Matt Aaronson's 70.3 Steelhead - first sub-4:30 half-iron!!!
The summary version. Overall 4:28:32, a 2:59 PR and first sub-4:30 finish. The splits were:
- Swim 1.2 miles 37:02 (1:55/100m). http://connect.garmin.com/act...946
- Bike 56 miles 2:12:30 (25.36 mph). http://connect.garmin.com/act...649
- Run 13.1 miles 1:33:04 (7:06/mi). http://connect.garmin.com/act...432
My goal was to "let the dog off the chain" and go for the PR. I bought a bike off of Craigslist a week ago and rode it for the first time ever in the race. I installed latex tubes on my race wheels for the first time ever. I targeted IF of 0.88 and achieved it exactly with an extremely even and steady effort…VI was 1.00. The resulting speed was FAST and a massive bike PR of 7:55 that beat 14 of 22 bike splits in the Pro division. So much for "nothing new on race day"!!
I exited T2 only needing around a 1:35 half-marathon to get the sub-4:30 goal. I was elated running out of T2 since I felt awesome with 1:35 easily achievable given that in my last two races I ran very consistently ~1:29 without having to dig brutally deep. But the bike-hard approach bit me hard on the run (which was always the risk), and the run became brutally tough fighting quad cramps the whole way and also getting a bad side stitch. It was mid-80's and mostly unshaded. My sub-4:30 that was "in the bag" at the run out was slipping away over the course of the whole run!!! Sh*t!!! Must keep going!!!
At the end my 1:33:04 run was ~4 minutes slower than my ~1:29 splits in the last two races including Racine a few weeks ago. So sort of an ugly race and painful run, but at the end of the day the strategy worked and I got the PR. My finish was 40th overall and 8th in M3539. I could have had the 2015 World Championships roll-down slot but passed due to schedule and the ITU Worlds in Sweden next year. I'm looking forward to next year's age-up to M4044 where I would have made the podium in 3rd with today's finish time. Of course I'm sure some of the guys in my AG are looking forward to the big 4-0 next year as well.
This was my last race of the tri season so my new bike will now be put away and I'll use the Madone for crosstraining as I focus on the Chicago Marathon in October. I'll declare the tri season a success:
- Rebuilt bike fitness after zero biking and run-only for 18 weeks June-Nov last year
- Came back from a huge injury that put me in a cast Jan-Feb with no S/B/R and required real "recovery mode" for 2 more months after that. I didn't start real training until April and was forced to be a DNS at 70.3 Florida
- Managed to peak for 3 A-races (there are no B-races!!) within a compressed 3 month period, and had the fastest result – although I'd argue not really the "best performance" – in the last race (and only 3 weeks after the second race)
- The 3 races this year contained my 3 fastest bike splits and 3 fastest run splits, and 2 of those runs were within seconds of my MP
Next year is my age-up year so I can now have fun making plans and setting new goals...and learning how to swim…
A few additional reflections on this race ("likes and dislikes")
LIKE: Bike execution – I've looked at the data and it looks pretty freakin' good. I targeted 0.88 IF and achieved it exactly. It was my first ever race where I managed to hit VI 1.00 overall. HR was remarkably stable with no decoupling other than in a very minor way in the last 10 mins when I was conscious of pressing a bit harder. Splits below:
LIKE: The run split I was able to salvage. The run was brutal with muscle cramps and a side stitch. It was so bad I had to stop and massage my legs and walk a bit at several points. But at the end of the day it was still a 1:33 half marathon after all the biking and running, and my 3rd fastest run split. When similar cramps hit me in Kansas 2012 and Vegas 2011 my run splits collapsed into the 1:37-1:45 range. So at the end of the day I was able to manage to keep going via pace and stride adjustment.
LIKE: My "new" bike and bike setup. I love the bike and look forward to really getting it dialed-in for next season. I have been scared out of my mind to try latex tubes for fear of flatting but I finally did it and hey, it worked! It was a noticeably smoother ride too. Finally, I went with a very clean setup that included only a seat-mounted 2-bottle cage. I ditched the under-seat flat kit bag and put the flat kit into one water bottle. Then I put a bottle in the other cage. I put 3 gels into my tri top pockets so no taping anything to the top tube. I swapped out my bottle at 2 of the 4 aid stations (skipped the others).
