Liberty HIM (Minnesota), June 14, 2008

[jrkelley]

Triathlon - 1/2 Ironman Total Time = 4h 41m 52s
Overall Rank = 17/256 Age Group = 45-49 Age Group Rank = 1/29

Pre-race: Up at 4 am, 2 bottles of Ensure and small bowl of cereal. Met Kona Tom in Chisago City to carpool to Maple Plain.

Event warmup: Quick spin on bike to check mechanicals. Very short run and then a pretty decent swim warmup.

Swim: 36:56 | 2309.7 yards 01:36/100yards Age Group: 5/29 Overall: 89/256

Although my time wasn't all that great I am pretty happy with this swim. Managed to stay in contact with a bunch of people and kept my swim split to within less than 4 minutes of Tom, which for me is huge. Managed a 5th fastest swim split for my AG which is unheard of. I guess swim training is paying off.

T1 Time: 01:32


Bike: 2:29:03 56 miles 22.54 mile/hr Age Group: 1/29 Overall: 13/256


Windy day today. I didn't get a chance to re-mount my Ergomo powermeter so I couldn't see the display very well during the ride. I didn't feel like I was pushing hard enough on the first lap and couldn't see my wattage output or speed so I was going totally on perceived effort. Managed to catch several riders but then it got hard to pick off targets because the Oly racers started to mix in with the long course racers. My hamstrings were tight most of the ride and I was really nervous about blowing one of them out but they held up fairly well.

T2 Time: 01:06

Run: 1:33:16 13.1 miles 07:07 min/mile Age Group: 1/29 Overall: 14/256

Was curious how my hamstrings were going to hold up. I've been battling a hamstring injury since Apple Duathlon in May. Even though the right one was tight I could stride fairly well. I had one target up ahead of me that took me several miles to reel in. I managed to keep the pace at 6:45-7:00 depending on the terrain and felt pretty decent. About a mile before the turnaround I could see Tom ahead of me. At the turnaround Tom stopped to take a drink but I made the turn without stopping and went by him. We both encouraged each other and I pushed on. With about 4 miles left to go the right hamstring was getting tighter and going up inclines became tougher and my stride got messed up. I watched my mile splits creep up over 8:00 and now just wanted to get this thing finished. The guy I passed first managed to re-pass me with a mile left and I tried to hang on to him but he got me be about 20 sec at the finish. Not a great run, but a good training day.

This was our first time at Liberty and we really enjoyed it. The venue was awesome with lots of green space, picnic areas, trails and nice lake. The post-race food left a little to be desired. Lots of volunteers and overall a very nice race.

[Blazer86]

Awesom job. This race was originally on my schedule, and I wish I had done it. Congratulations on winning the age group.

[t2k]

fantastic job - strong in all three!

so when you said you couldn't see power, did you mean you didn't record it as well, or just that it was out of sight? Curious to see how the pacing went on the two halves of the bike if you did record power data (also your IF given the speedy run!)

[Dan Socie]

Great race

[jrkelley]

Originally Posted by t2k

fantastic job - strong in all three!

so when you said you couldn't see power, did you mean you didn't record it as well, or just that it was out of sight? Curious to see how the pacing went on the two halves of the bike if you did record power data (also your IF given the speedy run!)

I recorded it, but my computer was mounted too far back on the stem for me to be able to see it while in aero. I'll re-mount it on my aerobars after I mount my aero bottle. I can post data when I get back from biz travel this week. For me, that's not a speedy HIM run

[Linda]

Not a speedy run????? Holy smoking race!!!! Huge congratulations. Beautiful job in all three.

(Still shakin' my head about that run comment....)

[Stringcheese]

Wonderful race...thanks for posting!
Are you coming down for the Pigman HIM?

[jrkelley]

Originally Posted by Stringcheese

Wonderful race...thanks for posting!
Are you coming down for the Pigman HIM?

Yeah, I'm registered. But, haven't decided whether I'll do it or not. May just swim and bike hard but take the run easy since its only 3 weeks out from IM WI.

[GAMMY]

One word: "fast"!

[marianne]

Hey it warmed up there!!! you don't have on your "lucky" tights!!! hey, congrats on an awesome race!! you are so fast! great, way cool. m