2012 Eagleman
This exercise is pretty painful mentally but I think I am coming around and just trying to learn from it.
Arrived at EM on Saturday, checked in, racked bike, no big deals. Thought I was doing a good job of hydrating, drinking water, gatorade, water, gaterade. Met a few friends out for dinner, ate pretty light, chicken breast, sweet potato fries, two beers (gotta carbo load). Was back at the hotel by 8 or so, watched some hockey, some basketball and hydrated some more, probably asleep by 10:30 and slept great, which is pretty unusual for me but I felt pretty confident in my training, had a great OS, good training leading up to race and good race rehearsals, so maybe not that nervous.
Race Morning:
Up at 4:15 shower, downed one bottle of Ensure (first time for this was not bad) and had a cliff bar and a banana and continued to hydrate. My wave did not go off until 8:10 so had plenty of time to digest everything. Picked up a friend and we headed to the race arrived about 5:30 found parking pretty easy and went over and set up transition. Everything going smoothly.
Got out of transition at 6:45 and just dicked around sat in the shade and continued to hydrate. Peed once or twice and watched the pro swimmer come in which was pretty neat. Also saw a lot of age groupers come in and saw a couple friends who went out in earlier waves. As swim start approached headed over and found another buddy in my wave who was there with family and we got wetsuits on thinking we had plenty of time, maybe not so much 
.
Swim: 37:xx
So our wave supposed to go off at 8:06, we both look at time see we have about 5 minutes and we are standing up on pavement they call our wave into water and we look at watches again and think we have several minutes then, bang gun goes off and we look at each other like WTF! Announcer says something to the effect like "oops time kinda crept up on us and that may be a bit early" so we run into the water and get going only problem is, in all excitement I leave my swim cap and goggle behind, when I realize that run back and get them. Now into the water. Despite all of this, I was thinking no big deal, not like I am a great swimmer so maybe I am slower in swim by a minute, no biggy.
I settled into a nice pace and sighting was pretty easy as my entire wave was in front of me. I eventually caught up to and passed a lot of people, never really felt out of breath, or stressed or hot or constricted by wetsuit (like I sometimes do) got out of the water feeling good.
Swam in 37 minutes which is not my best but also not my worst.
Transition: Horrible 4 minutes, I can never get my wetsuit off my ankles and putting on my new arm coolers took forever and a day. Plus I dont think they worked.
Bike: 2:32:xx PR by 12 minutes, big deal, see below under RUN
Got on the bike and felt great, was not hot, was not breathing hard was not excited just settled into my plan which was an easy pace for first half hour. I had planned on 175 watts but immediately noticed that my HR was way high like 165 bpm. I felt fine, RPE was real low so decided to back off a little more. Ended first half hour at at NP of 164 but HR was up at 165.
Decided to stick with my plan, despite HR issues (bad idea in retrospect), and up the watts to my goal watts of 182. As Rich and others suggested hit interval button every half hour to make things more manageable, half hour intervals:
1st: 164 NP, 2nd 170 NP, 3rd NP 179, 4th NP 172, 5th NP 161 in an effort to get my HR down.
So, you will notice that I never, ever got my NP watts up to my goal and I was fine with that because I could tell I was making good time, even though I do not look at speed on my Joule. I was passing tons of people. I felt like I was flying, flat smooth roads, very little wind (compared to what people warned me of), did not feel hot, was fueling well, grabbed water at every aid station and drank it all as well as my concentrate bottle of Infinit with 550 calories, and 1600 mg sodium.
The problem was and what I was nervous about as I pulled into transition was that my HR never dropped. Never had this problem before, in my last RR my bike was 2:45 with an NP of 179 and Avg HR of 147, Max HR of 162, Avg Temp 74.4.
This race: Time 2:32, NP 169, VI 1.03, TSS 143 Avg HR 167!!, Max HR 174!! Avg Temp 88.2!!
Lessons learned I think:
Pay attention to HR and slow down as much as needed to get it under control no matter how good you feel.
