JW's Challenge AC Bike leg of Relay.
I signed up for the Bike leg of the Challenge AC for a couple of reasons:
1) As a stepping stone in my training for IMMT
2) To find out what my "could" bike split is and to give me a little more confidence to push harder on the bike at IMMT
3) Get our Relay Team on the podium!
Team ReserveAid Goals: We had a swimmer who said he would do 45 mins, I thought I could do 4:45 with ideal conditions and our runner thought he could break 3 hours, so if we all hit our goals we would be logging a mid 8-handle time.
Training background: I've been going really hard this yr in my quest to Qualify for Kona at IMMT. I'm not afraid to say that because I am obsessed with it... My wife Jess has been WAY MORE ACCOMMODATING than any "normal" spouse in EN. And I can honestly say that she is the best wife/sherpa/mom that any Ironman athlete could ever ask for. I am also very aware that this "above and beyond" support has a shelf life and this is my year to make a very big push, and then I'll be dialing my training and racing back from an "11" to like a "3" going forward. I'm in 4th yr of training and am essentially in the latter part of my "3-yr plan". I hacked my fall and winter with Coach P's the Run Durability plan. Since the spring I have been trying to turn myself into a bike monster. As part of the Run durability plan and with advice from Tim Cronk and just my own "self coaching", I have been pushing way harder and further than Any of the recommended EN plans. And hopefully Coach P doesn't read this because he will give me a swift kick in the nutz for ignoring his conservative warnings and pushing the pedal down in the "aggressive" direction to be constantly surfing that risk/injury/fatigue/overtraining wave pretty much for the last 9 months.
So I've gotten in a lot more run frequency than any other yr, but the big change is largely ignoring my FTP (after the Out-Season was over) and am focusing on my "5-hr Power" number instead. This is not something that I would recommend for anybody in their first several yrs of Ironman training and DEFINITELY without prior consultation with your significant other because even with their support it creates a fairly large strain. But anyways, Since March, I have logged ~3,000 miles on my bike. I have done 3 big bike camps (Beginning of March, End of March, End of April). After the AmZof long Course in May, I have pretty much logged a >100 mi ride every weekend (8 in total) followed by another ~65-80 mile climbing ride the next day. On my normal Saturday rides, I always look at my Average NP at the 4-hr point and try to increase it by the end, forcing me to do a hard last hour. So I now have a whole bunch of data points for what my "5-hour" power is and how it feels to run after every one of these rides. I also know what it feels like to do a big ride the day after a big ride (for me, I usually have a ~20W fall off from my ~5hr Sat ride and my ~4hr Sunday ride). So basically, I knew I could hold ~250W for ~5hrs and still be able to run well after (even though my FTP has fallen from 315W to about ~300W over this same time). So I was going to target just over 250W and try to pick it up the last ~hr.
For Tim Jenks: A few days before the race, I learned of a tragedy that shocked my training team/family Endurance Nation. One of the “Wicked Smart Members” and super active members of our community informed us all that his 13 yr old son Tim, who was a standout swimmer and budding triathlete, was killed in a cycling accident while riding on a safe road with a group of experienced riders. This news hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt as though I knew Tim from hearing all of his dad William’s brag posts about him over the years. Having two boys of my own I don’t want to even begin to imagine what must be going through William’s head. The news also hit Jess very hard and we discussed plenty of “Why’s and What’s” in the days before the race. You can see from the picture at the top that I put “4 Tim Jenks” on my legs before the race to honor Tim. I won’t focus on this solumn aspect of my race throughout the rest of this report, but I can’t even count the number of times on my lonely ~5hr ride that I looked down at my legs for a little extra motivation. I can tell you with certainty that this helped me when my ride got tough.
The Race: Jess and I (and our kids) drove down to AC Saturday morning. We walked around most of the day, ate lunch, got registered and I rode my bike to transition to check it in. Got lost. There was no address for transition in the Athlete's Guide which I had on my phone. rode through broken glass. Rode through the ghetto. Checked my bike in and none of the few volunteers I found knew anything about the race logistics. Left my bike and called an Uber to get back to our condo. I'm not gonna lie, I questioned the safety of my bike overnight in that location. No offense to anyone who likes Atlantic City, but I thought it was a dump.
