KS 70.3 RR
Kansas 70.3 RR
Training had been going pretty solid leading up to this event, I was quite confident in my ability to execute a solid race. No hiccups with registration/lodging/commuting. An uneventful weekend local triathlete friend Tony Oberman and I arrived in Friday and stayed close to the race site at a Best Western.
Swim goal around 32 minutes +/- 90 seconds, actual 32:33
I got lost once and had to be put back on course by a kayaker this might have cost a little time but when my wave went off around 7:40 in the morning the sun was coming up over the trees and it made quite a glare in my goggles which I need a new pair of btw. Counted my strokes and didn’t get worked up over what was going on around me. Swim split was the same exact time as last year. How is that for now swimming from November to April?
T1 again uneventful I made it though much quicker than last year’s 4:40 2:40 actual time. It is a large transition area so some time is to be expected just to get through the thing.
Bike goal 2:30 give or take a few minutes. Goal watts 238 based on an FTP of 285. First half hour 230 watts
Actual Race time 2:38:10
I did ride fairly steady maintained a good aero position and worked. Even though I took the zeros out of the PT head unit’s avg it still read slightly higher than my normalized power, I was seeing averages of 239/237 for the hours after the first half hour.
Nutrition wise, I tried to stay about 250 calories per hour eating some jelly beans and drinking sips of my carbo pro.
Hydration wise, I don’t think I drank enough. I didn’t pee once the entire race even during the swim. Next time I race this distance it should send up some red flags but for some reason I didn’t even think of it. I think I ended up consuming 4 bottles of water and 1 carbo pro mix on the bike. I never felt overly worked on the bike, last year I rode w/ a VI on 1.1 so the fact that I’ve learned to ride a little steadier makes me feel decent.
Here is how the power shook out
First half hour:
Duration: 30:49
Work: 403 kJ
TSS: 33 (intensity factor 0.802)
Norm Power: 229
VI: 1.05
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 10.885 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 464 218 watts
Cadence: 49 201 96 rpm
Speed: 6.9 42 21.1 mph
Pace 1:26 8:42 2:50 min/mi
Crank Torque: 0 431 193 lb-in
second half:
Duration: 2:07:18
Work: 1658 kJ
TSS: 137.4 (intensity factor 0.805)
Norm Power: 229
VI: 1.06
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 44.99 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 697 217 watts
Cadence: 32 225 96 rpm
Speed: 2.2 41.4 21.2 mph
Pace 1:27 26:49 2:50 min/mi
Crank Torque: 0 867 192 lb-in
Entire workout (216 watts):
Duration: 2:39:27
Work: 2065 kJ
TSS: 171.5 (intensity factor 0.803)
Norm Power: 229
VI: 1.06
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 56.068 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 697 216 watts
Cadence: 32 225 96 rpm
Speed: 2.2 42 21.1 mph
Pace 1:26 26:49 2:51 min/mi
Crank Torque: 0 867 191 lb-in
Run plan first 3 miles 7:07 pace then 6:47 until mile 10 the rest was let it rip.
Coming out of T2 I felt alright, the first two miles which I don’t have the data handy but were around 7:08 pace. The third mile I had to back it down another 7:07 was not in the cards. My stomach by this point was hurting; my legs were feeling as if they were going to cramp. I had taken 3 salt tabs per hour on the bike and kept taking 2 every half hour on the run. At mile 6 I bent down to tie my shoes and about feel over due to cramping. Once I got running again I could sort of shake it off but anything moderately fast just wasn’t going to happen.
I ended up finishing the run in 1:46:56, quite disappointing from last year’s 1:32. I absolutely hate to blame anything on nutritional issues hydration vs proper pacing. But being as I certainly didn’t overcook it on the bike, I don’t know what else to think.
I did end up giving lots of positive mojo on the course to everyone I recognized and those with EN singlets. I'm not sure how I figured out who Trevor was but I yelled at him about every time I saw him.
While it was still the second fastest half IM I’d ever done PR is 4:52 same course last year. I have some thoughts on room for improvement from an execution standpoint.
