Chad Scott's IM Choo Race Report
- This was my 7th Ironman and I bonked on my last 2 during run
- So I really dialed in my plan and nutrition, I had my plan, my backup plan and my back up to my back up plan.
- I was 100% confident in my plan
- I put in 6 100 mile rides leading up to race, felt really good, worked out all the kinks in nutrition
- My sweat rate on bike is 1.8 bottles/hr and 3.2 bottles/hr on run. I have on record about 10 samples of each to confirm this and I practiced it A LOT!
- I suffered stress fracture in my fibula 3 weeks out which means I completely shut down until the race. Plan changed L
- My CTL going into 3 weeks out was 128 and I ended up racing right at 100. I don’t know how much this affected my results but probably had some effect.
- Followed my Core Diet all the way to race start and felt good with that. This includes 2 day out/1 day out/morning of race.
Swim: I opted for wetsuit due to the fact that the flex in my kick aggravated my fibula. I knew that by doing this I was starting out in the hole due to the 81 degree water temperature. It was what I figured to be the best for my leg and that was really my only concern. The swim felt good, not really any troubles there. With the staggered start, there is not much traffic. I had to burp the suit to keep cool but I was pretty warm.
T1 was pretty quick for me and efficient. I could probably shave a minute or 2 if I needed to.
Bike: When I got on my bike I really did not know what to expect, as I had not worked out in 3 weeks. I knew that all my rides where 147 hr at 175 NP. First hour being 142 HR at 165 NP (and I could eat my bucket of chicken). So when I pulled up to 165 NP I noticed my HR sitting at around 160 which I let sit there for a little bit to see if it would come down, which it didn’t. So I dialed it way back and just looked at my HR. Once I found my HR to level off around 148-150, I took note of my watts and that became my new target. So for the remainder of the ride I had a new NP of about 160 and a new target Avg HR of 149-151. I gathered this from my first 2 hours on the bike and then just rolled with it. Overall, the bike felt good expect it was just HOT! I picked up a lot of people that came back to me on the last 30 mile stretch. I was just not slowing down and people were going backwards, it was nice to feel that and build some confidence going into the run.
I nailed my nutrition and then some. I drink 3 bottles (2 proform, 1 Gat) the first 1hr 15min. I knew that I needed that extra bottle due to the hot swim. Then from that I average a little over 2 bottles per hour, which my goal was only 2 bottles. Due to the heat I knew that getting extra would be helpful. I peed 3 times on the bike, last one at about mile 90 so I knew I was well hydrated. I consumed around 350 cal/hr in liquid plus half cliff bar/hr. That put me just over 400 calories per hour. I got 1200g /hr of sodium through the Gatorade but starting at mile 60 I also added another 300g of sodium through base (that put me at 1500/hr for back half). All in all, I felt like I did well on the bike execution and really hit the nutrition. I knew the down time would slow my pace down a little and I would have to adjust on the fly, which I had never done before. I don’t think I could have executed this bike much better then this and felt really good about it. I just wanted to get to Mile 18 on the run!
| Time | Distance | Elev Gain | Avg Speed | Avg HR | Normalized Power |
| 13:42 | 4.64 | 138 | 20.3 | 161 | 162 |
| 1:08:45 | 22.5 | 758 | 19.6 | 149 | 148 |
| 1:01:26 | 20.43 | 735 | 20 | 150 | 160 |
| 1:00:57 | 19.47 | 778 | 19.2 | 152 | 163 |
| 1:05:54 | 21 | 719 | 19.1 | 151 | 159 |
| 1:21:17 | 26.93 | 732 | 19.9 | 151 | 159 |
| 5:52:01 | 114.99 | 3,858 | 19.6 | 151 | 158 |
T2: In and out pretty quick, around 4 minutes.
Run:
Felt pretty good on the start of the run. My past workouts/long runs lead me to a target run HR of 148 for first 6 miles, then 155 for remainder of run. That was pretty conservative based on my AVG HR being 162 for all my long runs. I figured that if I settled on 155 I could probably hold that. This was before the stress fracture so I really did not know what to expect. Just like the bike, I was just going to have to adjust on fly.
Since my AVG HR was 151 off the bike I tried to hold that on first 6 miles but was also going by how I felt too. As I figured, my HR was elevated due to my lack in training leading up to the race and the Extreme heat that day. So I talked myself into letting it creep up to 157 for first 6 miles then try and stay at 160 for the remainder of run. I never once looked at my pace, only looked at my HR which is new to me. During the race I thought that I stayed pretty true to this but after my analysis I see I jumped up and down a good bit. I guess since I did not lap very often I was looking at my avg HR and didn’t notice the jump. This is a good lesson learned, I need to lap more on the run so I can catch the jumps in HR.
