Holiday Lake Triathlon and Iowa City Duathlon...Racing Back to Back

Not the ideal setup, but I raced two events last weekend.

Holiday Lake Triathlon

The past two years I've participated in the Holiday Lake Triathlon.  It's such a great event.  The money raised goes back to the Holiday Lake community, and therefore the community really helps out to put on the race.  They also have a great selection of post-race food, including pizza!  The start time is 9am, which allows for a little sleeping in.  In previous years we've taken the camper up (we can camp there for free), but since we wouldn't be staying Saturday night I just drove over myself.  Thankfully one of the people organizing the event, Ebe, is a friend and has in-laws that live on the lake who are VERY nice and let me crash at their house.  The race site is only an hour from our house, but it's nice to not have to rush in the morning and make the long drive.

The race is pretty small with about 100 total registered with only 25 being women.  With so few women, it wasn't too difficult to figure out the competition.  With Jenny Lorenz only swimming and biking due to a injury, I figured I just needed to stay ahead of her and I was good.

I'm trying to do better at getting in a decent warmup before races.  Today consisted of a half mile run, 15 min bike, and I swam the course.

There are two swim waves for the race.  The first was men with the second being women and teams.  I lined up a away from the rope so I wouldn't get caught up in it.  Next to the rope was a former swim teammate from high school, Eric Greving.  As I'm sprinting the first 100 yards or so I realize I should have started next to him so I could draft.  But, it didn't matter as I passed him before we got to the turnaround.

Jenny heading out on the bike.

Out on the bike I kept an eye on Jenny.  The route heads east out of the lake area, then south for about 5 miles, turns around and leads north past the turn to the lake, then turns around again to head back south towards the lake (kind of like a T with transition being at the bottom of the T).  This gave me two chances to see where the women were.  It looked like Jenny was keeping the same distance, but I was gaining a decent amount of time on the others, so kept my watts in check for pretty much the entire bike...with one exception.  A few miles before the second turnaround I caught and pass one of the men.  Shortly after that he passed me, I passed him, he passed me again, and I made my final pass and push to keep ahead of him.  By the turnaround I had gained almost 30 seconds in those few miles.  I'm guessing he didn't like being passed by a chick on a pink bike.

I saw Jenny's runner (and Ebe's son), Sage, in T2 waiting for her to arrive.  We talked a bit, and I let him know she wasn't far behind me.  He was super excited to be racing, and it was pretty cool to see a kid that young running the 5k.

Sage and Ebe.  Love the mini Gear West uniform!

The run is full of short, steep hills.  I cruised through the first half, and counted back to see where I stood.  I saw Sage before any other women.  With the duathlon being the next day, I took it pretty easy to the finish line.  Ended up in first place by over 4 minutes.  Good stuff!

Final descent to the finish line.

Ebe and I with our awards at his awesome post-race party!

Iowa City Duathlon

I knew the Iowa City Duathlon was going to be a tough race going into it.   It's a series of three races with this one being the second.  For the first one at Macbride I came in second place.  The first (Jen) and third (Joanna) place women were also racing, and didn't have a race the previous day.  The Iowa City race had a longer bike and shorter run, which was an advantage for me as Jen is an amazing runner but I can out-bike her.  Joanna just got a new bike and has increased her speed to the point that she's right with me.

My warmup was about a 20min bike followed by a 5min run with Joanna to check out the north side of the run course.  Not much soreness going on.

The first run was a 2-mile all-out sprint for most people.  I held back a little not knowing how my body was going to handle everything.  As I was heading into T1 Jen was already out on her bike and Joanna was at her bike.  

The bike is 20 miles as two 5-mile out and backs.  With the last run being the same distance as the first run (2 miles), when you get to mile 10 of the bike the race is exactly half way done.  At the first turnaround at mile 5 Jen was still pretty far ahead and it looked like I was catching Joanna, but it was very slow going.  For the next 5 miles I wondered if I even had a shot at passing either of them, but I didn't give up.  Just as I approached the half-way point of the bike, I passed Joanna and just after that passed Jen.  All 3 of us were within seconds of each other and were were exactly at the half-way point of the race.  Things just got interesting.  I hoped my endurance was better than theirs.  I spent the final 10 miles of the bike trying to gain as much time as I could on both of them.  Joanna and I traded places a few times, but I was finally able to pull away, but not by much.

Getting ready to run...fast!

