Ken's Road to Kona

If you haven’t been to the Lehigh Valley, it is a remarkably beautiful place. The kind of place you would take your partner to get out of the city; rent a B&B, do some fishin’, and celebrate America. I’d like to return there sometime without actually competing in a triathlon.

First things first, I have to thank Cory and Mike from Couchsurfing.com who let me crash at their place. Mike did the sprint race and came in an impressive 20th place overall and 3rd in his age group! I think Mike will do quite well when he decides to move up to longer distances.

Unlike my last race where I was flustered by arriving in the 15 minutes before the transition closed. CGI sporting events required check-in the day before. Having someplace to stay really made the trip much more enjoyable and relaxed. Mike and I had a great pasta dinner and watched Invincible and cut out early for a 4AM wake up.

SWIM

The swim actually went pretty well considering all things. I seeded myself in the back of the floating start still not confident after my JerseyMan performance. At the sound of the horn I got the normal depressing feeling that occurs when you see everyone pull away from you but I was fortunate enough to settle in the slow pack. Again, I was designated silver caps which weren’t that easy to sight from. Lucky, there was a guy in front of me who had some pasty white arms which did the trick.:-)

On a sympathy note, I felt bad while I was swimming as I passed a girl in the last sprint wave who was panicking and crying as people started to pass her. It had to be her first time race. She was wailing around and it took a concentrated effort to get around her.I saw some officials on paddle boats racing towards here.

I navigated the course rather well. I did get too close on the last buoy where my arm got tangled but overall I came out of the water pretty satisfied. I felt relaxed and felt I went out at the right pace. When I swim, time just seems to pass by so slow so you never know how fast or slow I”m going.

42:51

BIKE

I should have had a road bike.

The course was absolutely unforgiving. There was only maybe 5 percent of the course where getting into the aero-position was actually beneficial; and those we mostly on going down hills. Up, down, up down. There were parts of the race where I was going only 2 miles an hour up hills then 60 kph a second later.

I was doing some research on bike pacing before the race. The plan was to go less than race pace perceived effort on the first loop and then take it harder the 2nd lap. This would allow me pass the people who were going out too hard and set myself up well on run. As expected, people passed me and I expected this but I knew I would pass them later. I don’t really mind 40 year old men passing me. I don’t really mind 55 year old women passing me. It’s fine really. It didn’t matter. The course was so brutal that there wasn’t many opportunities to “take it easy”. It just took it’s toll on me, especially as a heavier rider. At one point climbing a hill, I got out of the saddle to climb and my inner thigh almost “caved in”. It’s difficult to describe, the best way to explain it would be that my inner thigh decided not to flex. It was weird and I felt that all the way through the run.  I should have had a road bike. For me at least, the geomatry of the bike would have made the climbs a little more tolerable. You live and learn.

BlackBear Medal

These hills taught me lesson however: I need a different cassette than what I currently have. I have the typical 12-25 cassette but I noticed some athletes really spinning on the hills much more than the poor souls who were grinding it out (i.e. me). Perhaps one with a 29 sprocket. I personally saw two chains break while climbing some of these hills. There was a point where I was thinking, “You know, I could totally just jump off my bike and just push it up this hill…no one would know. And if they did, they would totally understand.” I didn’t do it, but if someone else did, I would totally have understood.

It didn’t help that my bike computer broke on the first lap when my water bottle apparently was fastened and emptied my HEED all over it. It started to function again after the second lap. I wish I could have compared my first lap to the second lap. When I was coming in, looking at my elapsed watch, I thought I was coming in at around 3:10, so after the race, I was a bit surprised my the time I posted.

3:40:21

RUN

I’ll have to admit. I didn’t like the run course at all. It was pretty much an Xterra type of course that included trails, rocks, gravel, dirt, grass, with a little bit of pavement. For me at least, it was hard to gather a rhythm from the get go. That’s not an excuse, just a new experience that was awkward. To say I blew up on the run would be an understatement.

I met a nice guy on the race course and we ran for a good 5 miles together. I believe he was one of the four black athletes out of the over 1000 there (Yes, I do count.) He dropped me in the last mile, so I finished 3rd out of the 4 other black triathlets.

2:24:56

Struck a pose at the finish line

Summary

So, what did I learn?

1. I need a different cassette. I think with my weight and the hills in IronmanUK, it would be the smart thing to do.
2. Doing two Half IM’s in a 3 week period was the dumbest thing possible…but good racing experience.
3. I need to lose weight. Dragging my fat ass up those hills on the bike was no fun at all. I’ll be blogging on this very soon.

Overall, I wasn’t happy with my time. But May has been a learning process. I’ve gained respect for the 70.3 distance as it takes much more time to recover than I thought. See, when your first triathlon is a 3km swim, 155km bike, and 24.2 mile run, it’s difficult to put everything else into perspective regarding race pace, speed, nutrition; the whole gambit. I raced these races with an Ironman distance mentality and perhaps this is a mistake. With 2 months to go to IMUK, I will put an emphasis on my diet, increasing my ride distances, swimming technique, and core strength.

Overall time: 6:53:39