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Derrek's Breakout Race! Ironman Louisville Race Report

Ironman Louisville 2017
Race Report

“There are two things one can control, how you prepare for life and how you react to what happens in life” ~unknown

 

A 75 min PR! How did that happen?!? Wow! I’m still trying to wrap my head around this performance and what I did in training to have such a great race. I didn’t realize how much of a PR this was until I started writing my RR and did the math. If you read my race plan, you'll see I didn’t have any big, stretch goals or times for IMLou. I wanted to finish in the top 10% of my AG and do better than IM Choo. Imagine my surprise seeing a 10th place finish!

First, a look at my race history:  

IMMT –           1:28 / 6:51 / 4:10 = 12:52                    AG 169/307 (pre EN)

IMLP –            1:25 / 6:26 / 3:51 = 11:58                    AG 33/315

IMChatt –        1:17 / 6:09 / 4:13 = 11:52                    AG 19/313

IMLOU –         1:06 / 5:46 / 3:32 = 10:37                    AG 10/219

Let me start by thanking @Coach Patrick In June after coming off a disappointing Eagleman 70.3 and signing up for IMLou, Coach P recommended I do the advance minimalist plan. “What, minimalist? I’m not a minimalist kind of person”, were my initial thoughts. Of course I questioned why. Long story short, he knew I had accumulated a lot more bike miles/fatigue in my legs at that point in the season than previous years. When I reviewed my Training Peaks log, I confirmed it…he was right. Comparing Oct – June to the previous year, I logged over twice as many miles (trainer and outside) this season. Thanks Coach, for putting me on the right plan and the personal attention to my training. The other significant change I made during this IM build was hydration. Eagleman was disappointing due to having sever cramping on the run, it was the worst ever. Thanks to suggestions from the Team, especially @Paul Curtin, I doubled my hydration consumption per hour. Also, I focused on my swim starting in January, working on body position (bands/pull buoy/snorkel), increasing my stroke rate and stronger pulls (accelerating through the pull and swim cordz sets).

Race Morning:

I had breakfast by 4:00 (Oatmeal, banana, apple sauce, Naked Juice and ~8oz of GE). By 4:30 I was ready to go but since Transition Area didn’t open until 5:15, I laid down for 45 mins to chill, rest and visualized my race. I arrived at transition area around 5:30 and everything went smoothly. I started drinking Skratch Rescue Hydration (700 mg sodium) about 45-60 mins prior and had a PowerBar gel about 15 mins prior to race start. At the swim start I found the 1:10 to 1:20 group and then did a 5 min warm-up run.

Swim: Goal 1:10 – 1:15 (RR Swim was 1:13); Actual 1:06  53rd AG https://www.strava.com/activities/1232564427

I jumped in the water and had a big shock from the cold water temp, which took my breath away. I was heavily panting like I just did an all-out 100 yd sprint. Quickly my senses returned and knew I just need some time to acclimate. After 15-20 seconds of the breast stroke, I felt much better and started my race. I had more contact than I expected or wanted, which always threw off my rhythm. Throughout the swim I was passing and having to swim around people but was able to find open water for most of the swim. After the turn down river, there was much less contact and crowding as I stayed on the buoy line. With the choppy water conditions, I really had to focus on a high stroke rate and strong pull to mentally block out the chop. I also knew the faster I swam the sooner I’ll be done. I came out of the swim confident I had a good time and not too exhausted. I didn’t look at my time until a few hours on the bike, which put me in a happy place for a while.

T1: Goal, sub 5:30; Actual, 6:12

Almost uneventful. Ran to T1 bag, to tent, shoes on, helmet on, and ran out while putting wetsuit in bag. The run from the bike out arch to the bike mount line was on concrete and too long in bike shoes. Running in bike shoes was like running on my toes and halfway to the mount line I started to feel my left calf muscle tighten, so I walked for ~20 seconds then returned to a slower run. According to the IM Tracker App, I passed 18 AG people in T1…sweet!

Bike: Goal, 5:45 – 6:00; Actual, 5:46   31st AG   https://www.strava.com/activities/1232561475

Best Bike Split estimates were 5:55 at .70 and 5:47 at .73 IF. Based on BBS and my race rehearsal, my plan was to ride between .70 and .73 IF. Actual stats: .70 IF, 1.04 VI, NP 176, TSS 285, Avg HR 130 (low Z2). 

