Paul T's IMLOU race report
Hi all, I don't post much and this is my first race report, I'm sorry if it's lengthy.
thanks!
Saturday morning I woke up at 6 walked down the street to get some bagels then went for a short bike ride to make sure everything with the bike was ok. While I was out I stopped at the swim practice, just to take it in a little bit. I really started hydrating a lot knowing it was going to be hot (101 heat index). I dropped of my bike and gear bags that afternoon and everything was fine. At about 5 we ate dinner at Bearnos where I had spaghetti. While we were there it started to rain HARD, it stopped before we left though, it apparently rained pretty hard overnight also.
Sunday morning we woke up at 4am to leave about 4:30. I drank a glass of green tea, a glass of orange juice, and 2 bagels with peanut butter, Nutella and honey on them. I also had some endurolytes, amino acids, GPLC, Anti-Fatigue, D-Flame and a fish oil capsule. Went to the bathroom, greased up and got my trisuit on, did some body marking, grabbed my bag with everything I needed in it and headed out the door about 4:35. Arrived at transition before 5 and went to work getting my tires aired up, nutrition put on the bike and in the gear bags. When I calibrated the power meter it said low battery, I didn’t know how long it would last so I decided to change it. But the other battery was in the hotel, which was no big deal, had plenty of time. I told my friend what happened, he held my stuff and I jogged back to the hotel got the battery and jogged back. Changed the battery and it didn’t work, fiddled with for a while and finally gave up and headed to the swim start to get in line, hoping it would come around before I needed it. It’s a long walk to the back of the swim start line. I brought 2 bottles of perform with me to the start. I drank both of them and had a clif bar while walking there. I was near the back of the line and jumped in the river at 7:25.
The water was 76 degrees, so it was much cooler than the 84 I’ve swimming in at home. It felt good, there was some debris in the first part of the swim but after that it was pretty open, the water wasn’t clear but not muddy either for the most part. It took me 32 minutes to get to the turn buoy and I finished the swim in 1:04:44. Indicating to me there was some current out there, but also the first part of the swim was like being in a washing machine. There were a lot more people around, I think because of my later start than last year. I had to do a lot of dodging/passing this year, but once I got in the open water it seemed much calmer. I thought I could be in under 1:10 and I had the 1:04:44.
Exiting the water, I was pretty excited and hoped that the fast time would carry on the rest of the day. I got my bike bag and headed to the tent didn’t sit down put my helmet on grabbed my shoes but couldn’t find the Ziploc bag I had put my supplements into. I had another bottle of Perform in the bag and drank most of it. There was nothing else in the bag, so I didn’t know what happened to supplements. I left my shoes off and ran to the bike dropped my shoes to put them on and there was the Ziploc bag inside my shoe. Inside the baggie I had a Larabar, and 7 smaller baggies with 2 Endurolytes, 1 GPLC, 1 Amino Acid, and 1 Anti-Fatigue in each. I quickly took the contents out and put them into my pocket. I ate the Larabar and took one of the supplement packets and headed out of transition. 7:18 was my T1 very slow, but I got what I needed in the end.
