Brian Hagan's 2016 IMTX Race Plan
Mark – Stealing your format with pride 
!
IMTX is number 3 for me, but my first with EN. I will be 45 this year, so I have aged up to 45-49. I weigh 155 lbs which is the lowest I've been since college. I was 169 at the start of November Outseason with a goal of getting to 150. Close enough....
I joined EN in October 2015 and completed Run Durability, November Outseason, Swim Camp and 12 week IM race prep. I feel so much more prepared, fit and confident than I have felt for the previous 2. So as the 4 Keys talk says, I have built the vehicle, now I just need to drive it for 140.6…. well 122.6…..
My previous races were IMMT 2014 – 13:20 and Muskoka 2015 – 13:01. My A goals was to come in under 12 hours and only walk the aid stations. With the shortened course, my new target is under 11. I have run a 3:38 open marathon, but I have not broken 5 hours for an IM marathon. If I execute the bike the way EN has taught and trained me, I know I can run 4:00 to 4:15.
Race Morning – up by 3AM
- Make cup of coffee
- Vega Bar / Almond Butter Sandwich / Naked Smoothie
- Bathroom
- Go back to bed and wake up at 4AM
- Drink coffee
- Eat banana
- Bathroom
- Apply sunscrean
- Put on race kit/swim skin to waist
- Put on tattoos
- Put on Timing chip
- Put on Garmin 920
- Put one caffeinated gel in race kit
- Bathroom
- Place morning clothes bag in shoulder bag and then have packed
- swim cap, (2) goggles, and wetsuit
- 3 24oz bottles of Gatorade Endurance
- 3 gel flasks
- 3 Amrita bars with the wrappers cut off on the end
- 1 gel for 15 minutes prior to swim
- Place Naked Juice smoothie in bike special needs bag
- Place socks and tums in run special needs bag
- Put on headlamp
- Take morning clothes bag, bike & run special needs
- Leave hotel by 5:10 and walk to transition
Transition - Bike Transition is open from 5:30-6:30
- Inflate tires (100 psi)
- Put bike in easy gear
- Calibrate PM with 920
- Place 1 gel flask in bento
- Fill aero bottle with Gatorade Endurance and place 2 spares in down-tube and rear seat.
- Place arm coolers on aero bars
- Place Amphipod waste belt on arm coolers (with gel flasks, salt pills, amino acid pills and Amrita Bars)
- Band shoes to bike
- Bathroom where I can
- Be out by 5:45 and start heading to swim start
Swim Start
- Walk to North Shore Park
- Only warm-up swim if I will not sacrifice early swim seed
- Stretch and loosen up as much as possible on the walk over
- Apply TriSlide/Body Glide
- Drop off special needs and AM clothes bag and head to the swim start
- Take Gel – With 5 amino acid pills - with sip of Gatorade Endurance
- Seed yourself faster than you think – front of of 1:10
Swim: 1:10-1:15 unless some miracle happens and it becomes wetsuit legal
- Swim in control for the first 5 minutes, not too hard.
- Don’t get bothered by people swimming into me.
- Stay with crowd
- Try to hop on feet
- Breath looking behind me (except when sighting) without lifting head.
- Blow air completely out under water to help my torso sink and legs raise
- Rotate
- Don’t lift left hand.
- Feel whiskers on shoulder (thanks Coach R)
- Think about T1, why I am here and what I need to do.
- Swim a third of the course at a time (1. Out, 2. Back, 3. Canal)
- Don’t turn right until I get back near the bridge
T1: (bike bag – Helmet with sheild)
- Goal – Pass hordes of people. Make my 1:15 swim a 1:10 swim.
- Swim skin off and goggles and cap into bag. Make sure shield is connected to helmet and then put on the helmet.
- Run to Bike
- Attach Amphipod belt to waist
- Put on arm coolers
- Attach 920 to aero bottle
- Carry bike barefoot through mud pit, step in kiddie pool if convenient
- Mount bike at the line and go.
Bike – Goal – 4:30-4:45= Could 5:00-5:10=Should depending on turning execution
- Keep watts around 170 to 180 watts for first 5 mile split!!!! This will make a break my race!
- Start drinking right away. 60oz for first hour.
- Settle into 180 – 190 watts
- Gel or Amrita bar (one per hour) every time a 5 mile split goes off on my Garmin (15 minutes)
- Need all three Amrita bars to be eaten in the first 3 hours.
- Drink 40oz per for hours 2,3,4 and 5.
- Salt tablet every hour
- Take 5 amino acid pills at 2 hour mark
- Remember Rich’s cornering advice. Communicate and think safety first on the turns.
- Be in the right gear going into the turn so you can maintain speed coming out of the turn without tossing out huge watts.
- Be aero at all times unless safety dictates otherwise.
- Start pouring water over my head at mile 75
- Do not deviate from 190 watt max!
- Add specifics after driving the course
T2: (Run Bag: Shoes and Socks, go bag consisting of hat, race belt, banana, salt tablets, and gel flask)
- Socks, shoes, go-bag & GO
- Eat banana
- 5 amino acid pills at first aid station
- 1 salt pill at first aid station (assess hand swelling, if not take one per hour)
- Fill ice bag at first aid station
Run 4:00 to 4:10
- Walk till heart rate is below 130 (unless it already is)
- Start running while keeping HR below 135 for first 6 miles.
- Miles 6 to 18 – Heart Rate can go to 145 – Start coke
- Fill ice bag and tuck inside jersey. If hot, grab & keep ice in hand exiting all aid stations.
