Mark's Vineman Race Report
Vineman 2014 Race Report
Executive Summary
Time 12:10:32
1st AG, 44 overall out of 440 finishers (over 640 starters)
No PR, but the weather was hot and I gave up on the PR early because it was over 100 degrees F the day before and race day dawned clear instead of the normal cloud cover. I knew it would be hot again and it was.
The bike looked like the EN training video that Patrick posted with the jack rabbits going crazy (at first). The run was difficult but I kept going and passed a lot of people. I finished the last mile strong but I doubt I could have gone much faster overall.
The Nitty Gritty
The weather had been warming up in Sonoma County for the last couple of days before the race. The race was on Saturday and on Friday the temperature was well over 100 degrees where the majority of the race takes place. At the mandatory pre-race meeting Dave LaTourette warned us that it was going to be hot and the best strategy for coping with that was to slow down from the beginning to keep the core temp as low as possible. (Sounds like our EN recommendations as well.) I’m not sure how many people heard that though judging from the first lap of the bike.
My wife Susan was doing the race as well so Friday morning we went for a short ride and run and then a swim at the race venue. I swam without a wetsuit so that I wouldn’t get too hot and to cool down from the bike and run. After that we got dressed and headed to Windsor for lunch and packet pickup.
We had lunch outside, in the shade, under trees and an umbrella because we had our dog with us. Even though we were in the shade we were still sweating just sitting there. I drank several glasses of water with the meal which consisted of fish tacos. In addition to the water at lunch, I had a water bottles with NUUN that I sipped on during the day.
After lunch we headed over to the expo and packet pickup. There is a mandatory pre-race meeting and we got there before the doors were not open so we took a quick walk through the expo and picked a few last minute items. After the meeting we picked up our packets and then set up our run gear in T2. (T1 is in Guerneville and T2 in Windsor so you have to set up your run stuff the day before.) After doing that we headed back to Guerneville to chill out for the rest of the afternoon and get everything ready for the race.
We had a light dinner and then went out for smoothies for dessert. Those hit the spot. It normally starts cooling down in the evening as the sun sets and the marine push sets in. However, that didn’t develop that evening so it stayed warm. We had all the fans going in our cottage to cool things off as we made our drinks for the race.
I used Skratch labs drinks on the bike and the run. I made up a bottle of concentrate and put it in a translucent water bottle with marks on the side indicating 4 oz. increments. I had a 28 oz. bottle so I could get the equivalent of 7 24 oz. bottles in it. I estimated that would be all I needed for the bike but I was prepared to start drinking Gatorade Endurance (the course drink) if I ran out (I practiced with GE some to make sure I could tolerate it but Skratch labs caused less GI issues for me). I also prepared a couple of bottles of Skratch labs for the run along with some concentrate and put those in the freezer. I placed the frozen bottles in my race belt inside a cooler and left those at the run special needs the next morning so they would be cold for the run.
I was doing a last minute check up on the bikes about 6:30 PM and found a crack/tear on the sidewall of my front tire and the tube was starting to poke through. This was one of my race tires and I had just put them on earlier in the week and the crack wasn’t there then so it must have happened on one of the short rides I did that week. I had extra tubes and cables in my tool box, but no spare tires. So I deflated the tire, stuck a dollar bill inside the tire and inflated it. I was good enough to last the night and walk down to T1 the next morning. I would have to get a new tire in the morning from the mechanics.
I drank a 20 oz. serving of OSMO pre-load hydration mix that evening before going to bed along with a light snack. I made up some muesli for breakfast and went to bed around 9.
Race Day
I got up at 4:00 and had muesli, applesauce, and coffee for breakfast. I filled my torpedo bottle and loaded the bottle of concentrate and my rice muffins on the bike and then loaded the run special needs bag with the frozen bottles from the freezer and headed down the hill. T1 opened at 5 and we were there a few minutes afterwards. On the way down I stopped at the bike stand to see if they had tires and told them I’d bring the wheel back up. We went down and set up our areas and then I took the front wheel back up to the bike mechanics. They happily sold me a new tire and put it on for me. (Have plastic, will charge.)
I took the wheel back to T1 and put it on the bike and made some last minute adjustments to my area and headed to the porta potty line. After that was taken care of I went back and took off my warm up clothes and put on my wetsuit and headed to the swim start.
