Last Race of Season RR
The day before the race I tried to eat a large, high-carb breakfast. The only thing I can remember is a couple of pop-tarts, but I know I had more than that. Lunch was a turkey sandwich with coleslaw, and dinner was vegetable soup and whatever leftovers I could scavenge from the fridge. Dinner was actually a little larger than lunch. But I was hungry, so I ate. I retired about 9:00 pm anticipating an early start on race day.
3:15am Alarm goes off. I roll out and I put on my race kit (laid out the day before) consisting of:
1. Desoto 300 mile shorts
2. EN Sleeveless jersey
3. Brooks pure flow running shoes
4. Road runner sports socks (orange toe—best socks in the world!)
3:30am Drink a 12oz. glass of water; made a pit stop while I read from my Book of Mormon. Then,
1. 2-3 cups of cinnamon apple sauce (I honestly don’t remember the bottle size, but it was a whole bottle).
2. 8oz. Oikos Caramel Greek Yogurt (didn’t have whey powder)
3. 2 Strawberry pop-tarts
4. Maybe a little more water, I don’t recall exactly
5. 32 oz. Powerade to drink during the morning
4:00am Depart for Tawas, MI, for a race morning check in.
5:45am I had to pull into McDonalds for another pit stop. Must be all that apple sauce. Anyway, thanks McD’s for a clean restroom.
6:00am I’m trying to get into the parking lot at the beach in East Tawas, MI, that wants a dollar bill to open the gate; all I have is a $5. I give the guy in the car behind me a $5 for a $1. He doesn’t want the $5, but I tell him to keep it for saving my life.
6:10am I check in and pick up the strangest packet I’ve ever seen. My race number is a sticker, not a little synthetic cloth number but a sticker. I go back and ask them how they want me to wear it. The tell me to stick two parts together and fold it over my race belt. Hmmm…I guess I’ll figure it out, and I do. I stick two numbers together and snap it to my belt. It works okay.
After check in I fill all my 3 water bottles with water I brought with me. I added Gatorade G2 powder the night before (ran out of ironman perform), so all I need is water to reconstitute it. My hydration system consists of:
1. Speedfil A2
2. Xlab aerobottle on the seat tube right down in the V by the crank
3. One bottle tight under my seat Lieto style
I will need to grab a bottle or two on the course, but this will get me most of the way through.
I pump up my tires in the dark, fiddle with my crack pipe, and finally get about 120 psi in both of my tires. It’s predicted to be windy, 15 mph with 25 mph gusts. I know the course will have trees on both sides of the road, so cross winds are not a worry. I’m riding a Hed jet disk on the back and my training wheel on the front, a 30mm deep aluminum job. On the front I have a continental GP 4000s; the rear is a Vittoria Open Corsa Evo CX…Both are nominally 23mm, but both exceed this when mounted. The vittoria is actually about 26mm diameter—a good tire for a protected rear wheel.
By the time I start walking my bike over to transition, it’s getting light enough to see without a flashlight. There are no numbers on the bike racks. Just a real estate grab. The early crowd has already taken the spots near bike out. I pick a place near the entrance to T1 (everyone is on the same row and has to run the same distance regardless where they rack). The guy next to me sees my EN jersey and tells me he used to be an ENer. He says that he saw a huge difference in his performance when he was training EN style. Nice to hear. I lay out my gear on a towel:
1. Biking shoes w/socks
2. Arm warmers
3. Race Belt
4. Chamois cream
5. Helmet (on aerobars)
6. Sunglasses (in bento box)
7. Running shoes
8. Hat
7:10am I put on my wet suit, grab my goggles and swim cap, and I’m heading to Lake Huron for a warm up. I make my way across the beach to the lake. There are a few people swimming, but not many. I get in and enjoy the feeling of floating like a cork. Then I get down to business and swim to the second buoy, then back to the finish so that I can get a picture of the finish in my mind. The water is so shallow, I can walk to the beach from the finish buoy.
7:30am race talk/prayer/anthem
7:45am Beach start. I run until the water starts to trip me, then I try the porpoise thing a couple of times, then settle into my strokes when others around me are doing the same. Somehow during the start I got myself next to the buoys, so I am pretty much locked into my line by a mob to the right of me. There is the usual contact, but I try not to go so hard that I swim into the guys in front of me. I’m looking for smooth. The pack moves along and I move with it. At the swim turn around, the sun is directly in our eyes. I can hear my friends’ collective groan. After about 2/3rd of the swim my nerves start to settle and I start thinking more about my stroke. I remind myself to stretch out, reach forward, roll and tap my big toes together on my two beat kick. Once in a while I get close enough to draft, but I can’t seem to stay with anyone very long. At the last turn buoy I’m feeling the euphoria of surviving another swim. My feet touch the sand and I’m out of the water and see the clock at 38:50 (officially 39:05), a solid 5 minute PR on the swim. I’m number 42 out of the water out of 102 men. It’s maybe a 0.1 mile jog over the sidewalk to T1.
