›Big Kahuna Half Ironman
Race date: September 10, 2006
by: Tom Hickmann
The Big Kahuna half IM was my 6th half IM I have done. I have enjoyed all but the very first one I did. That first one was the ultimate sufferfest as a result of poor training, diet, and intense heat that I was not prepared for. Since then, each one has been more enjoyable, and I have a very caviler approach to them. I want to do well and compete, but I am very happy being a MOP (middle of pack). As with all my races, I play it by ear and tend to sign up at the last minute. In this case I registered a week before the race. I was excited about doing the race but my training was very erratic. Some weeks I would be in the pool three days, other weeks I would make it once. Biking peaked for me at the beginning of August and as much as I wanted to ride more, opportunities were not very plentiful. Running was even worse, and I was running maybe once a week for four or five miles. This is what training looks like when you have a family with budding teenagers and a more than full time career. I know I should train more, or at least be more consistent, but I tend to fit it in when I can. So far it seems to be working for me but I can’t help but wonder how I would do if I really trained. Just for the record, I don’t recommend this training regime. Its ripe with the opportunity for injury and can make a race a very miserable event. As they say on television, I am a trained professional at not training, don’t attempt this at home. It may result in serious injury or death! OK, not that extreme, but regular training is the way to go. Deciding to race on a whim is not smart. And its especially stupid as you increase the distance you are racing. Unfortunately, I really like the half IM distance more than anything and this race really appealed to me because of the ocean swim and….. well it provided an opportunity for me to redeem myself after Frank kicked my ass at the Pacific Crest Half IM in June. I figured I might have a shot at beating him on this one and could not pass on the opportunity. Sorry Frank, its my competitive nature.
I stayed at my brothers place in Livermore, which is an hour drive from Santa Cruz. It was a nice opportunity to visit, but driving to Santa Cruz and back on both Saturday and Sunday really sucked. Saturday morning my brother and his buddies wanted to go for a ride. I told them I would go, but I had to keep my heart rate way down. We ended up doing a 30 mile ride in the hills around Livermore and I did manage to keep my heart rate down. My brother and I are very competitive with each other and it was really enjoyable to drop him and his buddies on a climb while maintaining a heart rate of 130. I thought it was a nice little warm up, but probably more than what I should have done. Later on Saturday my brother and his wife came with me to the pre-registration. To be honest, I was a bit nervous picking up my race packet and looking around. The web site had really hyped up the pre race expo and when I arrived there were two vendors and a Hawaiian lady singing. The music was cool, but not seeing many people around and the cheesy pre race expo compared to what was shown on the race website made me a little nervous. I was thinking there might be two or three hundred people max doing the event. It still looked fun and I still had a shot of redemption with Frank. The weather sucked that afternoon with strong winds from the North and a forecast for cooler temps the following day. The water was a balmy 56 degrees according to the NOAA weather info. It was sunny, but it was slightly chilly with the wind. I was nervous thinking the next day was going to be colder and I was going to come out of the water cold and trying to ride.
I walked the distance from the water exit to the transition area. It was about 0.2 miles. I had several discussions with every racer I could find about wearing shoes or not. The overwhelming suggestion was to go barefoot, but that was not very appealing to think of running on pavement with no protection. I did not consider that the water was 56 degrees and my feet would be comfortably numb after leaving the water.
On race day, I had to get up at 4 AM to get my stuff together, eat a bagel with peanut butter and get a cup of coffee in me before we had to leave. My brother elected to come watch, but his wife elected to sleep in (smart choice). My brother had never seen a triathlon before and asked if I felt a little too old to be doing this. I laughed and told him that I was still in the young age group and the most competitive. Little did I know that I was not exaggerating as I thought I was. That story later.
Made it to the transition area a few minutes after 6 AM and they were already calling for swimmers to come down to the beach. It was still dark, but it was a lot warmer than the previous day. That really help chill me out and calm down. I was afraid I was going to need a lay of clothes after the swim to stay warm on the bike. I was very comfortable in my tri suit. Got my area set up quickly and noticed that there were a lot of people in the transition area. By the time I got to the beach, I realized this race event was legit and seeing 800 folks lined up on the beach got my fired up.
