tl;dr - wind tought a hard lesson to MOPer. And I hate wind.
Pre-Race
Got in on Thursday. Checked in. Dropped off bike at bike tech for a tuneup. All that went really quickly. I'm glad I showed up on Thursday for checkin. Line was crazy on Friday. Tried out Normatec leg compression at expo. Awesome. But crazy expensive. Got a practice swim in on Friday morning. Lots of people out there so that worked out nice. Also did a short run.
Logistics
This was first point to point race. Especially since I travelled by myself it was slightly more challenging. I will say bike and run gear were easy to get to. Adequate parking for dropping off bike so that part was easy. . Race morning I had to park at convention center to catch shuttle to T1. Unfortunately shuttles were only running from 4-5:30 which was much earlier than I needed to be there since swim for half started at 8:30. Not a big deal. Got to t1. got things setup then hung out in changing tent to stay warm until shuttle to swim start came.
Swim
I was in the next to last wave of swim so I had plenty of time to use the bathroom and do a few short warmup runs. In water start. Water temp was great. Beginning took me a minute to find an open spot but soon I mostly avoided getting beat up. A little choppy due to the wind so got smacked in the face by the chop a bunch and saltwater in mouth more than I would like. But current assist made for a nice quick-ish swim for this slow swimmer. Ladder climb out of the water went better than expected. Volunteers were great.
Time: 30:03 - I’m a slow swimmer so with wetsuit and current assist this was right on target.
T1
Long run. 1/4 mile from swim exit to t1. They had a warm rinse tent to run through. Put on arm warmers and gloves. Needed to pee so used bathroom. No idea how I needed to pee. Already peed a bunch pre-start. Long run for me out of transition with bike.
Time: 8:03 - long run from swim, plus arm warmers, plus stopping to pee = slow. Still. I’m not sure what I was doing in transition all this time.
Bike
No issues on bike mount. First section was lots of turns for a little while getting to the main roads and then Ummmm....wind. Horrible headwind for the first 40 miles. After the first 10 miles I adjusted my target power goal. By mile 25 any power goals were out the window. Even with that my first 25 miles weren’t bad. Between miles 25 and 40 is were the wind was taking it’s toll and I was really slowing down trying to save my legs. I was going strictly by RPE at that point. I kept trying to go slower and slower but legs were not feeling great. They were exhausted. I took a couple gels early on in the bike and had started drinking my Gatorade/carbo pro/water mix since my system seemed to be accepting of it and I knew with fighting the wind I would probably be expending more energy. None of it worked. My back and right hip and hamstring were very tight and wouldn't loosen up. So even though the tailwind started at the turnaround my legs were just not doing much. With the tailwind I was 3.5+ mph faster but I really feel like the difference should have been greater but I didn’t feel it would be good for the run to push it too much at that point.
Drafting. I didn’t see a large amount of drafting but there was some. A few groups of 2 or 3 who were obviously “organized” drafters and then the long slightly broken up pelotons of people who seem to be oblivious that when passed they need to fall back out of the drafting zone. Or they just don’t care. There are definitely cyclists out there just “riding” and seem oblivious to rules, those around them. More than a few blocking penalties could have been handed out. I also almost crashed because somebody somebody didn’t even glance before he came out left. Just briefly pointed left as he came out. I ended up on the rumble strips.
Also, saw some idiots shortly out T1 throwing there gel wrappers on the ground. It was clearly intentional. WTF?!?
Time: 3:05:24 - this was about 15 minutes slower than my previous two HIMs and about 20 minutes off my goal.
T2
I nice "cyclocross" 200m trot after dismount. Can't say that was fun. Handed off bike. Had trouble finding bag but got it. Got changed. Had to pee again. WTF?!?
Time: 7:21 - again slow. again had to pee. after the bike I’m sure I was happy to sit for a second changing shoes
Run
Started my slow trot out of T2 waiting for legs and back to loosen up. Lol had somehow forgotten to remove arm warmers and gloves. With all the time spent in transition still didn’t get things right. Kept running. Dropped them at first aid station. First mile or two were normal, or so I thought, working out the stiffness. But never really worked itself out and my legs just hurt more and more. Kept my fueling up since it was still accepting but that wasn't translating to energy. So pretty much suffered the entire run. By mile 7 I started walking the first minute of every mile and running the rest. Managed to run the final 1.5 miles including "sprinting" down the carpet
Post finish
Post race my system rarely wants food. Ate a few bites of pizza. Some pretzels. Pepsi. Water. Started getting the chills. Got a space blanket from medical and sat in sun. Started feeling a little better.
Overall: Somewhat disappointed in my time. It was 25-30 minutes slower than my previous HIM efforts. For me, the wind really sapped my energy. The bike course was mostly on highways so really nothing great to look at. Swim course was fine. Run course was good. Got to pet a beagle during the run.
I think I ended up 57 out of something like 131 in my age group.
For those that finished. Great job. I know I wasn't the only one in pain on the bike. But one can't control the weather conditions and we all raced in the same wind.
