Dave Hartman - IMLP 2014
The short report is that I had a “ok” day, not great given my expectations, but not bad and my execution was pretty close to what I had planned. My times were all right around where I thought, but just on the “slower” side of things most of the day. I think I’m not going to have much in the way of accurate/good data for the day. My watch stop button was hit 10 minutes into the swim. I got good numbers on the bike, but can’t find my garmin and think it’s lost/stolen.
Swim: ~1:07, T1: ~4:00 +/-, Bike: 5:36:53, T2:2:07, Run: 3:46:49
Pre Event: I didn’t participate in any of the team events for anything else really for that matter. I need to be out of the craziness during those last days. We got up on Thursday and I got packet, swim 30 min and then did the downhill. Good power numbers out of town and flew down the hill (only brakes was near the bottom at the last sweeping right hand turn (road just isn’t as nice there)
Race morning: Up at 3:30, 3 ensure and get gear ready. Had my transition “matras” written out and worked on memorizing those again (T1: shoes,arm warmers, head band, gloves, helmet, gel bottle … T2: socks, shoes,number, hat, baggie). Started first red bull…first caffeine in over a week about 5:00 AM. We drove to lot at 5AM, setup bike, drop bags, etc. No issues.
Swim
Plan Actual Place
1:05-1:10 ~1:07 51 (???)
I hadn’t realized that the second lap of the swim was cancelled (as I was already done). It makes figuring out the “real” time tough as my watch stop button was hit, so I don’t really know what my true swim and T1 time were. I had swum 1:04-ish in 2008 (my first), but had some nerve damage to my right arm since then (never really knew what caused it). This damage took out a good portion of my right lat, bicep and some other muscles (you can see the physical difference just by looking at me from the front or back). This damage is why it took so long to get back to another ironman. My body naturally figured out a way to make this work though (as I didn’t swim in a cicle all day J ) and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at my progress. I figured I could get sub-1:10 pretty easily and lined up at the back of the 1 hr group. I was actually disappointed as I felt like I could have done 1:04 for sure, but wanted to stay as relaxed as possible. I don’t get too nervous with all of the banging around, so it’s pretty easy for me to just get in and go. I actually had some spots at the end of the first and second laps where I didn’t have any feet right in front of me, even though I was right on the line the entire time. I think I could have put out a little more effort hear, but I’m okay with this.
T1: I had a plan to work on my mantra (see above) and be saying this throughout the second lap of the swim. I also intended to actually “run” the transition, instead of just jogging. No hard, but “with intention”. I still was thinking slow (thanks to the mantra) and moving quickly. I don’t know what my time was, but I have to expect it was pretty fast. I did everything while running that I could (gloves, etc). I didn’t wear arm warmers as I felt like it was going to be warm enough. In hindsight, I might have taken these afterall as the rain made it significantly colder.
Bike
Plan Actual Place
5:25-5:40 5:36:53 22
Oddly enough, even though I’ve been training and racing with power for years, I was not really sure what my time would be and honestly didn’t care as I just planned to stare at my avg and normalized power numbers all day. This was by far the strongest and most fit I have ever been (even at 41). My weight was less than what I graduated at in high school, and I was a runner in high school (not a fast one though). My power numbers were pretty good as well thanks to the most consistent off-season and in-season training ever. I hit my goal of 285 (300 for 20 min test) for my FTP at the first test of the official IM training plan (5/27). With a weight of 155 at the time, that put me over 4.0.
Even though the charts suggested 70% of FTP as the low end for me given what I expected for my time, I just felt that it was the right number. My training (including a mini-training camp) was telling me that 70% still felt “hard” to hold for 5:30 hours. So my plan was to hold 200 normalized watts and keep the VI low (i.e. keep the avg power as close to the normalized power as possible). During the season and on race rehersals I had worked very hard at lowering my VI and I have certainly improved.
Since I can’t find my garmin, my numbers are based on my memory, but I pretty much executed just as planned. From memory, my normalized power was 200 (although it was at 201 right at the top of papa bear and so it may have still been 201 at the finish, but I was focused on transition by then) and avg power was 187-188. So VI was right around 1:07. Still under the coaches 1.1 and I don’t feel like I couild have done too much different. I did have to stop twice to check on the bike as I thought there was a mechanical issue (gears/crank/chain noise and then something stuck to the tire). I ran a full disc in the back and with the rain forecast and potential for wind, this was the thing that I was most nervous about for the day over the weekend. I couldn’t change anything at that point (rented wheels and no other wheels with me), so I just went with it. I turned out to not be a problem at all. Never got pushed around too much and felt like I was riding pretty fast. I was very cold during the first half of the first lap though due to the rain and was certainly shivering quite a bit. Might have appreciated the arm warmers, but was able to get through it. I was actually looking forward to the first climbs after the out and back, thinking the hills and slower speed would warm me up some. Still took it easy though on that climb. I haven’t switched to the EN protocol in terms of fueling (but going to work on it now) so went with what has worked for me. I was getting in around 375 calories/hr. Amount of water was much lower, but I still peeed three times. First lap was 2:46. Second lap was a completely different race as the sun even came out and the roads were mostly dry. More of the same, with power being higher than first lap (avg power came up just a couple, with normalized staying the same).
