Time to Hurt!!! Shawnigan Half Iron

My 2009 tri debut awaits. This will be my 10th race of the season but in some regards the most interesting one as it will give me a good indication of where I am at.

Starting to get nervous for this one which is a good thing means that I will have the energy to go give at and with the amount of run races I have done my willingness to hurt over 12 months is increased many a time.

So before I look at what my goals and expectations are lets look back 12 months ago at my 08 Race which was my first ever open water swim and half iron triathlon;

2008 Flashback

5:35:44 37/66 Overall 6/8 M25-29

Swim -46:42 (91/94)
My memories of this swim include doing a 180 degree turn on a buoy and swimming the wrong way for about 50m. One hope that I can gain time of the 08 performance in this sport.

T1 4:03
not sure what I had for breakfast that day but looks like I must have eaten in T1. 2 minutes easy to be gained here

Bike - 2:52:49 (Avg 30.6km/h)
Rode pretty well of memory and was riding on my road bike. Will see what difference a year makes in this sport.

T2 2:23
One free minute available here

Run - 1:50:07 (5:14 per km)
Had a good run on the day but my running this year compared to last year is a different story. Pretty sure the course was long though last year based on the quickest run times.

2009 is here

So this is the baseline race so really hard to step out some targets but here goes anyway.

Swim - Target Time 38 to 40 minutes
Still have a long way to go with my swimming but my main focus will be to try and stay with one of the later packs. Based on last year their seems to be a big group between 36 min and 40 minutes so my aim will be to stay with this group even if it means working a little harder than I would like.

This will give me a good baseline as my target is to swim 100 times in 100 days before ironman canada and this just started yesterday after a month or so of inconsistent swimming.

Bike - Target Time 2:31 (Avg 35km/h)
Will be riding based on heart rate but I feel that this is a realistic target time. Will not really know until I get going but based on the weekend in Penticton I feel I can hold this pace if I am willing to keep my heart rate high but below threshold. Realisitcally anyhting up to 2:40 would be a good result.

Run - Target Time 1:30 (avg 4:16 per km)

Race plan will be to go out at 4 minutes per km and suffer. Based on a slight hunch the course may be long and to factor some contigency in I have my target at 4:15 min km. In penticton I was crusiign at 4 min km for 6km after a 100km ride up and over yellow lake so I hope this is a good sign for race day. Main goal here is to not get overtaken on the run and pass as many people as possible.

Overall target Time (A Goal) - 4:45:00 (B Goal) 4:55:00 (C Goal) 5:00:00

If the race goes to plan 4:45 is definetely possible. All I have to do is focus on keeping pace in the swim attacking the bike and pushing through the hurt on the run. In the end when I hit the run I will be aiming for 4 min km's and if I can hold this should be the key to good times.

One thing I know for sure is that I plan to have fun and plan to hurt as much as I can, for all you fast swimmers and bikers out there I plan to be attacking the run so if I don;t catch you make sure you save me a bagel.

Good Luck to all that are racing this weekend and say hi during the awards if you get a chance.