Attila Matyas IMChoo 2014 Race Report
Attila Matyas // 46 yr // 6’1” // 184.2 // FTP: 249 // VDot: 40 //
Finish: 12:20.58 // Swim: 57:59 // Bike: 6:04.34 // Run: 5:03.27
Background
Picked up triathlon about 4 years ago with no history of swimming or running. Did some bike racing over the years but nothing super consistent. This was my second Ironman with IMFL 2012 being the first with a time of 12:34.27.
Pre-Race Days
Emptied the house of almost everything we own it seems and filled my wife’s wagon and a storage box on the roof. Amazing how much stuff 4 people think they need and I think I’m the worst offender. All of my bike gear went into the rooftop box but I did bring extras of everything except the one thing I would need an extra of – more on that later.
Drove to Chattanooga with the family starting on Wednesday from South Jersey and made a pit stop at a hotel in Harrisonburg VA for the night. Finished the drive Thursday and checked in at the Chattanooga Choo Choo. This hotel is up by 14th street off Market and is a little out of the way from Ross’ Landing and the whole Ironman village. If I were to do this race again I would stay closer to the action downtown. It was less than 1.5 miles away but it made for many trips with a car where it would have been nicer just to walk.
Went to team dinner and met the team racing and had a great time. It really is nice putting a face to the little emoticons that one is used to seeing representing people on the dashboard. Having a team focus race is nice because you really feel like you are there as part of a team so I highly recommend racing one if you can. At the end Mariah gave out a very nice present to all attending which was a nice touch.
Friday attended the EN 4 Keys talk and registered for the race. Afterwards we drove over to the North Shore to check out Barton Rd. and get groceries. It was a warm sunny day and humid. I put on some running gear and ran from the Tattoo shop on Frazier up and back on Barton Avenue to get a feel for the hill(s). If temps and humidity held for race day I was in for a serious world of hurt as the little 2 mile run was an eye opener and the course has over 8 miles of hilly terrain.
Saturday was spent getting all the gear together and going to a bike shop. I decided to swap the cleats out on my tri shoes because the cleats have seen better days. As I tightened the cleat the internal screw plate bolt retainer decided to snap off on both shoes. Well with no immediate way to fix this (have to send back to Pearl Izumi for warranty) I needed new shoes and I didn’t bring my road shoes as backup. The expo had nothing in my size but I found a local shop that had a pair in my size, crisis averted.
Race Day: Pre-Race
Woke up at 4AM so I could get my bearings and get started on my core diet apple sauce breakfast. Poured the 4 cups mixed in protein powder and enjoyed the foodies dream breakfast. Topped it off with a banana and perform. I gathered up my BSN, RSN, travel pump and morning clothes bag that had a wetsuit and swimskin.
We jumped on the little electric trolly they were running early for the race and took it down to transition. It was only a ten minute trip and much better than walking.
Dropped off BSN and RSN bags and loaded up the bike with bottles, pumped up tires, turned on 500 and zeroed quarq.
Mike Reilley came on the mic and announced that water temp was 77 so not a wetsuit swim. We walked over to the school bus line to go up stream to swim start. It was nice to have my wife along for the ride as she planned to just walk back to transition using the riverwalk after I got in the water.
The line for swim start was already huge, I can’t imagine what time all those people got there but it was way too early. We went to the end of the line sat down and relaxed next to the stinky swamp.
Swim: 57:59
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/601871168
The line for the swim start kept getting moved up as they tried to compress the line. They came on and said that all folks wearing wetsuits would be going last. I’d already decided that was not worth it so I just went with a swimskin. Once started, the line moved very quickly for the swim start. I handed off my gear to my wife and made my way down to the floating dock. The start was simply walk up on the dock and jump in and go, kind of like a static line jump that paratroopers do out of planes so the bodies went in the water quickly.
