Patriots HIM Race Report - 2012
I hate to write such a long, negative report when all others are motivating, triumphant race reports, but "it is what it is".
Background: This was my A race for the year, and it was my hope that it would springboard me to actually sign up for a full Ironman race. This was my 6th Half iron distance race and the goal was to solve my cramping problems. To date, despite reasonably good finishes, the cramping problems had kept me from actually racing a Half, so I was reluctant to sign up, train and then fail at a full distance race. Plus, I have a 1 year old and a 2 year old so I had just started to figure out the life-work-triathlon balance.
My training going into the race had been very good, best season yet with no injuries like past years. I had practiced EN pacing and Core nutrition recommendations on RR and had good results. Stats on race day: 33:56 swim RR, 265 FTP, 48 VDOT.
Results:
- Swim (1.2 mi): 39:20 (9/52 AG; 58/304 OA Men)
- T1: 2:49 (6/52 AG; 32/304 OA Men)
- Bike (58 mi): 2:52:55 (22/52 AG; 106/304 OA Men)
- T2: 2:26 (26/52 AG; 147/304 OA Men)
- Run (13/1 mi): 2:20:21 (34/52 AG; 166/304 OA Men)
- Total: 5:57:50 (26/52 AG; 121/304 OA Men)
Pre-race: Dinner = chicken and pasta, typical meal. Drank 64 oz of Gatorade the evening before the race. Good night's sleep, and up at 4 am. Breakfast = 2.5 cups of applesauce, an organic protein shake, banana. Sipped Gatorade until race time. One GU 20 minutes before race time. Weather was about 78 degrees at race time with 90% humidity.
Swim: No wetsuit swim as the river temp was about 81 degrees. Slight chop but uneventful swim until 200 yards from the beach. I stood up and my calf cramped up like never before. I have never felt a muscle so hard/locked up and it lasted for over a minute- there was nothing I could do to relieve it. Fortunately, I was in shallow water or I would have drowned. This has not happened to me in training at all. It bascially ended my chances of a good race because it hurt so bad. Eventually, it released enough that I could jog to T1, but it hurt like hell the rest of the race. I am still limping severely today.
T1: Nothing to report except I had to walk my bike out because my calf hurt so bad.
Bike: Just tried to keep my head about me and do what I could. My calf hurt really bad but I could still ride using my quads only. Of course, as luck would have it, I ran over glass in a corner (while the volunteers just stood watching the glass sit there rather than try to clean it up). Tire change cost me about 6 minutes. Held lower watts than goal just knowing that the run was going to be brutal, so I finished with plenty of energy left.
- NP = 191 vs goal of 208
- Nutrition = 3.5 bottles of Infinit, 3 bottles HEED, 6 Saltstick caps.
- Nutrition per hour = 48 oz, 1365 mg Na, 468 cal, 117 g Carbs
T2: I almost fell on my face during the dismount because I was trying to protect my calf. I had an emergency 8 oz bottle of Pickle Juice Sport, so I downed that knowing I would need to avoid cramping at all costs. Wow, that is just disgusting when its warm.
Run: I knew this would be painful so I just limped along at a really slow pace, hoping to just finish. Just the lasting calf pain until about Mile 9 when the cramps started in my hamstrings. These were the cramps I had experienced in all my previous races so it was not unexpected. But its hard to know if that was due to the limping or some other cause. I don't have my mile splits because I just left the Garmin in T2 and ran by feel/survival. I was barely running across the finish line but I did make it under 6 hours.
- Nutrition = 17 cups of HEED, 3 Powergels, 8 Saltstick caps
- Nutrition per hour = 51 oz, 1262 mg Na, 420 cal, 107 g Carbs
Conclusions:
- This was my 6th complete HIM and I have yet to actually be tired at the end of a race. Just once I would like to be healthy enough to actually race the race and be exhausted at the end.
- WTF with the cramps? I am so tired of cramping muscles during races when I have NONE during my training. I don't know what to do about it since it doesn't appear to be nutrition/dehydration related. I think I am going to consult my personal physician to see if I have some sort of neuromuscular imbalance. Otherwise, I am at a loss...
- I am actually sort of proud of this race because it would have been so easy to quit. But I had trained all summer and I was not going to let down my family, or myself. It was my slowest race yet, but I was vertical at the end.
- I have spent the last two days "talking myself off the ledge" of quitting this sport. I feel like I have pretty good physical ability and I LOVE the training/fitness that comes with it. I would just like to have that fitness translate to a decent race, just once.
Sorry for the negative report but thanks for reading. I do appreciate the EN team and still have (remote) hopes of racing an Ironman someday...
(P.S. The overall winner finished in 4:14 and second place finished in 4:44...that guy is REALLY fast.)
Comments
John, I've gotten that same cramp in my calf. Once I was near the end of a RR swim in open water and stopped to pick up a frisbee off the bottom with my toes. Massive calf spasam. I felt like I had stepped into a bear trap. Whoa! Where did that come from? It hurt for a couple of days after that. I've also had muscle spasams when I've gotten into a awkward position off my bike or tried to reach for a pocked around my back and my shoulder spasams. I don't have a solution, only sympathy.
As far as the hamstring cramps go, I have the opposite: quad cramps. Like yours, they show up in races. Mainly races of longer duration, like marathons. I came to tri from distance running, but I've never been a college athete or anything similar. I just started doing marathons about 8 years ago, and that was my bread and butter until about 5 years ago when I decided to get a bike, etc. My own diagnosis of my quad cramps leads me to believe that I have a running form problem that, when combined with the additional stress of sustained speed, takes me down. I will admit that it can be difficult to know whether cramps are caused by simply beating the muscle to the point that I hurts too much to use (overuse) or if it's a cramp due to some sort of nutritional deficiency. Your nutrition sounds fine, so possibly a form issue? I don't know. Just my random thoughts.
As for the hammies, that is clearly something you've struggled with. I was struggling with some really bad quad cramping in a few races at the end of last year and at Kansas this year, but tried a sodium loading protocol I found on line and it worked really well at Racine...reacd my Racine race report or PM me for the details. It involved a LOT of salt-capsules and gatorade/G2 and NOT a lot of water...
Honestly I wouldn't quit the sport until you have tried a bunch more experiments to address the cramping. It is an issue for a ton of people and it seems like there are a million different solutions that are very specific to the individual. This is all parrt of the challenge of triathlon. One idea is that instead of training up for one huge "A race" then risking disappointment, you sign up for a bunch of half-ironman races next season (or even find one a few weeks from now)...approach each with less fanfare and need to "peak", and instead use each to experiment with different things to address the cramping (or, frankly, anything you want to try that is new and different in your execution).