JW's Challenge AC Bike leg of Relay.

I signed up for the Bike leg of the Challenge AC for a couple of reasons:

1) As a stepping stone in my training for IMMT

2) To find out what my "could" bike split is and to give me a little more confidence to push harder on the bike at IMMT

3) Get our Relay Team on the podium!

Team ReserveAid Goals:  We had a swimmer who said he would do 45 mins, I thought I could do 4:45 with ideal conditions and our runner thought he could break 3 hours, so if we all hit our goals we would be logging a mid 8-handle time.

Training background:  I've been going really hard this yr in my quest to Qualify for Kona at IMMT.  I'm not afraid to say that because I am obsessed with it... My wife Jess has been WAY MORE ACCOMMODATING than any "normal" spouse in EN. And I can honestly say that she is the best wife/sherpa/mom that any Ironman athlete could ever ask for. I am also very aware that this "above and beyond" support has a shelf life and this is my year to make a very big push, and then I'll be dialing my training and racing back from an "11" to like a "3" going forward.  I'm in 4th yr of training and am essentially in the latter part of my "3-yr plan". I hacked my fall and winter with Coach P's the Run Durability plan.  Since the spring I have been trying to turn myself into a bike monster.  As part of the Run durability plan and with advice from Tim Cronk and just my own "self coaching", I have been pushing way harder and further than Any of the recommended EN plans.  And hopefully Coach P doesn't read this because he will give me a swift kick in the nutz for ignoring his conservative warnings and pushing the pedal down in the "aggressive" direction to be constantly surfing that risk/injury/fatigue/overtraining wave pretty much for the last 9 months.  

So I've gotten in a lot more run frequency than any other yr, but the big change is largely ignoring my FTP (after the Out-Season was over) and am focusing on my "5-hr Power" number instead.  This is not something that I would recommend for anybody in their first several yrs of Ironman training and DEFINITELY without prior consultation with your significant other because even with their support it creates a fairly large strain.  But anyways, Since March, I have logged ~3,000 miles on my bike.  I have done 3 big bike camps (Beginning of March,  End of March, End of April).  After the AmZof long Course in May, I have pretty much logged a >100 mi ride every weekend (8 in total) followed by another ~65-80 mile climbing ride the next day. On my normal Saturday rides, I always look at my Average NP at the 4-hr point and try to increase it by the end, forcing me to do a hard last hour. So I now have a whole bunch of data points for what my "5-hour" power is and how it feels to run after every one of these rides.  I also know what it feels like to do a big ride the day after a big ride (for me, I usually have a ~20W fall off from my ~5hr Sat ride and my ~4hr Sunday ride).   So basically, I knew I could hold ~250W for ~5hrs and still be able to run well after (even though my FTP has fallen from 315W to about ~300W over this same time).  So I was going to target just over 250W and try to pick it up the last ~hr.

For Tim Jenks:  A few days before the race, I learned of a tragedy that shocked my training team/family Endurance Nation.  One of the “Wicked Smart Members” and super active members of our community informed us all that his 13 yr old son Tim, who was a standout swimmer and budding triathlete, was killed in a cycling accident while riding on a safe road with a group of experienced riders.  This news hit me like a ton of bricks.  I felt as though I knew Tim from hearing all of his dad William’s brag posts about him over the years.  Having two boys of my own I don’t want to even begin to imagine what must be going through William’s head.  The news also hit Jess very hard and we discussed plenty of “Why’s and What’s” in the days before the race.  You can see from the picture at the top that I put “4 Tim Jenks” on my legs before the race to honor Tim.  I won’t focus on this solumn aspect of my race throughout the rest of this report, but I can’t even count the number of times on my lonely ~5hr ride that I looked down at my legs for a little extra motivation.  I can tell you with certainty that this helped me when my ride got tough.  

