Great White North Race Report
Race Plan
I really wasn’t too worried about the swim as it’s the price of admission for the rest of the race. Based on recent results I figured it would take me between 42-45min (I know I’m slow) for the 2000m. Given my new FTP of 243w I figured I would shoot for a .82 IF (177 TSS) which would bring me in around 2:38 for the bike. Nutrition wise I figured I would take in around 2.5 bottles of Infinit and a couple Lava Salts tabs every hour. I’ve been pretty strong on the run this year but was a little unsure how I would fare since I’ve had some pretty good blow ups in the past. I was shooting for under 1:45. So all told, my goal was around 5:05 which would have been a huge PR from my previous effort at the Calgary 70.3.
Race Morning
The morning was pretty uneventful (read no stress) as bikes were checked the previous day and there was no body marking. I did try to down some of those fruit smoothies in a bottle that everyone has been taking for breakfast. They didn’t really go down so well and I thought it was going to be puke time. I switched to Gatorade for the remainder of the pre race routine. I didn’t eat anything solid for breakfast.
Swim (41:58)
The water was perfect but a little murky. Except for the little meeting everyone had at the first buoy everything went smoothly. This swim was two laps and it just seemed like it was going to be a somewhat faster swim as there were a lot of people in a fairly tight course; some decent drafting opportunities were had. If you lined up at the far left of the beach you were right in line with the first buoy and if you were on the right you were inside of it; so needless to say the two groups were headed for a collision course at the first buoy. Goal one – Check Mark.
Bike (2:41:40)
My Edge read 2:36:05 so there was almost 6 minutes of swim/run transition time in there (more on this later). My NP came in at 201 with an IF of .827 and TSS of 177.5. VI was 1.05 but there were a few hills in there. I think this confirms that my current FTP is accurate as everything went according to plan. I was actually afraid of getting a drafting penalty as the motorcycles were right on top of us a lot of times; I wasn’t keen on the 2km lap of shame before the run adding 8-10min to my run time so I think it was fortunate as it reigned in my effort a bit at times. There was some jockeying between myself and 2 or 3 guys but they ended up behind me in the end. Goal two – Check Mark.
Run (1:37:12)
Gave a quick hello to the family before heading out on the run then had to find the nearest porta potty because I really needed to go after downing all that fluid on the bike. Spent literally a couple minutes in there emptying the bladder!!! My feel good plan was 7:25/mile for the first 3 miles followed by 6:55/mile for the rest. I also planned to walk every aid station which I did – I hate it when they say “Gatorade” when it’s actually “Heed” – yuck!!! I figure I was close if you minus the porta potty break and the walking of aid stations!!! The cool part was my kids coming out of the crowd to run the finish with me. I thought they were gonna tackle me so I braced myself for the impact – it was cool they ran in with me and got a finishers medal too. Goal three – Check Mark.
Summary (5:00:48)
Overall i’m very pleased with this latest effort. The final time 5:00:48, 115th overall (38th in age group) out of 645 starters, it’s a 54 min PR over my last attempt at this distance. The EN way is killing it for me this year!!! A couple things that still need work are my swim but I’m going to leave that for next year and my transition. Although I’m not sure that if I didn’t take the extra time in transition if I would have performed as well. Oh yeah and it was cool meeting Craig Harris after the race. All I remember was seeing an EN jersey running towards me saying something like EN represent – whatever it was it was good to see another teammate.
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Comments
Wayne, That's a huge PR! Congratulations on a great race!
Great race out there Wayne! You looked really strong on the run - it was great seeing you on the course and meeting you and your son (albeit briefly) after the race.
And you don't seem to be the type to blame the weather (or anything else) so let me be the one to say that without that damn headwind at the 1/2 way turnaround point on the run, you would have been sub-5 for sure!
Just woke up after a 2-day post-race nap so I'll whip up a race report that will be eerily similar to yours, although a bit slower of course.
Patrick
ps if you haven't already, please add this to the data tool! http://www.endurancenation.us/en_data/