Dustin's 2019 Ironman Lake Placid Report
Pre-Race
Managed to get myself out of bed around 3:45am to start my process of coffee/food/digestion before the big day. Had a banana and a PB&J along and the coffee. Followed that up with about 12oz of tailwind prior to heading over to the transition area. Arrived in the transition and placed all of the nutrition on my bike and got all of my bags to the right spots and headed down to where the swim was, wetsuit in hand.
Swim
Expected 1:15-1:20
Actual 1:28:40
The swim at Lake Placid is a self-seeded rolling start so I found my way to the 1:15-1:20 group and waited for the chaos to begin. Canon blasts, pros go off, national anthem, and then it’s game time. Admittedly I teared up a bit before we took off, it’s been about 15 months since I decided to take this challenge on and I’ve worked awfully hard to even get to the starting line, not an emotional dude, but it definitely hit me in the moment – hell, 15 months ago I thought I was going to die during my first super sprint. Swim begins and its immediately clear that it’s going to be an abusive first few 100m. Lots of folks jockeying for position, grabbing, kicking, punching, etc.. Good times. Finally find a groove about 500m in and follow another guys feet for the entire first lap in a pretty comfortable and relaxing pace. Unfortunately, the swim at Lake Placid requires you to get out of the water at the half way point and run about 50 feet on the beach to re-enter the water where you originally began the swim. It’s at that point I lost my compadre and flew solo for the bulk of the second lap.
Run to T1, get my wetsuit stripped off, grab all of my stuff for the bike. Proceed to dry off, get settled down, and get the helmet and bike shoes on before running off to grab my bike and get out on the course.
T1 Time – 11:07
Bike
Expected 6:15-6:45
Actual 7:05:55
Nutrition plan - 50oz tailwind (2 scoops) per loop. Replenish another 50oz at special needs. Every 30 min salt tab. Every 45 min either cliff block or cliff gel.
Actual nutrition plan - I stuck to this quite well. I had to have an additional water bottle from one of the final aid stations as I ran out of tailwind before the final climb in to town.
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The bike at Lake Placid is probably the main reason people either decide to do the race or avoid it. It’s a pretty daunting 2 loops course with about 6500-7000ft of elevation gain depending on whose Garmin device you see. There is a long climb almost immediately out of the transition area, this is where I had the pleasure of seeing my power meter not working. I have had several problems with it lately and thought I had it working well, but it was reading 60w while I was going up a hill at what felt like 200w – off to a good start. I decided pretty quickly the next best method of keeping myself in good shape was going to be based off of a combination of RPE and HR, so I more or less tried to settle in at 150-160ish HR for the climb knowing it would drop out to 130-140ish once I hit the downhill. I found that to be a bit difficult in the first few miles, presumably because of some extra adrenaline. After the first big climb you are welcomed to a massive decent (I hit 49mph and was somewhat timid). For those that have gone down the hill on Beeson rd., just imagine that for several miles – craziness. After the hill you get a good chunk of flats where I was averaging about 20mph just cruising along at a pretty easy pace and HR paying special attention to getting in the bulk of my nutrition.
Following the flats, there’s a set of 3-4 pretty significant climbs in the last 10 or so miles coming back into town for the end of the first loop. Again, I was fairly mindful of HR and nutrition, but having a pretty difficult time keeping the HR low at this point during the climbs, I was hitting close to 170 at some points during the climb which is borderline Z4 for me (not where I want to be in an Ironman…ever). Really not sure what was going on – heat, adrenaline, pacing too hard without the power meter, or a combination? But this was when I start to feel like I might have overcooked it a bit. I made it up to town, hit the turnaround, and settled in to do the same thing one more time. After the second crazy decent I started to really feel like things were heading south. HR was creeping up and not going down as easily even with prolonged time going purposefully slower hoping to induce it to lower.
By the end of the flats on the 2nd loop I was definitely feeling it, maybe mile 90-100ish. Stomach was sloshing, slightly nauseas, I’ve been down this road on my long training rides before but thought I’d figured out a solid nutrition plan to keep it under control. I had to hit an aid station portapottie towards the end, but only managed to dry heave. As a side note, if you can avoid it, never ever go in a portapottie during an ironman – it’s worse than you can imagine. Made it back into town, definitely a bit worse for wear, but hopeful I could salvage the day with the run, which is usually my strongest leg.