I also took my road bike to AC. So I rode it the ~3miles from our condo to the race site the morning of. At ~5:30AM there are some "interesting" characters out roaming the streets of AC. I filled my Speedfil A2 on my tri bike with a ~1.5hr bottle of Infinit. I had taken ALL of my other bottle cages off of my bike and hoped to "live off the course". I figured I didn't have to run afterwards so nutrition was a little less important and I wanted to be as Aero as possible. After setting up my bike I went out for what turned into a ~40 min easy-ish warm-up ride on my road bike. I did a few short harder efforts but mostly wanted to break a small sweat and get my HR up. I then handed my road bike off to our "runner" and went into the relay corral.
Aero is fast: I was as Aero as I could get for this race. I bought the castelli AeroRace 5.0 jersey and Bodypaint tri shorts. I took all of the cages off my bike except for my Speedfil A2 torpedo mound. I also wore aero shoe covers (and waxed my arms and legs). I even took off my watch and RoadID to be as slippery as I possibly could get. I wore my new Rudy Project Wing57 helmet with visor and rode my Cervelo P5 with a Zipp FC808 front wheel and Zipp Sub9 Disc on the back. I used my trusted Vittoria Open Corsa Evo CXII race tires with Latex tubes.
Waiting for our swimmer: I stood at the edge of the corral waiting for our swimmer who I expected to be one of the first out of the water. The pro men and women came and went as well as some of the AG'ers. I was chatting it up with Rinny asking her how fast her swimmer was. She said her husband TO should be there in 45 mins so I figured my swimmer Aaron would be right behind. I told her that he had promised me 45-50 mins! Well, TO came out in ~47 mins, then another relay swimmer, then Rinny's swimmer... I looked at Rinny and said "I guess I'll just have to catch you on the bike". She laughed and told me to try. Little did I know that a slew of other relay swimmers would be out before our guy. He finally arrived at ~1:05:25! Ouch. I know it was a tough swim, but c'mon man. I started the bike in 15th place (out of 150).
The Bike Course: It's basically 30 miles on the AC Expressway Northwest (which is perpendicular to the Ocean) taking one exit about halfway and being off of the Expressway for ~4.5 miles hitting an aid station, then back onto the expressway. Miles 30 to 34.5 get you to the "Blueberry" loop which is about 21 miles and you do that 2x before getting back to the Expressway and heading home.
I ran through transition, got on my bike and started hammering. See my data below, but I was right at 250W for the first hour and averaged 25mph. 145HR for me is a bit high on the bike, but nothing crazy. It sure didn't seem like there was a tail wind at 7:30AM it was more like "no wind" which was totally fine by me. I was passing a ton of people and I knew there weren't all that many people ahead of me to start. Looking at the results afterwards, I moved from 15th to 5th by the first bike split at mile 29 and into 3rd by mile 39. At the first aid station I hadn't touched my Infinit bottle yet (since I was fully topped off on fluids and nutrition before the race) so I grabbed a Gatorade at ~22mph and drank half of it then tossed the bottle at the end of the aid station. It started to get lonelier and lonelier on the course and I literally only saw 2-3 other people for the next hour or so. This was truly an "Individual Time-Trial" for me. I made sure to grab a Gatorade bottle at every aid station but also water at one of them. I peed 2 times in the first half of the bike and only a tiny dribble at mile~80 or so. I had one small snafu at a bottle exchange on the first loop around mile ~48 or so… At ~22mph, the bottle holder has to know what they are doing, bonus points if the run alongside before you get to them. But I basically knocked the bottle out of the first 2 volunteers hands. I slowed down (to ~20) to get one from the last volunteer and had a bit of trouble opening it. So by the time I got it open, drank some and filled my A2 with the remainder I was WAY WAY past where it acceptable to drop an empty bottle. So I rode for the next ~15 miles holding my empty bottle in my hands above my computer looking for an appropriate place to ditch it (unsuccessfully). So is it okay to toss an empty bottle to a spectator that happens to be standing near a garbage can???
