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Satish's 2017 ITU Long Distance World Champs race

edited September 6, 2017 12:38AM in Races & Places 🏁⛺
BACKGROUND
-Male, will be 48 in November
-First time at an ITU race, and first time at a world championship event. I thought both were great and am looking forward to someday doing both again. Penticton is awesome; I envy those of you who raced ironman Canada when it was here.  

-Distance is 3000metre swim, 120km ride, and 30km run. 
-Second longest race I have attempted to date, with IMMT 2016 being the longest.  Since I started doing triathlons in 2012 I have also completed nine 70.3 distance races including 3 last year and 2 earlier this summer.  

-Flew in on Monday and luckily my bike arrived with me (was warned it could be delayed due to the small planes). 
-Did a lot of walking around as well as a short hike during the week,   and developed some tightness in my left calf and pain/swelling at the ball of my left foot which I now attribute to all the walking in flip flops and other less than ideal shoes.  
-At the time it didn't seem too serious but I should have addressed it with maybe some massage or other professional help!

NUTRITION/carbo load-
-limited carbs Monday to Friday, 500ml of beet root juice/day until Saturday morning.
-I pretty much tried to follow to the letter the core diet video for the two days before the race.  
-At IMMT I required a portapotty stop during the run, wanted to avoid that this time.
-Friday starting at lunch I started to carbo load aiming for about 350g of carbs (which was really hard! I only made it to 300g). 
-On Saturday I made sure to eat a huge breakfast and got half of my calories for the day in before 9am.  I was aiming for about 650g of carbs and got in about 600g. 

RACE MORNING
-Up at 3am and finished eating by 3:30 (3 hrs before race start)- 2 cups applesauce, 1 banana, 1 scoop whey protein powder, 24oz sports drink
-Got to transition around 5:10 am- was annoyed to find that despite being instructed not to bring a pump and receiving assurance there would be plenty of pumps available there were in fact NONE and a long line to the velofix truck had formed.  Thankfully a nice Swiss gentleman loaned me his pump so I was able to avoid spending 15 minutes in line.  
-Pumped tires, filled bottles, made sure bike computer, P1 pedals, watch and HR strap were all paired.  
-Quick check of my transition bags and off to the beach

SWIM- goal 45 minutes, actual 49 minutes (10th AG)
-Beach start and exit. Roughly rectangular course. (Very roughly in my case). 
-Was able to get a solid 10'/600m warmup prior to entering the start corral
-took 1 gel 15 minutes before start, otherwise just sips of water.
-My wave was third, after the elite men and women, and para athletes.  Large group M18-49
-Seeded myself 1 row back.  Plan was easy jog in, moderate intensity dolphin dives, moderate swim to first turn buoy (1100m) staying a bit wide to avoid the large pack, find feet and sight as little as possible. Unfortunately the feet I decided to follow led me straight to the middle of the pack very early so there was lots of contact.  As I rounded the turn I was blinded by the sun and had to find feet to follow which I was able to do intermittently.  
-I went off course a couple of times.  My Garmin read 3300 in 48:30 at the end.  I'm certain I would have been 46-47 minutes if I had been able to stay on course, so a little disappointed (although it would not have changed my overall result).  
-I felt a few intermittent leg cramps in the last 2/3 of the swim which I attribute to kicking too hard, and solved when I reminded myself to relax and keep chest down/hips up.
-got out of the water feeling pretty good, and relieved I wasn't over 50 minutes (toward the end of the swim I was certain I was coming out last). 
-Next time I'm using tinted goggles if its going to be sunny.

T1
-3:15 about 45s slower than I would like. 
-Stripped wetsuit to waist bypassing the volunteers since I felt pretty good, entered tent, and put helmet and race belt on, stuffed wetsuit in bag (forgot goggles and swim cap- now gone forever!) and carried my shoes out to bike.  At bike I put my shoes on and jogged in them with bike to the mount line.  
-fairly long run, in retrospect could have put shoes on at the mount line as I saw volunteers holding the bikes of others who were doing this.

BIKE: -BBS had me at 3:28.  Goal was 3:20-3:30, 190w.  Actual was 3:25:46 (15th AG), 177 AP, 191 NP (IF .72), avg HR 125, TSS 178. 
-http://tpks.ws/19lvO 
- flat out and back 25k section followed by two moderately hilly loops.
- started really conservative.  HR was not as high as I expected, only 138-140 initially but took almost 50 minutes to drop to my desired range of 125-130.  Very difficult staying patient!  I didn't want to blow it out early since I knew temperatures although cool initially would be building during the day.
- Was carrying about 3hrs worth of calories in 2 bottles (1 hr in BTA bottle and 2hrs worth in downtube aerobottle).  Finished my 1hr nutrition bottle at about 40 minutes.  
-Drank as much as possible. At aid stations generally grabbed a water and chugged as much as possible before either discarding or filling my BTA bottle.  Drank 3 bottles worth of my own nutrition, and probably 2- 3 water hand ups as well as 2 nutrition bottle hand ups.
- Also 1 saltstick cap very 30 minutes and 1 caffeinated gel at the 3 hr mark (no caffeine since Friday morning)
- A couple of times my stomach felt a bit sour- solved by chugging water at the next aid station.
-peed 3 times
-Estimate I took in 1200-1400 Calories during the bike.
-Took it pretty easy first out and back section, then moderate for first loop of the lake.  Was able to descend the fast technical section entirely in Aero- had ridden it twice in practice and confidence was high.  
-On second loop of the lake I was feeling pretty good so pushed it a bit. Ended up with fairly even speed and effort, but VI was higher than I would like at 1.08.  Some of that was due to not pedalling the steeper descents, but I also went off the reservation a bit on the second loop and spiked watts as I got a little 'racy'.  Need to stay more disciplined. 
-Came into T2 feeling pretty good, just a little tightness in low back and hip flexors.  Energy felt good.
-Probably could have pushed it a bit more if I kept the VI under control- goal AP was 190 watts.

