Jason's Racing for Recovery HIM Race Report
Racing for Recovery Half-iron distance June 5th, 2011 in Monroe, MI
This was my first tri for this year and only my second HIM ever. For those that don’t know, I picked up tris at the beginning of 2010 after having a few half marathons under my belt. I’m 36 and was a basketball player in high school but never a dedicated swimmer, biker or runner.
I did this event because it fit in well for scheduling to get an early summer HIM in before my 12 week prep to do IM Wisconsin in September (which will be my first IM ever). It helped joining the team last November and following the season planning tool to get my races lined up just right.
To recap this year so far, I’ve gotten in 3 half-mary’s this spring PR’ing each one; much thanks to RnP, the NOV OS and the rest of the team! So – I’m much anticipating a great run during this HIM…. however, read below for the deets.
Equipment: Scott Speedster S2 road bike with aerobars and standard clinchers. I’ll be ready for a tri-bike next year.
Day before the Race:
I followed the EN advice and drank a decent amount of Gatorade the day before the race. I had a good sized spaghetti and chicken parm lunch and had some of the same meal as leftovers for dinner. I tried to not do too much activity, but with young kids and a nice day, I spent a good amount of time with them. I went to bed around 10pm.
Morning of Race:
Set my alarm for 2am and drank an EFS liquid shot for 400 calories and ate a banana. Drank some water and went back to bed.
Woke up then at 5am and ate 2 pieces of toast with jelly and started sipping Gatorade. I packed the few remaining items that I didn’t pack the night before and left my house around 5:30.
The race venue was only around 40 minutes from home, so that made it nice not having to worry about hotels, etc.
I arrived at the race, got everything setup in transition and did a Hammer gel and water at 7am. Stopped taking in liquids/calories pre-race at that time.
Weather in Monroe, MI on race day: Sunny and slightly humid. Air temperature was about 70 degrees at the 7:30am start and got to about 83 degrees by 1pm. Humidity was around 70 percent which made it a little on the muggy-side. Winds were fairly light at about 10 mph out of the East.
Swim – 41:40
First off, I can swim, but I’m not a swimmer. I’ve got the basic stroke down and can hold my own endurance-wise, but I don’t have much upper body strength. I’ve got the wing-span, just no meat behind it.
This was a good swim venue in Lake Erie. Water temp was about 64 degrees. I wore a sleeveless wetsuit, but most were in full sleeves. They started off in only 2 waves; men and women.
I started at a comfortable pace and tried to stay out of the melee. Everyone was very cordial during the swim and I didn’t get bumped too much. About 1/3 of the way into the swim, I started to have a slight panic attack. I’m not sure what caused it, but I just couldn’t keep my head in the water. I turned over on my back and just kicked for a little bit to try and regain my breath control and relax. After a couple of minutes that seemed to help and I turned back over and all was good. I started passing quite a few folks after that point and that felt pretty good. Unfortunately, I haven’t done any open water swims yet this year and haven’t practiced my sighting like a should have in the pool. This resulted in a little less than straight swim. It wasn’t too bad as the course was setup with a long down and return parallel to the beach, but I was about 20-30 ft off the buoy line most of the time.
I’m overall satisfied with my swim based on my limited prep this winter and it was only a couple of minutes slower than my HIM last year.
T1 – 2:30
T1 – 2:30
Bike – 2:44:38
My goal for the bike was about 200 average watts. Last year I did not have power on the bike and was really just pedaling blind during races. This year, I planned to execute the bike exactly to EN specs (with a slight modification to my FTP). I used the power webinar and race execution guidance and came up with a goal watts in 2nd Gear of 190 watts using my FTP of 238. I estimated a time of 2:45 and followed the TSS chart over to a 80% IF resulting in 176 TSS. Now, knowing from my previous RRs and my ABP rides, I think the 238 FTP needs to be bumped up a bit. That FTP is from my last OS indoor FTP test and I have not done an outdoor FTP test. Following other folks on the forums, I figured my outdoor could be 5-10% higher than the 238. So, I decided to target a 200 average watts for the race (this would be an exact 5% bump in my FTP).
My goal for the bike was about 200 average watts. Last year I did not have power on the bike and was really just pedaling blind during races. This year, I planned to execute the bike exactly to EN specs (with a slight modification to my FTP). I used the power webinar and race execution guidance and came up with a goal watts in 2nd Gear of 190 watts using my FTP of 238. I estimated a time of 2:45 and followed the TSS chart over to a 80% IF resulting in 176 TSS. Now, knowing from my previous RRs and my ABP rides, I think the 238 FTP needs to be bumped up a bit. That FTP is from my last OS indoor FTP test and I have not done an outdoor FTP test. Following other folks on the forums, I figured my outdoor could be 5-10% higher than the 238. So, I decided to target a 200 average watts for the race (this would be an exact 5% bump in my FTP).
I planned to go out for the first 30 minutes in 1st Gear (according to EN guidance) and I followed it pretty well. I had an avg power of 186, NP of 194 and VI of 1.04. After that I tried to keep it pegged on 200 watts and resulted in an avg power of 192, NP of 197 and VI of 1.03 for the rest of the race. My power data is below for the entire bike. The below data is using an FTP of 238.
