Kat's 2008 Hulaman HIM Race Report

Swim :38:18.7
T1 2:01.4
Bike 2:57:55.6
T2 2:17.0
Run 1:56:33.9

Finish 5:37:06.6 - 1st place AG finish; 32nd out of 81; 7 girl out of 30.

Pre Race –
Get up at 4 am. Eat breakfast, English muffin w pb and honey, steel cut oats with a banana washed down with a cup of coffee. I offered to make my mom breakfast, she declined, said it will make her sick to eat first thing in the morning. Whatever….later she confessed she ate one of my Power Gels during my swim. Lol, she didn’t like it. Not really sure why she thought she would. Back to pre race….post breakfast did 15 minutes of Pilates stretching and core work, final gear check and off we went. Note to self: in the future follow the map you printed out. 10 minutes of “detours” and a small panic attack later we arrive at T1. Non-eventful, did a quick set up and headed out to the Hagg Lake.
Arrive at Hagg 15 minutes later then I wanted to which cut me pre warm up run down to 5 minutes. Oh the humanity! Made one last stop at the porcelain God and then went to set up T1. Upon checking my bike out I realized I had a front flat tire over night. WTF?! Oh well, the kind guy at Athlete’s Lounge changed it for me, later I found it cost me $6…if I would haven known before hand I would have changed it myself. T1 was short and fun. Mom asked a lot of silly questions; which where followed up by silly pictures take of me pre race.

Swim – This was interesting..the race was small, under 100 participants so we had a mass start at the end of the docks. The start was good, was never swam over and no need to swim over anyone, I found a clear line and just took it. My goggles fogged up a lot during the swim so my sighting was REALLY off. This was a first for me, well not the fogged up goggles but poor sighting. At one point it was so bad I started swimming out to the small buoy off the course, Doh! Turbo changed back to the group. Ugh, that took it out of me. The second loop around was really chopping. Wasn’t anticipating this….usually I like waves but not today. Over all I felt really crappy about my swim, I just didn’t have a good time and couldn’t wait to get out of the water. Sad because I usually enjoy the swim. Still I PR’d by 35 seconds : )

T1 – Went quick and smooth. Mom made a few jokes and made me laugh and took some pictures. PR’d T1 by 46 seconds

Bike – Was the most enjoyable part of the race for me. I made a strategic decision a few days before the race. I have never gone balls-to-the-wall on the bike portion before. I have always paced myself for a successful run. I’ve made some solid progress on my bike over the last year and wanted to see it reflected in a HIM. So I decided I would give it my all and just pray for the best on the run. Turns out it worked in my favor. The 1 1/3 loop around Hagg Lake was much more enjoyable then I thought it would be. I believe this is due to the fact I am comfortable riding aero. I was able to take most of the descending curves without breaking…and I enjoy hills, for the most part. I maintained 170-180bpm for the duration of Hagg, 18 miles or. Then we headed out Old Hwy 47, which had some bad ass rollers (I love them!). Went onto Stingertown road, which was the first of 3 roads that had been newly repaved with chip seal. SUCKED ASS. Gravel all over the road and Oh So Bad Vibrations. Ugh! Around mile 32 we come to Clapshaw Rd. 600-700 ft climb in ¾ of a mile. This handed me my tail, which I handed back on the descent.
More crappy repaving to ride on, more stellar rolling hills and beautiful country side to take in. 50 minutes to the end I started to feel tired but HAD to break 3hrs, that was my goal anyway. So I pushed forward tucked my head down low, consumed as much fuel as I could hoard in my body and managed to pull in at 2:57:55. Booyah! Another PR, although the last HIM was 58 miles in a 3:07, so not sure it counts….but I’m still happy with my time. It was a challenging course and I accomplished a lot more then a sub 3 hour bike, I over came fear as well!

T2 – This time I did not take a nap! Well the last time I didn’t either but I was so slow you might have thought I did. Of course mom comes over to take pictures, then asks for an interview. I’m so out of it, I’m like WTF, No! Lol, then she yells “Make sure you have your Astro Glide.” LMFAO! Funny women. T2 2:17, 2:12 PR!

Run – Ah yes, so now the question arrives, did my strategy work? Did the bike decimate me legs? Of course not! The first 2 miles were demoralizing though. Not because of my legs, they were A-ok…but my energy was TAPPED. Thankfully Power Gel was there to rescue me. The run was a two-loop course around Intel. Intel is freaking HUGE. As I was running I was cursing it as that is where I got lost in the morning. My run was pretty boring. I ran alone the whole time, which for me sucked. I’m a talker; no one ever wants to talk. Blah. I really wanted to just pee during my run and save a few minutes but my bladder wasn’t so keen on that idea. I was forced to stop at the shit hole to urinate. Ick. Back on to running. As I hit loop 2 I see this girl running out just a head of me. I can tell by her fresh-legged run she was part of a relay team. I followed her for a while and found that she pushed my pace a bit and used her as my pacesetter. Ran into Devin at the 6th aid station, good to see a familiar face. Onward I ran. Energy came and went, had my ups and downs. Managed my Power Gels (every 25 minutes) well, kept the swooshing in my tummy down. Mile 10 and I came up on two girls and passed them. Woot! Woot! Last mile 2 miles I ran at a fast pace pushing 170-180 bpm vs the 160-170 I held for the prior duration. Finished my run in 1:56:33, PR’d by 4 minutes.

I hit every one of my goals. I wanted a 5:35-5:45 finish, got a 5:37. Wanted a sub 2 hour run and a sub 3 hour bike, got it! Swam off course and still got a PR in the swim. But really, you want to know the BEST part of all? My mom was there! She MADE my race!

Now for the crazy nutritional breakdown

4:00am – Steel cut oats, low fat vanilla soy milk and sliced banana. Whole wheat English muffin, honey and pb. Coffee with fat free half and half. 465 kcal 70% carb/ 14% protein / 15% fat.

Race
Pre Swim – 1 Power Gel
Bike – 2 Power Gels, 2 Powerbars (finished all but small chunk of it), 2 32 oz of water with 2 full tabs of Nuun Electrolytes.
Run – 5 Power Gels

Caloric intake during race 1220 kcal, 3140 mg sodium, 675mg potassium
Race nutrition was on point

Caloric expenditure via HR monitor with Vo2 data 3295 kcal, Max HR 187; Avg 166; 30% fat burning zone.