The RR that wasn't
Things have been kind of a bur the last day and a half or so, but I figured I'd try and take a few minutes to go over my failed attempt at a Race Rehearsal for IM KS 70.3 yesterday. My 2nd RR technically is not supposed to be until next week however I have an Olympic next Sunday so a few local guys who are also doing KS with me and decided that we were going to try and go out and hit an RR this weekend instead.
I planned to ride somewhat aggressively at 0.85 IF, but based off what I believe to be a conservative estimate of my FTP at 260. Regardless, whether or not this in fact turned out to be too aggressive or not was what I was hoping to find out.
1st 0-.5hrs, slight downhills GW - 5% 210
2nd Goal Watts (GW) 221
3rd Long hills (>~3') GW + 5% 232
4th Short hills (<~1-2')<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> GW + 10% 243
Nutrition in hand (EFS + EFS LiquiShot) we set out, I may add somewhat reluctantly on my part as things just did not seem to be going my way throughout the entire day after being beset with a wide range of mechanical and other minor issues in trying to get my bike ready earlier in the day, swapping various components (wheels and brake pads primarily) to my race configuration. Immediately after setting out my one friend announced that he must have relieved me of my bad luck since it suddenly appeared that his PowerTap was not working on the day. As we set out, I tried hard to stick to my goal wattage but we soon encountered some strong cross and headwinds where the others, only one of which who had a power meter (not working at the time) soon passed me and went on riding with their hearts rather than their brains... or at least I thought. I soon started to question why it seemed so hard to stick to my power zones and why I was losing so much distance on the others when I realized that my brake pads had started rubbing quite severely against my rear wheel after hitting a particularly rough patch of road. After stopping twice to try and open up my breaks, I reluctantly continued on, my brakes still rubbing sporadically. Things were not going particularly well, but I was sticking to my plan and felt that the others were riding far too hard into the wind and would wind up blowing up on the 2nd half or during the run itself, where upon they would turn to me and ask what my secret to pacing was...
That is not how fate would have it that day. Twenty miles into the ride, I came through the first and only town on the route and noticed a commotion up ahead. The route actually takes a side street away from this commotion, but something did not seem right, so I turned back and decided to go check it out. As soon as I hung the corner I saw a bike on the ground, my friends' Specialized transition, the front wheel tacoed and the frame bent in half, my heart immediately sunk and I jumped off my bike and ran to find him laying in ditch. A young, highschool aged, girl had either failed to notice him or thought she could beat him and t-boned him as she tried to make a left turn. He went over the hood and into the ditch and was certainly not in walk it off condition, he could not move an inch. After gathering a small crowd and finally getting an ambulance we left our bikes, told the locals to look out and alert the other two riders who were still out there and I rode in the ambulance to the ER with him. At the end of a very long day he was discharged with a lot of road rash, some stitches, and some pretty severe bruising but no broken bones. In light of things, it was about as happy of an ending as I could have hoped for. For some comic relief to lift his spirits I did my best to look as ridiculous as possible parading around the hospital in a one-piece Desoto Forza trisuit and bike shoes, speedplays no less, I sounded a bit like Spandex-laden tapdancer on the hard floors.
So ended RR attempt #2, only 20 miles after it began. I'm not really sure what I am going to do now as far as trying to make it up but honestly it hasn't been the most pressing thing on my mind. Stay safe out there everyone, I'm hoping my feeling that it's not a matter of "if" but "when" proves to be an false assumption.
Comments
tom
Taylor, what a terrble day is right thank goodness your friend did as well as he did. I have a RR that never was.I was really struggling with my swim so I flew to Tucson from So. Cal to take private swim lessons for 4 days straight with multiple lessons and swims a day, by the last day I could barely move my left shoulder. Flew home and I have been going to PT ever since. So no RR this weekend and my A race is less than 3 weeks. So I decided it would be a good idea to add some long runs since I couldn't do my 60 minute swims and ended up with callf issues, not quite tendonitis but for sure facitious (sp) so I have now been grounded from running. I think these are the things that go wrong because I think I was going to struggle with 'tapering", so have a forced taper. Really bummed though because I was reading everyone's RR's and feeling blue. Your story makes me feel grateful that we all have one another, that we CAN enjoy our passion and that working as hard as we all do and learning so much has been a real blessing at this phase of my life. Safe RR to you in the future
Sorry, I meant TREVOR
Oh, no! I'm glad you friend is okay. I wouldn't sweat the RR too much -- this is a good illustration of why we have two.