Get through T2 pretty quickly, nothing special here.
T2 Time – 6:38
Run
Expected 3:45-4:15
Actual 6:16:21 !!!
Nutrition plan - Cliff gel or block every 45 mins. Salt tab every 30 min. Occasional aid station fruit along the way as needed.
Actual run nutrition - full survival mode, everything went out the window. Had a random sampling of nearly everything available in hopes to calm my stomach.
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People always talk about the difficulty of the bike course at Lake Placid, I don’t know why the hell I didn’t hear about the run much. It is an out and back course done twice. The first 10k is very downhill and easy then you turn around and suffer uphill with the same 10k in reverse. You do this twice. I managed to keep it together for the first 5k, trying my best to keep it super slow knowing what was to come. Somewhere around mile 4 the stomach slosh began again, and it pretty much was over at the point. I literally spent the last 22 miles doing a run of maybe .25 miles at best until I feel like I’m going to be sick, then walk until I get to a portapottie, rinse repeat cycle. As miserable as it sounds, it wasn’t. Truth be told, I’m usually more in the competitive group, and this experience was totally different for me – I really enjoyed walking and talking with folks and developed a larger appreciation for the volunteers, they were so amazing. No matter how terrible I felt going through the aid stations those folks managed to perk me up and keep me going, they were without a doubt the highlight of my race. Kind of a bummer really, because my legs felt good, I just couldn’t keep it together internally. I managed to suck it up for the final mile or so to run through the chute and hear Mike Riley call me an Ironman, something i’ve been visualizing for quite a while.
Expected final time 11:30-12:30
Final Time – 15:08:41
Thoughts on the Race
I was about 3 and a half hours slower than what I expected, and I couldn’t be happier. In a lot of ways I am thankful this experience was so difficult, because if I would have killed it right off the bat I’m not sure if I’d be eager to do another. I have more questions than answers. My general thought is nutrition and/or pacing are the root cause of my prolonged sufferfest, so back to the drawing board. I think I’m more motivated than ever now. I have a puzzle I need to solve.
Comments
Way to tough it out and finish. Congratulations Ironman. 50 oz in 3.5 hours does not seem like enough fluid intake. I don't know if you've done a sweat test but that would be a good place to start.
@Dustin Givens - great to have shared the course with you. First off, congrats on the finish. Ironman is a cruel beast that isn't always explainable. That was a VERY tough day. By the numbers, there was nothing obvious about why there were so many DNFs and that everyone was slower. The wind made the bike longer, particularly on loop 2. There was wind if you noticed, in your face on your way out of town, that's not normal, as well as on the way back as soon as you made the turn at the end of the Hazelton out/back.
I would bet your HR numbers were based on hydration. I got my "normal" 7 bottles in for this race on the bike and that was at least a bottle shy as I got behind. (I usually do one per aid station) around every 40-45 minutes + one between Transition and AS1. I DO think it's great that you immediately went to working with HR + RPE when the PM wasn't working. That's not easy to do, but you needed a manageable HR number... I think I'd be looking at 140s on the hills and low 130s on the flats.
The run was a death march. you saw mistakes that happened on the bike course manifest themselves on the run, and very quickly. The run course IS a beast, but a slayable one.
As Rob pointed out above, focus on hydration and your nutrition plan for your next race. You definitly need more fluids, calories and electrolytes. When I 1st did IM, I brought my own nutrition to the game, life gets easier when you "live off the fat of the land," and use the on course nutrition. Just a thought.
will you be back to LP in '20 or another IM?
Congrats on the finish, the first one is THE toughest!
Thanks Robert, I agree that's probably a good place to start. One thing I found on my longer rides is that sometimes my stomach would get upset if I had more, so also would be interested in here thoughts on supplementing liquid nutrition with something more on the solid side...
Scott, being my first Ironman I was admittedly hesitant to "live off the course". Having now seen how smooth of an operation the aid stations are I definitely think that's a good option going forward.
