Timberman 70.3 has been my key race for the last couple summers, in part because it’s a big (but not too big) fun, friendly, well-run race with a weekend-event feel to it, and in part because it’s a really good excuse to take a week’s vacation on Lake Winnepesaukee. (Which leads to week-late race reports, incidentally).
It was also my first shot at long-course racing two years ago, and my annual trips there have proceedly thusly: on my first attempt; just survive, finish the race by hook or by crook and content yourself with whatever happens. The second time around (last year), expect steady progress, then get whacked in the face by hard reality when your undertrained, under-acclimated self melts and staggers in a half-hour slower that the year before. It wasn’t that last year’s T’man left a bad taste in my mouth, exactly. By the time I finished the run, it was too hot and humid to have any taste in my mouth. One good hot-day bonk experience like that taught me something about paying attention to pacing and nutrition, if not quite nailing the pacing and nutrition down. I’m getting there.
Previously independent, Timberman was bought by WTC and rebranded “Ironman Timberman 70.3,” and so this year’s race bore all the marks of an Ironman-branded race. M-dot logos covering every flat surface, a gargantuan tent selling umpteen things with M-dot logos on them, and a bazillion people, almost all of them wearing the mandatory compression socks (they are mandatory now, correct?) Last year’s Timberman had a little under 2000 people enter, if I recall correctly. This year’s “IM T’man 70.3” registered close to 2800. A mere 2100+ chose to start. Sensibly enough, the organizers slotted the waves for my plodding, sloth-like age group – 30-34 males – for a start just before lunchtime. Starting out of Wave 16 meant that I should have slept in until 7 or so before trekking over to the beach at Ellacoya.
Then again, I might still be in race morning traffic if I did so.
Killing the hour and ten minutes (!) between the first wave’s start and mine, I ran into Caitlin and Ellen, fellow Team Bikeway athletes – nice luck, when you think about how likely it is to run into someone you’ve met only once before, when you’re among two thousand people spread over a beach. Wearing black wetsuits. The next time I saw Caitlin, she’d be zipping past me on the run some five hours later. Solid.
The sky was overcast, the air was cool, and rain was predicted...sometime. Finally, it was time for me to go. And the lake was slightly angry that day, my friends. Rounding the first turn, the water was just choppy as you’d expect after 1800+ folks had thrashed around it for an hour; by the time I made the turn for home, the wind was piling it up in foot-high swells. Andy Potts I don’t pretend to be, firmly believing that says “half-iron swims are just a warm-up for the rest of the race.” 41 minutes and change got me out of the water and on to the road – but not before accidentally kneeing some guy in the back of the head when he threw himself down directly in front of me to get his wetsuit stripped. Sorry, dude.
For being in mountainous New Hampshire, Timberman doesn’t boast the world’s nastiest bike course; The bike at Rev3 Quassy (which I did earlier this summer), for one, is several times harder. That said, there are a few decent climbs and so when I put together a race wheel recently, I invested in an 11-28 cassette. Good move. My bike split was almost exactly the same as the year before, only with a lot less effort spent on the climbs. Spinning the hills on the first and last 10 miles of the course saved me some legs for the run, which was my real concern. I can’t say I’m proud of matching last year’s bike split; I was hoping to knock five to ten minutes off. But having the whole race on the road ahead made for passing – lots and lots of lots of passing - in between holding up. Rain had swept over the last third of the course while I was halfway out, making for some dicey, slightly restrained descents near the end, too.
I think of myself as an adequate runner, but up till now the run had been a real limiter for me at this distance. Going too hard on the bike, not taking in enough calories, not putting in the miles in training…I’ve made a few mistakes in the past. And I’ve had a lot of time to figure those things out while walking too much in past races. Timberman’s run is two loops, mostly flattish with a few gradual undulations thrown in for fun. I felt strong as I ever have getting off the bike, but started cautiously. Leaving the dream of a 1:40 run split for another day, I focused on keeping my cadence high and steady. After one loop I felt peachy, about as good as I’ve ever felt at that point in a long race; no doubt the mid-70s temps and breezy, damp air helped.
And there at the end, almost two hours after crossing the finish line herself, was the unstoppable Chrissie Wellington, all big smiles and an arm full of finisher’s medals. Yes, perhaps the most dominant athlete in all of sports today was playing volunteer when anyone else in her place would have been cozied up back in their hotel room. God knows I would have been. She looped a medal around my neck, so I reached out for a handshake (because really, how often do you get an opportunity like that?) with a paw covered in sweat, salt, gel residue and grime. If she was disgusted - a thought that crossed my mind at that very instant - she didn’t show it. A true champion, she is.
As for me, I came in at 5:48 and change, placing me as middle of the pack as M.O.P can get. My first time going under 6 hours in a half, which may not blow too many minds but sure felt better to me than the dizzy, dazed six and a half hour death march I turned in the year before. I’m already looking forward to a fourth go at it next August.
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