plan and walked to the race start in the cool, dark, rain. I was the only one walking down a path that was very crowded the morning before but failed to find out that the hotel shuttle was taking people to the race start. I saw 4 shuttles pass me and I could just hear the athletes inside saying "who's that idiot walking".
I actually enjoyed the walk and gave me time to reflect and prepare of the race. By the time I got to the race start I knew exactly what I had to do. I prepared my bike, pumped my tires, loaded my water bottles, and was ready to roll.
Luckily, there was a large covered bridge that went over the lake that provided cover from the rain. I went in there to look for Julie but there were 1000s of people set up everywhere. I walked and walked and could not find her. Like a idiot, I gave her my phone in the morning so I had no way to contact.
I saw a small opening on the floor next to a nice family with matching yellow shirts. I set down and they instantly adopted me for the morning. They were the Palmers from Ellicott City, MD and there daughter was Lauren Palmer competing in 25-29. She actually qualified at the Raleigh 70.3 in Laura Gersten's age group where she finished 6th overall. Small world.
They let me use there cell phone, gave me a bagel, peanut butter, and some water. I finally found Julie and was ready to go but had to make one final stop at the porto potty.
My "SUCK" moment #2 - NO TOILET PAPER.
Finally ready to go. Put the HUUB on, sucked down a gel with some caffeine, got a great hug and last words of encouragement from my wonderful wife, and off to the start.
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Swim
We were suppose to have 3 waves of the 40-44 group but they decided to start us all together. 494 guys fully jacked up. I anticipated a lot of bumping. I had my usually plan I discussed with Raz and JP. I swam about 50 meters to the swim start which is an in water start. The lake is very narrow and very dark in color. It was the color of a dark tea. After treading water for about 2 minutes I move up to 3rd or 4th row. I started out fast and then jumped on feet. It was not rough at all. I think everyone is very experienced so we gave each other room and started drafting. I thought we got to the turnaround pretty quickly and it started to spread out. I saw a guy much bigger than me and jumped on his feet. He created a great draft for the second half of the swim course. I thought about jumping out around him but every time I tried I noticed my energy level sky rocket and I was only going to gain 20 sec on the guy. I thought conservatively and stayed on his feet. I was pleasantly surprised when I exited the water that I swam a pretty comfortable but hard 32 minutes.
Here is a video from Julie on the swim start. You can see me wave to her. I have red on the back of my swim skin.
Bike
TI was a pretty long run and most of it was very muddy from the rain. It was still raining as I got my bike and headed out on the course. The first thing I see is my amazing dedicated family including my in-laws Bob and Judy, Mom and Dad, and my daughters Ashley and Mackenzie. They made me laugh as they stood in the rain with their garbage bags on just like IM Lake Placid.
The bike course starts with a pretty steep hill. My heart rate was high from the swim at about 160 bpm and I tried to settle down but there are so many hills in the first 5 miles before you get a really good down hill to catch your breath. I started getting past by about 5-7 guys in my age group was in a normal race is very unusual for me. Then another 5 guys passed me. This was starting to make me mad so for the next 10 miles I rode with these guys but my heart rate was skyrocketing. I had to put my ego away around mile 15 and settle back to my pace.
The next 30 miles were constant up and down hills. Nothing we can really simulate in our area because it so consistent and long there. You go up and then go down all the time. By mile 40 I started feeling really good. I began to pick it up for the last 16 miles and I am really happy that I backed off some on the bike. I ended up passing a lot of people in the last 10 miles that were just out of gas and I also felt great going into the run. The course is really narrow out in the desert. There was not a lot of room and I saw one bad wreck that needed an ambulance and A LOT of flat tires. Not sure why there were so many flat tires. I thought the road conditions were good. I did not see a lot of blatant drafting but there were definitely guys working together on the edge of legal. For the most part, I think it was fair racing and really challenging course.
I kept to my planned nutrition taking in a gel every 40 minutes and I only had a couple of salt tabs. I had prepared for 100 degrees on the bike so I was carrying 3 bottle but only went through about a 1 1/2 bottles per hour. It was still raining and overcast with the temperature in the low 80s.
Run
When I got to T2 sun was out so I knew the run course was going to start to heat up. It still was not that hot but probably in 80s. The run course is challenging with 2 challenging climbs on each loop. You end up running the 3 loops so it ends up being 6 climbs. I did this first loop pretty comfortable and then starting pushing myself for the 2nd and 3rd loops. My run pace was what I expected with running about 8:15 to 8:30 on the up hills and 7:00 to 7:15 on the down hills. I continued nutrition on the run course taking a gel about every 3-4 miles. I also drink water and used ice at every aid station. I began taking down coke on the last loop and finished hard but feeling pretty good about my day.
Here is a quick video my passing my family near the finishing line.
My Support Team
I want to thank my family Bob, Judy, Mom, Dad, Ashley, Mackenzie and Julie. They are always so supportive and understanding when Dad has to do weekend workouts. I also wanted to thank my coaches John Payne and Raz Cuparencu that did a great job preparing me over a short timeframe for this race.
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