Matt Aaronson - Racine 70.3 - a 9-minute PB!!
IM 70.3 Racine race report, July 2012
Profile: Matt Aaronson
- 37 year old management consultant, 3rd year doing triathlon, 2nd year doing HIM distance
- FTP 254 (4.1 watts/kg), VDOT 51.6
The short version
- Finishing time 4:39:39, good for 44th OA, 9th in M3539. First top-10 finish in a WTC race!
- Achieved a 9-minute PR despite this being a "B race", full of execution experiments on a 90-degree day, and being 7lb heavier than at Kansas last month
- Improvements were sprinkled across all three disciplines, but the most striking was in the swim. Below is a comparison with my prior PB, set on the same course last year in 96-degree heat:
| 2011 | 2012 | Improvement | |||||||
| Swim 1.2 miles | 38:27 | (2:01/100m) | 34:15 | (1:46/100m) | 4:12 | 11% | |||
| Bike 56 miles | 2:26:55 | (22.9 mph) | 2:24:26 | (23.3 mph) | 2:29 | 2% | |||
| Run half-marathon | 1:38:38 | (7:31/mile) | 1:35:48 | (7:18/mile) | 2:50 | 3% | |||
| T1 | 3:11 | 3:31 | |||||||
| T2 | 1:39 | 1:38 | |||||||
| OVERALL | 4:48:48 | 4:39:39 | 9:09 | 3% | |||||
| Placing overall | 85/1741 | 44/2227 | |||||||
| Placing in AG | 11/208 | 9/269 | |||||||
- I found open water quickly on the swim so was able to concentrate on form and good strokes. I didn't push it at all effort-wise, but rather tried to be really efficient in the water.
- The bike time includes a 1:12 stop to water the plants. Bummer…I managed to avoid that kind of time loss in Kansas but just couldn't help it yesterday.
- I could have really buried myself on the run in the last 3 miles to advance one placing and finish about a minute quicker, but I chose not to and don't really regret it. Today I'm walking around and hardly sore – killing it at the end of the run would have meant spending this week recovering all week.
- Finally, my big experiment with sodium loading worked out really well and I got no muscle cramps and no side-effects from the protocol
Intro
As context for this race I'll paste in the text of an email I sent to my family entitled "pre-race briefing", it is a good summary of how I approached the race:
"Ok, half-ironman race number 2 of a 3 race season is tomorrow. I'm number 1899. You can follow me on the ironman.com website.
This race should be interesting. My training has been quite unstructured since Kansas – with the Vegas qualification in Kansas this race got de-prioritized and is really the kickoff to a more serious training phase leading up to Vegas. I am 7 lb heavier going into this race compared with Kansas. As with the Olympic-distance race at Pleasant Prairie, I intend to experiment with a few things here:
- No socks on the bike
- Sun-sleeves on the bike and the run
- Racing shoes for the run (with socks)…until now the longest race I've done in racing shoes has been a 15k, and in these particular shoes a 10k…so hopefully I hold up okay in them for the full half-marathon
- A more restrained pace on the swim, more aligned with my swim effort in Kansas
- Most importantly, I'm going to try "sodium loading" to ward off cramps. I have been hydrating with sports drink (not water) pre-race, and took capsules containing 1100mg of sodium (among some other electrolytes) tonight. I'll repeat the capsules again tomorrow morning and also target 1000mg of sodium intake during the bike. I have no idea what will happen…
In any case, despite being a "B-priority" race I will for sure go all-out. This is a fast course but the forecast is for 90 degrees and I'm in the last age group of the starting sequence. Assuming no technical snafus look for 37-39 min on the swim, fast transitions and sub-2:30 on the bike (ideally closer to 2:25 than to 2:30). Then as always the run is the question mark – but probably safe to say that slower than 1:40 would be evidence that one of the 'experiments' went badly wrong. On the other hand if the salt strategy keeps away muscle cramping and the temp stays below 90 then a run in the 1:35-1:37 range is certainly possible and closing the deal on a sub-4:45 overall time is in the realm of possibility."
Pre-race – EN team pics: dinner on Saturday, and pre-race on Sunday. For the record, I downed almost 4,200 calories on Saturday. No wonder I'm 7lb over my weight compared with going into Kansas last month!!
.jpg)
.jpg)
Swim – 34:15, 56/269 in AG
For me, this was excellent. The water was nice and cool in the high-60s. I swam a bit to the outside of the course and as a result was able to be in clear water without the usual traffic jam you learn to expect when you're a mid-pack swimmer. So I focused on form and got into a nice groove. At the end the water got pretty shallow and I kept swimming until the last moment, allowing me to pass folks who were trying to run in thigh-deep water. My HR was jacked leaving T1 but that was more because of the long run in soft sand to transition, not because of my swim effort.
