Race Coverage

Anthropomorphic Race Report...

Friday, 19 June 2015 00:10

By Michael McConkey's Wetsuit, Bike and Running Shoes

LIBERTY HALF RACE REPORT - Michael has been slacking so we decided we would write the Final Stretch 70.3 Liberty Half Ironman race report for him. I am Michael’s 2XU R3 wetsuit, next up will be his Cervelo P2 Tri bike, and finally his Newton Distance 5 running shoes.

Let me get this started, like any wetsuit, I dream of gliding through water, feeling it flow across me as I propel forward stroke after stroke, passing other wetsuits on the way to a glorious swim leg.

Unfortunately, you don’t choose your owner. I got Michael, don’t get me wrong, he tries hard but the guy just can’t swim. Race after race we start out slow and sort of just get slower and by the time we get out of the water and into transition all the other wetsuits are already relaxing and soaking in the sun. Never the less any time I get to race is better than sitting on the shelf so I was excited to be put on and taken for a quick warm up swim. Got to see several other LAM’s wetsuits. Of course Radniecki’s new wetsuit was all “we’re gonna crush this course”, but hey he can bring it so I wished him good luck and wondered if I was the same size? (so what, it’s a wetsuit dream, have you seen him handle a...

banana? Sue me!). Soon we were lined up and the first few waves went off and then it was our turn. Time to get to work and hopefully not spend too much time in the water. The horn sounded and off we went, a couple of dolphin dives and then we were swimming. Typical start as we cruised forward, a few bumps and bangs as we tussled with other swimmers. We were passing buoy after buoy and soon we were at the turn. We were bumped by a couple of swimmers as we navigated the corners. Whoa, those were swimmers from the wave before us. What the heck? So far we had been swimming pretty straight versus our typical zig zag pattern. Hmm that was a little different. We were still churning forward when I felt a surge of speed. OK what the Mark Splitz was going on. We should be slowing down, popping up and figuring out where the heck we are and catching a breath, instead we are passing swimmers from the waves ahead of us. Maybe Michael had actually figured this swim thing out a little. Before I knew it we were standing up and heading out of the water!! Running out of the water a really tall man yelled 38 flat! Yowser we had never swam that far that fast! I was giddy with excitement as we ran into transition. As I got stripped off I noticed there were a lot of bikes still in area. Sweet! My day was done and it had been a success with a new PR swim!

Ok my turn, Michael’s P2 ready to report. I will say I was a little surprised to see R3 so soon but hey even a blind squirrel, as they say… We headed out of T1 and were quickly on our way; of course it was raining so I was a little nervous as the last time we went riding in the rain I was crashed 2 times! Ouch!! Still feeling those! Sure enough coming out of the park a car ignores the police officer and pulls out in front of us as we are turning. I felt the brakes engage and my back end fishtailed on the wet pavement. Here we go again! But we stayed upright and swerved just avoiding the car. OK that was too close. Soon I could feel the power increase and my race wheels humming on the pavement and we were passing other bikes in a hurry. But I was getting dirt everywhere! Awe man I just got all cleaned up! This bites!! We soon made it off the stick and onto the first loop where we continued to pass bikes. I greeted a couple of other Cervelo’s as we went by. Always nice to see family on the road! We had been riding into the wind for the first dozen miles but then we turned and our speed picked up. We passed Paul and then Jeff and greeted the fellow LAMS as we went by. It was still raining and the road was a little slick but we just kept eating up the miles. I got to climb a few big hills; it’s always a thrill as we pass the other bikes, especially the Felts. They are so snooty and uppity. I could tell this was going to be a good ride as we finished the first loop and pulled up beside Matt Dickenson and his new Stadalli. They were struggling a little as Matt was having trouble catching his breath. We yelled encouragement as we went by. We soon passed Josh Duda and his Q-Roo, we gave them encouragement and moved on to the second loop. The rain had let up but the wind was in our face as we climbed the false flat. I expected us to increase our speed on the second lap as it felt like we had been reserving power on the first. Soon enough we were screaming long and again hit the big climbs; we passed a few more Felts and a couple of Treks on our way up. Have I mentioned I like climbing? We moved through St Bonifacius for the second time and were flying with the wind at our back, but I still sensed we were holding back, hmmm, something seems a little fishy. We traversed though the round a bouts (despite cars trying to run us off the road!) and soon were back on our way to the park. I was anxious to get back into transition. Knowing the R3 had come in faster than expected I sensed we had a chance to break the 5 hour mark, but I knew it was going to take a good ride to make that possible so why weren’t we going faster? We rode through Delano and I spotted a Felt up ahead. I felt the power applied to my pedals and we quickly sucked up the distance between. We sailed by still accelerating. That’s more like it. Suddenly we were back in the park, one last little climb and we would soon be in T2. Feet out of the pedals as we went down the last hill. Now, T2 is always an adventure for Michael and me. He has a tendency to come in too hot and I end up wheels over aerobars. I had a quick flash back to 2012, said a quick prayer to Varoomen White and braced for impact. Well that was smooth! I was quickly pushed into our tran spot and racked. 23MPH! Not too shabby but I think we could have gone faster. Ok Newts it’s all up to you!

