Jstyle
09-19-06, 08:16 AM
My race report pull up some pop corn and relax...
The strict race focus started for me on Thursday night before the race. For dinner I had almost entirely brown rice. I intentionally made way too much and guess what I had for breakfast yeah you guessed it brown rice. Then for lunch Chinese food with take a stab at it MO RICE. Finally for dinner more Chinese with... yeah I am not even going to say it you all know where this is going. I was shocked that night when it came to 9:30 I was exhausted so I crashed nice and early. I only woke up once during the night which was a really nice change from the norm for me.
5:15 rolled around and I hopped outta bed and started snacking on my Snickers Marathon bar which is who I am "sponsored" by. After a few a 32oz bottle of Gatorade the wife and I hit the road luckily enough I stayed with family 15 min away from the start. I get there at 610 and start unloading stuff and hop in the really really long bike check in. All of the volunteers and staff were really friendly and nice so I was joking around all morning. I set up my transition area and got it all ready.
I made the walk down to the swim start (set up as a beach start.) The water was the perfect temp right at 78 degrees but I didn't throw on a wetsuit on this one. I looked out on the swim course and I was like damn that's not so bad at all. It was a nice big triangle swim every turn was a right hand turn. Well the gun goes off and I hit the water. I was in there for a while when I kept thinking man that buoy isn't that far at all this is gonna be easy. Then much to my dismay the 2nd buoy finally came in view. All of a sudden every profane word was muttered as I commented on how I felt about it being as far it was away from me. The one good thing was it was unlike any other Tri swim I have done we weren't fighting at every buoy trying to stay as close as we could. My swim time was 41:57 which is right where I wanted it to be so I am happy so far.
Then onto T1 I didn't sprint but I didn't walk either. I remembered everything I needed as I left the T1 which made me pretty damn happy. I kept expecting to find something I forgot but didn't happen this time. The only downfall to mother nature on this event was it rained all night before the race and the ground was soaked. It really hindered my speed because it seemed like every sharp turn was on a down hill. More fun came on a sharp right hander where the sheriff I refer to as Barney Fife's mentally challenged brother was directing traffic. I yell way ahead which way do I go because there are no signs. I get this "I haven't had my grits yet this morning so I am not going to answer" look. Finally as I was all of maybe 20 yards away he finally raises his arm and points left. I slam on the brakes and the back end swerves around and the person behind me was like whoaaaaaaa stay up man stay up.
A few miles later I saw my racing buddy on the bike and he waved at me and we started talking for a moment but I had a race to do. I really like the guy but if it were up to him we would have chatted the whole race away so I kept on moving on...
Well I was trucking along pretty well when I came up on a few people in a small peleton. I was like cool I like passing people that makes me feel better about myself and my speed. I need constant reassurance like that. There was only one problem there was a minivan trailing the riders because the road was open to cars. Dammit the people in the minivan wouldn't make the pass and not even I wanted to pass a car on a 2 lane road. My luck is I would have tried to go for it and just as going shoot it on the left the person would taken a shot a the pass squish goes Josh at that point. Well I got stuck behind them for about 10 minutes and of course all of the profanities started rolling again. Well the driver of the minivan finally got the courage to pass and we moved on.
I make it to the 14 mile mark and it's the first turn around in a 2 lap course. So I turn it around and start cooking along down a mostly down hill course. Now there are problems with this scenario. It is mostly down hill and the road is still soaked so I have just as much time on the aero bars as on the cowhorns. Well my average speed is still increasing a whole lot so I am getting pretty happy. Right until this happens anyways. I am getting close to where I think the 1 lap turn around is where the road gets what seems like pretty f'in steep. Guess where the turn around is at the bottom of a nice steep hill. The whole time I am thinking I am going to beat the guy that decided to put this here senseless. Well I turn around and start pounding my way back up the hill. A moment of happiness comes when I think damn that's cool that's the toughest part of the course and I am now half way done.
That moment was very brief when I look down at my GPS and I have only traveled 25 miles I still have 3 left to go to the half way point. Even more misery comes when I find the hill the decided to put the last turn around at. Just to give everyone some insight that didn't see this race it's so steep that people are lining up a 1/4 mile before the turn around SCREAMING SLOW DOWN. I manage to make it around this turn around with out throwing something at the race director standing on the side lines directing people. That was probably one of the biggest accomplishments of the day.
Well the 2nd half of the race went pretty much with out incident mostly. I got about 35 miles into the race before I realized I wasn't going to finish 21 more miles with out stopping and getting rid of the 64+ oz of fluid I have consumed so far. Well I pull of the road and stop is quickly as I can at this point every second feels like an hour. I finally get back up and on the bike and start rolling again. So I get to go down that hill again to T2 this time with out having to stop turn around.
