IMFL 2011 Race Report-Geoff Sage
IMFL 11/5/2011 Race Report
This was my 4th IM and by far my best race experience. Going into the race I think I was a lot more relaxed. For the first time I didn't sit down at my computer and try to put down goals for each leg of the race. I really was trying to focus on race execution knowing that if I executed to plan that the times would take care of themselves.
A lot of the chatter leading up to the race, as I imagine is the case with every race, had to do with the weather, particularly the wind. Our Friday morning swim at the 7:00 am race time welcomed us with pretty rough waters. We were thankful that on race day morning the Gulf of Mexico was calm and inviting.
My wife Brenda and I travelled from Las Vegas to Panama City Beach and connected with our good friends Cat and Bart who had recently moved from Vegas to Chicago. This would be Cat's 2nd IM.
My nutrition plan started at 2:00 am with an ensure, I had practiced this a number of times so it wasn't too disruptive to a decent night of sleep. One thing I did do for the first time was go for a ten minute walk upon getting up. When I got back I made a couple of scrambled eggs and a bagel.
We headed to T1 to air up our tires, drop off our drinks and get body marked. Staying at the host property right next to the start and finish had a ton of advantages, one of the best was being able to put our wetsuits on in the condo and head down to the swim just 25' before race start time.
We positioned ourselves all the way to the right and the back, we probably would have been further out but we were corralled in by a fence they put up for the race. I expected to hear Ironman over the PA system as I did at other races but instead we were treated to Van Halen's Panama. Once the starting gun went off I expected to spend up to five minutes waiting to get into the water but the crowd of swimmers moved quickly and we were getting in the water after two minutes or so.
The swim was good. For me to say that is s big deal as I have had many swims that have ruined my day. The swim was good because I avoided the melee and had no anxiety at the beginning or at any time during the swim. The water was calm and pretty clear, there were a lot of jellyfish but most seemed to be below where we were swimming. There were three or four that I had to dodge, otherwise the swim was cool. Somewhere pretty early on I remembered to concentrate on my stroke technique, you can definitely get caught up in the euphoria of the start and lose track of everything you’ve worked on in training. On the first lap I did pretty good with my line but on the second lap, although I had hung inside the buoys on the outbound portion once we started heading back to shore we were way outside of the buoy line. I say we as Cat had found a way to stay on my heels throughout the two laps and we finished together in at time of 1:31:51, better than my 2006 best of 1:35:45 at IMCDA.
Looking back, the most important thing about the swim would prove to be the most important thing throughout the entire race day and that was race execution. Plan to stay in the back and not get tied up in the early race congestion, plan to start easy and not get heart rate elevated at the beginning to avoid anxiety, plan to sight often enough to not swim a much greater distance than the race course, plan to try to push the pace and not just relax throughout the swim but at the same time to swim moderate and not hard, plan to roll with the punches when getting nailed by other swimmers. All of these race execution goals achieved leading to a successful swim.
Heading out of the water I stumbled and fell in the sand, so much for trying not to get a bunch of sand all over myself that I would have to clean off! There was my wife Brenda and Cat’s husband Bart right where they were supposed to be. High fives all around! The wetsuit strippers were great, telling me what to do so they could do their jobs, the showers were awesome and off into T1.
My T1 plan was to change into my Endurance Nation bike kit and try and relax and recover from the swim. I had a new strategy for my prescription glasses; I put my sunglasses in my T1 bag, an older extra pair of clear glasses in my T2 bag and my good clear glasses in my dry clothes bag. The problem was that the sunglasses got fogged up in the steamy T1 tent and I couldn’t see very well with them on or without them. I had to have a volunteer look at my bike shoes and tell me which way the plus arrows were so that I could tighten them. I had heard that the volunteers would give you your bike but I did a terrible job of remembering where my bike rack was, and of course I didn’t ask for directions, so after I ran down the wrong isle I finally asked for directions. I got to my bike that a volunteer did hand off to me and finally got out of T1 in 17:50. Although it was a couple minutes longer than plan it was in line with my plan to take a casual transition.
It was still cool temperatures, in the low 50s, so I was glad that I wore arm warmers, toe covers and a cap under my helmet. The plan was to leave all of them on through the duration of the bike unless I became over heated.
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My bike plan was to not push for the first 90’ but at the same time ride steady and lower my cadence off of my goal cadence of 80 into the winds. Despite not pushing I was passing people immediately. I checked my Garmin and saw that I had no cadence or power readings both of which I planned on using to manage my day, speed was going to be what it was but I was planning on controlling my cadence and power. I realized right away what was wrong because it happened on a sprint triathlon back in July but I failed to consider it since that race. I had my road bike in my Garmin as Bike 1 and my triathlon bike in my Garmin as Bike 2; in the multi-sport mode the Garmin was defaulting to Bike 1, which of course I wasn’t on. I only went a mile or so without the readings before I exited out of multi-sport and switched to Bike 2, I could lose the full capture of the race on my Garmin and get the splits from the website but I couldn’t afford to bonk on the bike because I wasn’t in tune to the metrics I had practiced with. As soon as Bike 2 came up there were my cadence and power readings!
Moments later I pulled up next to Cat, we had a quick couple of words then I passed with her saying I will try to keep an eye on you. I knew she had the same plan of not pushing for the first 90’ and I hoped she wouldn’t try to stick with me if it would take her off of plan.