| Mile | Pace | Avg Hr |
| 1 | 10:21 | 154 |
| 2 | 9:25 | 156 |
| 3 | 9:58 | 158 |
| 4 | 10:09 | 157 |
| 5 | 9:51 | 158 |
| 6 | 9:48 | 159 |
| 7 | 9:56 | 160 |
| 8 | 10:57 | 158 |
| 9 | 10:46 | 158 |
| 10 | 10:30 | 156 |
| 11 | 10:56 | 155 |
| 12 | 11:55 | 160 |
| 13 | 11:58 | 162 |
| 14 | 11:57 | 163 |
| 15 | 12:22 | 162 |
| 16 | 13:06 | 161 |
| 17 | 12:54 | 161 |
| 18 | 13:17 | 160 |
| 19 | 13:09 | 161 |
| 20 | 13:24 | 161 |
| 21 | 12:33 | 160 |
| 22 | 12:35 | 156 |
| 23 | 12:33 | 157 |
| 24 | 13:27 | 157 |
My nutrition felt like I hit pretty good as my goal was to consume 48oz/hr and 300 cal/hr. From what I can remember I followed this to the script. I used a bottled I carried to keep track and filled it up about every 3-4 miles with Gat and full of ice so the bottle was only half Gatorade/half water. I also consumed some base salt about once every 45 min with a gel. I’m pretty sure I actually got in more liquid then this as the day went on but I kind of lost track. I continuously cooled myself with RaceSaver™ that Coach Patrick sells. I filled this up with ice at least every other station on the run and just moved it all over to try and keep cool. I actually peed on the run at about mile 8. I felt like I help a pretty steady pace throughout but as you can see it continuously dropped throughout the day. I had my auto pause on so I have some aid station walking not show up on this chart. Other then the aid stations I only walked up the hills on the back side on the second loop, I was able to keep a trot the rest of time. My leg started bothering me about half way through the run but it never really slowed me down. It just hurt like hell and got my mind off of everything else that hurt so I don’t think it really effected my time.
I did have some pretty major tingling in my hands starting at mile 15 or so. I thought this was lack of potassium so I started consuming bananas at every aid station. It never really went away and progressively got worse throughout run. This never went way until I got 2 liters of fluids after the race in the Med tent. Apparently, the tingling was just a sign of some major dehydration according to the Doc in the tent. Once I stopped at the finish my world kind of got a little blurry so guess I didn’t or couldn’t get enough fluid on the run.
Summery: I finished 44th out of 187 in my age group which is top 23% and with that kind of heat is good! I do feel like a trained a lot harder then this and should have been a little further up in my age group. I’m starting to realize that the goal of actually getting competitive in my age group is probably not realistic for me.That was really what I want to accomplish and after 7 tries I'm starting to figure out that its probably not going to happen. I might put Triathlon on the back burner for a while.... I"m going to think about this for a while but right now I"m on the fence. Now having 3 kids under the age of 4 makes the commitment a family decision.
Chad Scott
SWIM DETAILS | Division Rank: 37
| Split Name | Distance | Split Time | Race Time | Pace | Division Rank | Gender Rank | Overall Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 2.4 mi | 1:01:06 | 1:01:06 | 1:34/100m | 37 | 234 | 318 |
BIKE DETAILS | Division Rank: 37
| Split Name | Distance | Split Time | Race Time | Pace | Division Rank | Gender Rank | Overall Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32.3 mi | 32.3 mi | 1:39:31 | 2:47:58 | 19.47 mi/h | |||
| 38.8 mi | 6.5 mi | 19:48 | 3:07:46 | 19.64 mi/h | |||
| 58 mi | 19.2 mi | 55:18 | 4:03:04 | 20.84 mi/h | |||
| 79.3 mi | 21.4 mi | 1:12:00 | 5:15:04 | 17.79 mi/h | |||
| 85.8 mi | 6.5 mi | 18:31 | 5:33:35 | 21.00 mi/h | |||
| 105 mi | 19.2 mi | 56:55 | 6:30:30 | 20.24 mi/h | |||
| 116 mi | 11 mi | 33:06 | 7:03:36 | 19.92 mi/h | |||
| Total | 116.00 mi | 5:55:09 | 7:03:36 | 19.60 mi/h | 37 | 244 | 275 |
RUN DETAILS | Division Rank: 44
| Split Name | Distance | Split Time | Race Time | Pace | Division Rank | Gender Rank | Overall Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.6 mi | 4.6 mi | 44:56 | 7:53:02 | 9:49/mi | |||
| 6.4 mi | 1.8 mi | 18:21 | 8:11:23 | 10:04/mi | |||
| 10.2 mi | 3.8 mi | 43:02 | 8:54:25 | 11:12/mi | |||
| 13.3 mi | 3 mi | 33:43 | 9:28:08 | 11:09/mi | |||
| 17.1 mi | 3.9 mi | 49:11 | 10:17:19 | 12:42/mi | |||
| 18.9 mi | 1.8 mi | 24:05 | 10:41:24 | 13:13/mi | |||
| 22.8 mi | 3.8 mi | 56:41 | 11:38:05 | 14:45/mi | |||
| 25.8 mi | 3 mi | 38:12 | 12:16:17 | 12:38/mi | |||
| 26.2 mi | 0.4 mi | --:-- | --:-- | --/mi | |||
| Total | 26.20 mi | 5:14:00 | 12:22:06 | 11:59/mi | 44 | 222 | 277 |
Transition Details
| T1: Swim-to-bike | 7:21 |
| T2: Bike-to-run | 4:30 |
| General Info | |
| BIB | 802 |
| Division | M35-39 |
| State | Atlanta GA |
| Country | USA |
| Profession | Administrator |
| Race Summary | |
| Swim: | 1:01:06 |
| Bike | 5:55:09 |
| Run | 5:14:00 |
| Overall | 12:22:06 |
Comments
3 kids under the age of 4 should already qualify you for Kona superman! I had 4 age 4 and under at one time with twins in there and it was a party!
6 century rides coming in and your focus on nutrition shows big commitment for number 7! Just imagine what the day might have been like under those conditions without that kind of base....
In my view, you had a fantastic race. Your run also shows how much you did right leading up to the race as well as execution throughout.
Congratulations Chad!
SS