Tupper Lake Half RR - PRsville
PR'sville is a good place to hang...
Got the wheel back from saris on Thursday and the new Joule on Friday. Not real sure why they did not put them in the same box but whatever. Joule is a bit more complicated than the LYC or the 310 but is going to be awesome when I figure it out. Thought I correctly set my FTP in it, what else could threshold mean? Remembered that I forgot to order infinit after finishing it in LP a few weeks ago. Oops. Decided to go with 300 cals of concentrated Heed in the bontrager bottle and 200 in cliff shot block things. Will not be doing that again.
Got a later start up to the camp than I wanted. ML beat me there. We had planned to swim a bit. Decided that having a beer was a better idea. Beautiful afternoon to sit in an Adirondack chair and have a beer. Most are. Went out to dinner and followed 3 4 PB protocol [ignoring the fact that we had one before we left the house]. To hopefully improve our bike splits we went with our friend Tetsuoni’s favorite, La Fin Du Monde for the last 2. I think they call it “the end of the world” cause it is 9%, tasty regardless. Got a great night sleep. Always sleep great in my bed at the Lake.
Up at the crack. Ate my pop tarts on the hour and a half drive to tupper. Nice morning. Not too chilly and not raining. Almost a little sunny. Ran into ENer Kevin Lanahan and a bunch of guys from the local club. Having done the race for the last 5 years there was nothing new or unexpected to deal with. Really easy. Did the admin stuff and as usual had that “I guess we are really doing this” feeling standing in the corral.
The swim at Tupper has always been difficult for me. The good and or bad thing about the swim is that if nothing else it is consistent year to year as the buoy anchors have been in place for 25 years or so. It has always been at least 2-3 minutes longer than any half IM swim for me. I think that the best before this year was 35:xx. I started in the front and tried to find some decent feet. Picked poorly. It was obvious pretty early that my horse was dying and not better at swimming straight than I am. Not good. Oh well went it alone for a while and did my best. I was feeling great about swimming this year until the bike crash and messed up shoulder thing. Lately not so much. Usually the swim seemingly takes forever but it actually went by really fast for some reason. Hit the mat in 33:13, nice.
T1 was super fast and simple. At least until I had to wait what seemed like forever at the mount line as they were letting traffic go by. I am sure it was less than a minute but it seemed like hours. 1:57
Was really comfortable all day on the bike. Might have been since I did not pedal that hard. The first 5 to 10 miles were play with the Joule time. After a while I got it to display watts on the top line. Started to pass most of the 30-34 guys and the 35-39 guys that can swim. Of course there were lots of hero’s repassing on the hills out of town. Yo Yo’d with a bunch of them while riding steady. Annoying more than anything. At one point about 6-8 of them were clearly drafting up a false flat. No reason for it. Just either cheating or stupid. Natch Tri life folks made up most of the group. Not a fan of tri life. I just sat up and climbed the hill and watched a ref pull along side them. I hoped they all got dinged but did not see any penalties in the results. Regardless I got by them on the flats and never say any of them again. Passed my friend Justin way too early, like 15 miles in. No idea what the he was doing riding that easy. Only other surprising thing that happened on the way out was that ML went by me at about mile 25. Not good. Such is life. I was trying to sit on 260 on the way out. At the turn NP was only 247 but I was right at 1:15 so I was not too concerned. I knew that I had under cooked it a bit but riding really hard to make up for it on the second half seemed like a bad plan. I bumped it up a little and was feeling and moving well. Very lonely on the way back. One thing of note was a 45 year old guy passing me on almost an identical bike as mine, only difference was that he had a 1080 rather than an 808 front. Right after he passed me a maroon trailblazer pulled up along side him and sat next to him for a while and then gave him a bottle of coke. Pretty much during this he passed what I think was the first woman. He held the bottle for a little while drinking from it then pitched it on the side of the road. WTF there Lance? Really do not care about the outside assistance but the littering in the Adirondacks was a douchy move. Kinda strange but I did not pass or get passed by anyone in my AG after about 20 miles. That trend would continue. About the same as last year buy on 11 less watts. Guess that I am a wuss but the new bike is fast, or the weather was better or something. Oh well.
