Preparation
A few friends from high school decided we should do a destination race and we decided on this one back in October. After my last triathlon in early October I switched my training focus to CrossFit. And in November started to bike about 2 days a week indoors. For some reason I couldn't really convince myself to do much running outside of CrossFit workouts. So January came and I started doing the run training with my triathlon class, which consisted of 2 runs a week, usually less than 20 minutes.
I also ended up signing up for the Move, Lose, and Cruise challenge about 3 weeks ago. I've been eating almost exclusively meat, eggs, veggies, beans, and water with one cheat day a week. I didn't change my diet at all for the week of the race (no carb loading). I've also cut out most caffeine in hopes of making myself more sensitive to it on race day
Pre Race
I got about 5 hours of sleep and had some water, a gulp of Gatorade, and about 3 cups of coffee (since I forgot my caffeine pills). We got to the start and it was still dark but surprisingly warm (55 degrees?), foggy, and humid. It didn't ever really rain, but there was definitely some mist through the first half of the race.
The Race
One of the biggest downsides of not doing any traditional run training for this race was that I had no idea what pace to target. So I started with the 1:30 group and told myself to stick with them until about 6 or 7 miles and if I felt good to go ahead then and chase my PR of 1:27:40. But I didn't listen. Around mile 2 I found myself in front of the group after the aid station and began to pull away from them slowly. When I had run my PR, I ran just under 7 min/mile for the first 9 miles then picked it up for the last 4 to around 6:15 min/mile. So my new plan was to run around 6:40 until mile 9, then pick it up to 6:30, then try for under 6:20 for the last 3 miles. In addition to wearing my Garmin 305 telling me my HR and pace, I also had my iPhone in a little belt thingy with RunKeeper running. Every 5 minutes it would tell me my time, avg pace, and distance. But the really cool feature is that it was constantly updating the website so anybody up in Reno at 4:45 could watch my progress.
The course was pretty flat with a fair share of downhill. Nothing so steep that you'd have to brake coming down, but I could really feel the downhill miles in my legs towards the end and especially after the race. The course was easy to follow, well marked and after the first 400M, crowds weren't an issue even though there were 6,000 people running. The water stations looked well stocked and laid out well, although I never grabbed any water or Gatorade. It was fun to have so many spectators along the course. It seemed like they lined most of the streets and would tell you that you were "lookin' good" even if that wasn't the case.
Around mile 8 my plan started to fall apart. People started passing me. I kept thinking more and more about how far I had left to go. I'd try to pick up my pace as someone would pass me and only be able to stay with them for a short time. This is when I realized my shot at a PR had slipped away. My new focus was to stave off the 1:30 group and finish under 1:30. A downhill mile around mile 10 gave me some hope but shortly after, I began to hear the louder cheers behind me that I knew were associated with that 1:30 group. And sure enough, the group (although much smaller than the last time I saw them) caught me and steadily pulled away. The last 2 miles were just about getting to the finish line. I repeatedly tried to speed up, but I had no speed left. I'll attribute this to starting too fast (could I have finished under 1:30 if I had stuck with the group?) and lack of and long runs. I finally finished in just over 1:31. My legs were in immediate pain and running was not happening for me for the rest of the day.
Overall, I had a fun race and I'm happy with my time. And my friends all finished, despite their lack of preparation as well. I can't wait for our next destination race and for this early, but likely abbreviated, triathlon season. I'm also excited about endurance training in combination with CrossFit. While I'm not at my very fastest, I feel like there is real potential to become a fast, competitive age group triathlete doing what I'm doing with the Triathlon class at CrossFit Initiative. I'm pleased with the diet, too, which is pretty much the slow carb diet from Tim Ferriss', "The 4-hour body". Training and racing without tons of carbs seems to work well, at least for this distance. I didn't have any stomach issues the entire race, and although I haven't done any testing, i did read, "Metabolic Efficiency Training" and tried to apply some of the concepts in that book to my training. It makes sense to me that training your body to burn stored calories rather than relying on food you're ingesting during or immediately before the race.
Now we're off to enjoy our last night in Austin and the rest of my cheat day.
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