HITS North Country 70.3 Tests

This Saturday I am toeing the line yet again.  This time it's the HITS North Country 70.3; another half ironman!!  This race, however, is not a priority.  It's a chance to test some things out and see what I might want to do come Ironman Lake Placid in July or FIRMman in September.

Here's a little insight into my thoughts of going into this race...

New Course
HITS purchased the North Country Triathlon this past fall.   The race has offered a Sprint and Olympic in the past and in true HITS nature, they added an Open, Half, and Full to the weekend.  This means that the course is brand new and there is no previous opinion to be found on it.  Looking at the elevation maps below, it looks to be a relatively flat course, but with a single massive hill in both the bike and run to make it all the more interesting.

Bike Elevation Map.  Talk about a hill out of T1!!

Run Elevation Map.

Support?  What's that?
HITS does not pull a large field.  HITS pulled 100 racers for one of their fulls within the last year, but that's the most.  I'm not expecting more than maybe 50 people.  With that said, I can't expect there to be many racers on the course to keep my mind occupied.  And with so few racers, there's even less of a chance of having much support, so I'm planning to carry almost everything I need with me.  Along with that, not many spectators will be coming to watch the show.  Overall, I'm really expecting this to seem like a half-way put together training day with a bunch of crazy triathletes. 

With that said, this will be the perfect race to use as a training exercise to test some new things out.  I can't expect to be fully supported as I'm used to.  I won't be pumped up as I usually am by all the other racers.  And I have no idea what to expect for the course conditions.  Oh, conditions!  Here's the forecast...

Looks like a fun day to race, huh?!

Ok, onto the tests I'm going to do.  I'll go down the race section by section to make it more concise.

SWIM

• Swim hard!  I'm a swimmer and despite the fact that I'd prefer to draft and get practice, I can't expect to have many swimmers better or as good as me.  I'm not being egotistical; I'm saying I know I'm a much better swimmer than most and with a smaller field, the chances become smaller of getting a draft zone.  So there's no use in planning on it.  I'll swim my own race and see if I can maintain as good a pace as I did at Rev3; roughly 30 minutes.

BIKE

• Slower than normal pace.  I have been unable to nail the run the last two years due to what I feel is a bike leg that takes too much out of me.  Therefore, I'm going to slow down the bike to what at Rev3 might be a 3:00-3:10 (adding 10-20 minutes) in order to attempt getting off and being ready to run.
• Nutrition every 20 minutes.  The only exception allowed is an upset stomach.
• Coke as the last bottle.   I tried this at IMLP training camp and it helped.  It should help give my run a boost.  

RUN

• Run hard!  I would ideally like to see a sub-1:40 run and have it feel pretty moderate.  I doubt it'll feel that good, but I'd like to know that I can get off the bike and really make use of my running ability!
• Take a gel every 3 miles.
• Carry water, but take HEED / Coke at aid stations

POST-RACE
Birthday Cake!  It's my mother's birthday the next day and I have to drive past her house on the way to the race, so I'm spending Sunday with my mom!!  =D

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Questions
1.  Have you ever done a race just for testing purposes?
This will be my first test race.  But for $75, you can't get a better deal.

2.  What do you do differently for wet / raining races?
I'll lower my tire pressure to allow for better grip, but given the temp, I'll still dress and race normal otherwise.


Dream.  Believe.  Achieve.