Racine 70.3 Race Report

I think that at some point this weekend I realized how long a full Ironman is. Brian says I still don't get it, but I'm not sure. There's something about finishing an event- a long event- in 93 degree heat and then realizing that you have to do what you just did- but twice- that puts things in perspective a little bit.
Overall, the race went fine. It was hot. I raced fine for the heat, but not phenomenally. I missed my time goal by about 10 minutes, but I know that I can't be too upset, given the conditions.

The swim is definitely my biggest weakness. I am a not a good swimmer. I'm not exactly sure why, I have strong arms and legs and I go fairly fast at other things. I've been told that my stroke is "not bad'; however, the net result of my swimming is. This year my main goal was just not to freak out in the swim. Last year I got kicked in the face within the first couple of minutes (Racine has a wave start, but I was still stupid enough to start near the front despite my heinous swimming [read this to mean that I then had the majority of my age group swim right on over me- not a pleasant feeling]). While I still got out of the swim with an embarrassingly slow time, I at least managed not to have a panic attack in the water this time (it's the small victories, right?).
The bike is where I started to make some decisions. I stayed within my comfort zone due to the heat instead of pushing. I ended up beating my bike time from last year by only a minute, which was pretty disappointing. Despite the fact that I know that I still have a lot of things to learn and a lot of places to grow, I feel that I've become a much stronger cyclist in the months of training so far. Despite playing it a little safe, I figured that I would shave at least five minutes off the bike, not just one.
The run was fine. I've been slowing down since Ironman training started (and running in 93 degree heat isn't easy), so I'm not surprised that the run was slower than last year. Despite having some initial doubts during the first two miles (after which my legs recovered from the bike and I managed to shove two cups of ice into my sports bra), I settled into a slow run pretty easily (slow is relative here, despite the fact that I was running a relatively slow pace, a 93 degree race looks like quite the death march in places), and managed to hold it pretty steady until the end. I never hit that dark place where you start bargaining with yourself (or god or the devil), which either means I raced smart or that I didn't leave enough out on the course. Who knows?
All I know is that when I finished, I was happy to be done. I would not have wanted to have done twice that race Sunday.

Less than two months until race day.