St. George 70.3 Race Report
I arrived in st. George on Thursday and quickly made my way through registration. I then stopped at the local grocery store to stock up on supplies. On Friday I swam in the reservoir for about 20 minutes. The water was in the low 60’s and it was cold but not unbearable. I brought a neoprene cap, but based on my practice swim I decided my race issued swim cap would suffice. I also drove the bike course and while it had its challenging spots it did not seem overwhelming difficult. Maybe it was all the horror stories we were hearing throughout the week, but it didn’t seem unfairly steep or challenging.
Race morning started about 3:30am with 3 cups of applesauce and protein powder. I proceeded to pack my 3 bags and headed to T2 to drop off my run bag and pickup the shuttle. When I arrived at T1/Swim Start I realized I left my loaded gel flask back in the condo. Nutrition-wise I moved to plan B. I brought a couple additional lose gels and I managed to bum a few from gels from friends with extra nutrition. Not ideal, but calorie-wise I was covered.
Swim: 43:57
I was in the 13th swim wave scheduled to start at 7:36. When my wave was finally called I made my way into the water and because it was a deep water start we had to swim out a 100 yds or so to the swim starting line. As soon as I started to swim I felt a shooting pain in my calf – calf cramp! I stopped swimming and switched to my back and tried massaging my calf and was able to get it to relax. When I started swimming again, if I pointed my toes it would feel like it wanted to lock up again so I switched to keeping it bent at about 90 degrees and that seemed to get it to relax a bit. Keep in mind this is all before the race has even started. I managed to get to the starting line and when the cannon sounded I started swimming and I could feel my calf wanting to lock up so I decided to try and relax my legs as much as possible and not kick or at least keep any kicking to a minimum. This seemed to work and I was even able to get into a rhythm.
However, every time I started to think I beat the cramp, it was then that I would feel that pain said, “yep, I’m still here. I’m not done with you yet!” I managed to make it about half way through the swim when it finally got me. Shooting pain in my calf. I got on to my back and I tried pounding on my calf to get the muscle to relax. There was a kayak near me so I made way to the kayak to grab hold with one hand while I resumed punching my calf with the other. All the while I was working on my calf I could see the crowd of swimmers moving right on by me. I kept thinking there goes my race. I was there for probably 2 minutes before it felt well enough for me to continue. I said goodbye to the girl in the kayak and continued on. 10 minutes later another shooting pain. This stopping and starting continued for the rest of the swim but I eventually made it. When I got out of the water I was actually surprised that my time was 43 minutes, 57 seconds. I felt like I had wasted more time than that, but even still that time was way longer than anything I had put up previously. I was hoping to be out of the water in 35 or 36.
There were 2 difference I noted between practice swim the day before and my swim on race day. On practice day I basically put my wetsuit on and jumped into the water. On race day, there was a lot of time just standing around and waiting. Not sure if that wait time caused a problem. I didn’t really do a warm up so I’m wondering if doing a 5-10 min jog before putting on the wetsuit, might help. The other difference was that I wore calf sleeves under my wetsuit on race day whereas I did not on my practice day. Is it possible the compression of the calf sleeve caused a problem? If anything I would think that the sleeve would prevent a cramp but I’m not sure.
Bike: 2:48:54
I took my time in T1 putting on my bike shoes on and putting my wetsuit in the required swim bag. The temp was cool, but it felt good to be out of the water and my calf was feeling better by this time as well. There was a pretty serious climb coming out of the reservoir and then it was followed by a series of long rollers while you made your way back to St. George. The final climb to the top of snow canyon was a long climb with people moving very slowly. There were some knuckleheads trying to hammer it and there were some who were walking their bikes, but most people just doing what they could to make it up the hill. Upon cresting the climb and before you started the descent I think I passed about 15-20 people who took their foot at the gas once they sensed they were at the top. It felt good to see the EN strategy playing out in front of me. The final 13 mile descent back to St. George is FAST!!!! I was freaking out at the speeds I was seeing on my garmin and I was hanging on for dear life and that was on day with pretty much zero wind. I can’t imagine doing those descents on a windy day. Overall I feel the course is challenging but fair. For every long climb that takes your speed down to <10, there is a blazing fast downhill for you to make it up. Needless to say my power numbers were all over the place. I hit my goal watts and IF, but that’s with a VI of 1.13, so not exactly a text book example of riding steady. The good news is that the time on the bike flew by and I felt great all the way through. I took in about 70oz of perform and had a power bar and 3 gels. I peed 3 times on the bike, which was a first for me.</p>
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Avg Power: |
173 W |
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Max Power: |
474 W |
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Max Avg Power (20 min): |
219 W |
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Normalized Power (NP): |
197 W |
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Intensity Factor (IF): |
0.83 |
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Training Stress Score |
193.2 |
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Work: |
1,749 |
Run: 1:41:53