I thought this was a fun bike course as I love blasting down the hills and the flats were fast. I used the first 10 miles/30 mins to get my HR down, which happened after 5-10 mins but I still waited for the 30 min mark to start working. I was getting passed by so many people going up hills and I had to keep reminding myself that I would see them again, if not on the second loop then on the run. The winds weren’t too bad for the first 90 miles; it was a typical windy ride making you stay aero as much as possible, especially into a headwind. But when the storm system hit, I had the windiest ride ever with a cross-wind of at least 15-20 MPH and gusts even higher. With my deep rim wheels (Flo 60 carbon clincher) and an aero wheel cover on the rear (Flo 90 CC), the strong cross winds were pushing me all over the road. The worse was the last 10-15 miles where it was nearly impossible to avoid all the fallen tree branches, sticks, debris and those green balls (black walnuts). That was not fun, but again my thoughts were the faster I go, the faster I’ll be done. I had good energy levels throughout the bike, never had negative thoughts or felt like I was working too hard. There were a few times I caught myself spiking watts at the start of hills, then quickly asked, “why are you pushing it…remember mile 18” and would ease back to goal watts.

Nutrition/hydration: I had a gel about every hour (the last 3 gels were caffeinated), 2.75 bottles of GE the first hour and then ~2 bottles of GE every hour and 1 S!CAP every hour. I was drinking every 15 mins and would sit up or stand (if I wasn’t on a hill) to stretch my hip flexors and neck. I peed at least 5 times…I knew I was well hydrated! Actually, I need to work on not holding “it” too long waiting for the ideal time to pee. A couple times I became very uncomfortable, dropping power and losing focus from holding “it” for the ideal time. I just need to let it rip.

T2: Goal, sub 4:00; Actual, 5:42

Flying dismount then a rather slow 200 yd run with the bike to the bike catchers. Ran to T2 bag, ran to the tent. Socks, shoes, race belt, trucker’s hat on and ran out.

Run: Goal, 3:35 – 3:40; Actual, 3:32   2nd AG   https://www.strava.com/activities/1232564599

Coming out of T2 my HR was in the low 130s…bingo…that was my HR at the end of the bike. I was looking forward to this run. It was flat and the temps were cool…perfect running conditions! Other than a bloated/full stomach sensation, I was feeling great. I planned to make a concerted effort to run the first 6 miles at Z1+30” (8:45). Well, that didn’t happen. I wasn’t too surprised because I’ve never been able to run that pace unless it was 90 degree temps with high humidity. Plus, the net downhill on the out portion of the out and back didn’t help. I took my only porta-potty stop between miles 1 and 2. The next few miles were all smiles. After mile 5, I was still feeling great and decided it was time to work. Well, not really work. My mantra became “do no harm pace”. Looking at my splits post-race, I was basically running at my TRP (7:45) pace +/- 15 to 30 seconds, which has been my long run pace all year. In other words, I was working, but it wasn’t hard work, yet. After mile 6 or 7, I stopped looking at pace/HR and ran by RPE/feel until mile 19-20. I planned to start “racing” at The Line...mile 18; but at mile 17, I decided to move the The Line to mile 20. Then, at mile 20, I said Ok, let’s go. My RPE felt like I was running sub 7:30 min miles, but after a half mile, I looked at my watch and saw my pace was the same. At that point my goal became, don’t slow down. In mile 23 I took my longest aid station walk (~30-40”) thinking it would be my last walk break. I didn’t know my exact run time (it’s not on my watch’s main display) until somewhere between mile 22 and 23 when my watch alarm sounded. My watch alarms every 30 mins (an obsolete take-a-gel alarm), which I had been ignoring. But this time I knew it had to be at the 3 hour mark. With 3.5 miles to go, I knew my run would be close to, if not below 3:30. Actually, my wife said the IM Tracker had my estimated finish at 3:25 at one point. The most satisfying aspect of this run was I had zero muscle cramps; not even a slight muscle twitch indicating a cramp is coming. In past 70.3 and 140.6s races, I would get inner thigh and/or quad muscle cramps at some point and would have to slow down to make the cramps go away, which essentially was my limiter. This time I was able to run without that limiter and finally run to my potential.

