Doug Johnson - IM CHOO Race Report
Doug Johnson Age 35
3X Ironman (WI’12, KY’13, LP’14)
5’11’’ 175 lbs
340 FTP (4.28 W/Kg)
5 hour power 275
VDOT 55
Results: 10:04:15 (12th
AG, 91 OA)
Officially, not a PR.
(LP’14 official times did not include the 2nd loop of the
swim or T1 time.) Unofficially, a 38
minute PR.
Prologue
Training leading up to the race was pretty good. Had a great OS which resulted in my highest
FTP ever. My VDOT remained the same as
it has the last 2 years. OS led into a cycling
volume camp in SoCal in March which was a great mental break from the trainer
and provided a nice fitness bump before heading into long course training. HIM training for Raleigh and Syracuse went
well and really deepened my cycling and run fitness. I had a significant PR at Raleigh and a ~2
minute PR at Syracuse. The first few
weeks of the IM build went really well and included some camp-type training in
LP race weekend. I did a long ride with
Coach P the day before the LP race which was pretty cool. About ½ way through the IM build I was
mentally and physically tired of training and a couple weeks later my body said
no more. The last 3 to 4 weeks before
CHOO was probably the worst training I had done all year. Kind of the opposite of how you want to go
into a race. I missed a ton of swimming,
the runs I did do didn’t have any intensity, and I missed the week 10 weekend
of cycling. I had really high
expectations of myself leading up to the race and as a result of the last few
weeks of the IM build I was extremely angry with myself and in a really bad
place mentally to the point of what many people would consider depression. At that point I just wanted the season to be
over. I remember very clearly when Coach
Rich did my TSR video he said “you have a long season” or something to that
effect. I shrugged it off, but those
words definitely came back to haunt me at the end of August, ha ha.
Race Day
Woke up at 3am.
Cinamon toast breakfast with a glass of cherry juice. Sipped on Perform the rest of the
morning. My nerves were really high and
my stomach never settled prior to the race.
Picked up Mariah at her hotel, she helped me drop off my SN bags. Paired my computer/PM in transition and
filled my bike bottles with Perform. Met
the team for the picture, hopped on the bus to swim start and got in line for
the porta potty right away. Thought I
was early to swim start but still had to walk quite a ways to get in line. Once the race started the line moved pretty
quick and I think I was in the water at 7:44am.
Swim: 1:00:48
Relatively uneventful.
I’m a 1:08 guy on the swim. The
current obviously helped my time. Took a
hook to my left goggle about 10 minutes in and it started leaking. About 10 minutes later I finally had to
adjust the goggle so it wouldn’t leak anymore.
Stopped at a buoy to do this because I don’t float, otherwise may have
broken 1 hour on the swim. Not much
contact or many people on the swim until right in front of the exit. It was almost like nobody wanted to get out
of the water and everyone was wading in front of the exit!
T1: 3:40
Smooth, uneventful. Unzipped
my swimskin and had the top pulled down to my waist as I ran to the tent. Grabbed my T1 bag. Took a chair right near the entrance took my
cap, goggles and swimskin off, took my
shoes out of the bag and asked a volunteer to put everything in the bag, “thank
you” and took off. Ran to my rack, put
my shoes and helmet on and ran with my bike past the mount line and past the
crowd of riders right at the line. Happy
with T1, 2nd fastest time out of the top 12 guys in my AG.
Bike: 5:05:15
https://www.strava.com/activities/402464330
NP 222 AP 214 VI 1.04 Avg
HR 153
TSS 216 (IF .653)
I was a little concerned about the bike coming into the
race. The race reports from last year
indicated the bike course would be crowded with riders (and some cars)
especially on the first loop.
Additionally, from some recon on the course last year and race week this
year, I knew there were no shoulders and some rough patches of pavement. Generally, my concerns didn’t materialize to
anything significant. Yes the stick out
and first loop did have a lot of riders but I was able to maneuver through most
of it without being held up too much. The
2nd loop spread out a lot more.
My HR on the bike was high from the start. During training I saw my HR average low 140’s
for a race pace ride. At the start of
the ride I was seeing 160’s for a little bit!