Drink more water, I have a pretty good stomach and in the past I’ve done a pretty good job staying hydrated. I didn’t pay attention to my hydration and paid the price for it. Nutrition wise I think I did alright.
Wear my HR strap in training and racing again. I’ve definitely got away from this. I’ve had times racing in the past when I’ve looked down and found my HR to be slightly elevated and more times than not I’ve been able to sort of troubleshoot it down to not drinking enough. Whether or not this was the case yesterday I will never know since I didn’t wear the strap which is pretty stupid on my part I’ve got it, and it works on my garmin and PT. No reason why not to wear it.
Next up Hy-Vee triathlon Sunday, then some much needed down time, a 10 day South Dakota fishing trip to Lake Oahe, IMOO training rally then IMLOU.
Comments
Great effort. Like you I had to break down and wear HR strap all the time now. Nailed the wattage on bike ride so run difficulty really shouldn't be anything but hydration. That being said, 4 + bottles of liquid on bike would have had me peeing all the time. Understand it was hot, so must have been going right through you.
Congrats.
Must have been the hydration. Still a solid effort for a bad day. I had a very similar experience at Spirit of Racine last year. The season is young!
Thanks I appreciated the support out on the run. I'm not sure, but I think we may have bumped into each other on the bike? Maybe you spotted the EN decals on my helmet? But I definitely remember the first time you spotted me on the run. I kept looking for you each lap to cheer back but it seemed like you were much better at spotting me than I was you, I was 90% sure it was you but I was in various states of mild delirium during the run. Same thing at the end of the race, I saw a few EN singlets out there and cheered for everyone I saw and I saw a few people finish that I wanted to go up and introduce myself to, but then I got distracted by the ice bath and everyone slipped into the crowds.
Anyway, as for the race itself, I too think I definitely under-drank on the bike so I feel you there. I had prepared for the worst given the weather in the preceding days, but I was so incredibly relieved by the what felt to me mild temperature on race morning that I kind of let my guard down and scaled back my plan to drink like a fish on the bike. This was supported by me feeling like I had to pee at the beginning of the bike, I felt I was plenty hydrated. Later I realized though that I no longer had to pee, and in fact I was actually thirsty, I immediately realized my mistake and ramped up my intake, but it was too little too late I fear and it may have contributed to my issues later on the run.
Well, hope I'm not hijacking your thread but while I'm talking about the race I may as well just tag along my quasi-Race Report here as well:
The days preceding the race for me went generally smooth as well, I camped out at the race venue and got into town on Friday night. Check-in was smooth this year, we had lunch at the Free State Brewery on Saturday then had dinner Saturday night at the camper with some local training partners and friends/family. The defining theme of the days preceding the race was definitely the obsession over the weather, it was HOT the days leading up into the race, mid to high 90s and the water temperature was reported at 81 the day before.
I awoke on race morning at a leisurely 5:15am, since I was sleeping within walking distance of transition there was not much of a rush. Word of mouth had already reached me at this hour that the RD had somehow managed to find a spot in the water that was 77.5, a highly suspect number but I was not complaining, threw my wetsuit (sleeveless thank god) in my bag. Had a plain wheat bagel, started sipping some sports drink and made my way to T2 to put down my running gear and on to T1. All was uneventful other than the absurdly small amount of port-o-johns they had at T1, the line was crazy. My swim wave was something like an hour after the start, so I had some time to watch the Pros come in (Potts, Lieto, Yoder, Wellington) and then make my way out to the start.
Swim was uneventful other than the beating I took at the start and at the turn around, I got kicked in the head something fierce, knocked my google off and left my ears ringing but I recovered. Rest of the swim smooth and steady, kept telling myself just the start of a very long day. Looked at my watch as I ran into T1, 37:00 mins, down about 4 minutes from last year (my first HIM). I feel I am a much better swimmer than last year and while my time did not necessarily reflect that improvement, how I felt certainly did. Last year I was hypoxic and woozy coming out of the water, this year I felt good.
