BryanU
05-06-2007, 02:43 PM
This weekend I went to Cali to race the Napa Vintage Half - about an hour north of Napa on Lake Berryesa and an hour and a half drive from Sacramento. I arrived in Sacramento Friday afternoon, rented a minivan and headed towards Napa with a few stops for groceries, water, and CO2 cartridges. On the way, I drove the bike and run courses (the run course follows the first 3.25 miles of the bike course) and found that the elevation profiles shown on the event website were much simplified versions of reality. There were hills - constantly. On top of that, most of the roads were beaten up with cracks, bumps and potholes and there were some fairly technical descents ending with sharp turns. I was questioning my decision to bring only a disc rear wheel, knowing that the braking just doesn't compare to regular wheels - and not knowing how strong the winds would be during the race.
Friday evening, I stopped at a boat launch to assemble the race machine and oranize the van for the evening. Around 9pm, I found a nice road-side pullout and parked for the night - yes, I was sleeping in the van.
Transition opened at 6:30am so I set alarms for 6am - and then slept through them until 6:30. I was within 15 minutes drive so I downed a Clif bar and some Gatorade Endurance on the way. On arrival, I racked my bike, picked up my race packet, set up transition, jogged down the road and back, peeled on my new Helix wetsuit for a few strokes in the lake (which they claimed was 65-70 degrees - I'm saying more on the 65 end) and got in the first start wave (of 2 waves). The weather was clear and around 60 degrees at the 8am start and warmed up to around 80 by noon.
The swim start was a deep water start and many people were slow getting into the water so I got a good calm start. The water was a little choppy and getting worse the entire swim. I followed a few sets of feet at times and focused on maintaining form the rest of the time, exiting the water in around 32 min, which I had hoped to improve upon (but the course may have been long).
In T1 I struggled to keep my balance as I stripped, put on shoes and headed for the bike mount area. In the first 100 yeards, I passed 3 cyclists (mostly by bunny-hopping speed-bumps), then 2 more in the next quarter mile. On the way to the first turnaround at mile 5, I found that I was in 6th place (the main reason I think the swim was long). For the next 20 miles, I held position - and kept looking down at my rear tire, thinking it must be flat - but it was the wind and the hills. The headwinds were relentless, the hills were constant, and the roads were rough and winding. Around mile 25, I finally found and passed 2 more people. For nutrition on the bike, for the first 2 hours, I used a concentrated solution of one of my custom InfinIT blends (awesome stuff) with plenty of sodium, calories and a little protein - then switch to a non-protein variety for the rest of the ride - and supplement it all with water from course aid stations.
I was happy to be off the bike when I arrived in T2, knowing that I had ridden much harder than I probably should have. Easing into the run, I saw a number of others in their last quarter mile of the bike, so I knew I had to keep a decent pace to hold them off, but I was feeling the hard ride and felt like I was moving sluggishly at maybe a 9 or 9:30 pace, but the miles weren't marked so I had no idea until after. I just focused on quick steps, especially on the uphills, and pushed as hard as I thought I needed to in order to hold off those closing in. The run is 2 laps out and back on a 3.25 mile hill course. Then there was the headwinds... I felt ok for the first 3/4 of the run and then must have begun to dehydrate a bit since the joints really started to ache. Knowing it was nearly over, I pressed through for a run time of about 1:40 - much faster than I had thought and my second fastest half-marathon ever. For run nutrition, I carried a fuel belt with 2 concentrated bottles of InfinIT, which I would sip from as I approached an aid station, then followed with at least 1 cup of water.
My overall time was 4h 56m for 9th Overall and just 8th in my Age Group!
All in all, I am really happy with how I did considering that this was at the end of a 3 week build cycle, the course was much more difficult than I had expected, and I have been nursing an aching groin muscle this past week - I only noticed it for a few brief moments during the last quarter of the run.
Now some technical things - if you're into that sort of thing:
The Bike course had around 3000 feet of climbing - the Run course had 800 ft of climbing.
Swim - HR Avg 173
Bike - HR Avg 169 - Pace 21.1 mph
Run - HR Avg 171 - Pace 7:38/mile
Participants - around 360 registered, including about 50 in relay teams
Friday evening, I stopped at a boat launch to assemble the race machine and oranize the van for the evening. Around 9pm, I found a nice road-side pullout and parked for the night - yes, I was sleeping in the van.
Transition opened at 6:30am so I set alarms for 6am - and then slept through them until 6:30. I was within 15 minutes drive so I downed a Clif bar and some Gatorade Endurance on the way. On arrival, I racked my bike, picked up my race packet, set up transition, jogged down the road and back, peeled on my new Helix wetsuit for a few strokes in the lake (which they claimed was 65-70 degrees - I'm saying more on the 65 end) and got in the first start wave (of 2 waves). The weather was clear and around 60 degrees at the 8am start and warmed up to around 80 by noon.
The swim start was a deep water start and many people were slow getting into the water so I got a good calm start. The water was a little choppy and getting worse the entire swim. I followed a few sets of feet at times and focused on maintaining form the rest of the time, exiting the water in around 32 min, which I had hoped to improve upon (but the course may have been long).
In T1 I struggled to keep my balance as I stripped, put on shoes and headed for the bike mount area. In the first 100 yeards, I passed 3 cyclists (mostly by bunny-hopping speed-bumps), then 2 more in the next quarter mile. On the way to the first turnaround at mile 5, I found that I was in 6th place (the main reason I think the swim was long). For the next 20 miles, I held position - and kept looking down at my rear tire, thinking it must be flat - but it was the wind and the hills. The headwinds were relentless, the hills were constant, and the roads were rough and winding. Around mile 25, I finally found and passed 2 more people. For nutrition on the bike, for the first 2 hours, I used a concentrated solution of one of my custom InfinIT blends (awesome stuff) with plenty of sodium, calories and a little protein - then switch to a non-protein variety for the rest of the ride - and supplement it all with water from course aid stations.
I was happy to be off the bike when I arrived in T2, knowing that I had ridden much harder than I probably should have. Easing into the run, I saw a number of others in their last quarter mile of the bike, so I knew I had to keep a decent pace to hold them off, but I was feeling the hard ride and felt like I was moving sluggishly at maybe a 9 or 9:30 pace, but the miles weren't marked so I had no idea until after. I just focused on quick steps, especially on the uphills, and pushed as hard as I thought I needed to in order to hold off those closing in. The run is 2 laps out and back on a 3.25 mile hill course. Then there was the headwinds... I felt ok for the first 3/4 of the run and then must have begun to dehydrate a bit since the joints really started to ache. Knowing it was nearly over, I pressed through for a run time of about 1:40 - much faster than I had thought and my second fastest half-marathon ever. For run nutrition, I carried a fuel belt with 2 concentrated bottles of InfinIT, which I would sip from as I approached an aid station, then followed with at least 1 cup of water.
My overall time was 4h 56m for 9th Overall and just 8th in my Age Group!
All in all, I am really happy with how I did considering that this was at the end of a 3 week build cycle, the course was much more difficult than I had expected, and I have been nursing an aching groin muscle this past week - I only noticed it for a few brief moments during the last quarter of the run.
Now some technical things - if you're into that sort of thing:
The Bike course had around 3000 feet of climbing - the Run course had 800 ft of climbing.
Swim - HR Avg 173
Bike - HR Avg 169 - Pace 21.1 mph
Run - HR Avg 171 - Pace 7:38/mile
Participants - around 360 registered, including about 50 in relay teams