Ed Eovino's IMTX RR
First… I must thank this team for all the help getting ready for this race… from the beasts on Strava during the Nov OS... to the campers at IMTX... to the help I received refining my plan right up to race day... You guys are the best!
Coach P... what can I say? The access I had to you... because of the small camp... and because you were racing this one... took my thinking and performance to a completely different level... Thank you.
Past racing experience… A few OLY, 4 HIM(Branson 6:15ish, Kansas 2X 5:45 5:26, Princeton 5:31) and IMAZ ’13 11:58
Race week:
Was planning to head down to Texas on Tuesday, but as I refined my prerace plan… I could see that my window was closing for some things I really wanted to do. I decided late in the week to just head out Monday morning to give myself more time. I think that decision really paid off. I got to relax… ride the Richards loop with teammate Ron Slack and acclimate a little better to the heat/humidity we’d see on race day.
I’ll be upfront and say… My diet kinda sucks. I eat a lot of healthy food… but I tend to binge eat sweets on top of that. I’ll never be the fastest, smartest, most driven athlete on this team… but I’ll put my ability to eat cookies/cake/ junk up against anyone! That said… I decide to really rein the diet in after watching The Core Diet webinar on race nutrition.
For a few days before the race I weaned off caffeine and started to increase my salt intake. I added salt to food… ate pretzels… popped a few salt tabs a day. As the week went on I started to decrease my fiber intake and up my carbs.
The day before the race I ate 5 great chocolate chip pancakes (sweet tooth) for breakfast at about 7am… Then proceeded to get ready to go to the open water swim. At camp… Coach P warned against doing this. He said it was too close to the race… and with bike check right after… you’d be better invested to go feet up and just relax.
I’ll include this because it may help one of our teammates in the future… I rejected his advice because I really needed a confidence boost. For whatever reason… during the swim of my last race rehearsal I had a complete panic attack in pool. During my warm up 200… An avalanche of negative self-talk overcame me. It went something like this…Lap 1… “You’re tired today and you have a lot of work to do”… Lap 3… “How are you going to swim 4200?”…Lap 4… “IMTX isn’t going to be wetsuit legal and you’ve never done a race without one”… Lap 5 “You haven’t even practiced sighting this year… you know that’s going to ruin your body position and make it even harder”… by lap 6… my vision started to narrow… stroke was a mess. I reset and tried to make a go of it… I did about 2x100… was gasping pretty hard after each and I just got out of the pool and left.
It didn’t matter that I’d swam 4K straight two weeks before in my first race rehearsal ... that pool WO’s during the build had went well…or that I’d already completed an IM…. my brain just shut down. It’s pretty embarrassing… I don’t know where it came from and it’s never happened before. To my credit. I still went out and finished the remainder of my race rehearsal (biked 112 and ran 6.5). The last few weeks of training I had to overcome some anxiety on the each drive to the pool… but it got better after each successive in the pool.
The open swim went off without a hitch. I donned my swim skin and did the 400 without incident. I drove over to transition to check my bike and bags.
T1 bag contents: Helmet… bike shoes… arm coolers… go bag (power bar wafer, honey stinger waffle, small bag with some shammy butter)
T2 bag Contents: Shoes… socks… water belt with race number attached 3 PB gels and 4 packets of Gatorlytes … go bag (hat.. cooling towel.. sunglasses.. canister of salt pills and two Tylenol)
Bike set up… aero bar bottle... another bottle on down tube.(EFS grape)… bento with 6 PB gels and 4 Tylenol… gum… salt stick holders with 10 salt stick pills… nutrition added morning of race.
Rain made transition a muddy mess… stunk like a sewer… I’m sorry for the volunteers who were stuck with that job! Dropped my stuff and got back to the hotel and waited for my family to arrive. Had pasta with red sauce and some grilled chicken for lunch… grabbed another order to be eaten later for dinner and headed back to get the feet up. Stayed prone for the rest of the day…snacked on a bunch of pretzels… got in a little nap… then 6 hours of sleep before a 3 am wakeup race morning.
