Cancun 70.3 Race Report
Jen and I set off for Cancun this past Thursday for our honeymoon and to compete in the 2007 Half Ironman Cancun. The weekend started off great even though the weather didn't cooperate with us. As we woke Saturday morning we had every intention of getting in a practice swim in the ocean, but the sideways rain had other plans. As we arrived at the swim area, officials were having competitors exit the swim because of the bad weather. We decided to bag the swim, and head off to the pre-race meeting. We took it easy on Saturday spending most of the day in our room because of the rain, and got to bed at a decent time.
The alarm went off nice and early and to our much surprise, it wasn't raining. The race started off with the Pro's going off at 6:30, and my heat was up next at 6:34. The Mexican national anthem was played and sang by Mexican soldiers, and the race started seconds after they sang their last words. My goal for the swim was to finish around 31-32 minutes. As I hit the salt water, I got into a rhythm, but the water was extremely rough and hard to stay on course. I went off course once or twice, and probably lost a minute or two, but came out of the water in 33 minutes, my fastest 1/2 Iron swim to date.
My plan for the day with Kona approaching was to go at Ironman pace on the swim, go easy through transition, even slower at the beginning of the bike leg, and wait for my wife Jennifer to catch up to me. (her heat was 9 minutes behind)
I went easy on the bike for the first 10 miles, and decided to pull over to the side of the road and wait for Jen. I wasn't waiting long, and she soon blew by me. I got back on the bike, and got out in front of her setting a comfortable pace around 20mph. We biked five miles together, and out of no where, I hit a sharp rock and heard air leaking from my tire. Great!, I said. I told Jen to keep going and I'd try to catch up after I got the flat taken care of. The leak was a slow leak, and I couldn't deflate the tire because I made a huge mistake of using a wrench to tighten my valve stem extender. I frantically looked around on the ground for some sort of sharp glass I could use to pop the tire, but had little luck. My last and only resort was to turn around and bike over a mile back to the last water stop. Just as I arrived at the water stop, I lucked out and a mechanic was there and helped me get off the stem and change the tire with his makeshift wrench. By the time my tire was pumped back up, it had already rained (or should I say down poured), and I had exhausted 24 minutes and knew it would be almost impossible to catch back up to Jen without going hard. Our whole plan was to finish the race together, and I really wanted to do this, so I had no other choice but to give the next 42 miles my all. I treated the next 42 miles as a "sort of" time trial, and averaged close to 23 mph. As I pulled into transition I still had not caught up to her, but knew I had to be getting close.
The 13.1 mile run was a two loop out and back course along the Cancun coast. I knew that Jen would be running around 8 minute miles, so I decided to run hard the first 6 miles or until I caught up to her. As we hit the first turnaround around mile 3.5, Jen was only 3 minutes ahead of me. By the half way mark, I had caught Jen running an average 6:40 pace, much better than my run pace in May in Florida. Once I caught Jen we ran the next 6 miles together and crossed the finish line in fashion. Jen had an awesome day, and finished the race in 5 hours and 18 minutes (27 minutes than her first half IM race). She placed 4th in her age group (out of 38), and was 32nd female overall which includes a strong pro field.
Given the rain, the flat tire, and the rough swim, overall Cancun was an exciting place to race. The course is extremely fast for anyone interested in a good time.
We set off for Kona on October 6th!
posted by Chad Holderbaum @ 2:09 PM
Comments: 0
