A hit from the Bong

Before you look at me all crazy eyed about the title, read on!

I had two races this past weekend, that I’ve been looking forward to for quite a while.  The South Shore Half Marathon, and the Single Bong 20k Time Trial.  I’ve done the South Shore Half a few times before, but the Bong TT was a new one for me, and it was to be the first time I’ve raced on my bike with out a swim warm-up, and run cooldown!

My goals for the weekend were to run a 1:22 Half Marathon, and go sub 30 at the TT.  In short, the weekend didn’t quite workout that way, but I am still extremely happy with the results.

To start with the Half on Saturday, all week the forecast for Saturday was cold, and rainy – or bad, with a moderate chance of epic.  I had been hoping for nice weather for the run to really try and bust out a fast run, but this isn’t the race to do it.  We toed the line in sloppy conditions with a Brutal NW wind, that helped a bit on the way out and killed on the way back.

I hit the half way point a tad under 41 minutes, and was feeling strong.   I faded a little in the next couple of miles, but was holding on until about mile 11 where I hit a wall – I pulled in at 1:25:10, a Half Marathon PR by over 8 minutes, although I have done a HIM run in 1:26 high.  I owe Phil Bzdusek for this one.  I ran with him most of the race and he provided some good support a couple of times when the going got tough.

Saturday after the race was interesting, I went to the Y for a short swim and felt trashed, but by the end of the swim I felt a lot better.  I then spent the rest of Saturday in bed pumping Immodium – turns out dinner the night before (Spicy Cajun Jamboyla from the Cheesecake Factory) didn’t like hanging out in my stomach after an hour and a half at 160+ HR.

Fortunately, when I woke up Sunday my stomach felt a lot better, not great, but good.  Drove down to Bong Rec area near Kenosha for the TT.  The course for the race was a 2 mile southbound segment, a right turn, then four miles, a right turn, 2 miles north, and another right turn and ~4.4 miles east to the finish line; basically a loop on the roads the border the State Park.  The wind felt the need to top it’s performance on Saturday and greeted us with a 20+ mph NW wind.  This meant I would have a wicked tailwind for the first 6 miles, and then a sufferfest into the wind for the rest.  It took about 12 minutes for me to hit the half way point, with most of the time in my 53×11 @ 90+ rpm.  The second six miles went by a lot slower, and I started to fade quite a bit, feeling the race on Saturday.  In the end I finished in about 30 minutes 44 seconds (24.2 mph) @ 287 watts average.

While both races, were a bit slower then my goal for them, I’m really happy with the results (especially with the conditions weighed in), and it gives me some good numbers to build from since it’s only April.

Next two weeks are moderate training weeks that I’m going to close out with the J-Hawk Early Bird tri in Whitewater.  Then I start the first 6 week block for the buildup to IMWI.