Da Iz Biz: Race Report: IM 70.3 Vineman

It was awesome to do a race in which I ushered in my #TriSquad to the Ironman brand. Kim and Dave had a fun and great first experience despite some shuttle issues! The race was great swimming thru the river and biking through wine country! Oh and there's one absolutely EPIC pic of me seeing Kim and going for a high five!

Note to self: Garmin elevation is effed!!!!!!!! Need to get the watch checked out... :(

Race details:
Windsor, California
Swim: 1.2 mi - open water, river swim
Bike: 56 mi - road, point to point from the river to town
Run: 13.1 mi - run, out and back

Course Recorded Finish: 6:12:56

Garmin Splits:

AG Finish: 41/66
OV Finish: 952/1996
AG Race Factor: 1.63
OV Race Factor: 1.47

Race Analysis:
Transitions:

Transitions were pretty solid for this race. No issues with gear, no extended time spent doing anything too unnecessary. Ironman transitions are just a little bit bigger and you have to put gear into the bags so it just takes a bit longer than my typical sprint or olympic race transitions haha.

Swim:

The watch is definitely effed because my swim shows up on the road. I mean obviously mountains and such in the area, but clearly the watch had some issues. But I def felt like zig zagged about that much. But from a pace standpoint, things look worse than my pace actually was. The river itself was awesome and temps were great. But there were two annoying things: 1) water was super shallow in most parts so you couldn't dig too deep 2) the current going up was rough but coming back you got no accelerated drift. The former made it tough to get too consistent until you got into a deeper area and the latter just kinda gassed me a little bit. But all in all, it was a great swim!

Bike:

The bike for this race was pretty damn good. Again my elevation can't capture the real life elevation of this race which is a shame. It wasn't flat but it wasn't super hilly either, which I appreciated. I will say that the bike was pretty technical in that there were a lot of windy roads, a lot of rolling hills and just generally a need to manage bike gearing, speed and turns, not to mention idiots on the course and cars which is always an issue.

What was also rough was a strong headwind through. The winds seemed to always be pushing me backwards even on the one or two sections where the was some downhill. You can actually kinda see that in my speed chart how there are really only a couple blips and not much else. But despite this, I really was able to focus on spinning my legs out and keeping the heart rate generally low. There was some time where it creeped up near the one "climb" but it was otherwise pretty good. Oh and because I had one of the latest starts, the weather really started to heat up here...

But generally speaking, the bike was not too easy or too difficult. You went from kinda that river area rolling up through wine country and nice vineyards and then through into town for a bit and finished in a very city-like area. But there were a lot of scenic opportunities and a lot of time spent by vineyards!

Quick aside to long course comparisons: I've now done 4 races at the 70.3 distance. My worst was epically hilly Wildflower at 3:53, my best was 2:55 at super flat Superfrog and these last two were 3:10 and 3:16. Fitness, gear and course difficulty made a difference. Superfrog and Vineman were the only two where I had my road bike and aero wheels. Wildflower I only had aero bars. Honu I had a rented TT bike. It seems that there are two def paths to speed for me: 1) get a TT bike and always use my race wheels 2) get strong on the bike. Former def easier than the latter... LOL

Run:

The run... Oh the run... Always a challenge and always seemingly ending up on the struggle bus. I started off pretty damn strong and the pace shows that. 9min/mile range given my current fitness level is pretty above average. But by mile 7 you can see I was settling into my fitness level reality. And then after that it was a model of consistency... albeit super slow and sad consistency.

I will say that the run was pretty damn hot for me. Temps sky rocketed and the sun was out and blaring. The only saving grace compared to Honu was that this was a dry race aka no humidity! That really helped at least keep my consistent. This race also had some shady areas so I was able to kinda let my body cool down a bit (altho admittedly not much) in some of those shady areas.

But aside from being slow, I think it was a pretty good run. Pretty consistent and just one sad clown point on the struggle bus. It was mile 11ish or just after. I was really pushing hard the entire time for a sub-2 hr run because I thought that'd get me under 2 hours (little did I know I needed like a 1:40 due to my slower than I thought bike time). Anyway, I pushed really hard to get that goal and when the 2 hour time for the run hit on my watch, I just had a mini pity party. I stopped to walk it out, collect the realization of crushed dreams and then I moved on to keep going. It was a brief albeit sad moment though. I mean to just hope so hard for sub-6 hour total time and just not be able to make it while about 1.5 miles out was rough.

But I did finish strong and happy looking and there's a really epic and awesome pic of me seeing my squad and getting ready to high five Kim as I sweep in!

As for the overall race experience, there's nothing like doing a race with my two best friends and maybe our budding new #TriSquad I am ready to dub the #TriMigos. I know some might be saddened that they're kinda getting left out and we're kinda making a little group within the Honey Stinger Picnic Family... But they haven't been keeping up with their racing for a number of legit reasons so it might be time to rebrand for a bit... lol But that's just me loving to do silly things like think of new nicknames and hashtags and all the rage that is being young!

Pics:

Pre Race and road trip: