Kinetic HIM
This is my first EN race report, so please bear with me... Yesterday, I raced Kinetic HIM in Lake Anna, VA. My feelings are summed in two short, yet contradictory statements:
- My results reflect the status of my training.
- I am disappointed.
Training:
This is my first year w/ EN. I did the NOS, where I continuously improved in bike and run, then 2 weeks transition and jumped right into the HIM plan to prepare for Kinetic. In hindsight, that wasn’t right for me. I was pretty fried after the NOS and could have used a longer break before race-specific training. It didn’t help that winter was extra long this year. While I didn’t mind long trainer sessions (I kinda enjoy those 
), doing long runs in the morning before work when it’s cold and dark is just not my idea of a good time 
... As a result, the quality of my workouts suffered.
Given that Kinetic was in mid-May, I did get a bit anxious about being confined to the trainer for so long and began forcing myself outside for long rides in temps that I normally wouldn’t 
. I thought it was important to get outdoor miles in, but that took a lot out of me physically and emotionally. Thankfully, the weather finally came round in the last few weeks.
Residual NOS fatigue, the prolonged winter and training volume/intensity did have a cumulative effect on me, and I hit a wall around week 16. I just could’t do it anymore. The training was breaking me. I stood down for a few days and when I went back at it, focused on endurance/volume and laid off the speedwork. All this left me with severe doubts about my fitness/abilities going into the race. Normally, I feel like a superstar come race week. This time, not so much... 
Pre-Race:
The taper went well, but I could tell that the proverbial ‘bounce’ wasn’t back in my step yet. Add to that some pretty bad work stress over the past few weeks and I just wasn’t that into the race. That being said, I rested plenty during race week and fueled very well. I drove down the afternoon before, got my pre-race logistics taken care of and relaxed the evening before. The weather was looking good, I could feel the mojo coming back 
Race:
I followed the EN HIM fueling protocol, and it worked well for me. Race day AM was gray and wet, but not cold. It’s been 1 1/2 years since my last triathlon, but getting myself organized and setting up my TA wasn’t a problem. It all came right back to me
Swim:
Water temps were 69. I wore my wetsuit and since this was my first OWS in 1 1/2 years, I warmed up some which was good because it took me a while to get used to OWS and wetsuit again. Still, it took me 300 meters or so to find my rhythm, but then things went rather swimmingly (no pun intended). Swim and T1 times are combined, but I was 10th out of 22 in my AG, which is about par for the course for me. Of the three swims in any given week of the HIM plan, the first one usually went well, the second one I struggled and the third one was so-so. Technique is one major limiter, fatigue from previous workouts my second. I don’t see that changing any time soon. I’d like to swim more, but I can’t add a 4th/week and given that most swims are followed by runs that I need to get done in the AM before work, I don’t see adding time as an option. So, it is what it is.
Bike:
Lots of rolling hills on this course and per my Garmin about 1,900 feet of elevation gain. I’d been practicing on hills so that wasn’t really a problem. I really tried to follow the EN mantra of ‘flattening the course’ and keeping my power steady, but for me it is just impossible to keep my power low when I’m going up a 5% hill. I downshift into my granny gears but my power will still be too high, but if I go any slower, I’ll tip over... And on the downhills, even when I’m pushing the pedals, I’m going fast without getting out of z1 - any faster, and I’ll crash. So that had me stressed out most of day: trying to keep the power steady on a course that wouldn’t let me. I finished w/ a IF of .779, which I guess is right on target, and also definitely rode ‘should speed’ versus ‘could speed’, but I can’t help but be frustrated about what’s going on with my biking 
. I’ve gotten really good and nailing power zones on the trainer, but I just can’t apply that outdoors because I just can’t mitigate all the external factors. Only 8 women in my AG rode slower bikes. I always thought I was a strong biker, but I guess not.
Run:
The run is a three-loop course w/ a big hill at the beginning of each course and a flatter, but longer one in the middle. I felt good coming off the bike and following EN protocol of starting slow for the first 3 miles. No problem there, except that after the first 3 miles, while I wasn’t slowing down, I couldn’t go any faster either ... I just plodded along steadily. Didn’t have to walk, but couldn’t start zipping either. In my AG, only 8 women were slower.
