As usual a quick one just to let you know about the race. It was a hard day out there and the sub-9 hour target looked to be off the cards by the time I was out on the run. I tried, but my legs didn’t have it. I’m pleased enough with how they held up based on the result.
So a new PB has been set, but not by much. My finish time was 9:19:18. The better news is that was good enough for 28th overall and 2nd in my age group. That means I’m off to Kona again next year!
To quickly breakdown the race. A reasonable swim of one hour or so. Felt good and I’m confident I’m getting my swim moving in the right direction again. A bad T1 apparently I used glue instead of bodyglide that wetsuit did not want to come off! Frustrating tiny tear to get fixed on a seam now!
Out on the bike my legs felt a bit tight, particularly that left ITB. I hammered out a solid pace all day though. Found the wind frustrating, but not too hard. The rising temperature was far more of an issue. A quicker T2 without the compression socks though much of that was getting two nice ladies to apply suncream to my head! I may well feature in the race video as the camera man spent a lot of time filming me there!
The run was just plain tough. My calves felt like stone. Whilst the first lap was okay and roughly on pace. The next lap suffered in the heat. I found dumping ice down the front of my shorts was the best solution. I’d run through aid station grabbing cups of ice and tipping them down my shorts.
On the last lap at the far turn-around I passed another guy on his final lap. He asked my age group then told me I’d just moved into second place! From that point on I killed myself to keep moving. Maybe catch first place, but at least make sure I stayed on the podium (also wasn’t sure on number of Hawaii slots so had to keep going hard). I finished absolutely spent!
Only other thing to note is this time I didn’t pace things in my usual way. I pushed harder in many respects than before and the results were interesting. I think the lack of good run training since Kona kind of showed, but fortunately didn’t do much harm!
Oh and finally – Mohawks are the best race haircut ever.
