Episode 1 - Saturday Pre Race
My recap could actually start Friday, but let's just say I didn't get to bed till the middle of Saturday morning. I decided to sleep until my body wanted to wake up, which happened to be about 10:30. Rolled out of bed, munched on some food and did some high cadence spinning for about half an hour. I left to run a ton of pre-race errands about 12:30 and ended up traversing all across town. I didn't return home until about 19:30 when I threw together some tuna fish pasta for dinner.
About 21:00 I started getting the baby ready for her race debut. I was able to grab some aero bars, extra bottle cages, and a bento box. Yes I was trying a lot of new things on race day. I was going to be in a new geometry with those S-bend aerobars. I wasn't planning on using my race wheels, but that afternoon the LBS called and said my new cassette was in; they already put it on the wheel. Well here it is 21:00 Saturday night, I'm on the trainer with a brand spanking new bike that's been pimped out, and then to my surprise my shifting is just terrible as the chain is skipping or not changing gears when I shift. Well you know what? I looked down and saw that I had a 9-speed cassette to go with my 10-speed shifters. Nice job bike shop. The bike was still rideable, so I decided that I would have my buddy, who was wrenching at the race, check it out on site in the morning. But just in case, I needed a backup plan so I put on some new tires on my other set of wheels so I could run at a higher PSI. So here she is ready to go.
Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.
Now it's close to midnight when my bike was finally all ready to go and I had yet to pack any other gear or prepare my picnic. That finally all got done about 1:30. I had loads of nervous energy so probably didn't fall asleep till 2:15. ZZZZzzzzzz
Episode 2 - Race Day Morning - Pre Race
Luckily everything was laid out before I went to bed. Around 4:15, I crawled out of bed, brushed my teeth, and started munching on my pre race PBJ sandwhich. Sh!t, shower, shave and about 5:15 I was on the road. I get to the site and pulled in to the wrong side of the park. So I double back around to the proper parking lot, where I find my reserved parking space. Transition was supposed to close in 45 minutes and I needed to get my bike looked at too. I was a bit rushed but I knew what I needed to do. I was treated to some Puccini over the loudspeakers while in transition and that settled me down a little. I was probably one of a handful of athletes who recognized and appreciated hearing "Nessun Dorma," but that's way better than "Who Let the Dogs Out."
Episode 2 - Race Day Morning - Pre Race
Luckily everything was laid out before I went to bed. Around 4:15, I crawled out of bed, brushed my teeth, and started munching on my pre race PBJ sandwhich. Sh!t, shower, shave and about 5:15 I was on the road. I get to the site and pulled in to the wrong side of the park. So I double back around to the proper parking lot, where I find my reserved parking space. Transition was supposed to close in 45 minutes and I needed to get my bike looked at too. I was a bit rushed but I knew what I needed to do. I was treated to some Puccini over the loudspeakers while in transition and that settled me down a little. I was probably one of a handful of athletes who recognized and appreciated hearing "Nessun Dorma," but that's way better than "Who Let the Dogs Out."
I ran into e-speed doing some body marking and got some lovely artwork from Paula.
And no I don't shave my legs.
Usually before a race I have some time to chat and catch up with friends, but it was as if the entire tri community was out there on Sunday. So I didn't catch as many people as I wanted to, especially the athletes doing the sprint.
Episode 3 - Swim
Well the race was delayed a bit as another buoy was getting placed out in the water, but no worries. So we had to swim directly east and parallel to shore for about half a mile, then make a turn and head back. It was a bit tough to actually see the buoys through the sunlight and that far out. Luckily I am a slower swimmer and was able to navigate by watching the bobbing heads of the other swimmers. No worries as I swam out. I did have to slow up a bit to let out a little stream; I apologize to the folks behind me. On the way back I was expecting to see more red buoys, but I guess they changed the colors up and we had to swim towards a few green buoys. That led me a little of course. Then towards the end the buoys went back to red, but apparently I was swimming towards to wrong buoy. That lead to a little extra distance, but no worries. So as I made the last turn and headed towards shore, I saw a lot of swimmers. I thought: "Wow there must have been a lot of swimmers just a bit faster than me." Ten seconds later I notcied the swimmers were getting closer and it was as if a school of pirranha was headed right for me, their slow moving dinner. They were the sprinters coming right at me. So a quick course correction and I avoided them. Whew. I safely climb out of the water, quickly glance at the time on my watch. Hmm, a bit slow, but I swam a little off course; no worries.
Episode 4 - T1
Nothing exciting here. Helmet on, check, sunglasses, check, picnic lunch into my jersey, check, let's roll. I had a pretty quick transition, maybe in the top ten or fifteen out of all the half IM participants. It wasn't until the run when I realized I never put on any sunscreen this morning. Luckily I did not get sunburnt again.