LIKE: The "virtual" EN support. I posted my goals and race plan to be held accountable and while I was racing I knew people would be following me. I felt I was being held accountable and it made an impact for sure.
LIKE: The bike course. Pretty flat and damn fast. The first 10 miles and last ~18 miles are on a highway with wide shoulders and super smooth pavement. The middle bits are on somewhat narrow 2-lane country roads but the pavement is pretty good other than some chipseal from approx miles 10-15. If the wind is out of the south then it would probably be a pretty brutal last 18 miles to the finish but we got lucky and it was mostly out of the east. If it was out of the north it would have been even faster. Btw even after adjusting for the fact that I started my Garmin late, the course looked to be about 0.5-0.6 miles short.
LIKE: No drafting / clean ride. I started in the second-to-last AG wave and probably passed – no kidding – 1800 people on the bike ride. Maybe more. There was certainly some congestion on the country roads but in spite of the flat course I didn't see much drafting and I certainly didn't do any. Actually the difference in the dynamic between riding at 25 vs 23mph is stark. At 23mph you get into a lot of leapfrogging etc. At 25mph you pass everyone and really you don't see them again. At Racine I biked a 2:20 and 2 guys hitched a ride off me for much of the last 10 miles. At Steelhead it didn't happen.
DISLIKE: My body rebelling against me on the run. I was really prepared to bury myself on the run. I was envisioning an all-out effort. But instead the run became more of a management exercise…trying to find the right stride and pace such that my quads wouldn't cramp up. My HR was not overly high and I wasn't hurting in the usual "running too hard" way…it was literally pain from some specific muscles that were "injured". Disappointing.
DISLIKE: An "unbalanced" result. I'm bummed that my half-iron PR contains a run that is 4 mins slower than what I'm capable of. It looks unbalanced and, unlike my slow swim, isn't reflective of my capabilities and strengths.
DISLIKE: Riding with an imperfect bike fit. The BMC fit was meant to replicate the old Orbea but of course it wasn't exact. I could tell the seat felt a bit too far back and maybe slightly low, for example. It would not surprise me if the slight variances in fit contributed to the muscle cramping on the run. Centimeters make a difference with this stuff.
DISLIKE: Inability to implement a strategy. This race was a demonstration of the classic "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face". As most of you know, I'm pretty methodical and by now have enough experience at the half-iron distance that I expect to be able to execute a plan even if the result isn't quite what I want. But in this case on the run I couldn't even execute it. Frustrating.
DISLIKE: The return of muscle cramping that I thought I had gotten rid of. I got these exact same cramps in Vegas 2011 and Kansas 2012. At Racine 2012 I came up with a sodium loading protocol that I thought was the "solve". I'll admit I was a bit lax on sodium before this race…but not ridiculously so. All the core elements (salt caps before bed on Saturday, at wakeup on Sunday, etc) were all in place. These cramps are a familiar foe, and they seem to be back. They instill a lack of confidence and uncertainty into any prerace plan.
DISLIKE: Pit stop in T2. After racing Racine without a single pit stop, I really had to go in T2 and decided to make the stop. It cost me almost 1:05. That is huge. I really need to learn how to take care of that on the bike. I just don't know how when you're working that hard.
DISLIKE: The aftermath. Quads are still painful to the touch, and it's Tuesday night as I write this. Doubtful I'm able to run at all until the weekend.
DISLIKE: Business travel after the race…again. I was on a 9:35pm flight to the East Coast. After Grand Rapids I flew to Japan. After Racine it was the East coast. One of these days I'd love to enjoy the Monday after a race…sleep in and really celebrate the experience. One of these days…
MEH: My swim performance. I executed my plan of putting more effort into the swim. The result wasn't quite the 34' swim I was looking for or capable of, but on the other hand the swim was into a current and swim times were slow across the board. People in the results who did both Racine and Steelhead this year (including the Pro winner Lionel Sanders) seemed to swim slower by about a minute or so at Steelhead. For me that's probably about a minute and a half. So maybe my 37' should have been more like 35:30. So closer. But still, really, not good. If I could swim consistently in the 32' range I'd be seriously competing for top 5 in these races.
