Race Report: Spirit of Racine Half Ironman

Last Updated on Sunday, 16 November 2008 10:32 Written by Steve Sunday, 16 November 2008 10:32

Spirit of Racine Half Ironman Triathlon, Racine, Wisconsin

Better late than never…this is a race I did almost 4 months ago.

To cap of my trip to Wisconsin, I took part in the Spirit of Racine Half Ironman with 2000 random midwesterners willing to get up at 5 am and jump in Lake Michigan.

I did one Half Ironman last year, and it was a painful experience. I ran out of fuel about 5 hours in and struggled to the finish. My goal was to finish much more gracefully, and beat my time from last year. I was successful in those two goals and had a great race.

Death march up the beach…

A cool aspect about this race is that it was a point-to-point swim, so not curving around buoys and swimming laps in a lake. But that mean you have to walk to the start–in this case 1.2 miles up the beach. It was a beautiful beach, though, and it was cool walking to the foggy start with 2,500 people.

Game face…3 minutes to start.

The start was delayed because of the fog. Not affecting the start time was the 55 degree water temperature. The beach was abuzz with conversation about how cold the water was. And it was really, really, cold. I saw a few people with dish-washing gloves on to keep their hands warm!

Hey, that wasn’t so bad!

There were three aspects of the swim that made it the best open water swim I’ve ever done:

1. Swimming stright is just plain more fun than swimming in circles.
2. When you swim point-to-point, there is no bunching up at the corners!
3. The water was so clear I could see the sand bottom–I just lined myself up with the ripples and used them like lane lines.

The swim was my best leg relative to the field. I really enjoyed it!

I hit the bike and ate and drank like crazy. I was determined to fuel up properly and did a good job staying on my eating schedule. The course was pretty good–through the city of Racine and then out on rural highways. But Wisconsin gets cold in the winter, and years of freezing and thawing causes concrete roads to develop big cracks every 20 feet or so. It was no fun biking 56 miles with that periodic jarring. Ugh. I was glad when it was over!

The last quarter mile was a bit of a haze…

The run was great, if a bit hot. By the time I finished it was 85 degrees. But I kept a steady pace on the two-loop course, and kept in the game by shouting out supportive comments to other runners. I’m not usually very talkative, but I’ve found it’s a great distraction, and I think most people don’t find it too annoying.

The last quarter mile was really hard, but I guess that’s a sign of leaving everything on the course. I was really pleased to have the pain be so short-lived. Much better than last year. I got a PR by 40 minutes, and I’ve never been so pleased to finish in 516th place!

Overall Place: 516
Age Group Place: 89
Overall Time: 05:17:36
Swim: 00:29:52 (554th)
T1: 02:13
Bike: 02:40:59 (652nd)
T2: 01:41
Run: 02:02:50 (650th)

2 miles from my house

Last Updated on Monday, 11 August 2008 11:47 Written by Steve Monday, 11 August 2008 11:47

Another reason I love where I live–Discovery Park and it’s miles of running trails right in the middle of Seattle.

Race Report: Lactic Edge Sprint Triathlon

Last Updated on Thursday, 14 August 2008 11:02 Written by Steve Thursday, 31 July 2008 07:27

Lactic Edge Sprint Triathlon, Steven’s Point, Wisconsin

A week after the Wautoma tri we made the hour drive further north to Steven’s Point for the 19th annual (just missed the big round number) running of the Lactic Edge Sprint triathlon.

Fresh off my first podium appearance I wanted to do well but suspected I would be outclassed. Steven’s Point is a bigger town with a university, the race was on a Saturday, and it was an established race.

It turned out to be larger, but more loosely run than our previous race. It wasn’t chip timed, and it wasn’t the standard sprint distances, clocking in with a 500m swim, 18 mile bike, and a 3 mile run.

We swam in the Wisconsin river, which was wind-whipped and tamarack stained. You couldn’t see the bottom, even in 6 inches of water. The swim started up-wind and up-current, which wasn’t the most pleasant experience I’ve ever had. I self-selected into the elite wave, not knowing if I was seriously over estimating my relative speed.

I hit the bike somewhere in the middle of the pack of my wave. On the relatively long bike leg, I got passed by about 4 guys. Again, I’m a slow runner, so I knew I wasn’t going to pick up places on the run. But I only lost two positions. One of the guys who passed me was Brian, the guy I passed in the Wautoma tri. Way to get me back!

The finish was a real joy. I was very happy to be done racing and I crossed the line with my kids, Malcolm and Louise, which was really fun. The crowd cheered for them and they were all smiles!

I ended up 2nd in my age group and 18th overall. Prior to the Wautoma race I’d never cracked the top 10 in my age group, so I was really happy. I won a beer glass with the race name on it!

Overall Place: 15
Age Group Place: 2
Overall Time: 1:22:53.6
Swim: 7:42.9
Bike: 50:59.4
Run: 24:11.3

While I look incredibly tired, I want to contrast that with this shot of my wife looking like she’s having the time of her life.

Well, it turns out she was having a blast! Beth had a great race, finished very strong and experienced some great camaraderie along the way. Hopefully we’ll do more triathlons together soon. I want to thank my parents for bringing the kids up for the race–it was really fun to have a cheering section!