Molina IMAZ 2014 Race Report
Race Name: Ironman Arizona Race Date: November 16, 2014
Race Day Stats:
Total Time / AG Place / Overall Place: 12:14:04 / 108 / 700
Swim Time / AG / OA: 1:29:58 / 197 / 1690
T1 Time / AG / OA: 6:14 / ? / ?
Bike Time / AG / OA: 5:55:55 / 115 / 777
T2 Time / AG / OA: 3:03 / ? / ?
Run Time / AG / OA: 4:38:54 / 108 / 700
Race Day Goals:
#1. Finish my first Ironman.
Did you achieve it?
-Yes
What helped or prevented you from achieving it?
-I had the appropriate fitness going into the race by following my 20 week EN Ironman race plan.
-I had good race day execution that allowed my preparation to show itself on race day. I utilized multiple checklists in preparation for race week and race day.
-I visualized all aspects and steps of my race (video game perspective style, ie. floating above and slightly behind myself like in third person view) in the hours prior to race day.
-Great race day support from Jasmine, family, GMG, EN.
#2. Finish up in 12 hours.
Did you achieve it?
-No (almost)
What helped or prevented you from achieving it?
-I left some time on the course in several areas. Including:
-Messing with my GPS (My Athlete Tracker) in transition and on the bike. ·Messing with Perform sports drink bottles a couple of times on the bike
-Having to stop to take pebbles out of my Luna sandals after running on the dirt sections
-Not swimming in the straight tangent as possible
#3. No injuries.
Did you achieve it?
-Yes
What helped or prevented you from achieving it?
-Listening to my body, doing as “systems checking” every 10 minutes.
The Swim -- Race Day Evaluation
Target Swim Time: 1:30:00 Actual Swim Time: 1:29:58
Weather / Conditions / Notes: Morning temperatures were ideal in the low 60’s, very light breeze 3-4 mph, with water temperature reported at 68 F. No waves, no current since it’s a man made water feature. Poor visibility in the water, essentially zero. Crowded start with over 2600 swimmers starting together in mass start. Good visibility of buoys and landmarks.
Challenge 1:
Acclimation to cold water temperatures, swim start anxiety, and treading water until race start.
Response 1:
Regarding the water temperature, when it was reported at 68 F, I felt a sense of relief and helped with any anxiety. The chance to experience the Tempe Town Lake in the practice swim the day before was beneficial to get a feeling for the water temperature and poor visibility. I was compete comfortably using two swim caps and my wetsuit for warmth. Also, with open water swim practice in the lakes of Oklahoma I felt ready, since water temperatures were colder, and visibility was even worse than Tempe Town Lake.
Evaluation 1:
Getting into the water as early as possible for me was a big benefit. Several athletes delayed getting into the water and were caught in a human traffic jam to enter via the bleacher steps, which were used this year since the water level was lower the usual. As a result some folks were stuck still trying to get into the water even after the start cannon.
I was very comfortable with water temperature and my surroundings. Concerns about getting tired by treading water were solved by finding and hanging onto a jet ski for about 10 minutes. This gave me a chance to ask everyone around me their expected times, and seed myself appropriately. I was approximately 9 folks back from the front, to the left of center with good spacing.
Challenge 2:
Getting beat up in my first mass swim start.
