Ken's Road to Kona

When I got to the race course, I was wondering why I even signed up. Three days before the race, I ran 20 miles, and the day before, I rode 120 miles. So when I woke up Sunday morning, I was seriously considering not going. In addition, while packing my bag, I realized I forgot my goggles in my gym locker. I called the race director and he assured me he would have a spare set waiting for me when I got there.

Free HEED?! "It's all about the Marketing"

Looking around at the competitors when I arrived, there was a wide mix of ages. As I suited up, I wondered if this was really a good idea. But my training schedule called for a 5000 yard swim, and I wanted more open water racing, so it seemed like an ideal situation. Furthermore, there has been a mental obstacle of swimming two 1.2 mile loops (as in the Ironman). The open water swim was two 1.5 mile loops so for me, completing this race would really put my mind at ease for Ironman UK. So I suited up, with much reluctance, and raced.

To be honest, I felt pretty good in the beginning. Maybe it was adrenaline.  The cool thing was that I was actually swimming with a group of people. Normally, I just get blown off the starting line. Sure, it was the medium to slow group, but it was a group, which meant I had some company. I remember swimming with a bunch of guys for the first 1/3 of the race and then the serious fatigue set in.

Earlier in the week, my lifeguard friend mentioned I was primarily an upper body swimmer rather than a full body swimmer. What does that mean? It means I don’t kick enough; or in my case, at all. “You can only go so fast without kicking” he told me. I never really work on my kicking simply because I’ve never gotten any propulsion when I tried. After reading some articles on weak kicking, I’ve self diagnosed myself with a “runners’ kick”.

Anyway, near the last turn of the first loop, my group had started pulling away, and leaving me in their wake. I dearly wanted to be under 50min for the first lap (hoping I could do the course in 1 hour 40 minutes), yet when I got to the turn around, “54:23″ is what I read.

I tried all the technique things I could think of in the second loop: increase my arm cadence, roll my body, keep my head level, grab the water, keep the elbow high, even tried kicking a little. At this point, I saw only about 2 lonely souls ahead of me and used them as my navigators.  To make it worse, the wind picked up which caused a bit of a headwind. When I arrived at the last turn around, the wind and current made it feel I was in a washer machine. Instead of getting down on myself, I thought, “This is great open water practice” or “Heck, by this time; I would be already on the bike!”

If I had swum at my BlackBear pace, I would have arrived at 1:48, but I arrived at 1:53. Considering the fatigue and the volume of I had put in that current week, I’m perfectly OK with that. The biggest challenge I came there with was the mental block of the 2^nd loop which wasn’t a big deal after all.

I have to give a big shout out to the race organizer Dale for two reasons: first, for putting on a great event. And second, for lending me a pair of goggles. Thanks Dale. I also have to commend Dale on the post race eats. This was just an open water swim race and they had more food then some of the local 1/2 Ironmans!

At the awards ceremony, Dale asked if there were anyone racing an Ironman this year. The first male and female up would get a free 2 lb. jug of HEED. I quickly ran up and got a tub. So there ya go, even though I finished 2nd to last in my age group, I still got something to bring home.  Not bad eh? This will definitely be on my race schedule next year.