Drink way more, I drank as far as I can recall 20 oz concentrate Infinit and at least 80 oz of water but I only had the concentrate bottle on downtube and aero bottle so could not take on any more water. Need to change setup.
Run: 2:40:xx
The beginning of the end. I came into transition and felt really good, got everything done, sunscreen, hat, towel thingy for neck and out onto the course. Forgot sunglasses but no huge deal.
As soon as I got out onto the pavement the first thing I noticed.....wait for it.... Wow it is HOT 
! Never done this race before so have no previous years to compare it to. I live in DC where it gets pretty hot but so far this year have not had many if any really hot days.
Our AG did not go off until almost 8:15 and when the max temp off my Joule which I will assume was the end of the bike read 95, how accurated this is I have no idea but it was hot.
My plan was to start at 8:36 pace then drop down to about 8:00 and see how it went, I never had any trouble at all holding those paces in training and they should be easy for me. I looked at my TSS coming off the bike and it was only 143 so I thought I was in good shape, I was still worried about the HR on the bike though. I knew it was hot so immediately adjusted in my head to start at 9:00 and just see how long I could hold that. Turns out, not very long.
1st mile 8:47 HR 165, ok too fast, need to slow down, 2nd mile 9:10 HR167, slow down more or this is going to be a long day, at 2.5 miles or so my day essentially ended.
I was started to feel sick around mile two
and at about mile 2.5 both my quads just seized. Now what, start walking, blazing hot, feel sick, massage quads, cramps start to go away, make it to next aid station. Start to run real slow, see a tent, think sweet aid station. No such luck, med tent with like 10 people in it. I think to myself, just DNF and be done with it. Can't do it, figure as long as it takes it takes.
Long story short, tried to hydrate as much as possible, gatorade, water, water/ice over head, down shirt, down shorts, actually peed once on run, which I thought was kinda funny and ran/jogged/walked in in 2:40.
Total Time 5:57:xx worst time in a half in a long time. Very demoralized, actually pretty pissed 
.
Crossed finish line, volunteer held onto me for awhile told him I was fine, sat in some shade and just started drinking, drinking, drinking, gatorade and water. Laid down under a tree and both legs seized up, not fun. Got up and walked around, put some ice on my neck and just drank. Did not end up peeing until close to 9 pm that evening. So was definitely dehydrated.
Well that is it. One of those days. Immediately afterwards swore off Triathlon forever, find another sport, this ones not for you. After I was done feeling sorry for myself just tried to accept it as a bad day and try to learn from it.
Today thinking about signing up for another half in 4 weeks to try to get a little satisfaction that all this training did not go to waste.
Any critisism, suggestions, comments are much appreciated.
Thanks for reading.
Comments
I don't train with power, so I don't know anything about that, but I had the same thought about the heart rate on the bike. I had a great bike, and even though my heart rate was a little higher than usual on the bike, I didn't feel like I was working harder than usual, so though it was ok. I wonder if i had eased off just a little bit would my run had gone a little better? There were a couple of people I passed on Key Wallace in my age group that ended up passing me fairly early in the run, so I have to think maybe I should have paid better attention to the HR. But again, I don't have that power data, so don't know how that relates.
Don't be too hard on yourself. We all have bad days. This is a brutal race.... it is ALWAYS hot. There is one guy in my tri club that usually qualifies for Kona, and this year, E-man handed him his a**. A friend of mine and I were saying if he thinks it's bad, then it's really bad. My hubby said that the car temp readout registered anywhere from 93-98 when I was out on the run course.
Bill -- thanks for the report out. You did have a rough day, but it sounds like you learned from it.
I think you should go for another race.
Good luck!
I'm glad you're getting back on the horse again - if we all quit after one bad race, there'd be no one left!
Given the massive heat, it may well be that going a minute/mile (or more) slower during those first two miles of the run, and getting in a lot of fluid at the first few aid stations, may have made some difference. E.g., when I raced in Madison in 05, temp was 94, and I rain 90 sec/mile slower than my "normal" pace during the first half, and then (after the sun went down), finished with a negative split.