Response 2:
Given my position as noted above, I was surrounded by folks that planned to swim about 6-7 minutes faster than me. I stayed put, because there was much less crowding than the shallower area to the right near the bank. With the cannon going off, I planned for strong, smooth strokes, essentially a catch up drill, making sure to protect my head and have a good out front feel for who was around me. I didn’t have to swim over too many folks, but when I did encounter bodies we seemed to politely swim around each other. This was a total shocker for me since I was expecting the worse. Getting beat up would come later, interestingly enough when we were all more spread out. I received several subtle kicks in the chest, but nothing too bad. I then became paranoid that my timing chip had been stripped off, since several folks where grabbing at my feet, and I felt a loose strap on my ankle that I hadn’t noticed at the start. Then came a left hook out of no where, clocking me straight in the right goggle, then a right hook to the back of the head, all about 200 yards from the turnaround buoy. I just kept my calm and kept going. The swim exit was my final source of uncertainty which the practice swim helped with. Since there were no swim catchers at practice, my technique was to swim to a bleacher railing handle, reach up with my right arm, put my left hand on the bottom most step, and lift my butt out of the water to seat myself on the lowest step out of the water. On race day, I planned to use the same strategy but instead of reaching for a rail, I would swim to the largest volunteer available and reach out with my right hand, and repeat the same lift out, butt on seat technique.
Evaluation 2:
My swim start strategy really worked well for me, especially getting in early and holding onto the jet ski. I just swam the jet ski that had the best spacing around it, towards the middle and slightly back from the front. I used clear goggles, and hand no real issues with the rising sun. I must remember to never relax too much and know that contact can happen at anytime. It took a lot of discipline to not retaliate just by instinct after getting hit. I just repeated to myself “don’t judge” knew that no one set out that day to assault me in the water. It takes away too much energy from a long race day and takes away your focus when you retaliate. I did feel my right eye starting to swell, and attempted to readjust my goggles, and with that flooded my goggle for the second half of the swim. Another lesson was to add a safety pin to double secure the velcro timing chip from the drafter’s grabby hands. I spent way too much time stressing about this before just letting it go. I completely stopped my forward progress twice to attempt and readjust the strap. Thankfully I didn’t dislodge the chip trying to “fix it”, and was wise to just press on. The swim exit with the technique mentioned above worked perfectly.
Challenge 3:
Buoy sighting and swimming the most efficient tangents.
Response 3:
The buoys were clearly visible and I knew that the course had a subtle “S bend” to it, but my sighting skills and inability to swim straight tangents, made me have to rely on buoys.
Evaluation 3:
Even with use of the buoys for sighting, I think I was still doing a lot of zig zag swimming. I didn’t wear my Garmin on the swim, so I can’t tell for sure on the post race data analysis. This will change in future races and training. Also, I am a unilateral breather, working on bilateral breathing, but didn’t want to change anything for this race. I think this throws off my symmetry and I tend to veer to my left (my breathing side) when I swim open water. I’ll be working on this significantly in the off season. I hope this to be a source of improvement for overall time, since this is my weakest skill as an adult onset swimmer.
The Bike -- Race Day Evaluation
Target Bike Time: 6:00:00 Actual Bike Time: 5:55:55
Weather / Conditions / Notes:
Sunny with temperatures rising to the low 70’s F, the biggest feature on this 3 loop course was a significant headwind heading out onto the 18 mile section of the Beeline Hwy yielding 20 mph with gusts, conversely a tailwind on the return trip portion of the Beeline Hwy was also present.
Challenge 1:
Getting through T1 with minimal issues and safely getting onto the course to start riding my target wattage into the winds up the Beeline Hwy and back.
Response 1:
T1 was going very smoothly for me. After receiving help from the wet suit strippers, getting my bike bag and dumping it out in a clear spot outside the change tent, I was at my bike with no wasted time or effort. I was able to avoid the chaos of the change tent and the volunteers wanting to lather me up with sunscreen. I had pre-applied heavy amounts prior to the swim in all exposed areas that served my well through the entire day, except my nose. I wore a cycling bib, tri top, and ¾ sleeved Castelli cycling top (T1 Stealth) under my wet suit. I only added arm warmers and socks in T1. Any fears of being cold from being wet were not realized thanks to a sunny day and arm warmers and socks. Quickly at my bike, I lost my focus messing with my GPS tracker (My Athlete Track). I was going to strap it on, but it didn’t look like the unit of working (no blinking green light), even though I had made sure to power it up/on before the swim (also had charged overnight). I ended up messing with it for maybe 2 minutes (almost half of my T1 time), before just moving putting it in my back jersey pocket and moving out of T1. When I got onto the course, I was dialed into my “Just Riding Along” wattage of 150w for the first 60 min (based on FTP of 227w). I increased this to 160w for the remainder of the ride as per my pre-race plan. The 160w was difficult to maintain at times, for several reasons, including course congestion, spinning out on Beeline decent with a tailwind (30 mph+), and at times fatigue, especially heading up the Beeline into the wind.
