Half Ironman Racine 2014 Race Report – Niels Heemskerk
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Last year in the 55-59 age group, I feel young standing next to an 80+ gentlemen in the start chute, and old compared to some of my Lifetime fitness friends in the 25-29 group ;-)
The good: I had personal record of over 7 minutes at a final time of 6:06:0. I felt great aerobically, did not hit the wall, so I probably could have gone faster. I placed 25th in my age group out of 85 and my gender Rank 832 out of 1,782.
The Bad: Three “bad” things happened:
My quads were extremely sore starting mile 35 of the bike, not sure if I did not get enough salt or magnesium. I did lose one of my bottles with infinite GoFar after only drinking half so I was a bit under nourishedPenalty (a first): I was passing two riders when the rider closest to me started passing the front rider, it was on a piece of road with a bunch of cracks so to prevent me from having to cross the yellow double line, I held back until rider two was in front and then passed her. There was a referee behind me on a motorcycle who counted 27 seconds to complete my pass and gave me a red card…so I got a nice 4 minute rest in the tent. Steven: thanks for calling me out as a cheater ;-). I find it interesting that I got penalized for drafting when there were several groups of riders that looked like a bloody pace-line, needless to say that penalty wore heavy on my entire race.I put my Garmin 910xt on my aero bars during the bike portion, and while fumbling with one of my bottles I hit the Lap button which made it think I was getting into T2. And I forgot to turn on GPSD, aaargh, I am still a rookie I guess.
Overall I had a great race and if I would have just sucked it up a bit on the run I could have been under 6 hours.
Nutrition: Saturday: Drank two bottles of Infinte, I had a good lunch of pasta with meatballs with Wendy and Matt at Chubbies, checked my bike in and played 9 holes of golf, had a small meal at night, went to bed at 8:30. Woke up at 4:00 ate 3 cups of apple sauce and a half a cup of blueberries, went to MacDonalds and ate a stack of pancakes with a little maple syrup and an Egg McMuffin(this was my routine in New Orleans and it seems to be OK for me) with a large coffee, drank another full bottle of Infinite around 6 AM and an espresso gel with water 30 minutes before the swim.
Swim: 41:48 at 2;09 per 100m, which is a bit slower than usual for me especially since the water was perfect for me, nice cool temperature (61) and smooth as glass, I normally stay out of the group to have clear swimming, but as I know that will prevent me from drafting, but I like not getting kicked and going around the buoys on the outside has to be faster than making a sharp turn and getting run over.
T1: 4:57 I was actually able to run to transition, us old folks were almost at the bike out so it was easy to get to.
Bike: 02:54:17 avg speed 19.28mi/h Div. Rank 18. I felt great on the bike, my gearing was set right for the steep hill to get out of T1, my heart rate started out at 158(could have swam harder as I usually am in the 165 range out of the water) and I was able to get it down to 154 within 5 minutes. I used 2 1/2 bottles of Infinte GoFar on the bike, no other food for a total of 700 calories (probably not enough, and a reason for the cramps?) I really detest gels so I need to learn to have a stronger Infinite solution or find something I can eat. Any suggestions are welcome.
My data for the portion of the bike that I recorded:
Avg. Power: 168w NP: 172w IF: 0.858 TSS: 82.0 Avg cadence: 87rpm Avg HR:151
T2: nice and smooth, 2:47,
Run: 2:22:12 (PR) 10:51/mile avg hr 154
This is when I figured out that my GPS was off the whole race, so I missed the pace and the distance of the first quarter mile on the run. My plan was to drink Proform on the course one cup every two miles until mile 10 and then nothing to the end. Started out at 10:45/mile for the first 3.3 miles, 10:09 per mile for the next 3.3. Then I was really starting to feel my legs and had to stop to stretch out the quads, slowed to 11:05 and the final 3.3 to 11:25. I need to figure out the pain in the leg thing!
Other thoughts:
EN should pick this as their key race next year, we had I believe 6 EN’ers here, and the year before we had about 25? This is a great race, although I do think some of the road are a bit rough, there are portions of the route where the cracks were perpendicular to the road every 20 meters, I was watching my power and each time I hit one of them it not only jarred my arms, shoulders, butt, but my power would drop instantly. I read Matt A’s report and I agree it probably is most annoying at the end of the ride when we are getting tired. I hope the tax payers of Wisconsin find the money to smooth these out
The good: I had personal record of over 7 minutes at a final time of 6:06:0. I felt great aerobically, did not hit the wall, so I probably could have gone faster. I placed 25th in my age group out of 85 and my gender Rank 832 out of 1,782.
