So Mountain Man Half Ironman, or should I say Mountain Man
Half I-am gona be sore for weeks- ron man. Just like last year, we had a pretty
good showing of tricats, both racing and supporting. I think we had more
tricats in the half then NAU had in the entire race, and that just shows our
domination.
So before I get in to the race report, I should warn you. I
didn’t actually do any training. I signed up 4 days before the race, and really
had no idea what I was getting myself in to.
SWIM-
10 minutes before the wave start (at 6:10 am) I hopped in
the water and started checking out the competition. Everybody looked pretty
burly, even the girls, and everyone except this old lady and me had wetsuits.
82 people racing, 80 people with wetsuits. Right then I knew this was going to
be a long day. So the horn blows, and I dive underwater and instantly kick a
rock and cut my leg, ankle and tore all the skin off of my pinky toe. SWEET.
Get to the first buoy and I’m pretty much in last place. I start to calm down
and just imagined Jimmy, Koske and Kyle all screaming in my ear. It didn’t really
help though. Finally I finished, ran up the boat ramp and saw my time: 45
minutes flat……for a 1900……I’m blaming it all on the no wetsuit thing. So I get
to my bike, and ride away. The nice thing was that I had the fastest T1 out of
anyone.
BIKE-
The first mile on the bike was me peddling and sneezing.
Apparently I’m allergic to pine pollen, fancy that. After about 3 miles I start
to get the kill and just start flying by people. I caught matt about mile 8 and
tanner right about mile 15. My plan was to go as hard on the bike as I could,
and make up as much time as I could. It worked, as I made up like 20 minutes on
matt by the time I finished. Mile 53 of the bike was when my race went pear
shaped though. I had to piss like a racehorse and I was starting to feel very nauseas.
So I killed 2 lara bars in a row and just sucked it up. I had a pretty good T2,
one of the faster ones of the day, and headed out for the run.
RUN-
By far the worst run I have ever done in my life. I was not
prepared at all. The first mile was the only enjoyable part of the whole thing.
At mile 2 we headed up the giant hill, which is firkin long. It’s a good 1.5
miles long or so, and it’s pretty steep. Luckily there was an aid station at
the bottom, but they didn’t have a port’o john. “Oh well” I thought to myself, “ill
just go while running.” Just a side note, I have never tried this technique
before, and I probably had enough time to run over to a tree, but I was
convinced I couldn’t lose anymore time than I already had. So I just let it go,
and go, and go. All in all it was about 500 meters of a constant stream. I was
very proud of myself, and amazed at the muscle control it took. SO yea, I peed myself,
big whoop. Finally got to the top of the hill, turned around and started
bombing the downhill. I saw matt and nick and told them how good pissing had
felt, and strongly suggested they try it themselves. Once I was back down on to
the flat I don’t really remember much. I know for about 3 or 4 miles I had my
eyes pretty much closed. I could just barely see the white line on the side of
the road, and I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. Towards the
middle, I started walking every aid station, and then once between every aid
station, then every ½ mile, then I got scared. I knew matt had to be closing
the gap, so I just put my head down and ran. As soon as I made my final push,
it started raining which felt amazing. 300 meters out I saw Rachel and Allen
with beers in hand, so I sprinted, and dropped them before the line. I busted
out a cart wheel across the finish line and my race was done. 5 hrs 53 minutes. I beat my goal time by 6 minutes, and I managed 4th in my age group. (by the way, the Folts twins were there).
It was by far the longest hardest day of my life. But it was sweet. I’m so
stoked to do another one and actually train for it this time.