MEH: The weather / heat. The run was 80's and mostly unshaded. In the only shaded part (Whirlpool campus loop), it was humid from all the vegetation. So the run conditions could have been better.
Other random notes
- Given the speed I managed on the bike, even with a higher IF I had a virtually identical TSS to my other races…in fact my 168 TSS was 0.3 LOWER than when I rode IF 0.85 at Racine. My HR was pretty consistent too – 3bpm higher avg HR compared with Racine (which might be explained entirely by Steelhead being a little warmer). Since TSS was the same, it becomes really hard to blame the run on a "too hard bike". Because according to the TSS, the bike wasn't actually any harder than my other two races this year. So I come back to sodium, bike fit and other factors. And if that is true, it makes me REALLY HAPPY…because it says on a better day I should be able to run 1:29 off that bike split and be looking at a 4:25 race finish…
- "Nothing new on race day"…hey, sometimes you have to experiment…
- Bike volume…this year I have done some seriously long Saturday rides. Mostly because I was keeping Bruce Thompson company!! I guess the HIM plan calls for 3.5-hour rides now and I was typically in the 4-4.5 hour range. After the z4 work at the beginning I did most of the remainder at z3 wattage. Most of these ended up with IF >0.8 for the ride overall. In that amount of time I usually covered 80-95 miles. Plus I did 2-2.5 hours for the Sunday ABP ride to follow-up. I continue to believe that the EN "1-2 punch" of weekend rides is hugely effective for building endurance and that the massively-overdistance training makes a difference for HIM performance…in all of my races this year I sustained my wattage right to the very end of the ride.
- Training between races…I'll post on this separately but overall I think my training between races was pretty effective and my PMC indicates high fitness leading into all 3 races. I managed to sustain my CTL really well but still feel tapered going into each race. I will say that fast recovery from the first 2 races enabled that.
- Rolldown dynamics…Steelhead had some of the top age groupers in the US and only 35 slots to the World Championships and yet rolldowns were very, very deep. In M3539 there were several guys who were at the very top of the race in Vegas and yet they all passed on slots. In that AG and many others it was a case of "who wants to go to Austria". The only AG that didn't roll too deep was M4044 and even that went to 8th with only 2 slots initially allocated (my buddy was 8th and took the slot, hence how I got all this info). Sending the race to Austria will certainly have a big impact and if Steelhead is an early indication then slots should be easy to come by.
As usual, any and all thoughts and ideas from the team are highly appreciated!!
Comments
Regarding I acknowledge that your TSS points and calculation is correct in so far as the maths is concerned. However, we all need to keep in mind that TSS is just a mathematical model rather than the actual physical 'true' cost'.
As I understand it, the 'true cost' in physical terms is more like an exponential function, rather than the TSS model that squares the IF. So it is possible that despite the TSS calculation, Steelhead may have had a bigger physical cost than Racine.
Just a thought.
Matt - closing out the tri year in style.
Cramps - as you know, there are multiple theories about the cause of cramps - hydration, sodium, workload, insufficient training, etc. In this case, there seem to be 2-3 suspects. Foremost as you note is bike fit. Second, did you take any standing breaks on the bike? Holding an aero position @ 0.88 IF for over two hours is not easy. Third, miles 10-20 appear just a little bit faster than the following. Would an ever so slightly easier first 1/3rd of the bike have made a difference? Losing 1-2 minutes and gaining 3-4? And the heat - did you take a scale with you to check pre and post weight? It;s hard to get enough fluid on a shadeless, mid-day, 80+F run.
Since you're doing those 4-4.5 hour rides anyway, and training for a marathon, WHEN are you going to do an IM??? Nothing wrong with being a 70.3 specialist, but aren't you curious what you could do? This result would easily translate to a 9:45-50 IM at Arizona.
Very impressive. Makes me realize I have a lot of work to do
Hey, Matt, freakin awesome race! I know getting sub 4:30 was a big goal for you and you got it. Taking a bit of a macro view, i think you had one hell of a season. Coming back from a serious injury where you are forced to take weeks/months off, is no easy feat. Doing so and then posting your best times ever on the bike and run is a huge achievement. Some time off and a full out season and you are going be a dangerous individual next year.
