Mooseman International Distance RR


Hey kids this one's in the bag.

What a great weekend ! Great friends, excellent house rental, weather rocked, and most of all we were in stunning New Hampshire. I love NH.

What differentiates New Hampshire from other New England states is its physical beauty. The land is so lush with green . Its softer in quality than Maine or Vermont. Don't get me wrong, I love those states too, but NH is tranquil.

This race is my second Endurfunsports event. Timberman in 05 was the other. Keith Jordan puts on the best non-M-Dot races in the biz. Top notch in every aspect.

So to cut to the chase....had a very satisfying race. I'll post pics soon.

The only bummer was me forgetting my nutrition at home. Friday was such a chaotic day, more so than usual, so I'm actually lucky I remembered to even load up my Cervelo.

Our friends the Cookies,Sil and Tomo were all racing this weekend too so the house rental was a must. We get along great so this was going to be a bit of a vacation too.

Friday arrival went well, the house was better than we thought and no too far from the race site so +1 there. With a big group like us getting dinner was logistically tough , but we got through it and ate in. Not my ideal meal, but my bad for not giving this more thought.

I took for granted the fact that even an Olympic distance requires good carbo-loading 24hrs out.

Race Morning: Got to the site on time and since it wasn't overnite racking for bikes, got that squared away.
Water was glass still. From the shore I was thinking that the course " looked " long for a .9 swim.

Anyways....I lucked out and was in the 2nd wave . Only the Pros and Elites were in front.
Immediately I got into some pushing and bumping, partly because I wanted to stay on some good feet, so I seeded closer to the front than usual.
This swim is the first time that I've experienced constant bumping . I guess thats what happens when you are fighting for good position with the stronger swimmers. I was hoping for a 27ish time. Out of the water in 29:15, 30 at the mat which was over 50 ft down the path.
After I heard from some other faster swimmers that they're time felt long too I'm sure it was more of a 1.1 swim. Thats fine, at least I know I'm swimming decent.

I figured this would put me in a 1.2 1/2 IM swim of 34-35. My PR for 1.2 is 37...........so progress is good !

On to the strippers then a fast bike transition. T1 was a few ticks over 2 mins.

The Bike:

My trip computer showed 27.8 instead of the advertised 27.
Tough course to get a rythm going. Lots of steep short climbs and one hum-dinger at mile 5.
Tougher than Timberman actually, but not harder than anything I train in around here. I climbed well and met my goal of not anyone pass me on a climb. I was surprised to see guys way fitter than me huff and puff up the hills while my HR stayed level and I never once went anaerobic. HUGE confidence builder!

Avg'd 19 mph for 1:27. Decent MOP time for 40-44 M according to the results. My last 40K TT a few weeks ago netted me a 1:11, so again, progress considering I swam decent and the course was hilly , where as my 40K TT was flat to rolling.

For bike nutrition I settled for diluted Gatorade as the expo had no vendors selling CarboPro.
Probably didn't effect me too much other than the placebo effect of not having my nutrition protocol with me.

The Run:

Out of t2 in 2 mins...so good transition.

Went out too fast for such a hot and humid day. My 5K split was 29 and there were hills and rollers on the way back.

I need to respect the distance of the run ! I should have waited until mile 4 to hit steady and upper steady.

I lost steam by mile 5 and dropped to a 12 min/mi shuffle.

Run was 1:03 for a 10:10 pace. I really needed to go 59 mins. That would have been ideal, but hey ! I finished a tough course right smack dab in the middle of all the AG's....so I feel great!

More to follow...................