Race day:
Pre race meal was 3 cups applesauce… scoop of whey protein… banana.. Power Bar…bottle of Gatorade. Back to bed with 4:30am wake up. When I woke I took a shower.. applied body glide everywhere… sunscreen and got dressed. (This was a train wreck. I think I may not have dried myself enough before applying the body glide… I suffered from way too much chaffing. I will change this for my next race.) My wife drove… and we headed to transition at 5:15.
It rained overnight and the mud in transition was way worse race morning. They did have baby pools set up to clean feet upon exiting transition though… so I scrapped my plan to add a water bottle and towel to each T bag to clean my feet… mistake number 2.
After adding nutrition to bike… filling tires… and setting up bike computer it was off for the mile walk to transition. It was quiet… exciting… nice way to start the day. We arrived at transition and my wife checked in my special needs bags. I had absolutely no anxiety about the swim on race morning. The practice swim told me all I need to know.
Swim… 1:22
The swim was my first rolling start and first race without a wetsuit. Entry to the water was calm… no one was pushing or racing hard right out of the gate. I eased into the water and stayed to the right. I didn’t have much contact except for a few people who just stopped short to get their composure or bearings. It took me a few times sighting to locate the radio antennae and kept swimming at that. I noticed most of the swimmers were hugging the buoys in the middle. I just kept swimming… for the most part by myself. It got a little congested at the turn around and continued on the return. I had to swim around some groups and had a bit more contact here. The canal was a breeze…aside from wanting to be done… it didn’t bother me much.
T1… 4:08
I was out of the water well… had top of swim skin down before I grabbed my bag. As I ran toward the tent I removed my cap/goggles.. put them in the bag .. helmet on and go bag into my jersey pocket. In the tent I had trouble removing my swim skin because of the muddy mess. Handed everything to a volunteer and ran to the bike shoes in hand.
Outside the tent I stopped for sunscreen. The volunteer rubbed my back and neck a bit… but I don’t think he had any sunscreen on his hands because after the race I had a pretty bad sunburn on the back of my shoulders. Rub down done I carried my bike to kiddie pool… washed feet… I tried to lean bike against fence to put shoes on… but started getting yelled at by race official that I couldn’t do that there!. Had to hobble to mount line with one unbuckled shoe on… one shoe off (Mariah got a picture…didn’t look too graceful) If I hadn’t done that.. it would have been a great T1 time!
Bike… 5:27… important stuff…
FTP.. 278
WEIGHT 178
Avg HR … 132
Avg Power…184
NP… 190
VI… 1.03
IF… .683
TSS… 253
Equals… I under worked the bike quite a bit
The first 40 were fast… as expected. I planned to go easier here… just not as easy and as erratic as I did. I had planned to use the first hour to eat… drink… get the HR under control and steadily move my watts to 200. But it was hard to stay focused. I finished 3 bottles, two gels, and two salt tabs in the first hour.
I was able to get on track after mile 40 and ride with a lot more consistency. Miles 50 through 80 as predicted slowed due to a steady wind. I was never able to quite hold the 200 watts I was seeking… but I continued to build my output through the rest bike. By mile 90 I’d had enough… luckily some of that section goes through residential areas where a lot of people were camped out watching. Amazing how a few kind words as you ride by can keep you locked in!
I took two bottles of GE at each aid station through mile 80. I think only one time did I still have a full one in the rack at the next station. At 80 I started taking one bottle GE and one bottle water. Water to soak myself. For the ride I finished 6 gels… a PB wafer, honey stinger waffle and 8-10 salt tabs. I don’t have an exact count on the GE but it was a lot and I exited the bike as per plan… cool…well fed… and hydrated. Peed 3x on the bike and had to hit a PJ one time. I did not stop at SN.
T2… train wreck 5:49
I never put the bottle/ towel in my bag as I had planned.. after seeing the kiddie pools near the bike mount line… I expected the same pools near the run start… No such luck. I spent a lot of time trying to get my feet clean enough to get my shoes on. This was my worst transition in any race I’ve been in.