The Race:  Jess and I (and our kids) drove down to AC Saturday morning.  We walked around most of the day, ate lunch, got registered and I rode my bike to transition to check it in.  Got lost.  There was no address for transition in the Athlete's Guide which I had on my phone.  rode through broken glass.  Rode through the ghetto.  Checked my bike in and none of the few volunteers I found knew anything about the race logistics.  Left my bike and called an Uber to get back to our condo.  I'm not gonna lie, I questioned the safety of my bike overnight in that location.  No offense to anyone who likes Atlantic City, but I thought it was a dump.

I also took my road bike to AC.  So I rode it the ~3miles from our condo to the race site the morning of.  At ~5:30AM there are some "interesting" characters out roaming the streets of AC. I filled my Speedfil A2 on my tri bike with a ~1.5hr bottle of Infinit.  I had taken ALL of my other bottle cages off of my bike and hoped to "live off the course".  I figured I didn't have to run afterwards so nutrition was a little less important and I wanted to be as Aero as possible.  After setting up my bike I went out for what turned into a ~40 min easy-ish warm-up ride on my road bike.  I did a few short harder efforts but mostly wanted to break a small sweat and get my HR up.  I then handed my road bike off to our "runner" and went into the relay corral.

Aero is fast:  I was as Aero as I could get for this race.  I bought the castelli AeroRace 5.0 jersey and Bodypaint tri shorts.  I took all of the cages off my bike except for my Speedfil A2 torpedo mound.  I also wore aero shoe covers (and waxed my arms and legs). I even took off my watch and RoadID to be as slippery as I possibly could get.  I wore my new Rudy Project Wing57 helmet with visor and rode my Cervelo P5 with a Zipp FC808 front wheel and Zipp Sub9 Disc on the back.  I used my trusted Vittoria Open Corsa Evo CXII race tires with Latex tubes. 

Waiting for our swimmer:  I stood at the edge of the corral waiting for our swimmer who I expected to be one of the first out of the water.  The pro men and women came and went as well as some of the AG'ers.  I was chatting it up with Rinny asking her how fast her swimmer was.  She said her husband TO should be there in 45 mins so I figured my swimmer Aaron would be right behind.  I told her that he had promised me 45-50 mins!  Well, TO came out in ~47 mins, then another relay swimmer, then Rinny's swimmer...  I looked at Rinny and said "I guess I'll just have to catch you on the bike".  She laughed and told me to try.  Little did I know that a slew of other relay swimmers would be out before our guy.  He finally arrived at ~1:05:25!  Ouch.  I know it was a tough swim, but c'mon man.  I started the bike in 15th place (out of 150).

The Bike Course:  It's basically 30 miles on the AC Expressway Northwest (which is perpendicular to the Ocean) taking one exit about halfway and being off of the Expressway for ~4.5 miles hitting an aid station, then back onto the expressway.  Miles 30 to 34.5 get you to the "Blueberry" loop which is about 21 miles and you do that 2x before getting back to the Expressway and heading home. 

I ran through transition, got on my bike and started hammering.  See my data below, but I was right at 250W for the first hour and averaged 25mph.  145HR for me is a bit high on the bike, but nothing crazy.  It sure didn't seem like there was a tail wind at 7:30AM it was more like "no wind" which was totally fine by me. I was passing a ton of people and I knew there weren't all that many people ahead of me to start.  Looking at the results afterwards, I moved from 15th to 5th by the first bike split at mile 29 and into 3rd by mile 39.  At the first aid station I hadn't touched my Infinit bottle yet (since I was fully topped off on fluids and nutrition before the race) so I grabbed a Gatorade at ~22mph and drank half of it then tossed the bottle at the end of the aid station.  It started to get lonelier and lonelier on the course and I literally only saw 2-3 other people for the next hour or so.  This was truly an "Individual Time-Trial" for me.  I made sure to grab a Gatorade bottle at every aid station but also water at one of them. I peed 2 times in the first half of the bike and only a tiny dribble at mile~80 or so.  I had one small snafu at a bottle exchange on the first loop around mile ~48 or so… At ~22mph, the bottle holder has to know what they are doing, bonus points if the run alongside before you get to them.  But I basically knocked the bottle out of the first 2 volunteers hands.  I slowed down (to ~20) to get one from the last volunteer and had a bit of trouble opening it.  So by the time I got it open, drank some and filled my A2 with the remainder I was WAY WAY past where it acceptable to drop an empty bottle.  So I rode for the next ~15 miles holding my empty bottle in my hands above my computer looking for an appropriate place to ditch it (unsuccessfully).  So is it okay to toss an empty bottle to a spectator that happens to be standing near a garbage can???

