Ironman 70.3 Syracuse

I entered Ironman Lake placid as part of a package deal with Ironman 70.3 Syracuse as the preparation race one month before Lake Placid.  I heard the bike course was hilly and would be a good test for Lake Placid but no one spoke about the hill on the run course.

Race day morning was clear and chilly.  Bikes were racked the day before so I walked my bike over to the mechanics to inflate the tires.  People were queued up at one pump and I asked why no one was using the other pump.  Someone said they could not get the pump to work so I gave it a try and promptly suffered a flat tire.  The mechanics were not assisting anyone so I was able to get one of them to replace my bike tube.

This was a wetsuit legal race so I put on my wetsuit and walked over to the lake.  I had a good swim and partially removed my wetsuit as I ran across the beach.  This was the first triathlon I participated in that had volunteers working as wetsuit strippers.  I randomly selected a volunteer, laid down on the ground and with one yank he removed the wetsuit.  I grabbed the wetsuit and looked down and my ankle and noticed my timing chip was missing.  I quickly scanned the ground but didn't see the timing chip.  I ran to transition and yelled "I need a replacement timing chip" until an official showed up.  He had a large ring with chips and straps but it took him forever to assign me a chip.

My target for the bike ride was 2:30:00 hours and I finished in 2:45:00 hours for an average speed of 20.39 MPH.

Runners left transition and ran on a paved path that became a stone path in the parking lot.  Then runners ran on grass along the parking lot and ran on a mulch path that was cut through the brush.  On the other side of the brush runners got to the main road.  Eventually runners ran into a local neighborhood where they encountered a very steep hill.  Once they made it to the top of the hill they turned around and ran back to transition before starting the second lap.  The weather had warmed up nicely and I completed the run just under my 2 hour goal.

I checked with race officials after I crossed the finish line to find out what happens when an athlete loses a timing chip.  I was informed by multiple people that my results would be matched up with both chips.  Two days later my race results were listed a DNF.  I sent emails and called everyone I could find on the Ironman website to find out who could fix my race results.  A couple of days later I received an email informing me that my results were corrected.

To recap my Ironman 70.3 Syracuse race.  I had three first time issues in my fourth year of racing.
1.  A flat tire before race started.
2.  Lost timing chip after the swim.
3.  DNF race result due to the lost timing chip.

Any one of those issues could have happened at other triathlons so I'm not going to let them cloud my decision to race Ironman 70.3 Syracuse in the future.

Independence Triathlon 2014

I like to have many short term racing goals and it was weird not having a triathlon in May.  I went to Buck's county Pennsylvania for the Independence Triathlon.  It was just a sprint triathlon but it would be a good warm up for the Ironman 70.3 Syracuse in late June.  These triathlons typically have just two swim waves, first the men and then the women about 5 minutes later.  Sometimes it can get rough around the buoy's but this course wasn't bad since the first buoy wasn't close to the start of the race.  This was a wetsuit legal race and I knew every second would count so getting out of the wetsuit fast was vital.  

My swim time wasn't any better or worse then previous years but I gave up too much time to the other men in my age group.  I was able to quickly transition from my wetsuit to the bike.  It was a very steep up hill start and one guy got clipped onto his pedals but didn't have any momentum.  He fell over just to the left of me, any closer and he might have taken me down too.  There were a series of rolling hills on the bike course.  Being light I powered up the hills only to get passed on the downhill by riders that out weighed me.  I rode well but wished the course was longer so I could have made up the time I lost on the swim.  

I made it down the hill into transition without crashing on the speed bumps.  I thought my transition time was good but looking at the results it's clear I need to work on my transitions.

I forgot how to setup my Garmin watch for multi sport events so I only had accumulative time.  I can tell how hard I'm running but I like seeing my pace on the watch.  I was running so fast that I had a "side stitch" pain but it was only a two mile run and I didn't want to slow down.  The run course was an out and back and I saw Robert had a big lead and couldn't be caught.  I knew I couldn't win my age group so I raced to make sure no one else in my age group passed me.

I finished second in my age group and was photographed with the classic one leg photo.

It took longer to drive to the race then it took to finish the race but it was an enjoyable race and I would go back.