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So there I was, dejectedly walking toward the transition exit having just laid on the ground next to my bike forever (15 minutes and 20 seconds, to be exact).  I decided to hit the porta john that was inside the transition area before I walked across the timing mat that would signal the start of my impending 13.1 mile death march.  As I shuffled toward it, an extremely enthusiastic young volunteer shouted at me about how great I looked and to keep it up.  I just chuckled and said thanks. 

Finally, I crossed the mat and broke out into a half-hearted trot.  I figured that I could jog along at an 11 or 12 minute per mile pace and walk if I needed to.  It would take a while, but it would be better than a DNF. If nothing else, Susie was behind me somewhere, and I imagined that maybe we could meet up and jog together.  You can see by this picture of me leaving T2 that I was pretty high on life. 

As I trotted along, I started to warm up and I realized that it was actually an absolutely beautiful day.  During the bike ride, I lost my mind and couldn't think of anything except how miserable I was.  Now I had a chance to look around at how beautiful the harbor and the beach are and how enthusiastic the spectators are.  My mood started to brighten a little. 

I looked down at my GPS expecting to see a 12 minute pace, and I was shocked to see that I was running 10s, and that it felt effortless.  Expecting that this was a temporary condition, I elected to keep the pace between 9:30 and 10 for at least the first loop because the memories of my bike course implosion were still fresh and my new goal was to run or jog the whole thing.

After a couple of miles, I was feeling pretty good.  I was grabbing food and liquids at the aid stations and not even slowing down.  My heart rate was low and my legs felt great.  Even my feet felt OK despite the fact that I was running without the prescription orthotics that I've been using for 9 years.  How about that? 

The Cali 70.3 run course is a double out-and-back comprised of four legs of 3 miles and change.  I decided that I would bump up the pace to 9 minute miles after the first turn around and then make a decision on how I felt at the halfway point. 

I made the turn at the halfway point at exactly one hour and decided that I would run the last half as fast as I could.  With my heart rate just a couple of beats under my Lactate Threshold, I was able to hold a pace slightly better than 8 minute miles.  This worked out fine until I hit the 10 mile point.  I had been running with another guy and we decided that with only a 5k to go, we should ramp it up, which I did--for about 30 seconds.  My heart rate reached out and touched Lactate threshold and my body reacted immediately and violently.  Suddenly, my feet started to scream in pain, my left knee started to hurt, and the quads and hamstrings on each leg started to shut down.   

You can really see what happened by looking at this graph (or maybe you can't):

My heart rate made a nice, steady climb right up to the 10 mile point at which time, I pushed it just a little too hard.  That brought the pain which in turn caused my pace to slow down (the blue line goes up) and my heart rate to come down (the red line goes down) even though I was working as hard as I possibly could at that moment. 

Anyway, to shorten an already long story, I gutted through the last couple of miles, crossed the finish line and then staggered into the athlete food tent.  There, I grabbed as much pizza as I could and sat down at a table next to Heather Fuhr who was doing some sort of important looking paperwork with some other official-looking people including Paula Newby-Frasier.  I was the picture of pizza-eating etiquette (not), and they seemed thrilled that I had joined them.  Surprisingly, they didn't appear too impressed by my 70.3 finisher's medal.   

 I wound up turning in a 1:56:03 for the run which gave me an overall time of 6:04:27--a WHOLE lot slower than I had planned, but a heck of a lot faster than a DNF.  Despite my worse-than-expected overall performance, I was actually quite pleased with a couple of things.  For starters, I felt fantastic on the swim.  If I had it to do over again I would have pushed the pace more than I did.  I'm actually really looking forward to my next Open Water swim--something I never thought I'd say. 

I'm also extremely happy with my run.  Again, it wasn't blazingly fast (I was 7 minutes faster in my first hack at this race), but the fact that I did it at all makes me happy.  The fact that I negative split by 4 minutes makes me even happier.  Thank God I made that call to Bizzy from T2. 

Now for the lessons learned:

First and foremost, I have to keep myself from getting cold.  It's not as if it was freezing that morning or anything.  I think the temperature was probably in the low 50s before the sun came up.  Apparently though, my body has some sort of temperature tipping point after which there's no warming back up if I'm in the water or on the bike.  Once I started shaking, it was all over until I had a chance to get out of the wind and lie down on blacktop in the sun.  Once I warmed up my body functioned fine again. 

Next time, I'm going to wear more layers pre-race, I'm going to jog to keep my heart rate and my body Core temperature up and I'm going to get into my wetsuit earlier. 

Secondly, I'm going to pay more attention to my position at the swim start.  My swimming has improved to the point where I can stand to get closer to the front without worrying about getting killed in the feeding frenzy. 

Lastly, I'm going to run more.  Injuries (I pulled a groin coaching my 9-year old son's basketball team), sickness and scheduling conflicts left me with drastically less run volume than I wanted.  My longest run was only 8 miles. 

For the rest of this season, I plan to only do short course road races along with an XTERRA or two (Speaking of XTERRA. . .) although I reserve the right to sign up for the SOMA half at the end of the season.  After the race, Susie and I both swore we had no need to do another 70.3, but the further I get away from it, the more I want a chance to go back and fix my mistakes. 

As for recommendations, I can't speak highly enough about the California 70.3.  The whole course is just absolutely beautiful for the athletes, and the swim and run courses in particular are the best I've seen for spectators to watch the action. 

Just don't forget your tights and your polar fleece pullover. . .

Comments (2)

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written by Holly, April 05, 2008

wow, great coldness advice. And I thought girls were the only ones who got cold

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written by Karen, April 20, 2008

Nice job, Jeff! We're proud of you.
BTW, Where are the modeling pics?!
Guaranteed surge in site traffic once you post those.

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