T1 was pretty uneventful, as Dan mentioned it's a pretty big transition so it took me a while to get to my bike, had a little trouble getting my suit off, but soon I was out the gate and on the bike. After getting out of the congestion in the park I tried to settle into my goal wattage, 210 for the first 30 mins. I felt great, the weather had turned out to be more mild than we had dreaded, I thought today could be the race where it all comes together. Then I had a funny feeling and looked down. Its not what I saw, but what I didn't see that made my heart sink, no timing chip. My head instantly started spinning, I forgot about my wattage, about my pacing, about my day coming together. All I could think about was how I could spend all day out here and not even be counted, how I pour my heart and soul into it and still get a DNF. I don't know how long I panicked, but I do know that I realized not too much later the chip was outside the box. It was either in T1 stuck in my wetsuit leg or it was in the water, either way with separate transitions it may as well have been on mars. I was certainly not going to just stop over something stupid like not being timed, even if they did DNF me I would still always know that I crossed the line and thanks to my abundance of watches, my Timex ironman keeping total race time on my right wrist and my 310xt keeping track of my bike and run splits on the other I knew I'd know what time I crossed the line anyway. So with that, I tried to collect myself and get back in the race.
Goal for first 30 mins was 210, my VI was high but I started slow in the park and came out at an average of 207 watts, I thought I had held it back pretty good to start:
Lap 1 (0:29:58.02):
Duration: 29:57
Work: 372 kJ
TSS: 39.5 (intensity factor 0.897)
Norm Power: 230
VI: 1.11
Pw:HR: -8.23%
Pa:HR: 3.68%
Distance: 11.035 mi
Elevation Gain: 246 ft
Elevation Loss: 186 ft
Grade: 0.1 % (62 ft)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 521 207 watts
Heart Rate: 165 185 174 bpm
Cadence: 35 119 95 rpm
Speed: 10.6 42.1 22.0 mph
Pace 1:25 5:39 2:44 min/mi
Altitude: 858 1012 939 ft
Crank Torque: 0 609 187 lb-in
Second lap was from the first 30 to the first turn around. VI was better but watts I felt were numerically low, but at the same time I felt it was foolish to push harder given the race was just begun.
Lap 2 (0:35:38.02):
Duration: 35:37
Work: 430 kJ
TSS: 42.1 (intensity factor 0.843)
Norm Power: 217
VI: 1.07
Pw:HR: 4.6%
Pa:HR: -3.81%
Distance: 12.766 mi
Elevation Gain: 278 ft
Elevation Loss: 155 ft
Grade: 0.2 % (121 ft)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 559 202 watts
Heart Rate: 150 174 167 bpm
Cadence: 35 158 95 rpm
Speed: 0 40.2 21.4 mph
Pace 1:30 0:00 2:48 min/mi
Altitude: 930 1148 1023 ft
Crank Torque: 0 608 180 lb-in
Next lap was from first turn around to the second. Started to realize that my power was just going to be low this race but this was kind of expected.
Lap 3 (0:42:39.73):
Duration: 42:44
Work: 505 kJ
TSS: 51.8 (intensity factor 0.86)
Norm Power: 221
VI: 1.11
Pw:HR: 1.6%
Pa:HR: 1.47%
Distance: 15.353 mi
Elevation Gain: 325 ft
Elevation Loss: 349 ft
Grade: -0.0 % (-22 ft)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 521 199 watts
Heart Rate: 156 176 167 bpm
Cadence: 29 131 96 rpm
Speed: 0 37.3 21.5 mph
Pace 1:37 0:00 2:48 min/mi
Altitude: 937 1133 1043 ft
Crank Torque: 0 676 177 lb-in
Last lap was from the second turn-around all the way back home. This part of the ride I like to call the "sightseeing" portion. I got stuck behind a draft marshal for something like 10+ minutes who was giving out red and yellow cards like it was her job (well, it was her job) and she was creating a rolling road block for me, only way I could get around would be to pass over the centerline which would have been an obviously foolish idea. After that was the oil slick where a bunch of riders had gone down earlier, had to dismount the bike and run with my bike on the side of the road with everyone else to get around it. Finally a poor rider wrecked his bike in the aid station right in front of me, he went over the handlebars hard and I had to struggle to avoid getting caught in the pileup. I was riding what I felt was easy at this point, but I began to feel a twinge in my quads which deeply alarmed me. I didn't feel like I was working hard the whole race, my breathing was easy I thought my HR was within reason and I don't think I have *ever* cramped on a bike ride before, certainly I have afterwards on a brick run, but never on the actual bike. I just tried to ride as easy as I could from this point and began the part of the race I like to call Damage Control.