The run starts with a slight uphill as you make your way out of town. About a mile in it was kinda cool to see the pros coming in and seeing the kind of speed they were bringing to the party. My plan for the early part of the run was to go easy in preparation for the first of the 2 big climbs. I kept my target pace very wide which was somewhere between 8 and 8:30, but it was very difficult to pace so I decided to focus more on RPE and not worry about pace. Nutritionally, I had half a pack of cliff blocks and about 6 salt sticks in my race belt. For hydration and any additional nutrition I was planning to live off the course. Around mile 2 I took in 1 salt stick. I stuck to the EN strategy of walking the aid stations, but I felt pretty good so I walked just enough to take in about 4 oz of perform or water and then started running again. On the first climb I took it very easy and allowed my pace to climb, but I kept running and didn’t stop. There was a line of people who were walking. In fact there were significantly more people who were walking than were running. After the climb I picked up my pace, but again let RPE be my guide. The course plateaus and then starts a descent. I made up a lot of time at this point with the downhill as my pacing per mile was in the mid 7’s but my RPE also remained low. There were a few twists and turns through a dirt path that we had to do twice and that was a pain because it was steep and twisty at points and because it was a path there was not much room to pass. On the last of the climbs at around mile 9, I again took it very slow but did not stop running. I was still walking the aid stations and taking in liquids at every one, grabbing ice, water or whatever I could pour all over my body to keep me cool as the sun was now starting to get hot. Once I crested that hill, I still felt strong so I picked up the pace for the 30 minutes or so left until the finish. It was very cool to see the friendly faces of the EN athletes who were racing along with those in my local club. The extra mojo is awesome late in the race. Once off the hills all that was left was about 1.5 miles of gradual downhill to the finish. I took it in strong, but didn’t sprint the finish. It was cool to see the fan support and I gave a few high fives down the finish chute before crossing the line at 5:20:39.
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Summary: 1:41:53 -> 13.39 miles -> 7:36 per mile pace Split Time Distance Per Mile Avg Pace 1 7:53 1 7:53 2 7:58 1 7:58 3 8:50 1 8:51 4 7:55 1 7:55 5 7:33 1 7:33 6 7:22 1 7:22 7 7:41 1 7:41 8 7:24 1 7:24 9 8:27 1 8:27 10 7:18 1 7:18 11 7:15 1 7:15 12 6:56 1 6:56 13 6:46 1 6:46 14 2:39 .39 6:25 |
In summary here’s what I think worked well and what I need to fix going forward. I have a lot more “learnings” but I don’t view this is a race that went terribly wrong. St. George is a beautiful venue on a fun and challenging course. With sunny skies and no wind, you could not have dialed up a more ideal day. Also, I think I did a good job of playing the cards I was dealt on that day. After the swim, I was able to pass 1200 people on the bike and the run so I take that as a positive. Plus I identified numerous deficiencies I need to improve upon prior to CDA so I don’t make those same mistakes when it really counts.
Positives
? Nutrition – I felt hydrated and well fueled all day long. I train with perform and powerbar gels and my system handles both really well.
? Run Pacing – I don’t think I could have paced the run better. I felt I raced smart and I still had gas in the tank to negative split. Clearly the run is my strength, but I need to temper my confidence with caution as I head to CDA as I think the IM marathon is whole different animal than the HIM.
Learnings
? Swim cramps – Will need to figure out why my calf cramped up and what I need to do to prevent this from happening. If this had been CDA it would have been very difficult for me to get back in the water to do that second lap given how bad I was cramping on the swim.
? Garmin 910 – I used multisport mode but had forgotten to switch my swim settings to open water so my watch tried to record my swim as if I was in a pool. So not much swim data, but I don’t need my garmin to let me know my swim sucked. I need to make sure I test my watch fully.
? Bike – Still not riding steady although I do believe this was a very challenging course to keep steady. Need to keep my max power from spiking and keep my VI much lower. IF, TSS, NP were all pretty much what I was targeting. Luckily I have some time (& 2 race rehearsals) to work this out before CDA.
? Bike Setup – I used TBT to ship my bike to St. George and about 10 miles into the ride I realized my computer mount was moving around quite a bit. Apparently they had loosened or removed it during shipment. I did a test ride on Thursday but it was a quick ride around the block and I didn’t use my edge for that ride. I think the learning here is to ensure I fully test EVERYTHING prior to race day.
? Bike Confidence – I’m still building back my confidence and with every successful ride it gets better and better. The prescription here is more time in the saddle.
? Race Day – Forgetting your nutrition is inexcusable. Luckily I had a backup plan and a couple over prepared friends. I need to put together a better checklist system so I don’t forget anything in the future.
Comments
Agree that you will be well served to learn to ride steeadier, but that is a wicked hard course. Looks like you totally crushed the run, though. Those last 4.5 mile run splits are amazing. Well done! You're gonna rock CDA.
Great race, Mark, in spite of the calf deal. Nice to meet you at the dinner also. About the calf, I occasionally get a calf cramp in the pool under the exertion of pushing off the side. Usually this happens well into my swim when my legs are a little tired. So I was surprised that about 1/2 to 2/3 through the IMSG swim my calf also went into a knot without any push off at all. I was consciously trying to point my toes, so maybe my calf was complaining about the little extra strain. After the initial cramp, it kind of came and went. I would relax and it would go away, then I would point my toes and it would come back. Fortunately, it was just a mild cramp, so I was able to keep making progress while it worked out.