Ed's Excellent Vineman70.3 Adventure

[EdBull]

This was my 'A' race and I went in feeling really well, relaxed healthy strong. Ben had me well prepared. I was a little worried about the lack of heat training. I had scouted the course in December including running the run course.
As most of you know it's a beautiful venue. This was the 20th Anniversary race and it's clearly got a great reputation. I went down on Thursday and stayed in Guerneville where the swim is and T1. It's a 2 'transition area' course like PacCrest. Guerneville is a really interesting place, we stayed at a nice small hotel/motel (west sonoma inn) which had a saltwater pool and redwoods on the property. It's cool there so they don't have aircon. My girlfriend Kimberly came along for support and my buddy Tom Paladino came to race too.
We attended the Friday night 'pasta dinner' which had talks from Sister Madonna, Cherie Gruenfeld and Harriet Anderson (in the 2008 IMHawaii video), also there was a pro-panel of Miranda Carfrae (love this gal) and Tyler Stewart (not so much). Our hotel filled up on Friday with athletes including from Texas, some folks from Active.com, and even from Norway!

Race Day: it was nice and cool in the morning, the fog rolls in from the Pacific and can hang around until 9 or 11 and can change how hot it gets. Chris Lieto was there and that was cool.
The Swim: The river was warm but not too warm, about 72. I started at 7:26, pro's started at 6:30 last wave was 8:30, pretty small waves so it wasn't a mosh pit. There was some fog and it was a bit tricky to see but you can easily follow the shoreline. At the turn around I stood up a few times and dolphin dived! That was kind of fun. I did a 38 minute swim ( a PR!).
T1 was wild, it's rocky ground and there are a few carpets to run on along the main aisles. But it was interesting, kind of 'old school' and even the pro's had the same conditions. I was in-and-out pretty quick in 2:30.

The Ride: this is a great bike ride. There are narrow roads but traffic was never an issue for me. It's a lot of up and down but some really fun corners, fast ups and fun downs! For us NW athletes this is not a hilly course, our Texas friends thought it was very hilly. When the sun comes out the shadows become very dark and it's hard to see the road surface. There was a timing mat at mile 30 or so... I missed it thinking it was construction cones, and turned around so I could go over it, cost about 1 minute. I drank 2 bottles and didn't take any other liquid... in the end this may have been a mistake. But I felt great and finished in 2:47 at 20.1 MPH, a very good ride for me.
T2 is in Windsor, nice grassy surface, but very little markings and all that's there are your shoes. I went to the wrong rack, but quickly recovered and ducked under 2 racks to get to my shoes. There were very few bikes in my rack area. I did a pretty fast 2:30 T2.
The Run: it was now getting hot. The run is pretty hilly actually. I came out of T2 at 3:30, knowing I could break 5:30 with a sub 2-hour halfM. The aid stations were really great, the volunteers were fantastic, and they had lots of water, gatorade and ice. It's an outandback run so you get to see the earlier folks coming in. By halfway I was fading and not too happy with myself. But I was able to draw on experience, walked up hills, kept the legs moving and in the end stumbled in for a 2:04 HalfM;

Final Results: 20th out of 113 in AG finishers, more than 125 started. 479 out of 1259 men. A personal best swim time and I beat my buddy whom I had never beaten before. It was a good day and an excellent effort!
Thanks BB and all my friends at VO2!

[DougJ]

Great job Ed! Sounds like you had a great race in a beautiful venue-- what more can a triathlete ask for?

[maureenf]

You beat Paladino? Most excellent. Great job!

[Cindybigglestone]

Excellent race report! Congrats on the swim PR, and I love that you went back to go over the timing mat. This makes me want to go back and race Vineman again, thanks for the motivation!!

Maybe we make this a team race for next year I know a great B and B that could house us all!!

[lkinkade]

Another race to add to my growing list of must do races. Thanks for sharing and congrats on a strong performance.

-Lee Ann

[kylaC]

Congratulations, and great report! And like Lee Ann, this is one on my "someday" list!

[benbiggles]

Awesome work Ed....one thing though, did I not regale you with stories of how I ran to the wrong rack in T2 only to realize I was at the right rack just at the wrong end of it, put some other guys shoes on (same as mine) but they were like a size 13 (I wear a 10).....

Anyhow proud of you, solid result, next time drink more