The Bad: Three “bad” things happened:
My quads were extremely sore starting mile 35 of the bike, not sure if I did not get enough salt or magnesium. I did lose one of my bottles with infinite GoFar after only drinking half so I was a bit under nourishedPenalty (a first): I was passing two riders when the rider closest to me started passing the front rider, it was on a piece of road with a bunch of cracks so to prevent me from having to cross the yellow double line, I held back until rider two was in front and then passed her. There was a referee behind me on a motorcycle who counted 27 seconds to complete my pass and gave me a red card…so I got a nice 4 minute rest in the tent. Steven: thanks for calling me out as a cheater ;-). I find it interesting that I got penalized for drafting when there were several groups of riders that looked like a bloody pace-line, needless to say that penalty wore heavy on my entire race.I put my Garmin 910xt on my aero bars during the bike portion, and while fumbling with one of my bottles I hit the Lap button which made it think I was getting into T2. And I forgot to turn on GPSD, aaargh, I am still a rookie I guess.
Overall I had a great race and if I would have just sucked it up a bit on the run I could have been under 6 hours.
Nutrition: Saturday: Drank two bottles of Infinte, I had a good lunch of pasta with meatballs with Wendy and Matt at Chubbies, checked my bike in and played 9 holes of golf, had a small meal at night, went to bed at 8:30. Woke up at 4:00 ate 3 cups of apple sauce and a half a cup of blueberries, went to MacDonalds and ate a stack of pancakes with a little maple syrup and an Egg McMuffin(this was my routine in New Orleans and it seems to be OK for me) with a large coffee, drank another full bottle of Infinite around 6 AM and an espresso gel with water 30 minutes before the swim.
Swim: 41:48 at 2;09 per 100m, which is a bit slower than usual for me especially since the water was perfect for me, nice cool temperature (61) and smooth as glass, I normally stay out of the group to have clear swimming, but as I know that will prevent me from drafting, but I like not getting kicked and going around the buoys on the outside has to be faster than making a sharp turn and getting run over.
T1: 4:57 I was actually able to run to transition, us old folks were almost at the bike out so it was easy to get to.
Bike: 02:54:17 avg speed 19.28mi/h Div. Rank 18. I felt great on the bike, my gearing was set right for the steep hill to get out of T1, my heart rate started out at 158(could have swam harder as I usually am in the 165 range out of the water) and I was able to get it down to 154 within 5 minutes. I used 2 1/2 bottles of Infinte GoFar on the bike, no other food for a total of 700 calories (probably not enough, and a reason for the cramps?) I really detest gels so I need to learn to have a stronger Infinite solution or find something I can eat. Any suggestions are welcome.
My data for the portion of the bike that I recorded:
Avg. Power: 168w NP: 172w IF: 0.858 TSS: 82.0 Avg cadence: 87rpm Avg HR:151
T2: nice and smooth, 2:47,
Run: 2:22:12 (PR) 10:51/mile avg hr 154
This is when I figured out that my GPS was off the whole race, so I missed the pace and the distance of the first quarter mile on the run. My plan was to drink Proform on the course one cup every two miles until mile 10 and then nothing to the end. Started out at 10:45/mile for the first 3.3 miles, 10:09 per mile for the next 3.3. Then I was really starting to feel my legs and had to stop to stretch out the quads, slowed to 11:05 and the final 3.3 to 11:25. I need to figure out the pain in the leg thing!
Other thoughts:
EN should pick this as their key race next year, we had I believe 6 EN’ers here, and the year before we had about 25? This is a great race, although I do think some of the road are a bit rough, there are portions of the route where the cracks were perpendicular to the road every 20 meters, I was watching my power and each time I hit one of them it not only jarred my arms, shoulders, butt, but my power would drop instantly. I read Matt A’s report and I agree it probably is most annoying at the end of the ride when we are getting tired. I hope the tax payers of Wisconsin find the money to smooth these out
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Comments
I wonder whether you went a bit hard on the bike, that may have something to do with your leg cramps?
An IF of over 0.85 in a bike split of just under 3 hours is a TSS over 200, compared to a recommended TSS of around 180?
A more appropriate IF for you type of bike split is around 0.8 — making it much easier to run afterwards.
A bike split around 2:20 would give you 'permission' to aim for an IF around 0.85.