Joanna was heading into T2 as I was changing shoes.  I didn't see Jen until I was out on the run course, but knew she could still catch me.  I spent the final 2 miles running scared.    The run is a big loop around the lake, so no chance to see how things are going behind me.  With about a half mile to go I saw Jen's husband, Jeff, waiting for her.  Just after I went by him I thought I heard him cheering for Jen, so assumed she wasn't far behind.  I picked up the pace to whatever I had left in me....and, it was enough!  I crossed the finish line, looked back, and I had plenty of time to spare (26 seconds to be exact).  I saw Joanna with Jen so close behind her and closing the gap!  I yelled at Joanna to GO!!  She made it across the finish in second place with Jen only 3 seconds back.  

It's rare that I wear my garmin in a race, but had done so for this one.  It was fun to see my exact paces for the two runs.  The average pace for the first run was 6:38.  For the second run, my average pace was 6:32 pace over the 2 miles and 6:07 pace for the last half mile.  On the bike, my watts for each 5 mile segment were were 198 (don't think I have a chance of catching), 211 (I'm actually catching them!), 203 (passing took a bit out of me), and 205 (need a bigger gap!).

Overall I'm extremely happy with this race.  I was able to negative split the two runs, and the negative split the second run.  My watts for the duathlon were the same as the Pigman triathlon, even with a 5 mile longer course and racing the day prior.  In the past I've mentally given up too early, and I didn't do that.  Today hurt, but it was so much fun at the same time.  Can't wait for my next challenge!

Women's Overall Podium

The Little Pig

Every spring since the beginning of my triathlon journey I have raced the Pigman sprint triathlon.  Most years, including this year, it’s my first triathlon of the season.  It’s also my first chance to see the impact of the hard work, or lack of, that I put in over the winter.  In 2011 I was training for the Kansas 70.3, which was the weekend after the Pigman sprint. With the half-ironman at the beginning of the summer, I had a great base going into Pigman.  That was also the year we did Ironman Wisconsin, and then promptly lost motivation for training.  It wasn’t until the middle of last summer when I switched to Daniel Bretscher for training that the interest in training returned. 

The Marion Half Marathon and Macbride duathlon were slight glimpses into the outcome of my training, and it looked good.  But, they weren’t triathlons, and they weren’t races that I could use to really compare my fitness from year to year.

Leading up to the race, I’ve been busy with training and other life things that I didn’t have as much time to stalk the starting list as I have in previous year.  I think this helped keep my nerves down as I didn’t really know who I was competing against…except for one triathlete, Heather Lendway. She not only won her age division at Age Group Nationals last year, she was the fastest overall female.  If she showed up for the race I knew I had no chance of beating her.  The race places to the top-5, so I hoped no more than 3 other fast women would register.   I also didn’t create any expected hopes for my times.  Let the cards fall where they may.

Friday night we hauled the camper to Palo.  My job during camper setup is to keep the water spigot open.  This involves me sitting still for about 10min on the handle of the water pump thing.  Thankfully a few days earlier we had picked up some Bug Soother!  The gnats were horrendous!  Sprayed some on, and I wasn’t touched!  I could see them swarm around me. It was kind of surreal.  

Campe with a loft a the campground...interesting.

Slept in Saturday as long as I could, then relaxed a bit before a quick bike, run, packet pickup, and a stop at Peck's Nursery for a few garden plants.

The line to get into transition always starts early in the morning, and I arrived with at least 25 people ahead of me.  Good enough.  I was racing elite and there is usually plenty of room on our racks.  One of several perks of being in the elite waves.   Typically I spend most of the pre-race time socializing with others, but Daniel gave me a warmup to do which would eat into a lot of that time.  

I knew the traffic coming into the park was not going to be fun to deal with, so I brought my trainer and did my bike warmup at the camper after a short run.  Then, back to transition to start the dance of pulling on the wetsuit.   This was the first race with my new wetsuit, and it's a little snugger than my old one.  Not necessarily a bag thing, just takes more time to get on.  Time was already getting away from me, so my swim warmup was cut a bit short.  I still was able to get in more swimming, biking, and running than I ever have pre-race.

