Race Wisdom for Las Vegas (maybe contributions from the AZ crowd?)
I'm posting this outside of the LV 70.3 group, because there are only several of us there, and there are almost certainly some peeps who have done the Las Vegas 70.3 or similar races in previous years.
I'm hoping to get some thoughts about specific race execution strategies that take into account the particulars of this race: more or less constant hills (except the swim) and the very dry and very hot weather.
I'm familiar with hilly (e.g., IM WI) and with hot (e.g., KS this year), but not with this kind of very high temps with very low humidity, nor with the kind of constant hilliness.
How does the weather affect your hydration/nutrition strategy?
Do you have any specific course wisdom?
Of course, I have the basics of a race plan as we all must, but I'm very interested to get insight from people who can get us newbies to be ninjas. :-) When the race is over, I'm planning to help write something we can store in the wiki for people in subsequent years.
Thanks in advance!
William
Comments
Living out in the Southwest and having raced a HIM in Vegas once , I can offer that if you're not experienced with the 'dry-heat' factor, you will need to carefully watch hydration. You wont have abundant sweat to cue you in like you do in a hot/humid environment, it evaporates quickly, so it may seem like your not loosing as much. You are, maybe more. Definitely take a hydration/nutrition plan as plentiful as you would for other hot/humid races and stick to it, prepare for high sweat rate, and if you experience cramps, bring your best remedy. x2 Paul's suggestion of Pickle Juice. Thats my $.02.
I have some friends who are racing IMLV 70.3 this week and I went with them on a recon training weekend about a month ago out to Vegas. We stayed out in Lake Las Vegas and biked the course, then went over to the run course and ran it. We bike the course on the hottest day of the year in August, by 9:00 am it was 109 (save me the dry heat comments, it was hott).
Last year I raced Wisconsin and I have raced IMKS 3 times, so our backgrounds are similar on what we are use to. This course is very deceptive. Here are my thoughts on how to execute this race.
In my book, the swim is the swim. Do your best, don't kill yourself, etc.
For most 70.3 IM's the guidence on the bike based on power is to go at about 85% of FTP, this course is different (harder). You will leave Lake Las Vegas and head into the Park ( I think it is called Lake Mead Park). Once in the park you will ride to a turn around point and head back towards Lake Lake Las Vegas, go right past it and head to Henderson. I have two suggestions on the bike based on whether you consider yourself a strong cyclist or average cyclist. If you are a strong cyclist I would suggest that when you get on the bike you only ride a 80% FTP max. until you reach the turn around in the park. Once you reach the turn around in the park, step it up to 85% FTP. If you are an average cyclist I would suggest you start at 75% FTP max. until the turn around in the park and then go to 80%.
The way out to the turn around in the park has more up hills than down hills, this is one reason you shoud consider taking it easier. This part of the course is what is going to eat a lot of people up and ruin their day. They will exert too much energy early in the race and they will be toast. Much like Rich & Patrick say, if people are passing you early on, then you are probably doing the right thing. The hills in Vegas are a lot longer than what we are use to seeing in Iowa, Kansas or Wisconsin. They are not super steep, but just longer. The roads I think are great and things flow out there, you can actually climb some of the hills and still stay aero. When we rode there wasn't much wind so I would feel comfortable on a disk with an 808 front or similar combination. If it looks like it will be windy, I might opt for a 404 on the front.
Once you hit the turn around in the park there will still be a fair number of hills to climb to get out, but there will be more down hill stuff in general. You will have a pretty decent climb to get out of the park, but after that it will be pretty smooth sailing until about mile 48ish. You leave the park and go past Lake Las Vegas and it is down hill & flat. This is where you will make up the time you gave up going slow early. Stay in the aero's and stay on the gas as best you can. You had better still be feeling really good on the bike when you go back past Lake Las Vegas or else you might be in trouble.
So after Lake Las Vegas it's pretty flat and fast until about mile 48ish (could be as early as mile 45). From that point until T2 you will be riding into a steady uphill. Hopefully you are feeling good on the bike still because you will need it. It's almost like a false flat, stick to your power numbers and just spin, stay aero as much as possible too.