Lap 4 (0:47:53.59):
Duration: 48:05
Work: 501 kJ
TSS: 45.2 (intensity factor 0.756)
Norm Power: 194
VI: 1.1
Pw:HR: 5.54%
Pa:HR: 11.32%
Distance: 16.242 mi
Elevation Gain: 277 ft
Elevation Loss: 352 ft
Grade: -0.1 % (-75 ft)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 622 176 watts
Heart Rate: 148 176 164 bpm
Cadence: 26 163 95 rpm
Speed: 0 40.3 20.1 mph
Pace 1:29 0:00 2:59 min/mi
Altitude: 864 1079 955 ft
Crank Torque: 0 688 159 lb-in
Only thing I'll say about the summary is that it's nice to be 155 pounds! I think didn't turn my Garmin bike split off until I headed out of T2 on the run, I dismounted my bike at 2:34 it looks like in my charts. That kind of surprised me, because I think it was a pretty good split for the low wattage that I put out for it, again, it's nice to be light. And yes, my VI was still bad although much lower than it usually is! (Note: I rode this course in April in about 2:29 at a pNorm of 239 and a VI of almost 1.2 for reference)
Entire workout (194 watts):
Duration: 2:36:26
Work: 1810 kJ
TSS: 180 (intensity factor 0.836)
Norm Power: 215
VI: 1.11
Pw:HR: 7.77%
Pa:HR: 3.21%
Distance: 55.411 mi
Elevation Gain: 1140 ft
Elevation Loss: 1051 ft
Grade: 0.0 % (89 ft)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 622 194 watts
Heart Rate: 148 185 167 bpm
Cadence: 26 163 95 rpm
Speed: 0 42.1 21.1 mph
Pace 1:25 0:00 2:50 min/mi
Altitude: 858 1148 992 ft
Crank Torque: 0 688 174 lb-in
At T2 I pleaded with every person I could find wearing an event staff shirt and lamented my lost timing chip, no one had a clue of what to tell me so I gave up and racked my bike. Got my shoes, lamented to more people on run exit, and again to someone who looked more official (non-volunteer) at close to the run start. He assured me I could get a replacement chip at the next timing mat. Little did he know, although I made sure to remind him on the 2nd lap, that there was no timing mat on the run, none at the turnaround point. Again I accepted I was not going to be timed at the event and just kept going.
I tried to put the drama behind me and actually run, but the second I forgot about my chip I remembered about my Quads. They immediately started twinging to my horror, I felt like I had plenty of gas in the tank but could not understand why my quads alone had already thrown in the towel. I dialed back my pace to my goal for the first few miles, MP+30 puts me at about a 7:40, my first mile was a 7:48 and I was getting passed by everyone and their grandma, people were flying out of T2 just like EN had told me they would. I reached the first aid station and immediately began taking in Gatorade in the feeble attempt to subside my quads, then I discovered something that did seem to work-- two cups of ice straight down my trisuit packed along my legs. The cramping immediately quieted down and that is how the rest of the day went. I kept taking in a ton of fluids, soaking myself with cold water and icing my quads as much as I could tolerate. I dropped my second mile down to a 7:29 but soon after realized that I was not going to be able to dial down to my true goal pace without blowing up my quads. I settled into high 7s / low 8s and just grinded it out, my Garmin recorded a total run time of 01:40:58.