Susan and I were in the same wave and started at 6:45. The waves were 3 minutes apart and we found out last time that 3 minutes isn’t that long when you have to move a bunch of people across a timing mat and then get situated in the water where you want to be at the start. So we moved quickly once the wave before us started. I got in near the front of the wave and towards the middle. When the gun went off I started quickly to get on the feet of a faster swimmer. Unfortunately, that swimmer started doing breast stroke after several yards and kicked me as I almost swam over him/her. I think they were doing breast stroke for sighting because they were fast when they were doing freestyle. Anyway, I had to pass them because everytime they stopped to sight I ran into them.
The swim was really uneventful after that. I swam most of the way doing bilateral breathing since I know that if I do that I’m not going too fast, I’m smoother and more efficient, and I swim straighter. I was sighting every 5-6 strokes. The river is shallow in places and there were people walking at times but I swam as much as possible since it was faster than walking and I didn’t want to use my legs any more than I had to. I finished the swim in 1:18 which was just a minute slower than my 2012 time. I was happy with that time considering that in 2012 I swam almost 60k yards farther and 20 hours longer leading up to the race.
T1 went smoothly. I got to the wetsuit strippers and then found my bike. I kept the mantra, “slow is smooth, smooth is fast” running through my head as I put on my gear. I had placed my extra gels and rice muffin that I was going to eat at the beginning of the ride in my shoes. I was going to put the rice muffin in my back pocket but instead I unwrapped it and stuck it in my mouth and ate it while I put on my shoes. 200 calories in very quickly! Since T2 is at a different site there is the option to leave your swim gear in a bag for transport or hand it over the fence to a helper. My daughter was at the end of the row and I spotted her quickly. I grabbed the bag and my bike and headed toward the exit. Marissa took the bag from me and wished me luck and I ran out of T1 and onto the hill.
I walked up the hill and mounted my bike at the top. I had hit the buttons on my 810 and 910 at the bottom of the hill when I passed over the timing mat. Unfortunately, I hit the stop button on the 910 rather than the lap button (I had it in multisport mode). I didn’t discover my error until about 4 miles into the ride.
I began drinking as soon as I got onto River Road and settled into a rhythm. Per usual protocol, there were lots of people that were passing me. I worked to contain myself and stay with my power numbers. If anything they were a little low because of the people who were passing me and then me having to pass fast swimmers/slow riders. I passed a group of four riders dressed in the same kit on the side of the road looking at one of their bikes. Pretty soon they passed me in full team time trial mode. That pissed me off quite a bit since it was so blatant. I think they had been watching the TdF too much and thought that pacing a team member up to the front is OK. (Not so instant karma, I did pass at least one of them on the run!)
The first part of the bike was spent trying to keep my power in the right band width and not get a drafting penalty. There were quite a few people on the road ahead of me and of course people that were passing me. It was just like the EN video that Coach P narrates showing people powering up a hill and then coasting over the top and down the other side. I kept the power steady on the way up, got passed, and would pass them on the way down. This continued for much of the first loop but eventually most people weren’t passing me any more on the uphill side.
I set my Garmin time alerts for every 15 minutes to remind myself to drink and eat. Since I was just having rice muffins for food for the first 4.5 hours I ate one of those every 45 minutes. I also had saltstick capsules which I started taking early and took one every hour.
I kept drinking and it was getting hot early on. I had listened to Coach R’s podcast about aid stations so I would make sure my torpedo bottle was empty as I came up to the aid station. I would add 4 oz. of concentrate from my bottle as I got close, grab a bottle of water and put it into my empty holder, grab another bottle and empty 20 oz. into the torpedo and splash myself with the rest and discard the bottle. Depending on how far the next aid station was I would use the extra bottle for a shower to cool me off or save part of it for drinking.