Into T2 I go for the most part pretty excited and happy. My bike time was 2:56 which isn't bad considering that I couldn't really fly like I wanted to and the damn turn around. I am feeling pretty good and strong legs a little spongy but that's all part of it. I wasn't so luck this time I forgot that I left my GPS watch on the bike but I kept on trucking along. Just my luck at this point most of the road is dry. This really doesn't matter much at all because I don't think I have ever slid out at the break neck speed of 8 miles an hour and in shoes not on a bike. Well the run is moving along and again for some reason my body told me "dude you won't make it back to the finish line with out stopping." So again I run off into the woods.
Most of the run when great I did come to find out that the great guys at snickers marathon should stop buying Mexican made tri suits. I am chaffed and rubbed raw in so many areas I can't even count. Well I get to the turn around and turn around again on this 2 lap course as well. I get to one of the water stops and shout out to the water guy that I want sports drink that way I make sure I get what I need. Now they didn't plan on so many people wanting fluid so they were out of cups. So his response is I am dead out of cups but I will have more in about 30 seconds. Damn let me say 30 seconds is a long time in a race but I needed the fluid. It finally came and I hammered away at the last 4 miles.
With 1 mile left to go I was saying to myself "I have been holding off for too long lets see what Josh really has left." So I push ahead a whole lot harder and welcome the finish line with open arms. Finish in 5:40:23 and I couldn't be happier. The timing people I have met before in another tri were like great job Josh way to push it out. The feeling of euphoria is like I haven't ever felt in any race before.
Really no one can argue 70.3 miles is a long way. I came from a 235lbs tub of lard into the 175lbs tri machine I am now. Now that's great and everything but I don't know what it would have been like if my wife had not been there cheering me on the whole time. Like clock work she was there at every turn around. She was there for all of the long training days that I woke her up and I hit the run at 0700 on a Saturday morning. Now that being said I am glad at the turn around she didn't hand me a huge torque wrench or crowbar. If she would have I would have been arrested when that landed on the forehead of the race director. My mom and my race friend who didn't finish the run portion were all there cheering me on and that really feels good to have people behind you.
All that being said Ironman Arizona here I come 140.6 miles of fun fun fun…. In close I will say only one thing "Accept the challenges so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory" -General George Patton.
The strict race focus started for me on Thursday night before the race. For dinner I had almost entirely brown rice. I intentionally made way too much and guess what I had for breakfast yeah you guessed it brown rice. Then for lunch Chinese food with take a stab at it MO RICE. Finally for dinner more Chinese with... yeah I am not even going to say it you all know where this is going. I was shocked that night when it came to 9:30 I was exhausted so I crashed nice and early. I only woke up once during the night which was a really nice change from the norm for me.
5:15 rolled around and I hopped outta bed and started snacking on my Snickers Marathon bar which is who I am "sponsored" by. After a few a 32oz bottle of Gatorade the wife and I hit the road luckily enough I stayed with family 15 min away from the start. I get there at 610 and start unloading stuff and hop in the really really long bike check in. All of the volunteers and staff were really friendly and nice so I was joking around all morning. I set up my transition area and got it all ready.
I made the walk down to the swim start (set up as a beach start.) The water was the perfect temp right at 78 degrees but I didn't throw on a wetsuit on this one. I looked out on the swim course and I was like damn that's not so bad at all. It was a nice big triangle swim every turn was a right hand turn. Well the gun goes off and I hit the water. I was in there for a while when I kept thinking man that buoy isn't that far at all this is gonna be easy. Then much to my dismay the 2nd buoy finally came in view. All of a sudden every profane word was muttered as I commented on how I felt about it being as far it was away from me. The one good thing was it was unlike any other Tri swim I have done we weren't fighting at every buoy trying to stay as close as we could. My swim time was 41:57 which is right where I wanted it to be so I am happy so far.
Then onto T1 I didn't sprint but I didn't walk either. I remembered everything I needed as I left the T1 which made me pretty damn happy. I kept expecting to find something I forgot but didn't happen this time. The only downfall to mother nature on this event was it rained all night before the race and the ground was soaked. It really hindered my speed because it seemed like every sharp turn was on a down hill. More fun came on a sharp right hander where the sheriff I refer to as Barney Fife's mentally challenged brother was directing traffic. I yell way ahead which way do I go because there are no signs. I get this "I haven't had my grits yet this morning so I am not going to answer" look. Finally as I was all of maybe 20 yards away he finally raises his arm and points left. I slam on the brakes and the back end swerves around and the person behind me was like whoaaaaaaa stay up man stay up.