As I crossed the finish line my thoughts were not on my victory salute or on the smiling Chrissy Wellington who was handing out finishers medals. No, I literally blew right past her and nearly accosted the poor kid who had the manual time entry thing (looks like an oversized calculator). After screaming "For the love of god RECORD ME RECORD ME, I lost my chip!" He replied with a "Got it" at which I hit the stopwatch and looked down at my wrist for the first time in a while and saw 4:58. My goal for the day was sub-5 and I was ecstatic. Someone handed me a meal ticket and a water and I walked nearly out of the finishers chute before I realized I didn't even have a medal. I went back up and someone with a TV camera was hogging Chrissy so I took my medal from a volunteer, took a proper finishers photo and let the wave of relief and euphoria over having someone for the first time of the day actually tell me that they recorded a time for me wash over me. Unlike my last/first HIM I did not feel like an exhausted train wreck. Despite the immense struggle that was my final mile I felt amazing well. From there it was a blur of cheering, ice bath and more cheering as I tried to stick around for some of the EN singlets and others I saw out on the course.
As of today, I'm still not in the results, maybe I will be in the official ones, or maybe I won't. In the end, I don't really care much, I was there, I have my medal, I know I came in under 5. I know I made mistakes, I know something went wrong on the bike. But as always, I know I learned a lot, I know I gave it my all and I knew that it was actually the 1-year anniversary of my first Triathlon ever, the Pigman Sprint, and I couldn't be happier to have gone from that first 1:20 sprint to a 5:32 half and back down to a 4:58 half in one short year.
Anyway, I commend anyone who manages to read this novel I'm trying to pass off as an RR, but if nothing else it feels good to get it off my chest for my own sake.
Those are some huge gains Trevor! Congratulations on a great race.
P
P
Coach P,
My experience on the end of the bike and the beginning of the run wholeheartedly supports that I overcooked the bike most likely because of two big oversights on my part. The first pretty big mistake I made was in my second RR-- I didn't have one! I had gone out for my RR to ride the exact same pacing plan that I took to raceday but instead spent the day in the ER with my friend who was riding with me who was hit by a car. I wanted to make up the RR but was booked solid the subsequent weekends and/or didn't have access to a bike (on travel) so that was that. Had I gotten to ride my RR, perhaps it would have illuminated the fault in my pacing plan, or perhaps not, due to the hectic schedule that was my last few weeks prior to the race I missed a tangible amount of bike volume and I felt more than a little worried going into the race that my FTP was not what it once was, so much so that I no longer consider it valid until I get a re-test in.
The second big oversight is kind of a biggie in that it was really stupid of me not to ask, but is the wattage laid out in the EN Power Racing Calculator supposed to be your pNorm or just your average power?
I only have average power available to me in real time while riding, so I had kept my first 30 (207 watts) under the Gear 1 power I was hoping to hold (210 watts), but as you can see the pNorm and my subsequent IF was much higher, information I only had available to me post-mortem.
All the same, I realized not long after the first 30 that I had lost a chunk of my FTP, was dead wrong about using pNorm for FTP and riding at avgP, or more likely both, and tried to reel it back down to more sensible levels, but as the difficulties on my run would indicate, it was a little too little too late. Granted, it was still the best run of my very short (2 HIMs) career, but it could have been a lot better had I executed according to proper EN-fu.
BTW, nice work to both of you. That can be a tough run because it can get very warm very quick out there. All in all it is a great race though.
@Trevor, I always thought the EN gear calculator was what our NP should be, not AP. I mainly watch real time watts, but ocassionally I will check my average power on the headunit and I like it to be about 5% lower then my goal NP (as my IF is typcially 1.05ish).
Coach P, I would agree I think I might have overcooked
Matt, you definitely know it gets hot out there pretty quick, I think that added with the fact this might not feel weather wise like an early season race esp this year however it is. Truth be told this was my first open water swim and first time I'd had my wetsuit on since IMFL.