Chris Davis - IMTX RR#2 Plan
Race Rehearsal #2
Input Requested from EN Members:
1. How do you know if you’re getting TOO MUCH salt? 2 pills per hour seems high, but I’ve still had a bit of cramping in the legs and toes on my Sunday bike ride.
2. I didn’t get to do the open water swim that I wanted to do, and probably wont get to do one until the day before the race. Should I be worried about toe cramps in the open water swim? They have been getting better in recent weeks, but I still get them in the pool.
3. What do you put in your special needs bag? I’m thinking of putting in some peanut butter crackers, just for something other than gel and Gatorade. It was a HUGE treat to get those peanut butter crackers from the SAG (thank you Victor Kaiser) during camp week.
4. Any help with step #4 (below) is always appreciated. I can never get past that one.
Training Plan:
Thursday night:
Fill 1 bottle of Endurance to drink with Breakfast. Set out salt pill to eat with breakfast.
Swim prep: Set out goggles and swim cap with tri-shorts and EN Tri Jersey. No nutrition on swim, so no need to set anything out.
Bike Prep: Pour 3 bottles (24 oz each bottle) of Gatorade Endurance for Bike. Put 2 bottles in bike. Pour 3rd bottle into aero bottle. Prepare 9 baggies with 3 scoops of Gatorade Endurance for filling on ride. Pour 18 honey Stingers into Gel Flasks, put 2 into bento box on bike, and 1 next to bike to store in pocket. Fill Salt pill carrier with 12 pills. Set out glasses and helmet next to bike with heart-rate strap. Set Auto-lap on 510 to lap every 5 miles.
Run Prep: Fill 20 Oz hand bottle with Gatorade endurance. Fill 2 baggies for with 2.5 scoops of Gatorade Endurance. Put 2 salt pills in baggie. Put baggies in Race Belt. Put 1 honey stinger Gel in Race Belt. Set shoes with socks out. Set out visor.
Friday:
Wake at 6:00 (or earlier)
Breakfast: Peanut butter sandwich on wheat bread. 24 oz of Gatorade Endurance with breakfast and on way to pool. Salt tab prior to swim (toe cramps during swim have been bad).
Drive to Pool to start swim by 6:30.
Swim: 4400 yards total @ t-pace average should take me about 1:40 total. First 400 to be slightly above T-pace. No nutrition during swim.
Bike: Steady bike. 127 w NP for first hour. 133 w NP goal watts. 137 w max on long hills, 144 w max power. One full bottle of endurance every 30-40 minutes. One stinger gel every 30 minutes. One salt tab every 30 minutes.
Run: 60’ at 12:18 pace. Sit on it, learn it and love it. It feels and is slow, but it’s where I need to be for the first hour of the run. 20 oz bottle of endurance every half hour. 1 honeystinger at 30 minutes.
Finish by 4:00
Step 4: (to be determined)
Step 5: World Domination!!
Comments
Hey Chris,
Looks pretty good. Wish I were racing with you, as we all had a lot of fun last year (except maybe for the high number of teammates who crashed on the bike). As to your questions:
1. Too much salt? I've been fortunate with salt pills because they work for me in hot/muggy races, they don't upset my stomach and I don't have high blood pressure. So, for TX last year, I took 2 every half hour on the bike when my Garmin beep told me it was time to eat, and probably 8 on the run. My only "side effect" for over-consumption is a salty crust on my skin. But that's just me.
2. Swimming pre-race in Lake Woodlands is not a must, IMO. It's just a brown lake with poor visibility. As for toe cramps in the swim, those tend to disappear when your swim fitness gets really high. Worry about them? Plan around them? Nope. This is Ironman. It's supposed to hurt. Unconsciousness will slow you down; a little cramping is no big deal.
3. Special needs? I'll put an extra CO2 canister and a tube/tubular in BSN. If it's cold or I think I'll be running at night, may put a LS shirt in RSN. For me, though, SN is for emergencies only. I slow down for food (from a volunteer at 18mph or 9:00 per mile), but I don't stop for it. I also stashed a single-serving packet of Chamois Butt'r in my bento at IMNZ because of the bumpy roads. You may want to do the same . . . just in case they decide to throw some chip 'n seal down on the IMTX bike course.
Probably the only good exception to the SN-4-emergencies-only rule is if you're totally reliant on off-course nutrition and need to re-load.
The only other advice I would give pertains to your planned 1:40 swim. If that's truly your expected race pace, you're going to be quite thirsty when you get on your bike and well on your way toward dehydration . . . unless you take decisive corrective action. I bet you'll lose 3+ pounds in the swim during the race, but that's just a swag. Those first two hours on the bike are the first real critical part for you, and you need to be drinking consistently at least every 10-15 minutes. Really get hydrated over those two hours, and you'll set yourself up for a fun run. Fail to replace what you sweated out in the swim, and you can count on a really long day.
Just my $.02. Wrap up your training smartly, nail your final RR, enjoy the race.
Smart guy to get this report out there and get some feedback.
MR nailed IMTX last year and he swims like a swordfish so heed his comments.
