I raced the Galveston half-iron course in 2008 and 2009, when it was Lonestar. Then I stopped for a few years, until I got back to it yesterday. It’s a great venue, and I had a great race (4:35, personal best) so I’m all for it. Here is what happened.
My A-race for the year is IMTX. I was not planning on going to Galveston but after enough pressure from my coach (François) and the team I recently joined (Bike Barn), I finally signed up three weeks ago.
Swim. My age group didn’t start until 7:55 and, in fact, was so large that it was broken into two. I guess triathlon is getting popular with dudes in their thirties. Getting into the water was a good surprise: the combination of sea water and a wetsuit makes you really buoyant. The water is opaque but not as bad as IMTX’s: you get to see the feet of the guy in front of you a few inches before they hit you square in the nose. With local races, trust me, this is luxury! There were no waves and no current I could feel, so the swim was uneventful. 37:37. While I’m still squarely in the ‘slow’ category, that’s five minutes faster than my last half, in November, and by far a personal best. So I guess it’s trending in the right direction and the hard work in the pool starts to pay off.
Bike. It was the first time I raced with a power meter. The idea was to go with an average of 240W. That didn’t work. Having trained for the past few weeks for IMTX, I can produce 210W for longer periods of time, but I found it surprisingly tough to generate a higher output with such a closed hip angle. At any rate, I ended up with a 225W for 23.3mph average and a 2:25 split. That was slower than I was hoping for, but acceptable. The wind was a huge nonevent, being almost exactly perpendicular to the out-and-back course. A small component of it was tail wind going out, which became head wind on the way back; that was unexpected, as usually the reverse happens here.
Run. Getting back to transition, all I needed was to nail the 13.1-mile run in a reasonable manner to make it a PR. That also went fairly well. I mean, it was painful, but it felt within reach. Fresh from a 2:54 at the Houston marathon 10 weeks ago, and having kept a decent running volume in preparation for IMTX, it was easy to stay mentally in the right place: “come one, it’s only 13 miles, your weekly long run dwarfs it.” The pain in the legs went away fairly quickly, and I felt I could move forward steadily, picking up contenders along the way. I ended up with a 1:27, a new PB for a half-iron run. As for the course, many bash it. The truth is, I kind of like it. Sure, the three loops mean that it gets crowded but that wasn’t too bad, as you get to see your friends more often.
Adding all the pieces together, I ended up with a 4h35, good enough for 11th in the AG and 130th overall. Not stellar, but a good performance, especially since this wasn’t a A race. Besides, that’s 9 minutes faster than my personal best at 70.3, so I’ll take it.
Thanks François for the great coaching; Fred for the superb race-day support; Dave, Lee and everyone else with the Bike Barn team for letting me play in your sandbox; and, of course, Justyna for dealing with me on a daily basis. See you all at IMTX.