T1 – 3:31: Long run, as mentioned above. I used the wetsuit strippers and that saved time for sure. My helmet strap took a bit of time but really it was all pretty quick once I got to the bike. Shoes were clipped in and sunglasses were taped to the frame. It was helmet and go, that's it.
Bike – 2:24:27, 10/269 in AG (which put me in 18th place at the end of the bike)
Leaving T1 my HR was pretty jacked…I think because of the long run. As you can see in the graphs, it took a LONG time for it to come down. And in fact it never really came down to a "normal" level of high 130's to mid-140's for a z3 ride effort. I attribute this to (a) coming out of the gate a little high vs. target wattage, and (b) perhaps due to the sodium messing with my body chemistry (see later in this report for detail on sodium).
The bike at Racine is a reasonably flat (but not pancake-flat) course. I was in the last AG to start so I spent most of the ride passing people (always lots of fun). Unlike last year at Racine which my first HIM and where I didn't deviate at all from the EN execution protocol, I was slightly more aggressive this time around. I did not negative-split the power, and my VI was 1.02 – not great given how flat the course is, although any given 5-mile interval had a VI of 1 or 1.01 so not too bad.
For the first bit there was a guy who was drafting off me pretty obviously. He was in my AG which was even more irritating. Well at some point I hear this massive crash behind me and look back and the guy is hitting the road along with another guy. Strange. Then another guy (also in my AG, go figure) comes up to me and says a guy was getting pissed about how the first guy was riding, so "took him out" by "coming up behind him then checking him with a forearm". WHAT?? ARE YOU KIDDING?? He goes on to say he's never seen such examples of poor sportsmanship. No shit. I was totally oblivious to the whole situation behind me I guess. Pretty strange.
Overall I hit my target wattage almost right on the nose, coming in at NP of 215 vs. targeted 216. That yielded an IF of 0.845 and TSS of 171.1. Not bad for a hot day that was peaking at 89 degrees towards the end of the ride. The bike split was not a PB for me since I rode a 2:20 at Steelhead last year. But Steelhead was high 60's temp, is truly pancake flat, and of course the swim was cancelled so the fatigue profile was different. Below is a comparison of my ride this year vs. last year at Racine:
| Bike data | ||||
| Avg power | 203 | 211 | ||
| NP | 206 | 215 | ||
| IF | 0.83 | 0.845 | ||
| VI | 1.01 | 1.02 | ||
| TSS | 165.7 | 171.1 | ||
| Avg HR | 138 | 152 | ||
| Avg cadence | 87 | 90 |
Detailed bike splits are below. As usual I took some 30-second "breaks" to regroup mentally and to backpedal and re-zero my powermeter. Lap 10 is where I had to stop to water the plants. I can't bring myself to do that without stopping. But losing 1:12 is a big deal. I figure if I held it in I'd have lost more time due to being uncomfortable. Looking at the splits it now seems really obvious that I should have started out with lower power and let my HR come down faster. Towards the end there was some decoupling in the last 10-miles as I always seem to have happen, but really given the heat it was not too bad at all.
| Lap | Miles | Time | Speed mph |
Avg power | Norm power | VI | IF | Avg cadence | Avg HR |
Max HR |
||
| 1 | 0.43 | 1:31 | ||||||||||
| 2 | 5.00 | 12:35 | 23.9 | 227 | 227 | 1 | 0.895 | 88 | 164 | 172 | ||
| 3 | 0.23 | 0:46 | ||||||||||
| 4 | 5.00 | 13:16 | 22.6 | 226 | 227 | 1 | 0.895 | 90 | 159 | 163 | ||
| 5 | 5.00 | 12:08 | 24.7 | 219 | 219 | 1 | 0.862 | 92 | 155 | 162 | ||
| 6 | 0.42 | 1:12 | ||||||||||
| 7 | 5.00 | 13:14 | 22.7 | 209 | 211 | 1.01 | 0.83 | 92 | 151 | 157 | ||
| 8 | 5.00 | 13:58 | 21.5 | 211 | 214 | 1.01 | 0.842 | 90 | 150 | 157 | ||
| 9 | <td width="57" style="bor
0
Comments
Finally! We've reached legitimacy as a sport when we have no-shit-taking-brawlers in our mist.
Awesome race. I've been riding with the arm coolers too and am hooked. I did 100+ miles and a 6 mile run yesterday with them and they actually kept me cool, despite only being wet at 40 and 80 mile stops. I guess it's the UV pro.