Tupper Lake:
Duration: 2:28:36
Work: 2110 kJ
TSS: 161.5 (intensity factor 0.808)
Norm Power: 245
VI: 1.04
Distance: 56.694 mi
Elevation Gain: 2917 ft
Elevation Loss: 2893 ft
Grade: 0.0 % (25 ft)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 493 237 watts
Cadence: 33 182 93 rpm
Speed: 0 47 22.9 mph
Pace 1:17 0:00 2:37 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 24 7 lb-in
Altitude: 1385 1681 1496 ft
Crank Torque: 0 804 219 lb-in
T2 was quick and easy other than the fact that I had to stop and hit the porta john. Had had to pee for a couple hours. Actually sat down and put on my socks and shoes. Took a few deep breaths. Saw race time of 3:06 and figured I was in good shape. 2:30
Started the run super nice and easy. Plan was to run 7:15-7:25 for the first 3 til I got to the top of the hill by the huge mental hospital place and then settle in and run 6:45 or so. Kinda almost worked out that way. The first one was perfect, second one too fast. Third OK. Hit a rough patch between 4 and 6. Stomach was feeling a tad rough after I forced in a gel. Did not want one but knew I could not get through the whole run on nothing. Took in way less than 600 cals, likely right around 500 for the day. Started raining lightly at that point. Not enough to get anything wet but felt great. Kinda got it together after that. Did not take in any calories after that and only a few sips of water at every other aid station. The trail sections and the last hills in between were not all that fast and kinda painful. Hate running on the sand dirt through the woods crap and I guess use it as an excuse to slow down. Was a very loney run. Got passed at about 12 miles and was happy to see 31 on the guys leg as there was no way I was staying with him. 7:00 minutes was the new 6:00 at the end. Really wanted to get in under 4:40 and was concerned about it til I saw the line. Did not pass or get passed by anyone in my AG the entire run. Weird. Turned out the closest was 2 guys that were 2:30 or so up the road.
Entire workout (7:02 min/mi):
Duration: 1:32:59
rTSS: 161.1 (0.964)
NGP: 6:40 (241.2 m/min)
Distance: 13.107 mi
Elevation Gain: 2899 ft
Elevation Loss: 2903 ft
Grade: -0.0 % (-4 ft)
Min Max Avg
Speed: 0 17.1 8.5 mph
Pace 3:30 0:00 7:02 min/mi
Altitude: 1326 1806 1630 ft
Splits were:
7:28
7:01
6:57
6:58
7:13
6:46
6:50
6:52
7:38 [that hill kinda sucks]
7:22 [as does the trail section]
7:05 [swear I was running 6:20 at this point]
7:07
6:57
Overall very hard to complain. 4:39:34. 6th AG, 28th OA. First time I was ever below 4:50, about a 12 minute PR. Beat my time at my first half 5 years ago on the same course by an hour and a minute. Need to ride harder and then run faster. Really think I should be running sub 1:30 off the bike. Maybe actually following an training plan would help. As I registered for Syracuse 70.3 the other day, time will tell.
Comments
:-)
Mike
I think I am most impressed that you were able to do this awesome on a diet of those tasty (high % alchohol) beers the night before and pop-tarts for breakfast.
I love my beer but get very nervous/superstitious about drinking the day before a race...I've eased up and will occassionally have a beer or glass of wine two nights before, but have not gone to the day before...
what's your trick?!?
Good stuff- congrats on hammering the race.
That was a fantastic day for you! Terrific finish time. But, hey, you keep your head down, work hard, plan the work, work the plan so every minute of that PR was earned. Congrats, Chris! Mighty nice.
WOW, that's a great improvement. Like 1.5 miles further along the course than last time...I am very impressed with how far you've come. Please don't do any HIMs near me.
P
You not following a training plan is just like me not following a plan. Don't kid yourself you put in plenty of work consistantely over a long period of time and deserver this huge PR. Maybe if you get the watts back up to what they were last year you can get another 12 minutes of a PR next year ;-)
Solid!
Jeremy
(P.S. I don't think I could ever do a race where they hold you up to let traffic go. That would be entirely too frustrating, even for less than a minute.)
Thanks all. Just cause I did not follow a plan does not mean that I did not do any work. Feel like I got away with one this weekend more than anything else. Because my super selfish sister in law is getting married the same weekend as Timberman [imagine the nerve of planning a wedding based on church availability rather than my race schedule???] and I have a LOT of time between now and Cuse I may actually try to follow the Half IM plan leading up to it. I hear they actually work :-)
Oh and I certainly will follow 3 4 a PB protocol before Cuse and every other race. I really hope that I do not ever take my recreational athletics so seriously that I won't have a couple of beers with my friends the night before a race. Besides I do not think it really makes a difference and may actually be good cause it helps you to sleep.
Chris, congrats on the PR. That's a really fast race. Nice to do almost 23mph at .8 on the bike. It's like stealing. Then to run as well as you did, even better.
BTW, Patrick inhaled a pint of Cherry Garcia at about 11pm the night before he lit it up at Timberman last year, so keep up with your plan.
It seems to work well.
Dave
Chris,
Great job on the PR. I think I heard you say you were sandbagging it a little? It will be interesting to see your next race.
It's great to see your relaxed attitude and enjoying life and tri racing.
Gordon