Episode 5 - Bike
Many folks have commented that this is one of the toughest courses they have every raced on. Since I have done a number of training rides on it, I had no worries. I actually enjoy a good climb or ten. I tried to settle in on the first mile or two, but my hamstrings were just downright tight. I believe this is a combination of the compression on them from the wetsuit, not being entirely comfortable on my bike, and just plain having weak hamstrings.
When I say not being comfortable on my bike, I mean two things specifically: 1. I am trying to spin more than mash and 2. I am trying to sit further back on the saddle. I am pretty much going from a 90 RPM kind of guy to a 100 RPMs; going 10 RPMs faster from one year to the next is tough. I believe my hamstrings are still trying to get used to being recruited. As for sitting back on the saddle that should use my hamstrings more, but it will help the knees out.
I also started munching on my ham sandwich. I cut it into little pieces the night before, so every few minutes I reached back and grabbed a bite. I wanted to consume all of this by mile 10 and I think I ate all but one or two bites. By the way I chose a maple honey ham on white bread and no condiments.
I had also packed two bottles of Accelerade, a bottle of water, and a bottle of endurance gatorade. The plan was to take a fresh bottle of gatorade or water at each stop. So I drank about 3/4 of the bottle of gatorade and replaced it with a fresh bottle at the first aid station. I nailed the handoff, but dropped it ten seconds later as I tried to put it into the cage. Bummer. By the way, I had new cages behind my saddle. They were more straight up as opposed to what I had before, which was angled down a bit. Maybe I'll tinker with that angle a bit.
Around mile 10, the fun started. Rob pulled up besides me before the killer hill. He is an extraordinarily fast swimmer and biker, so it was no surprise he caught me so soon. I cruised up the steep section of the hill, but five minutes later we were still climbing on false flats and he caught up to me. I wanted to keep riding with him, but I had to tell myself that he was doing the aquabike and that I was here to prep for IM WI, not race a half IM.
I was trying to settle in, but I wanted to keep eating too. Besides my sandwich, I packed a Little Debbie oatmeal cream pie (370 calories in this cookie!!!) and was hoping to snag some fruit somewhere to complete my picnic too. For the rest of the ride I went with Clif bars and was ripping off chunks every 10 to 15 minutes. I would chase it down with water or gatorade, but in hindsight I needed to take in larger and more sips of water. It was pretty uneventful, but it was nice to see Brooks out at an aid station and Lloyd and Eric and his SBR team at another aid station. Thanks for the encouraging "Good Nutrition" mantra Eric.
Well the hills kept on coming and I tried to get into the aero postion as often as possible. Well about mile 35 or so I realized I would need to adjust my position before my next ride. My back started to ache like crazy and I believe it was because I was reaching too far in my new aero geometry. So needless to say, I wasn't in the aero position too much between miles 40 and 58.
Episode 6 - T2
About 3 hours later I returned to the transition area. My flying dismount wasn't too fast nor too pretty but it did the job. I took my time in T2 as I wanted to settle myself down for the run. There were a bunch of the sprint racers there cheering me on which was a very welcoming sight and sound. I was really slow as the announcer was about to charge me a night's rent.
Episode 7 - Run
Well in two miles I would find out if I had learned anything over the last four weeks. The course was an out and back and out and back. The first mile was pretty slow as I was trying to find my running legs. I actually decided to take a pit stop in the bushes too. I saw a lot of tri club folks cheering or working the aid stations; kudos to you all. The third mile rolled around and turned out to be a couple of rollers, but this is where things started to fall apart for me last time. This time, it felt good. I pushed up the hill and hit the turnaround. All systems still good and functioning fine. I put it into cruise and started picking people off. For some reason I decided not to take splits at every mile, I had figured I was doing this race based on how I was feeling anyways. I wish I had. My first two miles I hit were at 16:40 which included my T2.5. The first 6.55 miles ended up around 50-51 minutes.
It was really nice seeing so many of the racers, volunteers, and spectators several times. E-speed was there again energetic as ever at the 1/2 way point. I stayed stronger for ten miles, but after I hit that last hill, I knew I was going to struggle the last 3 miles. I had built up too much lactic acid in the legs and they were feeling absolutely spent. But I had no worries. My energy level was still high, so I dragged myself through the last few miles. I certainly could have pushed through and emptied my tank, but I wasn't about to put myself in a world of hurt over a "nutritional training race."
I ran with just Carb-boom gel, water, and endurance gatorade. I think it worked okay, but I should have popped a few salt tablet either in T2 or early on the run.
