Oceanside 70.3 - Event Report
First and most importantly, congratulations to the EN finishers and award winners from the race. Thanks also to Coach R for supporting folks on the run course and to John for organizing the post-race beers.
Given my day, I can't in good conscience call this a 'race report' unfortunately. 
In brief, the slowest of 8 HIMs I have done by ~ 60 min., including 2x on this same course. In analyzing the splits, 99% of the extra time in the bike.
Swim was fine, typical for me, but HR was a little high out of the water. Bike started pretty well, but I was seeing very high HR in relation to speed. I did a rolling stand-down w/i the first 20 mi, knowing the hills were coming. Little luck getting HR to reset for me even as I deliberately slowed further, so remained w the still slower pace and elevated HR ... tried to slow (while remaining aero in the headwinds) further to get HR down w/o much luck for remainder of bike. Had a flat front tire at mile 40 on bike, 9 min. to switch it. Entered a pretty dark place mentally at that point, knowing that I was losing huge chunks of time to my virtual self. I have to admit this is the closest I have ever come to a voluntary DNF in any race. Leaving T2 was not mentally easy. Run was actually not as bad as might be expected given all that, though I did some walking on the second loop that was unplanned (5+ hrs at Zn 3-4 will do that, I think).
It was good to see Coach Rich and the other EN folks out on the course - it helped on what was otherwise a pretty bad day race-wise. Net, performance was disappointing and very inconsistent with the training data I have from the OS and HIM plans (HM PR Feb 6; solo 60 mile ride 2 wks ago in < 3:00). Nutrition was not a problem. So -- I''ll spend a few days thinking about sources, and if I come up with any, will re-post.</p>
Sometimes you just aren't on a good day I suppose.
Transition week (I need one!) and on to the rest of the season!
Comments
Great job, thanks for the support out there. Sorry I missed you all at the Brewery!
Rest up and press on!
Steph
Tim, I was the guy who yelled out to you while you were fixing your tire. Glad to see that you were back in business! Wish I could've met all you guys in person.
@Patrick
Thanks. I am still a bit confused in terms of what went so terribly off-kilter. So, at the risk of TMI, further ego bruising, and also unintentially dragging this thread to the top of the forum again ...
Garmin data links for the race as well as some of the key and RR workouts leading in:
From these data points, I was projecting to ride a hair below 20 mph @ Z3 and then run 10s - which would have been a good result for me given my past HIM results. I have been able previously to do one, but not both. For reference, last Oceanside was 5:50 (27/3:00/2:20), which was off my HIM PR, but that course is a little slow and it was my first HIM in > 2 yrs.
This year, despite the bike, the run plan worked out OK for ~8 miles (10ish miles, EZ daniels pace) , then I fell off the pace/wagon, some of that was mental and I think some was also physical from carrying the relatively high HR through the whole ride/day to that point.
Nutritionally, I did my usual pre-race breakfast 2 hrs before, then a gel 30 min before swim w/ a bottle of water from breakfast to getting into the water. 2 bottles of water + 1 bottle of sports drink on the bike, 3 gels on the bike, 1 gel in T2 and 1 gel at run turn-around. Water at every aid station for 6 miles, then the plan was water+sports drink at aids after that. I had no stomach issues (despite the HR being a bit high), so I think that I was OK. I might be tempted to say I was a little under-fed or under-hydrated (I'm a big guy 6'4", 230, so need to eat - but I know from past experience that I can't tolerate much more than 250 cal per hour for HIM efforts).
I have checked over my bike, thinking that maybe one of my wheels was rubbing a brake pad or something, but I didn't find that. (in a way I wish I had
)
So, I'm left with a few options:
(1) Not enough cycling/hills. O-side is bumpy on bike, so perhaps I should have done RR rides on hills or at least should have done more hill rides in overall prep. Have done that pvsly for this race.
(2) Missing my peak. After 10 yrs of tri > 20 yrs of endurance sports, I usually know when I'm on good form (or not). Occassionally, over the years, I've missed a peak, being really good 2 weeks before or 2-3 weeks after a goal race. Might be the case here, hard to say. I certainly felt VERY good in training after the OS and through March, and I think the Garmin data supports that. I had some missed days in the two weeks leading into race week w/ work, so maybe too much rest there caused me to be too early. Dunno. Had a similar issue @ ;LP in 2004 - flat on race day for no good reason, really - but then had PR times @OLY dist 4 wks post-race and HIM 8 wks after the IM.
(3) Relative Lack Mental Toughness. Biggest enemy is between the ears, right? Maybe just seeing unexpected numbers (in a bad direction) allowed lots of negative self-talk and doubt which more or less sabotaged things early.
(4) Long Term Recovery. About a year ago, I crashed and broke my elbow requiring surgery and 3 mos more or less off w/ rehab - certainly no cycling from last April to June. I trained July/Aug/Sep and raced an Oly last Sep and then went into the EN OS in Oct. Is it possible that the longish layoff from cycling last year is still having an impact?? I know, grasping here, but considering things broadly.
Bottom line, I'm not sure about causation, but know I had bad execution of some type or another. Hopefully not a trend!
If you or other readers spot someting in the data that strikes you, please chime in.
Looking back at my power file I noticed that the first five miles I was right on my goal power output, but was going a little slow. If I remember correctly we had a little headwind at the beginning of the race. If you were trying to maintain a certain speed you may have pushed it a little too hard at this point and not realized it. Hopefully you can get this figured out so that you can learn from this experience.