HITS Half-Iron

Yesterday, Randy and I (and our friend Keith) raced the HITS half-iron triathlon in Hague, NY.

Friday afternoon, Randy and I drove up to Hague to pick up our race packet, attend the last 20 minutes of an hour long athletes meeting, and drop off our bikes.  There were only about 160 people racing the half.  They also had about 40 people doing a full iron-distance on the same day.  Each athlete had a little stool to sit on and plenty of room for their transition area.

After doing what we needed to do in Hague, we drove the bike course to my parents place on Loon Lake in Chestertown and went out to dinner with them - always so nice to do!

We got up a little before 4:00 the next morning and got ourselves together.  Instead of using numbers for bodymarking, the race gave us tattoos - very cool.  It had been raining and storming all week, so it was questionable about what weather to expect.  But, for the moment, it was dry and around 70 degrees.  We were able to park right across from the transition area.  No rushing around.  Once we got ourselves all situated and zipped into our wetsuits, we got into the water.  Lake George is such a beautiful lake and up where we were, the water was clear and refreshing.

It was a mass start (with only 200 people, that's easy to handle!) and a counterclockwise loop.  I learned very quickly that sighting the buoys was going to be difficult.  It was cloudy and the buoys were a dark red color, making them challenging to find.  But, I followed the crowd.  I figure that if there are people to the left and right of me, then I can't be too far off course!  Of course, that wasn't the case at the end.  After rounding the last big buoy, I aimed for the beach (with all the other people around me).  Apparently, there was a small buoy that we were supposed to go around, which I never saw.  I don't think I was too far off the course and no one in the large group I was in seemed to see it either.  I came out of the water in 35:01.  I'm pretty happy with that.

I got my wetsuit peeled off (best volunteers ever!) and ran into transition.  Randy was right behind me and Keith was right behind him!  My transition was okay.  It wasn't fast (about 3 minutes), but I managed to get myself settled for the beginning of this bike course.

Ahhh....the bike course.  The 56-mile course has over 3000 feet of climbing (more than the 56 mile loop for Lake Placid Ironman).  1300 feet are in the first five miles.  Upon leaving transition, the course immediately turns onto Route 8, otherwise known as Granite Mountain Road.   Up the mountain we went.  My goal was to keep in in small gears and keep the heart rate down.  I knew it would be slow.  It took me about 35 minutes.  Of course, after that, we got a great downhill on the other side of the mountain.  It was wide open and not very technical, so I could get some decent speed.  And the views of the mountains were amazing!  After that, the course is rolling with one last climb near the turnaround.  My mom and dad came out to watch us go by too, which was fun.  Coming back wasn't so bad, until we had to go up the mountain again.  The last five mile, of course, were all downhill.  I felt great on the bike course, despite a slow time.  If I disregard the first climb, I averaged about 17+ mph, but my overall time was 3:36, which was much slower than I was hoping for.  My computer said I went 58 miles and apparently others thought the course was long as well.  Slower than I wanted, but still strong considering the difficulty of the course

My second transition was fine, about 1:40.  Then, I headed out on the run.

I thought the bike course was tough.  The run course was downright mean!  There were constant hills.  I knew it was hilly (after all, we were in the Adirondacks), but I didn't expect not having any flat sections.  None.  However, I seemed to be moving right along at a 10:00 pace.  Until about mile 9.  That's when my body was just getting tired of the hills.  Plus, it was getting hot and sunny.  I ended up walking some of the steeper parts.  My pace got a bit slower then, but I never felt terrible.  I ended up with a 2:16.  Not too bad.

Overall, this was one of my slowest races at this distance (6:33 and I'm normally closer to 6 hours), but I think it was one of the most challenging courses I've ever done.  I'm generally happy with the experience, but I think it may be time to look for a flatter course!

This was also the friendliest race I've ever done.  The race director and transition area coordinator treated us as if we were old friends and the volunteers were great.  The athletes were just as friendly, cheering one another on and giving shout-outs to familiar tri clubs.  The course was hard, which makes it questionable as to whether I'd want to do it again, but the experience was great!