Quakerman 70.3 (Half Ironman)
Quakertown, PA
Saturday, September 10th
A hurricane and tropical storm couldn't stop this race. Initially I was concerned that there would be flooding preventing me from even getting to the starting line, but everything went off without a hitch. Other than having trouble finding the hotel! I took half a day off work on Friday to drive up to PA. I took the local route rather than the toll road (interstate). It took a little longer, but oh well. I was tired of paying tolls! One thing it did screw up was finding the hotel, since it was right off the interstate, and not located where I expected it to be.
Lake Nockamixon, PA
I arrived Friday evening, checked in (eventually) and headed over to Lake Nockamixon to check out the course. The lake looked nice, and the hills didn't seem too big when I was driving them in the car... but as I found out later, it was a rather difficult course! I had a nice dinner outside at McCoole's (est. 1750!), prepared for the race back at the hotel and tried to sleep.
My dining partner
I slept okay, for the night before a race at least, and made it to the start in plenty of time. I got everything set up in the Transition Area and made my last minute preparations, including putting the wetsuit on (water temp 71 degrees). It was only my second time swimming in the wetsuit, and first race, and I must say that it was much easier than without. It makes sighting that much easier for me. After final instructions, they lined us up in two straight lines to enter the water via the slick little "cliff" (only casualty of the flooding), and it was so quiet it felt like we were marching to our deaths - would it kill to get a little music going!?
And we're off! During the swim I concentrated on staying relaxed and making sure I had enough to get the full 1.2 miles. It was a double-loop course, which ended up being okay (I was worried I'd want to stop halfway). I felt like I was going fairly straight and relatively quick, but I think I was just so concentrated on relaxing... I could have gone faster. I came out of the water in just over 60 minutes. At both T1 and T2 I felt like I was fairly efficient, but clearly not, since I still had some of the slower transition times - I'll need to work on that...
The bike course started off with a climb out of the park and onto the roads. The course was a 3-looper basically doing an outline (rectangular) of the park. I made it through the first two loops no problem, though I realized the hills were more than expected - including one tough mile-long (approximately) uphill stretch. I did drop one of my bottles but luckily it was towards the end of a lap. By the time I had finished the second lap, I had now ridden further than I ever had in training (38 > 36 miles) and still had another 18 miles to go! (Or so I thought - it ended up being about 57.75 miles according to my Garmin, rather than 56.) That last lap was tough but I made it out okay. Note to self: Fig Newtons get squished easily!
I loosened up fairly quickly on the run, enough to come in the first mile at 8:14. I slowed down after that, since it was a challenging course. I also managed to drop my gel somewhere in the first lap (was a double out-and-back). I found out with about 2 miles left that one of the aid stations had gels - go figure! I did a lot of walking on the uphills and even some of the flats towards the end, but I made it! I was hoping originally to break 6 hours, but I came in joyfully at 6:37:48.
FINISH!
My first piece of advice for your first 70.3? Pick a flat one!
Overall, it was a decent race. Not many frills, so find a bigger one if you need those. Organization was good for the most part, though it would have been nice to know about that gel stop (nobody said anything)! It was really hard, but in some sense it was not as bad as I thought. I guess I am used to running my legs into the ground. It was the rest of the body getting sore that was different... Finishing this gives me a lot of confidence heading into the winter and training for Ironman Austria - July 2012!
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