You will make it to T2 and then the fun of this run course begins. The run course reminds me of a backwards "L". It is a really just an out and back run in 2 different directions.
The first mile will be down hill, you will turn around and run right back up that hill towards T2. Once you are back they will turn you left and you will go up hill for another mile, then turn around and come back.
So 1 loop will look like 1 mile down hill, 2 miles up hill, 1 miles down hill, you will do this 3 times + some. Really I look at it like 1 mile down hill, then 2 miles up hill, 2 miles down hill, 2 miles up hill, 2 miles down hill etc.
My suggestion for executing this run sucessfully is you will go :30 slower than planned race pace for the first loop & 1st mile (which is down hil) of 2nd loop or roughly mile 5. Then at that point you step it up. I know you are thinking "what take it easy until mile 5???" We only take it easy until mile 6 at an Ironman, this can't be right. The this is it will be hot, hard to tell how much shade there will be, depends on how they set up the run course. After that bike course you will have spent a lot of energy and the run course is never really flat for long, it's either a steady up hill or steady downhill. Holding out later to push hard or just not slowing down will be your best bet without ever racing this course before.
This course will pay dividends to those who wait to push it vs. those who go out hard early. This will be true for the bike and the run. For those that go easy on the bike, but start hard on the run early, will pay before the race is over. I really think on both the bike and the run you must start out slow and then build.
For nutrition my suggestion is you get something in the range of 300-350 calories an hour into your system on the bike, if you can do more, great. My suggestion would be gels & liquids. As far as hydration goes, I would suggest you drink between 2-3 bottles an hour on the bike. So you should go through a bottle every 20-30 min. The more the better, I literally do not think that you can over hydrate on the bike on this course, it's not possible. When we were out there doing our recon ride we rode 56 miles and I drank 7 bottles of fluids and could have drank more.
On the run you will want to get as much fluids in you as possible. I know you are a strong runner William, but I might suggest you consider walking the aid stations just to drink down the fluids and get them in your system. The second day we were in Vegas my two friends did the run course and I sherpa'd for them. I had water, coke, ice or gel for them at every mile on the run. It was ridiculous how much they drank while they ran that day. We went through 2 bags of ice you buy from a gas station.
Good Luck let me know if you have any questions.
P.S. I would run the same gearing you ran at IM Wisconsin on your bike.
Best way I can describe it is that it was freaking hot, but it is easier to sneak up on you because it doesn't feel quite as oppressive without the humidity. So as the day wears on, it gets hotter and hotter, but the combination of all of the dryness related effects (sweat evaporating quickly = cooler skin, etc) makes it so you may not realize just how hot it truly is until you've already crossed into dehydration. Towards the beginning, I thought I had learned my lesson and really started to up my fluids, and found that even that was not enough, something about the hot dry air plus me being a heavy sweater just sucks the water right out of me.
So moral of the story for me, when racing in SW/desert-y conditions, I have to considerably up my hydration intake over even my normal 'hot weather' racing strategies.
I like to keep nutrition simple. In low temp races, I can go very low cal, but I did enough hot weaather training this year (and here and there last year) to know I need more calories and a lot more fluid when it's hot. I'm not lucky on this like Matt Aaronson who thrives on it.
My plan was to stick with Perform at the rate of 2 bottles per hour (~340 cal) and supplement with water or more Perform as needed. I know I will drink easily 3 bottles of fluid an hour, if I'm doing as in training on the hottest days.
Thanks in particular for the review of the course itself and effort. Great stuff. My fastest HIM run ever (91 min) was one I walked enough at every single aid station to get the fluids squarely. Sounds like that's a plan here, too.
- too hard on the first half of the bike
- not enough hydration (and, I think, not enough sodium...i.e. too much water in the day or two leading up to the race left me electrolyte-poor)
- getting totally mentally broken by the "false flats" in the last 7 miles (ok, they are not false flats, they are obvious uphills, but totally unrelenting)
- overcooking the very start of the run
Great write-up and some important points for us all to bear in mind out there tomorrow.
Have a great race guys!!!