Tim Sullivan - IM Switzerland Race Report - Highly Recommended
Background
IM Switzerland is my second IM this year, along with an Olympic and a half IM that I have completed. In April, I completed my first IM in Texas with a time of 11:31. While I had originally planned on only doing one IM this year, my wife asked in February if I would like to do an IM in Europe somewhere. I thought that sounded like a great idea, so my wife and I looked at various venues in Europe that would work for us. I found a few different races that looked good, but we decided to choose IM Switzerland. IM Switzerland was 3 months after my first IM, so I figured that would give me enough time to recover and feel ok going into the next IM.
After my first IM, while I didn’t feel “bad”, I certainly was fatigued. I didn’t run hardly at all the first month after Texas because I had some soreness in my legs that I didnt want to make worse. After a month, I started running again and feeling more like myself, but I noticed that I still was fatigued. I was a little worried that I wasn’t going to be very prepared for IM Switzerland. After two months, I actually felt good again. My swimming, biking and running were all feeling good again, but were still not quite the same as before my first build for IM Texas. It wasn’t until about 2 weeks before IM Switzerland till my bike power was similar to IM Texas. During this build I was not able to complete all of the long bike rides due to various other commitments. To compensate, I tried to get the same bike TSS in the same day (2 different rides during the same day). I know this isn’t the same, but it’s what I could do. I felt good going into IM Switzerland.
Before we left for Switzerland, the water temperature of Lake Zurich was already 76 degrees, so I didn’t think the race would be wetsuit legal. I ended up bringing a sleeveless wetsuit and my lava pants along with me. Luckily for me, Switzerland had some rain and cooler temps the week before the race and the water temperature dropped to about 70 degrees.
Goals
After finishing my first IM, my goals for this year where to try to get a good feeling of the different effort levels needed to become successful in actually racing an Ironman or a half Ironman. I still have a long way to go with that, but I think this race helped me learn some more.
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Race Summary for Tim Sullivan – 50-54 |
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Swim |
1:22:22 |
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T1: |
4:32 |
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Bike |
6:10:06 |
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T2: |
7:23 |
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Run |
4:52:57 |
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Overall |
12:37:19 |
While this was was a little more than an hour slower, I dont feel like it was a "worse" race.
Arrival
My wife and I arrived in Switzerland a week before the race. We traveled to a couple different places in Switzerland. I ran a couple of times, swam once or twice, but no bike during that week. Switzerland is gorgeous and the people are friendly but the food in restaurants is CRAZY! Luckily most hotels we stayed at had free breakfast so my wife and I ate a big breakfast and then just grabbed a sandwich for lunch. I highly recommend visiting Switzerland.
Swim
https://www.strava.com/activities/1109667667
Time 1:22. The swim venue for IM Switzerland is outstanding. The water is crystal clear and it is very easy to see other swimmers through the water. On race day, the air temperature to start, and the water temperature, were about 70 degrees. Switzerland uses a rolling start where about 6 or so swimmers are released every 5 or so seconds. I lined up somewhere around the 1:20 mark. The swim is a single loop in Lake Zurich.
For this race, I was happy to find feet of a swimmer that I followed for about 2000 meters! The swimmer I was following must have been on a guide wire because I was within a foot or two of most of the buoys while I was following. This made it really nice as I did not have to lift my head up to sight very much.
I was also happy that contact didn’t seem to affect me much at all any more. Instead of freaking out some and slowing down, I just kept my path and kept swimming. There was occasional contact on the path I was following.
I was a few minutes faster in this swim compared to IM Texas and much faster compared to last year. While I am satisfied with my swimming for this race, I REALLY want to cut at least 10 minutes off this time. To do that, I am going to work on my pull and try to get rid of the dead spots in my stroke. I also need to build my endurance up at the desired swim speed for an IM. A lot of the swimming I do is at already at the desired speed (or faster), so hopefully with some more work I will get to this point. From June of last year in my first triathlon where it took me an hour to swim half the distance at the 70.3 CDA, I have come a long way. I will also make sure to include some more swim lessons to make sure I stay on track.
T1 : 4:32 – I tried to push this transition. They did not have wetsuit strippers that I saw, but I did get a person to unzip the wetsuit. Ran to changing tent, took off my wetsuit, put my shoes on, belt with bib number on (required for this race I guess because no body marking), helmet on, and off I went.
Bike
https://www.strava.com/activities/1109668079
Finished in 6:10:05. A goal for the bike was to try to keep my power steady on the climbs and to keep my HR in check. I did not want my HR to go above about 155 as I found during training that if I go above this HR for too long then my HR will not come down very easily. I tried to maintain about 200 watts on the two big hills (6-10% grade).
The Switzerland bike course is fantastic! It has good roads and the views are outstanding. I need to go back and do this ride when I can just enjoy the scenery. The course has about 15 miles of flat followed by a climb of a few miles, then some rollers, and then a couple of steep climbs. The two main descents are classified as no aerobar zones. While I think I did a good job on the hills, I did not do a good job maintaining my watts on the flats. There were many sections where I was content with just riding at some speed someone in front of me was riding. These sections did let my HR recover. I also didn’t pedal much at all on the big downhills. I also slowed down by about 10 minutes on the second loop.
Hydration was good (peed twice on bike). Only drank Powerbar Isoactive that they provided on course.
T2: 7:23 – I did not race this transition, but I didn’t just sit around. I did put on calf compression sleeves, new socks, a hat and running shoes. I also applied some more sunscreen as it was getting HOT!
Run
https://www.strava.com/activities/1109676931
Finished in 4:52:57 (10:50/mile which is 1:23 slower than my Z1 pace). Started off feeling fairly good, but that changed as the run progressed. I think the feeling was mostly temperature related. It was hot to start the run. Probably upper 80s to maybe 90 and humid. I started the run with the goal of keeping a 140HR for at least the first six miles which I was successful doing. I ended up keeping my HR near 140 for the first 12 miles. From miles 13-25 I fought to keep my HR in the mid 130s.
My plan was to walk at each aid station to get some Isoactive and ice. I started to drink coke and red bull at about mile 14. @Paul Hough did this race last year and they did NOT have ice. I think they must have heard him, so this year most of the aid stations had ICE! I filled my Ziploc bag with ice and used it to help cool me down. The ice really helped during this race as the temperature was hot.
There were a lot of people walking early on during this run, but there were also a lot of very fast people in this race! After about mile 4, I really didn’t want to run, but I did continue to run until I reached the aid stations. This was a much more mentally hard run for me compared to IM Texas where the temperature was continually dropping and I was running faster.
I have to say that one of the primary motivators for keeping me running was the good peer pressure from Team EN! I wasn’t feeling hurt in any way, so I just kept running. Thanks everyone, because if I was just doing this race without a team, I surely would have walked.
While I physically didn’t feel like running, I did really enjoy the run course. The run goes along Lake Zurich, and then through an old part of Zurich and then back along the lake. There are 4 loops and you get to run by the finish every loop. That provided some needed incentive during the run. I also enjoyed hearing all of the different languages cheering us on. I also heard some “Go USA” chants which I didn’t expect as there weren’t many people from the US doing this race. For each loop you completed you received a wristband of a different color. Once you collected the four bands you could finish!
The finish was great! IM Switzerland even has cheerleaders!
VIP Program for my Wife
Before this race, my wife was not a big fan of IMs. That has all changed now, and the thing that changed it was her participating in the VIP fan experience that IM offers. Generally, the VIP program allows a person you pay for to get VIP treatment during the race, and in the package I got, my wife was also able to go onto the finish and medal me. I thought I was throwing money away signing my wife up for the VIP experience, but I was very wrong!
In this race, the VIP participants got to go onto a boat at 6AM that went out onto the swim course in Lake Zurich. From the boat, my wife got to have a catered breakfast while watching the swimmers. After returning from the swim, the VIPs were shuttled to “Heartbreak Hill” where they got to watch the bikers come up one of the steep sections (very fun for riders and fans alike). I saw my wife for both laps at heartbreak hill.
During the run, the VIPs get to stay in one of those corporate tents at the finish line. They are supposed to have food there throughout the race but my wife told me they ran out later in the afternoon.
My wife ended up meeting some new friends during the day which was great. When I came across the finish line she was crying with happiness! Wow, what a change from IM Texas where she was like good job, now get back to something productive J For the week since IM Switzerland, she has been searching for new races for me to do. I think she has her eyes set on IM Norway in Haugesand.