RUN- Goal was 5:00/km or better.  Actual was 2:21:55 for about 4:49/km pace (12th AG), TSS 214. 
-http://tpks.ws/MMvbi
-Flat course consisting of 3x 10k loops on city streets. Each loop had 3 out and back spokes.  Lots of crowd support but HOT- sunny and no shade!
-As soon as I started running I could feel the ball of my left foot.  Not good.  In addition there was a new hotspot on the outside of my left foot (as I realized later my left foot was swollen).  It was really painful but I resolved to just try to keep my cadence up and feet pointing forward which seemed to help.  The foot discomfort eased after about 50 minutes of running (or maybe I was focussed on other things) but never went away.  
-At the start of the run I realized my watch wasn't reading my HR strap. 
-Played with the buttons a bit but couldn't get it to work.  Resolved to go by pace and RPE.  Besides my foot was hurting too much to think about much else.
-Really tried to keep it easy the first 3k or so but seemed to settle into a comfortable 4:52-4:55/km pace early on so I stuck with that, focussing on cadence and arm swing.  
-Tried to build up a bit toward the end of the second loop, and then through the third loop.  Ran the last 4k moderately hard. 
-Ended up even splitting the run.
For nutrition at each aid station I took water, coke, sports drink and ice in some combination or another.  No real pattern just made sure to take a lot of fluids.  
-Also took the occasional swig from my flask which had 100calories and 700mg of Na.  Finished the flask by about 15-16km.  I had another flask with me but I didn't use it.  
-Peed twice
-At about 17k I noticed people were beginning to stop to stretch out cramps so I started taking salt stick caps, one every 20-30 minutes.  I felt a couple of warning hamstring twinges after 20km after which I immediately took a saltstick cap- thankfully didn't turn into anything but did lessen my enthusiasm over the last 5k.

FINISH
-was feeling great as I entered the blue carpet finishing chute!  A volunteer handed me a flag and it was a magical moment racing to the line with the flag around my shoulders.  I knew I had executed a pretty good race.  Left some minutes out there on the course but avoided major mistakes.
-Finish time was 6:42:30 (hoping for under 7:00).  9th AG (hoping for top half). No Porta potty stop required!

Thanks for reading! 

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Comments

  • Great race, Satish.   Overperforming on the run and exceeding your projects just can't be beat. 

    Congratulations on this outcome.  I'm in awe of 9th place in a WC event!
  • Very nice man. Great execution and focus. Going 18' less than your target is pretty awesome. Lack of HR data...another win for RPE?
  • @Dave Tallo and @Doug Sutherland- thanks!  I was probably pretty conservative with my targets- it's good for my ego to aim low and give myself a chance to overachieve LOL.  

    As far as the run goes, I was planning to target the HR average from the last hour of the bike as per wiki guidance for an IM, so the lack of HR data was a curveball.

    From my longer runs in training, I did have a sense of RPE and HR at various paces to fall back on but of course the effects of heat and the swim and bike can throw things off.  I figure that during a race, run pace is going to be whatever it is so I try not to target a specific pace or time. 

    I knew I was probably good for 4:45-5:00/km from my training runs so I was happy to be able to hold 4:50 for 30k without much of a fade.  I kind of wish I had the guts to push a little harder on the bike, but then I might not have had such a good run....
  • Satish, you looked so strong the several times I saw you on the run. You've got a great attitude towards this sport, as well as a leg up on the swim and run. 9/?70 in your AG shows the value of your training and pacing, as well as the innate value of your lean physique. This distance seems to suit you well, and is a bit easier to train for than an IM. we both age up in 2019; I'm planning on being back @ Pontevedra, Spain for this race, maybe I'll see you there?

    I suspect you undercooked the bike, based on your low (IMO) IF, your feeling stronger well into the second loop, and your ability to even split the run and cruise through that foot pain on such a warm day. I went 0.745 on a slower time (3:53), even split the bike, and still felt capable all the way on the run. But being slower, I got more of the heat after 1 PM than you encountered.
  • @Al Truscott Thanks! I would have chatted more on the run but you were looking pretty focussed also! Spain sounds like fun- I doubt I would have a hard time convincing my family to allow me to spoil their vacation over there!      

    I definitely undercooked the bike.  It seems like its my MO to be (overly)cautious, but hopefully with a bit more experience I'll be able to explore my bike limits.  It's only this summer that I've been able to get to .8 for a 70.3 bike split (and had a decent run).  
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