Heading down the Beach we had a pretty good cross wind but with the early race adrenaline it didn't seem too bad. As soon as we turned north on Hwy 79 I knew we were in for some stiff headwinds, which if all went well would mean that we would be the beneficiaries of some good tail winds later!
I was pleasantly surprised that as I lowered my cadence to power into the wind that I could still keep my power in check and was able to keep a decent speed of 18+ miles per hour. My first bike split of 55 miles came in at 18.12 miles per hour. I started doing some calculations extrapolating my bike split when I stopped myself saying I am just one moment of concentration loss to being in a crash so focus on the moment of right now a quit thinking about the rest of the day.
There were two out and back sections on the bike and we knew that the first one would be on a rough road. There were places where you could find a line that was a bit smoother which made for even more dangerous conditions as riders would settle in their line instead of staying to the right. Special needs stop provided me with a warm red bull and a mostly melted snickers; next time I need to figure out a way for these to be chilled, maybe some dry ice?
Coming out of the out and back portion we finally were treated to some positive wind conditions. The next out and back was on also on a smooth road. Next bike split 40 miles at 20.45 mile per hour. I was looking forward to heading east along the beach because on our practice ride there was a great tail wind, however on race day there was a terrible cross wind making the last miles the toughest part of the bike, so much for expectations! The final bike split came in at 17 miles at 18.84 miles per hour; overall bike 112 miles with a 19.0 average miles per hour including two pit stops to pee. I executed the bike according to plan; Ironman Perform every 15', 2' out of the saddle in a lower cadence every 15', 2 electrolyte capsules every hour, a gel or three shot blocks every 45'.
I felt very good pulling into T2 with a bike split of 5:53:38, more than an hour ahead of my 2006 bike PR at IMCDA of 6:57:46. I also felt pretty sure that I wouldn't see my wife Brenda as I told her I expected to be in before seven hours and to be at T2 in six hours.
I changed, hit the porta potty and was out of T2 in 9:52; no sign of Brenda or Bart which only meant my bike split was much better than expected!
I started out just trying to keep my pace under control and not go out too fast. Trying to keep a pace between 10:00 and 10:30 was difficult but I knew doing so would pay dividends later. I walked through each aid station, got coke at each one except for mile 3, 6, 9 and 12 where I got a gel and water. After mile 12 coke and ice only, no more gels. Shortly after leaving the state park I saw Cat and we exchanged high fives. I resisted the urge to calculate how far ahead I was because I knew that there was still a lot of miles to go and anything could still go wrong. First run split 5.75 miles 10:16 average per mile.
At the turnaround for the second lap I was looking forward to seeing Brenda, I gave her a high five and asked her to fetch my special needs bag which I skipped stopping for as I didn't need any of the warmer clothing I had for cooler weather. Next run split 7.35 miles 10:49 average per mile.
The toughest part of the run was after about mile 15 starting to run after each aid station , fighting off the little voice in the back of my mind saying to just walk for a little while while knowing that any walking other than through the aid stations would be day over.
As much as I didn't want to start calculating finishing times I was cognizant of the fact that I was in pretty good shape to break both five hours on the run and thirteen hours on the day. Next run split 5.3 miles 11:20 average per mile.
The last few miles were tough, just had to grind them out and know that it was almost over. Once we made the final turn we could see the lights and the finishing area I picked up my pace and looked forward to the finish. I crossed the finish line feeling good with my hands held high in triumph. Last run split 7.8 miles 12:02 average per mile. Overall run 26.2 miles 4:52:52 11:10 average per mile. Finishing time 12:46:03 almost 2 hours ahead of my 2006 IMCDA time of 14:37:06.
I made my way through the finishing area to find Brenda who was with Coach Patrick who did a short interview that he would later post on You Tube. It was obvious I had a great day, shattering my PRs in each discipline and overall. I got to change into dry clothes and make it back to the finish line in time to see Cat finish in a PR 13:15!
After hanging around the finish line a bit we walked over to the Mellow Mushroom to get some pizza and a beer. We joined Coach Patrick and a couple other EN teammates. After sitting for a little bit and having a slice of pizza and a Miller Lite, I said to Brenda that all of a sudden I wasn't feeling very well and put my head down on the table. It was great to see Coach Patrick kick into Doctor Patrick! He had me put my legs up, and get my breathing stabilized. After a little while the bad feeling passed, he referred to it as a Vagal Response which I had experienced once before when I got up to leave the hospital. While it was happening I felt terrible but once it passed I was pretty well.
I was able to get good nights sleep and felt fine the next day. After reflecting on the race and the results I am very pleased with a number of things and accomplishments. Finishing in the top fifty percent 90/190 in my age group, breaking thirteen hours overall, breaking six hours on the bike and averaging 19.0 miles per hour, breaking five hours on the run, having PRs in all three disciplines and overall. So what do I attribute these positive results to? Certainly the course and conditions were part of it. Ronnie Schildknecht, the male winner was the first to break the eight hour mark on a North American course finishing the 2011 IMFL in 7:59:42, so maybe 45' to an hour for the course, the balance due to good race execution (proper cadence into head and cross winds), good nutrition, good training all = good day!
We will see what 2012 has in store; California 70.3 March 31, IMNYC August 11, and IMAZ November 18 will make for a full year of training and racing.
Comments
Glad for you. Nice work.