My First Olympic Distance Event and My Tri Club Championship
Bonelli Olympic Distance Triathlon / Pasadena Tri Club Championship
Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park
October 16, 2012
I find writing race reports to be the best way to digest what happened, process the key learning’s as well as record the events of the day. For me, these reports are really cathartic and help me improve my game. I look at writing them as tool to be thoughtful about my performance more than anything else. It basically forces analysis.
Bonelli was an interesting race for me. It was my first Olympic distance event and it came at the end of my first real season - a season where I had an actual training plan and quite a few events on the calendar. There were many really interesting takeaways, but three seem to keep coming to mind as I turn it over in my head:
1. Taper
Prior to this race I had followed a taper plan for other races and while I intellectually understood the benefits – freshness comes back faster than fitness declines - it always made me feel like I was wasting the week and missing a few workouts. For this race I had taken most of the week off, but by Friday I was feel over anxious and decided to get in some training time. As important as racing is, I also train for body composition goals. So, Friday I hammered a treadmill interval run and then Saturday I road a threshold session on the river trails. These workouts would prove costly on Sunday and frankly point to takeaways 2 and 3.
2. Taking the distance seriously
After completing both Wildflower 70.3 and the Malibu Sprint this year, I took the Olympic distance a bit for granted. It looked at more like a sprint versus the Half Ironman distance. In truth, the Olympic has a more in common with the Half Iron than I gave it credit for. I needed a bit more thinking toward pacing and planning to avoid a blow up.
3. Being Ready to Race
Malibu was 4 weeks prior and I drilled that race. I improved on my 2011 time by 20 minutes for a 1:38:xx finish. After that late season race, training for this really late season race was challenging. I was trying to get a bit of a break before starting the 14 week Out Season plan on October 29th while at the same time trying to prepare for this race. Those two things are totally at odds! I took a lot of volume out of my training and instead focused on intervals, intensity and days off. It was really hard to “get up” for this race when compared to Wildflower and Malibu where I felt shot out of a cannon on race morning.
So, with that in mind, let’s chop this baby up~
Swim – 1500 meters (Garmin Showed 1.1 miles)
0:27:28
0:01:24/ 100 yards
Swim was a lot of fun! I had never started in the first wave before and it was fun to be out there in relatively clean water. I was swimming among the frontrunners and it felt a bit empty out there after the first 300 meters. The swim felt long though. I have not swum at all since Santa Barbara Long Course at the end of the August with the exception of ½ mile ocean swim at the Malibu sprint. Prior to that it was Wildflower. When I look at my training log, I only swam a couple masters swims at the RBAC since June. I turned in a respectable time, but it took a lot out of me apparently. Later in the run my arms felt really heavy.
The last 300 meters I really picked up the pace in an effort to just get out of the water and get on with it. I swam hard until my fingers hit the sand and then stood to jog up the beach. As I am pulling off my suit, Allen Yee tells me Trevor Mathews has about 20 seconds on me. I start to hammer up the hill to T1 in chase. Big mistake. I get to the top of that steep little bugger and almost lost it. I had a moment where I thought I was either going to vomit or pass out – maybe both. I decide to walk the last 10 steps to the top. Just then Dave Tien runs by and gives me a bit of encouragement and I find it in me to jog to my bike.
Transition 1
0:02:18
I am trying to catch my breath and lower my heart rate after the swim and then running up that stupid little hill. T1 is smooth and easy as I work to keep moving parts to a minimum and I am watching Trevor and Dave do the same. They seem to look way better than I feel and I am grateful they are not in my AG. I leave T1 with Trevor and Dave, but it is the last time I see them until the out and back by the airport on the run.
Bike – 40 kilometers
1:16:04
Lap Splits – 0:25:40, 0:24:21, 0:24:05
Pnorm 221, VI 1.13, Pavg 195, IF 0.838
I am still feeling nauseous as I ride out of T1 and hit the little climb up to the freeway overpass. My legs feel really heavy from the day before and I struggle to just feel right. As I slide down the really steep section after the freeway, I ate half a stinger waffle hoping that it might settle my hunger pangs and angry stomach. It didn’t work.