I don't believe i'll make it back to IMLP next year, just difficult logistically -- I think I am going to be targeting Chattanooga mostly because it's a lot closer to my house! I will seek redemption at IMLP at some point though, I can't let that be my first and only experience up there!
Wow! What a positive response - "I think I’m more motivated than ever now. I have a puzzle I need to solve."
The biggest problem with preparing for an Ironman is...there is really no way you can prepare for what it is really like. Shorter races, you can actually do the whole bike and a good part of the run, even preceded by some swimming, to get a good understanding of how pacing, nutrition, and fluid management all come into play. For the 140.6, getting to the crux of the day - the latter part of the run - requires you spend 8+ hours in training, which would wipe you out for any training which might follow for a week or more.
So you;ve learned that first, and most important lesson, and are now prepared to start working on all those puzzle pieces you know need to be found and put in place. I;d start with making sure your bike pacing plan is rock solid, beginning with figuring out how to get that power data totally reliable.
And maybe think about the value of trying an IM where your time on the course will be less (it won't be any easier, just shorter), like Arizona, Florida, or Maryland.
I think back to 1999-2001, when I started with a Sprint for my first tri, worked up to IM 15 months later and failed on the run, committed to going as slowly as I needed on the bike to have a good run in my second one. 20 more minutes on the bike bought me close to an hour on the run. Lesson learned - patience and humility pay dividends in this race.
@Al Truscott
Thanks for the response. I for sure will be focusing on a solid race nutrition and pacing strategy going forward that will hopefully include a few dress rehearsals prior to the big dance.
I have mulled over the idea of IM Arizona or IM Chattanooga as my 2 next possible options. I'm not so sure I am necessarily worried about the time out on the course so much as the execution, since that'll make whatever time I am out there much more pleasant :)
@Dustin Givens the three guys above are some of our most knowledgeable people on the team. You are in good hands. Wonder what @John Withrow and @Sheila Leard might have to say
Nutrition plan - 50oz tailwind (2 scoops) per loop. Replenish another 50oz at special needs. Every 30 min salt tab. Every 45 min either cliff block or cliff gel.
@Dustin Givens I commend you for giving it your all after dry heaving! I would say that the intensity plus dehydration caused dry heaving. 4 scoops of tailwind is 400 calories. A Cliff block is about 35 cal. Gel = 100 cal. So if we add this up you took in about 400 + 400 (gels and blocks) = about 800 + calories for a 7 hour bike.
A safe place to start is planning on ~300 cal/hour. or over 2000 calories on the bike! If your willing to use bike Special Needs then this doable. You can start out self supported with Tailwind if that's what you want to use and use get water from the course.. On your bike you can have low fat bars and chews. Don't discount little salted potatoes for the first part of the bike. Sip - nibble. You won't be hungry so you have to mindful of doing this every 15-20 minutes.
You need to be peeing 3 x for a 6.5 bike. If you are remotely dehydrated gels will not work. Stomach sloshing is poor absorption. The tubes were backed up to the small intestine. You can prevent this with a plan of eating and drinking frequently.
Keep refining this in training. Write it down. Its easy to forget what you ate drank after a hard training ride.
@Sheila Leard
I should have been more clear with my description of the tail wind solution, think I goofed on that, sorry. I had 2 bottles with 2 scoops each per loop. So that would put me at ~800 calories for the bike with Tailwind and ~1200 total. Still way off I guess! I think that still puts me at enough for about an 800 calorie deficit, yikes.
In terms of ways to get that extra 800 calories, I honestly can't imagine downing more gels/blocks to get the calories in. I know you mentioned salted potatoes -- what exactly do you mean by that? I assume it isn't chips.
One other quick note that might sway my caloric need a slight amount is my size. I'm definitely on the smaller side, 5'7" and 135lb race weight. Not sure how much of a difference that should make. Thoughts?
Thank you so much for the help, already learning a ton!
@Dustin Givens Congratulations Ironman and way to gut it out!
I have much less experience than team mates who have weighed in already, but I would point you to the Nutrition section of the Wiki which has a lot of practical tools (eg step by step "sweat test" protocol which @Robert Sabo referred to, Excel spreadsheet for calculating calories required, etc). You can find it here: http://members.endurancenation.us/Resources/Wiki/tabid/91/Default.aspx?topic=Nutrition+Central
I am your size (height / weight) and my IM nutrition plan called for ~300 cal per hour on the bike - which worked for me. There are certainly a lot of pieces to the puzzle, but fortunately there is a lot of advice here and many resources.
