Oliver Half Iron Race Report
Oliver Half was a last minute entry for me, as I had planned on racing Cultus Lake Loop, the weekend after. However, I'm really happy with the weekend, and the time spent in Oliver, and heading back to the site where my first BC race was, after I moved back from Montreal in 2012. We arrived on Friday, after a beautiful drive through the North Cascades, and then had a good swim. It felt like it was going to be the hottest place on Earth. My shoulder has been a bit twingy, so I decided to not swim on Saturday & give it ice and a rest. Up early on Saturday, got a great bike in (fast, with a low HR), and quick brick. Then, mostly legs up with a bit of wine tasting! I was also sipping on electrolyte water all day long.
My goals were to mostly try to race what Ironman should feel like: comfortable, but not insane. Drink more fluid than I think is needed. Race smart, race strong. I think my pre-race warm up was well executed (run with strides, a little time in the water, lots of arm swinging). It was hot already (had to stay in the water to stay cool) and I knew I would suffer: I am not awesome in hot weather racing, particularly in running. The race start was delayed, but, once it got going, things were smooth. I think a downfall is that I haven't had good "heat" race experiences in the past, and that is kinda stuck in my brain.
The swim was FAST! I also didn't feel my shoulder *at all* which I was worried about, and subsequently relieved about. I never had a set of feet to follow, as the #1 girl and I got separated by the 1st buoy. Lots of men to weave through, and came out of the water in 2nd, with a 32xx ish swim... the swim was long, but awesome. I'm confident that if it was true to distance, I would have been sub-:30. In fact, when I look at my garmin, 2000m past at 29:15.
Off onto the bike, where I wanted to keep control of my HR (in the 140's/low 150s) for as much as possible. It was a good ride. Other than a few lonely times on the first loop, the second loop was quite excellent though, I ended up riding predominately with another strong female rider (Sarah, from north van), who ended up being an excellent match. We were able to ride controlled and steady. I felt like I would've been able to take in more fluids (at one point, I was stuck with empty bottle, and only had a superloaded carbo pro bottle), and perhaps more salt. I've been testing out potatoes for fuel, and they have been going well! I had one gu close to the end, and lots of bits of prima bar and chomps. Again.. still think this could've been upped a bit. HR avg 151, so I would say that my goal was well hit.
Got off the bike, wanting to run SLOW. I wanted to "negative pyramid" it... I.e: first 5k at 5:15, 2nd 5km at 5:05, 3rd at 4:55, 4th at 5:05 and last 1.2 km all out. This did not happen at all. A solid mistake I made was not taking the first two aid stations seriously. I felt good at the first one out of transition, so I took nothing. The second one was "minimal." This was Not the day to do that. ice, water, cola and gatorade was the pattern for every other station. I wanted to pull out of the race, with lots of negative thoughts of "this is too hot, why should we suffer like this, I don't want to ruin myself" blah blahs. I think that in racing like this, its not when the darkness comes (it will arrive for a while), but how you handle it when it comes. Eventually, once I started hitting the aid stations appropriately, that was able to change. The slowness through the aid stations really slowed down my splits, but at least they kept me running in between. All in all for the run, it wasn't "awesome!!!" but I was glad to overcome what was some pretty negative thinking. My Favourite bit was when I asked myself "Why do I do this?!?!" And the answer came: BECAUSE YOU'RE GOOD AT IT! BECAUSE YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING THAT MANY OTHER PEOPLE CANNOT! BECAUSE YOU DEDICATE TIME AND MONEY AND EFFORT. BECAUSE YOU ARE STRONG AND POWERFUL AND CAN FINISH THIS!" Avg HR 164... which is actually about Par for a race. It certainly wasn't a "steady 164" though... a bit all over the place.
SO now, its on to Ironman Canada! Anyone have a 5-week to ironman training plan!? :)
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