Vineman 70.3

A decade ago when I first started struggling to do a triathlon I was told of the Vineman Half-Ironman where the swim venue was so shallow that competitors could actually walk during the swim. This sounded great to me. Then a few years ago, teammate Adam York did Vineman and spoke of cool conditions throughout the day. This also sounded enormously appealing to me. So when my friend Arturo happened to mention the window of opportunity to sign up for Vineman 2011 way back last October I seized the opportunity to sign up, figuring I could always cancel and get the bulk of my registration fee back. Suddenly the event was upon me - it was only last month when Mika T pointed out that I should be doing half-ironman level training sessions, at which point it struck me that my Olympic Distance training was not optimal preparation for 5-hours of what is presumably my "A race". But Vineman was more of an A "trip" and I did not feel moved to alter my OD training plan. I would just wing it.

So it did prove true that the Russian River swim was so shallow that I could actually walk. Of course after ten years and hundreds of hours of swim training, this was no longer such a big deal, but it was kind-of interesting to stand up and look around during the swim. Unfortunately what I discovered when I looked around was that a lot of the people in my age-group wave were way, way ahead of me. I find that I do not get off to fast starts in swimming. My time at the turn-around was a distressing 22 minutes. But then we swam downstream rather than against the current and suddenly my speed was much faster. Faster not just versus the first half of the swim, but faster than the other competitors, I was passing people like crazy, apparently I am like a leaf and get carried along by the current. Carried back to the transition for a time of 36 minutes.

My bike time was 2:53:03, my 90k bike PB. I did not try to leave some strength for the run. In fact I barely seemed to have energy to make it to end of bike. At 80k a guy passed me and asked me if I was OK. I did not think I looked bad at that point, but its true I was tiring a bit toward the end of the ride. I tried to eat as much as I could, but I have been in more of a run/short triathlon mode the last few years and have lost some of the high calorie consumption while racing skill-set.

So my run was a survival thing and went OK. I ran 1:40:25 and was still passing people like crazy. It seems that in China, the spectators uniformly yell "Jar-yo" (literally "add gas"), while in Japan they invariably yell gambatte - which roughly seems to mean "hang in there" or "persevere". I thought Americans had a variety of random exhortations to cheer athletes on, but it seemed like the only thing I hear now is "good job". Though when I was passing some other faster runners Sunday, they commented "niiiiiiiice" which I thought was pretty cool. So over the last couple miles when my pace slowed to 8 minutes per mile and a couple other runners passed me I tried to reply in kind, but it just came out as a gasp.

Overall I was pleased with my Vineman effort given my training. Moreover it was a nice weekend amidst the scenery of Sonoma Valley and having the chance to see my classmate Gordon at his nearby Coppola Winery and enjoy post-race barbecue with Arturo after the race. Here are results -

Swim - 36:01 828th
Bike - 2:53:03 746th
Run - 1:40:25 400th?
Total - 5:17:44 354th

So (comparing apples and oranges), Vineman is my PB half-marathon to date:

2011 - Vineman - 5:17:44

2008 - China - 5:45:27

2007 - Lake Stevens - 5:33:28

2006 - Sado - 5:39:04

2003 - Wildflower - 6:14:48