Race Morning
- Had a decent night’s sleep. No pre race nerves.
- One of three alarms set did the job, the other two didn't go off. 5:45 wake up call
- Quick breakfast of bagel and cream cheese, banana
- Cool over cast morning. Perfect race weather
Set up
- 1100 athletes… it was huge! But got a good spot near the end. Pays to be a keener who registers early and gets a race number under 100
- Porta potty line was ridiculously slow. I had a couple moments of panic but realized “this is something I HAVE TO do so it will take as long as it has to”. Everyone else was doing the same so that just part of morning
- Listened to “That’s the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it in the porta” Weird
- My rack had 20 bikes and close to $100,000 worth of gear. Lots of Cervelo bikes and race wheels. It was hot. This is not a cheap sport if you want to drop the money on gear.
- Had a piper who led the athletes to the beach where Steve King’s voice took over for the day. Second time in three weeks I got to listen to him do his thing. It is a gift
Start
- The start was supposed to happen at 7:30 but the safety boat wasn’t working. Seemed like a valid reason to wait a few moments. By 7:40 we were underway.
- 3 waves, blue, yellow and green, with us males under 45 starting it off. 1,100 people in wet suits on a beach is pretty impressive sight.
Swim
- It was a rough start. Didn’t feel comfortable for the first 10 minutes or so. Even had the “maybe this just isn’t my day” thought.
- Super murky water and you could barely see 2 ft in any direction. Couldn’t tell if you were about to swim over someone else and they didn’t when they were about to swim over you. Awesome.
- Got pretty wavy pretty quick. No white water but more than a few breaths turned into mouthfuls of water.
- Pushed way out to the outside and just found some space. My geometry lessons on the hypotenuse of a triangle started flashing through my head as I tried to figure out how much extra distance I would be swimming by taking the wide path. Figured it wasn’t much further, got an “A” in it in grade 9, so I just took my wide approach to the first turn.
- By the first turn, we were feeling better and smoother.
- Singing “I got soul but I’m not a soldier” by the Killers for most of the swim. Good tempo!
- Started seeing the yellow caps…. Okay so those people are all at least five minutes faster than me. Then the green caps. Damn those people are TEN minutes faster. Just shut up and swim Nathan.
- Found the beach in about 41 minutes. 1 min slower than the plan, but considering my comfort, that was all good.
T1
- Took advantage of the wetsuit strippers. Take this moment to apologize for any urine that was splashed on you all today. Triathletes at the end of the swim are like thoroughbreds at post time. We both pee. Sorry, it’s the truth.
- The run to transition was ridiculous. Best guess would be .4 kilometres. No shoes, No sandals. Concrete roads and side walks that were actually very well swept for all of us, but running bare foot on the road is just no fun. Once in transition, I only had to run….all the way across to the far side. Passed nearly 30 rows of bikes to get to mine. Great part was that I just had to pop out once I had my bike!
- There were 2 other bikes still on the rack so I wasn’t the slowest guy…good feeling… and had plenty of room to get my gear ready.
- Attempted to put on sunscreen but the pump was pretty empty and not working right. This would either be a good choice and save a minute or so, or turn out to be a horrible painful decision a few hours later. We’ll have to wait and see.
Bike
- I was excited to get out and ride. After Shawnigan, I knew I had the legs to push and would be okay afterwards.
- Super smooth roads
- Head wind going down hill and it pushed us back up the hills. Probably the best wind scenario we could have had. Flipped it would have been hell.
- Legs felt really good and it wasn’t long until I was passing some people and finding some room of my own.
- I was never alone. There were always people around and just when you would get in a rut and feeling slow, a wave of 5-10 bikes would come cruising past. From where I don’t know but I jumped on quite a few groups for motivation. Not drafting, just a speed wake up call.
