Tom's IM Texas RR or How to split run the Ironman marathon
Ironman Texas 2016 race report
I now know why the coaches introduced the split long run into the ironman training plans this year: so I would be better prepared for the split run in this years marathon run!
Short version:
12th ironman, 4th Texas.
Swim: 1:16:28
T1: 3:15
Bike (94 miles): 4:34:54
T2: 4:35
Run: 4:06:38 (time on my watch=4:03:40)
Overall time: 10:05:40*
Place AG 8th
*Ironman has attempted to adjust times for the storm delay. They have given me 38 minutes however my watch indicated I was stopped for 41 minutes. 7th place was 4 minutes in front of me.
Long version:
Race week: I was solo for this race which I did once before at Arizona. The biggest issue is the logistics of race day. I drove the newly released bike course on Wednesday with a friend from Salem. Lots of turns and through heavy traffic so my biggest concern was if they would have enough traffic control or if we would be riding amongst the cars. As it turned out, the course was flat and fast without much interference from traffic. More drama hit this years race Wednesday evening when they announced the water quality in the canal portion of the swim failed testing but the lake was ok. So they moved T1 to the swim start and changed the swim course to one loop in the lake. This had the small benefit of adding back one mile to the shortened bike course. Thursday I rode about 12 miles of the bike course and met the team for dinner. Friday was bike and bag check in and then to a movie to get off my feet and not think about the race. In bed by 8.
Race morning: I awoke at 3 AM and worked off my checklists that I had been using all week. I ate about 800 calories and then sipped on gatorade until just before race start. Suited up and out the door by 4AM in order to allow myself enough time to park close to T2 and then walk to the swim start (about a mile walk). Pumped tires, shoes placed on bike, torpedo filled, extra bottle of perform in rear cage and Garmin turned on and calibrated. Then waited for the start.
Swim: (goal 1:12) actual 1:16:28. I tried to seed myself in the rolling start line just in front of the 1:10 group. The volunteers marking estimated swim times weren't very distinct. No signs being held up to guide people. If I hadn't been standing right next to one when he said this is the 1:10 group I would never have known where I was. My last practice swim in the pool was right around 1:12 so figured with some drafting and my swimskin minus the zigzagging that was about right. The gun went off and the line started moving. I took a gel. It took me only about a minute before I got to the water and was off. Right away I was being passed by faster swimmers which I expected to some extent. I think I started swimming a little defensively with my elbows out wide and lifting my head more. I felt slow so I just tried to concentrate on form which is much easier to do when alone in a swim lane versus surrounded by my triathlete friends. High elbow catch, keep the stroke rate up, one goggle in the water. This years water clarity was no different than any other year, murky at best. It is really difficult to find a draft and stay on feet without sighting much more frequently which just drops the feet. I could hold a draft for a few strokes but then lost them. Repeat. Other than feeling slow, the biggest hiccup in the swim was the chaffing in my arm pits developing from my LG sleeved race kit. The kit has seams in the arm pit which I could feel about half way into the swim. I had debated ahead of time if I should swim with the arms out and kit pulled down to my waist or keep sleeves on to save time in T1. Mistake #1 was not doing a practice swim with the kit on and testing to see how difficult it is to get the sleeves on when wet or if there were going to be chaffing issues. In the end, my arm pits got chaffed. It might have affected my form slightly in the last 1/4 of the swim but probably not a huge deal. I let that go outside my box. The last couple hundred yards I started going over in my mind my steps through T1
T1: (goal 4:00) actual 3:16. This was the 2nd fastest T1 in age group, the fastest being only 11" faster and that was by the age group winner. Stripped my swimskin to my waist as I ran to my bag. Headed to the tent which was a very short distance and I was concentrating on hopping over bags to take a more direct line to the tent entrance. I had intended to get my helmet on as I ran to the tent but just didn't have the time. As I entered the tent I went straight to an available volunteer, dumped my bag, stripped the rest of my swim skin off and told the volunteer the Starbucks card was for him and could he please repack my bag. Grabbed my helmet and sunglasses and was out of there without ever sitting down. As I ran to my bike I put my helmet and sunglasses on. Being race number 275, I was close to the front so I didn't have far to run with my bike. Nearly perfect T1.
Bike: (goal4:45) Actual 4:34:54. VI 1.05 NP 170 As much controversy as there was about the bike course it wasn't that bad. I was a bit worried that they may have trouble at some of the intersections controlling traffic or that we would be sharing busy roads with heavy traffic. In the end it actually worked. There were a lot of turns however requiring you to slow down and then accelerate out of the turn. It was quite easy to spike your power out of the turns which I tried to manage by shifting down just before the turn. The winds were fairly calm this year which was also a plus. The trouble I had was with some of the aid stations. Missed a couple bottles, missed a couple gels. Aid stations seemed short, a couple came up on us suddenly and seemed not well thought out. After I ran out of my gel flask I think I only managed to grab one gel so I thought I might be a little behind on calories. To make up for it I tried to take in 6-7 gulps of gatorade instead of my planned 3-4. So I think I was well hydrated, peeing about 4 times. My power goal was 190 to start then bump to 195 then 200 depending on how I was feeling and my heart rate. (5 hour power 204, FTP 277). I felt like I was able to do that during the straights but with so many corners the average normalized power fell to 170. I debated whether I should work on getting that average up by going higher on the straights but decided against it because I really wanted to crush the run! Overall, I think I left time out on the bike course. I need to become a better cyclist but I fear my inner ear balance issues may prevent me from having the confidence to really go after the bike course and still have a killer run. Iron distance racing is a difficult beast to do a lot of trial and error. You never do 112 mile bike ride followed by a 26 mile run to test and experiment.
