Lone Star Half Iron Race Recap

Well, we did it! Sunday was the race that we have been working towards for the last 5 months. You can read the entire race recap below. Keep in mind that this was a 6 hour race so the recap might get a little lengthy.

The maps for each discipline can be found here.

Swim
1.2 miles
38:28

The water temperature was supposedly 67 degrees, at least that's what I overheard while I was waiting to get in. It was chilly but not as chilly as the lakes up in Dallas where we were swimming in 59-61 degree water for practice, that temperature will take your breath away literally.

This swim had a couple of firsts for me, 1. this was the first time that I had swam in salt water, whether for practice or a race and 2. this was the first time that I have started in a group of more then 50 people per wave. The swim is the most frightening thing for me, it's one of the only aspects of race day that you can't practice, although some may try. I'm not afraid of the swim itself, I'm afraid of the start. Imagine 100 people crowding a 30 foot wide swim start chute, by the way this race was a tread water swim start, waiting for the gun to go off. Once that gun goes off everyone is vying for position. You're getting punch, kicked and half drowned by people that you have never met and will never see again, although a few of them you would like to find in a dark alley afterwards. Luckily the melee didn't last as long as normal and I found my line in a couple of minutes. My goal time for the swim was 35:00 minutes but there is a lot to be said for a race day swim in unfamiliar waters. The time seemed to last forever but after the last turn there was only about a quarter mile left to the swim exit which was good motivation.

I recently told Kati that I am almost as happy getting out of the water as I am crossing the finish line. That statement stood true for this swim as well.

Bike
56 miles
2:47:18
20.1 mph average speed

The bike leg had a total of 33 feet of elevation gain over the 56 miles, in other words it was as flat as a board. Leading up to this race that was an exciting aspect, no hills to fight up like we had been doing in training. As I soon learned, flat terrain brings it's own set of problems along with it. Over the past five months I have learned that hills are at least fair for the most part, if you have an ascent, more than likely you are going to have a descent as well but with flat terrain you are constantly having to pedal with no real rests to speak of and soon your hamstrings are starting to talk to you, they aren't using their inside voice and if you could you would wash their mouth out with soap.

We paralleled the coast the entire time, as if you have a choice when you are riding on Galveston Island. The wind stayed down for the most part until the end and even then it was from the north so it was a crosswind instead of a headwind.

The course itself led to fast speeds, partially due to the flatness but also because there were no turns. Once you got out of Moody Gardens you rode for about 24 miles in a straight line, took a U-turn at the end of the island, rode back 4 miles, took another U-turn to head back to the end of the island, when you reached the end you took another U-turn and headed home. Due to the lack of wind and turns I was able to stay in the aero position for about 50 of the 56 miles, which does lead to lower back discomfort, I found.

Stretching was a necessity on this ride. If there were hills then you could have stood up on the pedals occasionally to give your legs and back a little stretch but not on this ride. As much as you hated to coast for a little while to you had to stand up to stretch out your back, legs and neck every once in a while just to give them a break from this stooped over position.

Riding into T2 was fantastic, to know that not only were two legs of the race done but knowing that the longest leg was over was a great feeling. I was one step (OK, a lot of steps) away from the finish line.

If you really have a lot of time to spare you can watch a video of the entire bike course tour here. In video #2 about 5:00 in you will see the only thing that really became daunting on this course and that was the long straight roads where you could see the telephone poles getting smaller as you looked into the horizon and knowing that's where you were going.

Run
13.1 miles
2:09:32
9:53 min/mi

This is when the wind really came into play, luckily there were so many turns that you weren't heading into the wind for long. When I got back to the hotel after the race I checked the wind speeds to find out that they were reporting 27mph winds that afternoon.

The run route was four loops around Moody Gardens, which had it's pros and cons. It broke the half marathon into smaller segments that were easier to mentally handle but it got really old seeing the same sights over and over again. The other benefit was that I got to see Kati twice on the run which is always good for a pick me up.

My intention during training was to run an 8:30 minute mile. I soon realized that this was not going to be possible and became fast friends with 9:30 minute miles. I probably went too fast on the bike but also the flat course had done my hamstrings in. Early on my nutrition plan went right out the window as well. The plan was to have two GU's in a gel flask that would be mixed with a couple ounces of water attached to my race belt. I took sips from the flask at mile one and two but on the second sip I didn't get the nozzle closed all the way resulting in the entire thing emptying onto the ground, unbeknownst to me. So there I was with 11 miles left to run and no nutrition that I had been using during training and as well all know you never try anything new on race day since you don't know how your body is going to handle it. I started running through all my options (get it running through?) and realized that I still had two Clif Blocs in my tri top pocket. These are only worth about 30 calories each and I hadn't eaten them while running since the beginning of training so I wasn't sure if they were going to sit well in my stomach or not. I took the chance and bit them in half and took half about every 15 minutes, they are already small in the first place, a little bigger the a game dice. That worked fairly decently for a while but I was soon felt the nutrition crash coming again and needed more calories and had nothing left on me so I resorted to the race provided nutrition and started having to slam Twizzlers and defizzed Pepsi on the final couple of miles. Surprisingly this didn't cause any problems.

At the end, finally being able to run on the left side of the sign that said "next lap right, finish left" was one of the happiest moments of my life and I can honestly say that finishing this race, I was much happier than any swim leg that I had ever done. A mixture of exhaustion and joy can only lead to tears as I accepted my finishers medal, hugged our coach and headed for the food tent.

Final Time
Swim: 38:28
T1: 5:31
Bike: 2:47:18
T2: 4:13
Run: 2:09:32
Total: 5:45:05