T1: I spent 5:11 here. How? They must have timed us out of the water. Still, that was slow. I start taking off my wet suit as soon as I can stand up in the water. By the time I’m in the transition area, I toss my cap and goggles and push the legs of my wetsuit down and off. Socks and bike shoes go on, and I start to put on the arm warmers, but I stop after only one. It’s just not that cold out—maybe upper 50s. Helmet on. Unrack the bike. Glasses on while I one hand the bike, almost fall down. Stop. Put on sun glasses. Turn on Garmin. Start moving again.
Out of T1, to the mounting area, try to swing leg over, get shorts hung on water bottle, lift leg a little higher, we’re mounted, and off I go. My target power on the bike is just under 85% of my FTP, so I’m shooting for around 205 watts average. I’m concerned about the wind, and I don’t want to go out hard for 10 miles then limp back in, so I decide to hold back to about 190 watts for at least the first 15 minutes to let my legs warm up. I feel like I’m really taking it easy because the cool air is refreshing and I feel hydrated and nourished. Even taking it easy, I’m overtaking riders regularly. My power for 5 mile “laps” was:
198 watts (first 5 miles)
203
202
203
199
204
206
210
213
210
209 watts (last 5 miles)
Garmin says my average power was 199 watts. I don’t know what kind of math it uses to get that number, but okay.
During the bike I only recall one person passing me; and he came back to me within a couple of miles. I drank all my fluids plus another bottle of Heed that I picked up on the course. I ate 2 powerbar strawberry-banana gels 1x caffeine, and I took a couple of salt sticks for insurance. I had to make 2 pit stops. I tried to take care of business on the bike, but I just couldn’t do it. When I saw transition ahead, I slipped out of my shoes and pedaled on top. Based on my count (counting bikes coming back from the turn around), I was about number 22 by the time I finished the bike. My bike split was 2:40:27, and I was 8th out of 102 on the bike on a very windy day. Not nearly my fastest bike, but I felt fresh.
T2: Took off my helmet, put on my hat, garmin watch, running shoes and spiebelt and I’m off and running in 1:24.
My strategy on the run is to do what the coaches say: run the first 3 miles at marathon pace plus 30”. I’m hoping, like my regular runs, that my body will accept the pace after a couple of miles. I hit the first mile within about 10 seconds of the pace. I have to make a pit stop the second mile, so I’m over about 40 seconds. Third mile is about 10 seconds over goal pace. I’m not wearing a heart monitor, but my RPE is very high and it’s warming up. Most of the course is in full sun. After the third mile, something in my brain says “you can’t do this for another hour.” Right or wrong, I give in and let my pace slow to essentially my easy pace and slower. Still, I’m passing a couple of people, and no one is passing me. Confession: I haven’t run for about a month prior to this because I’ve been having severe pain in the balls of my feet. I’m just hoping that foot pain doesn’t take me down. Each time the course crosses grass I have to slow down a lot because of the pain.
During the run, one guy passes me. He’s a young guy who flies by. I congratulate him, and he tells me that I don’t look 51. Smile. I finish the run in 1:47:05 after drinking a cup of Heed at most every mile stop and eating one powerbar gel and taking one salt stick. Maybe I should have eaten more? My mile paces were;
7:35
8:07 (pit stop mile)
7:38
7:51
7:44
8:21
8:02
8:37
8:38
9:02
8:19
8:37
7:58
On the run I must have passed 5-7 people. I crossed the finish line at 5:13:10, 16th overall and 2nd in my age group of 50-54. Not a PR, but a sold race.
Lessons learned: Nutrition is getting more dialed in. This is the first race that I have made pit stops during the bike. Normally I only stop to hurl. I’m going to start using more of the foods prescribed in the webinar. I don’t know about the run. I was just glad to finish because of foot issues that have caused me to miss a month of running workouts. I can run a stand-alone half sub 1:30, but I can’t even get within 10 minutes of this in an HIM. Suggestions? Swim. I wish I knew what I did to drop 5 minutes off my time. Maybe I’m getting better. I do feel like the swim sets I do are improving my stroke, but I have a long way to go. Comments appreciated.