10/26/2013
Wilmington, NC
Rob Riek - 5:14, 11th Men 45-50
I’m finally getting to a race report. It has been a busy year and with everything
going on my race season certainly lacked direction. I had done a couple of long brick sessions
with Larry and Shawn in late July and made the decision to commit to B2B while
on vacation on early August. I knew I
would have many challenges with work, family and becoming a Grandpa in the lead
up to this race. Training went well
except for the last month leading up to the race with a trip to NY to visit my
new Granddaughter, Marianna, and bad weather every weekend after that. Larry, Shawn and I did have a couple of our
“epic” training sessions in the build up for the race and unfortunately Larry
put in a few too many miles and was not able to join us at B2B. In the spirit of Shawn’s top 10 list, I’ll
try to create some type of list around the race;
Travel. Definitely
challenging with a 3 and 1 year old but we were able to make it to Wilmington
in time for the 2 PM pre-race meeting and check-in.
Logistics. It took
from about 1 until 5 to get everything sorted out with check-in, pre-race
meeting, special needs bag checks and getting the bike set in the transition
area. Made for a long day.
Sleep. Kids were
wound up so getting a good night’s sleep was not happening.
Mishaps. (It’s costing me a kitchen pass to share this
with you). Amy double checked the
back-up camera to make sure she wasn’t running over any gear and backed the van
into a parked car on race morning when leaving to drop me off. We also forgot our pillows after checking out
from the hotel and had to have them shipped to the house.
Temperature. 39
degrees when I arrived. We were bussed
to the swim start and had to sit around in the cold for over an hour. Very happy to get in the 71 degree water.
Transitions. Definitely
decreased my chances of going sub-5. I
gave away 8 minutes in T1 but felt it was better to take the time to change
into dry and warm gear for the bike.
Even with toe warmers over my bike shoes, I did not feel my toes until
mile 4 of the run.
Swim. Felt like I was
swimming pretty effortlessly and thought we had a current. A look at my time
and the rest of the field revealed we did not have much of a current. 34 minutes still not bad. I actually felt hungry during the swim which
is something I have never experienced.
Must have been the extra energy spent shivering prior to the start.
Bike. Seemed to have
more headwind than tailwind but I kept a steady pace and was able to average
21.5 on the new Shiv and the legs felt decent coming off the bike.
Run. Well, I cut 14
minutes off my Patriot half run but I was still a good 6 minutes over my goal
of getting under 1:45. Somewhere around
mile 8 I just kept getting slower. Felt
like I was running 7:45 pace but my Garmin was telling my otherwise!
Frustrating. I think a good part of it
was mental once I realized there was no way I was hitting the goal of sub-5
with the long transitions and battling the wind.
Family. The best part
of the race and what I looked forward to the most over the last couple of miles
was seeing Amy and the kids at the finish. It was great to be done and
celebrate with the family.
Lessons learned. Never
sacrifice toddler nap times – it will haunt you the entire weekend. It was more challenging than we anticipated with
2 young kiddos. I was planning to return
to doing an IM next year but now it’s looking like we are going focus on a
couple of half IM’s next year instead.
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