Matt’s Timberman Half Iron Race Report

What a crazy busy weekend!!

Race site is 45 minutes from our house. We drive over Friday for packet pickup.

We get to the race site at 4:45AM Saturday morning for Genine’s sprint race. Which she rocked. Check her race report for those details. We head home for about 3 hours. Then drive back to the race site to rack our bikes and then up to Gunstock for the 5:30 70.3 race meeting. Drive back to the house eat a bit more and go to bed sometime about 8PM.

Sunday: Wake up at 2:30 leave for the race site at 3:20. Arrive just after 4AM. We get a parking spot at the race site and we all fall asleep in the car for the next hour. (all being Matt, Genine, Shawn, Amy and Fiona).

5:15 Time to start putting transition together. Fortunately I hit the lines for the portajohn early. The next time I walk past it’s gotta be a 30 minute line. I walk between the car and transition a couple times. On my final trip back, I find the person beside me decided to rack my bike differently for me. I had kind of figured this would happen, but we were never there at the same time to talk about what was going to work out the best. Not a big deal to me. I’m just glad I saw that it happened and readjusted how my bike gear was hanging off of my bike.

We head to the swim start early. On the way over we hear them announce they are going to delay the start by 15-20 minutes because of a car accident that is out on the bike course. I hadn’t put my wetsuit on yet, nor had I eaten my pre race food. So all was good.
It was really very peaceful at the swim start. They hadn’t turned on the music or anything yet and everyone was just doing their thing. Genine had fun snapping pictures of the pros that were waiting for their start.

Chrissie Wellington

Some people actually swam over to them and started chatting with them, which didn’t seem to bother them. They all seemed pretty relaxed and cool about everything.

Once it looked like things were going to get rolling. I got into the wetsuit and started to swim a bit. My goggles kept fogging up. Fortunately, I gave Genine my 2nd pair and I changed to those and they were good. (I wouldn’t have had a 2nd pair had someone not been panicked the day before when their goggles broke, I thought, I would be at a loss as well)
I will admit that I have looked at all of my friends results when they raced 2 years ago. Of course conditions are always different, so it’s not a direct comparison but…. I am going into this race with the hope of having the “Title” for one of the splits. Realistically the swim is my best chance. I have to beat 35:13. Maija’s time from two years ago.
I line up near the front to the right side. (I tend to track left) Course is a clockwise 3 sided rectangle. This worked well for me at Mooseman… Not so awesome today. It was a tight start with a ton of contact.

This doesn’t bother me other than I’m sure it’s not the fastest way to go. I figure I just need hold my pace and the pack will thin out on it’s own. I didn’t use the tempo trainer. Instead I had my list of songs which would give me the right tempo. The Chili Peppers “Aeroplane” turned out to be the easiest song for me to groove to. I was cruising along about 50 strokes per minute until I got to the last turn towards the swim finish. At this point I still felt as if I had put very little effort into the swim, so I figured I should try to pick up the pace. It would seem when I try to pick up the pace I really track left. I was so far to the left a kayaker cut me off. I wonder how much time that added to my swim? The lake is quite shallow and many people were standing up and walking their way in. No way! I’m not standing up until they show they can run faster than I can swim! I felt like I passed quite a few people by swimming as far as possible. It’s a long run to transition, so I take the time to check my split on my watch. 33:27! Wahoo! Next decision, wetsuit stripper or not? I prepare as if I’m going to use them. When I get there 2 kids and 1 adult are free. I point at the adult and in a matter of seconds I’m running into transition. Now how about the sand on my feet? I was planning on walking through someone else’s water tray if I had to. It wasn’t necessary, just past the wetsuit strippers they had trays of water setup for us.


T1: 2:48 not bad. To improve this number I need to learn to put my shoes on the bike. I also think I may have considered sunblock for a moment or two. I went without.

