Gulf Coast Triathlon Race Report

Mark Roberts

Gulf Coast Race Report –

I raced my first A race of the season in Panama City Beach last weekend and overall it was a great success.  It was my 19^th half ironman and 7^th time racing the half in Panama City Beach.  This race followed a successful Out-Season and one of the best 12 week builds I have had going into a half, so I was very excited to race and put my fitness to the test. 

My wife and two boys and I traveled to Panama City Beach Thursday afternoon and stayed at the Boardwalk condos.  For anyone doing IMFL, there are many condo’s near the transition area that are fine, but for convenience, the Boardwalk can’t be beat: 2 min walk to transition, 5 min to expo, and the beach and race start is right out your back door.  Went out to dinner with the family and Jeremy and Paige Tanner (Jeremy is a new EN member.  He and Paige were racing as well.) to Schooners for fish tacos on Thursday night and was really looking forward to Saturday.  Friday was uneventful; I got my bike prepped/setup with my new X-Lab Torpedo bottle/PitStop/spare tubular etc and put it transition about 3:30.  The only downside leading up to race day was I didn’t get a chance to get in the water.  The wind was 20+ with gusts to 25 on Friday and the surf was 3-4 ft with Red Flags and rip current warnings.  I was hoping this would all settle down by Saturday, but didn’t spend too much time worrying about it.

I woke up at 4:30 – breakfast of English muffin w peanut butter/honey, 300 cal Sustained energy, banana and coffee.  Went down to transition about 5:15, got my bike ready and was back up in my room at 5:45 to wait until it was time to put on my wetsuit and go down to the beach.  As I looked over the swim start and massing group of neoprene clad triathletes, the surf was somewhat rough but looked manageable.  I really didn’t think they would cancel the swim so I eventually went down to the beach.  The start was delayed for awhile and then came the announcement that the swim would be cancelled.  Apparently in addition to the surf/wind there were fairly strong rip currents and the kayakers and rescue workers were having difficulty staying in position and some were even turning over.  I was bummed at first about the cancellation of the swim which would be replaced by a time trial start on the beach with a run to transition, but as we waited longer and longer to start the race, conditions got significantly worse and the water got very rough.  It would have been an epic swim; difficult even for strong swimmers and probably dangerous for beginners.  In the end I think they made the right call.

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It was difficult initially to get in the right frame of mind to race without the swim – At first I was disappointed because I’m a strong swimmer and not having the swim puts me at a disadvantage to people who are stronger biker/runners.  Then, I spent a few minutes thinking about how I might need to change my race plan, before wisely deciding not to change a thing relative to my bike/run pacing plan.  If I had extra energy from not doing the swim I just figured I would throw all of that into the last 5 miles of the run.  Conditions were going to be tough anyway as winds were 13-15 mph out of the SSE with higher gusts and predicted to get stronger.  Temp was 75-77 or so, but humidity was 98%.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bike Setup

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I lined up with the 40-44 men in wave 10 and got near the front of the line about 10-12 people back.  They were starting people every 5 seconds.  We had to run about 300 yards down the beach in fairly deep sand and then up the path into transition as if coming in from the swim.  It was a good solution by the race director to make the start as simple as possible and try to spread people out a little bit starting the bike. 

I made my transition and got moving and immediately noticed my front water bottle torpedo cage was loose.  I tried to tighten it on the fly and accidently dislodged my Saltstick dispenser.  I choose at the time not to retrieve it and hoped I would get enough salt in through Infinit and Powergels. 

I settled in on the bike riding 190-200 watts, which was my plan until making the right turn North on Highway 79.  The first five miles of the course on the beach road is not a great section.  The road has some potholes, it is typically very crowded with bikes and sometimes cars and the wind whips around as it comes in between the tall condos.  Its basically admin riding, but a good warm-up until you can lock in and get to work once you turn north.  With the tailwind though it was very fast, and the bike continued to be fast all the way out. Once making turn onto 79 I dialed up my goal watts and held 205-215 all the way out.  After the turn around on the 1^st out and back we got our first taste of the head wind.  I kept looking at my 5 mile lap screen, watching my Power and Lap NP.  (I purposefully don’t have speed on that page and didn’t really look at my speed the entire ride.)  On the way back to the beach the wind picked up – checking the weather later would show that it was eventually 15 or so steady with 20+ gusts.  It made the section on the beach road a little dicey.  There were many times in the last 5 miles where I came out of the aerobars just to have a better hold on the bike. 

