Pre Race
I drove up to Muncie, IN the day before the race. It took about 7 hrs to get there from
Huntsville, checked in my hotel, then went straight to packet pick up and from
there, went to check my bike in at transition.
The bike check in was optional but I wanted to one less thing to worry
about on race morning so I went ahead and checked it in the night before. I then went and got something to eat, took it
back to the hotel and then went to bed.
Race Day
I got up at 4 am. Got
my coffee in me and started getting ready.
I like to get to the race site early and plus I didn’t know how jacked
up parking was going to be. Ate my
normal breakfast of oatmeal and a banana, got all my stuff together and then
checked out of my hotel. I would be
driving home as soon as the race is over.
I drove down to the race site and parking wasn’t that
bad. They had us parking in a field
about a ¼ mile from transition. Got my
transition bag and bike pump and headed down that way. I set up my transition stuff and headed down
to the water for a little warm up. They
were saying the water temperature was 75.5 degrees, which makes it wetsuit
legal but when I got in the water it was very warm. I opted not to wear a wetsuit because this
race was to be a dry run for Ironman Louisville.
Swim – 1.2 miles
My wave started at 7:35 am.
Getting in the water was a little tricky because of all the rocks and
for a tender footed person like myself, it was tricky. We stood in the shallow in and then the gun
went off. You could almost walk to the 1st
buoy. The water was fairly choppy but
got worse as you went away from shore.
The course is a rectangle making right turns. I thought I was doing fairly well until I
made that last turn to come back to shore.
The sun is right in your face. I
had to stop and ask for directions twice because I couldn’t see where I was
going. I finally made it to shore and
ran up the hill to transition.
T1
I had my compression sleeves laid out and was going to use
them for the bike but opted not to put them on because I was concerned about
time. Put my shoes on, sunglasses, race
belt, and helmet. Grabbed my bike and I
was off.
Bike – 56 miles
All I can say is this was a rough bike course. I should have brought a mountain bike it was
so rough. The roads are in terrible
condition. It’s an out and back. This course has a few rollers but nothing
big. I was able to stay in the big chain
ring the entire time. I had two bottles
of Infinit on my bike along with my honey stinger waffles. During all the jarring due to the road
conditions, my salt stick tablets fell out of my bento box somewhere along the
way.
T2
After all that, I finally made it back to transition. Racked my bike, took off my helmet. Put on my socks and shoes, grabbed my fuel
belt and my visor and I was off.
Run – 13.1 miles
Like the bike course, this course is an out and back. I felt pretty good starting out. My original plan was to run until I reached
the aid stations, which were about every mile, and then walk the aid
stations. I did that for the 1st
couple and then I went to a ratio of 4 minutes of running to 1 minute of
walking. After the turnaround at the
halfway point my legs just wouldn’t go anymore.
I tried to maintain my ratio of 4:1 but I was just trying to survive to
make the cutoff.
After thoughts