Kortney Ringel Eagleman 70.3 Race Report
This was my fourth year doing Eagleman. My first time (2011), which was also my first HIM, was a great race. I exceeded my expectations, finishing in 5:40:00, and it whet my appetite to improve on that time. 2012 and 2013 weren't great races for me... I knew I could beat my time, but in BOTH years ended up coming in within 1 minute 30 seconds of my 2011 race. This year I was determined to crush that time!
I always set three race time goals - the first is my pie-in-the-sky-everything-goes-perfect goal... icing on the cake: 5:20:00. The second is the most realistic goal, assuming that things don't go exactly according to plan, but this is the time I really know I can hit: 5:30:00. My third goal is the I-won't-cry-if-I-hit-this goal: 5:39:00.
Saturday, I arrived in Cambridge around 1pm. I registered and then headed over to Great Marsh Park to rack the bike. Just enough time to take care of that and then headed back over to the athlete meeting where I met up with William C. and Carla T. It's always nice to put faces with names from our awesome team! After our meet-up, headed back over to Great Marsh to take a super-quick swim... just to swim in the wetsuit again and get used to the salty brown water. 
Afterwards, headed to dinner and then to check in at the hotel. Bedtime around 9:15-9:30.
Race Day
woke up around 4:15am. Got dressed, ate breakfast, etc, and headed to the race venue around 5am. I always hate getting to transition... the nerves are worst for me here. I was thankful for my super-detailed, laminated transition checklist... the brain doesn't have to work - I can just be on autopilot and read the checklist. Out of transition as quick as possible and then headed over to our tent to chill out and listen to some tunes.
Swim
time: 42:15; Divison place: 48; overall: 911
The water temperature was 76.5 degrees, so no wetsuit. The current was favorable on the way out, so I positioned myself toward the far side of the start line to catch a little more of that current. I also started toward the front. I would rather get swum over than have to navigate through others. I knew that I was going to have to RELAX during the swim and concentrate on good form in order to have a good swim time. I don't swim in open water very often, so I tend to let my form go to hell during a race. I didn't feel like I was as relaxed as I would have liked, and I don't think I did as well with the jostling as I have done in the past, but overall the swim was good and uneventful. A little slower than I was hoping, but I was ok with it. I really, really want to get to the point where I can finish the swim in the 36-39 minute neighborhood.
T1: 2:27
Transitions are usually pretty quick for me, although I think I was a little slower this year than usual. Otherwise uneventful.
Bike 2:37:00; Divison Place: 18; Overall: 560
The bike is my strongest event by far. I started out nice and easy, and settled into 190W, z2 for about 20 minutes. Ate ½ powerbar once I got out of the first 10 minutes or so, where there is lots of traffic. Other nutrition: took one PowerGel with caffeine every 40 minutes, and 1 saltstick capsule each hour.
At just over 20 minutes, started working the watts up to about 200. All week, I had been feeling a bit sluggish, with very tired legs, so I was really monitoring how this felt. I wanted to stay a bit on the conservative side so I could have a decent run. I was passing all kinds of ladies in my age group, so that was feeling pretty nice, but I was noticing that sticking with my watt target of 200W, while wasn’t necessarily hard, my legs weren’t really settling into that number naturally. I would go in spurts where it felt good, but then others where I’d look at my watts, and they’d be closer to 190-195. Heart rate started getting a few beats higher than I wanted it to be, so kept an eye on that. At a certain point, I knew I didn’t want to jeopardize the run, so when the heart rate was staying about 4-5 beats higher than planned, I decided to back off and not worry so much about consistently hitting my 200 watts.
At the last aid station on the bike, I grabbed water, and dumped it all over myself, in an effort to try to cool off a bit.
With less than 10 miles to go, one of the course marshals pulled up next to me on the motorcycle and notified me that they were giving me a yellow card for crossing the double yellow line. The only reason that happened, was because the person I was passing started drifting toward me, even though I was letting them know I was passing! The penalty tent was located right as I was going into transition, so it didn’t cost me much time (or momentum) to stop and check in. Overall a solid bike ride, and I think I did a good job of monitoring my body and adjusting accordingly.
T2: 2:03
usually I am a little faster here, but I think it was because I had to take my Garmin off of my bike and put it on the wrist strap. In retrospect, I should have worn the wrist strap during the swim and bike, instead of waiting to put it on in transition. I don’t have a separate cycling computer, and the power numbers tend to drop off when it is on the wrist, so I really had to mount the Garmin for the bike. Note to self: buy a dedicated cycling computer!
Run: 2:02:49; Division Place: 23; Overall: 637
Overall, I am happy with this split, considering the issues I have had on the run in the past. I was disciplined with the first 3 miles, and stuck to super-slow 9:30/min miles. When I hit the 3-mile mark, I decided to stick with that pace just a little bit longer since I knew I was on track to make my goal time as long as I didn’t blow up on the run. My plan was aid station to aid station, walking through each station to allow myself enough time to get all of the water/ice/nutrition I could. Nutrition plan was 3 Clif Bloks on the way out of transition, and then after I got to mile 3 or so, do 1 blok at every aid station.
At around mile 3.5, I picked up the pace to around 8:55-9:00/mile. Initially, this felt comfortable, but as I continued, it started feeling so hot. I was feeling hard to keep that pace, so started monitoring the heart rate more carefully, just making sure I wasn’t letting it get too high. For the most part, I was hitting around 9:10-9:20. Around mile 8, it started feeling very hard, but thankfully I had done my mental homework ahead of time. I knew exactly where I was time-wise, and was NOT going to let mental weakness ruin the day I was going to PR my race! I ended up switching over to cola when it was available for a little extra energy boost. That worked very well for me – I just wish they would have had it at every aid station instead of every other. I always find that once I drink cola, I need it often as it is a quick shot of energy, but also dissipates quickly! Also, they had sponges at this race, which was great. Super helpful for staying cool.
Overall, my average pace was 9:20ish/mile, which is much slower than I was hoping, but I’ll take it. In the future, I really do need to work on my run durability for sure.
Overall time: 5:26:36; Division place 23; Overall place: 637
Super happy with that. PR by 13.5 minutes! I feel that I executed this race really well. I was realistic about my expectations and wasn’t afraid to make adjustments on the fly. In the future, I need to work hard on my swim and really hard on my run. In any case, I really enjoyed training this season and am even contemplating signing up for IMMD since there are still slots!
Comments
I am considering the full IM... there is still space! I am just a little apprehensive... haven't done a full IM before!