Buffalo Springs Lake 70.3 2011 Race Report
As far as I know, I was the only ENer at BSLT this year. As you will see from the write-up, I made a significant noobie execution error.
Neill Morgan, age 52
Race Write-up, First HIM
Buffalo Springs Lake Ironman 70.3, June 26, 2011
Age group place: 31/43
Overall Men: 400/507
Swim 42:01;
T1 2:11;
Bike 15M 1:00:03; Bike 35M 1:01:55, Bike 56M 3:14:01, 17.3 mph;
T2 2:11
Run 6.5M 1:15:27, Run 13.1M 2:56:27.
Total Triathlon Time: 6:56:51.
5’6 ¾”, 147 lbs. on race day.
July 1, 2011
My equipment: Xterra Vendetta full wetsuit; 2010 Cannondale Slice tri-bike, Zipp 404 wheel on front, Wheelbuilder aero cover over a Velocity wheel with a Powertap hub on back, Garmin 310XT head unit and running wrist unit, Rudy Project Aero helmet. I use a Speedfil 40 oz. bottle with a double bottle rack on the back. I carried a bottle of Infinit concentrated to 1000 calories in one rack and use the other for hand-up water bottles.
I ran with K-Swiss shoes, cotton socks, and a race belt with a pack of Clif shots and some salt packets in the pouch.
Pre-race nutrition: I ate bacon, 2 eggs, and pancakes at 5 p.m. the evening/late afternoon before the race. I drank a few swallows of a protein shake before going to bed at 9:30 and I drank about 200 calories of Infinit at 3 a.m. the morning of the race. I did not sleep very well the night before, excited about my first 70.3 race.
Buffalo Springs Lake, east of Lubbock, Texas, is a spring-fed lake with a temperature near 74 degrees Fahrenheit all year round, which means it is wetsuit legal even during the heat wave in which the high temperatures had been reaching more than 105 for several days previous to the race on June 26. Due to the forecast, 108 degrees, the race director wisely decided to begin the race a bit earlier than originally planned. My wave, a combined group of my age group (50-54 year old men) and another group of men in their thirties, began a minute or two after sunrise, at 6:31 a.m.
I slathered up with sunscreen and my wife Nancy put a generous handful across my shoulders and back, wherever skin was exposed. It soaked in and dried in the cool morning breeze as I walked down to the lake beach.
I donned my wetsuit in the dark and another competitor and I zipped each other up. This was the second time I had ever worn a wetsuit and would be the first time I actually swam in one. I know, it would have been better to have swum in the wetsuit in a race rehearsal, but that’s not the way it worked out. I entered from the beach across the inlet from the starting line and swam steadily through the darkness to the other side. The cool water leaking into the wetsuit through the neck felt good already, knowing what heat the day would bring. The flotation of the suit gave me a nice buoyancy and the shoulders fit loosely enough not to impede my stroke. I knew then that the brand new wetsuit would not be a problem.
As soon as the sun peeked above the horizon, the first group of pro athletes were given the starting signal. A minute or so behind the pros, the handcycle athletes began, and my group, in red swim caps, started next.
I started a bit wide of the buoy to give faster swimmers room to get past me without having to beat me up for position. I counted strokes, breathing regularly every third stroke and sighting the bright orange buoys every ten to twelve strokes. I am a strong and confident swimmer, but not particularly fast. I have invested my training time in the bicycle and run much more than the swim. I kept an even pace, and everything went as planned until the very end. When my fingers began brushing the bottom, I swam a few more strokes and then stood up, intending to jog along the lake bottom with water up to my knees. Once my bare feet hit bottom, I knew I would not be jogging there. The sharp rocks bruised my feet, too tender from not enough barefoot running. Once I hit the concrete boat ramp, I looked up to see several volunteers, The Wetsuit Strippers (what a great rock band name that would be!). One of them unzipped me, then I lay on my back and she pulled the suit right off of me, slick because of the sunscreen and Glide. She was the first of many very competent, kind, and encouraging volunteers. She gave me a hand up, a pat on the back, an encouraging word, and sent me off to transition.
