Muncie Endurathon Race Report

Overall it was a pretty good day, 5:17:27, a PR by about 15 minutes. The last half of the run I bonked, but here is the story.



Got a lot of sleep the night before, about 9 hours and was well fueled for the event, I felt great. The swim was No-Wetsuit like I thought it would be and it went well. It was a little bit choppy going out with the small waves on our left but not too crowded so it was smooth going. We turned right and swam a long way with the waves which was pretty easy and I picked up the pace somewhat. Another right turn and we had the choppy waves on our right side which still wasn't too bad cuz I can breathe on my left anyway. After that there was another right turn, about 30 degrees that put us going into the waves slightly on our right. That was a bit difficult but still, breathing on the left side worked well. I came out of the water in 38:00, pretty close to what I expected, but there was a 2 minute run up to transition that showed up in my swim time.



Transition to bike went well and I was off. About 4 miles into the bike it started to rain, slowly at first and then fairly steady. This was my first race in the rain so it was a new experience. My computer stopped working at 17 miles so I had to guess my pace. I had set a cap of 155 bpm on my HR so I went with that, the only time I went above it was to climb some of the smaller hills, I never went over 160bpm. On the way back I knew I was going fast but I felt so strong and I was still holding back so I figured I was in good shape. During the ride I picked up some Gatorade from the first aid station, it was much stronger than what I was used to and it made me sick to my stomach a bit. At the next aid station I tossed that bottle and grabbed some water but the damage was allready done. I rolled back into transition in 2:29:31 with a average HR 155 and an upset stomach. I ate 6 gells on the bike, 1 at the beginning and then 1 every 30 minutes, they made me feel so much better.



The run started off well, I was running 8:15's for the first 6.5 miles but I couldn't eat anything and wound up bonking near mile 7 and had to walk some of the time. It had stopped raining about 3 miles into the run and the sun came out and baked us pretty good. The run time was a very dissapointing 2:04:22, nearly 20 minutes off of my goal.



For the next big race I'm going to stay away from the course gatorade and use my own stuff, I'll just pick up water from the aid stations.



Having such a good bike ride and poor run has made me rethink my traing plan. I felt that I was going to be much weaker on the bike but when it came down to racing, I was well rested and able to put out the power to have a good bike ride. As for running, I still feel that I didn't have enough training time at race pace HR effort and therefore wasn't used to running with that kind of intensity. Of course the funky Gatorade didn't help much either.



Now the plans for doing some leg strength training are scaled back and I am planning on running more race pace efforts. I'm done with base building, so speed training is in order anyway. I'm going to take an easy week and work on the rest of the season's training schedule to include a different run training strategy.



Clark Lake Triathlon report will follow shortly.