Spirit of Racine HIM

This race has always been a tough one for me. The swim is where I have the roughest time. It is in Lake Michigan and is typically fairly rough at least by my standards anyway. The lifeguards get a pretty big workout pulling swimmers out. Last year was the worse for me and it carried over to the rest of the race as I wasn’t able to put the swim disaster behind me – it shook me because I had my first IM coming up at IMWI in about 6 weeks.

I volunteered at the Sprint race on Saturday, as we had to register for the HIM on Saturday and do a bike check-in.
It was fun volunteering – never done that before. A very different perspective.
The water was pretty choppy for the Sprint, so looked like it was going to be more of the same for the HIM on Sunday.

This race was a training day for me in preparation for IMWI. So I did not taper for it.

Got up at 03:00 for the race on Sunday. Drove down and checked in. There was only a light wind and the water was fairly calm!!! The race director even commented that we need to get the race started before the conditions change!

We had a mile walk down the beach from transition to the start point.

I did some warm ups in the water it was mostly rollers coming into the beach – not bad. Water temp was a great 66 degrees.

I planned to swim out the couple hundred yards to the turn buoy very slowly – as this is where I have the most issues. After the turn the course parallels the beach until the turn into the beach.

It is a beach start – Pro’s off first at 7:00 then we are finally off at 7:30. I did take it really easy and made the turn buoy without incident. Then got into a groove and enjoyed the swim. Sighting was a bit tough with the sun and not timing when to site with being on a crest rather than in the trough. About half way through the wind started to pick up and got a little choppy, but just continued to swim on. Then at the final turn and the swim into the beach – hit the beach in about 42 min. Yes very slow, but I felt good coming out of the water. Now a long run in sand over the beach to transition.

S: 45:53

Fairly long transition area, and I was in the last position in the last row, but right at the bike exit – so it all balances out. Transition was okay – not really hurried, but just in and out.

T1: 1:37

Immediately coming out of transition is a small hill – it is amazing how many people are not in the correct gear to start off. Passed the first 10 people on the hill in the first 100 yards. I did not bring my HRM and planned to go hard, but not all out. It is a fairly flat course – just small rollers. Stayed in the BCR for the entire race. Just pushed the pace and stayed steady. Had 3 little duels with guys at different times. I pass them then they pass me back – did this a few times, but with each I was able to drop in a few miles. Really enjoyed the bike.

B: 2:23:21 (23.4 mph)
Bike was 52’nd out of 1256. :)

I felt good off the bike. Though I did have a slow transition as I ended up sitting down (ARG!) to put on socks (Trifuel socks  )

T2: 1:36

The run was fairly typical for me. I knew I needed to hold 2 hours on the run to get in under my goal of 5:15. The first loop I was right on target. Looking back I made too much use of the aid stations. I did a time check at the 10 mile marker and I was behind by nearly 4 minutes! So as best I could I picked up the pace and ran hard the last 5k. I was able to get that time back.

R: 2:00:15 (9:11)

Overall time: 5:12:42

46/129 Age Group
357/1256 Overall

This time is 26 minutes better than my previous best time on this course! I am quite happy with the day! :D