Run… 4:29
I was happy to get started and had a big emotional lift as my family all screamed as I entered the run course. Got a couple of high fives and was off. I ran with the Garmin showing only HR. Plan was to keep the HR pegged at same level as I exited the bike… 130-135. I had to really focus on slowing down and took a few walk brakes during each of the first couple miles to keep it in check. After the second mile I could see I was never going to get in any kind of running rhythm at that pace and decided to peg 142 instead. That worked… and I was able to run between aid stations.
It was super hot. I walked each aid station a little more than I would have liked… but I knew cooling myself would be imperative to having any kind of decent run. It took me a few stations to shake out a system that would work. Settled on run to water… have them pour on cooling sleeves… and pour another cup of water on cooling towel around my neck. Grab two cups of GE drink quick… take off hat and let them dump ice in… grab another handful of ice on exit. In between aid stations during the first half of the marathon I’d sip on the Gatorlyte mixture in the bottle I was carrying.
I was able to get down about 3 gels in the first 13 and drank 2x20oz water with two Gatorlyte packets in each in addition to GE drank from the course. The carry bottle became more effective after that… some of the stations had ice water and I would fill it and use it to squirt myself down in between aid stations… that was an awesome treat!
In my first IM at mile 13 I started racing from PJ to PJ because my bowels were in distress. This happened again starting around 12 and got really bad at 17… didn’t think I was going to make it. I’m not sure if this is a problem with what I’m doing prerace… or in race. But I have to figure it out. At about the same time I noticed that my hands were tingling and as per the Core webinar advice… I started eating bananas. I don’t know if an electrolyte imbalance could cause the GI distress?
The final few miles got very difficult. I just wanted to be done. I was in a walk/run fighting for the finish. I was counting running steps… counting walking steps… I know my lips were moving.. so I must have looked like a madman. In all my past races I had some pretty bad cramping in my legs… that didn’t happen on this day. I did however have my lower back by my kidneys cramp up as I ran the last mile or so. I had always wondered why some people were hunched over at the waist at the finish… I think I now know… Why did that happen with no other cramping issues?
All told it was a great day. I PR’ed by about a half hour and finished much higher in my age group than my first attempt. Thanks all for helping me execute like this! Now on to Boulder!
Coach P... what can I say? The access I had to you... because of the small camp... and because you were racing this one... took my thinking and performance to a completely different level... Thank you.
Past racing experience… A few OLY, 4 HIM(Branson 6:15ish, Kansas 2X 5:45 5:26, Princeton 5:31) and IMAZ ’13 11:58
Race week:
Was planning to head down to Texas on Tuesday, but as I refined my prerace plan… I could see that my window was closing for some things I really wanted to do. I decided late in the week to just head out Monday morning to give myself more time. I think that decision really paid off. I got to relax… ride the Richards loop with teammate Ron Slack and acclimate a little better to the heat/humidity we’d see on race day.
I’ll be upfront and say… My diet kinda sucks. I eat a lot of healthy food… but I tend to binge eat sweets on top of that. I’ll never be the fastest, smartest, most driven athlete on this team… but I’ll put my ability to eat cookies/cake/ junk up against anyone! That said… I decide to really rein the diet in after watching The Core Diet webinar on race nutrition.
For a few days before the race I weaned off caffeine and started to increase my salt intake. I added salt to food… ate pretzels… popped a few salt tabs a day. As the week went on I started to decrease my fiber intake and up my carbs.
The day before the race I ate 5 great chocolate chip pancakes (sweet tooth) for breakfast at about 7am… Then proceeded to get ready to go to the open water swim. At camp… Coach P warned against doing this. He said it was too close to the race… and with bike check right after… you’d be better invested to go feet up and just relax.
I’ll include this because it may help one of our teammates in the future… I rejected his advice because I really needed a confidence boost. For whatever reason… during the swim of my last race rehearsal I had a complete panic attack in pool. During my warm up 200… An avalanche of negative self-talk overcame me. It went something like this…Lap 1… “You’re tired today and you have a lot of work to do”… Lap 3… “How are you going to swim 4200?”…Lap 4… “IMTX isn’t going to be wetsuit legal and you’ve never done a race without one”… Lap 5 “You haven’t even practiced sighting this year… you know that’s going to ruin your body position and make it even harder”… by lap 6… my vision started to narrow… stroke was a mess. I reset and tried to make a go of it… I did about 2x100… was gasping pretty hard after each and I just got out of the pool and left.