Swim 1.2 miles: 42:01, slow, but right on schedule.
T1: Ran in, drank a cup of Gatorade, put my wetsuit on the ground, threw on my sunglasses and helmet. Volunteers were calling out, “You must wear your number on your body during the bike ride!” so I clipped on my race belt with my number attached and ran out with the bike. My shoes were already clipped on to the pedals and I don’t need socks with my bike shoes, so there were very few moving parts. Transition time: 2:11. Transitions are my strongest event.
I hit “start” on my Garmin which was already mounted on my bike. I see no need to wear the Garmin while swimming since I wouldn’t be looking at it while swimming anyway. The bicycle ride begins with a short but steep hill. I slipped my feet into my shoes while approaching the hill and rode up the hill slowly at .75 Intensity Factor so as not to start by burning up my legs. The bike course is mostly flat with a few forays back into Ransom Canyon. Keeping the watts steady takes a bit of effort and concentration, but it’s not the challenge of a completely hilly course. The wind was a factor, but nothing like it had been in the days before the race. I doubt that the wind ever rose above 25 mph during my entire ride. There is one place where the crosswind blew red dust across the road and I had to cover my mouth and nose to keep from coughing.
I kept up with my nutrition, putting a 250 calorie squeeze of Infinit into my Speedfil every 14 miles and taking a hand-up of water at every aid station to top off the Speedfil. I put the last of my Infinit into the Speedfil at the 42-mile mark and felt strong and full. I knew it would get hot, so I drank liberally from the Speedfil.
Most of the last 10 miles of the bike ride were against the wind, but I stayed steady at .75 IF and passed a few people on the flat. Whenever we went downhill, I passed people. Whenever we went uphill out of the canyon, I moved backwards through the field. I saw a lot of people standing up in the pedals pushing hard up the hills, from the very beginning. These were the people I passed in the last few miles.
The last bit of the bike ride takes us down into the canyon, the same hill we climbed at the beginning. Volunteers stood at the bottom with “Slow” signs before the last 90 degree corner. I slowed down, took the corner, slipped my feet out of my shoes, and hopped off right at the dismount line.
Bike Time, 3:14:01, 17.3 mph. My watts were low (.73 IF) and steady (1.03 VI) so I rode the ride I planned. I came off the bike feeling very strong.
T2: Racked the bike, removed the helmet, slipped on hat, socks, and running shoes and headed out of the chute. My transition time was exactly the same as T1, 2:11. As planned, no unexpected glitches.
By this time (~10:40 a.m.) the temperature had reached 94 degrees, but the run begins in the shade along the lake and through a neighborhood with people in their yards cheering on the participants and giving us a squirt with the hose if we want it. With a Vdot of 44.6, my ordinary jog-out would have been 9:51 per mile (L1 plus 30”.) Given the heat, I planned to slow it down to 10:20/mile, but I think the heat had scrambled the numbers in my brain and convinced myself that I could sustain 9:51. My actual pace in mile 1 was 9:43. It would eventually become evident that I did not give the heat her due. I ran a deceptively easy first three miles at 9:43, 9:55, and 9:53 until I came to the climb out of the canyon that begins mile four. I walked every aid station, putting a cupful of ice into my hat and drinking a cup of electrolyte solution and a cup of water. I climbed out of the canyon slowly, jogging around 12 min/mile up the steep incline.
When I reached the top, the heat suddenly pounced. My feet stuck to the tar bubbling out of the asphalt street. With every step, my shoes made a sticky sucking sound in the primordial ooze. I looked two miles down the road and saw the shimmering waves of heat dancing off of the desert floor, giving the illusion of looking at the other runners through waves of water. At the turnaround, mile 6.55, the temperature according to the thermometer on my wrist, was 105 degrees. My plan had been to run 10:21 per mile through the first eight miles, then speed up a few seconds each mile in the last five.
My body had a different plan.
