JoJo's 70.3 Phuket Race Report - 26 November
Swim – target 50:00 / actual 50:23
Bike – target 3:30 / actual 3:22
Run – target 2:00 / 2:23 (!)
Introduction
This was my first year of longer distance triathlon, so there is definitely a lot to learn. My first 70.3 was in Switzerland in June. That was a fun experience, with very limited expectations. The Phuket 70.3 yesterday was the second outing at this distance. While the day was overcast, it was still very warm and humid.
Swim
While I am slow across the disciplines, I’m especially slow in swimming. Therefore, I seeded myself at the back of the last group of male AGs in the rolling start. Water temperature was 85 degrees and conditions were very calm for the ocean swim. Not much to report on the swim – working on swim form is a key focal point for next season! That said, I managed to drop 3 minutes from my swim time in June, so at least it’s moving in the right direction.
Bike
When I registered for this race, the course was set with a fairly flat elevation profile. Due to some delays in road construction, we ended up on the “old” steep course. My power meter was dropping signal every 15 – 30 seconds, which rendered it useless, so I focussed on heart rate. In race rehearsals, my average HR was 150, so I tried to target this level – actual average HR was 158. I managed to get some fluids and a bar’s worth of cliff shot bloks in the first 10 miles before the Naithon Hills, which were challenging – and led to a lot of competitors walking their bikes up several hills.
Unfortunately, as it had rained overnight and Type As being Type As, there was an early downhill section of the bike that was closed where walking was enforced. Given that two ambulances were pulling away from the area as I arrived, walking for a few hundred feet didn’t seem like such a big deal. Once I was down from the hills, the rest of the course was relatively flat. This is where the GI issues began which were fairly mild to begin with – just basic bloating. I managed to drink 1.5L of Gatorade during the ride as the GI discomfort grew steadily more uncomfortable.
The transition area was directly next to the hotel hosting race, so I had the pleasure of probably the most luxurious toilet break on the Ironman circuit. Not much time to admire the marble tiling and artisanal stonework, before I was out onto the run course.
Run
The run course is a double loop of several out and back segments. So about 100m from the transition exit, there was an aid station where I had a coke to try to address my GI issue. I was targeting a 9:20 pace, so per protocol, I targeted 9:50 for the first 3 miles. However, from the beginning, the only thing that seemed to keep the GI issues at bay was to keep my heart rate around 150 – I ended up averaging 158 as I was only able to sustain a pace of 11:00 to 12:00 minutes per mile (!). I know that water the recommendation is not to water on the run, but my mouth was quite dry and I felt that any additional Gatorade would worsen the GI problem – not sure if this is true, but decided to stick with a cup of water at each aid station.
The run turned out to be quite a slog, but I managed to keep a fairly positive outlook throughout.
Total elapsed time: 6:54:23
Lessons Learned
· Exercise more caution regarding diet the days prior to the event; big pasta dinner night before was not well digested
· Give power meter / Garmin devices a more thorough check on Saturday (!)
· Be more disciplined with planned nutrition both during race and race rehearsals
This is a bit of a disappointing list of lessons learned, as it seems that all of these issues are avoidable and have been well flagged previously by other team mates. Nevertheless, there is nothing that encourages vigilance about specific issues like personal experience.
I still had a great time and am looking forward to my first long distance event in 2018: IM Austria in July.
Comments
I wonder whether you needed more sodium than you had. How much did you consume per hour (EN suggests around 1000 mg per hour)?
I ask about this as you reported it was warm and humid, which suggests you should have had more than the recommended 1000 mgs per hour.