Summary:
Swim - 43:00
T1 - 1:17
Bike - 2:58.09
T2 - 1:17
Run - 1:51.05
Total - 5:34:46
It turns out the swim was maybe 350 yards long. And yes the bike course was listed at 58.2 miles instead of the standard 56 miles. That should be about 13 minutes? If you deduct that, I finished 70.3 in 5:21 on a tough bike course with no taper. But I will try to ignore that extrapolation and simply state that I shaved 20 minutes off of my run split. So yeah that's a pretty good improvement. I think the nutrition went well, as my energy was pretty good all day.
But as I will explore later this week, I still have some work to do. I was about to declare myself in taper, but no, not yet. A short recovery period and then I will try to get in a swim/bike brick this weekend. Time to get back to work.
I don't race with the tri club colors, but it was like a club outing on Sunday. Just check out the pictures snapped by e-speed. Thanks to everyone involved in any capacity.
And no I don't shave my legs.
Usually before a race I have some time to chat and catch up with friends, but it was as if the entire tri community was out there on Sunday. So I didn't catch as many people as I wanted to, especially the athletes doing the sprint.
Episode 3 - Swim
Well the race was delayed a bit as another buoy was getting placed out in the water, but no worries. So we had to swim directly east and parallel to shore for about half a mile, then make a turn and head back. It was a bit tough to actually see the buoys through the sunlight and that far out. Luckily I am a slower swimmer and was able to navigate by watching the bobbing heads of the other swimmers. No worries as I swam out. I did have to slow up a bit to let out a little stream; I apologize to the folks behind me. On the way back I was expecting to see more red buoys, but I guess they changed the colors up and we had to swim towards a few green buoys. That led me a little of course. Then towards the end the buoys went back to red, but apparently I was swimming towards to wrong buoy. That lead to a little extra distance, but no worries. So as I made the last turn and headed towards shore, I saw a lot of swimmers. I thought: "Wow there must have been a lot of swimmers just a bit faster than me." Ten seconds later I notcied the swimmers were getting closer and it was as if a school of pirranha was headed right for me, their slow moving dinner. They were the sprinters coming right at me. So a quick course correction and I avoided them. Whew. I safely climb out of the water, quickly glance at the time on my watch. Hmm, a bit slow, but I swam a little off course; no worries.
Episode 4 - T1
Nothing exciting here. Helmet on, check, sunglasses, check, picnic lunch into my jersey, check, let's roll. I had a pretty quick transition, maybe in the top ten or fifteen out of all the half IM participants. It wasn't until the run when I realized I never put on any sunscreen this morning. Luckily I did not get sunburnt again.
Episode 5 - Bike
Many folks have commented that this is one of the toughest courses they have every raced on. Since I have done a number of training rides on it, I had no worries. I actually enjoy a good climb or ten. I tried to settle in on the first mile or two, but my hamstrings were just downright tight. I believe this is a combination of the compression on them from the wetsuit, not being entirely comfortable on my bike, and just plain having weak hamstrings.
When I say not being comfortable on my bike, I mean two things specifically: 1. I am trying to spin more than mash and 2. I am trying to sit further back on the saddle. I am pretty much going from a 90 RPM kind of guy to a 100 RPMs; going 10 RPMs faster from one year to the next is tough. I believe my hamstrings are still trying to get used to being recruited. As for sitting back on the saddle that should use my hamstrings more, but it will help the knees out.
I also started munching on my ham sandwich. I cut it into little pieces the night before, so every few minutes I reached back and grabbed a bite. I wanted to consume all of this by mile 10 and I think I ate all but one or two bites. By the way I chose a maple honey ham on white bread and no condiments.
I had also packed two bottles of Accelerade, a bottle of water, and a bottle of endurance gatorade. The plan was to take a fresh bottle of gatorade or water at each stop. So I drank about 3/4 of the bottle of gatorade and replaced it with a fresh bottle at the first aid station. I nailed the handoff, but dropped it ten seconds later as I tried to put it into the cage. Bummer. By the way, I had new cages behind my saddle. They were more straight up as opposed to what I had before, which was angled down a bit. Maybe I'll tinker with that angle a bit.
Around mile 10, the fun started. Rob pulled up besides me before the killer hill. He is an extraordinarily fast swimmer and biker, so it was no surprise he caught me so soon. I cruised up the steep section of the hill, but five minutes later we were still climbing on false flats and he caught up to me. I wanted to keep riding with him, but I had to tell myself that he was doing the aquabike and that I was here to prep for IM WI, not race a half IM.
I was trying to settle in, but I wanted to keep eating too. Besides my sandwich, I packed a Little Debbie oatmeal cream pie (370 calories in this cookie!!!) and was hoping to snag some fruit somewhere to complete my picnic too. For the rest of the ride I went with Clif bars and was ripping off chunks every 10 to 15 minutes. I would chase it down with water or gatorade, but in hindsight I needed to take in larger and more sips of water. It was pretty uneventful, but it was nice to see Brooks out at an aid station and Lloyd and Eric and his SBR team at another aid station. Thanks for the encouraging "Good Nutrition" mantra Eric.
