June Recap: The month of Motor City Sprint and Welland Half Ironman.

MOTOR CITY
Motor City Sprint was the week before Welland.  I was excited for the race, and excited to see how racing without a watch showing my pace would feel like.  It makes you honest, that is for sure.

The swim was great – felt strong and loved it as always.  I like swimming in the Detroit River, probably just because it is the Detroit River.  It sounds Bad Assed. Totally.

The bike was amazing… just laid down the hammer and averaged 21+ MPH, PR for the course and PR in any race.  I was ON FIRE!

The run felt a little wonky to start, but then I settled into a zone and pace and just went along to the finish.  

That finish was a HUGE PR for me, and a sub-1:20 finish.  My goal in 2011 was to be around 1:30.  I finished 2012 in 1:18!  Good enough for 1st place Athena!  I was 8 minutes off of overall female winner.  Damn.  That was amazing!

Then I tapered (did nothing) until Welland.


WELLAND
Leading up to Welland, I was fearful that I was undertrained.  Not that the training had failed, but that I was not training FOR Welland, as I had in 2010, so due to this I was fearful of what race morning would bring.

Lucky for me, training has not failed me!  

SWIM
The swim felt really good.  It was a mass-start, 500 people all treading in deep water. I have never been punched, slapped, swam over under around into as much as in this swim. Dang.
I felt good swimming, used my sleeveless suit.

Take-away:  Mass start swims are great for drafting… so draft!  Be prepared for hitting scratching etc in the swim.  

I finished 3 minutes faster in 2012 than I did in 2010 and set a 1.2 mile swim PR.  Good day!


BIKE
I used the nutrition plan that I have been practicing – perpetuem strawberry flavor, 2 bottles, and 1 bottle of water to take with solid nutrition.

I start with perpetuem in my aero bottle and then take sips every 15 minutes starting 20 minutes in.  At about 1:15 I empty my water bottle into the aero bottle and consume a solid food every 15-20 minutes until my food and water is gone (~1 hour).  I then put back in my perpetuem and drink calories every 15 minutes until the last 20 minutes where I just drink some water and cruise along.

This has really worked well.  For IM think about training with Infinit or Ironman Perform since this is what is on the course.  


For pacing, I followed the plan from my coach, Took it super easy the first 11 miles, the upped to Z2 the 2nd 30k then upped to Z3 the last 30k and zipped past everyone 20-22 MPH while they were slowing down.  My God I felt great.

Finished the bike sub 3:00 which is another PR for me.  


RUN

I was so far ahead of plan that I pulled a Jenn.  I figured ‘wow I am so undertrained in the run I should just walk, and coach said that run/walking was fine.’  Ha ha ha… run walking with a plan is fine.. just giving up and walking was not.   Had my 3rd worst half marathon but felt great out there… really needed the nutrition and salty foods.  I need to remember this for IM.

Overall time was in the 6:30’s, an hour PR from 2010 with non-Welland specific training.  


I have many take-aways from this race to apply to my next one in September and then ironman in November.


The big thing for me will be the run.  I need to be consistent and get out there and nail these runs.  NO MORE QUITTING.

I have Rev3 to make up for my failure of a run at Welland.  I need a plan… be it run/walk or run… I just need to execute the plan.  


So July I am going to work on executing the training and focusing on running and not giving up on the run.