Ross Randolph's 2019 IM Eagleman 70.3 Race Report
2019 Ironman Eagleman 70.3
Results:
· Swim (canceled)
· Bike: 2:25 (10 minute PR)
· Run: 1:34
· Overall: 4:02 (14th place 40-44 AG)
Background:
I have never done Eagleman – in fact, I’ve never done a 70.3 on the East Coast. I live, train & (mostly) race in California. As a new-ish member of EN (2nd year), I signed up for this race when it was listed as a “key race” for 2019. I was looking forward to meeting more folks from Team EN and experiencing the positive vibes & mojo with a race full of red kits. Mission accomplished! I always enjoy meeting team members face-to-face and especially so many EN ‘legends’ who converged on Cambridge on June 9.
Coming into the race I had a very good training block - except the last 3-4 weeks before race day had a lot of work travel and moving between time zones (including 1 week in eastern Europe 2 weeks before the race); sleep schedule was a mess and I averaged about 6-6.5 hours of sleep in the week before the race when I typically need 8+ hours for optimal training/racing.
Goals:
· Get as many points as possible for the team. (Eagleman was home to North America Tri Team Championship.)
· Evaluate how OS bike focus would translate to 70.3 race bike split – hopefully faster!
· Top 10 Age Group. (Have been getting faster & more competitive since joining Endurance Nation – moving up from AG 20-something finishes to Top 20 in early 2018 to a first-ever Top 10 finish in Malaysia in November.)
Race:
I had been fighting poor sleep in the weeks before the race but was looking forward to getting a good night sleep the night before. Of course, just my luck - about 2 a.m. the night before I was awakened to loud music from the room above mine in the hotel. After a few calls to the hotel manager it eventually quieted down around 3 a.m. but knowing I would be up about an hour later I didn’t get the quality sleep I was hoping for.
After driving to the local high school and taking a shuttle bus to transition, I had plenty of time to get my bike ready, do some light running, stretching and get ready to go. I saw @Derrek Sanks , @Danielle Santucci , @Daniel Ballin and others from Team EN – everyone looks so cool & fast in red! We were to get a team picture at 7:15 but there must have been an audible called without me knowing because I somehow missed it. After a stop by the port-a-potty, the real drama of the day began.
First, they announced that the swim would be canceled – too windy & dangerous. Dang! Swimming is one of my strongest disciplines and the windier, the wavier, the better for me. This is the 2nd 70.3 in the last 12 months to have swim canceled on me – and the 2nd time I did NOT have a back-up plan ready to go. (Lesson Learned #1.) So it would be a bike-run starting about an hour after when we should have started the swim. The pros went first. Then about 30 minuntes later they lined us up in order of race bib. I was 487 so in one of the earlier groups to go.
As I was getting lined up and ready to go, I noticed all the liquid in my forward hydration bottle (I use a Profile Design FP aero bottle) had leaked out. WTF!? Apparently somewhere in my travel from California I had a pinhole leak about 2/3 the way down – it was a slow leak, so I could refill on the course and not lose much but I started empty. (By the way, I’ve contacted Profile Design after the race and they called me back right away & are sending me a replacement bottle for free; great customer service!)
Then, if that wasn’t enough drama, as I lifted my bike off the rack I noticed my rear wheel was flat! WTF!? I was racing with new tires (the newly released Conti 5000) and new tubes. I race with Zipp 808 which require valve extenders. They always make me nervous, but I had ridden 10 miles day before no problem and inflated to around 100 psi morning of the race and didn't notice any issues. Luckily, I was racked right next to the bike mechanics and I had a spare tube handy. There was a lady in the tent who helped rip the tire & replace the tube; she must have done it in like 60 seconds or less. I’m not kidding. It was amazing to watch her work. I dig good bike mechanics; I am not one of them.
I still don’t know what happened – I can’t believe it could have been a pinch flat because I rode the day earlier and made no changes and had no issues. It couldn't have been over-inflated because those tires/tubes should go up to 120 psi. I doubt it was sabotage – but who knows? I didn’t do any post-mortem on the replaced tube. I will tell you at that point I was thankful the swim was canceled. If I would’ve had that happen coming off the swim … yikes! Don’t even want to think about it.
My race strategy (assuming I was coming off swim) was to maintain about 170-175W for first 20 minutes until HR stabilized and then start to increase to target 190-200W. I was expecting HR to be around 140-150 bpm. I have a HR cap of 150 bpm on the bike that has served me well in previous races and had kept me from blowing up on the run. Well, that was before the swim was canceled. So I decided to just hit my power target from the beginning and observe what happens.