Congratulations again!
@Dustin Givens You. Are. An Ironman!
Once you have the nutrition thing all figured out, something else will throw you a curve ball. But trying to solve all of the puzzles is what brings many of us back time and time again. I have screwed up Ironmans so many different ways, but those all make it that much more magical when you unlock the puzzle and everything goes perfect in a specific race. It does happen and it is even more awesome than you can imagine... Hopefully, asking questions like this and absorbing the knowledge of so many of us who have done this so many times before will vastly steepen the trajectory of your learning curve. You are in the right place for that...
I absolutely do not have your nutrition issues figured out, but I will lob a few questions in to help you try to figure it out. I also have a few "theories", but they are just that, theories.
Have you trained with that nutrition strategy before on the bike? How have you handled the Tailwind? Did you use the recommended concentration of Tailwind in your bottles, or were you putting in more powder per oz of water than they suggest or than you have trained with? Were you also supplementing with water off the course (before you ran out of Tailwind)?
Did you pee immediately before the swim? Did you pee during the swim? How many times did you pee on the bike? did you pee in T2 or on the run?
Have you ever done a 1.5 hour swim followed immediately by a long bike ride?
Now before I give you anytime to actually answer any of those questions (I still want you to actually answer all of them), I'm going to put forward my "theory" that I might refine after hearing your actual answers...
I'm guessing you were light on calories (and salts and magnesium) the day before the race. Then it seems like you were light on calories in the morning. Unless you drank a lot more than you put in your RR, you were probably also not fully hydrated when you started the race. Then you had a swim that was longer than you expected and went more than 2 hours (including putting your wetsuit on, standing in the corral, swimming, and T1) with no calorie or fluid intake. The swim takes a lot more out of us than we give it credit for. My guess is you were under-hydrated and a bit low on calories when you started the swim... then being horizontal for that long and likely taking in a bit of lake water didn't help your stomach, but it also sucked a lot of fluids out of you and burned through much of your glycogen stores. Wetsuits make you faster, but they are hot... Especially given how high the water temp was that day.
Then as soon as you got on your bike, your Power meter flaked out. Awesome job going to a plan B, but my guess is that you were a bit pissed off and had some adrenaline spikes just worrying about not having power (that used excess energy whether you knew it or not). And if your HR touched 170bpm at ANY point during your ride, you were going too hard (but I think that is less of an issue than the dehydration). So now you're on your bike and slightly dehydrated, then you start taking in slightly concentrated Tailwind and supplementing with salt and pure sugar (blocks and gels). My guess is that slurry had way to high of an Osmolality for you to actually absorb it. So for your stomach to absorb what you were putting into it it needed more water which it probably tried to take from your body, but you're racing an Ironman and losing fluids through sweat at the same time... This created a vicious cycle whereby the more you put in the worse it got because your body could never normalize the Osmolality of your stomach... The gut slosh was your body telling you that things weren't right, and the HR spikes were probably also related to that while your body was trying to pull fluids from your bloodstream to get more H2O into your stomach to dilute your slosh mixture, all making it less efficient for that blood to be pumping to your leg muscles instead... The dry heaving was when your body realized that simply slowing you down wasn't enough to fix the problem and it tried to expel the root cause.
Once that death spiral starts it's nearly impossible to get back to your A-Game, so many many kudos for doing whatever you needed to do to cross the finish line! Seriously, that must have taken a Herculean effort!
I've talked to a bunch of people who got dehydrated on that course that day. @Kori Martini went through 7 or 8 bottles and didn't pee a single time on the bike (and that ruined her day). My guess is that the wind on the bike was not only requiring a greater effort just to stay upright and also move forward, but it was also causing much higher rates of sweat evaporation than most people realized (or were accustomed to). It was literally sucking water right out through all of your pores and you didn't even realize it because it wisped off behind you in the wind instead of soaking you and your clothes.