The first lap of the course is really quite and actually the slowest. After starting with the first wave, the three-lap course is just a bit empty. I spend most of this lap just settling in and trying feel better. The second lap is a big improvement and I am starting to feel like I am making good power. Normal Power was 229 watts, which feels low, but it’s always lower on this bike versus my road bike. Also, my legs just don’t feel like they have any “snap” in them and I am regretting Saturday’s Hammerfest. I think the Saturday’s ride was a key workout, but it should have been an easy spin.
The third lap is actually my fastest. I am making good power, slightly less than lap 2, but, I am comfortable in the bars, my heart rate is upper zone 4 and I am breathing well and feel in control. It is also really a great time seeing all the Pasadena Tri Club peeps on the course. It seemed like our red and white kits were all over the place.
The course itself is fairly challenging and technical in comparison to others. There really is not much “flat”. It is pretty all up, down and false flat. In 40 kilometers, there was almost 2,000 feet of gain. The impact of which had me shifting all over the place; big chain ring, small chain ring, all across both sides of the cassette. By comparison, in Malibu I was in the big chain ring and the small side of the cassette the whole time.
A note here on power, I need to dial in my threshold better. Generally, I train and test on a road bike with either a Quarq or a SRM crank based power meter. On the Time Trial bike, I am using a hub-based Powertap. I think the differences in frame geometry and point of measurement (crank versus rear hub) combined with differences in the units (each claim +/- 1-2%) has me honked up by 10-20 watts.
I need to test on the TT bike with the Powertap and understand my targets on that combination, because while this ride shows an IF of 0.838, I believe that is low. I was riding a bit harder than that in my opinion. My heart rate was in Zone 4 (Threshold) for 75% of the ride. 21% was at Zone 3 (Tempo).
Transition 2
0:02:21
I came off the bike finally feeling pretty good. I went from being “ready to quit/ wondering if I could continue” on the first lap to smiling when I pulled into T2. On the bike I had drank a bottle of electrolytes, ate a stinger waffle and got my heart rate back under control.
T2 had very few moving parts – helmet and cycling shoes off, visor, race belt, shoes and socks on. I know many pass on socks, but the extra 15-20 seconds is worth it to my tender feet and me.
The Run – 10k
0:54:20 (8:46/mile)
Heart Rate: 81% at Zone 4 (Threshold). “Extreme Sufferfest” according to Strava
19% at Zone 3 (Tempo)
Mile Splits:
Mile 1 8:09
Mile 2 7:58
Mile 3 8:22
Mile 4 8:24
Mile 5 8:56
Mile 6 10:43 (blew up and walked up the last grade through the park)
Mile 0.23 8:22 (ground flattened and I ran down to the finish)
The transition from the bike to the run is always weird for my legs. It just seems to trip them out for the first quarter mile. As I ran out of T2, I was already regretting my intervals on Friday. My legs were feeling heavier than normal and I was trying to control my pace. I usually come out hot and I know it. My Garmin was showing 7:10 pace up the grade out of Bonelli Park. I get some active recovery coming down the slope to the damn and feel ok after the first mile. It was not the fastest, but I was working the hardest for sure. From this point, you can see the lake and it is daunting when you are suffering to think “I need to run around this thing”.
During miles 2 and 3 I am hurting, but I am keeping it together. I am off my pace based on my pre-race thinking and I am not sure I can hold it up. My 5k pace is about 7:30. Based on that, I spent 48% of the run in Pace Zone 3 (Moderate) and only 22% at Pace Zone 4 (Tempo).