I was hoping to average 20mph, but was just under that. Given my power/weight ratio, and my aero setup, I was disappointed with the time, but it was exactly as planned based on power numbers. My legs were definitely feeling tired on the second lap and I was nervous that I was going to hard. There is no way I could have done 72% or higher. I was getting some hints of cramps as well, but this seems to always happen for me. The only “new” thing for me was feeling some naseau towards the end of the second lap. My calorie intake was likely over 380 as I was able to finish both bottles and I made them for a 5:45 ride time to be safe. The naseau made me a little nervous for the run and certainly helped keep me slower for the early miles of the run.
T2: Again, move with purpose and follow the mantra. In and out and felt this couldn’t have been much faster. 2:17.
Run:
Plan Actual Place
3:30-3:45 3:46:49 23
The run was my biggest disappointment time wise given that this is my relative strength. Growing up a runner this is usually my best event. I felt with my lighter weight (150) and good fitness that 8:05-8:10 was reasonable. I stuck to the EN Plan for the most part, especially given the naseau. The early miles being downhill were easy and helped settle my stomach. Given the downhills I expected these miles would be ~30secs/mile faster than if I ran on flats. HR was good for these miles and felt it was a good start. Once on the flater sections, I kept the pace in check, but was probably a little faster than I would have expected. Miles 3-8.2 were at 8:11 pace and probably should have been slower. That being said, I kept the pace lower through 8 miles instead of 6 just to make sure I wasn’t going to have food intake issues (naseau). It settle down well and I think I picked it up too much starting at mile 8. Between 3 and 16 I moved up 3 spots in my ag and 15 spots overall. But right about mile 16 or so the legs just started to really ache. No cramping, but just aching. I will have to see if I can get more accurate splits from my watch (didn’t get every mile), but I think I was pretty close to 8 min pace from miles 3 -16 and this was just too fast. It’s probably the one thing I would wish to change. I was getting into my “I’m a runner” groove and needed to keep it in check. I gave back the 5 ag spots I made up from the start of the bike after mile 16. Interestingly, I was able to keep eating once I had the pretty big slowdown. I had coke for the first time (this was once I knew I just needed to get it to the finish and time/place wasn’t a priority anymore). I had never been able to take in calories after around mile 16 before in a marathon/ironman. So this was a really interesting learning and will make me look into flat coke earlier on in the race as that was the only real difference.
Between 21-25 came the most walking and it was frustrating as I knew how much I was giving back in terms of places. I generally do little walking through aid stations, etc as I have found that I risk cramps if I do that and seem to do better my just keeping moving. But I did some this time and by walking it probably had me walking even more than I would have just due to being hard to get started again. Still, I did some running as well and when I ran it was at a reasonable pace.
Overall, I think my only real “mistake” was those miles from 8-16, which were probably about 20-30 seconds too fast. That being said, I don’t know how much more improvement I would have had in terms of time/placing. It certainly did get hot a couple of times on the run. I think my nutrition was good and I even learned some things (coke). Total time was around 10:38, but it’s hard to nail down exactly (and I don’t care too much anyway), due to not having the second lap of the swim and not knowing exactly when I went into the water. The run was the only thing that was outside my target range and even that was only by a minute+.
I do have a long term goal of qualifying and I had a target of top 20 in my ag this time. I was 23 so I was outside of that. At one point I was at 18, but gave that back between 16 and the end. I heard spots only went 7 deep in my ag, so I was ~38 minutes from a spot, which feels like a lot and wasn’t really an improvement over my 2008 result (10:42). That being said I was 42 in my ag in 2008 and was 23 this time (112 overall), so I guess it was technically a better result.
Some things to work on/change:
- Bike watts for the ride. If 70% is a conservative target given I’m at ~4.1 for watts/kg, why does this “feel” so hard? Is my testing off? I don’t think so as the numbers have been pretty consistent and building since 2011. If I had to guess, I’m just someone who either “tests higher”, or my body just doesn’t respond as well in this range (68-72). I was seeing that in my intervals throughout the season, I was able to hit higher numbers on the longer rides (but again this felt “really” hard).