The elite women take off first, followed by the elite men.  The time between the two is meant to equalize the field, and the first person across the finish line gets a bonus cash prize.  Makes things a little more interesting.  So, my wave had 5 of us.  I had hoped that I could keep up and draft off at least one of the women, but no luck.  Our swim finish times were about 40 seconds apart from each other.  When I came out of the water I knew I was in third, and was told the lead woman was a minute and a half ahead (she ended up with the fastest swim of the race..including the men!).   

As I was coming into transition I could see second place leaving.  T1 was a little bit of a struggle with the tighter wetsuit.  I also haven't learned how to mount my bike and then put my shoes on, so I get the pleasure of running through the entire transition area with my bike shoes on.  Never fun.

I could tell I was gaining some time on the second women, and ended up catching in her the first few miles.  Now, I just had to keep up that pace.  At the first turnaround I saw that I was continuing to gain time on her, and fourth place was a decent distance back. At the second turnaround it looked like I was extending my lead over third and fourth, and loosing ground to first.  

Last year the men started catching me as I was riding by the lake in the park.  It was nice to get into transition without being passed yet.

I love my Zoot shoes, but still need to practice putting them on in T2.  Everything else went well.  As I was leaving transition I saw third place come in.  I figured I had a few minutes on her.  Hopefully good enough for a 5k.   At the first turn I spectator let me know that the lead woman was only 3 and a half minutes up.  Only?!?!  Yup, catching her is not gonna happen.

The run is an out and back with a turnaround at halfway.  Usually I feel pretty crappy running the entire time, but this year it didn't take much before I got into a good groove.  I've been working a lot on my form over the winter, and I felt it was helping. But, I didn't wear a watch, so had no clue if I was actually running really slow.  At the turnaround it seemed third was closing the gap, but I didn't think there was enough distance left in the race for her to catch me.  But, you never know, so I kept up my effort.

I looked over my shoulder a the last turn into the final stretch and couldn't see any women behind me.  It's all downhill from there, so no reason to let up then.  I crossed the finish line with Wes Anderson.  If the race truly is gender neutral with the staggered start, then I'm very honored to be the female version of him :)

Photo finish with Wes Anderson

In all, I was very happy with my race.  Comparatively to my previous PR, I'm further ahead than I expected to be.  My swim is a little lacking, but maybe I was able to draft in 2011.  I'll just thinks that why I wasn't much faster this year :)  The bike course was slightly different this year, with a full turnaround instead of four 90-degree turns in Palo.  That probably slowed my down a little in 2011, but not almost a minute.  The run has by far been my greatest improvement.  And, for that, I'm very happy. 

2011: 

Swim 7:18

T1 1:56

Bike 41:33

T2 0:56

Run 21:55

Total 1:13:35

2014: 

Swim 7:19

T1 1:51

Bike 40:46

T2 1:02

Run 20:35

Total 1:11:30

 I'll take a 2 minute PR :)  Looking forward to see how the rest of the season goes!  Event got a little writeup in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. 

Women's Overall Podium

2nd place club - Iowa HEAT

Macbride Duathlon

This is the second year I have raced the Lake MacBride Duathlon.  Last year it was delayed by 30min due to storms, but thankfully this year the storms held off until the afternoon.  We ended up with great weather!

I love races that I can sleep in my own bed and eat a leisurely breakfast before heading to the race site.  This duathlon is the first in a series of three which are all very close to where we live.  As an added bonus, there is $ for the overall winners, and Sheels gift cards for the top 3 in each age group.  In 2013 I won the first two, and came in second for the final race to Jen Paul which was the only race of the series that she competed in. For 2014, she's apparently decided to race all 3.   Ugh!

Pre-race:
I was up at 5am, had my normal pre-race breakfast, then checked on the chickens before I left.  Our Rhode Island Red has been laying soft eggs, which is not good.  She had one yesterday, and I found another one this morning.  From my online searches, it seems she's not getting enough calcium.  And, fellow racer Sara Swanson confirmed it (totally jealous that she has chickens and GOATS!).

When transition opened at 6:30am I was already there.  The race doesn't start until 8am, but it's amazing how fast the time goes by.  I'm so bad about warming up.  I'd much rather talk to friends that I don't see very often then to head out for a warm up.  I did manage to get in a few miles on the bike and maybe a mile run.

Run #1 (2.35 miles @ 7:19/mile):
The race starts with a downhill, then flat, then back up the hill.  I felt I held pretty steady the entire run.  A few women that started out ahead of me I reeled back in by the end.  Maxed my HR at the end at 194.  Didn't know it could go above 190! I came into T1 as second woman with Jen WAY ahead of me (she averaged 6:28/mile...did I mention she's a runner?).


