Darren's IMMT Race Report
Date: Sunday, August 17th, 2014
Race: Ironman Mont Tremblant
Swim: 01:09:08
T1: 00:07:21
Bike: 06:14:28
T2: 00:04:40
Run: 04:45:49
Total: 12:30:26
Swim:
I’m pretty happy with my swim performance. I wasn’t nervous at all right before the start and staged myself up front one person back from the front row and two thirds to the left from the main buoy line. Race starts and the entry in the water was pretty orderly and progressed business as usual. Got my stoke going and didn’t have too much bumping or rubbing. At one point I got a good knock in the left google which wasn’t too hard but noticeable but I was able to get that behind me and continue on. Twice I had to pop my head up because I thought my left lens was leaking but it seemed it was just the cold water around the edge causing that feeling. After putting those issues behind me I proceeded as expected. Caught the wave before me (gray caps) which happened twice since there seemed to be two distinct packs. Caught some white caps and had a few green caps go screaming past me. Rounded the buoys and onward to the swim finish.
Overall, good swim. Probably could have pushed myself a little harder. I would love it one day if I could get close to the one hour mark.http://connect.garmin.com/activity/568899952
T1:
Got to the tent and grabbed my bag and changed without incident. Had expected red carpeting all the way from the swim to the tent but “What are you going to do?”. Wasn’t chilled from the swim so I put on just my cycling jersey, socks and shoes, left my long sleeve cycling jacket (this was a mistake later on) and headed for the door.
Bike:I’m not totally satisfied with my bike although it isn’t a totally terrible performance either, yet it just felt like I was moving backwards the entire day. I started out just riding along for the first hour to get warmed up and had to stop for a second in the first mile due to fix a rear break rub on the wheel. Fixed the rub and was on my way. Started following my nutrition plan and began working after one hour of warm up time. Things were going well and I was motoring along until about hour two where it seemed my bike started to slowly unravel. I’m not totally sure what went wrong, the cooler temps might have had something to do with it, I think I might have been consuming too many calories, or drinking the one bottle of perform on the course might have added to it. After the two hour mark my power and heart rate just seemed to drop off slowly and wasn’t there for me. Getting up and down Lac Superior wasn’t a problem but again I just felt like I was moving backward. I was low gearing the hills and spinning at a high cadence, but everyone just seemed to be leaving me behind.
Second loop wasn’t much more fun than the first. Once I got out to 117 and over the first major hill it was very clear the wind had significantly picked up as there were some dark clouds on the horizon with a storm potentially rolling in from the north. This wind contributed to me getting slightly chilled and further not helping my situation on the bike. Power continued not to be where I expected and I was thinking that I might be low on fluids so I switched to only water at this point. In the past, I have had issues drinking anything other than water (such as Perform and even adding SaltSticks) as it has contributed to me getting dehydrated due to the excess sugar in addition to my other nutrition so switching to water only has usually helped the problem. After a while the straight water seemed help a bit and I noticed my power numbers coming back a little bit. Finally up and down Lac Superior and I was glad the ride this was over.
Overall on the bike I give myself a C. Nutrition and hydration seemed to be a factor in my performance. I was expecting to do between 6:00 and 6:30 on the bike, so 6:15 is right in the middle. However, the nutrition, hydration and power issues probably contributed to a worse performance than what I was probably capable.http://connect.garmin.com/activity/568899957
T2:
Dismounted from my bike, handed it off to the volunteer and took a second to remove my bike shoes. At this point I was glad to be off the bike and have a small break to do something different. With shoes in hand, I ran to the tent, grabbed my bag and sat down to change over. Really I took my time at this point. Dumped my bag, shoes and helmet go in the bag, put on a new pair of socks, running shoes, hat and grabbed my run belt and headed out the door.
Run:Heading out on the run my plan was to go really easy for the first six miles of the run until which point my legs were ready to go. I got about a mile or so into the run where the first hills began and it was clear they weren’t where I wanted to be and so I ended up immediately walking the hills to conserve what I had left. From my race data I made it to mile 10 and then things quickly deteriorated into a walk/run race which I wasn’t expecting and then eventually a more walking than running at the end. At this point it was damage control mode to salvage what I could from the race. Once again I’ve had to come to the realization that my run wasn’t what I wanted and had to just deal with it and get it done. Pretty much at this point I was trying anything to recover what remained of my race. Coke, water, pretzels and even chicken broth.. I know hydration wasn’t an issue on the run so the only other element that I can think of was nutrition on the bike set me up and made my run fall apart.