It didn’t matter that I’d swam 4K straight two weeks before in my first race rehearsal ... that pool WO’s during the build had went well…or that I’d already completed an IM…. my brain just shut down. It’s pretty embarrassing… I don’t know where it came from and it’s never happened before. To my credit. I still went out and finished the remainder of my race rehearsal (biked 112 and ran 6.5). The last few weeks of training I had to overcome some anxiety on the each drive to the pool… but it got better after each successive in the pool.
The open swim went off without a hitch. I donned my swim skin and did the 400 without incident. I drove over to transition to check my bike and bags.
T1 bag contents: Helmet… bike shoes… arm coolers… go bag (power bar wafer, honey stinger waffle, small bag with some shammy butter)
T2 bag Contents: Shoes… socks… water belt with race number attached 3 PB gels and 4 packets of Gatorlytes … go bag (hat.. cooling towel.. sunglasses.. canister of salt pills and two Tylenol)
Bike set up… aero bar bottle... another bottle on down tube.(EFS grape)… bento with 6 PB gels and 4 Tylenol… gum… salt stick holders with 10 salt stick pills… nutrition added morning of race.
Rain made transition a muddy mess… stunk like a sewer… I’m sorry for the volunteers who were stuck with that job! Dropped my stuff and got back to the hotel and waited for my family to arrive. Had pasta with red sauce and some grilled chicken for lunch… grabbed another order to be eaten later for dinner and headed back to get the feet up. Stayed prone for the rest of the day…snacked on a bunch of pretzels… got in a little nap… then 6 hours of sleep before a 3 am wakeup race morning.
Race day:
Pre race meal was 3 cups applesauce… scoop of whey protein… banana.. Power Bar…bottle of Gatorade. Back to bed with 4:30am wake up. When I woke I took a shower.. applied body glide everywhere… sunscreen and got dressed. (This was a train wreck. I think I may not have dried myself enough before applying the body glide… I suffered from way too much chaffing. I will change this for my next race.) My wife drove… and we headed to transition at 5:15.
It rained overnight and the mud in transition was way worse race morning. They did have baby pools set up to clean feet upon exiting transition though… so I scrapped my plan to add a water bottle and towel to each T bag to clean my feet… mistake number 2.
After adding nutrition to bike… filling tires… and setting up bike computer it was off for the mile walk to transition. It was quiet… exciting… nice way to start the day. We arrived at transition and my wife checked in my special needs bags. I had absolutely no anxiety about the swim on race morning. The practice swim told me all I need to know.
Swim… 1:22
The swim was my first rolling start and first race without a wetsuit. Entry to the water was calm… no one was pushing or racing hard right out of the gate. I eased into the water and stayed to the right. I didn’t have much contact except for a few people who just stopped short to get their composure or bearings. It took me a few times sighting to locate the radio antennae and kept swimming at that. I noticed most of the swimmers were hugging the buoys in the middle. I just kept swimming… for the most part by myself. It got a little congested at the turn around and continued on the return. I had to swim around some groups and had a bit more contact here. The canal was a breeze…aside from wanting to be done… it didn’t bother me much.
T1… 4:08
I was out of the water well… had top of swim skin down before I grabbed my bag. As I ran toward the tent I removed my cap/goggles.. put them in the bag .. helmet on and go bag into my jersey pocket. In the tent I had trouble removing my swim skin because of the muddy mess. Handed everything to a volunteer and ran to the bike shoes in hand.
Outside the tent I stopped for sunscreen. The volunteer rubbed my back and neck a bit… but I don’t think he had any sunscreen on his hands because after the race I had a pretty bad sunburn on the back of my shoulders. Rub down done I carried my bike to kiddie pool… washed feet… I tried to lean bike against fence to put shoes on… but started getting yelled at by race official that I couldn’t do that there!. Had to hobble to mount line with one unbuckled shoe on… one shoe off (Mariah got a picture…didn’t look too graceful) If I hadn’t done that.. it would have been a great T1 time!
