CHALLENGE PEGUERA-MALLORCA Race Report
CHALLENGE PEGUERA-MALLORCA 2018 - 05:11:12
I was just about to edit the report, but thought Id leave it as it shows the raw emotion I was feeling the evening after the race, in reflection, all I will add is that (unbeknown to me at the time) I had a cold/bug coming on that was with me for the whole rest of the week and is still lingering as I type, so, this may explain a few things.
This is the second time I have done this race, its a nice way for us to prolong our season in Europe and a really well organised event in a cracking location. My plan this year had been for this race to be my main 70.3 to concentrate on after my “A race” of IM Austria, I got injured (see “making lemonade”) so couldn't do Austria, ended up having a great race at Vichy 70.3 & somewhat unrealistically (in hindsight) still thought I could get back up for this race.
Training had been going well until about 2 weeks out, I did an indoor run with heat that really took it out of me & I don't think I ever fully recovered. I kept telling myself it would be ok & that I could “trust the taper” & all would be fine, I normally don't taper much for a 70.3 (keep swimming & biking up, just cut back the running in the week before) as historically I seem to perform better when I don't, but I was so tired/ not performing well in training that I thought a full taper (as per the EN half plan) would do me good.
SWIM (35:02)
Pretty good time, I didn't feel great from the start & for some reason I headed off towards Ibiza :-)..... once I found the pack again I settled into a steady rhythm & managed to avoid the jelly fish that were further out. Im still over coming my shoulder injury so all in all, Im happy with the progress I'm making.
T1 (3:57)
Abbey (my wife) & I had done a bit of practice for this as there is a big wooden ramp you have to push your bike up before you can mount, last year we both wore bike shoes and it was a nightmare trying to scale the slippery ramp in bike shoes so it forced us to finally practice starting with shoes attached to to the bike, this was a-lot easier than we thought & after about 20 mins practice we had it down, it worked out well on race day. Unfortunately the mens change tent was so narrow and cramped that there was no way you could run through the tent to your bag, this was very frustrating.
BIKE (2:44:13)
I never found my rhythm on the bike, I find this a hard course to get your IF/NP spot on, with a climb for the first 15k when you are trying to get your HR down & then when you’ve achieved that & you want to start pushing, you do a fairly technical decent so your power naturally drops, HR was high all day so I was constantly trying to balance power & HR to reach a happy medium. I had an ok run so I think I got this about right as I was consistently trying to way up how much time to loose on the bike before my run wouldn't make that time back.
T2 (2:37)
Same issues as T1 with not being able to run through the tent to your bag.
RUN (1:45:27)
Again I never found my rhythm, the run was ok but my HR was high again, it was a bit of an unknown whether this was sustainable, so spent the first 3mi running pretty conservatively. I had a bit of a struggle around mi 7&8 but pulled it round to finish fairly strong. All in all I think I just wasn't prepared to hurt as much as I could/can.
I gave it everything I had on the day, sometimes its just not your day.TBH it shows just how far I have come since joining EN that I'm not best pleased with a time that 1 year ago would have been a PR.
Run durability has been a huge player this season & has bought my run times back to my best running times ever achieved back in 2012/13 when I was just a runner.
My unfortunate injury this year also helped improve my bike fitness in particular around threshold.
My swim is slowly coming back to pre-injury times hopefully is just a matter of more time spent in pool this winter & it will return.
TAKE AWAYS:
When ever I taper/rest(even 1 day) my HR seems to shoot high ?? Any body else have this, ever heard of this or have any kind of suggestions as to a) how to avoid it or b) deal with it on race day, as all I can do is test it out in a race & risk a big blow up.
I think 6 weeks between 70.3’s for me is ok, but don't expect to much form the 2nd one.
If/ when I do this race again I may need to come up with a different strategy for the bike as I know I can get that time down & still run well.
Comments
Well done, Karl.
I'd kill for a 5:11! Hopefully next year (fingers crossed) I'll be in that neighborhood!
I've been to Mallorca eight years in a row now, and while I don't know the Challenge-specific course, I'm sure it was hilly, so well done!
5:11 is solid no matter how you look at it! Put a hilly bike course in there and you are really working to ride technically smart and smooth. Very well done and great pics. Enjoyed following your training for this cycle. Very consistent.
During the weeks leading up to your race, for your Race Rehearsals, finding a way to swim at race pace BEFORE you bike/run will better remind you of where your HR is going to be on race day correlated with watts/pace. Sometimes this is not logistically possible.
Great run, strong mental performance re-committing at mile 7/8 when things began to get dark.
Congratulations!
Thank you @Scott Alexander & @Shaughn Simmons, Yes, on reflection Im happy with a 5:11, especially as it is a hilly course. Good advice KMF about the swim as well, I remember you saying the same thing in one of my other race reports, yes it is a bit logistically awkward but certainly an excersise worth taking the time to do, im definitely going to plan a few of those in next year. Thanks.