Around mile 53 or so, I started to hear sirens behind me and noticed there were motorcycle police back there. They consisted for the next 3-4 miles and then just after I went through the main town area, I was passed by the lead male pro in the race. So over the course of about ~5 miles he had made up about 300 yds on me as he finished his 2nd loop and I finished my first (the pro wave started ~35 mins before the relay wave). He was just barely ahead of me as he turned right to head back to AC and I started my 2nd loop (he was the first person on the course to pass me&hellip
. This 2nd loop had a decent amount of lap traffic as many of the AG’ers had gotten here by this point (I was ~25 miles ahead of most of them and they started well before us). I made my way easily through this traffic and was happy to have some rear wheels to aim before as I passed them. Unlike Florida or other flat courses I’ve heard of or been on, I saw exactly zero draft packs. Everyone was riding legally and respectfully and I literally passed hundreds of riders in this 21 mile section. It wsa in his period that I started to get low on fluids. I was emptying my A2 before I’d get to the next aid station so I made sure to get a Gatorade at each one. I ate a total of 3 Accel Recover bars and 1 pack of Honey Stinger chews for the ride and ~380 calories of Infinit and probably ~4 bottles of Gatorade and a half a bottle of water over the 5 hours. Every hour or so I also took a couple of caffeinated salt sticks, a calcium/magnesium pill and ~3 MAP (amino acid complex) pills.
I love to do math while I race. It keeps my mind occupied. I put “average speed” on my computer for this race so I could see where I was versus my goal pace. I know this is silly (because I ride like a robot to my power numbers), but I did it anyways…. When I made the turn at mile ~82 to do the last 30 miles on the AC Expressway I had an average speed of 24.4mph. I was on track and I figured the last 30 miles would be FAST since there was no wind this morning. I could NOT have been more wrong. As soon as I got on the Expressway, the wind blasted me in the face. I have heard estimates anywhere form 15-30mpg winds. And this was only part of the issue. We were riding in the closed lane of the Expressway, but the other 2 lanes had oncoming cars and tractor trailer trucks driving at 70mph towards you so every time a truck passed you were blasted in the face with a percussion shock of an air wave blasted into your face. This lasted for the remaining 1.5 hrs of my ride. It also coincided with me mostly running out of fluids, massive humidity, the temps rising to 86 (my Garmin only said 84), and my quads started cramping, bad. So just when I thought I would be picking up my power to finish strong, I was suffering to simply survive, often shifting to a bigger gear to try and sneak more power out. About mile 85 I saw some shapes way up in the distance and eventually reeled in 3 riders (the one in front was a Women’s Pro). It was nice to pass them and keep moving even though my quads were screaming. A little later I went through a toll booth and was zoning out. I was out of fluids and had been dreaming of the short exit off of the Expressway so I could get to the aid station. So immediately after the toll booth there was an exit that I just rode down. When I was half way down it, a cop drove up next to me in the other lane and flashed his lights. He yelled that I was supposed to stay on the Expressway so I came to a complete stop, turned around, went back up to a complete stop only to make the sharp turn back onto the expressway. Looking at my file afterwards, it only cost me 0.8 miles and 2:20 or so on my time, but this was mental and physical stress I did not want at that moment of the race. To make matters worse, as soon as I got on the Expressway again, I reached up to try to fix my visor on my Rudy Wing57 helmet and the stupid thing fell off in my hands. So here I was with cramping quads in the hot sun with a blasting wind right into my eyeballs and I had to hold my visor in my hands as I rode for the last ~20 miles. About 10 mins later I re-passed the 2 dudes and pro woman again. After finally getting to the last aid station I was happy to be able to take the bottle in one hand while holding my visor in the other… I downed this pretty quickly and rode the last 20 mins with no fluids.
I ultimately stayed aero the entire race, with the exception of bottle handoffs. I would guess that I was aero a total of 4:47:00 out of 4:49:27. A couple of times I tried to stand and pedal to alleviate my quad cramping, but this only made them lock up immediately so I had to stay locked in my aerobars or I couldn’t pedal. I negotiated with myself that if I just sucked it up and suffered through the last 10 miles that I would NOT do my brick run and that my day could be over. When I was within sight of the Transition area I got passed by one of the 2 guys I had passed 10 miles earlier. I have no idea if he rode my wheel for the last 30 mins or if he just finished strong as I faded. Either way, I wasn’t so happy to get passed by a 2nd person on the day and followed him up to the dismount line and handed off my bike.