Your 34 minute swim is solid. If you can do that with no effort, you'll be in the mix every time with your run and bike speed.
What was your nutrition on the bike? Remarkable you had no cardiac drift on the bike despite only marginal power drops on the bike.
Also noticed you didn't follow the EN protocol of 30 minutes easy on the bike. Is this the first time you've done that?
One last thing: Guessing you had a tailwind coming home? Power drops but speed increase?
Nice detailed report Matt! Nice getting to meet you and awesome job with your PR!!
Sun sleeves are actually pretty easy to put on while biking. I kind of balled them onto my wrists and then adjusted. Easy. Also, an ice cube at the elbow makes them genius. What brand do you have?
LOVE this sodium experiment. Well played. Risk definitely rewarded.
A few questions...
1. What brand of sun sleeves did you use?
2. Why did you zero the PT instead of using the lap button?
3. Why did you manually lap the run every mile instead of programming it to auto-lap?
#'s 2 and 3 are mainly because I'm curious if it's a better approach then I use.
FWIW, I have trained and raced a few years now sockless in Zoot Tempo's. If my shoes get really wet (as they did this past weekend at an oly), I still may get a blister or rub burn in the arch of my foot. I believe socks would prevent that, but I'm not positive. It's not bad enough to take the time in transition to put socks on. Anything HIM or higher I still wear socks. Last year I did IMWI in my Zoot's (with socks). I am VERY glad I wore them for the Ironman because of the drainage holes and how lightweight they are. For training, I split my time between the Tempo's and Advantage shoes. I believe they have the same insoles.
Good luck in Las Vegas!!!
First ... if you'd been in 2nd place and not gone after the guy in front of you, yeah, I'd have been pissed off. But the difference between 8th and 9th when you already are having a greatday, have already qualified for World Champs, and thus have bigger fish to fry, you did the right thing. Those run downs at the end of a long distance tri are truly draining, and a scary place to go. It's best not to go there unless you have a REALLY good reason.
It's great to see the continuing improvement. Another step up the ladder, with higher rungs in sight. Long distance tri racing is full of little pieces of the jigsaw which must fit together, and they end up being different for all of us. You are learning what works for you. I bet that at least part of the run time was due to the change in shoes. I also wonder if even lighter weight shoes, for a smaller guy like yourself, could have an additional effect (although I don't suggest doing this for Vegas).
Looking to next year, my impression is that improvements in your bike and run will come from improved fitness, meaning harder work in training. And the old adage, "You can't win the race on your swim, but you can lose it." is apropos here. Continued improvement in swim race execution is something which can potentially drop 2 minutes in your overall time, given your training paces. And from now on, every second/minute counts.
@ Matt W –
I agree, swimming 34' puts me more in the mix. It is much, much different from a 38'. I can even tell that on the bike there are fewer people in my AG around me. But it's still a pretty slow swim compared with my bike and run splits. Only one guy who beat me overall had a slower swim split…his swim was a minute slower and he beat me by 19 sec overall. In fact, the next 10 of 12 guys who finished after me all had a faster swim, including the 6 who finished right after me. Of the top 25 in my AG, I placed 21st in the swim. As Al said in his comments, there's another couple of minutes there for sure (not sure how much is in execution, however). If I could swim a 31' or 32' that would really kick things up a notch.
My nutrition on the bike was a Gu Chocolate Outrage gel at miles 15, 30 and 45. Plus a sodium capsule at miles 15 and 30. And ~15 oz of Gatorade prior to the first aid station and ~10 oz of Gatorade in the last 15 miles or so. Interestingly an HR of 150's on the bike is quite high for me compared with other races and my typical ABP rides at 85%. But you are right that the decoupling is pretty minor: mile 40-45 (ish) was 208w @ 147bpm, the next 5 miles was 206w @ 151bpm (not good), but then the last miles were 216w @ 155bpm – certainly not out-of-control HR for a 10 watt increase.
The wind was a bit all over the place. Indeed there were some nice tailwinds toward the end. Having miles 48-52 averaging 24.6mph on 206 watts was sweet. On the other hand, averaging 22.6mph on 227 watts from mile 5-10 was less fun…
@ Beth – I have the EnduranceNation sunsleeves. They are Pearl Izumi. That is a great idea to put ice in the sun sleeves. I wish I had thought of that. At some places on the course they were rationing ice so when I got to a station that had a lot of ice at one point I "stocked up" – I must have looked like a freak with so much ice in my hat. And my back pocket was so full of ice making noise bouncing up and down that two people running together were laughing at me. I totally had enough to put in the sleeves. I'll for sure do that next time. Man, that bums me out I didn't think about that!!!
