Marked Gorris

Raced Ironman Muncie 70.3
4:42:52
9th AG ~170
78thOA 1500+

The Good
-had a great time and helped my good friend Gary Parsons achieve his goal of completing his first half IM [he went 521 and change..that is one heck of a first half]
-enjoyed a little get away with Lisa, although Muncie is far from a destination location
-had a great run! 1:32 almost on the nose.  Ran the first half [fresher legs and net downhill] at a 703 pace and the second half [tired legs and net uphill at a 659 pace] Final 1.1 at a 634 pace, mostly uphill.  Actually ran the second half faster than my good friend and super fast Brian Stern.  He had the fastest run split of our AG, I was 4th and only 3′ off Brian’s split.  Looks like those long race pace bricks are paying dividends
-first half of the swim.  Swam the leg across the prarie creek resv in 13′, the cross leg in 5′.  18′ with a half mile to go, the swim was actually 1.3 according to numerous garmin wearers
-the last 19 miles of the bike.  Avg 24.3 on that section and was able to up the watts and still have enough to post a good run split
-Hammer sponsored athletes took 1,2,3 and 5 of the top 9 in my AG 45-49

The Bad
-being in the 3rd to last wave.  This caused problems on the swim and the bike as the course was very crowded.  Us old guys get no respect ( – :
-The last half of the swim.  On the final ~.5 mile leg I was looking right into the rising sun.  I could not sight for anything and was constantly swimming over/into people. The final leg took me almost 17′ vs the 13′ out.  I hit the beach in 34:50 then the long run up to T1
-the first 37 miles of the bike. Oh, did i mention it was CROWDED?  300 yards out of T1 I was passing people riding 3 wide.  My good friend and training partner just suffered a horrific bike crash the week prior and I think that was on my mind so I rode tenatively early.  Things got even worse at mile 19-37, see The Ugly

The Ugly
At mile 19, we turned off a beautiful stretch of highway 35 onto what could best be described as a bike path.  Signs were posted all over stating “Ride Single File, No Passing Zone”  I was at an avg speed of 22.3 at this point in the race, by the time I got off the path one mile later, I was at 21.7.  A number of athletes decided the no passing rule did not apply to them and passed the entire mile.  I caught a number of them and gave them an earfull.
As if this was not bad enough, after the no pass zone, we turned onto another horrible road perhaps a lane and a half wide  that we rode for the next 16 miles [8 down and 8 back]  This section would best be described as scary, borderline dangerous.  The edges of the road were in bad shape so people had to ride 3 feet from the shoulder.  You had people riding 3 wide roaring back down from earlier waves on the out and back.  I would get stuck behind slower riders and wait until a gap opened before even remotely thinking about passing.  Then it was put the hammer down, get by and quicky get over before being t-boned by an oncoming cyclist.  This went on the entire out and most of the back.  My power profile on this section is hilarious.  Looks like a giant roller coaster.  Watts at 160 while behind slower rider[s], then a quick spike into the 400-500 range to pass then back to 160-170.
So after those agonizing 16 miles we were met again with the one mile no pass zone.  The guy behind me was screaming at the poor girl 7 riders up to get moving as we were only doing about 16mph.  I turned around and told him to chill and use the time to stretch his legs.  I don’t think he was too happy with my but once we got back onto highway 35 I took off and never saw him again.  This was the stretch where I hammered and got the avg speed back from mid 21’s to just under 22.5 for the 56
Now comes the worst part of this.  The course was changed from the original Muncie Endurathon [33 years old] because WTC [who bought the race in 2011] did not want to pay the neighboring county for the services of using hwy 35.  IOW – they kept the bike in one county to save a few bucks.  All of this at the expense of the safety of the people out on the bike course
Needless to say, I will never do this race again, nor will a number of athletes I spoke with.
I played by the rules on the out and back but many did not.  I know of 3 athletes who finished ahead of me who did not, they readily admitted it to me.  Not sure how this effected my finish time, but I would say it cost me 5′ on the bike.  I have not had a 2:30 bike split in a half in years, more in the 2:20-2:25 range, and on Saturday I went 2:30
On to the next race, Steelhead 70.3, one of my favorites
Train hard and race harder
Mark