IM Tremblant 70.3 report
Hi all! Below is the belated RR from the IMMT 70.3 race on June 23rd, 2013. This was my first HIM. The race overall went pretty well, I think, although I believe I made a few errors that I can improve on. Thanks for reading!
Prerace: Two days before the race I wrote out a step by step plan for setting up transition in the morning that allowed me to get my stuff done efficiently and get to the swim start with plenty of time for a brief warm up swim before photos with the EN crew. I also wrote a race plan that I tried to stick to. Starting two days before I took two saltstick capsules each day, and on the day before the race I drank probably about 48 oz of perform throughout the day.
I woke up at 4 am, 3 cups of applesauce and 1 scoop whey protein, 1/2 powerbar, and 24 ounces of perform. Took a bottle of perform to sip on up to the start.
Swim: Took 1 powergel 15 minutes prior to the start. I seeded myself about 6 rows back for the start. This was mistake number one, as it was immediately a melee out there (380 people in my wave which is the biggest swim start I have ever been in). I was kicked in the jaw about 5 minutes in which was ok, but then a couple of minutes later I was kicked in the nose which brought me to a complete stop. I finally got some clean water about 5 buoys in but got into some congestion at the turns. I finished the swim in 32:24 which is right about where my expected race pace is, but I think I left a bit of time out there. Next race I am going to start at the front of the swim.
T1: slow, 5:26. Its a long run to the bike and I went too slow. I had a bit of trouble initially getting my wetsuit off which I attribute to lack of experience with the desoto bib john that I have never raced in before. Then I just jogged along. I just have to be prepared to move a bit faster out of the water.
Bike: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/334044631. This was a bit disappointing and I messed up my nutrition. I had somehow hurt my right knee (? patellofemoral syndrome) during the saturday brick run 1 week earlier, so all week prior to the race I took it really easy, didn't run and only did one short bike, iced, and did quads exercises. My knee was much better on race day, but I could feel it a bit at the start of the bike which stopped me from pushing down too hard with that leg. I started the ride out conservatively for the first 20 minutes and then tried to pick it up a bit to my target of .82. I only managed to keep the VI in the 1.01 to 1.02 range for a about 20k in the middle. Otherwise I was 1.04-1.06 most of the time except for 1.10 the first 10k and 1.14-1.12 for the last 25k segment where there are a bunch of short steep hills. I finished the bike feeling pretty good, knee felt good, and for most of it the effort actually felt pretty easy. I probably left quite a few minutes and watts out there on the course.
Data: I finished in 2:45 (32.7k/hr) with a VI of 1.06, .76 IF, TSS 158, and avg HR 141. In contrast my second RR was 32.2k/hr, VI 1.04, .81 IF, TSS 185, HR 126.
I attribute the higher HR to race day adrenaline (I think), and my knee I believe limited effort somewhat, but clearly I need more time on the bike to learn to ride steady and at 80-85%. I peed on the bike about 20 minutes in and then again at about 2:30.
Nutrition on the bike: I messed up hydration and nutrition . Based on the RR my plan was to drink my concentrated bottle of perform (9 scoops) plus 24 oz of water per hour, as well as 2 cliff bloks for a total of about 100oz of fluid and about 250kcal/hr. I didn't adjust for the small water bottles handed out at the aid stations and took only about 80 oz of fluid total. I also took 1 salt tab each 60 minutes. I really need to stay on top of total fluids next time, and I am going to aim for 1L per hour fluids and supplement with a gel each hour instead of the blocks for 330kcal/hr.
T2: 2:11. Couldn't find my bike spot initially (someone put their wetsuit on my label) then I had trouble with the laces on my shoes. Otherwise pretty smooth.
Run: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/334044646. 1:48:34. I was hoping for under 1:45 and this was tough. I tried to go stupid slow for the first 3 miles but ended up a bit faster (10-20s/mile) than projected. Goal after that was to get to MP which I was able to do initially, but then was unable to hang on, and decided to back off to MP +30s. It was pretty clear by about 14k that I was dry and bonking, HR and RPE were increasing. I slowed a bit and was forced to walk more often than planned. I willed myself to run for the last 1.1k and man did that finishing chute feel good!. I was completely spent after the race. Too tired to enjoy the food at the finish but managed to get a bottle of chocolate milk and some watermelon down, and just went back to the hotel with my family and laid on the floor for awhile.
Nutrition on the run: I took water at the first aid stations then perform after that. By about halfway I think I was dry and bonking. I took perform but not sure what else I could do (maybe a gel?). No real gastric issues. Interestingly I felt an urge to go number 2 which had me looking for a portapotty by about 8-10k, but then it completely subsided and wasn't a problem for the rest of the race. I'm not sure what this means, as usually when I have to go, I have to go! I was also hot and at 16k I put ice down my shorts (never done that before!) which brought my HR down from 158 to 152 close to where it should have been, and I wish I had done that earlier.
Thanks for reading! I really want to thank the coaches and community for the guidance leading up to the race, and Brenda and Steve for hosting an awesome Lunch at the event! Thanks Steve for helping me out at the swim start!
I am happy with my performance and more importantly the race was a lot of fun except the 1st 10 minutes and last 45. I can't wait for the next one (Rev 3 Maine august 25).
Lessons for the future (other than increase fitness across the board!):
Swim: start at the front
Bike: I need more time on bike at ABP pace. I need to improve hydration and nutrition as outlined above
Run: really need to pay attention to pace first 3 miles. I need to do a better job monitoring myself and making nutrition and cooling adjustments.
