Robin Rodriguez IMCHOO 2014 Race Report
IMCHOO Race Report
Numbers: 11:16:29 Overal time, 56th in AG, 1:00:16/5:50:13/4:16:37
Pre race: Had a comfortable week leading up to the race, got into Chattanooga on Thursday afternoon, did my admin work and then went to EN team dinner and a short evening run. Friday I was able to get a early AM run in as well as 10 miles of course riding to get a handle on shifting. Felt good on the bike. Took Saturday very easy after a 2 mile early AM run to shake the nerves out.
Morning: Wasn’t going to stress about being the first into transition or the swim start, got out of bed at about 4:30 and had breakfast (3 pop tarts) and coffee. Felt good, no stress just got my stuff together and then headed down to transition, quick pump up of tires and garmin setup and I was on the bus to the swim start and in line before 6.
Swim (1:00:16): Sipped Gatorade/Pre-Race in the swim line and took 1 gel as soon as the line started moving. Was only nervous in the last 5 minutes before getting in the water. I’m not the strongest swimming (holding 1:45/100s in the pool) so with the assisted swim I decided I was going to take it easy/comfortable. Without a current I would expect a ~1:15ish swim, so wasn’t sure where it would end up. A couple minutes into the swim I felt my 310xt buzzing (figured it was losing GPS when it went underwater) but when I looked at it for a time check I realized it had taken on water under the screen and had shut off. Frustrating but I just accepted it and kept swimming comfortably, Was concerned that I wouldn’t have pace on the run, but couldn’t figure out what I could do about it so I decided to let it go. Swim went by quickly, spent the last 15 minutes in the water trying to pee but wasn’t able to.
T1 (5:53): T1 was smooth, jogged to my bag then to the change tent got my Castelli T1 stealth top on same with sunglasses and helmet and headed out with my shoes in hand. Got to my bike and put my shoes on and grabbed bike and took off, long run out of T1 as well I might consider not putting shoes on till the mount line in the future.
Bike (5:50:13) Ride out of Chattanooga was crowded, plan was to keep start easy and build into target power (~192W, FTP of 280W), felt like I had a hard time riding steady power with the crowds, peed about 90 minutes into the bike for the first time so felt that I was keeping on top of hydration and nutrition. Next 90 minutes were unevently just couldn’t get power up and maintain with the crowds and constantly passing. Need to work on maintain consistent power on the road. Near the beginning of the second lap my Quarq stopped sending power to my Edge 500. Might have gotten water in it somehow when I rinsed myself off after peeing on the bike 
. Not sure what happened, hasn’t happened to me before. Tried to recalibrate and repair several times over the rest of the ride and power did come back a couple random times for a few seconds but was basically powerless the last loop. I backed off and tried to stay on top of my nutrition and ride by RPE. Never felt full/bloated/bad on the bike and was constantly passing people on the bike. Did get bored though, my take away is to do a couple more long rides to help maintain discipline late into the bike. Infinit slurry on the bike of ~280 cal/hr.
T2 (3:30): Dropped bike off with volunteer got my run bag and made a quick trip through the change tent. Uneventful
Run (4:16:37): Well no pace feedback since the 310xt was dead, tried to run at an EASY RPE, first couple miles I asked a couple people I was running with how fast week were going and heard 9ish, but in fact reviewing the splits it was 8ish. Felt pretty good the first half of the run, but full, took a gel but I didn’t want it at mile five. Held my pace under 9:30 till about mile 17, then the wheels came off. Never felt terrible but was low on energy and wasn’t sure what to do. Switched to coke and ice the rest of the way miles 18-22 involved a good bit of hill walking and a lot of bargaining when I was running. I did learn though that jogging and walking felt about the same but mentally jogging was a lot tougher. Going forward I know that I can tough it out further and just keep moving. By mile 22 I was ready to get the whole thing over with and that was good motivation to keep moving. Happy to see that finish line!
Takeaways:
Get a stronger swim AND get in line earlier for non mass start swims that that I have more free road out of T1
Probably no need to wear a watch on the swim in the future
Consider carrying shoes all the way to the bike mount line in the future
More long rides to prepare for the mental side of the IM bike, and be more confident in holding my watts
Preride course via camp or short trip
Get comfortable pee-ing on the bike
Having a watch for the run will be helpful, be more prepared for toughing it out on the run. Recommit to keeping hard intervals in my run workouts
Overall: Happy with my time, body recovered well. I’m now 2 days out and feel fine, no worse than a hard marathon has been.
Comments
Takeaways:
Get a stronger swim AND get in line earlier for non mass start swims that that I have more free road out of T1 -- Yeah, TT start and shortened (by time) meant that the bike course was much less spread out than it usually is. The bike mount line was UGLY
Probably no need to wear a watch on the swim in the future Nope. Knowing your swim split is "interesting" but that's about it. Not particularly useful
Consider carrying shoes all the way to the bike mount line in the future The run from the exit of T1 to the bike mount line was crazy, crazy, crazy long. I've never seen anything remotely like it. I'm betting they tweak T1 setup for next year.
More long rides to prepare for the mental side of the IM bike, and be more confident in holding my watts The Mental Money is after 4hrs. That's when all rides really start to suck.
Preride course via camp or short trip Yep. Like I said in the 4k talk, IMChatt is sneaky hard. Really helps to know the course.
Get comfortable pee-ing on the bike. Yep, free speed :-)
Having a watch for the run will be helpful, be more prepared for toughing it out on the run. Recommit to keeping hard intervals in my run workouts Yes. You can see now what a tremendous disconnect there can be early on the run. Having a watch would at least have given you miles splits. And it only takes a relatively small pacing error in the first 8 miles to have that really come back and bite you later in the race. IOW, as little as 20-30" per mile of "wrong" pace for the first 6-8 miles is enough to come back at you at 1-3' per mile in the last 8 miles.
Overall: Happy with my time, body recovered well. I’m now 2 days out and feel fine, no worse than a hard marathon has been.