Bike… 5:27… important stuff…
FTP.. 278
WEIGHT 178
Avg HR … 132
Avg Power…184
NP… 190
VI… 1.03
IF… .683
TSS… 253
Equals… I under worked the bike quite a bit
The first 40 were fast… as expected. I planned to go easier here… just not as easy and as erratic as I did. I had planned to use the first hour to eat… drink… get the HR under control and steadily move my watts to 200. But it was hard to stay focused. I finished 3 bottles, two gels, and two salt tabs in the first hour.
I was able to get on track after mile 40 and ride with a lot more consistency. Miles 50 through 80 as predicted slowed due to a steady wind. I was never able to quite hold the 200 watts I was seeking… but I continued to build my output through the rest bike. By mile 90 I’d had enough… luckily some of that section goes through residential areas where a lot of people were camped out watching. Amazing how a few kind words as you ride by can keep you locked in!
I took two bottles of GE at each aid station through mile 80. I think only one time did I still have a full one in the rack at the next station. At 80 I started taking one bottle GE and one bottle water. Water to soak myself. For the ride I finished 6 gels… a PB wafer, honey stinger waffle and 8-10 salt tabs. I don’t have an exact count on the GE but it was a lot and I exited the bike as per plan… cool…well fed… and hydrated. Peed 3x on the bike and had to hit a PJ one time. I did not stop at SN.
T2… train wreck 5:49
I never put the bottle/ towel in my bag as I had planned.. after seeing the kiddie pools near the bike mount line… I expected the same pools near the run start… No such luck. I spent a lot of time trying to get my feet clean enough to get my shoes on. This was my worst transition in any race I’ve been in.
Run… 4:29
I was happy to get started and had a big emotional lift as my family all screamed as I entered the run course. Got a couple of high fives and was off. I ran with the Garmin showing only HR. Plan was to keep the HR pegged at same level as I exited the bike… 130-135. I had to really focus on slowing down and took a few walk brakes during each of the first couple miles to keep it in check. After the second mile I could see I was never going to get in any kind of running rhythm at that pace and decided to peg 142 instead. That worked… and I was able to run between aid stations.
It was super hot. I walked each aid station a little more than I would have liked… but I knew cooling myself would be imperative to having any kind of decent run. It took me a few stations to shake out a system that would work. Settled on run to water… have them pour on cooling sleeves… and pour another cup of water on cooling towel around my neck. Grab two cups of GE drink quick… take off hat and let them dump ice in… grab another handful of ice on exit. In between aid stations during the first half of the marathon I’d sip on the Gatorlyte mixture in the bottle I was carrying.
I was able to get down about 3 gels in the first 13 and drank 2x20oz water with two Gatorlyte packets in each in addition to GE drank from the course. The carry bottle became more effective after that… some of the stations had ice water and I would fill it and use it to squirt myself down in between aid stations… that was an awesome treat!
In my first IM at mile 13 I started racing from PJ to PJ because my bowels were in distress. This happened again starting around 12 and got really bad at 17… didn’t think I was going to make it. I’m not sure if this is a problem with what I’m doing prerace… or in race. But I have to figure it out. At about the same time I noticed that my hands were tingling and as per the Core webinar advice… I started eating bananas. I don’t know if an electrolyte imbalance could cause the GI distress?
The final few miles got very difficult. I just wanted to be done. I was in a walk/run fighting for the finish. I was counting running steps… counting walking steps… I know my lips were moving.. so I must have looked like a madman. In all my past races I had some pretty bad cramping in my legs… that didn’t happen on this day. I did however have my lower back by my kidneys cramp up as I ran the last mile or so. I had always wondered why some people were hunched over at the waist at the finish… I think I now know… Why did that happen with no other cramping issues?
All told it was a great day. I PR’ed by about a half hour and finished much higher in my age group than my first attempt. Thanks all for helping me execute like this! Now on to Boulder!
0
Comments
Again, great race!