Originally my plan was to ride 220 for the first 45 minutes until my HR
came down but I backed off that plan.
After riding 200 for 45 minutes and not seeing any movement in my HR I
made a decision that I had to start riding.
I “cranked” it up to 220 and rode there until around mile 70. From mile 70 to 111 I allowed myself to get
into the 230’s and 240’s. The last 5
miles I backed way off to try and get my HR down and get ready for the
run. My plan was to aim for 240+ NP for
the entire ride so that’s a little disappointing, but after my HR never came
down I had to adjust. I felt like I
really held back the entire ride. My
quads felt a little tight towards the finish, however, as soon as I got out on
the run that disappeared.
I followed my nutrition plan for about 90 minutes. Drank a ton and had a gel at 0:05, 0:35,
1:05, and 1:35. However, my gut felt
full. I extended my time between gels to
45 minutes. About 2:00 deep I hadn’t
peed yet (not normal for me) despite drinking a lot. I noticed I wasn’t sweating either. I decided to stop supplementing with
salt. An hour later I peed for the first
time and then peed 3 more times before T2.
I started sweating like normal later in the ride too. My gut still felt full towards the end.
T2 1:47
Uneventful, smooth.
Flying dismount off the bike leaving the shoes clipped in. grabbed my t2 bag on the way to the
tent. Sat down as soon as I got in
there. A sock was in each shoe already
rolled half way down so I could stick my toes in and roll it onto my sweaty
foot. (learned this from one of the race
plans I read earlier this year, awesome trick!)
socks and shoes were on quick. Grabbed
my go bag and handed my helmet and t2 bag to volunteer, “thank you”, and took
off. Happy with T2, 2nd fastest time out
of the top 12 guys in my AG. I beat a
lot of pros here! The 13th
place finisher in my AG finished 45 seconds behind me overall but spent 4
minutes 55 seconds more in transition.
Transitions matter in long course!
Run 3:52:45
https://www.strava.com/activities/401744063
Came out of T2 and gut felt a little full from the bike and I
felt like I might have to make a stop at the portapotty. I saw Mariah right away which was great
because I hadn’t seen an EN face in a while.
She told me I was in 7th place! I knew with the swim start that it was very
possible that faster swimmer/cyclists could actually come through T2 after me
and I knew I would get passed on the run, however, it still felt pretty awesome
to hear I was 7th at that point!
I ate a banana in the first mile and by mile 3 my gut felt much
better. Originally my race plan called for me starting
the run with my HR between 145 to 150, however, with my elevated HR on the
bike, I was sure that I wasted/lost some heartbeats out there so I dialed the
goal back to mid 140’s. Sure enough in
the first 10 minutes I got passed by a few guys in my AG and a bunch more with
calf sleeves on that I couldn’t determine.
I stuck to my modified plan. I
walked the 2nd half of the aid stations, drinking GE, pouring water
over my head and ice down the shorts. Around
mile 8 running up Barton Ave, I saw 2 guys flying towards me shoulder to
shoulder with another guy right on their heels.
I knew they were pros and I couldn’t believe how close they were with
only 2 miles or so to go until the finish, wow!
Turns out 2nd place finished 2 seconds behind 1st
and 3rd place was 6 seconds behind 2nd! By mile 8.5 I had caught 2 of the guys in my
AG who blasted by me in the first 1.5 miles of the run, that made me happy and
more determined, and reinforced my modified run plan. I felt good through mile 14 of the run. The suck started at mile 16 and I was able to
run through mile 17.5. That’s where I
had to start taking additional walking breaks between aid stations. One of the things that kept me going on the
run was seeing EN people out there. I
didn’t want them to see me walking, ha ha so that encouraged me to push through
the discomfort. It felt good making the
final turn towards the finish and was thankful that it was downhill! Mariah was there at the finish to catch me
which was awesome! She has become one of
my best friends over the past year and I gave her a big sweaty hug when I crossed!
