JackRabbit JerseyMan 70.3 Race Report

Wow! It's been a long time since my last entry..... this report might end up to be a long!

Added this to the calendar to serve as a tune up event for the big daddy IMLP which is now only two months away from today.    The day before, me and my brother did a short brick workout 20miles ride and 3 miles run.   I was feeling great, so I was having a hard time holding myself back. 

My day started 4am, took a shower and ate breakfast (bowl of cereal w/milk, toasted pan desal w/ peanut butter and cup of coffee).  Arrived at Spruce Run 0615 and the race is scheduled to start 0800. So Lence and I had enough time to pick up race packet and setup our stuff at transition.   This is only the 3rd year for JerseyMan, so relatively it's not that big compared to the IM brand 70.3s.. But I'm sure this will become a premier event here in the tri state area, paceracing.org did a really great job organizing the race, I will rate this 4 out of 5 stars (will tell you later what I think could use some improvement).    

The transition area atmosphere was very relaxed and the thing I appreciated most was that we didn't had to hustle and battle for the bathroom!!! Then the other FAT members started to arrived, Jasper (70.3 virgin) Rainier, Mark & Kit who did a sprint triathlon the day before (Looneys!)  We all went down to the swim starting area, again feeling relaxed and calm.   This was my 5th 70.3 and I have never felt relaxed like this before.

Photo by: Intense Focus http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Intense-Focus/146590505401198

My game plan for the swim was to take it easy... Water temps was in the low 60's and  foggy, made it very difficult for sighting, also meant no swim warm up for me since I didn't want to freeze.  The swim was a U shape swim, with the buoys always on our right side.  There were five buoys on the way out before we turned right, then one buoy on the middle before we turned right to head back to the beach with another five buoys.  After the 4th buoy it was very difficult to sight the turn buoy, was to far apart, another buoy would had help.  I kept relaxed, strokes long and smooth, used 2 beat kicks.  When I finally saw the swim finishing chute, I started to pick up my pace a little bit.   Came out out of the 34 mins and change.

T1 - wanted to try out a new strategy that I want to use during IMLP.  Instead of wearing a tri top, I would change into a regular bike jersey because I want to stash all my nutrition, spare tubes and CO2 cartridges.   It wasn't bad but I think I'm just going to go back have a nutrition bag attach to my bike and have all my spare taped to the saddle.  

Got into my bike planning to keep an easy effort, but it's hard not to put in a big effort when the course is hilly .  It was still foggy and the visibility was poor during the first 10 miles before it cleared up.   The bike course is very scenic, we passed along residential areas, open farmlands, the Delaware river, creeks and mountains.   At mile 46 was the final major hill,  I was on my big ring on the front since we were riding flat roads before when we had to make that hard left and hit the climb.  I tried to drop to the small ring but it wouldn't, so I had to get off and drop it by hand.   This was when Mark V. passed me, he was kind enough to wait for me since I couldn't get ride on my bike again until we got to the flatter section.   I was very disappointed, I know I could have climbed that hill but instead I walked!   Overall bike split 3:23, not too bad compared to my Timberman bike split of 3:20 which I think was a notch easier compared to this course.

Bike Profile

    













T2 - changed to tri top from my bike jersey, no issues and started to "run".

The first 2.5 miles was inside the park, started with an older man and he told me he like my pace, I replied back "it's only going to get slower".  I had to stop to pee, so the older man went ahead.   Legs felt so heavy, I was thinking maybe we shouldn't have done the brick workout yesterday.   Somewhere along the course a driver pulled over, I thought he was going to attack me, but he only wanted to inquire how long was each leg, so I replied 1.2 swim, 56 bike, 13.1 run, the driver followed up, is this over TWO days?  I smiled and said we have to complete all under 8 hours!   Finally after mile 5 I got into a rhythm, kept a steady pace until I got back in the park.   I still had over 2 miles to run, but I can hear the announcer on the loud speakers as the other athletes finished.  This was not good for me mentally, I just wanted to get this all over.  I still had a lot in my tank, but I just got impatient because it appears to be almost done but I know I still have over 20mins of running to do.   Overall run time 2:29, I even had a faster split on the second half which I was very happy.

Overall time 6:33:59 almost a 15 minute improvement from my previous 70.3 personal best time.

Thanks everyone for reading and hope to see you out on the road.  Ironman Lake Placid here I come!!!

Special thanks to some friends who came out and took very amazing photos.   They had to also get up early in the morning and waited for us in the park until we finished, you guys are amazing  James Ang from Intense Focus http://intensefocussbr.zenfolio.com/p768692684 and the Leyno brothers Edwin and Edgar http://www.flickr.com/photos/infinititech/sets/72157626782831022/