Evaluation 1:
Great move to have my cycling kit on under the wetsuit. The arm warmers and short socks also kept me very comfortable. I doubt that I will ever use GPS (My Athlete Tracker) for a race again. I actually ended up messing with it again, during the Beeline “accent” since I was only travel 13 mph into the wind. After getting feedback from family/friends, it was actually on and I turned it off at that point. So it added further distraction, wasted time in T1, and didn’t provide the service I wanted (3 strikes). Keeping my power targets in mind was key for me. On my Garmin display I have only (3 sec Power Avg, Normalized Power, Time elapsed and Distance). Riding into the wind and seeing a number like 13 mph can be demoralizing, but I didn’t see that number and just kept to my 160 w, as I saw many others pushing hard into the wind in the first 2 loops. There was significant drafting, especially into the headwind, I had several riders on my back wheel for up to 15 minutes, since I could tell be their shadow. I just kept thinking, “don’t judge” and powered on at 160w. The trip back down the Beeline saw speeds (I came to find out after the fact) well over 30 mph for me. Again, sometimes it’s better not to see how fast your going. Congestion was somewhat of an issue here, and may have resulted in some crashes I heard about, but didn’t personally witness.
Challenge 2:
Managing bike aid station safely.
Response 2:
I managed the aid station safely, but had several lessons to learn. EN has a section on how to best manage bike aid stations that I never got around to reading because I could find it again. I just re-read it (before starting this race report), and it would have been nice to know the information pre-race. The aid stations definitely have the most potential for badness. The worst thing was trying to avoid debris on the road from dropped Perform bottles. I purposefully slowed more than I probably thought I was going to at the station, and had no issues with the bottle grabs. I made sure to point at the volunteer so they knew I was grabbing from them. I had some issues working the bottle tops since I was not familiar with them. Once I twisted off the entire top and unwisely tried to fill my between the arms aero bottle. The combo of headwind and pour from a bottle without a sports cap, caused me to shower myself and my bike with Perform. I made sure to get Perform at each station and maintained good hydration and nutrition as per my nutrition plan on the bike leg. I drank no water the entire day, only relying on sports drink (Perform).
Evaluation 2:
Reading the EN wiki on Bike Aid station technique is a must and should be reviewed before each major race. It’s also important to familiarize with what type of sports drink will be handed out at the bike aid station and how the cap mechanism works. This seems like such a small detail, but it makes a big difference. I would even go so far as to practice hand ups as part of training.
Challenge 3:
Sticking to my nutrition plan.
Response 3:
Everything started out very well. I started taking in nutrition at 10 minutes (Stinger Blueberry Yogurt Bar) along with perform at the rate of 2 bottles per hour. I had a Hammer gel at 30 minutes into the bike and every 30 minutes there after. Goal calorie intake was 550 kCal per hour. I also had another Stinger Bar at the end of the first bike loop. On the second loop of the Beeline heading into the wind, I felt a small dip in my “mojo” that was fixed by a quick on bike pee and a Bonk Bar. As I was finishing the 3rd loop of the bike at 5hr30min into bike, I realized I was one Hammer gel short. Coming up on an aid station, another Bonk Bar was offered which I took. With a bite in my mouth, I through down the rest, remembering the decreased ability to digest solids this far into the race and especially with the run coming up. I swallowed the small bite, and that stay will me, burping it up and causing occasional nausea for the rest of the race. And it was just that one stupid bite!