Conclusions
1) Continue learning from everyone on Team EN
2) Need to continue training and building my engine. I have good power but I need to get this power to be sustainable at lower HRs, so I am going to just keep working.
3) I don’t feel nearly as wiped out after this IM, so I must be doing something correctly and my body must be responding to the training.
4) Need to continue to learn how to race.
5) Need to continue to learn how miserable I can be in different races and still perform.
6) Keep working and learning and being smart
7) From my very limited experience, the average person participating in a European IM seems more fit compared to the US IM. While I felt like I performed better in Switzerland compared to Texas (even though my time was an hour slower), I finished much farther down the pack compared to Texas. Maybe it’s the fact that this race had a 1 hour early cutoff finishing time? I also didn’t pass near as many people on the bike as I did in Texas.
Next Steps
No more races planned for this year, so I am going to work on my swimming, biking, and running, and return to weightlifting. I had stopped weightlifting before the big build for IM Texas as that alone was hard enough. I think I can handle that added load now.
Thanks everyone for your support and comments!
Comments
Switzerland is a beautiful place but as you mentionned, food is soooooooooo expensive there !
And I also agree with you regarding the European races (I raced 70.3 Mallorca), people are more in the "racing" mentatily than just participating !
Rest well !
@Brad Marcus We rented a car with a backseat, so I just put my bike bag in the back seat and drove around with it the week before the race and the week after the race. I dissassemble my bike completely so my bike fits in a small bag (2 would fit in the backseat of a small car). I found getting to Europe a week before the race was a good amount of time. You can get adjusted to the time difference and you can walk a bunch before the race. We also stayed five days after the race which worked out well since I was able to get lots of walking in for recovery. If you fly into the city you are racing, then you might be able to drop the bikes off at the hotel you will be staying at. We stayed in the race city from Friday night and left Monday. We travelled around the other days. We had a great experience in Europe and the race atmosphere is awesome. Have fun!
So my primary comment is more of an indication of a next step, not a comment on a problem in any way. This run course was four loops. Looking at your strava file, it looks like with each successive loop, at least #s 2&3, you slowed down a bit. Your HR was fading a bit as well. Then, you seemed to say, "To hell with that", and maintained pace on the 4th loop, with a BIG burst in the last two miles. That burst showed you were better trained than your performance indicates - you could have gone faster miles 6-18, you had the legs, but not the plan for making that happen. I think you could help things along by tapping into your inner sense of how hard you are working. If you keep that inner sense at the same level, you will slow down. The trick is, to keep feeling as if it's continually getting harder and harder. You won't go faster, but you'll slow down less. You'll maintain the HR, and maybe even your pace.
Despite your feeling that you had a lapse in training after IM Tejas, and might not have sufficient time to prepare for Zurich, you arrived on race day in great shape, as evidenced by conclusion # 3: " I don’t feel nearly as wiped out after this IM, so I must be doing something correctly and my body must be responding to the training." As you learn how you respond to recovery and to training, you also will learn how to TRUST your training, and thus let yourself go harder as the run progresses - that's really what the training is all about, to put you into a position where you don't have to slow down.
I'm not sure if the heat initially got me, all the people seeming to run slowly or walking, or what it was. Looking back, while it wouldn't have been pleasant, I certainly had at least the 140HR average during the run in me which would have kept the pace. I definitely need to try to stay at consistent effort levels throughout the IM, and not take those breaks. I always seem to have an excuse for them as they are happening
Thanks @Brian Hagan It was a great experience! Luckily, I am MUCH more patient than I was younger! and am willing to put in the work and time to get better. It definitely helps having such great role models on this team. See you on Zwift!
I really enjoyed the report you put together and congratulations on #2 this year. I have done 2 IMs in one year a couple of times and it is no easy task!
One thing I learned from the seasoned vets is that just racing more makes you faster over time as you learn more about yourself, racing RPE and what you can actually do with your fitness level over a very long day.
Another thing that has helped me progress are CAMPS, 4,5 6 days or more with a group of ENr's making hard shit fun. Are you planning on attending any of the Camps in 2018?
Nice work on a very long day!
SS