Wednesday, October 15, 2008

IRONMAN RECAP!

October 11th, 2008 was a great day! The day went by really fast, I can only remember bits and pieces throughout the day. I'll start from the beginning.



Swim: 1:01:18
The swim always goes by the quickest. With all the battling for position in the beginning it helps the time fly. I started towards the front right again just like last year. For the first 5 minutes I had to swim with my head out of water and tread what little water I could. It almost felt like a doggy paddle. There were so many people all around me I felt stuck. People kicking and hitting me, grabbing my feet and ankles. It was absolute chaos! By the time we reached the second buoy I was with a good group of people. I mananged to draft behind someone about 90 percent of the swim. From the boat turnaround I stayed with a group of about ten the entire way back.

My Goal for the swim was 1 hour. Missed it by 1:18!


Bike: 5:10:17
My favorite part of the race! Coach Mitch told me the hardest thing for me, will be to hold back. To hold myself back in the beginning I just spun in my little chain ring all the way until the little down hill by the police station. By this point I must have got passed by at least 50 other riders. The majority of the riders that passed me were in peloton packs, drafting like no body's business. When I reached the police station a big group of 20+ went flying past. A guy wearing number 90 started to yell at the pack as they passed. I pulled up next to this guy and started talking to him. As we were talking the first marshal of the day pulled up and harrassed me for drafting and told me to fall back. This got me furious and started yelling at him "ARE YOU SERIOUS!, ARE YOU BLIND! DO YOU NOT SEE THE GROUP OF 30 RIGHT IN FRONT OF US AND YOUR HARRASSING ME!" His reply was "Fall back, I'm starting now, I'll go get them next." I was harrassed a total of 3 times throughout the bike segment. I blame it all on the bright orange helmet!

The plan was to feel good when I reached Hawi. When I reached Hawi I felt good and almost had to jump off my bike and go get my special needs bag myself. It was extremely windy and hot! I ended up taking double the amount of salt tablets I was planning on. The wind was gusting extremely strong, which was great. I saw people crumble mentally when we hit the wind. I've been telling everyone all year that it was going to be windy and prepare for it.

The goal for the bike was to go under 5:30 hours. ACCOMPLISHED with the gusting winds! I was the 2nd fastest rider from Hawaii behind Tim Marr. 1st from the Big Island!

Run: 3:29:31
The game plan for the run was to go out at 8:00 minute pace and hold that as long as possible. If I held this and felt good the last 10K I could pick it up. Coach Mitch told me again "the hardest part will be holding back." He said "your first few miles will feel like your jogging." Sure enough I come out of the gates feeling like I'm jogging. At mile 1 I checked my watch and it read 6:45! OH SHIT! I'm digging my grave early! At this point I had to pee and the porta potty was open so I jumped in. I was thinking this should slow me down a little. The next few miles passed and still too fast! The first 5 miles averaged @ 7:29 pace. Going back into town I felt like a zombie running at a comfortable pace. I knew the real work would be after Palani. I actually did a slow shuffle/jog all the way up Palani. One of my goals for the run was not to walk. Well this lasted until the Coscto aid station at mile 15. I sucummed to walking my first aid station and just about every aid station after that. By mile 16 I was out of salt tablets and my left hamstring was cramping pretty good. I made it through by walking the aid stations and running in between. I kept checking my watch to make sure I would meet my goal.

The goal was to run at 8:00 minute mile pace and come through at 3:30 hours. ACCOMPLISHED! 7:59 pace with a finishing time of 3:29:31.

TOTAL TIME: 9:46:53 (204th place overall)

Compared to last year I took off 42 minutes and moved up 331 places.

Season recap;
Lavaman, 14th
Hawaii 70.3, 34th
Ironman, 204th

I find this odd everything ending in 4. HAHA!

1 comments:

BreeWee said...

Cody! You are the man! Way to bike dude!!! Are you recovered from Sunday, ha ha ha!!??

Nice race :)