Syracuse 70.3 Race Report - Bob McCallum
I grew up in the Syracuse area so it was a nice trip in which I could do the race and visit with family. We made a 9-day vacation out of it. The race moved to June from the September date of the previous two years. I did the race in 2010 but came solo because my son was in school. The June date was great in that regard since he was out of school. The weather would also be much nicer!
To add further excitement to the mix my brother and stepsister were also doing the race as their very first HIM.
The three of us post-race:
As luck would have it, my brother and I were racked right across from each other in transition:
The June date brought much warmer air and water temperatures than the previous date in September. The water was 62 degrees in 2010 and the air was even cooler. That’s when I learned I was not a cold water swimming kind of guy. I was very cold for that entire race in 2010 after getting out of that water.
This year the water was 75 degrees and the air temp got up to 80. It felt great.
Syracuse 70.3 was one of the three 70.3 races that received the expanded Vegas slots. Undoubtedly done to drum up additional business for the selected races. 100 slots were up for grabs at Boise, Kansas and Syracuse. So the questions going in were a) would it increase business, b) would some real fast people show up to compete and/or cherry-pick those slots? Boise was a complete clusterf**k so we don’t know what/if anything happened there. There was zero effect at Kansas. Weren’t really anymore registrants and people weren’t any faster.
I thought I had a decent shot a qualifying for Vegas at Syracuse if it remained status quo. I couldn’t take the slot even if I snagged one but I wanted to see if I could do it. I didn’t think that would hold true though given Syracuse is in the northeast and within driving distance of many of the largest cities in the USA. I figured some studs would come out to compete for the slots. And I was correct.
I think there were a couple of hundred more registrants than last year but this race turned out to be the most top-heavy race I have ever seen. Last year saw 70 racers (pros included) go under 5:00 with 900+ finishers. This year saw 160 racers go under 5:00 with 1100 finishers… and on a harder course.
The Syracuse run course has been different each year they have done the race. 2010 was a point-to-point run from Jamesville (the race site) to the city of Syracuse. It was a net downhill run and very fast (not that I was fast back then). Last year saw the run course stay in Jamesville. Jamesville is very hilly. I heard last year’s run course was a bitch. I heard this year’s run course would be worse. The run profile didn’t give me much cause for alarm though. More on that later.
My training had been great up until about six week prior to the race when I hurt my shoulder playing around with my son. I couldn’t swim for four weeks and the injury also bothered me while cycling. My goal was to finish close to 5:00. I was able to get in a few swims in the last couple of weeks and felt okay.
Swim
Goal was 33:00 and my official time was 34:10. I’ll take that considering my lack of swim training the last six weeks prior to the race. I was also thrown off a little in that I seemingly swam by myself for 90% of the swim. The wave start in the beginning saw some minor crowding and people bunched up a little bit towards the swim exit. Otherwise, I was pretty much alone. I think that slowed me down some because there were no feet to catch. That stated, I liked the peacefulness of not getting clobbered the whole swim. 28th out of the water in the M40-44 AG.
T1
Official T1 time of 3:51. It’s a fairly long distance from the swim exit to T1. I also forgot to put some Aquaphor around the top of my cycling shoes to avoid blistering around my ankles which my new cycling shoes tend to do when going sockless. That added some time.
Bike
My latest FTP test had me at 301 watts. I just had not been feeling that in training lately so I dialed back my FTP to 290 watts for race purposes which put my 85% ~ 247 watts.
Syracuse is a pretty challenging bike course, especially coming from flat-as-a-board Texas. The first 12-13 miles are literally uphill. It goes from about 500 feet of elevation at mile 2 to 1700 feet of elevation at mile 11. The course then rolls (with a few challenging ascents/descents) until about mile 45 when it starts going back downhill. My Garmin file had total climbing at about 2600 feet.
Goal was 2:30 and my official time was 2:32. The first half of the course was a little harder than I remembered. I moved up to 12th place in the AG after the bike. Obviously, I did not know where I was in the AG at the time but assumed I was near the top-10.
Time: 2:32
Speed: 22.02 mph
NP: 245W
IF: .844
TSS: 170
AP: 241W
VI: 1.017 (I’ll pat myself on the back as that’s pretty damn tight on a hilly course)
I drank one bottle of water, took 1 Salt Stick, ate a honey stinger waffle (160 cals), and had three bottles of Perform. Total calories ~ 685 (~270 cals/hour). Total electrolytes of about 2000mg (800mg/hour but it wasn’t that warm out… at least for me anyway). My new nutrition strategy of mostly using Perform seemed to work well.
T2
Official time was 2:18. Nothing worth mentioning.
Run
I came out of T2 feeling really good. I hit the port-a-potty at the first aid station as my bladder was screaming at me. My goal was to run a 1:50 because this wasn’t a flat course and I knew it would slow me up some. Started running around an 8:30/mile pace the first couple of miles to ease into it and figured I'd pick up the pace after that (figured being the operative word). The run course was an out and back done twice. The first part of the run course was a trail run from transition out to the road where the final part of the bike took place. That road was a two-lane road in which the southbound lane was open to vehicles and the northbound lane was coned off into three sections: northbound cyclists, southbound runners and northbound runners. It was not an ideal layout and I hope that’s something they change for next year. Why not have another run course to make it four years in a row, huh?
I looked at the course profile leading up to the race and it was evident there would be some hill running. The profile made it look flat until you got to the one big hill. Maybe it was the scale of the run course profile that didn’t tell the whole story but the run course was constantly rolling and the one hill was actually two hills stacked on top of each other. We made a left turn off the “main” road onto the road with the hill. It was much steeper than I anticipated. I shuffled my way up the wall and then we made a right turn onto another road. I thought the hill was done. Nope! The next road was entirely run uphill until the turnaround. My HR was jacked and my quads were burning. Then it was time to run down those damn hills. The gravity assist was nice but the hills were definitely steep enough that you had to control your downward momentum and that really taxed my legs. I thought to myself, “That just sucked and I have to f**king do it again!” The hills sure took some wind out of my sail.
The run back on the main road heading back to transition was annoying because the northbound runners had to run on the shoulder and there was a pretty big camber to the shoudler area. That made my running stride awkward as there was a couple of inches of elevation difference between where my left and right foot were hitting the pavement. Oh well. Suck it up, buttercup!
Loop #2 had me do a run/walk variation up the hills. I wasn’t going to charge up that hill again. Loop #2 definitely slower than loop #1. I just wasn’t prepared for those hills. I blame it on false advertising. 
I felt great on the flat part of the course… all one mile of it! 
Official run time was 1:55:22. That was 5-6 minutes slower than I had hoped.
Official race result:
5:08:17
22nd M40-44 AG
Comments
Here is the run course profile per the website:
Here is my Garmin file:
A little more rolling and steep than they lead on! Bastards!!!