Runovia – The Race Report.

The race is now a little over a week in the past so it is time to wrap up my thoughts on the race. There are already two posts, one about the experience and a second about facing mental challenges on the bike. This post will be dedicated to a report on the race. How did I do? How do I feel about how I did?

The swim.

There wasn’t much doubt about my swim fitness going into the race – I didn’t have any. That happens when you swim 1 time a week on average over the summer. (Not that I swam more prior to that because I didn’t. I only swam a couple times over the winter months.) There wasn’t much anxiety about the swim despite my lack of training. I had been able to develop a pretty good acceptance of the fact that my only swim goal was to get through the swim.

Walking onto the beach after my second loop I realized that adding some swim workouts to my schedule would be important for 2007. I made my little comment to Nikki and headed to the changing room.

The one thing that I noticed while in the water, but didn’t realize the impact until I started changing was how cold the water was. I was shivering so much trying to change my clothes that getting my wetsuit off wasn’t exactly easy. Neither was getting on my cycling jersey.

Later on in the race, I was able to talk to Dean Hewson while running. It made me feel better when he told me that his swim time was about 10 minutes slower than his IM UK time that he had just completed five weeks earlier. A small consolation anyway.

Swim time: 1:27:21

The Bike.

The bike was somewhat similar to the swim, in that I knew I had to be conservative with my riding approach. The difference with the bike was that I had been training and riding consistently over the summer. The key words though are “over the summer”. Due to many factors, prior to the Horsey Hundred in May, I had not put in more than a few hundred miles total since September of ’04. So even though I had been riding a lot this past summer, I didn’t feel like I should expect to ride an outstanding ironman bike leg – “Save it for the run”, was my motto.

I’ve already posted about the mental challenges I faced on the bike, but in the transition area heading out to the run, I felt extremely positive. “That was the best 112 mile ride I’d ever had”, I told myself. (Actually my bike computer said 113.x, so I wasn’t sure how far it was.)

The course was a challenging course, but not impossible. From the elevation chart you can tell that the terrain was rolling throughout the entire ride. The greatest thing about the bike course was that the road we did most of our riding had just been paved that week. That made the roads feel fast. Jeff, Beth and I rode a loop of the Ironman Wisconsin course the Saturday before the IMMOO, which was two weeks before Runovia. The courses seemed very similar in difficulty, although Wisconsin’s course had more turns and twists where Runovia was pretty much straight ahead.

Bike time: 6:40:17

The Run.

This is the one leg that I was ready for, mentally and physically. But to be honest, once I showed up to the race and saw the course, I made some adjustments to my expectations.

I have completed 7 marathons over the years and only one marathon course compares to the difficulty that this course presented – The Tecumseh Trail Marathon. Yep – a trail marathon. The Runovia run course made the Derby Marathon and The Flying Pig look like a track meet, but the key to facing the challenge for me was knowing how fit and prepared I was for the run.

If you look at the elevation chart you can see that the run begins with a two mile climb. For those of you Todd’s Road Stumblers’, the climb was very similar to Pit Bull. I’m not sure how long Pit Bull is, but the the grade was similar. There wasn’t another two mile climb on the course, but there was definitely more hills. And we had to run each one 5 times!

The great thing about doing 5 laps was that for the first time during the race, I actually got to see some people and talk to someone. Dean (the race leader) was a couple loops ahead of Brad and I, but we were all running about same pace, so I had a couple conversations. What a relief!

Even though the course was challenging, I felt good on the run. There was never a moment of despair or fear, just feelings of strength. What a great way to feel during my first irondistance triathlon run leg. Of course my time was slower than I anticipated, but I still believe in the training principles I used to prepare for the run portion of this race. I was also uplifted by Nikki’s comments regarding the run course. I’m also thankful that she didn’t share those comments with me after her Saturday run. I knew the run would be a challenge. But having known how much it slowed her down prior to doing it myself might have made the bike even more challenging mentally.

Run time: 4:14:32

My last thoughts about Runovia

I am incredibly happy that I completed the distance, especially with all the reasons and excuses I could have come up with to not do the race. As the excitement of the race wears off and I begin to plan for 2007 (49 weeks to IMMOO), I know to be a better long distance triathlete, I have to:

1. make swimming a part of my schedule
2. continue to build my endurance on the bike
3. improve my ability to maintain an “upper-steady” effort on the run
4. spend more time on the mental characteristics that are required
5. improve my overall nutritional intake (i.e. eat like Nikki – less junk)

Links:

- Todd’s (race director) Race Report
- Runovia Full Distance Results
- Runovia Half Distance Results