So that’s it. As I said, given the way my training has been going, I shouldn’t be surprised, but I still can’t help feel disappointed. I’ve never worked harder than I have since joining EN, but I am not seeing any results in my training, RRs and now this “A” race. In fact, on comparable courses, my pre-EN me is noticeably faster, and I just don’t understand what is happening here ... Nothing that I accomplished in the NOS seems to be translating into my outdoor training and racing. On the bike I’m trying to be smarter, but it’s not yielding better bike splits or setting me up for better run splits. In fact on the run, I seem to have lost any ability to run fast. I’m just plodding along steadily like I was before (actually, slower than before). It’s almost like my body and mind are refusing to run hard. Weird. I realize it takes time for training to take hold, but I’m 7 months into EN. Expecting some improvement can’t be unreasonable, can it? I’ve got a transition week coming up and then launch IM training. I’m supposed to do Quassy to kick off IM training, but right now, I’m not sure I can stomach another disappointing day. I’ll have to sleep on that. My goal is to really crush transition week so I’m refreshed and ready for IM training and then I’ll take it from there.
In the mean time, it’s smorgasboard time: pancakes for breakfast, Chinese for lunch. And now, I’m craving ice cream... 
Comments
So I would say may sure you rest enough (i just had HIM SG last week, and haven't done anything at all the last 8 days) and make sure you are hungry for training again. And don't do more like adding that 4th swim.
Hi Kate
I so know how you are feeling. Coach P helped me out of an extreme fatigue hole around the same time you were battling your fatigue.
I couldn't do any long runs faster than EP in preparation to my IM Australia — which last week. And I really struggled on the run in that race.
I would reach out to the coaches in the micro thread.
Cheers
Peter
Don't know if it helps any, but I was there as well and didn't perform up to what I thought I should. I actually didn't feel like the bike was that bad. For me, bike courses that I don't like are ones with lots of turns and not many sections to just cruise. I especially don't like turns where you have to break heavily coming into it (e.g. at the bottom of the down hill). I think I only had 3 or 4 times I had to hit the breaks prior to the dismount line which I felt was pretty good. You might want to also look at your VI which to see if you were riding smoother. Mine was 1.04 which I felt was pretty good for that course and much better than I've done previously.
My wife did mention that she heard some folks saying the swim had a lot of chop. I didn't notice it too much, but I also wasn't able to find any good feet to follow. Coming back in it was a little harder to see the buoys so the chop probably did pick up some.
The run I think was tougher than it looked "on paper" as I really suffered as well. Mine may have been to fatigue as I did very little to no taper coming into this one. But the downhill coming back to the start/finish also beat me up quite a bit and being on all pavement started to take it's toll on me as well. That combined with the climb coming out of transition probably made this a tougher run compared to the bike/swim. My legs had some serious DOMs and is only today getting reasonable (but still no running for me).
Sorry I have no real answers, but I'm certainly with you on not having a great performance. This was my first time racing in a couple of years and I felt stronger than what the numbers tell me, but they are what they are.
Dave
Thanks for the feedback guys. Resting these past two days has already done wonders for me physically and emotionally and I've reached out to Coach P on how to best proceed.
@ Satish - ok, this is weird. I got an email from you, but I don't see your response in the thread. What's that about? Anywho, I have a compact crank 50/34 in the front, and in the back (now you got me, I'm no tech expert....) I have 11 rings, and I think 28 teeth on the largest. Does that make sense?
One other thing I failed to mention is that I raced about 4-5 lbs heavier that I normally do. This is quite frankly the result of my inability to adjust my eating habits to the needs of EN style training - I fuel well during the workouts, but the rest of the day I'm always hungry and will binge on whatever I find (job stress doesn't help either...). I've been struggling with that since the out season, and I need to get a handle on that before IM training ramps up.
Great to hear you have reached out to Coach P.
I raced over my usual race weight as well — I couldn't be disciplined because I was worrying about the fatigue and was wondering if I would be able to finish the race.
I would be happy to have a look at your bike file if you wanted?
Thanks Peter. Does this work:
http://connect.garmin.com/
Thoughts?
Second, is that your cadence was IMO very low at 74 rpms — which may have had a negative impact on your run (and bike?).
Third, I couldn't see any evidence that you took it easier for the first 30 mins.
Fourth, you VI was quite high at 1.07.
Lastly, I noticed that your heart rate fell over the bike from an average of 139 bpm in the first hour to 128 bpm in the last hour.
