Private HIM is in the books

 Well my private HIM is in the books.  It turns out only two of us did the "race".  SuperKate was crazy enough to give it a go as her first HIM.  She did great!  I'll let her post her pics.  We should have gotten post race pics with our race shirts on, but neither of us felt like spending any more energy.

The weather was absolutely perfect for the event.  Cool and sunny with the high reaching about 70.  We started off at 11 and ran to the Y for a 2100 yard swim.  I haven't been swimming much so I wasn't really looking forward to this part.  I felt amazingly good.  Maybe there is something to be said for being well rested and hydrated.  I changed before and after the swim do there were two extra transitions.

Coming in from the swim

Heading out on the bike

My friends Ryan and Annie came out to cheer and ring cow bells in my driveway.  It was awesome!  Kate's husband and son also came out for the run portion.  I set everyone up in the garage and had burgers and brats for them as well as football on TV.

Ryan and Annie ringing cow bells.

The bike was good once I got my hr under control.  For the first 15 minutes, my hr was in zone 4 which is unsustainable.  I slowed down until it was upper zone 2/lower zone 3 and did a pretty good job keeping it there.  I was able to drink some Infinite ride formula every 10 minutes with no trouble.  Once two bottles were gone, I switch to water and had half a GU.  Total calories in ~600 with about 32 ounces of water.

Coming in from the bike

I felt pretty good coming off the bike, but knew the run was going to be rough.  My jacket had salt stains all over it so I planned to take one salt capsule every loop and a half a GU every other loop along with some water.

Getting ready to run

On the first loop my stomach started feeling a little bloated and full.  Not as bad as it did at NOLA, but not good either.  My hr was in lower zone 3 for the first loop and I decided to slow down to get it into upper zone 2 to see if that would help my stomach.  Within 20 minutes I started farting.  What a great feeling :-).  I started to feel less full and more confident I would have a death march.  Lap 3 was a little slower than lap 2 but it was nice to know I only had 5 miles left.  Then I made a mistake between lap 3 and 4.

starting lap 3 or 4

For some reason an orange slice sounded good to me.  As soon as I ate it I almost threw up but held it together.  I walked over to the bike trail and started running and not more than 10 seconds later I was hurling in the grass on the side of the bike trail.  Thoughts of DNF came into my mind.  Luckily I brought a bottle of water with me on this loop so I rinsed out my mouth and started walking.  I felt much better after that and decided I would run/walk my way in.  No more salt or GU, just water.  The rest of the death march was uneventful.

The finish

Overall, I would say my fitness just isn't there yet to have a great race.  Maybe I skipped too many workouts.  Maybe I didn't go hard enough in some of the workouts.  Maybe it's time to follow a different plan.  Lots of maybes.  I did decide that I won't decide on the season next year for at least a week.  With all that said, I didn't have any bad aches or pains during the race and I felt well enough after the race to cook for a bunch of people.  The next day I wasn't overly tired or sore either.  I's say I was in good enough shape for a good race.  I just need to figure out what it will take for a great race.

I weighed myself before and after the race and I lost 9 pounds or about 5.6% of my body weight.  That seems a little high, but I'm not sure what I can do about it.


The numbers
Total = 7:03:58 - 156
10:21:08 - run 0.5 mile to Y, check in and change
10:13:18 - 500 yards
1:00:48 - rest (wimp)
11:02:66 - 500 yards
1:00:44 - rest
13:45:25 - 600 yards
11:42:37 - 500 yards
12:58:93 - change and run 0.5 miles home
3:12:37 - bike 55.7 - ave hr 157
2:04:32 - bike-run transition - ave hr 142
24:25:55 - 2.5 mile loop 1 - ave hr 168
1:33:47 - chat with spectators
28:25:86 - 2.5 mile loop 2 - ave hr 162
4:01:90 - chat and put bandaids on nipples - ave hr 149
29:20:65 - 2.5 mile loop 3 - ave 159
1:44:23 - chat - ave hr 148
34:15:61 - 2.5 mile loop 4 - puked at the start of this lap and walked/runned it - ave hr 147
1:31:13 - chatted - ave hr 150
31:54:14 - 2.5 mile loop 5 - ave hr 148

Overall it was great to have a goal to keep training for.  It was tougher to keep going without people lining the course than I thought it would be, but we got it done.