spin / second sole multisport team

Jim and Andrea

It does appear that Jim and Andrea Lamastra have been doing more in the last two years than just procreating a new generation of superhuman athletes. Turns out they’ve been training, and they’ve both gotten really, really fast.

Andrea, racing her first half-distance race and a year in to being a mom, finished in 5:10– 12th in her 90 person age group– and did it without any nutrition other than water for the entire bike and run. She didn’t have Luca on her back, but would you have been surprised if she did?

Jim had an absolute breakout race. He set a PR of 4:08, winning his age group, and finishing as the 3rd amateur and 13th overall. He earned one of the two Kona Qualifying slots available to him… so I guess we won’t see him until November.

Honestly, there’s not much I could add to their emotional race reports, which come with more photos and are posted below.

From Andrea:

This was my first 1/2 ironman so I guess that counts as a PR!!

This was a great venue but tough course. The swim was very choppy and I think I actually swam 1.5 miles from all the zig zaggy I did. At one point I looked up and saw no other swimmers. It was so windy the bouys had blown all over the place which actually made the swim fun but difficult to spot!

The bike was very hilly but we had a bit of a tail wind to help on the very limited flat sections. I had some nutrition issues on the bike…I guess Red Bull and Carbo Pro don’t really work well together and can actually burn a whole in your stomach!

The GIGANTIC hill about 3/4 mile into the run did not help the quads at all, and we had to do it twice. I hung in there pretty well until about mile 10 of the run when the lack of nutrition caught up to me. Luckily, Jim looked like he hadn’t even done a race and ran up the GIGANTIC hill pushing Luca to cheer me on the last mile. The finish line never looked so good. I didn’t really have any expectations going in which made it easy to stay pretty relaxed and enjoy the beautiful scenery along the course.

It was a very well done race and I highly recommend the trip for next year. Jim had an incredible race and we’re very much looking forward to heading back to Kona!!!!

And Jim:

This was the first time I finished 1st in my age group at a race this big. I am still shocked that I got a qualifying spot for Kona. In my heart I really never thought it was an option. Now, we are going to sell our house in order to afford the trip over there!

It was absolutely a great venue and very well done considering the point to point bike ride. The day started out a little nerve wracking. The wind was wicked and they delayed the swim start by 25 minutes. I feared that the swim was going to be cancelled which would have pretty much ruined my attitude. However, they let it go on. The buoys got moved a lot from the chop and I think it ended up making the swim about 100 yards or so short. That made for pretty fast times considering how bad the water was. I personally had a very zig zag swim and had some catch up to do.

After a quick transition, I realized that the wind was in our favor over the first 14-15 miles which were very flat and on about the nicest roads I’ve ever ridden. That was when the fun started, or at least I thought so. Pretty much from mile 15 through 45 it’s climb after climb. The worst headwinds luckily came on the steepest hills. Anyway, rode strong, found out I was in the 30-34 age group lead once in T2.

I ran a steady and strong 13.1 miles. That course had a brutal climb at mile .5 and 7.5 which shocked the system a bit but after that it was gently rolling. Good amount of spectators on the hill and certainly around the finish. During the run, I was able to catch up to Andy’s stalking target close friend [edited for accuracy– Andy] Desiree Ficker and chat with her a bit. She offered me a salt tablet at mile 11 after I started to cramp. I turned her down then was able to shake it off and went on to have my fastest two mile split I’ve ever had in any part of a race this distance. I crossed the line a little ahead of Desiree to find out she was the 2nd place female overall. The race announcer gave a little bio of me at the finish which was really cool as that was a first.

As soon as I was done with that whole deal, I watched Andrea turn at the half way point and then followed her back up the run course with Luca. I parked at the 11.5 mile marker, sat under a tree and waited with Luca to cheer his mom to the finish. She came in very strong and all in all was pretty happy with her finish as well. Not to shabby for a mom of 12 months and about 50 hours of total training time for this event!

Photos!

a random photo of luca with a green rabbit

Filed under: 2009 |