By mile 8, the smell of the electrolyte drink, or the thought of a Clif shot, turned my stomach. When I drank water, it wanted to come back up. I had to walk and drink slowly to give the water a chance to work through my bloated stomach. I realized at mile 8 that I was no longer sweating. I continued to drink water at each aid station, fill my hat with ice, and put ice into my singlet front and back. After walking through and well past each aid station, I managed to jog slowly half to three-quarters of a mile to the next. I stopped at the porto around mile 10.5 and emptied my bowels. I ran a little lighter after that, but still could not drink enough water to go faster than a slow jog and a walk. Miles 10, 11, 12, and 13 were 17:18, 13:54, 18:06, and 17:57. I had reached the limit of my body’s capacity to move my legs and process fluids at the same time. If I ran without drinking, I began seeing stars. Not wanting to pass out, I had to slow down my legs, hoping my stomach would catch up. I was no longer racing, but working a biological balancing act.
This was not the race I planned to run.
The most frustrating part of it was that I could have moved my legs much faster. They were still strong, it was my stomach that wouldn’t let me go any faster.
Just before the finish line, a family that had also been near the end of the bicycle leg shouted encouragement: “You can do it! You’re only a hundred yards from the finish!”
“I think I’ll quit,” I said.
They laughed with me, but I have to say I was pretty disappointed in myself by this time. I felt I had already quit.
I crossed the finish line with a weak smile, jogging tenderly because of the heat blisters from the hot pavement burning through the soles of my shoes. Half-marathon, 2:56:27, a far cry from my estimate/goal (factoring in the heat) of 2:10. Total triathlon time: 6:56:51, about 27 minutes off of my goal/estimate of 6:30. The temperature, according to the thermometer in the shade of the medical tent, was 109 degrees.
Nancy (my jewel of a wife) met me right across the finish line and led me to the medical tent where I was completely cured from my dehydration with a Coke and one bag of intravenous fluid. I have very easy veins to hit, but it took the medical staff three tries to hit a vein because of my dehydration. The medical personnel were great, very cheerful and encouraging. The 71-year-old man who took his place on the gurney next to me in the medical tent lives in Lake Placid, New York. He encouraged me to come run the full Ironman there with him where, he says, it never gets anywhere near this hot.
Lessons learned: I began the run too fast for the heat relative to my conditioning.. If I had walked/jogged 14 minute miles, it would have felt ridiculously slow at the beginning of the run, but perhaps I would have held on to jog 10 to 12 minute miles at the end. In the first four or five miles, I outran my capacity to process fluids, something I had never experienced before. I have wondered whether I biked too fast, but I don’t think so. I had a good steady bike at a very conservative .73 IF and I stepped off the bike strong. I just ran too fast those first four miles. I let myself get sucker-punched by how good I felt and did not take the heat seriously enough.
Next time: First, choose a race where the heat is likely to be less brutal. Second, start out much slower than L1 plus 1’ if the temperatures are headed higher than 100. Third, build up more FTP on the bike, a higher Vdot for the run, and lose the damn extra 10 pounds that sticks to my waist line.
Third, take the thirty seconds it takes to re-apply sunscreen at T2. Between the wetsuit soaking it up and the sweat rinsing it off during the bike ride, there was little left for the run across the desert. I’m paying for that now.
I’m glad I did it. It was a tough race, but it has helped me get my head around what it will take for me to get ready for a 140.6 next year. Whenever I told someone I was entered in Buffalo Springs, they raised their eyebrows. “That’s a tough course,” they always said. Now I know what they meant. After this one, I think I’m better prepared for the next one. I'm aiming at the Longhorn 70.3 in Austin October 23.
Early yesterday morning, I went out and ran three seven-minute miles within a nine mile/ninety minute run just to see if I had just dreamed I could run like that. It felt great. I’m ready to start training for another HIM to redeem myself in my own mind before I begin the journey toward the 140.6 full distance IM.
I would welcome your thoughts, anything I may be missing in the above postmortem.
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