VK IMMT Debacle-Call me Stoopid
Race day stats:
46 yrs/ 5’7”/ 151 lb. from Cleveland Ohio
4th IM and 3 year with EN. Did IM Mt. Tremblant in 2012. Finished in 12:48, which was PR, and thus came in hoping to improve. Realistically would have been happy to go <12:30. </p>
Trained all summer with 2 other friends. One being fellow ENer, Edward Cherullo. Since it was my 4th IM, and 3rd w/ EN, I felt like I had the IM training thing figured out. I trained more this year than any previous year, with particular emphasis on the bike. That was the easiest thing to do with 2 other friends. I had trained in 2011 with very good adherence to EN plan etc. prior to IMWI, and in 2012 I had done IM Mt Tremblant with much less adherence to EN work-outs and more based on what my local buddies wanted to do. Either way, I felt my training approach was satisfactory but in hindsight, I think I made a few big mistakes.
Week up to the race
Made it a family vacation in Toronto, Quebec City and Mt. Tremblant. Nice places to see but probably won’t do the vacation thing before the race again. Seems like there may be lots of hidden opportunities to add fatigue.
Race Day
Awake 3:45. 2 bagels w/ jam, banana and some black coffee. Had a tough time eating these dry bagels in the hotel. Have to get a system to get in more calories in the morning. Any suggestions on how to practice at home and then do the same thing at the hotel? I read about folks waking up at 2 AM, drinking smoothies, etc. Do you do that at home during the training season before long rides, etc?
Swim Goal: Be near last years’ time of 1:24. Actual 1:26:xx
I took the EN advice about swimming too far. Didn’t swim during the outseason and really only started in June. In total before IM this year, I only swam 18 times. In 4 IMs I’ve been 1:24 to 1:27. So clearly, I don’t need to swim much to stay in my slow ballpark but …I think a big mistake I made in training was not doing the big training day, ie. hour swim and 6 hour bike. In at least 2 of my 3 previous IMs, I’ve done a 2 mile swim and 100 mile bike in training. I didn’t pay enough attention to it this year mainly because I figured I’m not going to swim much better anyways. In hindsight I think the point is that a 2 mile swim followed by a 100+ mile ride are much, much different on your body than either of those alone. Sounds stoopid but that’s who I was last week!
T1 11:xx
Slower than last year. Don’t know if it’s really possible to have a < 5 minute transition at Mt. Tremblant if you’re a > 1:20 swimmer. Too much traffic, etc. in transition area.
Bike 6:19 (last year 6:27) Goal watts 160 Actual watts 156 W VI: 1.11 TSS 319.2
.Broke the ride up into 3 intervals:
1) First hour goal was JRA watts (~ 150), actual was 163 VI: 1.09, 19.3 mph. I felt great at this point and, in my mind, didn’t want to slow down
2) Rest of 1st loop: Goal 160 W, actual 165 W, 18.2 mph
3) Entire 2nd loop (56 miles):Goal 160 actual 148 16.8 mph
Few big mistakes on the bike. The 2nd loop the winds were stronger. I purposefully tried to keep my effort down but I think the poor nutrition caught up to me.
My nutritional plan was 2 bottles of Infinit for 56 miles (~ 3 hours). About 540 cals per loop + gels and Stinger waffles for supplementation. On the beginning of the 2nd loop, one of my 2 bottles ejected. No way to go back therefore decided to make up with water and gels/waffles/etc. Problem was by 4-5 hours into the ride, I had no interest in sweet stuff and couldn’t get myself to take a gel. Total nutrition for 6:19 bike split about 1000-1100 calories. I knew this was too little and planned to take calories on the run.
T2 7:xx
Got off the bike and didn’t feel great. Friend, Ed Cherullo, came into T2 so I decided to go out with him. Gave me some food but could not get myself to swallow PBJ sandwich.
Run 6:43 L!!! (Last year 4:41)
I may be one of the few people with a longer IM marathon than bike split but…ran about 10 min/miles for the first 8ish miles but with significant concerns. Lots of GI distress. Mile 8 I was one of those guys curled up, puking. Now with horrible taste in my mouth, made a decision to walk and try to get in some nutrition. Didn’t ever really feel good again, no chance at PR so thought I might as well walk the whole thing. The good thing is that after a 17-18 mile walk, I was fully recovered within a week.
Total time 14:4x:xx (2012 12:48)
So…disappointing day…2 hours slower on the same course as last year. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect and see where I screwed up. It sounds paradoxical but I don’t think I rode the bike too hard but I didn’t slow down enough to eat. It takes away some momentum to open wrappers, eat crumbly waffles, etc. I practiced my nutrition plan all summer but in hindsight, my plan was probably fundamentally off. I was fine with the calories during training but I wasn’t running a marathon afterwards and we never really had that hot of a summer in Cleveland. Last Sunday in Tremblant I think it approached 80 deg F.
Thanks for reading and I appreciate any feedback.
Comments
I'm not a 140.6 distance racer so I'll leave the hypotheses on nutrition execution to others who have more experience. I would speculate that given your experience of multiple successful IM finishes that if you were following a nutrition plan that worked for you in the past then either (a) you had a bad day where your physiology didn't cooperate (that has happened to me in some HIM races, I think we can be scientific but day-to-day there are many variables that differ and have impact on our body's responses), (b) the conditions contributed to the outcome, or (c) your difference in fitness overall had something to do with it.
Regarding some of your comments on "being stoopid". I'm not sure I'd characterize the execution as "stoopid". But your reflections on your training were interesting. Without putting words in your mouth, it sounds like you're saying you had good results when you followed the EN plan more closely, but over time you started to make modifications. You mention that you did more biking but different kinds of workouts. You didn't mention much about your run training - volume or types of workouts. I really wonder if that is the root issue here -- if you showed up to the start line in a different form of fitness that was sub-optimal. I believe that there are many successful ways to train for triathlon, and many of them are not anything close to what the EN style of training looks like. However, the hallmark of a good training plan is that it all hangs together and all the pieces complement each other and work together to increase fitness. So if you go to a different type of bike training but keep the run training the same, you sub-optimize, even if the new bike training could be optimal when complemented with different run training. And of course if you decreased your run training in general that would certainly increase your chances of a bad run.
The really complicating factor is that everyone's physiology is different and a certain "training plan" - EN or other - will never fit anyone perfectly. Many on the team go out and make modifications here and there attempting to tailor the plan to what they think is best for them. But we need to be really careful when we do that -- we need to ensure the modifications are deliberate and make an effort to "fit" them with the rest of our training to ensure the impact overall is a net positive. In many cases sticking with the EN plan as written will yield better results than a plan that is heavily "hacked" without input from the coaches or others who can give some thought to how the "hacks" will work and what other modifications may be called-for in order to balance and complement the "hacks".
In short, I don't think the training approach was "stoopid" and I think a lot of people who have experience fall into the trap you did, where you get a bit complacent, "hack the plan because I know what I'm doing" and then run into some trouble. I'm not saying you didn't have a bad day and that you couldn't have got a PB following your training approach, but I suspect the combination of all the factors, the training approach included, were to blame.
Great comments from Matt, Paul, and Robb.
I think was fundamentally more a nutrition issue than a fitness issue. That's not say that couldn't have trained better but rather the stuff you described on race day are 100% signs of a nutrition meltdown.
More and more of us are moving away from the Infinit solution and towards fueling/hydrating ourselves straight off the course using the Perform and other stuff that's out there. You described the big weakness of a non-course solution -- the dropped $$$$$$$$ bottle that forces you to improvise on the fly.