Muncie Olympic... short and sweet

Well I usually like to write very in-depth race reports, but the Muncie Olympic race doesn't deserve too much of my time or thoughts. The Muncie Olympic race was more-so just a "fitness check" to prepare for Eagleman 70.3 that's now exactly one week away. For non "A" races, I usually sign up for them the week of, but mainly because I'm stingy and don't want to financially commit to a race. The weather was  predicted to be in the 60's with a small chance of rain, so I went ahead and pulled the trigger and signed up.

Swim

The race was delayed 30 minutes because it was drizzling, 45 degrees and miserable. The delay actually really benefited me because I was already running late. The water temp was also 58 degrees, which actually feels really good to me. The start was good, I did a couple of dolphin dives in the shallow water to get going. I've never done dolphin dives in a race before but it actually really helped. The first 500 meters to the first buoy was a madhouse. I was swimming next to a guy who's never heard of a high elbow in swimming, so he literally was smacking the back of my head for several strokes. I quickly decided to drop him. The rest of the swim was decent, I felt ok but nothing exciting. At the exit, there was nothing good to sight towards so I kept having to bring my head way out of the water to see where the heck I was going. It wasn't until I saw the results that saw how bad my swim was. I finished the swim in 25:28, 1:42 average. I was aiming for at worst a 1:30 average.

Bike
THE most miserable bike ride I've ever done. After spending what seemed like 20 minutes getting my wetsuit off, I finally got onto my bike. I knew it would be rough within the first 100 feet of riding. I was only wearing my race kit so being wet and riding in 45 degree air wasn't a good combination, especially for someone who already has bad circulation to their hands and feet (thank my genes for that). It seemed like the only people I was passing were people from the sprint race, which wasn't the biggest confidence booster. At about mile 15 is when I really started to become miserable, I couldn't get my legs to work and my entire body was literally numb. I even contemplated DNFing because I was so miserable, but I just told myself that I would get to T2 and then decide. I knew I would keep going though. When I was approaching T2, I flew by the dismount line because all the volunteers just stood there without directing anybody to where the entrance to T2 was. I was quite pissed. During T2, I was telling Lauren about how miserable I was, I just wanted to get the run over with a get the hell out of Muncie. I finished the bike in 1:15, 20.3 mph average.

Run

I knew I could make up some of my lost time from the bike, on the run. Although, about 1/2 mile in, I felt a weird, dull pain behind my knee that I was forced to stop and attempt to rub out. It never really went away and I still don't know what caused it. When I was rubbing it, a guy passed me which I actually turned out to like. I sometimes feel like Seabiscuit in that I often have my best run splits when I'm chasing someone. I felt very good during the run, but not great. I knew that my pathetic bike hadn't set me up for a good run. I was running side by side with the guy that passed me until I dropped him around mile 4. There wasn't a single person in sight so it made it a little more difficult to push it. Even the finishing chute wasn't well marked so I slowed down a bit during the last 1/8 mile just so I could figure out where the heck I was going. I finished the run in 41:06, 6:38/mile average. I wanted to be around a 6:15/mile average but with a crappy bike and stopping one time, I guess I can't complain.

Recap
Dumb race, it wasn't a complete waste of time but it didn't really do anything to help me gauge my fitness. I knew that I loved my K-Swiss K-Ruzz 1.5's and my PowerBar gels but that wasn't news to me. Almost every time I do any Muncie race, I ask myself why I did it because there isn't really anything about it that I like. That's all, nothing exciting to share. It was a PR from last year but that isn't saying much. It was just a miserable 2/3 of the race.

I want to thank Lauren for coming (even though I literally had to drag her there) and being my little cheerleader for the day. I also wanted to thank my amazing Wattie Ink sponsors ISM Saddles, Powerbar and K-Swiss. Now its time to get my head back into the game and prepare for a solid week of tapering before Ironman Eagleman 70.3.