The heart breaker on this course for me is the out and back section by the airport. Here it got really hot, there was no shade and the scenery is just “blah”. The good and bad news is I can see all the PTC kits in front of me – Dave Tien, Brian Delgado, Michel LeDuff and Trevor Mathews, to name a few. It gave me a chance to try and read a few poker faces and it looked like everyone was hanging tough. I chug to the turn around up the hill and then get a bit of rest sliding down hill into the trailer park. After the trailer park, we climbed up those little punchy grades and it was just sapping me. I hit mile five and I was just spent, legs hurt, stomach hurts and have got to pee! Almost home….
Mile 6 is killing me. There was long grade up hill through the parks before the course flattens and goes down to the finish. I shorten my stride and try to pick up my cadence to get up the hill. I just didn’t have it. I decide to walk up the hill and make it home alive.
I get to the top and then slide over the line. Such a thrill to see the PTC cheering section! Also, it was a great thrill to see my wife and kids after the finish. They had never been to a race before and it was special to me that they cheered for me at the finish.
Total time was 2:42:54
In total, it was a great day to be outside with friends, but I am a bit disappointed by my performance. My goal at every race is a strong run without walking. I finished 4th in my AG and missed the podium by 0:01:04. I am proud of that, but I know I can sort this distance out and be back stronger.
Final take-ways:
· Execute a better taper
· Swim a more even pace
· Dial-in watts target with race combination bike and power meter
· Run more evenly to avoid a blow up (I had a peak 1 mile better than my 5k pace)
Comments
Just a couple of thoughts — first, a pretty high VI (even for an Oly); and second, Al T always suggests for the taper, less volume but some short sharp stuff to keep sharp (ie VO2 max sets but short ones).
1. Taking any race seriously is really, really important. Even if you are fast, an Olympic-distance race is an endurance event lasting over two hours. If you read enough forum posts you might be convinced it is a joke. But it is not.
2. Your Friday and Saturday workouts were dumb decisions and a manifestation of your "dismissing" the distance. Lesson learned.
3. Notwithstanding point #2, I doubt the treadmill session hurt your race too badly. The FTP work on the bike was the problem.
4. Don't underestimate the impact of having gone out too hard on the swim. The fact that the first half of your bike was worse than the second half suggests to me that you fried yourself on the swim. You come out of T1 with your HR jacked and your body overheated (not that it feels that way, but it is probably the case), and you are hosed on the first half of the bike.
5. Most people throw around numbers like IF 0.95 on the bike, but this is another situation where a forum post makes it sound a lot easier than it is. THAT SAID, your IF was way, way, WAY too low. If you couldn't get your power up to 0.88-ish or better than the combo of Saturday's workout and a too-hard swim had you nailed I think.
6. VI=1.13??????
7. To be blunt, after a year in the haus you are making a rookie mistake to use a road bike FTP on a tri bike. Also a power measurement at the hub is different than at the crank, even before you start to layer in the calibration differences which you will have NO IDEA about in terms of magnitude or even direction.
8. In general, I don't advocate training on a road bike in-season. Personally I train on my tri bike in the OS and in-season, and only use the road bike in the post-season and for group rides. I can understand the logic advanced by folks who use the road bike for the OS. But if you're training on the road bike in-season I suspect you're leaving performance upside on the table.
Overall it sounds like a "post-season race" so not a big deal. And you learned that the Olympic-distance is a legit event so that is good. I believe that for most EN athletes the best time to do an Olympic-distance event is about 4-6 weeks after the OS…when you have started to add a little volume but not a ton and your speed and FTP are peaking. If you plan for an Olympic-distance event in that timeframe you will just crush it!!
Cheers,
Matt
Dino,
Great race report! Not sure if you've raced Bonelli before but it's definitely a race where it pays to know the course very well. I could see myself putting up a high VI on that course as there are definitely places where it pays to spend vs save or ride steady.
Next year you must beat Brian Delgado. Completely unacceptable he thinks he's all that and a bag of chips
@Matt - Thanks for taking the time to provide your thoughts in such detail. I agree and and appreciate your thoughts....
Next stop IM California 70.3 in March!