Nutrition: 16 oz bottle of Skratch Rescue Hydration (in T2 bag); I took 3 PowerBar gels by mile 3 or 4; and one or two cups of GE at each aid station. Somewhere before mile 18 I had 2 more gels. I started Coke at mile 20 to the end. I walked 5-10 seconds about every 2 aid stations until mile 18, then walked every aid station. For the first several miles my stomach felt very full and I didn’t know if this meant I was well fueled or what. Since I didn’t want to risk being under fueled, I decided to stick to my plan of front loading nutrition while the HR was lower. The finish was a blur and kind of blah. The last mile was very tough as the tank was empty; there was no fast last mile. Coming down the finish line, I couldn’t see anything due to two bright camera lights blinding me and I couldn’t hear my name being announced. I was very happy to be done knowing I left it all on the course. I must have looked bad off because a medical guy and a volunteer walked me all the way to a chair in the food tent. He said just to make sure I was ok.


Meeting and hanging out with EN Teammates made this an enjoyable and memorable weekend. Thanks to Super Sherpa @Scott Dinhofer for making this feel like a Team race organizing all the meet ups. A big Thank You to @Kellie Moran-Jones for organizing and hosting the Team Dinner at her home. And of course I must thank my wife for her support, encouragement, belief in me, and understanding of Ironman training.

Take Aways:

-       Swim focus paid off. I had great swims in all races this year. I’ll continue swimming during the winter working on stroke rate and building strength with the swim cordz.

-       Many times on the bike I did not push the watts because my speed was higher than expected; not sure that’s a good strategy but I was thinking going faster on lower watts = lower TSS = better run?

-       I definitely biked my “should” bike. I’m not sure biking a .73 IF (310 TSS) would have resulted in an overall faster race

-       Continue to tweak nutrition. 460+ cal/hr on the bike might be on the high side. I don’t know if this caused the full stomach feeling coming off the bike

-       I was happy with my body comp…I raced at 164-165. Last year I was at 160. I’ll try to maintain 165 through the OutSeason.

-       Time to focus on the bike again this OutSeason. My FTP on the road bike at the end of the 2017 OutSeason was 276…would like to see that on the TT bike

- ??

 

Tagged:

Comments

  • Outstanding race. Finishing off with a 3:32 run is very impressive. Congratulations!
  • Wow and Congratulations! Great race and race report. Its encouraging to see times drop like yours have. Especially the swim! It was fun following you during the race. Your run was very impressive and what a great top ten finish!
  • totally awesome meeting you and being neighbors this week. Watching you execute that run was truly a thing of beauty as well as an inspirational moment for me to watch. Looking at your progression of 4 IMs above, it's very clear where you are headed, looking forward to watching THAT happen
  • @Derrek Sanks -- congrats on a great race!  I'm glad the hydration changes were effective -- seems like both you and I need a ton of sodium during the race -- and Rescue Hydration works great for me as well.

    75 minutes is a phenomenal improvement, but honestly I'm not surprised by your time.  You've got talent.  Your running background is a huge asset, and it's shown up in each of your last 3 races: 4th-fastest AG run at LP; 6th-fastest AG at Chatty; and 2nd-fastest at IMLOU.  The run time improvement this year was likely due to an easier run and your improved ability to run off the bike.

    You've got to be excited about additional potential improvements in the swim and bike.  Your stated swim plan is excellent.  I recall you shared a swim video ... maybe share another one after you've picked it back up again.  Also consider masters swimming, and even private lessons from a tri coach.

    As for the bike, I believe you can race harder and still run close to 3:32.  Given your strong run, you may one of those who can get away with a .75 IF on the bike.  And your average bike HR seems a bit low relative to your run HR.  On the run you hit 138 by mile 3, so maybe next year train yourself to ride at 135 and see how your body responds.  I know your TSS was 284 from the LOU ride, but raising your FTP will give you the room you need to push it.

    According to obstri.com, you age up in 2019.  It's going to be fun picking which race you want to KQ at (you may even do it before then!)
  • Oh, boy, you’re in trouble now! All the intervals and volume paid off in the swim; your bike was textbook steady, 285 TSS  and a VI of 1.04 set you up for finally the run you’re capable of. You can see the front of the pointy end, next stop, podium city?

