- Morning, Trainiacs.
Race day, who's excited? - I am.
When did you wake up this, last night?
- It was like 2:30 in the morning,
if you could call it wake up.
- It's race day. (upbeat music)
(upbeat electronic music)
Good morning. (upbeat electronic music)
- Heading off course to swim start.
(upbeat electronic music)
(cheering and applauding) - I love it.
(upbeat electronic music)
- That was really hard and I think 4:41:46,
a PB by five minutes. (upbeat electronic music)
- We're gonna slowly flex here.
Get some ice on that.
- Any help? - Also...
(upbeat electronic music)
- Now, hold the awards over your head,
you're all champions, you all are.
- You should parade us and have the volunteers like
(grunting)
so, an awards ceremony, a podcasting review
with the winner Matt Hanson, pizza,
and three gluten free beers later,
I'm feeling like a regular human again.
By the way, Trainiacs, thank you so much
for the motivation for that.
PB in 4:41:59. (grunting)
So previous PB in a Half Iron Man distance was 4:46:46
and that was on a course that had
a two kilometer short bike, so I would say that this
is a PB by not just like, just under five minutes,
but we're talking good seven minutes.
And the nice thing about it is that I basically executed
exactly the race that I wanted.
Wanted to do around 31-ish minute swim, 31-mid.
Wanted to do around a 2:30 bike, 2:31 mid.
I wanted to do a 1:35 or better run, 1:33.
And the fact that I was able to do the run
and that wasn't where I fell apart,
especially because...
Especially because today is the longest run
that I've done since Half Iron Man Austin
on October 29th last year.
With the achilles injury, I've completely revamped
my running, focused more on strength,
focused more on hill work, focused more on
quality speed work and way less on volume.
The longest run that I did leading up to this race, 14 K,
so I was in seven kilometers of total no man's land,
did not know how it was gonna turn out,
and it didn't turn out great.
If you look at the splits, I lost a lot of time,
but I expected to lose that time, so I went out hot,
and in the first seven K was running about
4:15 per kilometer pace knowing that I was gonna
give that time back and basically ended
(snapping) bang on where I wanted to be.
So, game plan, how did it go?
The swim, it went fairly well with the Tower 26 program.
It's not like I swam any faster,
but I got out of the water feeling really fresh.
I was also able to sight basically perfectly down the buoys.
The bike, with all of that talk that I've been doing
about really heavy gear work, looking at like,
really high gear, really low gear,
stressing all different systems, especially on this course
where there was a ton of climbing, worked out really well.
And then the run training, can you get away
with that lower volume, like doing 14 K
and then focusing on strength work to make up for it?
It's not ideal, because I certainly
felt like cement over the last seven K,
but I had the speed to make up for it,
so my race time, like the pace that I wanted to hit
was 4:30 per kilometer and I was 4:32 per kilometer,
but it didn't work out too bad.
4:41:59, I'm freaking pumped about that.
And finally, last thing before signing off,
because it's like seven PM and I gotta go to bed now,
because I'm ready for that.
Thanks so so much to all the Trainiacs that said
"What's up?", said, "Hey, Taren.",
gave me a shout out while they saw me on the course.
If they were racing, if they were on the side,
the CDA tri-club for being so supportive,
everyone in the tent, like it literally,
when I crossed the finish line and I started
talking to Kim about all the support that I got out there,
I started getting choked up, because even though
all you might get from me while it's going on is like,
(breathing heavily) I just, I don't know,
my body kind of turns to cement towards the end of a race,
so I start seizing up and I have a hard time
just doing more than that, but it means a ton to me
and motivates me a lot, so congratulations
to all Trainiacs out there who finished their races,
not just here, but all around the world,
and thank you all for your support.
Now I'm gonna go inside and continue to eat everything.
Later.