Well the hills kept on coming and I tried to get into the aero postion as often as possible. Well about mile 35 or so I realized I would need to adjust my position before my next ride. My back started to ache like crazy and I believe it was because I was reaching too far in my new aero geometry. So needless to say, I wasn't in the aero position too much between miles 40 and 58.
Episode 6 - T2
About 3 hours later I returned to the transition area. My flying dismount wasn't too fast nor too pretty but it did the job. I took my time in T2 as I wanted to settle myself down for the run. There were a bunch of the sprint racers there cheering me on which was a very welcoming sight and sound. I was really slow as the announcer was about to charge me a night's rent.
Episode 7 - Run
Well in two miles I would find out if I had learned anything over the last four weeks. The course was an out and back and out and back. The first mile was pretty slow as I was trying to find my running legs. I actually decided to take a pit stop in the bushes too. I saw a lot of tri club folks cheering or working the aid stations; kudos to you all. The third mile rolled around and turned out to be a couple of rollers, but this is where things started to fall apart for me last time. This time, it felt good. I pushed up the hill and hit the turnaround. All systems still good and functioning fine. I put it into cruise and started picking people off. For some reason I decided not to take splits at every mile, I had figured I was doing this race based on how I was feeling anyways. I wish I had. My first two miles I hit were at 16:40 which included my T2.5. The first 6.55 miles ended up around 50-51 minutes.
It was really nice seeing so many of the racers, volunteers, and spectators several times. E-speed was there again energetic as ever at the 1/2 way point. I stayed stronger for ten miles, but after I hit that last hill, I knew I was going to struggle the last 3 miles. I had built up too much lactic acid in the legs and they were feeling absolutely spent. But I had no worries. My energy level was still high, so I dragged myself through the last few miles. I certainly could have pushed through and emptied my tank, but I wasn't about to put myself in a world of hurt over a "nutritional training race."
I ran with just Carb-boom gel, water, and endurance gatorade. I think it worked okay, but I should have popped a few salt tablet either in T2 or early on the run.
Summary:
Swim - 43:00
T1 - 1:17
Bike - 2:58.09
T2 - 1:17
Run - 1:51.05
Total - 5:34:46
It turns out the swim was maybe 350 yards long. And yes the bike course was listed at 58.2 miles instead of the standard 56 miles. That should be about 13 minutes? If you deduct that, I finished 70.3 in 5:21 on a tough bike course with no taper. But I will try to ignore that extrapolation and simply state that I shaved 20 minutes off of my run split. So yeah that's a pretty good improvement. I think the nutrition went well, as my energy was pretty good all day.
But as I will explore later this week, I still have some work to do. I was about to declare myself in taper, but no, not yet. A short recovery period and then I will try to get in a swim/bike brick this weekend. Time to get back to work.
I don't race with the tri club colors, but it was like a club outing on Sunday. Just check out the pictures snapped by e-speed. Thanks to everyone involved in any capacity.
12 comments:
Great job! Glad it went better for you! Way to race smart.
My "taper" ride is 5 hours this weekend, if you want to join for some! Jeff G and Iron Johnny and I will be departing at 0700 from Cottonwood...
Great race dude....
Ham sandwich..hmm...i might try that for my nutrition for IM.
Great race and killer report! I love the nutrition details.
You have to be happy with that run- it was fantastic. E-speed got a great pic, too. I wish I could look that fast, even if just for a photo-op :)
Great job on the race. You had a race plan and you executed it..Great job on the run, feels good.. Nice pics from e-speed. Your TRI club rocks..
Great Job! You looked great on the run! I never would have guessed what happened right after!
I enjoyed the opera too and yes... I could also identify the piece. One of my great loves is opera.. bet you did not know that. Give me Puccini over "who let the dogs out' anyday. Great opera by the way... saw the cleveland opera do it this winter. Nice race report.
Super! I loved all the details. Who'd ever think? To use a HIM, as a training run...it boggles my mind.
Still running at the end of the race...that's what its all about, eh?
Congrats. I look forward to hearing how your bike adjustments go.
Good job on your race! Now, you're out of the funk feeling, right?
Congrats, glad to hear things were much smoother for you this time around despite that hectic Saturday!
Wow! Congrats on a great race!
Great race report, thanks! I really enjoyed reading that.
And congrats on a well-run race too!
Great job!! And nice reporting. To me, that time is amazing! I have never run a 1:51 half on fresh legs let alone after that swim and run! Way to go!
Post a Comment