Muncie: Race Report
Well, first of all the worse thing about Muncie is the drive (especially home). For me it was seven hours—albeit mostly I-70. I arrived Friday night for the 6 p.m. mandatory race briefing in downtown Muncie. It was a 15 minute professional race overview and rules briefing—and yes, there are lots of rules which I simply had never been aware. After getting my packet, and eating a quick spaghetti meal, I drove out to the race start. The setting for the race couldn’t be much better. It’s a small lake with great paved trails around it and miles of flat country well-paved roads. It was nearly 8 p.m. but I got in a twenty minute spin along the beginning of the route, marveling at its flatness, and a quick ten minute swim—amazed that it was only 1.2 miles. As the sun went down, I headed to my hotel at the Fairfield Inn in Anderson, IN about 35 mintues away.
After unpacking, I took a quick jump in the hot tub at the hotel and then prepped all my equipment before heading to bed around 10:30 p.m. Unfortunately, the people staying above me had other things on their mind—they kept me up for most of the night. Repeated efforts from the manager made no impact.
At 4:30 a.m. I sluggishly rolled out of bed, ate a bagel, cheerios, and a banana and drank some coffee and orange juice. I took a quick shower and quickly packed all my gear back into the truck. I arrived at the race site just before 6 p.m. Race start time was 7 a.m. and my wave was scheduled to leave at 7:18. The day began bad, I broke my pump. I tried a couple of others but none seemed to take my adapter well enough to air my back disc. Flustered already, I quickly scooped up my gear and headed for the transition. In my haste, I left my bike number (cant race without it) and my timing chip (no reason to race without it) in my truck.
At the transition, I immediately realized I didn’t have my race number for my bike so I stood in line at the registration table to get a new one. It took 15 minutes but they did get me one. I returned to my transition, it was almost 6:30. I set everything up and began to put on my wetsuit (water temp was 77 degrees and wet suit legal), when I realized I did not have my timing chip. I went back to the registration table and they quickly sent me to the other side of the transition. While I find it unnecessary to warm up for a half, I was certainly getting in several short runs as warm ups now as I sprinted across to the other side of the transition. I am not sure how they should have responded to my forgetfullness, but the staff didn’t miss a beat—I got a new race number, a new timing chip—and now, at 6:55 I was ready to race.
During all of this, I had failed to realize that although the weather had appeared nice, that was beginning to change. Had I had time to notice, I would have realized that either of the other two wheels in my truck would have been preferential to the wind gathering disc on my bike. As I bustled to down the hill 150 yards to the swim start at 7:15, I nearly failed to recognize the whistle of the wind and the waves. I guess the night before the yacht club and the many sail boats should have tipped me off—but this lake was built to drive sailing boats up and down it. And today, would have been an exciting sailing day as the wind was steady around 15 mph and gusting to 25 mph. As I entered the water, I realized this was going to be the most difficult open water swim I have ever done. Having learned to swim three years earlier from Amy Livesay, I can swim, but Im barely average. I decided to get to the outside, keep all the swimmers and the bouys to my right—and with the waves crashing across my body on the swim out and swim in—my only focus was not to sight (which tends to cause me to open my mouth for a big drink of water) and do everything possible not to breath into a big wave. I was successful. Not sure how, I saw lots of people doing the doggy paddle and other assorted maneuvers that must have caused them to gulp gallons of water in the angry waves. Everyone swears that the swim is long, I know that my arch swim route was definitely longer than the other 700 swimmers who took a much more direct route around the triangle layout of bouys. Nonetheless, the swim was over, and I was thankful. (:46)
I will note, there was a lot of discussion about the number of people along the swim at Innsbrook this year. Mark had five times the amount of people in boats and along the shorter race course. This was their 30th year, so I am confident that Ultramax goes way above the usual standard when it comes to safety.