Conclusion
IM Chattanooga is a great race and I would definitely recommend it to other
athletes. I am happy with my day. After my training bombed the last few weeks
before the race I had some uncertainty as to how the day would unfold. I would have liked to have ridden a little
harder and taken 10 minutes or so off from my run time, but I think I executed
smartly based on what I saw that day. The
team aspect of the race was awesome. It
was great attending the dinner and great having so much support out on the
course on race day. Mariah was an
awesome captain and did such a great job organizing us race weekend and keeping
the forum posts going during the build.
I can’t say enough about how much I’ve learned from EN. I watched Coach Rich’s webinar on the course
and listened to his 4 keys talk on Friday before the race and so much of what
he said played out during the race. I do
a lot of forum stalking and whether or not I post comments on them, I have
learned a ton from other people’s race plans, race reports, threads on
training, racing and all sorts of other posts.
I thank the Coaches and the entire team for constantly contributing, supporting
and encouraging me.
I haven’t signed up for a single race for 2016
yet and it feels really good. I’ve been
saying for several months that I’m not racing an IM next year. It’s hard to throw that possibility
completely out the window so come spring I will make a final determination
there. If no IM’s I’ll definitely put at
least one half on the schedule. I still
have a lot of room to get faster and be smarter and I will definitely be
working hard on that throughout the upcoming OS.
Comments
Grats on your results, thats an awesome time!
Really good decision making during the race - kudos!
Great job Doug! Sounds like you had a great day. I have noticed that this "GUT" thing is sure a hard nut to crack. You did give me an idea though. I let you know how it turns out next summer!
I know what you mean about your brain not being in "it" for that last month. Mine wasn't either. Unlike you, Superman, I didn't have enough hay in the barn to pay off.
Great job. Very proud of you.
~Jacklyn
Doug,
Was a great experience watching you train through the cycle this year. Besides being a good friend, your determination and tenacity day in and day out gave a lot of us mojo with every workout you posted.
You are talented in many ways, physically, mentally and personality wise. Lots for you to refine and improve as you are yet still very young.
From my view, you had an outstanding year, trained very hard and smart, fought through the physical and mental fatigue, helped a lot of your team mates along the way, made EN stronger as a family and executed all that extremely well on race day.
That's a heavy load to shoulder. Downtime over the fall gives perspective and wisdom. Rest, enjoy yourself, have some fun and always,
KMF,
SS
Your power and base are great...and with three under your belt you have a good solid base of experience. I've done three IMs, but taken a year off in between each which, for me, has worked incredibly well.
Nicely done on the race and look forward to seeing what's next for you.
As I was running up the hill out of transition I got to see the battle of the male pros. It.Was.Epic! Some one said "how depressing, there go the pros!" I replied..."they are in a footrace for the win! It's AWESOME!"
Again, congrats on a smartly raced day!
I have to say that although all of your splits are impressive, I am blown away by those transition times. I'm not sure if I could have ran through transition that fast much less actually performed a transition. Crazy fast!
Doug,
Congratulations on a really great race and a really great year. Enjoyed the report a lot. You really are part of EN that makes it fun. Your bike and run numbers continue to astound me. Your FTP is literally my 15-second power and your 5-hr power trumps my FTP. If I ever grow up, I wanna be more like you.
Good swim for you. You blew the doors off on the bike, as expected, but I'm intrigued by the crazy high HR. At my last IM, I started the bike at 157 (about where you did), and after 5-6 miles of climbing, it went under 140 right about 25 minutes and settled in the low 130s. Ended up averaging 133, right about where I thought I should/would. Next time, I wan to get HR down into the 130's in the first 10 minutes. According to Strava, I spent 71% in Zone 2 and 29% in Zone 3. Your HR, on the other hand, never came down and stayed pretty steady, averaging 152. Strava says you spent a staggering 91% of the time in Zone 3. Which, if true, is a pretty massive effort. Even your solid run only had you averaging only 147. If you were expecting low- to mid-140s for the bike, did you had a bike HR cap like P suggests in his HR run strategy? There's a good chance that, had you forced that HR down and kept it at a reasonable ceiling of 145 or even 148, you would have given up 5-10 minutes on the bike. But you might have made up 25 minutes on the run. And the net time is the only one that matters. Not trying to make you second-guess yourself. Quite the contrary, I'm just selfishly and not-too-subtly trying to convince you that you have unsettled business and need to sign up for another one next year.