The temperature was the biggest variable of the day for me and my race plan. As I mentioned earlier I had given up on a PR because of the heat. My Ironman PR was in the 2012 Vineman. Figure 1 shows the differences in temperature for 2012 (blue) vs. 2014 (orange). These temps were for Windsor where T2 and the run took place. What it doesn’t show is the temps in the valley to the north and east of there where a majority of the bike route lies. My Garmin was showing temps of 100+ during the second loop of the bike (see the 810 file here http://tpks.ws/1UNN) The wind from the southwest had picked up by then and in some exposed parts of the ride it felt like a blast furnace. It was during those times that I had to really keep focused and press on. I so wanted to just sit up like most other people then and give up. I began to think about not doing the run it was so hot. Other riders were having a hard time too. I passed one rider from Europe who said he was going to quit because of the heat which simultaneously made me want to quit and press on. I did press on and soon I came to Chalk Hill for the second time.
Figure 1. Temperatures for Vineman 2012 vs, 2014
By this time of the ride I was passing the stragglers from Barb’s race. (Barb’s race is a women’s only HIM that takes place on the same day and starts approximately 90 minutes after the first Vineman wave.) For the most part these women were very large and they must have been suffering much more than I was. I encouraged them as I passed them and answered any questions they had. I passed one woman as I was going up Chalk Hill. She asked if this was the “bad hill” and I told her it was and that she didn’t have very much farther to go and told her she could make it. She thanked me for being kind and I hoped that my words helped her. Chalk Hill is “the hill” on the Vineman course that everyone seems to fear. I personally don’t think it’s so bad compared to hills I train on but on the second lap it reared its head and told me, “Take that!” It was the hardest climb I’ve ever had for that particular hill. It is steep in places so it’s impossible to stay in the assigned power zones unless you have really low gears, so I just slowed down and powered up it staying as calm as possible. There were lots of people on the hill with signs and cowbells to cheer us on so that was good. The reward for climbing is a really fast long downhill and a promise that the bike portion is going to end soon.
The other problem that showed up during the second loop is my power meter or lack thereof. The head unit started showing 0 watts for extended periods while I was pedaling. After I realized that it wasn’t just a fluke I started ignoring power and kept an eye on my heart rate and RPE. Luckily my 910 was picking up the watts more reliably than the 810 since it was closer to the Power Tap so I have another record of the ride for analysis, but I still don’t think either file is entirely accurate. (910 file http://tpks.ws/YGeM)
I cruised into town and into T2 passing people all the way. One woman and I had been leapfrogging each other all day and she was still there during that time. I found out later that she was a former women’s winner so she knew how to race the course and it showed though she did get out of the saddle on the hills.
I took my feet out of my shoes as I approached the dismount and dismounted on the fly and ran into T2. Time on the bike was 6:14 which was 10 minutes slower than 2012 and my PR. Was I too conservative? I’m not sure. My power was less than in 2012 but my VI was much better at 1.06 vs. 1.10. 2014 IF 0.64 vs. 2012 0.66. I feel like this was the should ride as opposed to the could ride.
I had set up T2 the day before and as I ran in I looked for my landmarks and found my aisle. I racked my bike and went to grab my shoes except that they weren’t my shoes, they just looked like them. I searched around and saw my shoes under the next rack down so I switched my bike and changed. Next time I do that race I’ll take a piece of flagging to mark my spot.
I headed out of T2 and crossed the mat to start the run. They had set up an aid station just on the run side of the mat and the volunteers were very helpful. They poured water over my head, down my back and sleeves, gave me some ice and shoved me down the road. The special needs bags were just around the corner from that so I stopped for my nutrition/water belt. The bottle of Skratch was still very cold and satisfying so I drank deeply. I also ate the first of my ClifShot margarita blocks.
The temperature was 90 degrees as I started the run and stayed that way for the first 2 hours of the run. My goal pace for the first 6 miles was 9:47 (heat adjusted pace was 10:48) and my first lap was an 11:02 but that is off because of the time I had spent getting water and ice in the first aid station and then stopping by my special needs bag. The second mile was 10:02 and I was having problems with my right hamstring feeling like it was going to cramp up. Surprisingly it felt better if I ran a little faster so my next couple of miles were in the 9:35 – 9:45 range.
During the 3rd mile the lead male runner’s bike escort came up alongside me. We talked for a while as he guided the lead runner along. He was on his third and final lap by this time and was just going a little faster than me. He passed me but I passed him before the turnaround. He eventually melted down at mile 24 and had to be carried back to the med tent.
