A brief report, findings and conclusions. Summary: there’s as much art as science in triathlon.
This is the 4th year in a row I’ve done this race, and my least prepared in terms of base training. I’ve got a 20 month old son at home, and he’s too much fun now to allow for much time on the bike.
My swim training was pretty sketchy, bike training consisted of commuting to and from work on avg of 2x/week, longest ride one way 25mi. Longest ride since last year’s Gulf Coast ½ was the 50 miler I did in December with my cancer-free training partner.
The best thing I had going was run training, as I put in a solid 3 months of 6mi runs to work in the morning 2x/week, with 2.75mi speed run home same day, and long runs pushing my son in the baby jogger, up to 15mi.
To top things off, got a stomach virus from my son 2weeks out, lost 7lbs overnight on the can, learned the next day the disks in your spine can suffer from dehydration as well! So, from 2 weeks out, I did exactly 1 swim of 2500scy, 2x2.75mi easy runs to work, and a 3mi bike check-out ride before bike check-in the day before the race.
The good news was the 7lbs I lost stayed mostly off and I was at a new PB weight at race time: 6’, 166lbs. 
Gulf Coast has had rockin’ hot weather the last 4 years, including going over 100deg on the run. This year the weather was perfect. Calm 70deg ocean, cloudy and not too windy bike, clouds early on the run. No excuses there, and the times showed it.
Swim was nice and easy. Wetsuit legal, found some decent feet, spent about ½ of it flying solo but feeling solid. No big gains, but didn’t lose anything.
Because of my lack of bike training, I rode without a cyclometer this year. My goal was to PR the run (play to your strengths!) and I knew that meant taking it easy on the bike. I also knew this meant that if I could see mph, I’d be pissed I wasn’t holding over 20mph, so I took that out of the equation, and raced solely on HR, staying in Zone 2 the whole time.
Man, it was hard letting everyone blow past me. Luckily they were moving so much faster that I didn’t have to stare at their calves for very long and watch the rest of my AG ride away.
I hydrated expecting the heat, so had to pee early on the bike. Thought about the ‘twitch nation when I pulled over and decided on a combo: Euro peloton pee - one foot unclipped, straddling the bike, draining off to the side. Did the job anyway.
I made a point of saying “Nice Work” to every lady I passed and everyone over 60 and everyone returned the good vibes.
So, finished the bike into the ever-present headwind on the return to town, feeling pretty good, HR fine, staying aero and thrilled to be on my new-used Rocket TT as my ass was feeling pretty good, and I hoped my legs would too.
Got off the bike, hit the porta-potty for another pee and hit the run feeling pretty good. I had my HR goals broken down into 5k segments with gradual increases in each segment. Took the first 5k feeling just fine, right on goal. Did the next 5k and hit the state park loop (all sand dunes and SUN) feeling great for this point in the race.
In the past years, when I’ve gone faster, I’ve had to walk aid stations and really hurt for the 2nd ½ of the run. This year my goal was to be smart and increase both pace and effort consistently over the run and to negative split.
Basically, that’s what happened. In the 3rd 5k section, my HR creeped up above my goal by a couple beats but I was feeling good so kept it going. It kept creeping up bit by bit along with my pace, but man I was feeling great for this point in the race. Not even thinking about walking and so far had only been passed by relay runners and 2 of those scary masters.
So, I just kept slowly ramping up the effort and the pace followed. I was passing people like crazy the last 5 miles, especially at the aid stations. The only person in my AG who passed me died at the next aid station and I never saw him again. I was feeling it, but not hurting, if that makes sense.
The big benefit to doing the same race more than once is familiarity with the course. When I made the final turn onto the last straightaway about 1.25mi from the finish, I dumped what was left of my personal liquid nutrition and just dialed it up. I wasn’t sprinting, but I was imagining myself running a mile repeat on the track. “Smooth is fast, fast is smooth” kept going through my head.
I brought it home at that same pace and left plenty on the course. I was 11 minutes off my course PR, but set a run PR by 3 minutes. I met my goals of using the bike to set up the run and pulling off a run PR feeling good. With my lack of bike miles this year, my whole focus was on doing what I could with my base. I did, and I learned a ton for future Long Course racing.
The science is important, but the art has a place too. I was feeling good on the run, and ditched the pre-planned HR limits to race for the day. That was a great feeling, to be that in touch with my body to allow me to make that kind of decision during a race. So, I discovered that a lack of training can be overcome with a realistic plan and a focus on being in the moment.
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