2008 White Lake Half - The Whole Story

I am not even sure where to start. Well, I suppose I will start by saying that it might have been the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Am I disappointed? In some ways. I think about what the race could have been or about the mistakes I made and, yeah, I have to be honest I am little disappointed....but not in my effort.

Lets start at the beginning, I have been training for the White Lake Half Ironman since the Duke half Ironman last September. That is a long time to stay focused on a goal and I did. I put in a lot of hours. I have raced two short races (MAP and Azalea) prior to the White Lake Half but the emphasis of the training has been on the “long course”. I was please with my race at Duke but I believed with some distance training I could have a great race. Three weeks ago I even went to the race site and rode the bike course and ran half the run and my performance in this time trial was promising so I went into this race with high expectations.

Many of my friends in my YMCA triathlon club stayed at the Goldstons motel, a tradition they have had for years. The social side of the event was fantastic. We all enjoyed a hearty pasta meal on the lawn of the beach motel the night before the race. It is a two race weekend with the Half on Saturday and the Sprint on Sunday so there are a ton of people that participated. We had about 15 athletes in the Sprint and 15 in the Half. I think five of the crazies raced both…. not me.

I was surprisingly relaxed and confident leading up to the race. The race had been built up and promote as the showdown between myself, Dave “The Diesel” Babson and Mark “Lucky” Luckinbill. We had even resort to talking smack to each through Shirley, the lady at the Bagel store. Each morning as I order my onion bagel with cream cheese and sundried tomato spread, I had to be ready to deliver or receive a quip from lucky via Shirley. The exciting thing about the match up was that our strengths could not be better misaligned. Lucky can run and I can bike and we were both learning to swim. I also had the advantage being 4 years older then Lucky and starting in the wave 10 minutes behind him which meant that maybe with a good swim and solid ride I might catch lucky on the bike and have a 10+ minute advantage on the run which just might be enough to hold off the hard charging jackrabbit.

So it all starts with the swim. In the half it is 1.2 miles and I was ready. The wetsuit is like a super hero suit in that it gives me the special power of buoyancy and for me that translates to speed, real speed. I slowly and steadily clawed my way through the water. I overtook many of the people in the waves that went off before me and I knew I was cruising. I have worked hard on swimming this past year and it was paying off, big time. I was at the dock ladder in 33:40 and at the transition matt in 34:40. This was five minutes faster then my time at the Duke Half and turned out to be 79th fastest swim of the over five hundred male competitors….. and I had closed 4 of the 10 minute on Lucky! It was certainly going to be a good day.

I was out of the wetsuit and on the bike in a blazing one minute and thirty-eight second and I settled in for a long ride. The first 20 miles of the bike were pretty smooth, I was not pushing to hard. My heart rate was just over 150 and did not want to come down but I did not concern myself because I was feeling pretty good. Around mile twenty a couple guys passed me which was a bit of a surprise. I am rarely passed on the bike but with my strong swim I was now mixing up with the big boys. I continued to ride what I thought (but might not have been) a reasonable pace and about half way through the race I looked over to see a quite startled Lucky. And in the wink of an eye, we both realized that Lucky’s chance of beating the Diesel had just grown very thin, unless something went terribly wrong… or if he ran the race of his life… or both.
The last five miles of the bike course are tough. They are long and boring and it is a mental challenge to stay focused. The muscles in your butt start to tighen up from being down on the aero bars all day and “the boys” are a little tired of being sat on for over two hours. I also wanted to freshen up for the run so I ratcheted back the Diesel for the last five miles. I parked the bike in 2:32 which was a little slower then my test time from three weeks prior. I felt pretty good and had a total time of 3:05. If I could hang on and posted a 1:50 run, which is a reasonable and conservative target, I was going to have the race of my life!

I must say that in the first few miles I was having a hard time shaking the ride. The quads were really tight. I was hoping to do 7:40 miles but I was clocking in at 8 minute miles. Still I thought things would hold together but around mile 3 I started to realize that things were not right. It was very hot and it was midday and I was not running well. Lucky came by me around mile 4 and being the sportsman he is (even though he knew he had been beaten by me) he still offered me encouragement and was rooting for me to have a great race. I, on the other hand, was coming to the realization that maybe even with a 15 minute head start on the run, I was not going to beat Lucky and that I was in for a very long day.

After mile 5 things got really bad. Really painful. It became hard to run. My pace slowed to over 9 minute miles and I realized it was going to take a lot of will power just to bring the ship home. Maybe I bonked or maybe it was the heat, probably a combination of the two but it became really hard to run. The miles seemed to take forever with a couple miles to go Margo came up behind me (taunted me) and passed me, but at that point I did not care, I had bigger things to worry about. Every once in a while I would get a little second wind. I would pick up the pace, a little bit, and within 50 yards I would start getting dizzy. My legs felt like they had charlie horses…..Mile 10, Mile 11, Mile 12, Mile 12, Mile 12 and finally I could see the turn to the finish. I did it, I finished. Overall I was 10th out of 72 in my age group and I posted a 5:12. I finished 82 out of 500+ men. These numbers are not bad but they do not tell the whole story. A story of what could have been or what it took...and, oh yeah, Lucky beat me by 15 minutes (see above picture)

Am I disappointed, sure… but I am also proud of myself for getting the job done.