blog.zgraggen.name  All-day insanity or I have a blog too!

I signed up for this race a long time ago, but since I already had a slot for the World Championship I wasn’t necessarily motivated to do this race. Mainly because it included a 5h drive each way. But one week before the race, I decided to do it. In hindsight, it was well worth the 1000km drive! I considered this race a “fun” race and wanted to do a little experiment. I planned to push myself a little harder on the bike and then try to still perform well in the run.

As in Texas I got up at 4am and ate my breakfast. After a 30min drive to the race location I tried to get ready for the race. Since it was only 5C at this time, my main focus was to stay warm. Apparently, I failed miserably at this, since several people made comments about my shattering teeth. It was almost a relief to go into the water (15C) which felt warm at first.
Swim: I was happy when our wave finally was allowed to start. I got used to the cold water within a few minutes, except that I didn’t feel my feet anymore
The swim felt great and I thought I made great progress till I excited the water and noticed that I was exactly the same time as in Texas (down to the second).

Transition 1: This might have been my worst transition so far. I stumbled to my bike and hit my big toe into a root in the process; the good news was that I still had some feeling in the feet :-). As in Texas I tried to put on my compression socks, at the end I had to sit on the ground to put them on. Thanks to the cold feet and hands I felt like a kid who learns to put on socks themselves. I am so glad nobody filmed that part.

Bike: Initially, I was cold on the bike. But fortunately, the sun came out and warmed up everything. Also the hilly course helped a lot to stay warm. It was a two loop course with a steep 5 km long climb. On my first loop I already saw some people pushing their bike up the hill, which I thought was surprising, especially since they were at the very beginning of the hill. As a lightweight, I have an advantage here and I played this card on all the steep parts. No one overtook me uphill… but my heart rate was also through the roof. On the first loop, I thought that the hills weren’t that bad. Well second time around it got much harder which also meant that there were many more athletes pushing their bike uphill.
This race I had a new experience. I got my first penalty. On the first loop a guy overtook me right before the aid station. He then grabbed a water and slowed down a little for that. I didn’t take anything in the aid station. Since he overtook me I was supposed to fall back out of his drafting area, I just stopped pedaling for a few seconds. This wasn’t enough to clear the drafting area since he was slowing down even more. Once he started fiddling with the bottle and slowed even more, I decided to overtake him. That is when a referee gave me an overtaking violation (yellow card). This meant that I had to stop in the next penalty tent to get my # and name taken and all my race numbers marked with a “P”. Unfortunately, with my last name it took me “forever” to spell it to the guy. (Side note: I talked to the head referee after the race. He said that I shouldn’t have gotten this penalty and he will check with the referee who did it… He told me that at aid station safety comes first and there is some leeway in applying the rules because of that)

Transition 2: This time I was very quick, in and out. No problem.

Run: Once again, I felt great at the start of the run. I was concerned about my feet at first since I knew that I had forest soil in my socks and in my shoes, but I didn’t even notice this till after the race. I started out with quick feet and passed the first mile marker at 6:30 which is too fast. I slowed down a little and did the second mile in 6:40 which is still faster then I wanted and so I focused on slowing a little more. At this point I started to feel tired and my back started hurting. For a few second I was wondering if I can finish this race. After all I have a WM slot and this is only a fun race, right? But then: Giving up is not an option for me! Still these thoughts stayed with me for a few more miles since I was wondering if I pushed too hard on the hilly bike course. I decided to keep my running pace and see how far I will get. (Remember this was my goal)
So far the run was flat, but then suddenly there was this hill. I should have known it, after all it is the first part of the bike course but I was still surprised. I was even more surprised by how much my calf hurt going up. Then the downhill was even worse, I never had such a stinging pain in my shine before. In hindsight these first 4-5 miles were the hardest, once I pushed through all these different issues it seemed to become “easier”. This was mainly because the pain level stayed the same and I seemed to get used to it.
I noticed during the 5th mile, I suddenly had completely different problems. My finger were super sticky from the Gatorade I spilled over my fingers. This annoyed me so much, that at the next aid station I used the water to clean my fingers. (I had to repeat the same procedure a couple miles later). I would never have though that non-sticky fingers can make for a much better run experience. But in such a race it is also these little things which drain energy from you.
At the turn point, I noticed that it only took me a little over 44 minutes to do the first loop. Wow, this meant if I keep the pace I could finish the half marathon in under 1:30. So there I had a new goal! This was very helpful since no one around me was running my pace. So from then on I was just running against the clock. At mile 10 I started to feel really tired, but I said to myself: “You haven’t walked yet; there is no reason to start something new!” For the next two miles I had to push myself not to slow down. And then on mile 12 a women closed in on me and overtook me. Finally, I had someone who was running about my pace. We ran together to the finish line, unbelievable how much easier it is to keep the pace if someone else is running at the same pace.

I finished the race in 4:53:26 which placed me 10th in my AG. At the awards ceremony, I was eligible for a slot for the World Championship again. This was a good feeling to know that I qualified here as well. But all that mattered to me was that I ran the hilly half marathon only 7min slower than my flat out half marathon best time.

Things that ROCKED:
=> Post race food: BBQ chicken, Corn on the cob, cookies, ice cream
=> TREK-Speed Concept: I love this bike! (Yes, Amy I love you too =) )
=> Infinit Nutrition: No upset stomach, no cramping and lots of energy!
=> Scenic area with all the trees and the lake: It reminded me a lot of Switzerland

Heart-Rate Chart:		Time splits:

FYI: Link to the official results will follow once they published it!

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 9th, 2011 at 5:11 am and is filed under Sport, Inspiring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.