    its clear you’ve learned *how* to bike, both on race and getting volume in training. The next step as you say will be to use the OS to max your FTP. Don’t know if you’re doing any serious leg work in the weight room, but that might help, along with VO2 intervals and five minute hill repeats.
  • @Derrek Sanks, it was great to meet you and get to know you over the race weekend. Your execution was spot on and you have so much more room to grow. You run, a thing of beauty!!!! It was incredible watching you run during the race! Recover well!
  • Congratulations on a great race.  I was following you on the Tracker all day.  Way to execute your race and the training in lead up.  It will be fun watching you go forward from here.
  • @Derrek Sanks  Top Ten, No Low Spots, Just steady across the board climbing through all the competition, and topped off with an absolutely amazing run... Looks like your Run Streak from last year has finally paid its dividend.... I love everyone's "what have you done for me lately tone" and you can put me in that camp as well... Not only do we wanna see where you go from here but our expectations have just been raised :-).... For now bask in the glory of that huge success! Big Congrats.....
  • Congratulations on a great race!  I really enjoyed meeting you this weekend.  Definitely looking forward to seeing what you do over this next year.
  • @tim cronk - Your right! This has been both exciting and scary. There's no going back, the bar is higher, expectations are higher. I think this will (I hope) make me more focused and motivated; and boosts my confidence.

    Thanks.
  • @Al Truscott - Thanks! Yes, I hope that's the next stop. I haven't done weight lifting since high school; I'll consider adding this to winter training, maybe after I swim since I'll already be in the gym. I do plan to slay myself on the trainer doing VO2 workouts during OS.
  • @Paul Curtain - Thanks for your feedback and advice. When I first started planning my race strategy, I had .73 IF as my target; but ended up going the conservative route. Definitely something to think about next time. My HR varies based on the temperature. For example during my last bike race rehearsal temps were in the 62-66 range and my Avg HR was 122 on .73 IF. Then, if temps are in the mid 80s, my HR would be in the low 140s. Since I'm aware of this, I know what I should see when looking at HR on my Garmin 520.
  • @Derrek Sanks  - BOOM! Awesome race!  It was so nice to meet you! Keep up the great work! 
  • that was a textbook race ! ninja execution ! was nice to meet you and really hope you can punch that ticket next year, thats your next step !!


  • @Derrek Sanks , I am totally impressed with your training this year and unsurprised by your race results. You have always been a great athlete and showed it in every race. The focus you had during training this year and your mind set really pushed it to the next level. I hope to see you on the course sometime next year.
  • @Derrek Sanks - congrats on the breakthrough race many of us have been waiting on. Huge day for you. 460 calories per hour is probably a bit high, as evidenced by the bloat. It's hard for your gut to process more than 0.6 grams of carbs per hour per pound of body weight, so do a little investigation and math to see what you consumed. Also, I stop all eating with 30 minutes to go on the bike (Mile 100) to give myself a calm stomach for the run start. With your lethal run and improved swim, it's bike time!  Challenge yourself to raise your FTP 10-15 points this OS. One you add a consistent sub-5:30 bike to your arsenal, look out podium. 

    MR
  • @Edwin Croucher - Thanks! I'll be at IMLP next year!
    Thanks @Francis Picard...Thanks @Sabra Gonzalez

    @Mike Roberts - At 165# that's 99 grams per hour. 2 bottles of GE and 1 gel is 115 grams/hr. Looks like I should cut back or cut out the gel. Thanks for the feedback!

  • @Derrek Sanks I am a little late getting to this, but I wanted to give you huge congratulations on an awesome race!  I've been following you since we did the Outseason together last year and have enjoyed seeing your steady progress.  It was a pleasure meeting you in person and witnessing that run unfold live.

    Now I get to look forward to seeing your off season bike work and eventual build to LP!

    Well done Derrek!
  • @Derrek Sanks
    Super congrats on an amazing race!  Building on the above performance and spending time in the OS, I think the others in your AG need to watch out next year.  You executed well in some challenging conditions and your result shows the amount of time you put into things over the year.  i look forward to seeing what is next in store for you and following the progress.  Julian and I enjoyed meeting you over the weekend and will keep watch regarding what is next in store for 2018!

    Congrats again.
  • Thanks for the kind words @Brian Hagan and @Dawn Cass
  • Derrek congratulations on the breakthrough - so neat to see you "flip that switch" and really believe!   Oh and you need to tell all on how to do the flying dismount.  That's ninja for sure!  
  • @Derrek Sanks Congratulations!  Great seeing all your hard work pay off!
  • @Jenn Edwards- Thanks. I practice that dismount after every ride during race season but with my tired/tender feet after a few hours of riding, I don't really take off into a fast run...it's more like a slow run.
    @Gabe Peterson - Thanks!
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