I got my bearings and started swimming. The water felt nice and there was little to no contact. I avoided my usual claustrophobic panic attack so I was pretty happy. I was sighting and the buoys were easy to see but at some point I completely got off course. The buoys curved with the river and I just kept going straight so as I looked around everyone seemed to be on my far left and I was in the middle of the river with only a handful of people. I was like oh sh$t I completely screwed this up I’m going to be out here all day. I just kept going sighting for the buoy that was in line with me in other words skipping the intermediate buoys on the curve. The kayakers were still off on my right so I was still on course but I felt that I was swimming hundreds of extra yards. I thought about that damn box and stayed in it and just kept swimming. Once through the bridge I could see the little water fall feature next to the bridge so not too much farther and I saw the T2 buoy. Aimed for that and turned sharp left and pulled hard to hit the narrow set of steps. Pulled up and stopped my watch, saw the time and vocally went WTF! I really didn’t feel the current but clearly it was pretty major. Stoked I hugged the family waiting for me and went on to T1 running up the little green carpet hill.
T1: 8:13
I put on my helmet, socks, sunglasses (they fogged up immediately so I stuffed them in my pocket) and put my nutrition in my tri short pockets but kept my shoes off. I don’t fancy running in cleats all that much. I got lubed up with sunscreen and I was off to the races.
Bike: 6:04.34
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/601917971
I rode easy going out of town and navigated the railroad tracks AKA bottle cemeteries. I didn’t push it and started on my eating and hydration. WSMs are that for a reason. I had my powerbar chunks and clifbloks wrapped using Tim Cronk’s rice paper trick. Worked like a champ and no messy wrappers, awesome.
I didn’t pee on the swim but now I had to go pretty bad. I kept riding through town and once on the loop going a little harder but all I could think about was having to go and by mile 30 I was going out of my mind. I managed to start the process but with such short rollers did not carry enough momentum to fully go. This became on ongoing struggle over the course of the bike and I lost quite a bit of time trying to go and once stopped fully at a port a pot just to get it done.
The bike course is super fun with all the rollers. I tried to push the watts on the downhills but it really took quite a bit of effort to push up the watts. It also took a lot to keep them down going up the rollers. The course requires constant shifting. On the uphills I would just move all the way over and watch the group I was just dragging downhill gap me as they mashed up the hill. At the top they are busy shifting to rest as I accelerated down, lots of fun.
For some reason I can produce the right intensity in training but in a race my numbers are always lower. This course was more technical and crowded and it was hard to have smooth power but coupled with having to pee and lower power numbers I feel like I left a lot on the table so I have some execution work to do.
T2: 6:45
I did a flying dismount and left shoes on the bike and handed it off to a volunteer. Grabbed T2 bag and headed for the tent. Put on compression socks, shoes, racebelt and nutrition. Saw family again stopped for a little to say hi and started the run.
Run: 5:03.27
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/601871308
The start of the run begins with an uphill mile so holding a slow pace was not hard. My plan was to run with HR and not pace for the marathon. This would mean looking at my bike average heart rate and holding onto that at least for the start of the run as it would naturally go up over the course of the run. Well this didn’t really happen no matter what I did. My average heart rate on the bike was 146. As I started the run HR was around 160-162 and stayed there for most of the day. My overall average shows as 156 but every time I looked at my watch it was between 160-162 while moving but I felt comfortable running at whatever pace that gave me so I didn’t slow down. Having said that maybe I should have. So again, a lot left to learn in this sport.
I continued to fuel with clif bloks, gels and perform. At each aid station I dumped a cup of ice down my Desoto back pocket (Thanks to Al for the brilliant suggestion) and poured water on my arm coolers this kept me pretty comfortable.
