Racine 70.3 Race Report
This year’s race was among other things about completing unfinished business. As many of you recall, the 2012 edition of the Racine 70.3 didn’t quite turn out as well as I would have liked. At 4.1 miles into the bike as I was turning a corner at a police controlled intersection I was struck by a car, knocked off of my bike, and my day and season quickly ended due to a separated shoulder. Here is the link to the full report from last year:
http://members.endurancenation.us/Forums/tabid/57/aft/9385/Default.aspx
Here is the short version of this year’s race report, the longer version with a prologue follows below.
Overall, I am very excited and pleased with my overall performance and execution of the race. I had a lot of fun in the swim, sure there were probably 2-3 foot waves and an interesting current but it was great. I came out of the water 51st in my age group. The bike was fine – the mission was to hydrate, fuel, and ride a good ride to hopefully set up a decent run, something which has eluded me for a while. I was stoked to be rocking my new bike and wheels. I finished the bike in 98th position for the division, maybe a bit slow for me. I transitioned to the run and felt great. Intentionally slowed myself down at the beginning then fell into a great pace. I picked up a lot of time on the run and ran to my fastest half-ironman time in 4 years finishing in 79th position for the age group with an overall time of 5:31:14. It was awesome seeing all of the Endurance Nation team out on the course.
Prologue
The initial recovery from my separated shoulder was rather painful and frustrating and the first couple of weeks I couldn’t do anything useful with my left arm due to limited mobility and pain with movement. After about 2 weeks I think I was finally at the point where I could take a shower, get dressed and get out of my house in less than an hour. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time lying in bed, on painkillers watching the Olympics and the Tour de France last summer.
I very quickly started on physical therapy and met a physical therapist who understood sports and my desire to return back to the same level of performance that I had before the injury. Physical therapy was a long road, at first twice a week in the office with home exercises. I used the extra time that I had budgeted for ironman training to rehab my shoulder. Twice a week became once a week and then every other week. 7 months of PT later, I finally graduated and transitioned over to returning to training.
Pre-Race
I had a rather interesting lead in to the race. 10 days before the tabs on my garmin 500 that secure it to the mount broke. I called up garmin and they quickly sent out a replacement that arrived 5 days before the race which gave me time to reprogram the screens, test the connections, and make sure that everything was working appropriately.
I arrived in Racine on Saturday morning and got myself checked in. The entire check-in process was pretty smooth, nothing really to comment on there. This would be my first race in the 35-39 age group and racing with my new bike.
The race:
I woke up at 4am. Drank a bottle of infinit, had some bites of a bagel, got dressed and headed out to the race, found a place to park on one of the side streets and made my way to transition. Joined the team for a quick picture, and then finished up getting ready for the race.
I left transition just before closing at 6:30, everything was set-up and good to go. I sat out on the grass by the port-o-potty line. It seemed to be moving quickly, but I just waited. Around 7 made one final trip to bathroom, then the 20 minute walk down to the start. Finished cliff bar 1 hour prior to start of my wave as usual, finished one more small bottle of Gatorade and then got ready to go.
Swim- Time 37:29
The swim was tough, but I had a blast. As we entered the holding area all of the emotions from the previous year with the lows associated with the injury and the highs with different parts of recovery, training, and life all occurred at once. Overall, I was in a very good place and was entirely ready to start racing.
There nice easterly wind which was kicking up a current and waves. There were probably 3-foot waves close to the shore with a strong current. This resulted in a nice fight to get out to the first turn buoy. As I was watching from the shore before my heat started I saw a bunch of people holding onto boats or buoys in the first 200 meters of the race. The long swim south was fine. The water temperature was perfect for me and breathing to the right was nice as all of the waves were coming over my left shoulder. The waves stayed the entire race, probably around the 2 foot range. There were a lot of distressed swimmers holding onto the lifeguard boards, every buoy had multiple swimmers holding on, and a considerable amount of back & breast strokers. I lost the leaders in my wave, quickly caught up with the previous waves and just kept pushing forward. Shoulder felt fine and overall it was a good swim. I felt as if I sort of had a home field advantage as I do almost all of my swim training in the summer in Lake Michigan and several weeks before went swimming with bigger waves and white caps. My general thought is to practice swimming in every possible condition so nothing is surprising on race day. Overall my time was a little slower than last year, but I think the lake conditions seemed to slow everyone down a couple of minutes based on other reports I have read.
T1 6:35
This took too long. It was a long run out from the water which might have contributed. Also had trouble getting bike off of rack and forgot to turn on Garmin when I got back to bike so slowed down a little as I was running out of transition to ensure it would pick up the satellites.
Bike
Based on previous training rides, races, etc, I was hoping for an IF around .75-.8. I find that when I get above .8 the run significantly suffers. This IF is based off of a recent power test, but I think that I might just be able to put down higher numbers for shorter periods of time. Either that or I am just soft.
