I conquered the half ironman on saturday with my waxed legs, racing striped hair, and brand spankin' new illini jersey. for a change, i actually looked like a knew what i was doing. it was a long race, so this is going to be a long post.
we started out by jumping off of a 'pier' into about 20 feet of water. it was kind of scary just taking a flying leap of a concrete abutment 7 feet down into water. other than that, the swim was relatively uneventful. the waves weren't too bad and the water was pretty warm.
as expected, when i hit T1, hebda's and kyle's bikes were both gone. how far were they ahead of me was anybody's guess. i slathered up with vaseline, but on my bike gear, and headed out. i didn't get more than two miles into the bike section when my chain fell off shifting on an uphill. a minute later, i'm back up and running and 10 minutes later, i see another illini jersey. hebda. i pass him and start focusing on finding kyle.
mile 30 of the bike ride, i have to pee. badly. i pull over, drop the bike, let fly, and realize that there is something not quite right with me. to make matters worse, right around mile 35, my ass starts to hurt. i've never had this happen before. sure, it's been sore after a long ride, but nothing like this. by the end of the ride, it felt like somebody took a major league swing with a bat and knocked my left cheek right out of the park.
i hit T2, grab my shoes, hit the port-a-john, and try to 'work things out' to no avail. 4 minutes wasted in the john with zero benefit.
i start out on the run and am feeling mildly better. i bust out the first two miles in 13:30. i'm cruising. midway through mile 3, all hell starts to break loose with my body. my stomach is cramping in a bad way. i try to run through it and get to mile 5. i hit another port-a-john at an aid station to see if that won't help. nothing. i get another half mile and can't take it anymore. i start walking and trying to get my stomach to stop hurting to goddamn badly. by mile 7, i can't even stand up strait and am alternating walking and jogging while doubled over. at mile 9, i hear a familiar voice. "come on buddy, you can make it". it's hebda as he's passing me back. "aw heeeellllllll no. i am NOT losing this." another guy who had just stopped to see if i was ok starts laughing. hebda smiles. apparently, he had been behind me for a while and saw the kind of shape i was in.
as a short aside, there was a bet riding on this race among kyle, hebs, and myself. it doesn't really matter what's at stake, it matters that a bet existed. most of you have not raced with me but there are two things i can tell you. 1. i'm competitive. 2. i'm stubborn.
hebda gets 40 feet ahead of me and i decide that it's time to suck it up. so, still doubled over, i begin to run again exactly 40 feet behind hebda. i stick with him for 4 miles all the while trying to occupy my mind with something other than the pain in my stomach. most of it was how the race was going to end. i knew there was an uphill stretch right before the end and i knew that hebda knew i was with him. my plan was this: at the top of the hill, hebs will likely do one final look to see if i'm still with him. when he turns back to the front, i'll see if i can't make it interesting.
the hill arrives and just as i had thought, hebda looked back. i start what kick i have. he looks back again. fuck. he knows i'm coming. goddammit. his face changes and he immediately turns around and starts a kick of his own.
now i have NEVER heard a crowd get into it like this. we're both blowing by people at full tilt sprinting to the finish. everybody is yelling and cheering. kyle would later tell us that "you guys gave everyone one hell of a show...that was awesome." 100 yards from the finish, i decide it's time to reach for the extra gear. all of this is a bit fuzzy to me, but according to hebs, i let out a "inhuman grunt" and got two steps on him. i cross the finish line and the only word i can get out is "medical!" and drop. my stomach will not allow any more of these shenanigans. but at least i didn't lose.
i have since figured out what caused me such awful cramps. it was the accelerade. normally, i only take one bottle of that and one gel. the nutrition schedule i had worked out called for 1500 calories prerace and 1200 during the race. the remaining 3000 that i would burn would have to come from glycogen stores. because of this schedule i took 3 bottles of accelerade and 4 accel gels...all of which have protein in them. it was too much. i should have stuck to strait calories and not messed with the protein component. oh well, lesson learned. august 27th is the next tri and i plan on laying down some serious smack on this one. the goal is 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Oh, and for those of you who didn't catch the nerdiness of the title of this post, Iron (Fe) is 26 on the periodic table of the elements. Aluminum is 13, half of that.