Overall my run was far less than ideal. Clocking in a 5 hour marathon was not where I saw myself in the days before the race and I clearly need to do more work to nail down my nutrition. More than anything the bike set me up for the run and it was clear things weren’t working well at the start of the last leg. I knew fitness wise I was in a really good place on my last long run in training but it just didn’t happen on this day.http://connect.garmin.com/activity/568899967
Pre-Race and Taper:
The two weeks leading up to the race were tough for me this time around. I seem to be very tired and just wasn’t in the moment as I had been in previous races. Some training sessions before the race just seemed forced and were hard to execute well, yet there were a few where I nailed the training and felt great. The pieces of the puzzle just weren’t falling into place as I had hoped.
One ritual I have in the weeks prior to races is to detox from all caffeine prior to the race. I’m not sure if this had a negative impact on how I was feeling or not, typically I feel pretty good because I’m able to sleep better at night and feel more rested through the day although this just didn’t happen in the last week before the race. I seemed always tired with not enough sleep and wasn’t super energized leading up to the race. I made the effort to rest and sleep as much as possible and even took three days off during race week but it didn’t seem to help. It wasn’t until Thursday of race week where I re-introduced a little caffeine when I finally started to feel better and energized by the environment and prospects of the race a few days later.
Race Phycology:As with my taper my positive mental thoughts where tough to come by until the last few days leading up to the race. The prospect of having to execute on race day knowing that something wasn’t on point regarding my bike performance left many questions in my mind. My one thing I tried to work on this year was to improve my mental focus although I can’t say I accomplished this well as my other life got in the way from time to time. I need to make sure that I work on this objective in the off season so I can be better prepared for 2015.
Nutrition:It is clear that I had had several things go wrong on race day. My failed nutrition seems be have boiled to the top of the list as the cause of my race and performance disintegrating. I’ve gone back and looked at my calorie requirements and it seems I may have consumed too many calories on the bike and gotten into a situation where my hydration was off. I know in the past that Perform or any type of liquid with sugar or additional calories has caused me to get dehydrated more quickly than the use of water alone. So why did I grab a bottle or Perform early in the race? I do not know! I guess it was just an impulse to see if I could salvage something early on the bike but it seems to have had the opposite effect.
One thing which I know for sure is that I get hungry on the bike. This happened at IM Lake Placid, Beach2Battleship and once again at this race. At IMLP I hadn’t consumed any solid food as that was the guidance at the time, but since then I have introduced PowerBars and used them at B2B which served me well but I was still hungryy during that race. At IMMT, I used PowerBars again but this time around it just wasn’t enough to hold off the hungry feeling. I think my one solution to this problem is to eat a larger race morning breakfast than just scrambled eggs. At 2014 Rev3 Quassy 70.3 I ate two servings of Cream Of Wheat a few hours before the race in addition to my pre-race yogurt with protein powder at 3am and applesauce breakfast at 11pm the night before at which left me pretty full and I set a PR for that race. In addition to a large breakfast, I think I need something more substantial than PowerBars on the bike. I’m considering using some items from the book “Feed Zone Portables” to see if I can fill that hungry feeling with something more substantial than just poor quality nutrition energy bars.
Final Thoughts:Another IM is in the books. IM Mont Tremblant was my third 140.6 in less than two years and all in all it wasn’t such a disaster that I might make it out to be, although I know I can do and perform better. I clearly still have a few nutrition things to work out and plan to do my best to dial that in with each attempt. I look at each race as a learning process and you can only truly test your plan on race day. Things that may work in training can have flaws that only express themselves on race day and I’m committed to figure out what it is and get those resolved. In addition to nutrition, my pre-race psychology needs some fine tuning and in addition I’m hoping my tiredness leading up to race day was just one of those things resulting from over training. Being tired and not having your head in the game are closely tied to each other and are things to work on and dial in as well. I’m on to the figuring this all out and on to the next race.
Thanks:Finally, I just want to say thanks to all the EN crew who raced, check that I was ok on the run and cheered me on in race day.
Comments
Congrats on another IM finish! Be Proud!
Keith I totally agree. just a game (or a puzzle to solve). When I did my first tri just nearly three years ago I almost DNF'd right at the swim start (first open water swim, first swim with a wetsuit, first swim in black water, etc.) . I immediately started going to a masters class and after a year of hard work learned how to swim and now the swim is nearly my strongest event. I thought I had the nutrition figured out last year but obviously not and of course that doesn't account for mistakes made during the race. You and Steve Ross both have said the same thing to me.. I'll work on that.. Thanks!
On to the next... Maybe sooner then we might think.. ;D
Thanks Guys!
"...Things that may work in training can have flaws that only express themselves on race day and I’m committed to figure out what it is and get those resolved…."
This is what makes Ironman racing FUN (seriously) and keeps a lot of us coming back for more. Good luck in your journey.
Thanks Al, I appreciate it.. I just have to better align what I'm doing with what I'm thinking. Still working on it though.