1. How much salt do I need? How much sweat do you lose / hour in 80% humidity at 80 - 90 degrees? In my case, I am a heavy sweater losing upwards of 56 ounces / hour which means I need to be pumping 1200 - 1400 mg of sodium / hr and putting down at least 24 - 30 ounces every 30 minutes. You dial this in during your long training rides. Also, only used BUFFERED electrolytes unless you race better with stomach cramps. NUUN and Camelback salt tabs are not buffered, Salt Stick is............
2. What MR said........
3. Add a small roll of duct tape to your special needs list. If it rains during the run and your feet are blistered and cutting open due to the water, you can duct tape them shut and KMF....... (been there)
4. Confidence / determination ......the night before the race, open up your training plan one more time. Review all of the past workouts you completed, remind yourself, you did the work, you belong at this race........!
Looking forward to watching you take care of business!
SS
SS's confidence/focus point is a critical one during race week, IMO, and does make a good #4 for you. Unless you're a seasoned IM vet, when you arrive in The Woodlands race week, you're going to see 3,000 other athletes, and you will swear to yourself that 2,800 appear fitter than you and ride bikes that are way nicer than yours. They MUST have trained more. This can quickly erode your confidence in the days leading up to the race, during which time you seriously start to doubt whether you can do this and belong with these chiseled athletes covered in M-dot ink. And this can cause Justitis,which can translate to serious time loss during the race. I've had it, and here's how it usually plays out: In your Race Plan, you may plan to start the swim in the second row by the buoy and go out strong the first 200. On race morning, however, you have second thoughts and decide, "These guys look serious, so I'm just going to start wide right and just let them go, I've got 2:20 to finish." If you get a cramp in the swim, you may decide to just rest on the kayak instead of fighting through it. I'm just going to sit for a few minutes in T1 to catch my breath. That's a lot of bikers to pass, so I'll just stay back here and be patient. I'll just stop at the porto-john, it will only cost me 5 minutes. I'll just stop at BSN and see if the Oreo's help my stomach. I'll just walk for a few minutes, it's only been dark for 3 hours. I'll just take a quick nap here in the grass, I have until midnight.
Trust me: I've been there, done that. Many times. If you do 60% of the EN plan and buy in 100% to the 4 Keys (not just hear them, but listen to them), you're ahead of 90% of your competitors. Seriously. The one downside to this being a key EN race is that a lot of your competitors will be teammates, and they're in that 10%. There were like 300 in my AG last year. Of the 11 that beat me to the line, 2 of them were . . . you guessed it, ENers. Unlike other distances, IM is as much mental as physical as the day grinds on. Start stockpiling the confidence/grit/guts now. You'll definitely need them.
Chris, just curious if you have looked at the Heat Calculator for run pace in the Execution section of the Wiki. I remember when this thing came out how excited everyone was to have that as a tool. I swore when I ever did IMTX, I would use that. I would at least plug in some number and play around with it and get some very real appreciation for how the heat of IMTX affects your target run pace. You've probably already done this.
@Mike: Great advice for the Chamois Butter. I hadn't even thought about that. I've just applied to start, and hoped it "stuck". Any idea how that stuff sticks to you during the swim? Guess that'll be part of my RR experiment this weekend. As for the swim, 1:40 is a bit of a sandbag goal I THINK. I had a bit of a form breakthrough about a week ago that dropped about 8 minutes off my pool swim time. Between that and a wet-suit, I may get down a bit. But the point about dehydration is very true, and I'm already planning on emptying two bottles before aid station 1 at mile 10 (drink till I'm burping it up as Coach P says).
@SS: Thank you for all the encouragement on Strava. Great thinking on the duct tape. As for sweat, I too am a heavy sweater. I did the sweat test early in the season, and have been increasing my fluid intake ever since, especially as it's getting hot. I also monitor my weight before and after my rides. This last weekend I was about 2.4 lbs lighter afterwards drinking 3 bottles every 2 hours (one per 40 minutes). Based on that, I went ahead and upped my endurance intake to one bottle every 30 to 40 minutes in hopes of getting that 2.4 lbs (about 1 bottle) back over the whole ride. I think FLUID wise, I've got it pretty close to dialed in. It's really the salt I'm wondering about. I dont see any ill effects of adding in a bit more salt, but I want to know what to watch for on my ride this weekend that would tell me "you've had too much salt".
@Vic: Thank you for reminding me about the heat calculator. I did pull it up, but it was about 2 months ago, and I didn't have a good feel for what the inputs will be for race-day. At the time, I think it put my pace about 1.5 minutes slower per mile (maybe 2 minutes), but that may have been with an ambient temp of 95°F. I can say that my runs have mostly been a bit faster than what I want. This weekend you have all rights to shame me if I show up on strava with anything better than a 12 min/mile split for those 6 miles.
The heat calc app is a great tool, as long as you believe it. Some people look at how much it asks them to slow down, and refuse to accept that it applies to them. Running faster than it projects during the first six miles is almost guaranteed to result in walking by mile 16. The heat is telling you "Pay me a little now, or pay me a lot later."