P2 was back about 4 minutes early! OK time for us to show our stuff! It was a quick transition and we were out of T2 and on the run path. We were greeted by cheering LAM’s as we headed into the woods. We were pretty nervous as we knew Michael had not used us much over the past few months. We had been really active in the offseason but a series of injuries put us on the shelf way too much for our liking the past two months. However, we were moving pretty well, the first 3 miles clicked by and we were a little ahead of our goal pace. Actually a couple of times we had to hold ourselves back as the pace easily increased. Mile 4 came and went and we started looking for Radniecki. If he was on his pace we should see him somewhere in the 5th mile. Of course that is when the hills started to hit. We slowed as we climbed and then to our surprised walked a rest stop. That’s not good, much too early for that. Suddenly we felt cold water pour into us. Ah man now we’re all squishy!! Come on legs keep moving!!! We saw Matt cruising toward us at the 5.5 mile mark and a side five was exchanged. We slowed again as we climbed another long hill. Finally we made it to the top and another walk through a rest stop. Then a group of elites including Brian Sames came cruising by. Man to be on those feet clipping off sub 7 minute miles…. Wait Matt was ahead of Brian?? What the heck, he started 3 minutes behind him! (We later learned that a few of the elites had messed up on the bike course and rode an extra 8 miles! P2 was so jealous! ) We turned onto a gravel road and started downhill. We were slamming into the soft ground at a quicker pace and actually passed a couple of runners. In the distance we saw Sara lopping into view. She was moving smoothly getting closer every step. We exchanged encouragement as we passed. She was having a good race as we had not seen many women in front of her. We climbed another hill just before the turn around and then had to climb back up it. We were still on goal pace but we could feel our pace slowing with every hill. Miles 7 and 8 were a blur; we passed Matt, Josh, Jeff, Gentry, and Paul, we walked the rest stops and trudged up the hills. Somehow we were still on pace for a sub 5 hour finish. Then we hit mile 9 and the old man’s hip locked up soon to be followed by the left knee throwing out bolts of pain at every stride. Hold it together you bucket of rusty bolts! Up ahead we saw a couple of runners walking a big hill and suddenly we joined the walking dead on the climb up Everest! By the power of Prefontaine, run legs run!! Why are we walking??? UHHHHGGGGGGG! We made it to the top and finally started running again. Mile 10, more of the same, Mile 11… Seriously take us off, set us on the side of the road and let a homeless man have us so we can move faster!. Mile 12, ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ wake us when we get there. We finally hit mile 13, all hopes of a sub 5 hour finish had vanished over 3 miles ago. The Old Grey Mare was just moseying on home. We turned onto the gravel road which meant we were almost done. Out of the crowd we heard cheers from Matt and Sheila telling us we had just one more hill to climb, other LAM’s supporters cheered us to go faster and then it was downhill to the finish. Come on legs turn over, we willed ourselves to move faster and we charged down the hill to the cheers of the crowd. We crossed the line to the hear the announcer singing Michael’s praises. How cool is that! We were soaked with sweat and covered in dirt but we were done!

Later, when Michael could sort of walk, he checked the results and much to our surprise found out we had finished 2nd in our age group and actually PR’d the course despite our epic fail on the run. We headed back to transition and let R3 and P2 know how we did. They gave me some grief for blowing the sub 5 but we celebrated our teams first HIM podium. All in all it was a good race and one day when we are up on a shelf encased in bronze we will fondly remember it.

Photos courtesy of Ellen Thomes.