Bike goal: 205-210 watts with <2:30 split.<span> 

Bike actual – 205 watts avg/ 207 NP.  VI= 1.01  Time 2:27:57 for a 22.7 avg. – 7^th AG,

I was very pleased with the bike because I kept building my effort throughout the bike course.  I typically set my computer up to autolap every 5 miles and my early ones were 208, 206, 205, and later in the bike  I was seeing 213, 210, 213, etc.  My best 30 min power was between miles 36-46, right in the meat of the ride, so I was pleased with that.  Nutrition went great (even without my salt tablets). I took in 2 X 275 cal bottles of Infinit, 2 Powergels and 3 bottles of water from aid stations.  A total of roughly 315 cal. per hour, and 40 o.z./hr. fluid.  The only concern on the bike was my heart rate which was running in the low 150’s vs. the low to mid 140’s that I had seen in training at similar power levels.  RPE felt good though, and I attributed the higher HR to the high humidity/temperature and made a mental note that I would need to hydrate well and dump a lot of cold water on myself during the run. 

T2 was uneventful – I had passed tons of people on the ride and there was only one other bike on my rack when I got there.  Put socks (good call) and shoes on, grabbed race belt, watch, visor, 2 gels and LEFT MY CHANGE purse of Salt tabs on the ground! I didn’t realize this until about ½ mile into the run.  I just didn’t think about them or see them in T2 and I had put them out of my mind since dropping my Salt Stick at the beginning of the bike.  I felt really good early although my heart rate was high.  Out of T1 I looked down at one point and saw 170+ and 6:45 pace and knew that was way too high.  I think this is when I spied my wife and boys on the course!  I had planned to run 7:05-7:15’s, so I slowed to get my heart rate in the low 160’s and was able to run 7:20’s at that heart rate.  Again – my heart rate was 5-10 beats higher than I wanted but it was 79 with 94% humidity starting the run at 10:15 in the morning.  I had come off the bike around 153 HR so 160 on the run seemed reasonable.  My legs felt great but I was cautious about pushing my heart rate too high, too early and when I picked it up I started to feel a side cramp coming on.   I ran steady miles 7:20-7:30 pace until mile 8 when I tried to pick it up.  Heart rate had gradually drifted from low 160’s to mid 160’s and mile 9 was my 2^nd fastest mile of the race.  After this however my legs and side started to tighten up forcing me to slow down, but I’m not sure in hindsight whether that was mental and I somehow should have pushed through it.  I passed a friend of mine, Renee Hill at mile 11.  She is a strong competitor in the 50-54 women (9^th at IMFL last year with an 11:44 finishing time) and she was having a tough day, but still pushing. That gave me incentive to pick it up and get it done.  Mile 12-13 I was able to pick up my pace and my heart rate and finish strong.

Goal for the run: <1:40.<span> 

I ran a 1:39:22.

Overall: 4^th in age group, 37^th overall.

Nutrition on the run was 2 gels, and 1 cup of Gatorade endurance at each aid station, which were roughly every 1.5 - 2 miles.  I never ran out of energy, felt like I was bonking or got the sloshy stomach so I feel I did a good job with my nutrition.  I managed the heat by taking cold sponges at each aid station and mixing that up by dumping cold water over my head – which seemed to work well as my pace really didn’t fall off except for those 2 bad miles.

 

Keep going…pictures below…

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Overall I ended up 4:13:56, 4^th in 40-44 and 33^rd overall.  With my normal swim it probably would have been a 4:45 to 4:50 finish so I’m very pleased.  I’ve done that race 7 times, and both my bike and run on were 5+ min PR’s in PCB. 

What went well – Bike setup, bike pacing, nutrition, run pacing, managing the heat/humidity.

What didn’t go well – I should not have dropped my salt tablets (or I should have retrieved them or had a back up store) or left my run salt tabs in T2.  Its hard to say if not having them affected me or not; I was starting to cramp/tighten up late in the run, but that may have happened anyway.  While I managed the heat/humidity well, I like to think the salt tablets and more fluids may have help me feel better/run faster with less risk of cramping? But that’s speculation.  If the race had been much longer or if this had been IM distance I think I would have eventually gotten into trouble.  Also – both my transitions were slow relative to my competition.  I need to look at what I’m doing and be more focused and efficient.  Transitions = free speed if done well.

Overall it was a great race.  I even met an EN member, Jason Cox who I hadn’t met before.  He was in my age group and after seeing him at the start, I didn’t see him again until just after the finish.  He had a great day and finished 2^nd in 40-44.  Jeremy Tanner, a new EN member finished 7^th in 25-29 and also had a good day in his 2^nd ½ IM competition.  (He and I are both doing IMCHoo in September.)

I’m recovering this week, but feeling good about my first A race of the season.  I’m ready to dial up 8 weeks of “Get Faster” and hopefully make some gains before the build to Chattanooga.

40-44 Podium – Me (in EN shirt) 2^nd place EN member Jason Cox (Striped shirt)

 

 

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jtanner

Great Report Mark, and an awesome finish time. I wish we could have swam. That would have been EPIC. Not swimming just makes me want another 70.3 even more!