- Leg turnover speed. I used to be a mid to low 18min 5K runner and I feel like I just don’t have that turnover anymore. While I think my “low end” speed has bumped up, I wasn’t able to hit my threshold/interval times of years ago. When I was just a runner I was doing mile repeats at 6min/mile without much effort by mid-season and this time I was just starting to see that at the very end and even then it felt harder. I seem to have a higher “pain threshold” for running and I suspect (based on feedback and numbers) that I’m running my threshold intervals too fast. But I need to reconcile that with wanting to run faster?!? I feel like I should be able to do 8min/mile pace in an Ironman and need to get there to qualify.
- Bike position. Mine seems to be pretty good, but I need to get it looked at again. I do know that my seat needs to be raised based on feedback, but I have a leg length discrepancy that ends up causing knee pain each time I have tried this. This offseason, I did bump it 2 times by a small amount and that worked out okay, so I need to determine my total target and work on raising that again. I don’t know if I drop at the front will also come out of this, but I may look at that as well. I am a good bike handler (given the number of times I had to SCREAM at people to get over to the right on the downhill to Keene) from my mtb background, etc, so I’m not concerned about that risk.
- Get into a full wetsuit from farmer john…Based on recent reading, the technology is such that moving to a full is worth it.
- I promised the wife no full IM next year and I think that makes sense. So I’ll look at some 70.3’s on a course that I might be interested in doing a full on in 2016.
- I’ve only doing placid and love that race, but I think my next one may be somewhere else, just to try something different. Keeping in mind that place/time improvement is something that is a goal, I want to look at course that suit me. Given my power/weight and size (150lbs at 5’10”…small?) I THINK that would be a hilly course (and not something like IM MD which is close by, but is DEAD flat). I am thinking something like Tahoe or Colorado. I might try the 70.3 in tahoe next year or something similar.
- Plans for the rest of this year? My current thinking is to follow the EN transition advice and unless I can find something 8 weeks out to do, my season may be done. That being said, historically, my biggest weakness has been the level of “off” in my “off season”. We stayed in Lake placid last week for our normal family vacation and let’s just say I did not eat healthy at all, not one single meal J . My body comp was good during the season and up to the race, but I tend to have a big back slide during the off season (I started the last off season plan at ~175) before the out-season plan gets started. I really want to find a way to keep these next couple of months from becoming a complete back slide.
- Other gear changes?!? Hoka, bike (currently a P2 from ’08), etc.
- Try to switch to the EN nutrition guidance. I honestly just hadn’t read up on it in a couple of years and hadn’t realized how it differed from my own. And while my own seems to work (perpetuem, gel, etc), I would like to see if there is any improvement (or at least not a negative impact) to the EN guidance as there may be some time savings there .
- Get video of my in all events. It’s been a while and I’m getting older but my weight is certainly lower than in previous years.
- Flexibility is good as I do Yoga, core, etc. I don’t think I’ll make any changes here.
- Strength. I realize that my terminal chronological condition is continuing to progress (i.e. I ain’t gettin’ younger) and I don’t know if introducing weights again (years ago I had some weight training in my plans) is something to consider. I don’t feel like it is yet and in the past I don’t believe it gave me any advantage. The only reason I would consider it now is if I thought it was more preventative due to age. At 41, I think I’m still a couple of years away from this as I haven’t seem times decrease yet (other than MAYBE in the run).
- Testing frequency. I don’t like to test and I don’t do it as often as our plans typically prescribe. I would say that I get 2-3 tests in each of running and biking that are considered “accurate” throughtout and entire year (out-season and in-season plans). As I have been an endurance athlete all my life, I am pretty good at understanding my body. I did a lab test once for the run and predicted to the exact second and count my threshold pace and HR. Should I adjust and try to test more often? I typically will have 1-2 “failed” tests where I just don’t feel it on that particular day and end up re-testing or skipping altogether. Last year I had 3 “good” bike tests from December till race day.
Comments
That was a great race, Congratulations.
Dave - congratulations on a good performance. The thing that impresses me most in your report is you focused much more on process and performance when discussing the bike than the environmental conditions, which appeared to be just background noise as you went through your day. Too bad you don't have your bike file to review (as well as needing to get a new head unit, bummer). And, your report shows a sophisticated insight into what your learning opportunities are from the day.
I've sent you a PM with some other thoughts.
All, Thanks for the replies. I think one other thing I I need to add to my "list" of things is to get more involved with our team here at EN. I've been doing endurance training for so long and our sport tends to be so solitary in general (almost all of my workouts start before the sun is up), that I forget to utilize the great resources we have here at EN (and even offer up my own advice).
And Al, you have certainly earned that "Wicked Smart" badge in my opinion. Thanks for taking the time to respond to my "items".
Dave