Dinhofer Puerto Rico 70.3 (2017) - Reverse Engineering a race
One of the best things of travelling to races and camps is
the opportunity to build camaraderie and friendships with teammates. The
additional benefit of sharing a “luxurious 2 bedroom suite” with Jeremy Behler
& Mike Roberts is to learn about race execution, training and fitness from
two of the best age groupers out there, mix in the uber competitive Danielle
Santucci & the uber organizer extraordinaire – Mariah, bunking 2 buildings
away and you’ve got the recipe for an awesome weekend in Puerto Rico. (what Happens in PR stays in PR 
)
The race was to be my C race for the year, 2 70.3s and a big focus on Lake Placid. Putting PR 70.3 on my schedule certainly took away from my ski season, but it gave me a necessary early season focus on body comp & training. I knew that looking at 2016’s times I could place top ten(2016 10th was 5:22) in that race. Likely 7-10 was where I would hopefully finish. That was the goal. To get there, as reinforced as a good idea by the WSMs I was bunking with, I had previously reverse engineered this race.
My swim technique is lacking and has always been a limiter, it’s really early season & I’ve probably had 12 good swims under my belt. Using my long set pace of 1:55 / 100yards (don’t snicker) I determined that I’d swim a 42’ swim. T1 is a very long run and looking at the top 10 in my AG from last year, I estimated 8’ Transitions total. Again, using the average of 7th -10th of my AG from ’16, I came up with a bike time of 2:32. I had hoped I could run 8:45s, this would have produced a 1:51 run, and based on last year would have put me in 8th.
Got ready for race morning.. walked with the fun bunch to transition (about a mile away from our hotel) to set up our gear, came back to our hotel which was 100 yards from the start line (swim start & swim finish are in different locations), final prep, went down, lined up, got in the water, wave start (I was in the 6th? Wave) got busy. Did a better than average job of calming myself down and not overstroking… long stroke, short glide, pull hard… I have 2 visions I keep in my head of what I strive for on the swim. One is my swim coach rhythmically showing me what he sees as my perfect cadence, the other is that in last year’s IM-Moo I saw Rich Stanbaugh in a sea of frenzy, calmly executing his stroke, shutting out all the noise and mayhem around him..
I peeked at my watch at one point and saw that I was beyond
the halfway mark at 21 minutes, things are going well. Exited the swim, looked
at watch, 40 minutes, good start!. There is a long .3ish mile run to
Transition, got a volunteer to unzip the back of my swim skin, pulled down top
on the run, worked on pulling up my tri suit and getting it on my wet skin..
Got through T1 quickly, mounted bike and started the ride..
A bit of some sketchy wet pavement on the way out of T1 and a few sketchy wet
turns before we get on a highway and got right to work. Focused on nutrition
right away, estimating that I did 4 ½ bottles of Gatorade on the bike with one
gu. Aside from getting Gatorade at each aid station, I grabbed a bottle of
water and doused myself and my head, slugged a few ounces and tossed within the
garbage zone. As usual, peed plenty and often. One issue for me is working on
getting a better aero position on the bike in terms of how I hold my head.
There was one highway that we did a few miles out and back on 2x and I had a
great shadow to look at to figure out head position. Hopefully, I’ve improved
this.
I got off the bike with a 2:33. I knew I had positioned myself through the first two legs exactly where I wanted to be. When starting the run, I noticed that my garmin 920 wasn’t reading HR. I know that if my garmin doesn’t pick up my HR strap before I start an activity, it won’t add it to the activity. So I had to stop the Garmin and restart a new activity. I had high hopes for the run. I’ve run an average of 30 miles per week since November 1 with a few good long runs mixed in there. Of course, most of them were in snowy climates and not on the heels of a 56 mile bike ride! The course in Puerto Rico is brutal, hills, heat, humidity and an out and back section on the outside of the fort wall called “the microwave.” The bottom line for the run was to keep moving forward, manage nutrition, hydration & heat and monitor heart rate. From previous races I knew my pain zone was above 152 and that my comfortably uncomfortable zone was 148-150. Anytime I spiked, I walked to get it down to around 146 and then started running again.