Bike: Genine and I rode this course last month. She remembers it taking us 3.5 hours. My goal time is 3 hours. She was somewhat surprised when I told her this to help her plan when I should be arriving back to transition. Honestly, this is only the 2nd time I’ve biked 56 miles so I may be kidding myself.
I’m in an early wave, many awesome bikers will pass me during this race. I can’t allow myself to try and keep up. The hills are at the beginning and end of this course. I’ve practiced hills. I know how to climb without burning myself out. I’m not crazy fast but I should be alright.
There are some long climbs and the problem I was having was deciding when to pass the person in front of me. Often they would be pacing along fine, then just drop speed to a much slower pace. Which doesn’t sound like a problem other than the fact the “bikers” with the disc wheels and such were climbing by us quite quickly. I had to be careful not to block or to cut someone off, causing a crash. So on the outbound hills, I definitely felt like I lost some time. I’m sure it was marginal.
The eating plan was simple. Once I got to the “flat” part of the ride on 106, I start eating cliff bars. I figure I’ll probably manage to eat 2 or 3 of them. I also have 3 Gu taped onto the bike and 2 in my jersey, I also have 2 bottles of Endurance Formula Gatorade. All was going well. I was on the new pavement in front of the NH Speedway when I decide to get another chunk of cliff bar. I take my eyes off the road long enough to hit what felt to be something the size of a rubik's cube. I almost crashed. I was immediately stunned that I didn’t have a flat because of the impact. Less than 2 minutes later, I was flat. So with the sound of Nascar engines racing in the background. I went into pit crew mode to see how quickly I could change out this flat. I hit the lap counter on my watch and got to it. I was back rolling in 6.5 minutes. My only concern is the fact that my front tire is now very soft. I used the CO2 cartridge and it worked perfectly but what pressure are those things supposed to get my tire to?
So I’m back rolling again. Typically on my long rides, if I take a break like that, my right hip pain is relieved and I can get back to hammering. No such luck this time. My right side has been giving me grief and it didn’t give up.
My concern going into the bike leg was that by the turn around, I’d have nobody left to pass and I’d just be passed for the remaining 28 miles. That flat just fixed that problem. I was surprised when I actually started to catch up to people I had passed not long ago. Shortly after the turn around, I was in a line of 3 people. I had passed these 2 people no fewer than 3 times already but they kept getting back in front of me somehow. No big deal, I guess we are fairly evenly matched. Next thing I know, I hear a motorcycle pull up to my left just behind me. The 2 guys in front of me stop pedaling!! So of course I’m immediately in their draft zone and now I’ve got to jump up and make the pass or get a penalty. I was annoyed mostly because I don’t know why they both stopped pedaling when they did. I didn’t get a penalty and they passed me again shortly after the motorcycle left.
Once I got back to the hills, I knew I’d find out if I had paced properly. It turns out my legs were fine. I was still being passed by the awesome bikers but holding my own with the rest of pack. I just had no ability to take it up a notch and get through that pack. There was one girl that was very easy to spot because of her clothing. I’m guessing she was within my sight for the final 10 miles of the ride.
When I finished the bike, I hit my lap timer but because of the flat it didn’t give me my full bike split. So I finished without knowing that I had finished basically right on goal. 3:06:36. (Less the 6:30 for the flat….)


T2: 3:00. Again, I need to learn to leave my shoes on the bike and not on my feet.

13.1 mile run: The start of my run felt better than I had expected. I think I was energized somewhat just because I was off the bike. I couldn’t have been half a mile into the run when I caught up to the girl I could not catch on the bike. She was walking. Her name was on her back with her number. So as I went by I called out her name and told her that she was one heck of a biker, that I couldn’t catch her. She responded that she wished that she were now able to run. I said give it a mile and you might be surprised. I looked up her results. She finished not too far behind me. So she must have found her run legs.
Shortly after that Chrissie Wellington runs by going the other direction smiling ear to ear. She’s nearly finished. I said to the person beside me. “She makes it look way too easy”. She responded kind of gruffly “You aren’t kidding”.
When I got to the first aid station, I decided that I was going to walk through them. I wanted to make sure I got Gatorade and water into my system and keep cool. At this stage of the race it seemed that the majority of people were doing this.
I finished the first lap in 59 minutes. I had planned 1 hour. Right on time. As I’m running back out I hear Genine, Amy and Fiona cheering. Genine shouts out how are you feeling? To which I responded “So So”. I could feel that things were starting to get tight. I didn’t want her to be worried if I didn’t finish on schedule.

Not half a mile later, my calves start to grab. I instantly changed to a fast walk for 50 paces and then return to running. This worked very well for me. Although I can’t even guess how many times I ended up walking.
The best aid station of the day goes to the Laconia Hockey Team. They had a pile of snow and they were handing out snowballs. I took one, smashed it on my head and put my hat on over it. It lasted for 4 miles. There were a couple times I was almost shivering and I couldn’t figure out why, until I’d check and realize the snowball hadn’t melted yet.
At the turn around, I checked my watch and thought to myself it’s about 5K left to go. If I could just run the rest of the way in, I would be very close to my goal time. I’d just have to run through the cramping if it happened. I guess I was prepared for my calves to cramp up, but instead my right hamstring grabbed hold. I stopped dead in my tracks. I’m in the middle of the run lane and I’m a statue. I try to move off to the side but as soon as I relax even a little bit, the hamstring just grabs and causes me to grimace in pain. Oddly enough the Fire Department EMT in a 4 wheeler vehicle is heading down the road towards me. I can’t move out of their way. They didn’t stop to check on me, they just drove around me and kept going! Ha! After about 3 minutes the cramping gives up and I start walking up the hill. I realize I’m going to get to the finish when I get there. I can’t just tough it out and make it happen. I go back to run walking.
Once I got within listening distance of the finish line, I became somewhat frustrated. I wanted to be running. Fortunately, once I got into the crowds, I think some adrenaline kicked in and I was able to run it in without locking up in a cramp. Kids were sticking their hands out for high fives, so I decided to just high five the entire way down the chute.

2nd lap about 1:11:00. I thought it was so much worse than that. But I was done in under 6 hours and I was glad about that.
13.1 miles 2:09:54
Total race time 5:55:44

I’ll admit that for a while I was a bit disappointed about my finish time. I didn’t realize that I had actually hit all my goal times other than the final run loop. (If you take out the 6:30 for my flat.) I only missed my prediction by about 10 minutes. Over a 6 hour race? Yeah, I can’t complain about anything.

Genine had bought me a Timberman Bike Jersey at the Expo. I think that’s going to be my favorite bike jersey for quite awhile. Thanks!!!