You have just grown light years in experience over one training cycle and we have all grown with you.
That was no EZ day my friend. Proud of the way you represented EN!!
Congratulations on a well earned PR!! Get some rest!
SS
@ Shaughn.. Thanks for the kind words... It was amazing following the EN plan and seeing myself go from 166 in my AG at IMAZ to 46th here... and I consider myself a very poor performer in hot conditions...I'm curious what would have happened if the race was near a temp I'd trained at! If you get a chance I'd be interested in your/ anyone else's review of the Strava files.
@ Vic... Thanks for volunteering at the race and being around again...your enthusiasm is definitely contagious! Can't wait to watch you rock this race next year!
Kudos on a great race. It was fun watching you soak in the EN knowledge all winter/spring, improve every week along the way, and then unleash all of it last Saturday. I watched all day. That's a great bike split. I too under-powered the ride last year (65%), but Coach P and several others said afterwards that the course tends to produce lower watts (180 watts on smooth windless roads is a lot easier than 180 watts on crap roads into a 20mph wind). Coach P rode in the 65-9% IF range a few years ago when he won his AG. So, don't over-think that one too much or fret that you left too much out there. If anything, you needed the extra TSS points for that brutal run.
I really like the huge jump you took in your AG standings, but not surprised given where you are and how well you apply the EN knowledge. When Coach P asked me about my progress with the team, I sent him my AG placings in IMs in chronological order: 168, 158, 73, 197, 89, EN, 12, 19. Needless to say, the Kool-Aid works. Can't wait to follow your next build/race.
Congrats again.
Mike
My goals for Boulder are two fold... 1) I want to have fun and support my wife in her quest to be an Ironman. This should be a special race as it's two days before anniversary number 25. 2) I don't necessarily want/have to go faster... I'm happy with my IMTX performance and don't know how much will remain in the tank. I wan't to move around the course more efficiently... I just want to feel smooth with each and every little thing...and go about the course like a ninja!
@ Don... Thanks!
nice to meet you.
great work.
don't think you could have done better for the hot day given us.
have fun in Boulder.
PRs are fun, eh? Congratulations on getting it done on a distracting day (mud, heat ...)
Porta pottie stops mid run? I suggest trying an all liquid diet starting after lunch the day before the race. Smoothies, mostly, is what I go for dinner and breakfast before a race.
In regards to chaffing...I've tried body glide a couple times. That stuff just doesn't work for me. I don't know how/why people use it. For races I use Tri Slide which is a silicone based spray. I use 2 generous applications in the desired areas and also saturate my tri shorts before I put them on. Since starting this routine I've never had even minor chaffing in a long course event. May be worth a shot for you.
Amazing performance out there in some extremely challenging conditions! Your 30' PR despite some gut issues later on definitely speaks to the work you put in and the race plan you put together. Congratulations on a great day! Looking forward to following you through your Boulder race!
Doug... I can't tell you how many " What would DJ do?" moments I had in those OS interval sessions. Watching you destroy bike/run sessions day in and day out was the greatest indoctrination into this team I could have had! Before that I used to watch guys who were so much faster than me and just make excuses as to why... After watching you I realized there just aren't any shortcuts to success.... If you want to be good... Just destroy yourself like DJ... rest... repeat.
No pressure... but I don't think there is anyone I look forward to seeing uncork a race this year than you... With your work ethic I think there are some great things coming up for you...
Tri slide is Amazon Primed already..
I hope the conditions in Boulder are better... but if not... I have 9 weeks to train in my own furnace here in KC...
Thanks Doug!
@Al, my biggest fear in racing, having to hit the porta pottie. So far i've been lucky. I'm going to try that liquid diet thing next weekend, thanks!
@ Kim... It's always tough! Congrats on your great day... never had a doubt you'd have a fun.. great ... rewarding time... and tear up that course! I just listened to your podcast this morning... great job!
No doubt one of the highlights of this race build up was getting to meet and share some time with you,Chris,Eric and Ron...and that "other"guy whose off to Kona... at camp. It was great to watch you guys work through the process and finish what you set out to do...Enjoy your recovery... you earned it!