The Relay Pen was all the way past the bike racks and through the entire transition area. I would guess it was a couple hundred yards. I couldn’t really walk because of my quads so I figured the only thing possible was a full out sprint from the dismount line to the pen. I nearly blacked out and my HR went from 137 all the way to 160 during this short sprint. When I dot to the pen, I felt to the ground and my runner took the timing chip off of me and told me I crushed it and we were in 3rd place and he was off…
|
|
NP |
IF |
VI |
Speed |
CAD |
HR |
Temp |
|
Hour 1 |
250 |
0.833 |
1.01 |
25.0 |
90 |
145 |
66 |
|
Hour 2 |
238 |
0.793 |
1.02 |
23.9 |
89 |
141 |
70 |
|
Hour 3 |
234 |
0.78 |
1.02 |
24.0 |
84 |
150 |
77 |
|
Hour 4 |
228 |
0.76 |
1.02 |
22.1 |
81 |
143 |
84 |
|
Hour 5 |
212 |
0.707 |
1.04 |
21.3 |
79 |
138 |
84 |
|
4:49:27 |
234 |
0.78 |
1.03 |
23.3 |
85 |
142 |
75 |
http://www.strava.com/activities/159640539
I laid on my back for a couple of mins and someone brought me water. I got to my feet and walked to my bike to grab my computer (had to immediately upload my file to Strava now that I had my phone . When I got back to the pen, I decided to put my run shoes on and went out for a brick. In this 5 mins, my quads went from so cramped that I could barely walk to what seemed like totally fine. It was hot at this point (~86 degrees) and humid with the sun blaring down on the old abandoned airport runways. My first mile was 8:30 and my 2nd mile was 7:59. My HR climbed to 151 from a start of 116. I decided that I had proved to myself that I could run and I didn’t need to be a hero so I called it a day.
They then let me take my bike out of Transition with no fuss (honestly they weren’t even gonna check my race number if I didn’t tell them to. I road the 3 or so miles back to the condo and showered quickly and grabbed Jess and the kids to go walk the boardwalk to the finish.
Race Finish: Our runner, Gab Szerda, works with me at Macquarie, is a Board member of ReserveAid and has completed many Ultra-Marathons. He suffered through the heat like everyone else on that day, but managed to drop a 3:08:58 marathon. He passed all but one of the pro women (they started ~30 mins ahead of us) and made up even more time on Rinny’s relay team, but kept us in 3rd place overall, but 2nd in the Men’s (non-pro) relay.
Summary: I was originally disappointed with my finish time. I came up a few mins short of my goal and the reason was that I faded pretty hard in the last hour. BUT, after I analyzed how I did compared to others I realized that I beat Rinny’s bike by ~6 mins (and she was also just doing the bike of a relay). Also, Macca’s bike leg was only ~6 mins faster than mine and he DNF’d about 3 miles into the run having had no intention of actually doing the whole race. There were also only 2 male Pro’s who beat my bike leg by more than 7 mins (I was close to or beat all the rest). I realize those guys swam first and ran after, but let’s be honest, I also have a ~70hr a week job (counting my commute). And not counting Rinny’s Pro Team, we came in 2nd place in the Relay which was pretty sweet!
Key Takeaways:
1) All Watts are not created equal. I averaged 234W and my quads were cramped and trashed. I think this was because I was aero and constantly pedalling the whole entire time at AC (I had similar quad cramping at IMFL in 2012). The week before the AC race, I averaged 245W for 5+ hrs on a hilly-ish course. Just 5 days after the race I did a ~6+hr, 100mi ride with 10,000’ of climbing and averaged 245W with my last hour being the strongest and I felt good running immediately afterwards.
2) IMMT is certainly hillier and I’m pretty sure I will be targeting ~235-245W depending on my last 3-4 ~5hr rides before the race.
3) I think I can survive IMMT with the on-course nutrition (without my down tube bottle cage). However, I will keep my rear bottle cage on to be able to take an extra bottle when I start to get light the 2nd half.
Comments
Well done John! Now go to IMMT and do what you have to do! You are ready! You are going to LOVE it there! Awesome venue, course and people! The most well run race I've ever been to. You will kill the bike course, long rolling hills with one tough 6 mile section at the end of each loop.