So "If" anything in my long tome above resonates, then maybe you need to be drinking a LOT more before the race (I always pee while I'm standing in line waiting for it to start and another 1-2 times during the swim)... If you haven't peed at least 1 or 2 times before the halfway point on the bike, something is wrong and you need to aggressively address that by taking in a LOT of water an/or Gatorade from the aid stations to supplement your prior strategy (at least until you start peeing regularly). My guess is water would have helped your particular situation better, but it would likely be a pretty a healthy debate on which of these (water or Gatorade) different people might think would have been better but lets table that particular nuance for now. If you are peeing A LOT, it's pretty easy to supplement with a bit of extra salt and keep the entire system flowing.
I have done things many different ways calorie wise over the years and my many IM races, but it sounds to me like you were low on calories (absorbed). I cannot personally supplement liquid calories (i.e. Tailwind or Infinit in my case) with something that immediately turns into sugar water the second it hits my stomach. Gives me the same kind of sloshing you described. So I personally have changed to actually taking in solid food on the bike. I go through ~5-6 different bars during my IM bike leg. I just need something with substance to be in my stomach (and is way less boring). I also like variety, so I mix Clif bars and/or Larabars and/or Skratch Bars, etc.). Clearly, you have to try these in training first, but that has really helped me. You're really trying to thread the needle by getting in enough fluids and calories and salts and absorbing them all but not over/under doing any of those at any particular time... But erring on the side of more fluids is almost always better than not enough fluids in any race longer than 10 hours or so... I'm also guessing you didn't have quite enough calories, but that's probably not what caused any of your issues. It's more likely that you had too much sugar/electrolytes for the amount of fluids you were taking in (i.e. the Osmolality of the slurry in your stomach was way too high which literally shut all absorption down).
Nothing in the world could have undone all of that damage by the time you got to the run. If you solve the swim/bike legs of your puzzle, your run will be VERY different next time.
@John Withrow -- wow man, I can't thank you enough for such a well thought out and presented post. I have done my best to answer your questions below, hopefully this is in line with your theory. I definitely think that your point about solid foods and general osmolality of my gut seems to make sense. I am familiar with the standard cliff bars and lara bars -- but honestly never considered eating them on the bike mostly because I was so concerned with stuffing my bento box and back pockets with smaller stuff that I thought those would be more trouble than anything else. Looks like I may need to rethink that. Again, thank you so much. This thread and all the help received so far is most certainly a bit of a surprise, didn't really know what to expect joining the group -- but this is amazing!
Have you trained with that nutrition strategy before on the bike?
Yes, but with a caveat. All but one of my >4hr rides were indoors, so I am also wondering if the environmental factors could have also been at least a portion of the cause. 75 degrees with a fan in my face vs. 90 or so day of the race.
How have you handled the Tailwind?
I found that for me if I had more than one 22oz bottle of 2 scoops per hour, plus the other outlined blocks/gels I would tend to have a bit of gut problems. This would usually manifest itself around 3-3.5hrs. That’s actually why I dialed it down to more like a bottle every 1.5hrs, which seemed to at least stall that problem.
Did you use the recommended concentration of Tailwind in your bottles, or were you putting in more powder per oz of water than they suggest or than you have trained with?
They recommend 2-3 scoops (each scoop being 100 calories) for 24oz of water. I think my camelback bottles are 22oz, so I would do 2 scoops per 22oz – I’d call that close enough…?
Were you also supplementing with water off the course (before you ran out of Tailwind)?
I grabbed a water at one of the last aid stations because I had run out of my second batch of tailwind, this was right around the time things started to go south. I didn’t supplement with any water until after the fact.
Did you pee immediately before the swim? Did you pee during the swim? How many times did you pee on the bike? did you pee in T2 or on the run?
I didn’t pee before the swim but I did pee during the swim at some point on the second loop. Peed once on the bike around mile 90. My longest training ride was 5hrs/90miles, and I peed twice during that, for comparison. I peed on the run twice, somewhere in the first 10k and somewhere around mile 20.
Have you ever done a 1.5 hour swim followed immediately by a long bike ride?