T1 (0:28):
Good enough for not practicing, but it's really not that complicated anyway.

Bike (18.09 miles @ 21.96mph):
Felt like I had a good effort.  Nothing special though.  Norm Power numbers for the halves were 192 for both (last year was 184avg).  At least I was consistent.  Crappy part of the bike was seeing Ian on the ground after being hit by an SUV on the way back to the park.  Wasn't pretty.  Felt nauseous the rest of the bike thinking about it.  Best part though was almost catching Jen Paul.

T2 (0:28):
Good dismount for only practicing once, which was yesterday when finishing up my first outdoor ride of the year.  Need to practice getting in my shoes with sweaty feet.  But, LOVE my Zoot Kiawe shoes!

Run #2 (3.42 miles @ 7:16/mile):
Jen left T2 just ahead of my and I knew I had no chance of catching her.  I was also pretty sure Joanna was behind me and wasn't going to catch me.  Still, I ran hard.  Not AGN hard, but hard.  Start and end to the run is hilly, but flat in the middle.  I prefer flat courses...this was not one.

Overall (1:32:29):
I had hoped to break 1:30 (was 1:31:51 last year).  Run #1 was 41" faster, bike was 1' faster, but I'm pretty sure (and other's are pretty sure as well) that Run #2 was longer than last year.  My second run time was almost 2.5min slower this year.

I'm happy with where I am with my fitness.  Really looking forward to adding in a swim to the races.  Three weeks until my first triathlon of the season!

Women's Overall Podium
Joanna Hall (3rd), Jen Paul (1st), and me (2nd) 

Men's Overall Podium
Tim Doyle (3rd), Daniel Bretscher aka my awesome coach (1st), and Jeff Paul (2nd)

Marion Rotary Half Marathon Race Report - Yup, That Hurt

Note/Warning/Heads Up:  Early on in my triathlon journey I started writing up race reports after most races.  What time did I get up?  When did I have breakfast?  Did I eat too early or too late?  How many calories did I put in my water bottle?  Was it enough?  Did I take any calories in on the run?  If not, should I have?  There are so many details I forget over the next 364 days.  I frequently look back to them when getting ready for the current season races.  The below race report may seem a bit rambled, but so are the ones I kept to myself in the past.  The main difference between the blog post race reports and then ones I used to create are the addition of pictures.  

Friday

Not only was this the first race of the year, but also our first camping trip!  Last year we stayed at Squaw Creek, but they don’t open until April 15^th (the race was a week later last year), but thankfully Palisades was open, which is only about 15min further from the race site.   We packed up the camper and were pulling out of the driveway in record time.  As I register our campsite, Wes finds a water pump to fill up the camper…and the water isn’t turned on yet.  Crap!  I had called a few days earlier and they said it would be on.  Quick call to coach Daniel who lives just a few miles away, and we rolled over to his house.  I had a few extra eggs from our girls, so traded 2 eggs for 30 gallons of water. 

It was almost 8 before we were setting up the camper, so I cooked up some dinner (chicken brats for me, veggie burgers for Wes, and roasted carrots with fresh sage as our side).  Just a bit of relaxing afterwards before heading to bed.   Not the best night’s sleep.  Our dog can be a bit annoying at times, and we were woken in the middle of the night by another dog at a not-very-close camper.  Damn yippee thing!  Wes was up early to be at work by 7am at ProFit.  As the truck left, the dog was woken again. 

Saturday

With Wes gone and the pissant dog finally quiet, I fell back to sleep until almost 8am.  So nice! 

My scheduled workout for the day was a 15 mile easy bike ride (~100 watts) followed by a 3 mile run at 8:30-9:00 pace. The weather was beautiful out (70’s) and I hadn’t ridden outside yet, but the roads within the park are not ideal and outside of the park is a busy highway.  So, I set my bike on the trainer outside the camper and watched the Auckland Women’s UTC race.  Just a few odd stares by campers out for a walk.  Wes was back to the camper and joined me for the run. 

Enjoying the outdoors

After lunch (bacon-wrapped turkey tenderloin for me, free-range chicken breast for Wes, and grilled brussles sprouts for a side) we drove over to packet pickup, then to the Dreaming Bear to visit with the awesome owner, and finally a stop by a new brewery, Lion Bridge, in Cedar Rapids to continue the pre-race flight tradition.  The beer wasn’t anything special, but we also tried their Ginger Hibiscus Soda which they also brew. Good stuff!   We’d go back for the soda, but not the beer.