I stopped at every aid station and got ice and water. I was wearing a Desoto Cool Skins bolero and packed the sleeves with ice. I also packed my top with ice alternating from front to back. Some aid stations had water hoses and I got a thorough soaking at those. From time to time my quads or hamstrings would begin to feel like they were going to cramp so I started packing my shorts with ice when that happened. That helped as the cramps quickly receded.
At about mile 14 the line or the big suck started creeping in and it hit hard at mile 15. I pulled out the one thing (which was actually two things, Timothy Jenks and my 95 year old mother who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer) to keep me going. I find it ironic that death, or the thought of my mortality, kept me going through that. Given what happened to Tim and my mom kept me thinking that this might be the last time that I had a chance to do an Ironman. Carlos Castaneda wrote in his Don Juan series that we should make death an ally that sits on our shoulder and makes us realize that we could die at any time and thus we should take advantage of what we have right now. That’s what kept me going when I wanted to slow down, quitting was not an option now.
I kept catching people and encouraging them on and some picked up their pace for a few minutes but eventually I passed them. I passed the woman that was my bike buddy about mile 23 and she was hurting, but there was nothing I could do be tell her to keep going (she did and finished 3rd in her AG). I kept a pretty steady pace in the high 9’s to low 10’s until I saw the second to the last aid station at mile 24. I then began to pick up the pace and when I saw the last station at mile 25 I really started pushing it.
I did the last 1.2 miles at a 9:16 pace and passed people all the way in. I kept pumping my arms up in the finish chute and the spectators responded which further pumped me up. My run time was 4:26:05. My heat adjusted predicted best time was 4:56 so I smashed that. My 2012 Vineman run time was 4:21:54 so this year was just 4:11 slower than then. I finished in 12: 10:32, 1st in my AG and 44th overall out of 440 finishers. (Run file http://tpks.ws/nO4w)
This was a really good race for me and I learned a lot about myself and how to race and here’s why. In 2012 I had a PR of 11:55:53, 3rd in my AG and 117th overall. That year 850 people started and 748 finished which is a 12% DNF rate. In 2014 641 people started and 440 finished or a 31% DNF rate. Success in iron distance races depends on solid execution, but when there are extreme temperatures like this year, execution and adapting to the day are even more critical.
So, to answer my question about the bike, no I don’t think I was too conservative. However, I do wish I had a couple of clones so that we could try different things and have a control. It would make for much more interesting experiments.
Respectfully submitted,
Mark W. Maurer
August 1, 2014
Comments
Mark - very very impressive race in total. Well planned, and superbly executed. Overcoming those temps on the run the way you did is a thing of beauty. Ice in the Cool Wings - not a bad idea! Along with the pre-cooled scratch bottle.
No problems from all that water poured in you getting into your shoes, causing blisters etc?
Penticton next year? You like the smaller non WTC IMs better?
Congrats and well done on such a hot day! 100+ temps for an Ironman is legit!!
Al, I changed socks in T2 and put on some lightweight Pearl Izumi bike socks. I wore Newton Motion shoes and, quite frankly, my feet never felt wet. I have had sloggy shoes when I've gotten sprayed in the past but not this time. The Newtons are so light weight and open that they drain well. So I didn't have any problem with heavy shoes or blisters. I do have a couple of black toe nails though but that didn't bother me during the run.
I was looking at IM Canada and IMCDA for next year but they just don't work out for us timing wise next year. Susan wants to do another IM next year (I think she's close to joining me in the EN club house) and so I'm working with her schedule as well. It helps to do the same race since it cuts down on expenses and training trips. We did Vineman this year because it was their 25th anniversary and it was the first iron distance race either of us did. I also so like the feel of Vineman and it's local vibe. It will be interesting to see what the Challenge events are like and compare them to WTC and Vineman. I wanted to do Penticton when it was a WTC event but I never got around to it. I have the Computrainer Real Video course and I've ridden it that way many times but it will be interesting to see the course in person.
Did you get to the bottom of the Garmin power data issue? Can you pair two head units to one power meter like that reliably. The one time I tried it I had issues.
@ David, I think the power issue was the batteries in the power tap since it started in the second half of the ride. I'm not certain yet since I haven't put new batteries in. As to pairing two heads with one device, I don't think that should make a difference since the hub is sending out the signal and the heads are just receiving it but I may be wrong. I know you can't pair two devices to one receiver at the same time on the same bike.