Entire workout (191 watts):
Duration: 2:44:36
Work: 1883 kJ
TSS: 186.7 (intensity factor 0.826)
Norm Power: 197
VI: 1.03
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 55.559 mi
Elevation Gain: 257 ft
Elevation Loss: 240 ft
Grade: 0.0 % (22 ft)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 477 191 watts
Cadence: 1 106 90 rpm
Speed: 0 24.5 20.2 mph
Pace 2:27 0:00 2:58 min/mi
Altitude: 543 621 583 ft
Crank Torque: 0 659 180 lb-in
If I use an FTP of 250 (5% bump), TSS would have been 169.2 and IF at 0.787. So, I was actually really pleased with the bike. I did my “should have” bike, not my “could have” bike like Rich suggests.
On to nutrition. This is where I think I failed miserably as evidenced in my run, but I WELCOME ANY AND ALL COMMENTS ON THIS as I’m still unsure on what went wrong. I put two 20 oz bottles on my bike of Hammer Perpetuem. I mixed 1.5 scoops with water in each bottle. I think that gave me about 570 calories total for the bike along with 40oz of water. However, I think I left about ¼ in each bottle, so I actually only took in about 300 calories total or 100 per hour. This I think is below the recommended calorie intake for the bike on a HIM. Also, I’m not exactly sure on the accuracy, but I took in an additional 16-20 oz of plain water. I did pee twice on the bike, so I felt like I was getting enough hydration. Also, I didn’t have any cramping or stomach issues. So overall, 40-50oz of water and 300 calories. I’m thinking I should have taken in at least 60oz of water and 500 calories based on my run below, but I’m not sure.
T2 – 1:59
Run 10k – 1:53:42
Here’s where things got a little rough. I felt really good coming off the bike. I knew I kept to my bike execution strategy and was looking forward to kicking butt on the run. My MP from my half marathon testing is around 7:30-7:40. So, following advice from team EN, I went out targeting 8:10 for the first 3 miles. (now that I’m learning more, I wonder if I should have adjusted for temperature). I felt good and took a Hammer gel around mile 1 (I took no calories in during T2) with water. My plan was to take only my gels and water during the run (miles 1, 4, 7, 10). My pace for the 1st 3 miles was 8:06 (on target).
Here’s where things got a little rough. I felt really good coming off the bike. I knew I kept to my bike execution strategy and was looking forward to kicking butt on the run. My MP from my half marathon testing is around 7:30-7:40. So, following advice from team EN, I went out targeting 8:10 for the first 3 miles. (now that I’m learning more, I wonder if I should have adjusted for temperature). I felt good and took a Hammer gel around mile 1 (I took no calories in during T2) with water. My plan was to take only my gels and water during the run (miles 1, 4, 7, 10). My pace for the 1st 3 miles was 8:06 (on target).
At about 30 minutes into the run, however, I hit the wall. I did pee at this point, though. It seemed like all my energy was gone and started to get a little cramping in my side. I took my 2nd gel at mile 4 and more water. That didn’t seem to help at all. The next few miles were walking every 3 minutes and I averaged around a 9 min pace. I felt horrible. I took in some coke and that actually seemed to help a bit. However, it still took everything in me to keep running instead of walking. Although it was only 83 degrees, it felt like 100 degrees. Around mile 8, I started to feel a bit better and told myself to at least run to the next aid station and then you can walk (they were about every mile or so). I managed to do that and things were getting progressively better. I took a gel at mile 8 and then at 10 and kept drinking lots of water. From mile 10 on, I felt good, but still needed to walk after each mile. I got back to an 8 min pace for the last 1.5 miles and finished. My pace was about 9:15 from mile 4 to the finish due to all of the walking. An overall pace of 8:41 on the run wasn’t bad all in all, but I would have preferred to be a little more steady in my run.
Overall I finished in 5:24:26 – 8th in my age group
After I finished I went down to the lake to cool off a bit. I felt okay for about 15 minutes, but then my breathing got really quick and shallow. It seemed like I just couldn’t get my breath. I laid down for a second and started feeling tingling in my arms. I decided to walk up to the medical tent just in case. I got up there and just sat for about 30 minutes. The medical staff just watched me and until my breathing started to slow down. I felt a little nauseous as well. I ate a couple of watermelon slices and drank about two bottles of water. After that, I felt better.
I’m just really confused about the bonking on the run and what went wrong. I did better than last year in this race and felt like I had a pretty good consistent bike leading up to the run. I must have either taken the run out too fast or really screwed up the nutrition/hydration on the bike by not taking in enough.
Oh well, I learned from this one and now need to get nutrition and hydration figured out for Wisconsin. I am going to try a sweat test to see what quantity of water I need to take in to keep hydrated. I didn’t weigh myself post-race, but I did the next day and was still down about 2 pounds from 176 to 174.
Time for a little transition time…
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Comments
Jason, Congratulations on a solid race and a great 8th in age group placement. You executed well, with to your point, the nutrition miss step on the bike. Good job staying in your box on the swim and regrouping when things were not to plan.
On the bike 1.5 scoops of Perpetuem X 2 bottles is only 405 calories. If you left ¼ in each bottle then you consumed a total of 300 calories. This comes out to the 100 calories you mentioned. The normal target is 250 – 300 calories depending on the size of the person. Yes you were calorie short on the bike. This showed up on the run when you hit “the wall”. The gels and coke finally got some carbs into the system and you were back at it.
Looking at the race day temps an humidity and tossing the data into the heat pacing application , my best guess for a 70.3 is a 13-17% slowdown in pace compared to 60 degrees. If I picked your Vdot right at ~ 46 then your pace would be 8:49 to 9:07. The slow down you experienced was temperature related on top of the bonk.
Good Race! Practice your nutrition and dial it in on your race rehearsals for IM WI. You will do it!