Now I know you have a compact crank and a largest cassette of 28, so I am wondering about your reports of going up hills above your target power?
Perhaps related to this VI is that I noticed you didn't use the lap function on your Garmin.
What many do is to display 3 sec Pav, along with lap Pnorm, and reset the lap after 20 mins (or 30). This gives you a way of hitting your Pnorm target overall by having a target to hit in the short term. Once you have been ridding for an hour, the ride Pav and P norm don't change very quickly.
In terms of execution, for a HIM, first 30 mins should be at 5% less power than your target. Then, aim at your target Pnorm watts on the flats, 5/10% above target for hills etc. And, coast and get aero when doing more than 32 mph.
Perhaps if you could give me your reaction to these points, we could explore them in some more detail?
(1) Take the transition week...you raced well and you need to absorb it.
(2) Capture the top three things that worked / didn't work so you can carry those forward.
(3) Let's skip Quassy (or do the oly instead) as there's little to gain for you and lots of friction around the event (travel time, sleep loss, more fatigue). In hindsight maybe we drop Kinetic for Quassy for more rest and the option for some speed work pre-event?
(4) Let's identify the parts of the EN program that don't work for you and adjust. From your report I see you mention only getting in 1 good swim a week and that early morning long runs before work are killer. For example, you could shift your Thursday long run to Sunday, then put a 60-75' ABP ride on Thurs (optional short brick run of 15' off the bike) with the Wed Bike/Run on Tuesday. Wed is interval run only. Monday / Friday are Swim ONL (good swims), with the option to drop one if tired. Sat is long ride and run. Sunday is long run.
Let me know what you think!
A couple of thoughts:
- I wonder if you were a little bit too enthusiastic out of the gate in the OS – crushing every workout with a "boom". That can catch up to you for sure. I'd be interested to know your hours per week and intensity vs. endurance pace training in your pre-EN training days. It seemed from some of your posts that the 2-a-days were really tough for you.
- Further to the above, I seriously wonder if you get enough sleep.
- What was your VI…I realize you had trouble "flattening the course" but how flat did you make it?
- IF of 0.8 is usually a good race target. What is your watts/kg FTP?
As you look toward IM training for LP you should take stock of your physical and mental states. The IM training plan will have more volume than the HIM and if you feel broken now then think about what you're really ready to bike off over the coming few months. If you feel like you're at the bottom of a mountain looking up then you may want to reset your performance expectations at LP and do the training with a totally different head-space…less looking for "boom" and more of a relaxed approach where you prioritize workouts to fit within the constraints of life.
Best of luck and I look forward to continuing to follow your progress.
Cheers!
Matt
- Coach P has great advice on adjusting
- 1.07 VI is too high...need to practicce that ABP skill!!
Kate, I deleted my earlier post because I felt it was a bit of a knee jerk response to your travails and I wanted to consider it some more. In the meantime you have gotten lots of excellent advice! Regarding gears, I also use a 50/34 and 11/28 and on steepish hills I am in the granny gear or the next one if I want to stay sitting without spiking my power (as I learned on my last RR). I am no expert, but I wonder if you wouldn't benefit from an even bigger rear inside cog or smaller front inside chainring to flatten the hills out more? (I admit I am not sure if these are even available, especially up front without a triple chainring). Something you could ask your LBS about if you decide to investigate further.
So first off thank you everybody for your feedback and thoughts. Very helpful for me as I reset my head.
@ Peter – thanks for helping me understand my bike file better.
Re: cadence, that’s just how I roll. I’ve always been a big gear/low cadence rider. Maybe not smart, but I don’t see being able to change that mid-season.
Good thought about doing laps w/ Pav and Pnorm. Right now, I just show 10sec Pav. I’ll change that on my display. I do want to leave it at 10secs though vs 3 secs since my power is so jumpy.
And clearly, I need to be more disciplined on the hills. I just get soooo frustrated when I go soooo slow to stay within my numbers and everyone passes me L
@ Coach P – I hear you on Quassy. My gut was leaning the same way, just needed to hear it from you, so thank you for that. The good thing about having done Kinetic is that it gave me a reality check and now I have more time to recover, reassess and regroup before LOU.