Around mile 53 or so, I started to hear sirens behind me and noticed there were motorcycle police back there.   They consisted for the next 3-4 miles and then just after I went through the main town area, I was passed by the lead male pro in the race.  So over the course of about ~5 miles he had made up about 300 yds on me as he finished his 2^nd loop and I finished my first (the pro wave started ~35 mins before the relay wave).  He was just barely ahead of me as he turned right to head back to AC and I started my 2^nd loop (he was the first person on the course to pass me&hellip.  This 2^nd loop had a decent amount of lap traffic as many of the AG’ers had gotten here by this point (I was ~25 miles ahead of most of them and they started well before us).   I made my way easily through this traffic and was happy to have some rear wheels to aim before as I passed them.  Unlike Florida or other flat courses I’ve heard of or been on, I saw exactly zero draft packs.  Everyone was riding legally and respectfully and I literally passed hundreds of riders in this 21 mile section.  It wsa in his period that I started to get low on fluids.  I was emptying my A2 before I’d get to the next aid station so I made sure to get a Gatorade at each one.  I ate a total of 3 Accel Recover bars and 1 pack of Honey Stinger chews for the ride and ~380 calories of Infinit and probably ~4 bottles of Gatorade and a half a bottle of water over the 5 hours.  Every hour or so I also took a couple of caffeinated salt sticks, a calcium/magnesium pill and ~3 MAP (amino acid complex) pills.

I love to do math while I race.  It keeps my mind occupied.  I put “average speed” on my computer for this race so I could see where I was versus my goal pace.  I know this is silly (because I ride like a robot to my power numbers), but I did it anyways….   When I made the turn at mile ~82 to do the last 30 miles on the AC Expressway I had an average speed of 24.4mph.  I was on track and I figured the last 30 miles would be FAST since there was no wind this morning.  I could NOT have been more wrong.  As soon as I got on the Expressway, the wind blasted me in the face.  I have heard estimates anywhere form 15-30mpg winds.  And this was only part of the issue.  We were riding in the closed lane of the Expressway, but the other 2 lanes had oncoming cars and tractor trailer trucks driving at 70mph towards you so every time a truck passed you were blasted in the face with a percussion shock of an air wave blasted into your face.   This lasted for the remaining 1.5 hrs of my ride.  It also coincided with me mostly running out of fluids, massive humidity, the temps rising to 86 (my Garmin only said 84), and my quads started cramping, bad.  So just when I thought I would be picking up my power to finish strong, I was suffering to simply survive, often shifting to a bigger gear to try and sneak more power out.  About mile 85 I saw some shapes way up in the distance and eventually reeled in 3 riders (the one in front was a Women’s Pro).  It was nice to pass them and keep moving even though my quads were screaming.  A little later I went through a toll booth and was zoning out.  I was out of fluids and had been dreaming of the short exit off of the Expressway so I could get to the aid station.  So immediately after the toll booth there was an exit that I just rode down.  When I was half way down it, a cop drove up next to me in the other lane and flashed his lights.  He yelled that I was supposed to stay on the Expressway so I came to a complete stop, turned around, went back up to a complete stop only to make the sharp turn back onto the expressway.  Looking at my file afterwards, it only cost me 0.8 miles and 2:20 or so on my time, but this was mental and physical stress I did not want at that moment of the race.  To make matters worse, as soon as I got on the Expressway again, I reached up to try to fix my visor on my Rudy Wing57 helmet and the stupid thing fell off in my hands.  So here I was with cramping quads in the hot sun with a blasting wind right into my eyeballs and I had to hold my visor in my hands as I rode for the last ~20 miles.  About 10 mins later I re-passed the 2 dudes and pro woman again.  After finally getting to the last aid station I was happy to be able to take the bottle in one hand while holding my visor in the other…   I downed this pretty quickly and rode the last 20 mins with no fluids.