Time: 2:51:10
IF: .74
I started off on the bike feeling pretty good. HR settled rather quickly and I was just cruising along trying to keep power in check. Honestly I wasn’t really in that big of a rush to get anywhere at the beginning. I made it to the infamous corner from last year and of course there was not a single car at the intersection! Anyway, I took it nice and slow, raised a fist in celebration and then got to work. At first the ride was quite tolerable, but after 56 miles of some really awful expansion seams I was just flat out done. I think this may have been my 8th half ironman and these were some of the worst road conditions that I can ever remember. Hit one seam pretty hard and it caused the arm pad to tilt and angle all the way down to the basebar. It became really difficult to find a rhythm and I think that cost me some time on the second half of the ride. Overall felt pretty good getting to transition. Legs were not shot, back felt fine, and mentally was really ready to get off of the bike and start a run.
Nutrition was as follows: 2 bottles of Infinit over the first 1:45 (550 cal total), 1.5 bottles of Perform (262 cal) over the last 60 minutes of the bike for a total of 812 calories consumed. Also 1.5 bottles of water. Hydration was just right. I needed to go to the bathroom upon arrival in transition. I was probably around 150 calories behind, but better than I have been in the past.
T2 – I registered late so was not racked with anyone in my age group. As a result when I returned to transition I had no clue where I was in relation to anyone else. It didn’t really matter as I wasn’t shooting for any spectacular placing. Waited a minute for a port-o-potty to open up, but used that time to fill water bottle and tie shoes. I don’t think I lost too much time…and no, peeing on the bike is just not going to happen.
Run –
Total time – 1:51:19 (8:29/min miles)
My VDOT from 2 weeks ago gave me a MP of 7:40 and a LRP of 8:58. My plan at the start of the race was to go 3 miles in the 8:45-9:00 range, then spend the middle 7 miles at 8:30, and then the final 3 miles drop down to the 8:00-8:30’s with whatever energy I had left.
So, the first mile was according to plan, ran a little too quickly for mile 2 and then basically was running according to plan. I think mile 8,9,10 were a little slower as I was making sure to refill my bottle at the aid stations to make sure that I was primed for the final 3 miles. I also wonder if there was a little northerly wind. Then according to plan, I hit the mile 10 marker and started to drop into a quicker pace for the final 3 miles. I pushed the pace the entire way back and felt great. At mile 1 I heard a coach from another team yell to his athlete – just keep running, everyone is walking ahead. In my mind, I was focusing primarily on the concept of not slowing down. To do that I had to keep running, and run I did.
I was and still am very excited about my run. Honestly, the run has always been one of my weakest parts of triathlon, I was never a runner and over the past several years have tried to make strides to improve. This time is only 11 minutes slower than my stand-alone half marathon PR and is my fastest time for this part of the race in 4 years! Thinking about the race, and the pacing, I felt really good in the middle of the run. I pushed the pace, but not too much and although it “hurt” and I went into my own little hurt locker for the last 3 miles, it felt great to be able to “race” the half marathon. Most importantly, the other part that I really enjoyed was being able to pass people during the run. Usually I am the one that becomes demoralized when people are passing me left and right, and on Sunday, I was that guy that was just cruising along weaving between people and having a great run!
I ran with a Nathan hand-held bottle. I filled it up in transition with ½ of the left over bottle that I hadn’t used on the bike and added ice at the aid station leaving transition. I would then either add ice or more perform at the aid stations as I needed. This is the second race that I have used this approach and really like it. The bottle is secured with a strap to my hand so I don’t really have to “hold” on to it. At the same time, my hand is directly against the ice cold beverage so it serves as a cooling effect for my body. Finally, and most important for me, I had the luxury of being able to have a swig of nutrition and hydration whenever I wanted on the course and didn’t have to wait for an aid station to pop up. I plan to use the exact same set-up for Wisconsin in September.
The Aftermath
Made it back to transition, took forever to pack up my stuff, saw another EN teammate and we talked for a little, and then headed back to my car, repacked and headed back home. Legs were appropriately sore the following day but have managed to swim, run and I am looking forward to getting back onto track for the remainder of the season in preparation for the Ironman in Madison.
Some final thoughts
So how do I break 5:30? It seems as if there are a couple of low hanging fruits that I can easily nab. I need to go a little faster in transitions, and maybe pick up a minute or two on the bike and it will be easy. Well, of course that will require me to actually run well again so we will see how that all plays out.
I do think that one of my keys to success during this race was something that Coach Rich said during the lunch the day before. The general context of the thoughts on execution was to “disconnect yourself from the time.” Essentially, disconnect what was happening in real time from the outcome. Honestly, I think that it worked out pretty well. I did not spend any part of the race wondering if I would make a certain time cut off, wondering if I was going fast enough. Instead, I just raced. I pushed the envelope where I felt I could, held on at other points and generally tried to just have a great time racing for whatever the outcome might be. In the end, this relieved a ton of stress. I watched my paces, I watched my power and heart rate on the bike and I just raced in the moment. In doing so. I ended up with one of my fastest times and one of my best executed races.
Now onto the final stretch of training for Ironman Wisconsin.
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