Continuing the pre-race flight tradition

The rest of the day was spent relaxing at the campsite and watching a movie before heading to bed early.  And, a lot of checking the forecast and hoping Mother Nature would cooperate for the race.

Sunday (race day)

We were woken in the middle of the night again, but this time for heavy rains and wind (and hail?).  The 4:30am alarm was not fun.  So early to be up on a weekend, but that comes with most races.  It was still raining, but looked like there was a chance of clearing up.

I made up our normal pre-race breakfast of coffee, egg/cheese/turkey bacon muffin, and cantaloupe.  I normally try to eat 2.5 hour ahead of time, but hoped 2 hours would be enough and feared the race might be delayed and didn’t want to have to get hungry. 

The rain turned to drizzle as we drove to the race site.  Our parking spot was near the finish area which is about a half mile from the start line.  My warm-up was 10min descending from 8-7:30 pace.  I wanted to wear different shoes for the warm up, but it was so close to the race start time, and such a distance from the truck to the start, that I just wore my race shoes, which meant starting the race with wet shoes.  I was very happy for the drainage holes in the Kawia’s, so they didn’t stay water-logged. 

Soggy race start.

The race has a 3:05 pacer for the full marathon, and based on my training I thought 1:32:30 was a good goal for the half.  I was happy to see Ross from We Run holding the pace sign.  I can’t imagine someone being fast enough to run a 3:05 let alone being a pacer holding a sign for 26.2 miles running a 3:05 marathon. Crazy!

Awesome picture of Ross towards the end of the marathon

The half stays on the same route for about the first 7.5 miles.  The first mile is mostly uphill.  It already felt like a little struggle, but I chalked it up to going uphill.  The next few miles were gently rolling.  We kept a nice, steady pace, and some runners who had gone out a bit fast were already starting to fall back to us then behind us.  There was one other woman with our pace group.  Another woman, Julie, fell back to our group.  She asked which race the two of us were doing, which we responded the half.  Julie told us there were two really speedy women up ahead, but didn’t know if they were doing the half, full, or team. 

So, up until a week ago I was just hoping to win by age group again.  I was surprised to win it last year, but figured most of the faster women were running the full marathon, which made it easier to win my age group.  But, then I learned there was prize money for the top 3 finishers.  I couldn’t find the results for the 2013 race, but heard it wasn’t all that fast.  I’ve never won money in a running race.  Hmmm…maybe it’s possible.

Knowing there were only two women ahead of me gave me a little motivation to keep with the pace.   The other woman that was running with the 3:05 pace group fell off after the first few miles, but I didn’t know if anyone was sneaking up behind, or if I’d be able to hold onto the pace for the rest of the race. 

I just hung with Ross, dropping back a little on the uphills and catching up on the downhills.  When the race split, there were three of us together doing the half.  The guy ahead of me was doing well at keeping the same pace, so I just followed him.   After another mile or so I felt I could go a little faster pace, so slowly went around him.  Miles 10-11 were not fun at all.  I just kept thinking it was less than a 5k left. That’s nothing!  I was slowly catching the next guy ahead of me, so tried to use him as a rabbit to keep pushing forward.  The mile marker for mile 12 was way past where my watch beeped for mile splits.  WTF?  The last mile has a chunk of uphill to it to get back to the high school parking lot, then downhill to the stadium and part-way around the track.  My rabbit was picking up his pace, and I was losing ground.  I didn’t have the energy to stay with him, let alone try to catch him.  I let him go.

As I was rounding the track towards the finish line, the announcer was stating the finish number of the athletes.  I was #21.  I gave all I could at the finish, which wasn’t much, but I wasn’t about to let up after going so hard for over 13 miles.

The mileage on my Garmin said 13.34 miles, which was fairly consistent with what other people had.  It may not seem like much, but it’s almost a quarter of a mile long. At 13.09 miles I had a time of 1:32:06, and over a 3-minute PR.   My finish time this year compared to last year was 10 minutes faster.  I’m happy with where I am in my running, but know it can be better. 

Done!