Regarding your suggestions on rearranging the plan: The Thursday morning run problem may have taken care of itself now that it’s light and warmer outside – it’s easier to head out at 5:30 AM when the birds are chirping and the sun is rising …
I do plan on taking one full rest day/week during IM training, so I’ll have to decide what to drop for that. I’m also thinking of making one of the post-swim runs an aqua-run to a) minimize impact on the body; b) save some headspace since I’ll already be in the water. What do you think about that?
I also plan on taking two transition weeks instead of one. I’ve now taken three days off and won’t be training this weekend due to family stuff, so I want to ease back into things next week before gearing up for IM training again.
@ Matt – yes, definitely over-enthusiastic during OS. I remember many vets cautioning against burning out during OS and paying the price during the season. I thought I was on top of that. turns out, not so much … But, I have much more awareness now, so that’s a good learning lesson.
Volume-wise, EN training is not higher than what I did before, but I have *never* ever done any speedwork so that’s the adjustment I struggle with…
I sleep 7 hours/weeknight, 8hours/weekends plus a 1 ½ hour nap on Saturday and Sunday. Not enough???
Watts/kg? Hmm, FTP is 170 and I weighed, ahem, 141lbs @ kinetic…
And yes, the head-space is shifting for LOU…
Thank you again everybody for your thoughts and time. I really do appreciate the feedback and perspective.
Also, you need to get over worrying about people passing you on hills. There, I said it. I have been in the top 8% of all bike legs in my last 2 IM's so I would consider myself a pretty strong cyclist (over 300 FTP and approaching 4 w/kg). Every race I have ever been in, most people pass me going uphills. I just smile and chuckle to myself inside my head. Consider it a badge of honor that they are doing it wrong when they pass you going uphill. This will help your VI and your run split. When you couple this with a higher cadence, you will be fresher later in the race...
It is really great you have reached out to the team and Coach P.
I don't want to overwhelm you with advice but I just wanted to expand on Matt A's advice about practicing riding steady during your ABP rides.
What I do is (I have a Joule) display 3 sec av power, lap Pnorm, Lap Pav, lap time, lap Pmax, cadence, speed, heart rate. I use a 30 min lap time because I eat a quarter of a power bar every 30 mins. A shorter lap is better but I don't want to get my fuelling confused.
So at the start of the lap I just get my lap Pnorm to the target and try and make it sit on that number while also trying to keep lap Pav as close to the Pnorm number as I can. On a flat road I can usually keep both within a watt or so — meaning my VI is very close to 1. Of course if you have a steep hill going down and coast, Pav falls more quickly than Pnorm which pushes up the VI — but that is just what happens. There is no use pushing target watts down hill above the coasting speed.
The reason to use 3 sec average is that while it is more jumpy than 10 sec average, it shows you much more quickly if you are pushing too hard. With the 10 sec average it takes over 5 secs before you can see if you are pushing too hard. With my 3 sec average, I am looking for a number within 20 watts of my Pnorm target. For example, if my target is 165 watts (HIM), I am looking for a number between 185 and 145, and hopefully a bit tighter than that, say 150 to 180. I also try and keep lap Pmax as low as I can (I don't ever want to see a number above my FTP).
Anyway, after 27 min of the interval, I ease up, sit up, eat, drink, stretch, and get ready for the next interval. As soon as lap time hits 30 mins, I press the lap button and start again.
AS Matt points out, it is just practice that helps you execute with a low VI (say VI = 1.03 depending on the course).
On cadence, as John W suggests, practice at different cadences does help expand the cadences that you are comfortable with. During the OS while on a trainer, when I do my 80-85% work, I split it into 5 min segments and target a different cadence for each segment (eg 80, then 85, then 90, then 95, then 100.....you get the idea.
x2 on the useful practical information Peter- thanks! I think you had posted this somewhere else and I tried your method of matching the Pav and Pnorm on my recent RR ride with success (aside from the fact I really need to practice steady riding some more).
Now you guys need to get practicing this riding steady!
- 3 second power
- normalized power for the entire ride
- avg heart rate
- distance
- average speed
- time
Enough to know what i am doing right now, as well as maintain an overview of my entire ride.
Hey Ben
Shorter intervals are better. In fact, the shorter the better.
Its only that I need to eat something every 30 mins means that I use 30 mins per interval.
You can use shorter intervals and use the alarm function for food reminder - I do that to remind myself to drink.