PRE-RACE:
I woke up at 4am and made some oatmeal w/ raisins and peanut butter + one banana. After that I got showered up and got everything together. Just before we left for the race site I rolled on the TP massage ball a bit on my glutes to try and open them up. We left the house at around 5am and got to transition by 5:15am with a race start of 6:45am. Once in transition I got body marked and started setting up the rack. While setting up my bike I heard Cunningham talking about how the swim was no longer wetsuit legal for the pros even though the race director told us that it was under 78 degrees the night before at the meeting. I guess the rules were changed about 6 months ago so the pros can't wear wetsuits over 72 degrees for 70.3 and IM distance races. This was bad news for me because I didn't bring my skinsuit so I had to make a decision to either wear my jersey in the water or go shirtless and try to put my dry jersey on my wet body in transition. I should have done the latter but instead I wore the jersey and was the only one doing so. After finding out this news I went for a warmup run for 15 minutes and got a slight side stitch. Afterwards I stretched and rolled on the foam ball to try and loosen up. At about 6:35am I made my way down to the swim start.
ACTUAL TIMES:
DNF
SWIM:
I jogged down to the water and when I got there I noticed that I was the only one wearing my jersey.....everyone else either had a skinsuit or no shirt on. I guess I made the wrong decision. They gave us a little time to warm up in the water and then lined us up and everyone kept on inching up past the start line. Then when they started counting down 5-4-3 and all of the sudden Rhodes says "Awe come on let's just go" and he jumped in and everyone else followed. Funny thing is that Leigh made a comment about what happens if someone jumps the gun on the swim making reference to him in the meeting the night before.
The swim got underway and I just didn't feel it. The main pack was already gone and I was hanging on to the back of the pack and it didn't feel right. I felt like I had a hard time keeping my feet at the surface of the water and am wondering if it's due to wearing my jersey. More of the same as more people passed me throughout the swim and finally I hung on to a pack and came in with them. I was a bit surprised to see 31 mins on my watch.
BIKE:
I didn't have the quickest of transitions and lost a couple of guys that I came out of the water with. My heart rate when I jumped on the bike was only in the 160s so my effort in the water wasn't very hard compared to normal (170-180s). When I got on the bike I focused on working my way into it to try to fend off back issues that I've been having. About 30 mins into the ride I could feel my right lower back was giving some numbness so I stood a little to relieve it. Shortly after I was having a hard time holding my effort at 160 bpm so I clicked it down to the biggest gearing and mashed at 55-60 rpms and my pace went up to the mid 25 mphs again......for a while.....and then my left glute basically shot pain at me. I slowed down and spun for a minute to try to relieve it and then stood and rubbed it against the nose of my seat and started to ride again. Once I got in the aero position my glute fired up in pain. I could feel the exact muscle that was flared up but couldn't do anything about it. After a while it even started to hurt when I would just sit on the seat so I stood for a good part of the rest of the ride knowing that my race was over. I rode at sub 15 mph back in because that's all my glute would handle. I finally made it into transition in 2:51 and saw Jen and she was again concerned that something happened to me on the course because I should have been in 40 mins earlier. I told her that I wasn't going out on the run course because I have to heal my body and running 13 miles in the dead of heat isn't going to put me on the right track to getting healthy. I had already decided on the bike that I had to scratch Lake Placid off of the race schedule to take care of my muscular imbalances that have been hindering me for the good part of this season. So my rehabilitation starts today. Sometimes it takes an event like this to happen to open your eyes to a real weakness that will make you much stronger in the long run. My new focus will be the Florida Ironman in November with a couple of races in between.
RUN:
No run today...
SUMMARY:
* I need to take some more down time to rehab my lower back issues.