©2009 Clarke Rodgers/SPORTZFOTO.com

GOALS:
* Top 25 Overall
* Hit my nutrition plan.....especially hydration
* Be aggressive on the swim and bike 
* Manage the pain on the run
* 3:53 – 3:57 overall time depending on conditions
* Swim: 25:30
* Bike: 2:10:00
* Run: 1:14:30

ACTUAL:
Place: 64th Pro
Time: 04:41:48
Swim Time/Place: 25:27 / 56th
Bike Time/Place: 2:11:26 /  53rd
Run Time/Place: 1:59:41 / 65th

PRE-RACE:
Five weeks out from this race I had a calf injury that took me away from running for 11 days and never really seemed to heal completely.  Before that happened I had the best 10 week training block all time and was in prime shape to have a great race at Clearwater.  The calf injury was the focal point for me over the past five weeks and took some of my focus away from race day preparation.   

Jen and I left Charlotte, NC on the Sunday before the race and drove to our condo where we met up with Clarke in Clearwater.  I like to have ample time to loosen up after traveling to a race and it was nice to have the whole week to relax and enjoy the atmosphere.  Throughout the week I did my normal preparations and got to bed by 9:00pm on Friday night after having pasta with chicken for dinner.  I woke for the race at 3:15am but laid in bed until 4am and followed my pre-race routine:

* 4:00am: Breakfast: 2 slices toast w/ PB & 2 boca links + 2 bananas
* 4:20am: Shave and shower
* 4:40am: Gather race gear
* 4:50am: Massage, foam roller, TP massage, stretch session
* 5:40am: Run warmup from condo to transition + more stretching
* 5:55am: Set up transition....take 150 cals of EFS Liquid Shot
* 6:10am: Stretch at porto line
* 6:20am: Jog to swim start, put on wetsuit, swim warmup....another 150 cals of EFS Liquid Shot
* 6:53am: Swim Start

SWIM:
Going into this race I expected that I would be surrounded by competitors all day long.  I had improved my swim slightly and figured that with 85 pro men entered in the race there would be a stream of swimmers to latch onto throughout the swim.  Was I ever wrong!!  Since the ITU guys have started to race the 70.3 distance the swims have gotten faster and faster and this swim went out hard and they stayed on the gas the whole way.  I had some feet for the first 5 minutes and swam solo from that point on.  Not what I was expecting at all.  I felt pretty good in the water but am just not at that level quite yet and ended up getting gapped by 3 to 3.5 mins by the main swim pack and didn't really have anyone around me.

BIKE:
I got onto the bike and tried to get my HR down to around 160 bpm (LT minus 10 bpm) and time trial the bike course.  At this point I knew I wasn't going to reach my goal of top 25 so tried to see what I could do on the bike.  The first 20 miles I was passing some of the pro women and a couple of men and at around mile 20 I realized that one of them had latched on.  I was a bit frustrated at this point already so wanted to shake him loose.  I jumped out of my saddle and put in a strong effort to try and get away and after a minute looked back and he was still there.  On my second attempt my chain got stuck between my rear cog and frame because I tried to shift too many gears at once so I had to stop and take my rear wheel off to get the chain unlodged.  This cost me 90 seconds and I saw a group of 4 guys go by me.  It took me 4 miles to catch the group at 160 bpm and when I caught them I sat in the back for 2 miles and my HR dropped 15 bpm at 26.9 mph so I made a strong move at 29-30 mph and got away from the group.  The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful.  I passed some more women but didn't pass any more men.  I started to fade a bit towards the last five miles and ended up giving back a decent amount of time.

One thing that I did to speed up my T1 was electric taping my gel flasks and salt tab container to my aero bars.  Jen questioned whether they would be easy to take off or not and I disregarded it.  Unfortunately, it wasn't the easiest to get my flasks and salt container untaped so I didn't end up taking any additional sodium on top of what is in the EFS Liquid Shots.  I typically take an extra 350-700mg of sodium on top of the contents of my gels and I think I ended up low on sodium.  My fluid intake of 104 oz was right on but I think I needed more sodium to balance things out.  I ended up paying the price on the run with further nutritional mistakes.

On the bike nutrition: 104oz water + 900 cals of EFS Liquid Shot

RUN:
I started off the run feeling very heavy and my legs felt overly fatigued.  It felt like I was running 8 min pace but I went through the first mile in 5:40 pace according to my GPS.  I was encouraged by that since my HR was at 160 bpm which is LT minus 20 bpm for me.  Unfortunately I couldn't seem to get my body to move any faster or even maintain that effort.  I made a concious effort to see how my calf felt and it didn't hurt but my calves and hamstrings both felt like they could cramp if I pushed the pace much further.  My pace slowly got worse and worse and my legs started to feel some pain.  I have no idea what I was thinking but I only took down water for the first 8 miles of the run (no calories or additional sodium).  Once I hit the 2nd loop I was in a world of hurt.  The age groupers (men and women of all ages) that were out on their first loop were ALL going by me like I was standing still and I had no answer for them.  It was a complete meltdown.  I think I had diluted my sodium levels and I was starting to feel very out of it on the course.  I wasn't sure if I was going to make it to the finish line at mile 8 and stopped at the next aid station and took down 200 cals of my EFS Liquid Shot and water.  I struggled through miles 8 through 13 taking some breaks to walk.  I tried to cheer on some of the competitors since my day was done and was only focused on finishing.  I thought about how Jen must have been worried about me since I should have finished 45 mins earlier so tried to pick up my pace as much as I could.  I crossed the finish line in complete disappointment and embarrassment.

On the run nutrition: Water at every aid station, sponges at every aid station, 450 cals EFS Liquid Shot during 2nd half of run, Coke at one aid station