- If hotter than expected, slow down – trust heart rate
- 3-4 gels by mile 6 stopping at aid stations as needed then liquid and whatever I can eat as needed
- 26 (1) mile runs
- Walk at the aid stations and get heart rate below 130 then start running.
- Try to avoid getting shoes wet
- Don’t worry about everyone else racing around you
- Mile 18 to 26 – Heart rate can go into 150s –
- Strong internal focus
- Feed off crowd in town
- Pass all the swimmers!
- I can’t think of it as three loops – just 26 mile repeats.
- Raise arms and smile for Finisher Pix photo at the finish
I welcome any suggestions! Thanks!!!!
Comments
Good luck!Great planning Brian!!
Also, I really enjoyed and became inspired watching you put in all the IM work like a boss during this cycle!
My key advice for Texas centers around the levels of humidity that can occur and the effects of that on your body over a long day. If you are like me and sweat buckets, you will be replacing a lot of water loss hourly. Correlated with the amount of sweat you lose is the amount of sodium you lose. Over many hours during the day it has to be kept in check.
Over the course of a long day in a place like Houston, its going to be real hard to take in too much sodium IMO. I am usually pumping 1500 - 1800 mg / hour under those conditions given my sweat rate. Think about that, look at your plan below and derive what your current planned hourly sodium intake is if you ingest as written, including your sports drink, tablets and other items. Adjust as needed.
Looking forward to watching you take care of business this weekend!
SS
Brian,
Solid plan. Like me, I suspect you'll enjoy seeing your first post-EN IM results. Great advice from Rich and SS. Salt intake is specific to each individual. Some are quite sensitive and swell up if they take too much. Folks like SS and me, we can pop salt pills like candy and still out-sweat it. In short, I think 11 hours is quite achievable if you take care of your pacing and nutrition on the bike and heat management on the run. You don't mention your breakfast caloric intake, but it looks like it could be low. I'm your size and shoot for at least 800 calories on race morning, with very little fat/fiber. Likewise, on the bike you should calculate the grams of carbs per hour in your plan. A 155lb'r can only absorb around 90 g/hr, but it's easy to over-stuff the gut while horizontal and not jostling. But it will manifest itself when you get vertical and start bouncing on the run. Probably 1,000 people will make this mistake on Saturday. And if your stomach starts rejecting the solids before 3 hours (my cut-off is 2 hours), don't force them. Toss them and hit the gels/liquids. Way too many people over-eat, under-drink and under-salt on the bike, IMO. If I'm going to err, it's light on food and heavy on liquid + salt. For the run, I would shoot for about 45 g/hr, with a banana right out of T1 and then a gel no later than 5, 10, 15 and 20, but that's only what my plan would be if I weren't going to be on the couch this weekend. You will likely eat less than planned on the run in the heat. And I would have salt pills on the run, even if you don't think you'll need them. But assuming you nail your pacing and nutrition on the bike, the run here is mostly about the heat. Coach P's advice to start pouring ice water all over you starting around Mile 75 on the bike is $. Continue that throughout the run, don't let that HR spike and don't let the core temp get too high. Once it's elevated, it's very difficult to reverse course. And, unless you're in distress, simply don't stop. If you can only jog the third lap, you'll still be passing dozens every minute. Use that power to will you forward.
Looking forward to following your success on Saturday.
MR
Just be careful with the humidity, heat and corners and everything should go perfectly ! enjoy
Your number one task is to have a successful marathon. All else is secondary to this. A successful marathon will not be defined by the time you run. Rather, it will be defined by something much simpler: you just kept running, however slow you needed to go to keep on running to the end.
You said, " I have run a 3:38 open marathon, but I have not broken 5 hours for an IM marathon. If I execute the bike the way EN has taught and trained me, I know I can run 4:00 to 4:15." Be very careful with that kind of thinking. In fact, I would throw it out the window, unless that 3:38 was run in the kind of heat/humidity you'll be facing. Rather, stick with your goal of: "If hotter than expected, slow down – trust heart rate"
Great plan, a couple of comments. One, you have a target HR for the run. I would suggest, if you have the data to look back at, you find what was the HR that led to the right watt number. I would use that as a measure while on the bike as well. My bike last year got significantly better when I focused on HR instead of watts, though the watts worked out just fine.
You know your system best, but I know I have a bit of trouble eating right after the swim on the bike. I need things to settle a bit (10 or 20 min) before I can truly start eating. I would shoot for liquids first (more Gatorade Endurance, yummy!) until that settles. If your stomach is not as fickle as mine, no worries.
Good luck and enjoy the first race after training with EN, as MR said, it was mind blowing for me!
As MR says, the banana coming out of T2 is money for me, so I would see if you can fit that in. It will also force you to come out a bit slower (not a bad thing) if you are pounding that down to start.
Good stuff Brian..A couple comments. Could you put your arm coolers on while riding. You can have those rolled up and on your aero bars so when your arms dry from the wind, you can roll those right up. It could be a struggle trying to put them on when wet. Also, can you skip the amrita bar inT1 and do that while on your bike.
Great plan! Trust your training, listen to your body and challenge yourself to make smart decisions at all times and i think you will have a great race. Looking forward to sharing the course with you on saturday!
3rd IM + the preparation shown in this plan = very smart athlete
Very fit + very smart = a very good day
Can't wait to watch your first EN race.... Wishing you good skill Brian!
Thanks so much for taking the time to read my plan and offer your input! I made updates to my original post below based off your feedback.