I utilized Coach Patrick’s Race Saver Bag, and kept it stashed under my had providing cooling relief from the top down. I was surprised as to how long the bag would retain the ice for (typically 2-3 aid stations). I never looked at the ages on peoples’ calves as much as I did Sunday. In the first ten miles I passed numerous people in my age group. I am guessing that only a handful were on their first lap and thus true passes, and I only got passed by one, Rob Sabo who had a brilliant run as usual. I did drop another 3 in the last 3 miles. I had one guy pass me just before a short steep overpass that brings you to the finish, he was one of my early passes in mile 1 or 2. I immediately passed him back and in a windy section where you couldn’t pass, I was stuck behind a slower woman, as we got on the hill for the overpass, I immediately stopped and walked, allowing him to pass. I was betting that he’d get stopped half way up, at that point, I pounced and ran the 2nd half of the hill hard, cresting it when we were both passing the woman, he went left (outside) and I went to the inside on the grass and passed both of them, apparently the coned off path across grass to the finish was confusing (to him) as I heard a volunteer yell at him to follow me and I just kept charging across the finish line. We congratulated each other at the finish and the day was done.
Final results were Forgot to add bike power stats
Predicted Actual FTP 250 (I supsect this is a bit high, reality is probably 247ish)
Swim 42:00 40:06 AP - 194
Bike 2:32:00 2:33:07 NP - 201
Run 1:51:00 1:57:51 VI - 1.04
Transitions 8:00 7:24 IF .80 (on 250 FTP)
Total 5:13:00 5:18:28
Place 8-10 14
A footnote that I hadn’t thought about is that this was actually a 70.3 (Half Ironman Distance) Personal Record by 1hr 12 mins, my 2nd tri ever at a 30lb heavier weight and no knowledge was a 70.3 in 2010.
Comments
I thought the new thing was to wear it on the bike?
nice season opener....congrats on the huge 70.3 PR in PR
This bodes really well for your season...pumped!
~ Coach P
Congratulations on opening your 2017 racing season successfully!
SS
Nice report on a great race and an even better weekend. Reading your summary reminds me that there are right and wrong ways to address problems that arise during a race: you got your PM to sync with your Garmin race morning whereas I failed, you calmly took care of biz in T1 whereas I panicked about the thought of no PM and rode away sporting a Roka "kit", you managed hydration perfectly on the bike whereas I relied on the athlete guide and was positive the last AS would actually be there (instead all I found was the 97th and 98th flattened iguana on the course), you smartly got your 920XT to read HR on the run whereas I failed, and you managed to stay on the run course whereas I wandered off like a curious toddler. Thank goodness I was able to pass Danielle.
Your bike will be there for LP. Keep building that run fitness through consistent, frequent running (no 5 days off to ski, etc.). Get some video of the swim and share - you've got low-hanging fruit there to tackle and shave 10 minutes off your time in Mirror Lake.
See you in Boone.
MR
@Mike Roberts - I took note of where the aid stations were on the way out.. just sayin
@SS, SA + others - thanks for the kudos!
Seems like you're well set up to crush it at IMLP. Looking forward to riding with you at BRC next month
As we talked before the race, I know you didn't toe the line with the fitness and body comp you needed for your best performance, but you have a lot to be happy with as you lay the foundation for a solid year leading up to IMLP. On top of that, the conditions on the run were brutal. I came into this with fitness close to my peak and was still off 3 mins vs. my 70.3 run PR. You looked composed and steady whenever I saw you and a 1+ hour PR is impressive no matter what the conditions/fitness.
You have an epic year planned....pace it right, have fun, work hard, and the rest will take care of itself.
well done!