Fresh home after our little trip to California for Ironman 70.3 Oceanside. We had a great extended weekend. I love traveling and spending extra alone time with my Mary!!! We are so good together. :)
Up early friday morning we arrived at the Pacific Ocean before noon. It is so beautiful, I love it on the beach.
Anyway, we got all checked in and went for pizza and an early bed time seeing that race morning would be another 4am or so wake up call.
Lets just say race morning was a little cool. As we hurried to get our wetsuits on just to keep warm walking around. I could actually see my breath so it wasn't just that we have gotten soft living in the desert.
The swim went off with out my issue, I was suprised how the salt water tasted after being in the pool and lakes for sooo long, but with the wave start I didn't have to get used to swallowing it from repeated blows to the face an head like a typical Ironman swim. I exited the swim with (for me) a very respectable time of 31 minutes. Through T1 and off on the bike for one of the coolest bike legs I have ever done in a race or training for that matter. Several REAL big hills, with a view of the Pacific Ocean for the better part of the ride. I felt really strong the entire ride and as usual really felt good towards the back side of the course. i call it the "smelling the stable effect".
When I get close to the finish I really hammer it. I went by alot of people in the last 15miles. Suprising considering I don't fell like my training mileage is where it should be right now. Hey, I'll take it. Bike split 2:37. T2 and off to my favorite, the run.
I felt good from the get go, which is pretty common for me off the bike, I decided not to push it at all the first full loop and if I still felt comfortable I would pick it up later. My garmin wasn't working properly at first so I am not for sure what my first 2 mile splits where. The markers on the course where to hard to spot because of all of the constant comotion going on with the crowds and other runners coming the other way. By mile 3 it started to work and I was just watching my splits stay easy and consistant around 6:30. This is good news, because I have not been able to keep my pace where i would like for my 1/2 ironman runs spilts. This time it felt easy and consistent, finally all of this training is starting to kick in from the last 3 years. Even with 4 sections of running on loose sand i was able to kick the last 1/2 mile and run down a couple more guys in my age group and sprint to the finish line again. Finshing my run at 1:26 a new run PR for a 70.3 distance. Who would have thought it. I figured that the sand portion cost me about another 2 minutes of time, and that i could have easily went 1:24 ish without it. Damn, that is a good sign for the 2009 season.
After a few bites of food off to find Mary and see her finish. Mary was wayyyyy under trained for this race and was smart enough not to push it beyond her limits for no reason and to but herself in a place this early in the season that she would have to spend weeks to get out of. IMWI training started for her last week.
After the race we showered, went back to the awards and claimed my slot for the 70.3 World Championships in Clearwater FL Nov 14th. Yes that is only 4 weeks after Kona. We will see what happens.
Then it was off to Margaritaville!!! Yes, we had been thinking about this for weeks. We where joined by our friend Dean and after several Large beverages we stumbled our ways back to our hotels for some well deserved sleep.
Sunday brought the day I had dreamed about for months, a complete day off from training and spending it on Mission Beach with my True Love. What a nice day. Coffee and breakfast, a walk down Oceanside Beach and two hours on Mission Beach. It doesn't get any better.
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