@ Daniela – I have a Quarq powermeter so the zeroing protocol involves backpedaling. A PT might work differently, not sure. As for the manual lapping, this is just a preference I have I guess. Since the mile markers are rarely exactly a mile apart I get mildly irritated when the autolap triggers and I'm not too near a mile marker. This is just part of me being an OCD data-freak I guess. Looking at the data and seeing how many times I recorded a ~2-mile lap I find it interesting that there were so many missing mile markers on the course (or so many that I missed seeing). In Kansas I only recorded 2 "double laps". In fact I think with so many aid stations that 2-mile laps or irregular laps that normalize for the aid stations can make sense and paints a better picture of your pacing. In Vegas for example the course is a 3x double-out-and-back with a very uneven elevation profile. So in that case I will probably trigger laps at the turnarounds and end up with 5 laps for the whole race, or maybe also take a lap at the mid-point when I pass the start/finish and end up with 8 laps. And if I go back to Kansas I'd lap at some specific points as well to account for the one big hill. But that approach only works on courses you know well. Do I over-think this issue? You bet!!
@ Al –
Yes, the improvements need to come from training now. The low-hanging fruit is pretty much gone at this point and I'm in the stage where small gains will require a lot of work. If I want a better bike split, I need a higher FTP. I was thinking about this towards the end of the bike, when I allowed myself a rare peak at "screen 2" on my Garmin, which showed me my time – at that point it was 1:58 and I ballparked a 2:25 split based on how things were going. Clearly I wasn't biking my brains out but it really got me thinking about how you get to taking large chunks of time off the split…i.e. what does it take to get to a 2:20, knowing that the required power increase to get that improvement is much more than the power required to get to the same improvement in absolute minutes but starting from a slower split. And of course it is a higher FTP (interestingly I did bike a 2:20 at Steelhead last year, and that was on a 0.9 IF and with no swim and cool enough conditions to require arm warmers). For Vegas I will be lighter and watts/kg is important on that course. But FTP is the key here and so in the OS there will be a lot of work ahead. The one other thing I wonder about is how much of my strength on the run results from differential strength in hot conditions. I seem to do really well vs. my AG in these steaming hot/humid races. That would imply I need to continue hammering away on run fitness too……..
I agree with you that the shoes had a material impact. I'm actually really annoyed I didn't have my footpod because I'm super-interested to know if I was keeping my cadence up in the 88-90 range the whole time, which I was unable to do in Kansas with my other shoes. In these hot races where people are spraying you down with water and you're stuffing ice everywhere and are soaking, wearing normal training shoes that get waterlogged and for sure decreases run performance. That said, I'm not sure I can find a much lighter shoe. The K-Ruuz 1.5 is only 5.5 oz. the thing I like about it is that it still has some stability for a mild over-pronation and has a 10mm drop – in other words, it's not a "minimalist shoe" yet weighs in pretty light.
Overall the "puzzle" – putting all the pieces together and trading-off in such a way to optimize the overall result – really is the fun part of this.
Matt, the Mizuno Wave Universe has a lower drop heel to toe AND weighs 3.9 oz. It's the lightest shoe I've found for sale.
As to doing well in heat relative to others, my belief is the fitter the athlete, as well as the better mentally prepared one is, the better they will do in *any* difficult environmental condition, like bad terrain, heat, cold, wind, rain, etc. Coach Patrick once said that, as the conditions get worse, the bandwidth for error gets smaller, so it takes someone who is willing and able to micro-manage his pace/effort level to do well. If/when you make the leap to IM, this effect will be magnified by a factor of much greater than 2.
And I forgot to say in my earlier post : GREAT RACE and GOOD LUCK in Vegas!
Congrats on another great race. Thanks for taking the lead on team dinner and pics. Good luck in Vegas!
Matt - You had an awesome race time in that heat. You looked great on the run each time I saw you. I knew you had started in one of the last waves and yet there were hundreds of people behind you on the course. I was thinkin "Man he has passed a ton of people. Hell, he is probably going to pass me too".
Seriously, very smart race execution. I know others may not agree, but I think you made the right call to not destroy yourself in the last few miles in a "B". You got a PR on a hot day. Sounds like a good omen for Vegas. Well done and good luck in Vegas.
Also, thanks so much taking the role of team captain. Much appreciated to keep us feeling like a team.
Very nice.
Start peeing on the bike? A minute is a minute.
7lbs in a month, eh? makes ya think about several angles on that. By chasing W/kg, did you go a kilo or two too low for Kansas? When your optimum Race Strong Weight might be closer to where you raced Racine. Just nit picking. And only on a curiosity front.
Otherwise, great execution. Way to Go! Top 10!