Evaluation 3:
No solids after 2 hours into the bike. Only fluid nutrition (gels and Perform) after that.
The Run -- Race Day Evaluation
Target Run Time: 4:20:00 Actual Run Time: 4:38:54
Weather / Conditions / Notes:
Clear skies, Temperatures in mid 70’s, Winds 10-15 mph. 2 loop course, combination of concrete sidewalks, paved city street, and dirt running trails.
Challenge 1:
Keep correct easy pacing miles 0-6, then increase to IM marathon pace miles 6-20, then hang on (don’t slow down) for miles 20-26.2. Walk 20-30 paces at the very end of each aid station.
Response 1:
T2 was uneventful, but I did have to utilize the change tent this time (according to plan though). I changed out of the cycling bibs, took off my socks, and slipped on my tri-bottoms. Also, I utterly confused the volunteer helping me, who was looking for my running shoes. I told him not to worry as I slipped on Luna (running) Sandals. Coming out of T2 the plan was to maintain 10 min/mile for the first 6 miles. There is always a disconnect between your brain and legs, especially after nearly 6 hours on the bike. I made myself check my pace on my Garmin every 20 seconds to make sure I wasn’t spending too much early energy by going faster that 10 min/mi. This is way more challenging than I thought, even though I practice this regularly. I was fairly consistent at keeping this pace through mile 6, and then when it came to increasing my pace to 9:30 min/mi, I was only able to maintain this through mile 11. At this point I was starting to hit a “mojo” valley and I saw my pace start fading back to the 10 min/mi for the next mile. I had a nice pick me up at this point. Since it worked before, peeing (in the porto-potty) by the aide station made me feel so much better. Not just relief, but better mood and more energy. Since this was near the halfway point of the marathon for me, it’s timing coincided with the pros approaching the end of their run. I ended up running next to one of them and he notice my running sandals, and he said he’d never seen anything like that before in Ironman, and that I was all kinds of awesome. I thanked him for the encouragement as he regained his 7 min/mi form, and I forged ahead to complete my second lap. Through the second half of the marathon I fluctuated between10:40 to 11:30 min/mi pace. Other challenges that arose in the second half of the marathon was some tightness in my left Achilles, which I was able to keep quiet by adjusting my foot fall subtly until it worked itself out, which was about 30 min. My left hamstring also wanted to tighten up near mile 20. As much as anything, I think the falling temperatures may have precipitated both of these issues.
Evaluation 1:
Using Luna running sandals has transformed me as a runner more than anything. Although it’s not the coolest kicks or one with a fancy sponsor or technology, it has allowed me to maintain more proper running form, increased my cadence and improved my endurance performance. I swear by them, but have yet to convince anyone else. This was my first true test using my Luna sandals at the 26.2 distance, having run several half marathons in them. Overall I was very pleased with how they, my feet and my legs responded. I did have some dips in my pacing, but
I feel some of this may have been from the terrain we ran. Although most runners dislike hard concrete or paved surfaces, these suit me very well and instead I don’t look forward to dirt running trails which have potential for small pebbles to enter my sandals. Also, since my sandals seem to set me part from most of the other 2600 participant at Ironman, it’s nice when random supporters is the crowd, family, friends and even Ironman pros acknowledge your footwear.
Challenge 2:
Running Course features/terrain
Response 2:
In general, I found the running course to be very athlete and fan-friendly. As mentioned above, I appreciate running on more solid surfaces. One of my concerns was realized while running over the dirt running trail portion. I ended up with numerous small pebbles in both sandals that I was able to run through for the most part, but the cumulative effect made me have to stop and shake them out every 2-3miles. By mile 19 I stopped to do this again and when I flexed my ankle to free the pebbles, my left achilles just lock up. This is when I had to adjust my foot fall over the next 30minutes and saw a decrease in my pace. Once I was back on solid surface all was good.
