David Pettigrew - Pacific Crest Long Course 2015
Swim
Water temperature was a nice 67 degrees. There were maybe 50 people in my wave, so only a little bit of contact. My target was 45 minutes for the swim based upon doing 43 min for my last race rehearsal. I thought maybe I could do under 40 with the benefit of the wetsuit. But this is at 4700 ft elevation and last year I really struggled with my breathing at the Olympic race. I think the water was 62 last year too. I normally breath every third stroke but based on last year I had been thinking I may try every 2nd and to switch sides every few strokes. I had been practicing this in the pool for the last month.
The sun is in your eyes at the start as we swim east. I wore my clear goggles anyway and these worked out good. One of my focuses was to breath from my diaphragm to get full breaths and hopefully keep my heart rate down. For most of the race I swam maybe like a 2-2-2-2-2-3-2-2-2-2-2-2 kind of breathing and sighted on the change from breathing side. It worked really we'll for me and also gave me the benefit of choosing the side with the less choppy water to breath to.
In the end I felt comfortable for the whole swim after the first few hundred meters. My heart rate and breathing were controlled and I felt good getting out the water. My swim time from my watch was 47 minutes, so a little slower that targeted but I felt in really good shape for the bike.
T1
Very straightforward T1 except having to put all my stuff into my bag so it could get transported to T2 for pickup. This is a point to point race.
Bike
The first 38 miles of this course go steadily up with a big climb around mile 33 to 38 when we go up to the Mount Bachelor ski area. Then is is about 15 miles of ripping downhill and a few miles of flat to T2 in Sunriver. Given the nature of the course I had been planning to go to the higher end of my zone 3 (169-180W) watts for the first 38 miles, with some short zone 3+ (keeping under 200 as much as possible) on the steeper bits if needed. I reckoned I would be basically not pedaling for about 30 minutes coming back down and then I would target the low end of my zone 3 for the last few miles so my legs would be good for the run.
I felt thirsty and drank quite a lot in the first 5 miles or so I also ate a Margarita shot blok.
The forecast was calling for recording temps in the mid 90s. Also, it would not be possible to drink or eat anything while descending Bachelor at 35mph plus. So I felt it ok to drink freely in the beginning. I think I over did it it a bit though as my stomach began to not feel good at around mile 20. It was also getting pretty hot by this time.
After 5 miles I noticed my Garmin 910Xt was not giving me the lap splits on the bike. I wanted these to keep an eye on my lap normalized power. So I pressed the lap button. Because I had my watch in multipart mode, this moved it to the next leg and hence my bike data was now not available. Ugh! So I had to reset it and change to bike mode and start it again.
The first lap was NP of 167W, but I was not doing a good job of avoiding spikes on the hills and while passing, sometimes going over 230W. And my heart rate was over 140, which I know to be my danger zone. I began to reign myself in over the next few miles.
My stomach was not functioning about half way in so I had to reduce the intakes of nutrition to almost nil. I did take in 3 or 4 salt pills. I could feel my energies getting depleted and myself getting dehydrated, but couldn't do anything about it. I tried getting out the saddle and moving about and that helped a bit.
The ride up Bachelor is beautiful but tough, and the ride down is a lot of fun if you like to go fast. I hit 42.6 mph at one point averaging 28mph for 31 minutes.
So the last 51 miles was 158w so I think I paced it well. Climbing at about 180 and descending at 110.
T2
In and out steadily, but managed to leave my Garmin on my bike. So quickly made the the decision I would be running my feel versus losing a few minutes going back for it.
At this point it was brutally hot. My left quad and glute were sore and tight. Need to work on my glute flexibility. My left knee has been bothering me this last week or so and it was painful too. So I knew this was going to be a tough day. A day for survival and finishing, not racing.
I did the zip lock trick with a large ziplock for ice. I struggled a bit with knowing how to best place it and how much ice to put in it but overall it was better than nothing. Over the first miles I realized I was not able to keep running due to the heat. I would quickly getting really out of breath. So I switched to a walk and run approach. But there was a lot of walking. I was able to drink my nutrition slowly. It ws just a case of getting from aid station to aid station.
About mile 8 I had finished my bottle and began filling it with ice and water at the aid stations. I have a Camelback Podium bottle that you can squeeze and it sprays out. So I began spraying myself. This turned out to really help and was a lot less fussy than the ziploc. I wished I had done that from the beginning. I was able to run from about mile 9 to the finish.
Results
Some of my goals were to bike under 3 hours, run under 1:50 and finish under 6 hours.
Official times
Swim: 47:32
T1: 2:49
Bike: 3:09:44 (note course is 58 miles)
T2: 2:42
Run: 2:03:51
Total: 6:06:39
Given the weather conditions I really thought my time was going to be about 6:40, so I'm a really happy with 6:06. I think sub 6 would have been possible on a cooler day. That is what it is. This was my second 70.3 (though actually it is 72.3) and I took 7 minutes of my time from Lake Stevens last year.
