gator half-iron 2011 - race report

  gator race bling

i just realized that i really dread writing up race reports because i’m not sure where to begin, so i’ll stick with my “keeping it simple” approach and start with a quick rundown of saturday and then move on to race day stuff. this was my first 70.3 race so it was all new to me so to speak.

on saturday we made the hour drive to sarasota and went straight to the running store to register. that went very smoothly and as soon as we were done with that, we headed to our hotel to check in. once we got settled in, we hit the nearest supermarket, Albertson’s (not one of my faves but it worked out fine). i think we were the youngest one’s in the entire store. we picked up a few things to eat, went back to the hotel and ate. i ate about 1/4 of the j-man’s turkey sub and then 4 small peanut butter cookies. i felt like an overstuffed shamu. once we got done feeding our faces, we headed to the race site to drop off Mandy (the badass q-roo) for her sleep over. you could rack your bike anywhere, first come, first served, which i thought was pretty cool. as always, it was tough leaving Mandy behind and after tucking her in a couple of different places, i finally found the perfect spot for her and got her all settled in for the night. we went back to the hotel for the rest of the evening/night …or so i thought.

around 8:30pm as i was gathering up stuff for the next morning, i realized that i had forgotten something very important and had a meltdown for a split second. i may or may not have forgotten my TRANSITION BAG with my wetsuit, goggles, and bike shoes!!! yeah, some pretty important things. dumbass move on my part! first thing i said, FML! second thing, we gotta go back home now. first let me say, i am married to a man who is nothing short of a saint and second, thank goodness we don’t live that far away. i know you are wondering how the hell did i forget to bring my transition bag and the only thing i can say is i thought the j-man grabbed it. it was completely my bad and all the way home that night i was so pissed off at myself but i decided that i wasn’t going to allow this to mess with my head and to just let it go, so i forgot all about it. we got home, i grabbed the bag and we headed back to our hotel. i was in bed by 10:45pm. perfect! plenty of time to sleep and sleep i did until the alarm went off at 5am.

5am race morning: my nutrition strategy was very simple. i took what i did in october at the 140.6 and divided it by 2. got that? sounds too easy, right? well it is and it worked once again to perfection. in a nutshell, for breakfast i ate fig newtons and cheddar cheese, on the bike i ate 2 and a half powerbars and 2 powergels, i also drank 2 aero-bottles of water and 1 bottle of powerade and nuun mixed. on the run, one hammer gel that i grabbed on the course and water at every water station (at each mile).  those of you who have been reading my blog since the early days and who have known me for years, know that i hate to complicate training and nutrition.  personally, for me, it just isn’t necessary and it takes the fun out of the whole experience.

the swim:  1.2 miles – 40:06 – 6/8 AG

i’m the one with my arm out of the water

it was wetsuit legal but i saw some big boys who had enough natural insulation and opted for no wetsuit. more power to them but i’m taking advantage of more buoyancy when i can.  the swim started in 2 waves. men first and then 30 seconds later, the women. it took me a good quarter mile to feel comfortable, settle down, and get my breathing right. once i did, it was like i was in the pool, except when i got kicked in the ear. other than that, the swim was good and i was 5 minutes faster than my first 1.2 mile loop at the great floridian, so i guess i’m getting a little faster.

T1: 3:03 – 5/8 AG

the bike: 56 miles – 2:48:12 – 3/8 AG

my favorite part, the biking! not much to say about the bike except that it was flat and fast. great roads with very little debris. hit some head wind early on for about the first 25 miles then got some good push coming back. chicked a lot of boys out there in the last 10 miles who passed me early on. it’s all about pace and riding smart.

T2 – not recorded in the race results.

the run: 13.1 miles – 1:40:30 – 1/8 AG

i was mentally prepared for the heat and obviously, physically prepared too. my strategy going into the run was to use each and every water station …grab 2 cups, 1 cup of water on my head and the other to drink. i was surprised that i felt as strong as i did and this was good and bad. the way i calculated my projected finishing time put me at best 5:30 and at worst 6 hours so the bad part was that the j-man was nowhere to be found at the end to video the good part which was my 5:11:50 finishing time.  i finished 2nd in my age group and i was very happy with that.

thanks for reading and i leave you with a video from the race …enjoy!

if you’d like to see the official race results, you can go HERE. 

much love and peace out!