Congrats again, my friend. Regardless what 2016 brings, I'm confident you'll succeed at it. Just make it fun.
MR
Great race... You killed it out there... Can't wait to see where you go from here!
@Rich, thank you, I’ll be following your race in FL!
@Bill, thank you, likewise it has been fun following you and your season on Strava!
@Jacklyn, the gut issue was a feeling that I had. Fortunately it went away (maybe from the banana or lowering my HR) and that scenario didn’t play out. My nutrition plan is pretty simple and hasn’t caused me any serious issues in training or racing. That being said, there are probably some tweaks that I will try next season in an attempt to run better off the bike. Thank you for the comments!
@Tom, thank you! It was great following you on Strava and I just could not keep up with you at the end, you crushed it! It was great racing with you at CHOO.
@Ed, thank you, it was great hanging out with you at LP and watching you race! I really enjoy talking about training and racing with you. I’m glad you’re going to race again this year with a great bunch of teammates.
@Shaughn, thank you for the kind words! It was great meeting you at LP and watching you race! I’ve said it before, you are one of the people on the team I really look up to and try to emulate. You’re always sharing your veteran knowledge, setting the example and providing encouragement and motivation. Thanks for always leading and being such a big part of this team/family!
@Jeremy, thank you! I’m going to make sure I avoid any race you’re signed up for to avoid making things any tougher on myself! I’ll be following you too.
@Trish, thank you it was great racing with you! One of the things I will think twice about is having a big race so late in the year. If I do sign up for something this late again, I think I will schedule a couple weeks of unstructured training somewhere in there to get that mental break. That pro race was AWESOME!
@Brandon, thank you! You definitely gave me a boost on the run, thanks for that! Keep paying attention to all the smart people on the team and read their race plans and reports. There is so much stuff to learn from what they post. Honestly, I knew nothing about racing triathlon before I joined EN.
@Mike, ha ha, thanks! Thank you for contributing so much to the forums and sharing your knowledge. I’ve had a lot of fun following you this year, watching your prep for NZ and I’m looking forward to following your race at FL!
My race plan shifted after my HR didn’t come down on the bike. I did not have a HR cap for the bike. My plan was to ride the first 45’ soft until my HR came down to the low 140’s. 45’ minutes into the ride I was at 206 NP which is 14 watts less than I was planning on riding to that point and the HR was still in the mid 150’s. My HR just never budged. I didn’t want to give up any more time at that point so I made the decision to increase the watts just not as high as my original plan. As a comparison, last year at LP for the first 5 hours of the bike, my Avg HR was 146 @ 218 watts, and I was weaker on the bike last year.
For the run, I was planning on starting my HR at 145-150 and letting it climb to the mid to high 150’s later in the day. After my bike HR was so high I figured I better back off on the run. I’m glad I did because the run got tough at the end and I think if I tried to stick to my original plan it would’ve spelled disaster.
One of the fun things about long course is trying to figure out that bike/run equation. On a really good day, I don’t really think my current run fitness gets me through the marathon 25 minutes faster even if I were to really undercook the bike. I do agree that I have some unsettled business. I think if things went according to plan I shave a bunch of time off my results. I think (and maybe I’m wrong) blowing up my training the 4 weeks leading up to the race didn’t do me any favors. 9000 yards of swimming in 28 days isn’t IM training! I think the swim may have dented me a little on race day. I missed 9 hours of cycling between 2 to 3 weeks out, not helpful. It’s hard not to be happy about going 10:04, and I’m not complaining or making excuses. However, these are some of the things I need to fix next time around if I want to continue to improve and have any type of chance in my AG.
@Michael, thank you, it was fun racing with you! Ha ha, with all the work you’re going to put into this OS by the time WI and AZ roll around you’re going to be faster than me so you won’t have to worry!
@Ed, thank you! Following you on Strava and seeing your progress this year has been a lot of fun. You provided me with a lot of motivation too. I really appreciate you reaching out to me with your message a few weeks ago. Your season was pretty long too with your first IM in May and then another a few months later. I guess I just need to get a little tougher!