I too suffer from cramps, but mostly in the swim and Al is correct, there isn't really a definitive answer as to the cause. Bike fit could certainly come into play, just a slightly different position than what your body is used to combined with high intensity, may be a contributing factor. Could also be electrolyte related, but again, tough to tell. I'm not convinced you over biked and that was what was behind your 1:33 run, which is still pretty damn awesome. When you're gunning for a sub 1:30 half marathon the margin for error is razor thin and if you're body, nutrition, hydration, everything for that matter, isn't 100% it's very easy to come up short. I think as you build upon your current fitness, 4:25 and better is in your future for sure.
Also, i think you and i should double down on some swim lessons. Personally, i'm going to really focus on the swim during my OS.
Again, awesome race and congrats!
PS: I love that BMC!
@Matt..... I'm still trying to wrap my head around your bike/run combo.... Specially the bike , NP and IF .88 ... Wow just wow... Beating the pro's... That bike may have cost you a couple minutes on the run but I bet you arent even trading 1 for 1.... IOW I bet for every 2 minutes faster on the bike may have only cost you 1 minute on the run... I continue to think you will do even better at the IM distance (since your 5k vdot and HM vdot is the same) you have also demonstrated that speed over the Marathon distance... Enjoy your year end Marathon.... Aging up next year will be interesting for you since its still a screaming fast AG(and huge too I think there were 288).... Chris Martin ex EN member you may remember won the AG above you at Steelhead this year....Thats what you'll be going up against.... Note: he can SWIM
Love the pre-race strategy, execution, and report. You have pointy end speed, and you yet keep whittling away time with experimentation and reflection. Congratulations on an awesome race! It was great to meet you in GR this year, and I'll be following your latest "experiments" to optimize preparation for Sweden as I am planning on joining you there.
Strong work!
Nice work superman.
Hope to race with you someday.
@ Peter, I think you are right about the TSS not truly reflecting the physiological cost of the hard ride. That said, it was a 0.88 IF ride at a very low VI so it's not like it was a hardcore effort into z4 range. So in other words, yes, I'm with you on the math, but I also know I felt good in the last 10 miles of the ride, not struggling at all, felt great getting off the bike, etc.
@ Al, one thing I think I got sloppy with was my sodium-loading protocol. I started it after experiencing 2 races in a row with brutal quad cramping and was able to avoid any cramping since. But I'll admit I didn't follow it too well this time around. Of course as you imply, there are multiple theories and who the hell knows if my protocol is anything more than a very complicated placebo. Overall the cramps are a pisser but the real problem is what it does to my confidence by inserting such uncertainty into any race lead-up. As for standing breaks, admittedly I took very few in this race. And regarding IM, I pulled the trigger on IMWI so am very likely to do that next year assuming I can get agreement from my wife (although as you point out, the increase in training volume would be minimal, and I think I can swing it so any additional weekend hours would be before anyone else is awake anyway). I was really on the fence about race selection because if I end up being one-and-done at the IM distance until a much later age then I was tempted to sign up for FL where I could try to lay down a great lifetime PR time. But the logistics of WI are just too good to pass up.
@ Mike, yes, it was a "good trade". But (a) I truly believe the run cramps weren't from the bike…maybe I'm wrong but I just feel that's it, and therefore (b) I will admit that it really annoys me that my PR has a run that is less than my capability. Just annoying, that's it. But if it was really a "trade", then I agree, it was a good one.
@ Mark, yes it was a good run but your run at Tremblant crushed all my sub-1:30 runs this year!!!!
@ Tim, I was 8th and with my finish time I'd have been 3rd in the next AG. The numbers aren't exactly the same but that trend holds true for every race I did this year. It so happens that my AG in the Midwest has some of the fastest guys in the country. Stubleski, Iott, Zucco, etc. They are at almost all of my races. I think Zucco is aging up but hopefully many of the others do not. We'll see. I would like to hit a WTC podium next year…a goal not totally within my control but I'd really like to do it. I think Racine cold be a good race for that next year.
@ Ian, look forward to racing together next year in Sweden! @ Robin, some day, man
@ Doug, yes, a LOT of fun!!!
Cheers!!