Nope. Was definitely surprised to see my heartrate much higher than expected when I hopped on the bike relative to how I felt at that point, which was pretty relaxed. If I would have guessed my HR, I would have guessed when I hopped on the bike I’d be at 130 – I think in actuality it was initially around 160.
@JoJo Thirasilpa thank you for the response. I am going to start off with the sweat test next week to establish a good baseline. Out of curiosity what were you using to get your 300calories/hr?
Hi Dustin - given my race weight of 135 lbs, I was targeting 335 cal per hour.
I decided to train with what they were serving on course, so I used Enervit Isotonic Orange (I live in the UK and Enervit is the IM nutrition partner for European events) which has 155 cal per 750ml bottle and targeted one bottle per hour (I seem to sweat less than average and temperatures on the day were mild - 73 high). I also ate one sleeve of Clif Shot Blok Margarita per hour (2 servings per sleeve and 90 cal per serving for 180 cal per hour). This put me at 335 cal per hour.
So based on the results of your sweat test, you will know how much fluids you (theoretically) need and depending on what mix you are drinking, you will have your calories from fluids per hour which will leave some deficit to be met by whatever it is that you choose to eat. Then between these two combined, you may have a sodium deficit to deal with as well - which I used Salt Stick Fast Chews to solve.
In training, I found this to be a lot to eat and drink and it was definitely a learning process to get comfortable doing that.
@JoJo Thirasilpa addresses the problem you need to solve very well here. There are three issues, calories per hour, (and then taken in over the hour, Fluids & Sodium.
also @Dustin Givens the RX for "2-3 scoops" seems to be a wide range. 3 is 150% more stuff than 2, and thus quite a difference on your race day, and not "close enough."
Good lessons learned about the IM here... Hope you are coming back for another bite of the IM apple whether in LP or elsewhere.. I did a bunch of others before falling for LP (which is most convenient for me)
Bars on the bike... I just put the 5-6 bars in my rear jersey pockets on the bike. It's the same thing I do during training, but in training, I also have my phone and a thin wallet in there. I use my bento for things like tire levers and a ziplock baggie with Saltsticks, Magnesium and essential Amino tablets, all of which I take regularly throughout my bike. I stuff my spare tube into the rails under my seat and may tape another one onto my bike frame somewhere and I keep my CO2 and inflater in the small space between my seat and rear bottle holder.
Have you trained with... Riding indoors is certainly a great way to train for much of the build of an Ironman, but outside (in the wind) is certainly a different beast. I think it just takes extra use of your core and many of your stabilizer muscles to stay upright outside one a bike especially with hills and undulations. When you add in winds it just takes a lot more out of you when you're regularly clenching to hold on...
How have you handled... If you had some gut problems manifest themselves after ~3.5 hours in training, I'm not at all surprised they got much more severe after 6+ hours on the bike... And dialing it back to a bottle every ~1.5 hours may have forestalled "some" of the gut issues, but I think the added dehydration from that strategy (in 90 degree temps) likely made the problem much worse when it ultimately appeared.
Were you supplementing... If you are having gut issues, stop what you are doing and just switch to water for a while (lots of it) and see what happens...
Have you peed... Good that you at least peed during the swim, so things were still working then. If it took you to mile 90 on the bike too pee, that's way too late. That's almost 5 hours of riding without peeing. Most people would say ~2-3 times on the bike is good, but I'm usually at ~6-7 times. If things aren't flowing through you within the first couple of hours, take note and address it (i.e. deliberately drink more water or Gatorade or something). If you are peeing regularly it is at least a sure sign that you are not dehydrated. (It was too late once you got to the run. At that point you had already slowed WAY down for a long time).
Swim before run... It's not always logistically easy to do a long swim before a long (outside) ride in training. But I have found it is super useful to try to do that at least 1x in your big IM build. Just make it happen. And bonus points if you can do it on a really hot day so your nutrition plan can really be stressed and tested.
@Dustin Givens You'll get this figured out Brotha!
@John Withrow
Killer advice. So looks like going forward i'll be trying to experiment with:
More solid food on the bike
Target more calories on the bike in general, will have to try this a few times i'm sure to find my happy spot
A few of my longer rides outdoors to get used to the elements a bit more
A few bikes directly after swimming to get more accustom to that feel of slightly elevated HR