T1 went as well as could be expected—I was on the bike course and the first five miles is along a one lane paved and tree laden bike path. It was smooth and fast. I quickly got a goo in me. Another casualty of the my haste that morning, I had 5 goo’s, one vanilla, and 4 chocalates. Also, as I reached down to get an endurolye or a salt tab that I alternate usually on long bikes, I saw that I had not loaded my “stick” on the bike either. At mile six, you transitioned to a wide open southerly closed road state highway. Besides the westerly wind that was now gusting pretty hard, the ride conditions were great. I was cruising at around 22 miles an hour which is fast for me. Everything went well on the ride til I heard a snap at mile 28. I had never witnessed a broken spoke before, but I had now. The front wheel was wobbly and it seemed to take some of speed away. Worse than that, I immediately felt like I had lost my momentum and my average speeds dropped to 8-19 mph. I crept along for another couple of miles—refueling and getting plenty of drink in me. By mile 31, I guess from the “rest”, I felt like I had a second wind and was off and racing again. Then, mile 32, the rain began. At this point it was nearing 80 degrees and was pretty windy, but when the rain began, it would dominate the rest of the race. At first, it was a downpour. Heavy lightning, solid sheets of rain coming across us from the west. I had done one other long training ride in this sort of weather, so frankly I wasn’t bothered. In fact, the rain ushered in cooler temperatures, and the rest of the race the temperature hovered in the low 70s. The rain also made it easier to relieve myself on the bike.
As the bike entered the final 5 or 6 miles, we turned off the speedy closed highway and entered an older neighborhood that had concrete roads that had been repaired frequently. The tar and the asphalt repairs made the last few miles interesting as the rain at this point made it nearly impossible to see. My glasses were constantly fogged up and the rain was beating on us. I know I had slowed significantly through the last few miles, but I cant really tell you how much as my powertap gave into the rain also and stopped working at mile 52. (2:40)
T2 was a bit sloppy. I knew there was a 60 percent chance of rain, so I had packed big trash bags for all my gear. Unfortunately, the trash bags were still at the bottom of my bag. My shoes were soaked along with everything else. As quickly as I could I racked the bike, put my headgear and garmin on and took off on the run. Despite not doing much training for the last two weeks with pain in both hamstrings, I felt really good now that I was off the bike. I was running with a couple of younger guys who seemed to have a solid pace going. We were floating along the rolling small hills at a healthy 7:30 pace. HR was 169 and I honestly thought I could maintain the pace for the rest of the run. But as the run stretched out, I could constantly feel the hamstrings pulling me back. I fell off the pace from the two guys that I had started with. And by mile 4, I was running alone and trying to maintain 8:30 miles. Aid stations gave out wet rags, gu’s, gatorade, and water, and unlike most runs I was getting something at nearly every station. The rain let up about half way through the run, although it never stopped raining. Even as we entered the final couple of miles, I couldn’t push my legs any harder. I wanted to go faster, but they absolutely wouldn’t. I was glad to finish. (1:47)
They quickly took my timing chip. Printed out my results and handed them to me. Gave me a ticket for my plaque, for my ice cream, and for my free pasta/sandwich meal. I don’t know how many calories I had expended, but in an effort to warm up—I was freezing in what was another down pour—I ate everything they put in front of me and I serioulsy gained five pounds. Total time: 5:19
Compared to my first half last year at Kansas, this was a much easier race. I was able to finish just before they closed the course last year in a time of 5:52. Muncie was thirty minutes faster—half probably due to an easier course and half due to another year of training. I will be even better prepared for the half at Redman and should be in good shape for AZ Ironman.
Synopsis:
Be better prepared (consider making a check list).
Don’t leave race numbers and timing chip on dash of truck.
If you are going to bother with taking extra wheels, use the one that is appropriate for the road conditions.
Make sure that your fuel, endurolytes, and salt tabs are on your bike.
Use the trash bags to cover your equipment when the chance of rain is greater than 50 percent.
Fun race but long drive from Jeff City to get there.
Purchase some anti-fog cleaner for goggles and sunglasses.
Arrive earlier to transition to set up for race in case everything you do goes wrong.