First HIM "Big Day" - Fail? Input Please
Not sure if I'm looking for input, support or a kick in the ass, but here goes:
Did my Big Day yesterday training for my first HIM. Here's a summary . . .
Swim: Because the pool I normally swim at doesn't open very early, I drove to a pool a little further away so that I could try to get done earlier. Had a half a banana and some gatorade for breakfast, then a Gu Roctane and 20 oz water on way to pool. Got in 2500 yards in about 52 minutes total. Mostly hit the intervals except for a couple of the longer T pace intervals that I held back on a little. Pretty happy with how this went.
Bike: Drove the 15 minutes home and spent another 15 or so changing clothers, getting ready to roll out the door, etc. It's about 8:30 at this point and already 86 degrees (heat index over 90). Ride 2:30 hours very conservatively, avg HR was low z2 and generally felt good until the last 20 or so minutes when the heat really started getting to me. I drank one 24 oz bottle of Infinit (700 cal) and 104 oz of water. Covered about the amount of ground I thought I would riding that conservatively . . . other than struggling with the heat at the end, pretty happy with this.
Run: Given how hot it was getting and how I was feeling at the end of the bike, I knew I was probably in for it on the run. Seriously debated jumping in the car to go do the hour run on the treadmill, but decided to give it a go. Looking back at the data, I went out way too fast. Had ice in my hat, etc. right from the start. Got to my first walk break and found that my frozen water bottle had not thawed AT ALL (how come they thaw in 5 minutes when I don't want them to and stay frozen when I want them thawed?!). All I can manage is tiny little sips of ice melt for the next while, and then I realized that my gel flask had leaked all over me, leaving my one tiny sip of gel left. (I had planned on 26 oz water and two watered down Gu Roctanes). Now I getting flustered, hitting the bottle against the curb trying to break the ice up, etc. Meanwhile, the air temp is about 100 at this point and I start completely wilting. With effectively little water and virtually no nutrition, I make the decision to cut it short and live to fight another day. End up covering about 4 miles in 43:00 with about 30 of that running.
Although I got 4:15 of training in, it kinds of feels like a fail due the way the run fell apart. Carried a lot of fatigue coming in (bike week the week before, big run week the week of) and generally didn't have very positive feelings going in towards slugging it out in the insane heat for 4.5 hours.
So, should I just write this off as a bad day, know that I got lots of good training benefits from the long day and just move on? Or did I sell myself short and need to really pick it up if I'm going to ready for my first HIM in late September?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
Comments
I would consider, Did you go to fast on the bike given the temperature?
Not being able to get enough water on the run probably pushed you over the edge..You made the right call to cut it short.
David- definately made the right decision to cut it short if you had no water or nutrition. The cost of bonking or getting over dehydrated is far more expensive than a shortened workout.
If you had a run volume week and a bike volume week over the past few weeks you were probably over extending yourself as it was.
Chalk it up as a learning experience and move on. No training plan is ruined by missing half a run workout.
I had a bad day numbers wise out at my first RR on the IM WI course on Friday, but got advice on what to do Sat and used it as a learning experience. The second ride was still not statistically so wonderful, but things went a lot more smoothly from just knowing what to do and were both faster and lower watts on the bike.
So, both training AND LEARNING are a big part of the RRs. You'll be fine in the long run if you take both of those seriously
As others have said, this could turn out to be one of your more valuable training days...something to learn from.
If it makes you feel any better, I just boogered my first IM RR. Quit after 56mi on the bike because I was dead despite playing it conservative with the watts. Hot day, low fluid, and esp low sodium were my culprits I think. Was really down about it for a while but am looking forward to redeeming myself on the next one.
Guys,
Thanks so much for the constructive responses. Went a long way towards getting me back on track mentally. Like Nate, with a day or two to think back through it, it was a great learning experience.
1) Stay in the Box/OODA: As things started to get challenging due to heat and fatigue (both at the end of the bike and the beginning of the run), my natural instinct to go harder/faster to "get it over with sooner" kicked in. As we all know, that is a recipe for disaster . . . oh, I got done sooner all right! Then, as things started to go south, my thought process got less and less sound . . . some of it was likely due to being dehydrated, but really got to focus on making rational decisions under pressure.
2) Have a backup plan: The funny thing looking back is that while I'm standing in the street banging a frozen water bottle against the curb like a damned fool, I'm only about a half mile from a convenience store. Had I had a couple of bucks on me and thought about it sanely, all I had to was head to the store, get a bottle of whatever, chill for a few minutes and finish it off right. Sounds a lot better than curling up in the virtual fetal position! Now I'll definitely sit down and think through some contingency scenarios (what if I drop my bike nutrition and the bottle cracks? What if I suddenly can't tolerate my planned nutritiion? etc.).
Thanks again everyone!
One question: did you happen to also follow the sweat test protocol during your bike ride? I ask b/c 128 ounces of fluid might not be that much for a 2+30 ride. For all my long bike rides, I have been gathering sweat rate data (if you want a link to my google spreadsheet just let me know and I will make one public) so that I can dial in my hydration for IMLoo. For your ride conditions, I sweat in the vicinity of 50-65 oz/hour (I'm 5' 10" and 168lbs). Your intake rate was 51 oz/hr so you might have gotten off the bike in a big deficit before you headed out the door to start running.
@Joe, I have been doing sweat tests after some but not all of my long runs and rides. Another lesson learned . . . I have 9 weeks to do it religiously and nail this down.
Quick question: On a day with a brick run after a long ride (Big Day, RR or even a regular Saturday) do you weigh after both the ride and the run, or just after the run? I ask because I had planned to weigh at the end, but by the time I was finished all I could think about was getting some fluids and heading to the basement to get in front of the big fan in front of my trainer. I weighed a little later on, after consuming a large but indeterminate amount of fluids, and was down approximately 7 pounds. I'm 6'2", 185 for reference.