As I head back to town toward the bridge I started to have pretty major hamstring cramps heading up the overpass. There was a big sign that said “Are you Cramping?” and the next sign said “Salt ahead.” Just as he promised Coach Rich said when you are about to fold like a lawn chair he would be there and he was on his little rental bike. I gestured to him that I was cramping and kept going suddenly he appears out of nowhere right next to me with tubes of salt. The plastic tube looked like it was filled with a grey colored sea salt. I popped the top and dumped the whole thing in my mouth and washed it down immediately realizing maybe I was not meant to eat the whole tube at once. What a dummy I thought to myself as my stomach started to burn. I grabbed a bunch of water and downed some to try and dilute it a bit in my stomach before hitting the first round of hills. The upshot is that my cramps quickly faded. Lesson learned here is that the day was grey and not crazy hot and I had salt stick with me but didn’t take them thinking no need and I clearly should have per my plan.
After crossing the bridge came the first round of the hills up Barton Ave. through the golf course neighborhood. I only run flat stuff near my house and these were tough the first time so I was imagining a nightmare for round two. I tried to dig in swing fast in the arms and take small steps going up. I think going down is actually much harder as it really burned my quads out pretty quick but I shuffled through the 4 miles.
At the end of the first lap I saw my family and stopped for a minute to say hi and give some hugs, again well worth any time lost. By this time the rain started and was coming down pretty steady so it got even cooler. I grabbed the case I had in RSN that held the poster I was going to show at the end of the run for my best friend who passed away. Along the course people asked what I was carrying some with funny comments asking if I had a lawn chair in that bag. This helped keep the mood light as the miles ticked by. My stomach was doing crazy things at this point so I slowed the nutrition down quite a bit.
The volunteers along the run were awesome and it really created a great mood along the course. I didn’t seem to hit the same brick wall as I did in Florida on this run it was more of a gradual decline with the hard hills coming at mile 22. As I got closer to mile 22 I really started to think about my buddy more and more but not the happy thoughts as I did earlier. Now I thought of visiting him in Boston as he declined fighting his awful disease. I’d been talking to myself most of the run but now I just focused to just keep fighting like he did. Many times I just wanted to stop but didn’t thinking he never did so I just told myself to HTFU and keep moving and take the pain.
After the final set of hills I ran down Barton to Frazier and across the bridge passing by an Elvis impersonator, like I said the crowds were great. I started to get emotional as I pushed to just keep moving as I entered the chute. I pulled out my poster and held it high as I crossed the finish line as my dedication to him. We had a lot of great times together and I miss him terribly.
Post-Race:
After the finish we snapped a couple of pictures and said goodbye to the in-laws, my mom and my two kids for the night. They were all such troopers and I couldn’t attempt to do what I do without their support.
I collected my bike and gear and walked back to the hotel which was actually a nice stretch for the legs.
We came back down to watch the midnight finishers all come in which is an amazing part of the race to witness.
Lessons Learned:
I had some nutrition issues this time around because it was cooler than expected. I need to figure out how to modify the plan on the fly to adapt to the conditions. My core race plan works very well as written but as things change I need to learn how to adjust.
Being able to pee on the bike better needs to happen as I lost lots of time fumbling around trying to get this done. This played into the fact that I probably over-hydrated early on the bike causing me to constantly have to go.
Executing in a race what I do in training on the bike is also lacking. I produce the power in training but fall short race day. I don’t know if this is just lack of concentration or still fearing the run.
Overall I’m happy that 4 years in I have progressed based on how much time I can devote to this hobby and with some more work will keep moving forward.
I’m thankful that I can be out there training and racing and look forward to next year.
Comments
Great race man. I too can never make the same watts in a race as in training, so that's another part of the riddle I'm also trying to solve. I don't stress out about it too much though as we have 26.2 miles to spend any of that precious energy saved on the bike. Great tribute to Patrick, I'm sure he was smiling down.
Congrats.
You had a great day -- Congrats on your PR and 2nd Ironman finish. Thanks for sharing the story of your friend Patrick; It was great meeting you over the weekend.
Two words for you...pickle juice!
In any race HIM or longer, I carry a small bottle of it with me out of T2. It's a life saver!
@Scott- I've heard of folks doing this but I will definitely have to try it in training first ; )