Humbled in Galveston

I think I should stop making these pre-race predictions. Or maybe I should come up with my prediction and then add 45 minutes to it, just to be safe.

I finished the Hermann Memorial Herman 70.3 Ironman on Galveston Island yesterday. Barely. I had a decent swim and while I was 10 minutes short of my bike goal, I had a good ride averaging over 20 mph on the final 28 miles. And this was actually my first outdoor ride of the season, so I am not displeased with that result. But on the run segment, I faltered. In the first mile I got a hamstring cramp, but I was able to walk it out and keep going. At that point I still felt like I had a chance to break 6 hours for the first time, but I simply ran out of gas.

It was warm, around 76 degrees and the humidity was over 80 percent. Today, a day after the race, I weigh 183, down from a pre-race weight (after 3 IHOP breakfasts) of about 190. So that tells me despite all my hydration efforts, I got too dehydrated on the bike. I need to look at my race nutrition.

This is the worst run time I've ever recorded. Overall I finished 11^th in my age group of old guys, out of 28. I've have a lot of work to do before C'oeur d'Alene.

	Swim	/100	T1	Bike	MPH	T2	Run	Pace	Total
Galveston - Actual	41:32	1:58	5:19	2:58:39	18.8	4:29	2:48:40	12:52	6:38:39
Galveston - Goal	40:00	1:54	4:30	2:48:00	20.0	4:30	2:04:30	9:30	5:41:30

On the plus side, Amy Shelly and Pam Gould-Rashid, who are part of the group that is being trained by Craig Strong (Precision Multisport) for the C'oeur d'Alene Ironman also competed at Galveston. They were nice enough to wait for me to finish and later we had recovery Margaritas.



Pam - Amy - Len