I think that at some point everybody gets tired about training, sometimes you just want to do the damn race and finish with all this, but after a couple of days you return to your racing mojo; just remembering that it's just a game.
I was following you the entire race asking myself, how in the hell he can sustain that speed? I was showing the partials to my wife and she asked me, can you do that? yes of course, for like one, two minutes...
Just enjoy that great result, some of us, and of course including me, dream about those numbers, so you must be really proud of what you just did.
Congratulations again my friend!
Doug, congrats on a very impressive race! I had no idea of what you went through on the lead up to IMCHOO, but for someone who brings the fire and intensity everyday the way you do, i can certainly understand how you can get to that breaking point. Despite how you got to race day, i think you displayed solid execution all the way around. For sure you have built quite the engine on the bike - your power numbers are crazy.
I think you are making a good call to take some time and think about 2016 before making any decisions. Races are staying open longer these days so there's no need to rush into something until you're ready. That being said, I would love to see you pull the trigger on IM next year because i think you still have your best races ahead of you. Get some rest and i'll see you in the OS!
As simple as that. Great training. Loved following you in the months leading up. Great race. For a day that didn't reach the full potential, dang!....smoking fast!
Request...throw some thoughts down in a post about that last month. I'm very curious about it. You're descriptions hit very close to home with 'most' of my final 3-4 weeks leading into my 'A' Races. I know you don't want to dwell on it, but I'm fired up that I'm not the only one that this happens to. Let's do a Taper Autopsy.
Don't wanna? No worries.
Great job, DJ! Recover well!
Overall, a well executed race. More consistent run training might have provided the confidence you needed to keep the walking in the aid stations to a minimum after mile 17. Also, "Drank a ton and had a gel at 0:05, 0:35, 1:05, and 1:35. However, my gut felt full." Maybe there;s some food for thought (pun intended) there.
With your bike power and run speed, you are capable of a KQ given a good season plan and increased attention to details of pacing and nutrition. Like you, I am not going to make a decision until spring on if or when I will do an IM in '16. Jeremy may have some wisdom with the 'every other year" plan.
@Mark, thanks. I haven't completely ruled out an IM so we'll see. I look forward to chasing you in the OS!
@Chris, thanks. I'll shoot you a PM next week and give you some of my thoughts on it. We can talk about it and put it in a post if you want. I don't want to make excuses for myself, however, in addition to the physical cost of training there is a mental cost and I still have a lot to learn about how much of each I can handle.
@Al, thank you. I always appreciate the input you provide to myself and others. Ha ha, I believe you are right and will be thinking about the nutrition equation leading up to my next long course race whenever that may be. I have started to believe I can KQ but for now, it is nice not having the mental weight of an IM in the next 12 months on my shoulders.
Great Race! Congrats!
Dave
The way you approach your training is unlike anyone I've ever seen. Such tenacity and focus, its an honor to watch. I told you this already but medaling you at CHOO will easily be one of the best race moments Ive ever had. Thank you for your contribution to this triathlon family, your execution of what the coaches and team puts together and of course your friendship.
Can't wait to see what you crush next.
Doing my podcast with you in 10'...but I had a similar HR experience on my bike at IMWI. For whatever reason, my HR was elevated by 8-10bpm for the same watts vs my training and RRs. Legs felt flat also. Rather than ride the watts I rode the HR, which was still about 5-6bpm higher than I expected it to be.
The net was that AHR on the bike was ~5-6 > than in RRs and Pnorm ~7-10w lower than I expected. I was about 7-10' slower than my predicted bike split on Best Bike Split but I think this more conservative strategy set me up to run well. No way I could have run 5' faster but I absolutely could, and have, run 10-15' min slower.
My point is that it's usually a bad idea to discount HR and ride the watts instead. The smart strategy is nearly always to be conservative and make it up on the run.
I liked this comment!!
@Tim, no IM for me next year. At first it was hard not to pull the trigger but the last few weeks with a more relaxed approach to training have been great. I'm looking forward to having less volume in 2016.