Evaluation 2:
I may have to reconsider my strategy and race selection based on terrain, since my sandals are my running shoe of choice.
Challenge 3:
Run course nutrition.
Response 3:
The nutrition plan was very similar to the plan in the bike. No more solids, 3-4oz of Perform at every aid station and GU gel every 30 minutes for 3 miles. This worked very well through mile 6. After mile 6 I was reminded of my mistake of consuming the Bonk Bar bite at the end of the bike. It would feel like a lump in my throat and several burps were needed to clear the sensation. This repeated itself every mile (when I took in hydration) until the end of the race. At mile 22, I started taking 2-3oz of Coke instead of Perform. This also somewhat helped with the nausea I was feeling, and was a welcome alternative to a day’s long intake of Perform.
Evaluation 3:
No solids after 2 hours on the bike.
Next Time -- Overall Lessons Learned
Use the space below to capture a few critical things that you learned, not covered above, that you will want to remember for your next big race!
-Try and minimize outside distractions on race week
-Utilize check lists as much as possible
-Utilize team and teammates as resources (more than I have done) in the months and weeks leading up to race day. Share the knowledge!
-Limit exposure to nervous energy and nervous athletes
-Eliminate as many moving parts as possible during transition
-Keep in mind feeling of family and friends during training
Comments
Daniel,
Congratulations and welcome to the IM family! Well done under some tough conditions. Showing up, swimming well, biking through that wind and then putting together a strong run to the end says a lot about how well you executed.
Great job IronMan!!
SS
I feel the strong Oklahoma winds and the turbid lakes helped in preparing for those tough conditions.
Your performance on Sunday was quite impressive, great job.
I'm looking forward to my first out season.
Dan
Take some rest then jump into January OS with us-its a lot of fun!
Whew - I had to take a break in the middle of that report it was some intense analytics! After reading this, I think maybe the Coaches should start a new program for 2015 - money back if you don;t run the whole marathon - we're seeing so many first timers now getting that down on their initial try. it;s such a hard task to accomplish, especially on a windy day like that, when you biked at your intended IF. Props for that!
I'm curious about the sandals, two things specifically: why are you wearing them, is there a specific issue which you were trying to fix and how did it improve; and second, how are your toes and quads after the race? Not questioning at all, just curious. I myself run IM marathons in racing flats, less than 5oz, minimal sole, no support, just fancy moccasins it seems.
@Al, it was a pleasure to share the course with a legend. I feel that I already know so much about you. I listened to every IMAZ podcast that you ever gave going back to 2010 I think. I love your matter of fact style the screams "I am a surgeon!". My race reports length suggests more FP/Internist. More on the Luna Sandals. Yes, I am one of the masses that read the book Born to Run, around the time I was starting triathlon. My run was turtle slow and on a whim I bought a pair to experiment. Although I don't recommend them to everyone, they utterly transformed my running. My runs in my Kinvara's were slower by comparison in all my sprints/oly tri's. The difference was cadence. Keeping the same efforts the sandal yield a cadence of 92-94, while traditional race flats yielded 88-90. I can tell you why, but this was the case everyone time (even with looking at my Garmin for the entire run), and it translated to faster times with same energy expenditure (heart rate zone). I welcome any further theories on this from EN'ers. Truth be told, the sandals get a lot of attention that I don't necessarily want. I'd prefer to blend in more, ninja style, in this does quite the opposite. Overall, I've been using them for 18 months exclusively (after transitioning into them over a 6 wk period) and this was my first 26.3 in them, and they held up well. Sorry for the detail (FP/IM) explanation.
@Mariah, you are one super cool gal. I was nice to meet you, and Jasmine says "Hey!"
@Bruce, another legend that I was very honored to meet. Another great IMAZ and close to your season. Much like Al, I hope to grow up and be much like you guys some day.
*Picture of my Luna Sandals in action attached