I was following the HIM intermediate plan.
Water temperature was a nice 67 degrees. There were maybe 50 people in my wave, so only a little bit of contact. My target was 45 minutes for the swim based upon doing 43 min for my last race rehearsal. I thought maybe I could do under 40 with the benefit of the wetsuit. But this is at 4700 ft elevation and last year I really struggled with my breathing at the Olympic race. I think the water was 62 last year too. I normally breath every third stroke but based on last year I had been thinking I may try every 2nd and to switch sides every few strokes. I had been practicing this in the pool for the last month.
The sun is in your eyes at the start as we swim east. I wore my clear goggles anyway and these worked out good. One of my focuses was to breath from my diaphragm to get full breaths and hopefully keep my heart rate down. For most of the race I swam maybe like a 2-2-2-2-2-3-2-2-2-2-2-2 kind of breathing and sighted on the change from breathing side. It worked really we'll for me and also gave me the benefit of choosing the side with the less choppy water to breath to.
In the end I felt comfortable for the whole swim after the first few hundred meters. My heart rate and breathing were controlled and I felt good getting out the water. My swim time from my watch was 47 minutes, so a little slower that targeted but I felt in really good shape for the bike.
T1
Very straightforward T1 except having to put all my stuff into my bag so it could get transported to T2 for pickup. This is a point to point race.
Bike
The first 38 miles of this course go steadily up with a big climb around mile 33 to 38 when we go up to the Mount Bachelor ski area. Then is is about 15 miles of ripping downhill and a few miles of flat to T2 in Sunriver. Given the nature of the course I had been planning to go to the higher end of my zone 3 (169-180W) watts for the first 38 miles, with some short zone 3+ (keeping under 200 as much as possible) on the steeper bits if needed. I reckoned I would be basically not pedaling for about 30 minutes coming back down and then I would target the low end of my zone 3 for the last few miles so my legs would be good for the run.
I felt thirsty and drank quite a lot in the first 5 miles or so I also ate a Margarita shot blok.
The forecast was calling for recording temps in the mid 90s. Also, it would not be possible to drink or eat anything while descending Bachelor at 35mph plus. So I felt it ok to drink freely in the beginning. I think I over did it it a bit though as my stomach began to not feel good at around mile 20. It was also getting pretty hot by this time.
After 5 miles I noticed my Garmin 910Xt was not giving me the lap splits on the bike. I wanted these to keep an eye on my lap normalized power. So I pressed the lap button. Because I had my watch in multipart mode, this moved it to the next leg and hence my bike data was now not available. Ugh! So I had to reset it and change to bike mode and start it again.
The first lap was NP of 167W, but I was not doing a good job of avoiding spikes on the hills and while passing, sometimes going over 230W. And my heart rate was over 140, which I know to be my danger zone. I began to reign myself in over the next few miles.
My stomach was not functioning about half way in so I had to reduce the intakes of nutrition to almost nil. I did take in 3 or 4 salt pills. I could feel my energies getting depleted and myself getting dehydrated, but couldn't do anything about it. I tried getting out the saddle and moving about and that helped a bit.
The ride up Bachelor is beautiful but tough, and the ride down is a lot of fun if you like to go fast. I hit 42.6 mph at one point averaging 28mph for 31 minutes.
So the last 51 miles was 158w so I think I paced it well. Climbing at about 180 and descending at 110.
T2
In and out steadily, but managed to leave my Garmin on my bike. So quickly made the the decision I would be running my feel versus losing a few minutes going back for it.
At this point it was brutally hot. My left quad and glute were sore and tight. Need to work on my glute flexibility. My left knee has been bothering me this last week or so and it was painful too. So I knew this was going to be a tough day. A day for survival and finishing, not racing.
I did the zip lock trick with a large ziplock for ice. I struggled a bit with knowing how to best place it and how much ice to put in it but overall it was better than nothing. Over the first miles I realized I was not able to keep running due to the heat. I would quickly getting really out of breath. So I switched to a walk and run approach. But there was a lot of walking. I was able to drink my nutrition slowly. It ws just a case of getting from aid station to aid station.
About mile 8 I had finished my bottle and began filling it with ice and water at the aid stations. I have a Camelback Podium bottle that you can squeeze and it sprays out. So I began spraying myself. This turned out to really help and was a lot less fussy than the ziploc. I wished I had done that from the beginning. I was able to run from about mile 9 to the finish.
Results
Some of my goals were to bike under 3 hours, run under 1:50 and finish under 6 hours.
Official times
Swim: 47:32
T1: 2:49
Bike: 3:09:44 (note course is 58 miles)
T2: 2:42
Run: 2:03:51
Total: 6:06:39
Given the weather conditions I really thought my time was going to be about 6:40, so I'm a really happy with 6:06. I think sub 6 would have been possible on a cooler day. That is what it is. This was my second 70.3 (though actually it is 72.3) and I took 7 minutes of my time from Lake Stevens last year.
I was following the HIM intermediate plan.
0
Comments