Second 70.3 of the year and I was gunning for around a 4:45 or 4:50. The Black Bear Half earlier in the year was a 5:13, but expectedly so, as the bike course was extremely hilly and the run was not on a paved surface. I did the Timberman 70.3 last August and ended up with a 5:02.
Kayla and I decided to turn the weekend into a bit of a vacation. The drive from Pittsburgh was pretty long and would have been entirely painless if not for getting rear-ended on the way there. But Enterprise cars have insurance so all was okay.
Saturday we went to the race expo to get registered and spend some time in the city of Providence before heading back to the beach! Just as a fun fact, I got a race program that had a profile of the "average Ironman athlete". According to this, they make an average of about 160,000 dollars a year. Hmmm... nice to know I'm trying to do this sport on about a tenth of that. Ouch.
We had to go to bed quite early on Saturday night, as the race start for the pros was at 6 AM. This means we got up around three in the morning and headed out the door at about 4:15. Criticism number 1 of the inaugural edition of the Providence 70.3: In an attempt to have roads clear of cyclists so traffic could get back to normal as soon as possible, they had the fastest people start last. That's right, my 18-29M wave went dead last. This set the stage for a couple of the other criticisms that will follow shortly.
The swim was an experience to say the least. It was my first ocean swim and I really didn't know what to expect, but this is what happened: Wave, mouth of salt water, wave, can't see, wave, more salt water, another wave, I'm not going straight, wave, when will this be over, water, wave, finish. The first few hundred meters were insane before we got past the breakers. All at once, I was trying to avoid running into other swimmers, going off course and swallowing salt water. Sighting was very very difficult because if a wave was more than a couple inches high in front of me, I couldn't see the buoys. I got out in 32 minutes. A few minutes off of what I should be able to do, but not bad considering the first time experience.
The first 15 miles of the bike were ungodly fast. There weren't many hills to speak of around the area so it was an incredibly favorable bike course. I would have been worried about wind coming off of the coast, but there were only a few sections were I could really feel it. Criticism number 2: While the roads that the bike course covered were awesome (well paved, fast), there were many unfavorable encounters with traffic. I'm pretty sure one cyclist got hit in an intersection. There were a handful of instances where traffic was directly beside a line of cyclists. The cars couldn't move forward because riders in front were making passes of other riders. The cars gave us as much room as they realistically could, but it was incredibly nervous when there was a car right beside me and I had to make a pass. I had to make many many passes because (all together now) we were the last wave to start! All was fine until (criticism number 3) the last three miles of the bike took us through a very poor and run down neighborhood. It was not fun at all taking my new, very expensive carbon bike over pothole after pothole. Unlike the 160,000 dollar-per year average Ironman, I do not have money to replace this stuff. It was very uncomfortable when I had to dodge potholes and pass someone at the same time. And I had to make passes many many times because (all together now) we were the last wave to start! But I made it (unbelievably) to the end without a flat in 2:29 (22.5 mph avg).
I started the run course feeling pretty good, thinking that I was closing in on having a great day. Then the course went up a hill that dwarfs all other hills that I have run up. Apparently it was part of the downhill luge course in an X-games once upon a time. That about killed my pace immediately.
The rest of the course was rolling and not bad at all. It was a frustrating run though, because I could tell that if I ran any harder, as I really wanted to and so did my legs, my stomach would have cramped severely. My run was an awful 1:51, so I finished in 4:57. Under 5, so I guess it was not too bad, but definitely not what I wanted. Apparently, I need to figure out how to do this running thing...
Maybe next race.
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