After readying my transition area I noticed that the rear tire was not holding air as it should...grrrrr. Thirty minutes to go-time and my tire is jacked. I thought about just riding it this way, but opted to err on the side of caution, grabbing my bike and taking it to the bike mechanic tent. One of the tech's quickly pulled the wheel and put on a new tire and valve extender. Thankfully it seemed to hold and I was on my way 15-minutes before my start. After re-racking my bike I donned my wetsuit and headed for the swim start hoping I'd return to a tire that was still holding air.
Despite this little pre-race snafu the rest of my day went incredibly well considering that I haven't had the best month of training leading up to race day and had a rough week of business travel this past week.
Swim: 31:49 (1:40/100m)
I read an article a few days ago about swimming wider around the course in order to avoid the congestion that always ensues at the buoys. I've thought about this before, but thought I'd try to proactively apply it in this race. I started wide right and stayed away from most of the chaos. I didn't have any feet to draft behind, but given my time I think it worked out pretty well as it was one of my best HIM swims and I've been swimming very little lately.
T1: 4:01
I put on socks and checked my rear tire, but this is just wasted time. Should have been much quicker.
Bike: 2:36:51 (21.42 mph)
My plan for the bike was to push it more than I have in recent races. I estimated my FTP at 280 (I haven't tested lately, but that's probably a little high if I'm honest with myself) and that in order to ride a 2:38 I'd need to average 230 watts. I didn't ride as consistent (VI = 1.05) as I should have as I chased some guys at times in order to stay in the mix and keep things interesting, but my normalized average was 228 (close to my goal of 230) so all in all I was pretty happy with my ride and it was a HIM bike PR. Here's the details from my Powertap:
Entire workout (217 watts):
Duration: 2:38:46
Work: 2067 kJ
TSS: 182.5 (intensity factor 0.83)
Norm Power: 228
VI: 1.05
Distance: 56.578 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 610 217 watts
Cadence: 31 212 87 rpm
Speed: 2.2 44.9 21.4 mph
T2: 1:35
Run: 1:36:51 (7:23/mile)
Starting out on the run I didn't feel so great. My pace was okay, but my legs were tight and felt like they could cramp at any moment. This feeling didn't go away until well into the half marathon. At mile 4 I ran into a guy from San Francisco who was running a good pace. We chatted and stayed together for 5+ miles which really kept my mind off of the pain that was going through my legs. I was hoping to run under a 1:35 given my recent 1:24 at the Surf City Half Marathon, but just didn't have it in me down the stretch. Here a link to my run splits from my Garmin: http://connect.garmin.com/splits/28200595.
So all in all it was a good race on a beautiful day in Oceanside. It was great to have Kyra and Liya on the course cheering me on. It's a long day for them and I really appreciate their support of all my training and racing.
Next up Wildflower Long Course on May 1st...need to put in lots of work over the next 4-weeks to get that sub-5 I've been chasing there for a couple of years now!