Pre-Race
Got in on Thursday. Checked in. Dropped off bike at bike tech for a tuneup. All that went really quickly. I'm glad I showed up on Thursday for checkin. Line was crazy on Friday. Tried out Normatec leg compression at expo. Awesome. But crazy expensive. Got a practice swim in on Friday morning. Lots of people out there so that worked out nice. Also did a short run.
Logistics
This was first point to point race. Especially since I travelled by myself it was slightly more challenging. I will say bike and run gear were easy to get to. Adequate parking for dropping off bike so that part was easy. . Race morning I had to park at convention center to catch shuttle to T1. Unfortunately shuttles were only running from 4-5:30 which was much earlier than I needed to be there since swim for half started at 8:30. Not a big deal. Got to t1. got things setup then hung out in changing tent to stay warm until shuttle to swim start came.
Swim
I was in the next to last wave of swim so I had plenty of time to use the bathroom and do a few short warmup runs. In water start. Water temp was great. Beginning took me a minute to find an open spot but soon I mostly avoided getting beat up. A little choppy due to the wind so got smacked in the face by the chop a bunch and saltwater in mouth more than I would like. But current assist made for a nice quick-ish swim for this slow swimmer. Ladder climb out of the water went better than expected. Volunteers were great.
Time: 30:03 - I’m a slow swimmer so with wetsuit and current assist this was right on target.
T1
Long run. 1/4 mile from swim exit to t1. They had a warm rinse tent to run through. Put on arm warmers and gloves. Needed to pee so used bathroom. No idea how I needed to pee. Already peed a bunch pre-start. Long run for me out of transition with bike.
Time: 8:03 - long run from swim, plus arm warmers, plus stopping to pee = slow. Still. I’m not sure what I was doing in transition all this time.
Bike
No issues on bike mount. First section was lots of turns for a little while getting to the main roads and then Ummmm....wind. Horrible headwind for the first 40 miles. After the first 10 miles I adjusted my target power goal. By mile 25 any power goals were out the window. Even with that my first 25 miles weren’t bad. Between miles 25 and 40 is were the wind was taking it’s toll and I was really slowing down trying to save my legs. I was going strictly by RPE at that point. I kept trying to go slower and slower but legs were not feeling great. They were exhausted. I took a couple gels early on in the bike and had started drinking my Gatorade/carbo pro/water mix since my system seemed to be accepting of it and I knew with fighting the wind I would probably be expending more energy. None of it worked. My back and right hip and hamstring were very tight and wouldn't loosen up. So even though the tailwind started at the turnaround my legs were just not doing much. With the tailwind I was 3.5+ mph faster but I really feel like the difference should have been greater but I didn’t feel it would be good for the run to push it too much at that point.
Drafting. I didn’t see a large amount of drafting but there was some. A few groups of 2 or 3 who were obviously “organized” drafters and then the long slightly broken up pelotons of people who seem to be oblivious that when passed they need to fall back out of the drafting zone. Or they just don’t care. There are definitely cyclists out there just “riding” and seem oblivious to rules, those around them. More than a few blocking penalties could have been handed out. I also almost crashed because somebody somebody didn’t even glance before he came out left. Just briefly pointed left as he came out. I ended up on the rumble strips.
Also, saw some idiots shortly out T1 throwing there gel wrappers on the ground. It was clearly intentional. WTF?!?
Time: 3:05:24 - this was about 15 minutes slower than my previous two HIMs and about 20 minutes off my goal.
T2
I nice "cyclocross" 200m trot after dismount. Can't say that was fun. Handed off bike. Had trouble finding bag but got it. Got changed. Had to pee again. WTF?!?
Time: 7:21 - again slow. again had to pee. after the bike I’m sure I was happy to sit for a second changing shoes
Run
Started my slow trot out of T2 waiting for legs and back to loosen up. Lol had somehow forgotten to remove arm warmers and gloves. With all the time spent in transition still didn’t get things right. Kept running. Dropped them at first aid station. First mile or two were normal, or so I thought, working out the stiffness. But never really worked itself out and my legs just hurt more and more. Kept my fueling up since it was still accepting but that wasn't translating to energy. So pretty much suffered the entire run. By mile 7 I started walking the first minute of every mile and running the rest. Managed to run the final 1.5 miles including "sprinting" down the carpet
Post finish
Post race my system rarely wants food. Ate a few bites of pizza. Some pretzels. Pepsi. Water. Started getting the chills. Got a space blanket from medical and sat in sun. Started feeling a little better.
Overall: Somewhat disappointed in my time. It was 25-30 minutes slower than my previous HIM efforts. For me, the wind really sapped my energy. The bike course was mostly on highways so really nothing great to look at. Swim course was fine. Run course was good. Got to pet a beagle during the run.
I think I ended up 57 out of something like 131 in my age group.
For those that finished. Great job. I know I wasn't the only one in pain on the bike. But one can't control the weather conditions and we all raced in the same wind.