- Stayed aero for 95% of the ride. Felt really comfortable for the most part, and the parts that were a bit off went numb shortly after the discomfort J
- Kept the 31 kph speed a goal and knew if I could hold that I would have my 3:00:00 ride. 93k later… I had it!
- Caught Jenn’s cheers a few times as I rode past. Little beats hearing her voice as I am racing. Immediately I get stronger, faster, and more positive about what is going on.
- Had a brief moment of panic with 15k to go. Just after the aid station, I was trying to put my new bottle in its holder. Poor planning lead me to try and do this as I was rounding a few sharp corners, one shortly after another. The first lap, sans water bottle, I took these turns too fast and nearly went into some ugly dirt/curb/gravel, so slamming on the breaks one handed while fiddling with my bottle holders and launching my full bottle of Gatorade out onto the road where it exploded in a fountain of Lemon Lime fury didn’t make the second lap any less exciting.
- Kicked off the shoes with about a half a kilo to go and road the last with my socks on my shoes. Still not as classy as my friend Cecelia who has this great barefoot picture of the same. What can I say, I have sensitive feet.
T2
- Popped in. Since my rack was right there, I was free of the bike very quickly.
- Felt like I had a fast transition
- Loaded up on some fresh gels, changed shoes, my Wildflower visor and we were off
Run
- Had "the voice" give me a shout out as I start out on the run “Here comes Nathan Geroggensen from Victoria, a veteran at the Half Iron distance but is coming back for Ironman this summer for the first time. He’s a teacher out in Victoria. Have fun out there Nathan!” (cue fist pump here!)
- At about the 15k mark, I couldn’t remember if this was 21k or 22k race. Second guessing myself after my poor race time plan of last summer where I forgot one kilometer.
- Had the floppy legs for the first 15 minutes or so. Tried to just go slow, but “slow” ended up being about 5:10/k which is a pretty good clip. Weird.
- I can now feel my body digesting all the race food. Gels, Gatorade, water. They all feel a bit different and I can tell now when I need what and can tell how long it will take for them to get into my system. Pretty cool to know your body this well.
- Was very steady the whole run. My thought was a little extra effort every kilometer means I don’t have to hammer away really hard at the end to try and reach my goal. A little always versus a lot all at once. I hung out just under 5:30/k all day long
- Weird sprinkle came and went through the run. It was sunny and at first I thought it was a runner near me who was splashing sweat around. He was going for it pretty hard and swinging the arms. Sure it’s a gross idea at any other time, but it was impressive at the time. Impressive until I felt him splashing sweat at me from 100 metres away. That WOULD have been impressive. Silly rain playing tricks on me.
- Just before the halfway turn around, I saw Jenn snapping pictures and managed to sneak in a kiss as I went past her again. This was the first race I knew my legs would start up again after stopping to lay one on her. I got a “Hey! There’s no kissing in triathlon!” and I guess she got a “I hope you know that guy!”
Finish
- With 1 kilometre to go, I went for it. Long long strides and just tried to maintain a tall posture. I could see the crowd that was formed near the finish line and the loudspeaker was getting louder and louder. I knew I had my goal time by this point, but I still wanted to finish strong. I was as fast as I could carry myself, legs whipping past, arms pumping, smile broadening. There was a sharp turn down hill to the finish line and it was everything I could do just to stay upright. Cue finish line fist pump here!
- Mother to her 5-6 year old daughter, “Now honey, we need to remember that Daddy’s been exercising since we had our cereal this morning. We need to take it really slow with him.”
- Plopped down on the first thing I could find to sit on. I think it was for the volunteers to take our timing chips off, but at that time I just didn’t care. It was flat, it wasn’t moving, and I could sit on it. It was barely a foot and a half off the ground so getting up was tough, but I was blissful for that moment.
Final Times
2k Swim - 41:51
T1 - 4:47 (there was about a .5k run to transition!)
93k Bike - 2:58:08
T2 - 2:13
21k Run - 1:56:02
Total - 5:42:59
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