Game Plan

April 30, 2009 -

As to not give myself a way to wuss out, I figured I should publicly post my goals for the race on Saturday. I don't have much to go off of as I really have no idea where I stand right now, but, I will base it off of last years half IM's and the fact that this course is famed to be one of the hardest half IM courses in the world.

So the race is 1.2 mi swim, 56 mi bike and 13.1 mi run. This is exactly half the distance of the full IM race rapidly approaching, so with about seven weeks to go, this will be a great training race to judge where I'm at and what needs work.

What makes the Wildflower course so hard is a steep one mile climb right out of the gate, then moderate rolling hills til mile 40. Then, a five mile 1000 foot ascent hill called the "nasty grade" and another following called "heart rate hill." Beyond that is another 10 miles of big hills rolling into the transition area. Additionally, the run is 60% trail and 40% road with one big hill somewhere in the middle. This is what I have been able to gather from the website and various blogs.

So lets look at last year. I raced the Boise and Lake Stevens 70.3's, which were roughly four weeks apart. In Boise (my first half IM ever), I got a 6:15:53 and in Lake Stevens I got a 6:16:25. Boise was the first, and a relatively easy course, I was just under-trained especially on the bike. Then, Lake Stevens, I hadn't trained much more and was still sucking on the bike and got killed on all the hills of that course (way harder than the Boise course).

So obviously, I would like to feel that I am trained to do way better than both of these past races and my ultimate goal is to beat six hours.

Here are my times for Boise and Lake Stevens:
- Swim: 46:30 - 41:53
- Bike: 3:13:03 - 3:23:05
- Run: 2:07:14 - 2:03:00
- T1: 6:25 - 4:03
- T2: 2:43 - 4:28

Here is what I would like to do in Wildflower:
- Swim: Under 40 mins
- Bike: 3 hrs
- Run: 1 hr and 50 mins
- T1: 5 mins
- T2: 3 mins

Successfully executed, I believe these times would have me pushing my limits on such a hard course and would be not only get me in under six hours (with enough time for a small variance in there somewhere), but would be a tremendous improvement over last year.....we'll see. People that have done this race before have been telling me that there is just no way to plan or predict what the hills are going to do to you.

It's gonna be exciting...stay tuned!

Day 120 Training Log - Another rest day today. Still chillin, hydrating, eating great and stretching. I'm feeling strong, relaxed, energized and ready to race...almost there. Heading to Cali tomorrow morning early.