Like many others i was using the devilman half as my first race of the year and a chance to test the waters and see how things were progressing.
With another half coming up in two weeks this slightly shorter race would give me a good chance to test some things out and see where everything was at, and have time to make at least race adjustments for little smokies.
The weather was calling for high winds and thunderstorms. good news is the rain held off and it got hot and sunny (i love racing in the heat), bad news is the wind got a lot worse than initial forcasts called for and was steady in the 30-35mph range on the bike with gusts a lot faster.
Swim and bike leading into the race were WAY down from last year due to a number of things, but ran has been up a lot in an effort to get that under control.
The swim was NASTY. Sort of what i imagine it would be like to be swamp thing. when you can smell/taste the water before you even get close, its a bad sign. The plan here was simply to swim a steady pace and save it for the bike/run. with the wind picking up and my lack of swim training this winter i thought that would be a much better use of my energy and would lead to a better race overall. All in all it was a solid swim, and i came out of the water right under 25 min (guessing the swim was a lot closer to a mile than the .8 it said?). LONG run to transition where i passed a lot of the guys that outswam me,
and then quickly out onto the bike course.
To say this ride crushed my soul would be an understatement, and there were many many times throughout the hurricane where i found myself swearing outloud at the wind, my bike, and anything else that i could. I had a bit of trouble pacing this, as there were times where i spun out of gears, and others where i didn’t have enough to keep me in the cadence range i wanted (and some of this going both directions due to gusts/changes). I came off the bike right around 1:52 or so, battered, ego bruised, but legs feeling pretty good all things considered. another long run back to transition (i think this race should be advertised as having 4 runs, not 1, for each run to and from the bike course, and the run from the water).
I have never been so happy to get off my bike and start a run in my life. I came out of transition quickly and laid down a solid first 1.5 miles a bit faster than goal effort/pace, and then slowed down to what i thought i could hold for the next few miles. the sun/wind and open run course deff made things interesting, but i grew up running in corn fields like that and just put my head down and started trucking it, and hoped my legs would hold out.
the last 3 miles i started picking up the pace, and tried my best to hang on. came through the line in 59:30 for my run for 6:47 pace (or if the course is as long as many are now saying it was, 6:24 pace, please be long, please be long).
Managed to break into the top 5 and by far my best longer race to date.
Luckily only have Oly’s and sprints on my plate now. Runs looking a lot easier off 40k . Not looking forword to Central park though. Might have to take a few trips up and run there.