Headed out on the bike now, knowing from my race rehearsals that my HR was right around 130bpm and what the RPE was also. Without my power meter I didn’t have cadence either, so I was riding blind. I tried a couple of times to get the PM to work but it never would. So I gave up on it and concentrated on HR, cadence and RPE. My nutrition plan was to drink 2-3 bottles of Perform an hour, every 30 mins to eat a snack size Larabar (90 cals) and every hour I would take one of the supplement packets I had. My first goal was to drink the 3 bottles of Perform I had already loaded on my bike before the first aid station and I did that. When I got to the aid station I grabbed 2 bottles of perform and racked them. Shortly thereafter the one in my aero bars shot out after I hit a bump in the road. I didn’t stop for it because I already had 4 bottles down since T1 and it came out on a fast downhill and would have had to climb back up quite a distance to get it. I didn’t think it was very safe either. At the 2nd aid station I stopped to get 3 bottles and took a drink off a 4th as I rode away and pitched it at the last chance trash. Then the aero bottle one flew out again! So I decided to change the plan a little bit. I had planned to rack 2 bottles at each aid station and use the 3rd to fill the bladder on my bike. I instead would slow down enough to rack 1, then fill the bladder with another and grab a 3rd to drink until the last chance trash. The new, on the fly fueling change seemed to work because I stopped once to use the bathroom (A LOT too) and by the end of the bike ride I really had to use the bathroom again. I still got about 3 bottles an hour down which was my goal. A couple other things went wrong while on the bike too. Both ends of my handlebar tape ended up peeling off, I’m guessing the overnight rain softened up the tape, making it unravel. It was a minor thing and I rolled them tight again a couple times, eventually I just went ahead and pulled it all off and threw it away at the next aid station, it was mostly just an annoyance, but surely didn’t help any. Then the rear derailleur wouldn’t shift into the hardest gear and stay there, so on some of the descents and faster sections I would spin out early instead of continuing to accelerate. So after all these troubles I still think I paced well kept my HR in check and when I turned left on 42 on the second lap I felt pretty good and picked it up a little. My average speed until that point was 15.8mph when I got to T2 it was 16.6. Worth noting was how much I was getting passed on the first loop, but as soon as the 2nd loop started it seemed like the other competitors were out of gas and I started passing some back, then when I made the left and on 42 I was flying by lots of people, with only a couple passing me. Cycling is my weakest of the 3 disciplines so passing others is a rare treat for me. My bike split was 06:45:56 and my HR was 130bpm.
T2 went ok, except for the fact I can’t run in bike shoes or barefoot on concrete. It’s a pretty long way on the concrete into the transition area. They stopped us on Witherspoon St this year before the bump in the road leading to the transition area, making the walk even longer, though safer because of that bump right on the turn. Anyway, I grabbed my run bag and headed to the tent where I got a towel out of it to wipe my feet off put my shoes on, while a volunteer got my other stuff laid out for me (gel, trial size Vaseline if needed, another Larabar and a bottle of Perform). Once I got my shoes tied, I shoved the stuff in my pocket and left the tent; stopped by the bathroom (I was definitely hydrated!) Then ran out of T2, 7:09 was my time.
As I left transition my friend met me outside and ran down the sidewalk a few steps and told me I was doing great. I looked at my watch and told him if I kept the marathon a few minutes under 5 hours I could break 13 hours, which was my goal. 10:23 is my easy run pace plus 30 seconds on the first 6 miles is a 10:53. Before the race I just figured I would try to hold 11:00 until the last turnaround (about 6 miles to go) and set a cap at 140bpm, since I assumed my HR on the bike would be close to 130bpm. My first mile was a 10:59 but after that my hips tightened up some for about 3 miles slowing down into the 12’s. I did stop at port a john at mile 3.5, after that I felt better and started drinking the coke at the aid stations and it seemed to help out with the pace. I walked at every aid station. (Except for the last 2) I was taking ice and putting it down my suit, (my number belt would hold it around my stomach) perform and coke at each station in addition to the caffeinated gel that I brought. After mile 6, I was back in the 11’s and while it wasn’t easy, it wasn’t real hard either and I was right at my HR cap. I used the bathroom one more time at some point. So when I made that last turnaround, I decided to go for it and pick it up. I did get back into the 10’s for about 2 miles then I slowed back down; I kept trying but couldn’t muster anymore speed. With 2 miles to go I stopped walking at the aid stations and decided to try to run it in. The last 2 stations I would grab what I could on the run, the volunteers, spectators and other competitors were helpful with their cheering and so forth on my last ditch effort. My last mile of the race was probably my fastest. As I approached the finish line, I was getting pretty wobbly, I was digging as deep as I could, and my legs were totally shelled at that point. My run split was a 5:01:34 @ 11:30 average pace. Total race time was 13:06:41 a 1 hour PR over last year’s race in Louisville.
Overall I’m happy with my results, given the difficulties handed me on the bike and I had some mistakes to clean up on in transition. An hour PR is great, but I was wanting to break 13 hours, I still wanted to get those 6 minutes, always next year though!
Race Summary 2014 Race Summary 2013
Swim 01:04:44 Swim 01:11:52
Bike 06:45:56 Bike 07:12:37
Run 05:01:34 Run 05:29:44
Overall 13:06:41 Overall 14:06:45
Comments
Hey thanks, yeah I'll most likely do it next year it's to close to home for me to go somewhere else. I do wish they would have left it in Aug though. Oct can have some pretty drastic weather changes. it could be 95 or 35.