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1171753563
T2: goal 4:00. Actual 4:35. 4th fastest in age group. Total transition times was 3rd fastest in my age group (only missing fastest by 11". Slipped feet out of shoes before dismount, handed bike to volunteer and ran to my bag. Porta-john stop just before tent. As I entered tent once again searched for an available volunteer. Dumped my bag and made sure to tell the volunteer to not empty my go bag (except I did have him turn my garmin on which was in my go bag). Socks and shoes on and out the tent.
Run: goal 4:00, actual 4:03 minus the 41 minutes I was stopped. This was my first split long run of any ironman marathon. Started garmin and got settled with my go bag contents. Race belt with gels attached, arm coolers and hat on. I used the ziplock bag for ice and filled it at every aid station. I then stuffed it in the top back of my race kit. I raced the entire run by heart rate. I checked my pace a few times on a different watch screen but knew I needed to obey my heart rate. My bike heart rate was about 127-8 towards the last hour. My pre race goal was to keep it under 130 but with the heat it crept up to the 133-135 range. My last couple long training runs were outside on a warm day and on my treadmill with the heat and humidity cranked. My heart rate on those runs averaged in the low 140's so I knew I could do a little higher heart. Anytime it got above 135 though I consciously slowed down. In those first 6 miles I actually tried to keep it low 130's. As I was getting ready to start the second loop of three I let the heart rate go solid mid 130's. I felt good. As I started lap three, I just let the heart rate become my whip. I consciously tried to push it up to 140 and was feeling good. I was prepared to go into that dark place. I noticed the clouds getting a little thicker and darker and was hoping I could finish before any rain started. Not to happen. As I looped though the swim park again, I felt the first drops. As I exited the park it was definitely raining. It really started to come down in buckets and deep puddles formed. My thoughts at this point were that hopefully I wouldn't get blisters from totally soaked shoes and the faster I ran the sooner it would be over. I felt amazingly good at this point and was passing everyone. Nobody was passing me. Then the lightening and thunder started cracking all around me and my thought was I hope I don't get struck by lightening under one of these trees. It became impossible to dodge the deeper puddles because the entire road and path became one deep puddle so I just embraced it and kept running. As I was about to exit the wooded path just before the park on the south side of the lake (mile 21.7 for me), runners were all stopped. There were probably 100-200 people in front of me. We assumed it was because of the weather but no one knew for sure what was going on or when and if we were going to start running again. As I stopped someone just in front of me was yelling for everyone to stop their watches which made sense. So we stood there. In the rain. Soaking wet. With lightening flashing all around us. In the trees. We started to get cold. Real cold. Jumping in place and trying to move wasn't cutting it. Right next to me a group of about 15 people decided to huddle close. As in a tight little group hug. I joined in because I was shivering. It really helped keep us all warm. There was an aid station in the park just beyond where we were stopped and so the volunteers started coming through the line with grapes, bananas, chips and coke. Later they passed out garbage bags to wear. So as I'm standing there I'm thinking this really sucks. I was having a great run. I had passed all these people in the 2-3 miles before getting stopped and now they were all standing right behind me. And some of them decided it was ok to just walk around the people in front of them and get closer to the front of the line. Definitely a form of cheating not seen before. After 41 minutes on my watch, we were allowed to start running again. Of course we were all stiff and really just started to shuffle along. Being on a narrow path, with people all packed together it was like the start of any large marathon starting as a walk then slow jog, then finally as we got onto the wide road in the neighborhood to a run. It actually helped get the stiffness out by starting slowly. Now I could continue to slay the run, but I had to repass all those people I had previously passed. With 4.5 miles to go I pushed as hard as I could which in reality was not quite up to my TRP. Crossing the line was as good as it ever has been. I actually heard Mike Reilly call out my name.
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1168517258
Summary: Unfortunately there probably will never be a way to accurately give people proper times. After the race, I heard all stories about some people not being stopped and continued to run, some only stopped for a few minutes and some being stopped but then running up to the next stopping point. Of course, if you were fast enough, you managed to finish before the storm hit. Fortunately, I think most of the pointy end folks did that and their times are accurate so congratulations to them!
Ironman Texas 2016 took a lot out of me and put a lot of stress on my family. I think it’s time to take a step back a rethink my triathlon goals for now. Don't know what the future holds but probably not an ironman for awhile. It was great racing with everyone and getting a chance to meet folks from the forums and strava. Thanks for reading.
Comments
Have you been to Kona yet? If not, you might rethink your plans for 2017 because now that you are Legacy eligible you need to continuously register each year to maintain it. So pick a 2017 IM and then apply for the Legacy program when it opens early next year. You probably won't get picked up until 2018 but you will set yourself back two years in line if you skip doing an IM next year.
I hope that you rest and recover and find the bandwidth to get back out there when the time is right. I expect great things out of you.
Hey Tom, It was great to meet you and hang out for the few days we spent together. I sense the frustration, but i think you have a lot of positives to take out of this race starting with a top 10 AG finish! It also sounds like you would have been pretty well under 4:00 on the run had the thunderstorms not occurred. I hear you on the toll IM racing/training takes on all other aspects of your life, but no need to make any rush decisions now. Also, i agree with Paul in that if you are looking to get to Kona via legacy, it might make sense to line up an IM for next year. More and more people are hitting that milestone so the waitlist, i imagine, keeps growing. However, when you start getting top 10 in AG, outright KQ is a real possibility, but only you can decide if work/family allows for continued focus to keep on improving. Rest up and hopefully sometime down the road we'll get to race together again!
nice work. congrats.
yes a tough call. you are close to greater greatness. but. ...
looking at your bike pic ::: have you tried getting a more aggressive fit ? or are there flexibility problems ?
best for whatever your future decisions bring.