Monday, April 27, 2015

Ironman 70.3 Texas Recap - 9 weeks to go

4/26 was Ironman 70.3 Texas in Galveston.  This is a good race to see where my fitness is, practice my nutrition and just get some racing in before Ironman Coeur d'Alene in June.  

The week before, I reduced training volume to taper down into the race.  I've been tracking my fitness using a software called Training Peaks.  Essentially, it measures your Form.  Form = Fitness and Freshness.  Essentially, during taper, I want a specific measurement called TSB (training stress balance) to be close to 0 or above.  My graph is below, and after taper and on race day, my TSB was +8.  This said I should be in good Form for racing.  Here is my training graph since early January.  A lot too it, but basically tracking the yellow line to be at or above 0.  




I got to Galveston Saturday afternoon to do packet pickup and check in my bike.  The weather was stormy, but the temperatures were cool.  The forecast for Sunday was cloudy so the weather seemed to be working out for racing.  The line for checkin at Ironman Village (vendors, checkin, etc) was massive......luckily, last year I was awarded All World Athlete from Ironman corp for the races I did last year, and b/c of that I was able to bypass the line and go to the special AWA desk for checkin.  The perks of racing a lot.  My friend from college, Andy Yandell, who started racing tris last year was there to race.  I ran into him at IM Texas last year. After bike checkin, he invited me to his rented beach house for pre-race dinner.  That was nice......chatted about triathlon and had some dinner w/ he and his wife.  Got to the hotel around 7:00, organized my race gear, and went to bed.

Woke up at 4:00, had a bagel with peanut butter and coconut oil.  Wanted to get about 300 - 400 calories in me.  Headed over to the Transition to get my area set up.  Heard over the PA that the swim would not be wetsuit legal.  Meaning, the water was above 76 degrees so no one could wear a wetsuit.  That bummed me out b/c had I known (assumed water would be colder than 76 based on time of year) I would have brought my swim skin (special suit for non-wetsuit swims).  Oh well.  After getting everything setup, I headed down to the swim start.  I went off at 7:28am

SWIM: I usually get out front.  Would rather people swim over me than have to navigate through slower swimmers.  I go hard for the first probably 200 meters, then settle in.  Try to stay on the outside where there’s more open water, then taper into a more streamline route to the buoys once the crowd starts to disperse.  So that was I did in Galveston.  Worked well I think.  Was pretty much open water up until the first buoy where started hitting earlier waves.  From there on, it was open water, swimmers, open water, swimmers.  The swimmers though were not so much clumped up that they were easy to navigate through.  I was faster in than last year and last year was in a wetsuit.  So I think some gain there for sure. 

BIKE: Out of T1 (transition area....1 being first transition; swim to bike) We had to navigate through the Moody Gardens resort to the Shoreline highway that hugs the coast.  This year would be the first time to race with a Power Meter.  Once we got on the highway, I wanted to go off of power first and then see how that felt.  It felt like we were in a headwind, but the speed that I was going kind of offset what I was feeling.  Tried to keep it in a certain range, based on training, knowing that on the second half I’d try to hit the upper limit of that range.  The low end felt like the spot, and actually correlated to what I think I would have done w/out the PM.  Legs felt great all the way to the halfway point.  At the turn around, again felt like we were in another headwind.  Was thinking the opposite of last year had happened.  Headwind vs. tailwind in both directions.  But it wasn’t a strong wind.  Stuck to the plan to up the power.  The second half of the ride was a little more challenging to keep at a steady power.  Started grouping up with similar strength bikers, and we sort had a game of leap frog going.   But it was nice b/c it was nice to pace off of.  Even though we're competitors, triathletes sometimes help each other by taking turns pacing. But at some point, you have to separate yourself b/c after all, we are competitors.  I was pushing a little more power b/c passing in Triathlons, you can’t pass one and settle in between riders b/c you'll end up drafting (5 min penalty if caught).  You have to pass a line of cyclist grouped together so it took some power to get up the front.  Would have been nice for everyone to lay off to make the pass easier but no one was slowing down.  With about 8 miles left, I increased my power a little more to the top end of the my set power range and separated from the group.   Legs were getting tired, but knew I would still be able to get a good run in so I wasn’t worried.   

NUTRITION ON THE BIKE: I took in 3 bottles of Gatorade, and 3 GUs.  I start with store bought gatorade on my bike (store bought so I don't use my own bottles and can throw out at first aid station), then throw out and replace with aid station Gatorade.  Very quick....don't even stop....just grab from the volunteer as I pass through the aid station.   In 70.3, I’ll stick with the GU.  Just tape to my top bar (little packets of syrup like gel that loaded w/ about 100 calories).  In IM, I go w/ a product called EFS in a water bottle b/c of the volume needed (don’t want to carry 8-10 GUs).  Both products work for me so even though I hadn’t been training with GU, I knew it would work (past race experience).   However, I forgot my container w/ my Salt Lick tablets (sodium) so I was a little worried about possible cramping on the run.  Past experience, if I don’t consume salt lick (1 an hour), I’ll cramp.  Was a little worried about that.  But I knew Gatorade Endurance had probably enough Sodium in there to keep me good.  Cramping is usually an issue in Olympic distance tri (~35 miles) b/c of the higher intensity. 

RUN: Came out of T2 feeling good.  Actually grabbed my salt stick tabs and put them in my tri top pocket.  Took 1 immediately, and then 2 more throughout the run.  Just wanted to run the first few miles easy then evaluate where I was.  Looked down at my watch and noticed 7:12 min mile pace.  Tried to slow it down and kept noticing 7:20, 7:30 paces.  Finally was able to setting into a slower relaxed pace.  I wanted to run the second half of the 13.1 run faster than the first.  This would insure that I wouldn't crack on the run.  I tried to stay at a pace that would allow me to push it a little faster for the last lap, or at least the last few miles.  This was a 3 loop run course......after about a 1 mile into the final lap, I started the charge.  It felt ok, but I wasn’t watching my pace anymore but more my heart rate.  At about 2 miles to go,  I started to reach for everything I had.  I had come to the last aid station which was about a mile to go.  I skipped it b/c anything I took in there would have no affect w/ a mile left.  At that point I was digging deep b/c I knew I would break 5, but wanted to beat my last year’s time.  I definitely left it all out there.  Had nothing left at the end, and I beat last year's time, and my 70.3 PR set then by 11 mins.  Finishing in 4:46, 20th out of 332 40-44 age groupers, and 143 out of 2400 total racers.  Good numbers.