Better get yourself some new tires since you SMOKED that pair last week!!
So sorry we missed you and Jess in AC
Awesome! I've always wanted to do an AqB to see what I could do for 112 miles on a closed course.
(a) nutrition, i.e. you bonked
(b) pacing
I suspect (b) is a big factor here. Your training rides sound like negative split "finish strong" efforts and this was exactly the opposite -- you went like a wild horse out of the gate chasing the "could split" and probably screwed yourself for the back end of the ride.
If the above is true then hopefully you got this "could split" out of your system. As you reflect, I'd be interested to hear how this experience influences your approach to the bike execution at IMMT. At the top you stated one of yoru goals was ...and to give me a little more confidence to push harder on the bike at IMMT. I'm not sure if this experience leaves you a bit humbled and back to normal EN execution, or if you are confident that the reasons for the fade in this case are unlikely to be replicated at IMMT and you can be confident about pushing the envelope of the bike.
Matt A asks the question that struck me when I read your report?
Awesome focus, great report which gives full flavor of your experience. You are pointing well towards IMMT next month.
I think your overall IF was probably right on for your abilities on a 112 mi TT. But you did it backwards, which made it a lot harder than it should have been, and contributed to the fade in the last interval. ANY TT, ANY distance, run or bike, works best if you follow the 15/15 rule: the first 15% of the time/distance should be done at 15% UNDER the effort level you expect to average for the whole way. THen you can kill the last 15%. I'm talking RPE, not watts or pace. Your speed probably would have been much more consistent by consciously dropping the RPE for the first 30-45 minutes.
Scheduling standing breaks - like every 15 minutes for 20 pedal revolutions - would probably have helped as well, at least in terms of the leg cramps, etc.
BUT … I'm in awe. I just hope to be as fast when I'm your age.
@Matt- I'm pretty sure you are correct. My problem is that I have regularly pulled 255-265W for my whole last hour in those training rides to get my average up. So I actually thought that starting out at ~250W for the first couple of hours would still be ~10-15W below what I "could" do in that last hour of the race if I was really turning myself "inside out" which I never really do in my training rides. For the training rides it's more of a "fun game" not merely "survival" like it turned into at AC. The other thing I tried to do was get the "easy first 30-40 mins" out of the way with my long warmup so I really didn't feel like I was hammering cold out of the gates. However, I thought I would only have a 10-15 min break between my warmup and my ride which actually turned into like 40 mins thanks to our longer than expected swimmer, so maybe that essentially negated my whole warmup.
Regardless of the actual reason, I will definitely be starting a bit easier than goal at IMMT and hope to build over the 5+ hours like my training rides with the confidence to push harder in the last hour if/when I'm feeling good. I put this long and detailed report out there partly to collect my own thoughts about the day, but mostly to get any and all input on how I can build on this race and improve my performance for IMMT so thank you all for your comments and keep them coming if you can find even the littlest thing to pick apart. I knew the 112 TT was going to be very hard, I just 'imagined' kicking it up to a new level the last couple hours, but I just could not 'will' my quads to "un-cramp".
One of the things I found interesting/weird when I was putting the data together for this report was that my hourly "average NP" and my hourly "average speed" would plot almost perfectly onto a straight line. This seemed totally odd to me because I just assumed the main reason for my slowing speed was the brutal headwind I was riding into. Was I imagining this headwind that everyone else also seemed to feel? Because if I didn't tell you there was a headwind for the last 30 miles and you just looked at my data chart, it would show that 100% of my speed decline came from my drop off in power. I know it's not quite that simple but... Coincidence...?
Good job JW and good luck on a KQ in your IM.
In any event, a 5 hour bike @ MT certainly puts you in the hunt.
We can what if this all we want... But you put a lot of though into this race... Came up with a plan... Knew it was an experiment of sorts... And I know you learned a lot.. Here are some of my thoughts ....
At first I wasnt buying the you may have rode too hot theory.... But after review of your zone distribution on Strava I would tend to agree.... Not so much from the perspective of going too hot initially but the fact you logged almost 30min in Z4.... Those minutes are burnt matches that just dont come back.... What did the TSS come out to?