The second one will hopefully be better, Glad he is okay.
Be safe out there
Thanks for all the kind words, unfortunately, this was my second attempt at the RR, my 70.3 is 3 weeks out (6/6/10). Technically I can reschedule it for next Saturday, the day I was supposed to do it, and just do my Olympic (Bluff Creek) on Sunday at a low intensity/fun race. What I think I may do is extend my mid-week ride some, ride it at slightly above race pace, and work in a brick afterwards to kind of approximate an RR.
In the end, I've got a lot less to worry about in the next three weeks than the guy who got hit, who is a member of my local Tri club and was doing IM KS 70.3 as his first half. It's certainly no gurantee that he'll be able to race Kansas, but talking with him today he's spending his down time researching new bikes and can't wait to get back out there.
You rode KS before, it is not a forgiving course, therefore I would just lower each of your gears by about 5 watts. Make SURE you stick with Gear 1 for the first half our as everyone else will fly out of T1 and hit the first few hills and the damn hard. Settle into your gear 2 after that and then on the hills remeber less is more. Climb the hills with as few watts as you can and the keep your power up over the top and down the other side.
IF you are feeling really strong after the second turn-around then you can pick it up a little bit, but until then play it safe. There was a nasty wind last year on the way back that slowed a lot of people down and I passed litterally hundreds of people that were suffering up the final few climbs.
You have 13.1 miles to make up the 2-3 minutes you may "lose" by riding easy, but if you go to hard on that course, you will have 13.1 mills to walk and talk to others about how good your bike split was.
The gearing comes from a spreadsheet that you get with the Racing with Power information. Go to the Wiki and search on "Racing with Power Kit". Download the file and there will be an Excel file in there to help determine the different gears to ride in while racing IMs and halfs.
Basically gear 2 is race pace, gear 1 warm up, gear 3 & 4 are for hills
tom
1st 0-.5hrs, slight downhills GW - 5% 210
2nd Goal Watts (GW) 221
3rd Long hills (>~3') GW + 5% 232
4th Short hills (<~1-2') GW + 10% 243 <br />
I know that the race execution podcast and workbook to create your gears can be found in the EN train map and I believe you can also find them in the wiki now.
Matt and Tom, thanks so much, thats why it didn't make sense because I don't race with power (yet) but use heart rate, but now that you have explained it, it is probably high Zone One, low Zone Two for 30 minutes. Sounds like I am supposed to stay in high Zone 2 through-out the bike except for the times I have to put on the push for hills but watch my HR and get it down. I have mostly trained in mid to high Zone 4 doing lots of intervals so I am kind of concerned about how this will effect my "tine" by riding in Zone 2 which is just cruising for me. It is finally making sense now why R&P have said in many ways the actual race will be easier than all the traiining. Just hope I am not going to "slow". I am going to trust them and know that they know a lot more than I do.
Is that both of your impressions as well? although you convert this to power, I am trying to incorporate it to HR (did listen to the podcast on this) and basically it was hard for me to believe that Zone 2 is going to get me done in time. I am one of those that is worried about the time cut off on the bike due to road closures (5.5 hours from start of race) which includes the swim and T1. I know this sounds really lame to you but I am just not that FAST on the bike. But I do want to "finish" and do want to have a good 13.1 run!!! So for long hlls (lke the 7 mile) it sounds like I will be in high Zone 3 low zone 4? and in short hills even go to high zone 4 briefly?