Comments
A few comments.
First, while may work well for some people, but there is an absolutely higher incidence of nutrition issues from people who rely on concentrated mixes for their nutrition strategy. There are the obvious logistical issues of getting enough concentrate into one bottle, how to re-stock your concentrate, and what happens if you lose your concentrated feed bottle. Then there is the issue of osmolality. You simply cant absorb highly concentrated fluids nearly as efficiently or as quickly as lower ones.
This puts a huge dependency on taking in a bunch of water along with your concentrate, and begs the obvious question, if you are dilluting concentrated Perform with water, why aren't you just drinking normal Perform from on-course? Otherwise it sounds like you are doing extra work and incurring risk to arrive back where we started with the readily available on course nutrition.
Second, HIM bike pace is a unique discipline in it's own right that you have to practice. It's relatively easy to get relatively strong by doing focused intervals in the 15-20' range and these do a lot for hour 20, 30 or 60 minute power. I think a lot of us area also pretty decent at racking up a pretty respectable TSS and NP for a 2-3 hour training ride by mixing in some of these harder efforts, climbs or other un-steady riding that push up the NP, but still allow easy recovery time in between.
It is extremely important that we remember two things. First, for 99% of cases, our 'FTP' is derived from an estimation / projection of what our true FTP will be, that is what our true 60 minute power is. Second, we then take our projection (FTP) and make a second projection (target IF) of what we *should* be able to hold for X hours in a race. If you're paying attention, that's taking a guess based off our guess, and the error can be significant.
That is of course why we are supposed to do our RRs and use more sensible macro data to pace our HIMs rather than just one FTP test and a target IF picked from a chart. But, even when we are using data from across an entire season, it's still really important to understand the difference between your unsteady training ride with lots of surges and breaks that resulted in an NP of say 230 for 2.5 hours with a high VI and a bunch of rest and contrast that to what it would actually be like to hold that wattage steady for the same duration. If you are anything like me (and I suspect the other 99% of people), it's something you need to specifically train for and work at if you want to be able to pull off, the two are not mutually inclusive.
This commentary is not specifically addressed at you, but simply something that has been on my mind for a while and was the first thing I thought of after reading your statement about working on ABP.
Trevor: thanks for your comments!
The issues around the concentrated nutrition are duly noted. I think I will try the unconcentrated stuff for training and the next race! One concern is the bottles they were handing out- not sure they would stay in a regular cage, especially behind the seat.
As for the bike pacing- my concern was I was able to ride a (sort of) steady .81 in my RR and had a good run afterwards, so I felt justified targeting this wattage for the race. Other than my knee (which wasn't much of an issue after it got warmed up) , I'm not sure why I was down at .76 for the race. One issue was getting into a rhythm with all the packs of cyclists everywhere, and also the hills. Maybe I was so concerned about overdoing it, I underdid it? Dunno- but I need to sort this out. Maybe riding more hills will help? One thing has become clear to me as a newbie cyclist, and that is .85 on a trainer is much easier to accomplish than .85 outside with hills, road imperfections, and hazards!
As for why you weren't able to hold as high of an IF on race as in RR, I think this is another common problem. First thing is environmental factors (terrain, temperature) that might be different between your RR and your race. If you did your RR indoors, that could be a pretty significant difference between your indoor watts and outdoor watts, although mine are actually much lower indoors.
Second of course is the swim. I think the swim takes a lot more out of you than most people expect, depending on how good of a swimmer you are. If you swim hard and run through transition, you aren't going to hit your bike as fresh as you are at the start of a training ride or RR.
Lastly is nutrition, which is compounded by the swim. You may find that you have to drink more, at least at the start of a bike leg in a race to stay on top of your hydration than you did in training quite simply because you've already been exercising hard for 30-40 minutes before you even get on the bike. It's not a huge duration of time, but it's a difference between race day and training.
When I get to 27 mins I sit up, eat drink and stretch, and when I get to lap time of 30 mins, I press lap and repeat.
So each APB ride, I get about 90 mins @ HIM pace where I practice riding steady.
In terms of nutrition, I used to use concentrated Infinit but as Trevor points out, I was never sure I had diluted it enough. I now use 3 litres (about 100 ounces, 3 x 1 litre bottles) of normal strength Infinit.
About your run, you don't make it clear what your MP pace is based on. Is it from a 5 km TT? If so, you need to keep in mind that a lot of peeps need to take off some Vdot points when developing a run race pace target that is for 13.1 or 26.2 miles.
To explain, if my Vdot is 42 from a 5 km TT, then I subtract 2 points (to Vdot 40) to estimate my EP for pacing an IM run. Likewise, for a HIM run, I subtract 1.5 Vdot points to 40.5 and my MP target is based on that. Eg MP based on a Vdot of 40.5 is 8:40 per mile, compared to 8:25 for Vdot 42. So in a HIM run, I try and sit on 8:40 per mile pace (after the first 30 mins), rather than 8:25.
The point is that while I can earn a Vdot of 42 based on a 5 km TT, but I can't hold MP based on that Vdot for a HIM run (or EP in an IM run). And experience has shown me that I need to adjust my race pace targets for longer runs in the half and full marathon range. You may need to do the same?
@Satish - Awesome race and sounds like you have quite a few learning that you will apply for your next race. Oh yeah, and you had fun at the same time!
By the way....This is an awesome thread in terms of HIM bike pacing and nutrition. Thanks, all!