I completely agree that not all watts are created equal when wind is present... For some reason I struggle and come apart while trying to hit my numbers into the wind... Defintely a factor IMO....
I also agree with flat vs. hills..... I never understood EN recommendation to do RR's on flat course's (That is until I tried it).... I get it now and try to do all my RR's or 5hr steady state training rides on flattish courses , regardless of the race I am training for........ Riding on flats is harder , its like a trainer, with ZERO breaks ...About all you can do is sit up to eat/drink on schedule , and out of the saddle stretch pedal , I normally get that on flat courses when its time to pee.... So IMO that is/was a factor as well...
Fluids??? Thats your own damn fault and you really know better than that.... Specially for a flat course where weight is not really an issue , there was no reason for you to race light on the fluids.... In fact I would have kept the bottles full so I could avoid the aid stations that were busy if I wanted to... As far as applying this to IMMT? Defintiely check out the course but I would recommend 2 bottles at all times with 1 exception and that would be going up to Lac Superior and back (this is steep enough and short enough that you can do it with 1 bottle just reload when you come back down) In fact I make sure I'm at a half bottle at the bottom.
Warm Up? Might of been a little excessive and then you got cold... 40 minutes kinda easy + the 3 miles earlier is still TSS before your ride.... In retrospect maybe 10-15 min really easy? That may have forced you to finish that warm up in the first few minutes of the ride as well.
Going forward.... I'm going to assume you were not fully tapered going into this race? That would be another factor..... After watching your workload via EN ,Strava , riding with you , and talking to you , my main concern for you at IMMT is going to be your taper... I know how bad you want it... You have 2.5 more weeks of hard work and then you must take that taper even more serious than your training has been (start saying this now LESS IS MORE) .... CYA @ IMMT
@Tim-- How do you always seem to make it sound so clear... to answer some of your points:
Z4, Keep in mind that my last "tested FTP" was 315, but I think it swags to ~305 right now. I agree that's too much in Z4, but in TP, it broke down as follows:
280-289 - 12 mins
290-299 - 7 mins
300-309 - 4 mins
310-319 - 2 mins
>320 - 2 mins
so less than 4-5 mins at or above FTP and just barely above. These were likely the 2 times I made u-turns and a couple of passes. I don't think that is crazy over 5 hrs. And using 305 as my "FTP" my Warm-up only had 13.5 TSS points and my whole ride was only 265 TSS points.
Riding on flats are just HARDER than riding rolling hills or very hilly courses. I just do NOT have any places anywhere I have ever found to ride that is flat. My "flattest" place for a 112mi RR in PA is ~4,500' and the flattest in NJ is ~3,500' but that NJ route has plenty of lights and intersections which negate the "continuous pedaling".
Fluids. You are correct. It may have been a dumb decision, but at least it wasn't an accident... I didn't take my cages off for weight purposes. It was for aerodynamics. There is little debate that the downtube cage negatively effects aerodynamics. There is plenty of debate around whether or not the rear single cage effects aerodynamics or not, but I made a conscious decision and took it off. I will certainly be adding it back on for IMMT, so yes, I learned something. I will take your advice though and dump that bottle for weight reasons before the Lac Superior climb. And to your other point, I was alone for almost the entire race so there was no issue with crowding in aid stations.
Given that I have now seen the AC course and the setup, if I were to do it again on that course, I would take my bike and my trainer. I would put it right next to the relay pen in the open field. And I wouldn't start warming up until ~30 mins after the relay wave started (or 40 mins after if I knew how slow our swimmer would be) and I would almost stay on that bike until I saw my swimmer come out of the water, then I'd hop into the pen and grab the timing chip and go.
I was NOT tapered for the AC race and that was by design. I basically took the last couple of days before the race off/light (after a previous really hard weekend/week). This wasn't an "A-race", but simply a stepping stone and hard training day... I will taper much smarter for IMMT. But, I was really only planning a 1.75 week taper for IMMT. That's probably a topic for a new thread or the Micro thread. If you see my post in my Micro thread today, I know that I am currently overtrained. However, I have been recovering REALLY fast this yr and need to find that happy balance. But yes, I recognize that I have done a LOT of work this year and I need to have it ALL absorbed and be primed and ready to rock and roll on August 17th! I know I am fit... But I will need to get fresh to race to my potential.