The race conditions were just a little wind when we were out in the country for a few miles, temps in the mid 50’s, and no rain (for us, the marathon was not so lucky).  I felt hydrated enough that I didn’t take in any water or nutrition on the course, which is typical for my training at that distance as well.  I did wish I had a bit more time between breakfast and the race, as I could feel it still sitting in my stomach for most of the race.  I did have a slight fear of it coming back up.

I wore shorts, a t-shirt, and a hat.  At the start of the race I had knee-high men’s socks (grey and purple argyle…I picked out pretty ones) that I had cut off the toe to use as arm warmers.  I ditched them at the second water stop.  I did get pretty warm during the race and considered ditching my hat.  I think a visor and tank top would have been better options. 

During the race I never looked at my watch.  I was happy to have a pacer push me for the first few miles.  If he wasn’t there, I’m not sure I would have kept up the pace as long as I did.  My heart rate data in my Garmin file confirms my thoughts that I was running on the edge most of the race.  Not sure if I’ve ever kept my HR above 170 that long.  My pace was pretty consistent, with a slight push at the end.

The results originally showed me as 2^nd place for the women, and then later in the afternoon had me dropped to 3^rd with a new chick showing up in first with a time of 1:22.  That night I was back to 2^nd.  Not sure what was going on, and it shouldn’t matter to me, but of course it did.  I still randomly check to see if I’m still sitting in second.  I’ll believe it for sure when I get the check in the mail.  It’s nice to get a little kickback from a race to help with all the costs associated with training and racing. It’s definitely not enough to cover the expenses of a year in the sport, but any little bit helps.  And, now I can say I won money at a running race!  Never thought that would happen.  And, yes, I do know this is a small-town race.  I’m sure if it was a Rock ‘n Roll half, I’d just be happy placing in my age group.  I still have work to do.

Thanks
A few thank you's...to my coach Daniel Bretscher for pushing me beyond my mental limits, Zoot Sports for the great clothes and awesome shoes, We Run for hosting group runs so I don't have to run by myself all the time, EpiCor for keeping me healthy and for quicker recoveries from hard training days, Core Fitness for having classes that help with injury prevention, and Wes for waking up early for sherpa duty on a not-so-ideal weather day.

Up next is the Scheels Lake MacBride Duathlon on May 11th.  

The 2014 Season Begins, Hopefully

I didn’t start running until shortly before I got into triathlons.  I didn’t see the point of it…and it hurt.  I couldn’t run more than a block without stopping.  Then, one day, I decided to push myself to keep moving forward.  I ran a block, walked a block, ran a block, walked a block, for a mile.  I kept at it and I could finally run a mile without stopping. My goal for my first triathlon (Cy-man in 2005) was to run the entire 5k without having to walk, and I did it!  At the Run for the Schools in 2006 I did the 10k.  Shortly after the half-way point, there is an out and back section in which the 10k turns around, but the half marathon runners keep going. I had a friend doing the half, and I remember thinking she is amazing!  I couldn’t imagine running over twice the distance of the race I was doing. 

I gradually increased my running and the following year I decided to give the Pigman Long Course a try, which has a half marathon run after completing a 1 mile swim and 56 mile bike.  While training, I injured my adductor and spent the next two and a half years recovering with most of the time not being able to run.  It was very frustrating, but I learned to appreciate running. 

Of the three disciplines in triathlon, running has always be my weakest.  It’s very rare that I pass someone, and not uncommon to be passed.  I’m usually spending the entire run wondering how close behind me my next competitor is and if I will be able to hold them off from passing me.

So, this winter Coach Daniel and I have been working on my running speed (and a small attempt at my shuffle form, which I didn’t realize was so prominent until I saw a film of me running...Ugh!).  I have been putting in more run miles than in the past, and increasing my pace on speed work.  Most weeks the team meets up for track workouts which have really pushed me not only physically, but mentally as well. 

The first ‘test’ of my fitness is tomorrow at the Marion Rotary UICCU Half Marathon.  I ran the race last year with a finish time of 1:42:51, which is a pretty typical time for the amount of training I put into it.  My PR is 1:36:11  from the 2011 Race for the Roses in Portland when I was gearing up for Kansas 70.3, which is early in the season, and is the same year I did Ironman Wisconsin. Up until very recently I assumed that would always be my PR.

Hmmm…what will tomorrow bring? Whatever it is, I hope it doesn't include the 70% chance of thunderstorms which would postpone or cancel the race.