I was expecting a very hot race but the heat never came. It was windy & overcast in the morning and less than 5 miles into the bike began to rain – sometimes pretty heavy downpours. Below is my Garmin bike; you can see the temp drop from around 78 deg F at the start to around 65 deg F for the duration of the bike. The way we started the bike made it nearly impossible to stay out of draft zones and the rain-slicked roads made for a few treacherous sections. I heard there was some reckless riders but I didn’t witness too many making dangerous passes and didn’t see too many packs of riders, especially after around mile 40. In fact, I felt pretty isolated the last 10-15 miles.
I’m pretty happy with the bike execution. I took nutrition just as planned – still did a little more than 2 bottles of GE an hour despite the cooler temps. And took in all my Clif chews (once every 20 minutes) as planned. My heartrate averaged 148 bpm and never varied more than 10-15 bpm high/low. Power averaged 187W and power ratio was 1.04 (NP/Avg Power). Only regret is that I might have pushed the bike power a little more. Regardless, I finished in 2:26 which is about a 10 minute PR for my bike split. I was happy with that! I didn’t know it at the time, but I was in 27th place in 40-44 AG which meant if I had any hope of a Top 10 finish I needed to get my run on. Time to fly!
I knew there was at least one of my EN teammates who finished the bike before me. I had seen him (@Daniel Ballin ) fly past me like I was standing still somewhere around mile 35-40. He doesn’t know it, but that was one of the first mental games I started playing as I knew it was going to be a painful 13.1 miles coming off the bike. I kept looking for that red jersey for the next 90 minutes!
My bike-to-run transition was just over 2 minutes. I’m not sure how good (or bad) that was but I was happy with the execution – slow is smooth & smooth is fast. I dropped my bike, popped off my bike shoes and slipped on my runners, grabbed my Go Bag and was off. (I only found out later that Daniel had stopped off at a port-a-john and I must’ve passed him in transition.)
It typically takes me the first mile to get my run legs underneath and Eagleman was no different. The Eagleman run course must be one of the flattest 70.3 courses out there – but that’s tricky because it’s easy to go out too fast. Or at least that's what I think happened to me. My first mile was 7:03. That’s pretty good for me but a bit too fast, especially coming off the bike. But then mile 2 & 3 were 6:47 & 6:54 which is definitely too fast for early miles. Mile 3 included a rest-stop (bike set me up to be well hydrated for the run, but still haven’t mastered the art of peeing on the bike). After potty break the hunt was on. Mile 5-10 were supposed to be solid 7:05-7:10 miles but I couldn't hold it and got progressively slower each mile. @Jeremy Behler (race sherpa extraordinaire) rode past me just before the halfway point and gave a few words of encouragement – exactly what I needed to regain focus. Unfortunately, it didn’t keep my pace from slowing further over those critical 6 miles.
Around Mile 10 is when I take in my first rocket fuel (i.e., Coke). It’s also when KMF says “the real race begins.” The Coke worked for me in the past two 70.3’s but for some reason this time I got some serious cramps right away. You can see in the HR chart below where the suffering begins around mile 10 and then started to take off as my HR was increasing faster over the last 3 miles than the first 10. That’s not unusual for me, but I don’t think it’s ever gotten as close to 180 bpm as it did in this race. But in retrospect that 180 bpm was warranted and I'm glad I pushed.
I had been passing several in my age group throughout the run and not been passed until just after mile 10. That is my typical race strategy - get out to the front on the swim, get passed by half the field on the bike, then run through as many of them as possible until the finish. I knew he was in my age group and based on his bib number he was racked right next to me which meant we started about the same time. Game on! After he passed me, I tried to give chase but the separation was beginning to grow. With about 2 miles left he was probably 500 yards up the road. I knew if I was going to close I had to get going. With about 1 mile I had closed the gap to about 200 yards but he still seemed out of reach. I skipped the last aid station and picked up the pace. When we were about ¼ mile from the finish I was within about 50 feet. I didn’t want to slowly pass him in case he had a good finishing kick and I didn’t (see my 2018 Langkawi race report!). So about 2 turns from the finish I blew past him and never looked back. I thought for sure I was going to pull a hamstring or bust my achilles but everything held together (at least through the race – here I am a week later and still with some soreness in lower legs).
