This was my first triathlon this year and should be a good test for where I stand with my training. Also this was a key event for QT2Systems. Which meant that over 20 athletes were racing in QT2 gear.
The pacing plan from my coach called for a 4:36-4:42 finish time. Even though I was in agreement with the race strategy, I was hoping to end up with a faster time. Since this would “only” be a small improvement compared to last year (4:46:21).

Traveling to Galveston and getting for the race was uneventful, besides the increased media attention due to Lance Armstrong’s presence. Especially on race day morning, it was unbelievable how many people were waiting for Lance to enter the transition and showcase his bike.

Swim:
20 minutes after the pro start it was on me to start the swim. I started out hard and pushed the pace for the first 200m in the hope to end up with a strong pack. A couple times I was able to draft of someone but then lost them again. I started to overtake many people from the previews waves and was feeling great. The high swim volume certainly helped to improve my swim time. Since I wasn’t wearing a watch for the swim, I didn’t know how long the swim took me, but my feeling told me that it was faster than the previous year.

Close to T2

Bike:
I quickly settled in to my pace and I was making great progress. Only a handful of people overtook me while I was overtaking loads of athletes. Early on in the ride my IT band and knee started hurting. I tried to ignore it and focus on my cadence and surely enough it went a away later on. But I had one annoying encounter. Where I saw two in front of me working together (re-overtaking each other, not leaving the drafting zone). Once I passed them, I got re-overtaken by one of the two guys and then he was slowing down in front of me.  After falling back the 4 bike lengths, I was forced to overtake him again. Not before long he overtook me again, while passing me he talked to me. I couldn’t care less what he told me, I only wanted to get out of this situation. So after falling back 4 bike length. I upped my power and dropped him for good. As last year we had a head wind going out and then a tail wind coming back. Which meant that once more the ride back was much faster then going out. But even with that I had a hard times to keep my HR on target. The fact, that my crotch was hurting didn’t make it easier. After all my long rides, I was amazed that I was barely able to find a comfortable position on my saddle. Maybe it was the brand new QT2 kit which I haven’t worn before? I was really looking forward to the run. The whole course is a flat out and back with only a few turns. I remember one moment at around mile 40, where I could see poles along the road for as far as I could see (at least a couple miles) and I knew I would just have to follow this white line on the ground and had nothing else to do besides monitoring my power data.

Run:

Run lap 2

According to my coach I was supposed to run the first mile in 6:50 (no faster!). My Garmin didn’t pick up the signal yet. so I was running by feeling. I was trying to take it easy, but I was feeling great. I ended up at the first mile marker with 6:20 (Oops). So I slowed down a little and then settled into a ~6:50 pace. I had a bloated stomach which made the run uncomfortable. The first lap went by quickly but the second one, I had to work hard not to slow down. I felt like throwing up, but fortunately that feeling wasn’t that strong so I managed to ignore it. From then on I focused on water and Coke in the nutrition stations. When I started the run it was almost 30C already. Thanks to the wind it wasn’t that noticeable on most of the course. Except on the part which went through the airport, one direction I was fighting to run into the wind and not to slow down. And once I turned around and had the wind in the back the only thing I would feel is the heat radiate on me from all directions.
The course became more and more crowded and it happened a couple times, that I wasn’t able to grab water or other liquids, because slower people were congesting the nutrition station by walking or stopping completely. I didn’t want to waste time and stop and decided that I can finish the last lap without all the liquid I should take and just tried my luck at the next aid station again. One time I got a cup only to notice that it only contained ice.

3rd lap, trying to hold on to Peter. 1 mile to go...

Shortly into the third lap Peter Schneider overtook me with a slightly higher pace. This was a blessing, since most other athletes on the course were running a much slower pace. I had a hard time to keep my pace and decided to increase my pace and stay with him. He had another lap to go and was still running very strong. Towards the end of my last lap I passed him while increasing my pace to the finish line. I finished the half marathon in 1:27:13 which is a new best for me during a half marathon (and less than 5min slower than lance’s run time 😛 ).

The overall time was 4:36:58 which is almost 10 min faster than last year. Even though I wanted to be faster, it is what my coach predicted. I am happy with the time, but was surprised to learn that I was only 18th (2011 I was 16th). What an amazing strong field in my age group.

I am really enjoying to be part of the QT2 team. We were encouraging each other on the race course and had breakfast and an after party together. This changed the feel of the whole race weekend.

Side note on nutrition:
After race analysis revealed why I had problems with the nutrition. I didn’t do a very good race preparation from a fueling perspective. Even though I had a fueling plan, I exchanged the Ironman Perform with Infinit nutrition which I haven been using last year. Unfortunately, I didn’t calculate the calories and ended up taking in about 100 calories more per hour. This explains why I didn’t need to fuel anymore in the run (I didn’t eat the gel as planned) it also explains why I didn’t have to pee even though I consumed plenty of liquid. Well, something I learned for the future. I won’t due the fueling preparation as careless for future races.

Details:
Bike HR and watts
Run HR and pace
Ironman Athlete tracker

More pictures can be found on my Facebook profile 🙂