I was in the second to last swim wave for the men. It was a beach start, which I had never done before. I use to surf a lot, so I was not to worried about it. The swells were small, but still enough that they would come into play entering the water and during the swim. The swim is around a peer, which made this a great spectator swim. My brother was able to follow me through the entire swim. The start was great, a mass of guys running to the water. I was able to get out in front right away and got only knee deep before diving in. It was a great start for me, except I was a little confused. About 10 guys, including Frank went way to my right. All the rest were way to my left. I mean a long ways. The guys on my left were at least 100 yards away and the guys to my right were about 50 yards away. I was not sure where the hell they were all going, but the big orange buoy looked like it was straight in front of me. I got into a quick tempo and felt great. I rounded the first buoy and was looking for the second. The swells were big enough that if you did not time your sighting at the crest you couldn’t see anything. They said the second buoy was beyond the end of the pier, but I could not see it. After getting close to the end of the pier I realized all of those 70 guys that were off to my left had a clue and the buoy was a ways off to my left and it was a right hand turn around the pier. Needless to say I added some yardage. Obviously Frank seemed to figure it out before I did and shortly after rounding the buoy I saw Frank. He breathes to his right and I breath to my left. We made eye contact for a long ways until I rounded the third buoy. I then realized that the swim and the bike were my only opportunity to put distance between us because Frank can smoke me on the run. So I kicked it up a notch and watched Frank disappear behind me. I had a great exit and began the run to the transition. I had a fairly strong swim with 30.5 minute time. My brother was freaking out because he could not believe how many I passed during the swim. He gave me my play by play of my swim as I ran and he rode his mt. bike to the transition. The water was cold enough to numb my feet, so the running on pavement actually felt good.
It took me over 4 minutes to run to the transition from the water exit and then three minutes in the transition. The crowd around was great cheering everyone on and there seemed to be a lot of people who just came to watch. I had a good exit on my bike and was feeling good. I usually at this point in the race look at my heart rate for the first time to see where I am at. I checked and my brand new heart rate monitor was not working. I messed with it while I rode, but it would not pick up a signal. A couple of years ago I had read an article warning people like me who live and die by a heart rate monitor to always check how you felt against the number you read for your heart rate. I had spent the last couple of years doing that religiously and would guess my heart rate before looking at my watch. I got very good and knowing what heart rate I was at based on how I felt. I guessed that I was a little high at about a 155 for the bike start so I stayed in my small chain ring and just chilled out until I felt like it was closer to 140 or 145. It didn’t take long and I felt like I was going to easy. It was a flat course with some gentle rollers so I knew I could perform well on the course. I went to the big ring and then just locked my cadence in on 90 and tried to maintain a medium effort. I was passing a lot of people and was feeling very comfortable. It was only a little more than a week prior that I had my bike biomechanically fit, which was probably not very smart to do just before the race. However, I felt very comfortable and was cruising along. Since the hills were short climbs, I stayed in my big ring to power up them and then cruise at the top and the decent. The first little climb I came to I jumped out of my saddle to power up the hill and my bike made a noise that freaked me out. It sounded like I had cracked my frame or some other crunchy grinding noise. As soon as I dropped back into my saddle and shifted down it stopped. I stopped on the middle of the climb and flipped my bike over and quickly ran my hands along the frame. I could find nothing. This persisted and I stopped several times trying to figure it out which I never did. I stopped powering up the climbs and shifted down and spun my way up to avoid the noise. It was at that point that my bike started ghost shifting on me. I was trying to stay cool, but I was getting frustrated. I messed with my micro adjustments and got it to stop. All in all, I figure I lost several minutes just messing with my bike. When I got to mile 22 I saw the first riders coming back. They had a 12 mile lead on me and then I started to count bikes. I lost count after 150 and made my turn shortly after I lost count. On the way in I just stayed in the saddle and began to hammer my big gear. I passed five full tri bikes with the disc wheel and the whole set up. Two of them were P3’s. I felt pretty good about that and I got some funny looks as I went by. With 13 miles left to go you had to cross some rail tracks that were not perpendicular to the road. An ambulance was stationed there and I hit them at a very fast clip. It was more jarring than what I had anticipated and my aero bottle went flying through the air in front of me full of my water/hammer gel mix. It spun in the air a few times in front of me and I just continued to watch it as it hit the ground and then slid into the traffic lane. I had a momentary thought of stopping and then just blew it off. I began to look at my ride time on my computer and realized I might have a shot at breaking two and a half hours. Long story short I entered the transition with a bike time of 2:34, which is still very respectable for me. When I entered the transition area I was shocked to see that there were very, very few bikes in the racks. Somewhere less than 50 bikes. That made me feel pretty good and gave me a good start to the run.
The run was very scenic and remarkably enjoyable. I usually really suffer on the run, but felt great the entire time. I did not stop once, which is not normal for me on a half IM. Sharley cruised by me at mile 11 and I was at mile 8+ when I saw Frank on his way out to the turn around. The last 0.25 mile was in the sand and part of that you had to run through the water, which made the finish very challenging. It was a great finish with a 2:07 run and an overall time of 5:23. I was very stoked and felt great.
This race venue is awesome and I highly recommend it. It would be an ideal course for someone who is doing their first half IM because of the flat terrain and mild weather. I am looking forward to doing it again next year and hope to see a lot more FAST folks there.
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