After I finished the rain really started coming down! A few minutes later I heard the announcer call @Derrek Sanks name and I went over to congratulate him and his Top 10 finish. Man, that guy is fast! I hope to have some of his skills when I age up next year. It was a great day to be with Team EN. We finished 3rd in the Triathlon Club Championship (they take the Top 5 finishers from each team competing and add up the scores). My 14th place wasn't even counted as we have so many awesome Endurance Nation teammates who got Top 10 and even some podium finishes! I don't think Eagleman will be on the race calendar for me again in the near future, but getting to race alongside the sea of red was an absolute honor & privilege. Hope to do it again someday.
Epilogue:
I didn’t realize it at the time, but by pushing the last few miles I was able to hold onto 14th place. Looking over the AG results, I was over 2 minutes from 13th place, 15 minutes off the podium (ultimate goal someday) and 8 minutes away from Top 10. Will have to keep working on the bike & improve some finer points of race execution to close that gap. However, in the other direction only 2 minutes separated 14th from 20th in my age group. That’s insane … and why I love racing with Team EN. Time is not wasted by execution ninjas!
I'm not sure what my next 70.3 will be - probably one closer to home like Santa Cruz, Superfrog or Indian Wells. But if it's in 2019 it will be my last as a 40-44 age grouper as I'll move up in 2020. Not that it's very helpful ... the 45-49 age group does NOT look any easier!
Comments
@Ross Randolph Congrats on a great race. The 2:25 bike with a 10 minute PR is amazing! I am curious if you stayed in your 190W to 200W range for the entire bike? Also, curious on what that is in W/KG for you?
Too bad the swim was cancelled, as I know that would have been a boost for your swim time, but I bet you also would have placed better in your age group on the bike and run by using less energy than your competition.
Overall, looks like you had a great race and a fun experience!
Congratulations!
@Brian Hagan thanks for the response. Here is link to both Garmin files (first one is the bike):
I tried to export the power data but wasn't able to get detail and since I didn't hit splits I'm not able to check hourly or 20-minute average. I should set up auto-lap feature in the future. Here is the data in a chart but there's no smoothing so hard to see any trends. The spikes are real and probably reflect me making passes throughout the race:
Race weight was 155 lbs so that's about 70 kg. That would translate to about 2.6 - 2.9 W/kg (180-200W) for the bike.
@Ross Randolph great meeting you and congrats on a solid performance, particularly in light of the curve ball thrown that morning.
It was great meeting and racing with you @Ross Randolph !
10 min Bike PR! ... Bike OS works!
And then laying down an awesome Run ... what a weapon!
No one needs any extra "drama" on race morning, but it seems like there's always something ... and you stayed focused and took care of business ... Well Done!
Good Luck for the rest of your year!
Outstanding race! Congratulations! That bike PR is huge. Way to hang on in that run. Sounds like your run execution was almost identical to mine. 😅
It was great to finally met you in person. Best of luck with the rest of your season.
@Ross Randolph I love reading the mental side of race reports. Your tactics to run hard at the expense of a hamstring is great risk taking. Why not? I bet you would have placed higher with the swim. Your run is a weapon. I hope you do SuperFrog . I might do it next year. Congratulations.
Thanks @Jeremy Behler (and congratulations on the BQ!), @Rory Gumina & @Derrek Sanks . @Sheila Leard I have opted for Santa Cruz over Superfrog for my next race. Going to take one more crack before I age up next year.
@Ross Randolph As you start to add up and develop all the minutiae needed for further triathlon success, you might reflect on how much juice you still had left in the tank, that enabled you to gain and pass in the last mile that guy who had gone by you earlier.
First, off, it is pretty rare to re-pass someone like that, after having been passed in the last stages of a 70.3 or IM. But consider this: you should take this as a sign that there was more speed available to you from miles 8-12 that you didn't use. I suspect that slowdown during those miles was not a result of ineffective or insufficient training, or even poor pacing during the bike or run. It probably was just not willing to be able to increase the effort level systematically as the miles ticked by. Keeping the same RPE during the whole 13.1 will result in a gradually slowing pace at a steady HR. But you have seen that your training really did put you in a spot to continually increase that RPE during the latter half of the run, and allow your HR to rise with it during the last four miles. Consider making that a point of emphasis during your next race, and you won't get passed to begin with.
With a swim in front next time, and a steadier finish to the run (worth maybe 2 minutes+), you'll for sure make that next step up you're looking for.