A few miles later I saw my racing buddy on the bike and he waved at me and we started talking for a moment but I had a race to do. I really like the guy but if it were up to him we would have chatted the whole race away so I kept on moving on...
Well I was trucking along pretty well when I came up on a few people in a small peleton. I was like cool I like passing people that makes me feel better about myself and my speed. I need constant reassurance like that. There was only one problem there was a minivan trailing the riders because the road was open to cars. Dammit the people in the minivan wouldn't make the pass and not even I wanted to pass a car on a 2 lane road. My luck is I would have tried to go for it and just as going shoot it on the left the person would taken a shot a the pass squish goes Josh at that point. Well I got stuck behind them for about 10 minutes and of course all of the profanities started rolling again. Well the driver of the minivan finally got the courage to pass and we moved on.
I make it to the 14 mile mark and it's the first turn around in a 2 lap course. So I turn it around and start cooking along down a mostly down hill course. Now there are problems with this scenario. It is mostly down hill and the road is still soaked so I have just as much time on the aero bars as on the cowhorns. Well my average speed is still increasing a whole lot so I am getting pretty happy. Right until this happens anyways. I am getting close to where I think the 1 lap turn around is where the road gets what seems like pretty f'in steep. Guess where the turn around is at the bottom of a nice steep hill. The whole time I am thinking I am going to beat the guy that decided to put this here senseless. Well I turn around and start pounding my way back up the hill. A moment of happiness comes when I think damn that's cool that's the toughest part of the course and I am now half way done.
That moment was very brief when I look down at my GPS and I have only traveled 25 miles I still have 3 left to go to the half way point. Even more misery comes when I find the hill the decided to put the last turn around at. Just to give everyone some insight that didn't see this race it's so steep that people are lining up a 1/4 mile before the turn around SCREAMING SLOW DOWN. I manage to make it around this turn around with out throwing something at the race director standing on the side lines directing people. That was probably one of the biggest accomplishments of the day.
Well the 2nd half of the race went pretty much with out incident mostly. I got about 35 miles into the race before I realized I wasn't going to finish 21 more miles with out stopping and getting rid of the 64+ oz of fluid I have consumed so far. Well I pull of the road and stop is quickly as I can at this point every second feels like an hour. I finally get back up and on the bike and start rolling again. So I get to go down that hill again to T2 this time with out having to stop turn around.
Into T2 I go for the most part pretty excited and happy. My bike time was 2:56 which isn't bad considering that I couldn't really fly like I wanted to and the damn turn around. I am feeling pretty good and strong legs a little spongy but that's all part of it. I wasn't so luck this time I forgot that I left my GPS watch on the bike but I kept on trucking along. Just my luck at this point most of the road is dry. This really doesn't matter much at all because I don't think I have ever slid out at the break neck speed of 8 miles an hour and in shoes not on a bike. Well the run is moving along and again for some reason my body told me "dude you won't make it back to the finish line with out stopping." So again I run off into the woods.
Most of the run when great I did come to find out that the great guys at snickers marathon should stop buying Mexican made tri suits. I am chaffed and rubbed raw in so many areas I can't even count. Well I get to the turn around and turn around again on this 2 lap course as well. I get to one of the water stops and shout out to the water guy that I want sports drink that way I make sure I get what I need. Now they didn't plan on so many people wanting fluid so they were out of cups. So his response is I am dead out of cups but I will have more in about 30 seconds. Damn let me say 30 seconds is a long time in a race but I needed the fluid. It finally came and I hammered away at the last 4 miles.
With 1 mile left to go I was saying to myself "I have been holding off for too long lets see what Josh really has left." So I push ahead a whole lot harder and welcome the finish line with open arms. Finish in 5:40:23 and I couldn't be happier. The timing people I have met before in another tri were like great job Josh way to push it out. The feeling of euphoria is like I haven't ever felt in any race before.
Really no one can argue 70.3 miles is a long way. I came from a 235lbs tub of lard into the 175lbs tri machine I am now. Now that's great and everything but I don't know what it would have been like if my wife had not been there cheering me on the whole time. Like clock work she was there at every turn around. She was there for all of the long training days that I woke her up and I hit the run at 0700 on a Saturday morning. Now that being said I am glad at the turn around she didn't hand me a huge torque wrench or crowbar. If she would have I would have been arrested when that landed on the forehead of the race director. My mom and my race friend who didn't finish the run portion were all there cheering me on and that really feels good to have people behind you.
All that being said Ironman Arizona here I come 140.6 miles of fun fun fun…. In close I will say only one thing "Accept the challenges so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory" -General George Patton.