I went to Kona a month ago to ride the course and was shocked at the head winds and sidewinds (their web site says up to 60 MPH can happen on race day) which made me "gulp" but to expect 25-30 MPH which it was pretty much lilke that when I did the course . But because of that AND the hills my heart rate was much higher executing these conditions than they are asking of me? If you guys think this is something I should put out to R&P I will but you both of you sound really experienced so if you have time would appreciate your feedback
Assuming zone 4 is equal to FTP, I would do your best to never go about that effort level and spend the first 30-45 minutes of the ride in z2 and then the rest of the ride in low z3. When you hit hills, just try to make it up them with the least effort possible. Shift to your easiest gear on your bike and spin up them.
Again take this with a gain of salt as I only use power.
RnP once said to pay attention to how much force you are putting on the pedals when you are approaching a hill. When you start to climb that hill the force should not increase much.
Hi Matt, well even though you say you don't have HR experience, how you described it sounds pretty right on. I do rembmer the pedal thing to so I will keep that in mind.
I went to a TRI camp in Tucson about 5 weeks ago or so and we road Mt. Lemmon which has a 17% grade and I was in my easiest gears and my feet started killing me (my force was ridiculous), that was the first time that has ever happened, but the entire ride was uphill, coming down was a blast though!
OK well thanks for all your time and help, will keep you posted after and let you know how it went!
William, well if that happens to me I will be really impressed but I bet I end up passing SOMEONE on the run! And I know I will be hearing their voices too. I have been listening to al the HIM talks and podcasts and Rich really gets worked up, man I don't want to have him on my back so gonna do it by the BOOK. Mostly I hear him saying you get your nutrition for the run on the bike so that is the other thing I am going to be juggling....have a plan though.... a camel back full of concentrted ininity and although it will be hard to clean out I will sacrifice that so I have both hands on the bike at all times
@Trevor - I'm soooooo glad your friend is okay. Wow! I agree that you should scrap the RR. Granted I'm a newbie, but the sense I get is the RR is to dial everything in - nutrition, pacing, etc... sounds like you've done the drill before (or at least this race) so you should be A-OK. My only hope is that you got the bad juju out of your system and will have a stellar race day! I would sure hope so... and, FWIW nothing bugs me more than when a good bump messes with my rear brake and I have to stop to adjust it so it doesn't rub. Grr... happened to me last weekend as a matter of fact!
@Linda - I'm an HR'er, too. I listed to the bike execution podcast before my first HIM RR. it was almost entirely tailored to the power athletes (a bummer)... but there are a few nuggets in the podcast for us - about hills, etc... for the most part, they talk about paying attention to cadence and how much pressure we put on our pedals - try to keep that consistent instead of killing ourselves to get up. In the podcast the coaches mention adding a bike execution guide for HR athlestes, but I checked the wiki and didn't see it... You may also find what you're looking for in the HIM execution wiki or RR wiki (I can't remember) that will talk about what zones we should be in... for the most part it's easy (like you can read a book while riding) for the first 30 minutes then, depending on your projected finish time, Z2 (if you project longer than 3 hours) or Z2-Z3 if you project 3 hours or less.
By the way, there are hills in Kansas? I drove through there- no way! I also read a report that compared to a pancake, KS is flatter.
I believe that may hold true for Western Kansas but I have ridden the IMKS course in Lawrence and I assure you it is far from flat. Not that I have the best context to compare it against since I am from Florida and I now live in Iowa, but then again Iowa is not as flat as you would think either. Regardless, the IMKS course is no joke.
Also, I can reluctantly report that my friend who was hit went back to the doctor today after experiencing persistent nausea and was given a CAT scan. I did not get the results yet, but they are fairly sure he suffered a concussion that they did not catch on the day of the accident. The doctor's latest forecast is that he should be up and moving again in time to be ready for RAGBRAI... which is in late July. So he will not be racing IM Kansas, nor any of the other 5 (I think) early season races that he was signed up for.
Still, it could have been far worse and it's not going to keep me off the roads but it certainly will remind me to keep wearing my road ID and to be grateful for every race I'm fortunate enough to do, no matter how well I do in them.