I watched as it was being built (played a small role in data collection), and confirmed its predictive accuracy by feeding in about 5 of my previous IM runs, along with that day's weather data. It was astoundingly accurate, with my actual times being within 2 min +/- (usually < a minute) of the predicted time.
I think the addition of HR as a whip in the latter half of the race, with the app as a rein (especially for the first 6-8 miles), works better, if you are trying to go as fast as *possible*.
From what I understand, your reaction ("WOW!") is the same reaction most have when they plug in the #'s. Looking forward to what Al has to say. I will tell you this, next year when I do the race, I'm going to follow it. I'll be paying close attention to race reports this year. I plan on recording actual temps and plugging in #'s for the team members who are willing to give me their vdot and seeing how the tool predicted their finishing times. Thanks for being my guinea pigs.
By the way, is your 35 vDot adjusted for temperature. You're supposed to enter your 60 degree vDot. I have a calculator somewhere if you know the temp for your test.
@Al: Thank you for weighing in. Good insight on that calculator. I still plan to err on the side of caution early, and now knowing what pushing pace early COULD result in, maybe my-race-rehearsal-self and (more importantly) race-day-self will finally execute that way.
Keep it going.
I wish I could explain the math behind that heat pace calculator. I watched Matt Samodjean while he was doing the work, and he explained it all to me, but ... not my field. Here's what I do know:
A year after we did that app, Coach P started some group learning about using HR to pace an IM marathon. I have become a convert to that now. I think the value of the calculator is to demonstrate the reality of HOW MUCH one has to slow down to have a successful IM run when temps get north of about 25C. The HR is a better way, IMO, of keeping yourself going at the right effort level, no matter what the environmental conditions.
Remember the reason for all this: the warmer and/or more humid it is, the harder it is for the body to get rid of heat created by the muscles when running. Since that heat is carried throughout the body via the blood, your core temperature is warmed quickly while running. When your core temp gets above about 102.4F, your body's/brain's self-protective mechanisms will start to kick in and you will either slow down or keel over in heat exhaustion.
The ideal solution would be for Garmin to market a core temp thermometer, a capsule to be swallowed race morning, which would have ANT+ radio transmission to your watch, where you could read real time core temp. The technology exists, it only awaits an ambitious entrepreneur to package it. I'm dead serious about this.
One more question about nutrition on the run. Is it normal to feel nauseous? (read below for more details)
My swim was in a pool, and was a little slower than my last full swim, but I was generally ok with it.
The bike was definitely slower. My mind was all over the place. I happened to see a few friends out there, and stopped to talk to them for a few minutes, and got my head screwed back on, and did better after that. The good thing is that I always knew WHAT I needed to do to get back on track (pedal smooth, get NPower and AveragePower back in line with each other). Based on that, I'm pretty happy with things. I think the taper will be very beneficial for me.
On the run, I had some trouble initially dialing in the heart-rate for about the first mile. But I was concentrating on HR, and kept fiddling with my pace to get HR in line. I saw a bit of up and down with the HR, but it leveled out in the 120's within 2 miles, and I stuck 128 and 129 for the next 4 miles. I decided to bump up to 135 bpm for the last mile and change. My body felt good. BUT...
I've got a bit of a concern about nutrition on the run. I feel nauseous, especially when I finish the long bricks. I always just figured that this nausea is why everyone says they lose the ability to eat when running. I thought it was normal, and so I really haven't brought it up. Toward the end of the bike, I'm sick of the taste of Endurance and Honey Stingers, but I can still put them into the system throughout the run. It's only when I stop that things start to feel like they're coming back up. Keep in mind I've always managed to keep everything down. Thoughts? Is my nutrition jacked up? Should I change something, or stick with it? Will the chips/cookies/broth on the run help with this nausea?
Nausea on the run - here's my suspicion. Could be a sign you're putting "too much" into your stomach, later on the bike and on into the run. Might be: too much fluid volume; too many calories per unit time; too concentrated caloric solution. It's hard to tell which might be the culprit, or a combination. But it;s a sign you should review your actual nutrition experience with a fine tooth comb, and re-consider all of the above aspects.
For me, the problem has been too concentrated a caloric solution, like taking a gel with too little water, or full strength as opposed to 50/50 diluted Endurance. It is sometimes easy to get too many calories on the run if you are trying to keep fluid volume up and relying on full strength sports drink. EG, 8 oz of Endurance has 50 cal; @ 7 miles/hour, one aid station per mile, 8 oz per aid station, that's 350 cal in an hour plus anything else you are putting in. Any more than 2-300 calories tops per hour on the run is probably too much. Also, solid food on the run is a definite NO-GO, IMO. Just asking the gut to do too much work while working the muscles as hard as one does in an IM run.
Time for me to do the math on getting that balanced out, and make sure to keep the salt in my system along with it. I figure I can cut the Gatorade in half to 20 oz, and supplement for 20 oz of water. Cut the stingers down to 1 per hour. that puts me at 233 calories per hour. Early in the race, I can stick to 2 gels per hour, and then cut back after a couple hours. I can up my salt from 2 caps per hour to 3 caps per hour to give me 1295 milligrams of sodium. That's still lower than I was getting before. I'm going to have to think about this for awhile...