Last weekend was my second half Ironman of the season, Musselman, in my hometown of Geneva, NY which is tucked away in the center of the Fingerlakes region of New York. An area known for it's great white wines and picturesque rolling hills.
The race itself is in it's 6th year in Geneva and what a great event both for the athletes and the town. The half ironman is held on Sunday while a very popular sprint distance race is held on Saturday. Both have turned larger pools of competitors both new and aged year over year since it began. This year there were about 800 racers in each race for a total of 1600 for the weekend. Not bad! The race itself features a very pleasant swim in the clean Seneca Lake, a bike ride like no other as you roll up and down some easy rollers through wine country with vista's of two magnificent lakes on either side of you and last but not least a historic run takes you through the city of Geneva, through Hobart & William Smith colleges and finally finished back at the State Park. What a race!
You might wonder about the name of the race, Musselman. A play on words as the lake, in the recent decade, has fallen victim to a breed of zebra mussels that were brought in from the St. Lawrence seaway and now live all over the rocks throughout the lake. We are talking in the millions if not billions! These little guys keep the lake clean yet they are like razor blades all of the bottom making the swim an un-nerving activity when in shallow water. All that aside, the race director has done a good job playing up these little creatures and everyone can say they are truly musselmen after they've conquered this course!
Ok on to my race report. I set out with 3 things in my mind for this race. One this was a B race for me, two I wanted to have fun and enjoy myself and three I wanted to turn a time in the 5:30 to 5:45 range. Well as you read on I think I can safely say I conquered all of these goals or came very close to them!
The race morning started at 5AM for me. It was so nice being 5 minutes from the course sleeping ing my old bed at my parents house. I got a solid nights sleep with almost 9 hours of good sleep. I got up and followed my routine to a T. Had my usual race morning breakfast of a bagel with peanut butter, granola/oatmeal and a banana. I stretched out a bit and began drinking all sorts of water and Gatorade and mother nature even cooperated with me so I didn't have to use the nasty port-o-potty at race site. I absolutely hate those things and avoid them like the plague! So everything was going great! I got to the race site at 5:45 and wouldn't you know it that I got a parking spot right next to the transition area...awesome! I unloaded, put some air in my bike tires and made my way to markings, to pick up my chip and then on to set up my T-area. All was great...
1.2 Mile Swim 38:08 1:48 pace
So I can confidently say my swim is heading in the right direction, I shaved off over a minute in my 1.2 mile swim time since the last 70.3. The swim for Musselman was an in water start in shallow, sandy water. The swim course was a rectangle, counterclockwise to the shore for about 1000 meters and then the remaining 800 meters was in a canal with a slight current to our backs. The swim got off to an awkward start with almost all of the wave not hearing the horn go off. So ti was a free for all for about 50 meters with everyone diving, kicking, jumping, you name it for some open water to call their own. I finally got into my groove around 200 meters in and locked in my pace. Sighting was a little different for me because all the buoys were on the left hand side and I've been used to having them on the right for most races. All in all I was happy with my swim and look forward to seeing more improvement at Timberman in a month.
T1 2:11
56 Mile Bike 3:01:30 18.6 mph
So the bike leg cost me 15 minutes sadly enough. I started out the morning with a bad feeling about the bike leg for the day. I've been riding on the original tubes on my Orbea since I bought it and that was almost 2 years ago. No flats to date! Well that streak ended. Apparently while I was out on the swim my family informed me that there was an explosion from the transition area and that a tech crew frantically searched the bikes to find what was a flat tire on my bike. The flat was found...at mile 5 into the course by me! I came out of the transition area and kept feeling the bike getting side ways on me. I thought to myself that maybe I over inflated or maybe it was my back brake which had been previously rubbing the day before. Distracted by my adrenaline I pushed on and found it odd that I was putting in a ton of power but not getting my normal return with speed. Finally my dumb-ass decided to hop off the bike and take a look. Lone behold there was my tire, the back tire non the less, flat as a pancake and my heart just dropped into my guy. My hopes of a 2:45 finish time on the bike were slipping away second by second.
I got off the bike in a shit-storm and probably dropped a few F-bombs here and there. But then after about 5 seconds of that I told myself to calm down and I'll get through this. Luckily for me I choose a great place to stop. I was right across the road from an emergency stop and a paramedic came over to helped me hold up the bike while I covered myself in grease trying to pry my back tired away from the frame. Finally after about 3-4 minutes of messing around I got the tire off. By this time A good majority of the racer had gone by me. I zoned them out and after about 12 minutes of messing around I got my tire back on and ti was off to the races. I decided that my game time strategy of conservative biking was long out the window. From there on out I dropped to my absolute lowest gear and grinded out a steady 23 - 25 mph. I even sustained around 30+ on some straight aways. I must have passed 100's of riders who were shocked to see me come blasting by. I tore up the two big hills on the course and was leveling riders and not taking numbers. I was pissed!
As I approached the last 5 miles I quickly did the math in my head and realized I could at least hit 3 hrs. So I dug deep and road out the last 5 miles at time trial pace down hill and so I got 3 hrs and change!
T2 2:10
13.1 Mile Run 2:04:45 9:31 min/mile
My goal for the run was to finish it in 2 hrs or better. I was close. I came out of T2 feeling amped and surprisingly my legs felt fresh even after the bike. I had a mile by mile game plan for the race and I was determined to stick to it as close as possible. I started out at 7:30 min/mile pace and for 3 miles it was flat then as I began to hit some hills as the course went away from the lake I dropped down to around 8:30 pace and the original plan was to keep it there until I hit mile 8 which was the peak of all climbing for the day. I ended up dropping down the pace between mile 5 and 8 to around 9:00 - 9:30 and then from mile 8 and on I picked it back up to 8:30 pace to finish it off. All in all I was happy with my run and look forward to improving for the next half!
Finish Time 5:48:44 Overall 330/701 Age Group 29/55
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