I ultimately stayed aero the entire race, with the exception of bottle handoffs.  I would guess that I was aero a total of 4:47:00 out of 4:49:27.  A couple of times I tried to stand and pedal to alleviate my quad cramping, but this only made them lock up immediately so I had to stay locked in my aerobars or I couldn’t pedal. I negotiated with myself that if I just sucked it up and suffered through the last 10 miles that I would NOT do my brick run and that my day could be over.  When I was within sight of the Transition area I got passed by one of the 2 guys I had passed 10 miles earlier.  I have no idea if he rode my wheel for the last 30 mins or if he just finished strong as I faded.  Either way, I wasn’t so happy to get passed by a 2^nd person on the day and followed him up to the dismount line and handed off my bike.

The Relay Pen was all the way past the bike racks and through the entire transition area.  I would guess it was a couple hundred yards.  I couldn’t really walk because of my quads so I figured the only thing possible was a full out sprint from the dismount line to the pen.  I nearly blacked out and my HR went from 137 all the way to 160 during this short sprint.  When I dot to the pen, I felt to the ground and my runner took the timing chip off of me and told me I crushed it and we were in 3^rd place and he was off…

http://www.strava.com/activities/159640539

I laid on my back for a couple of mins and someone brought me water.  I got to my feet and walked to my bike to grab my computer (had to immediately upload my file to Strava now that I had my phone  .  When I got back to the pen, I decided to put my run shoes on and went out for a brick.  In this 5 mins, my quads went from so cramped that I could barely walk to what seemed like totally fine.  It was hot at this point (~86 degrees) and humid with the sun blaring down on the old abandoned airport runways.   My first mile was 8:30 and my 2^nd mile was 7:59.  My HR climbed to 151 from a start of 116.  I decided that I had proved to myself that I could run and I didn’t need to be a hero so I called it a day.

They then let me take my bike out of Transition with no fuss (honestly they weren’t even gonna check my race number if I didn’t tell them to.  I road the 3 or so miles back to the condo and showered quickly and grabbed Jess and the kids to go walk the boardwalk to the finish.

Race Finish:  Our runner, Gab Szerda, works with me at Macquarie, is a Board member of ReserveAid and has completed many Ultra-Marathons.  He suffered through the heat like everyone else on that day, but managed to drop a 3:08:58 marathon.  He passed all but one of the pro women (they started ~30 mins ahead of us) and made up even more time on Rinny’s relay team, but kept us in 3^rd place overall, but 2^nd in the Men’s (non-pro) relay.

Summary:  I was originally disappointed with my finish time.  I came up a few mins short of my goal and the reason was that I faded pretty hard in the last hour.  BUT, after I analyzed how I did compared to others I realized that I beat Rinny’s bike by ~6 mins (and she was also just doing the bike of a relay).  Also, Macca’s bike leg was only ~6 mins faster than mine and he DNF’d about 3 miles into the run having had no intention of actually doing the whole race.  There were also only 2 male Pro’s who beat my bike leg by more than 7 mins (I was close to or beat all the rest).  I realize those guys swam first and ran after, but let’s be honest, I also have a ~70hr a week job (counting my commute). And not counting Rinny’s Pro Team, we came in 2^nd place in the Relay which was pretty sweet!

Key Takeaways:

1) All Watts are not created equal.  I averaged 234W and my quads were cramped and trashed. I think this was because I was aero and constantly pedalling the whole entire time at AC (I had similar quad cramping at IMFL in 2012).  The week before the AC race, I averaged 245W for 5+ hrs on a hilly-ish course.  Just 5 days after the race I did a ~6+hr, 100mi ride with 10,000’ of climbing and averaged 245W with my last hour being the strongest and I felt good running immediately afterwards.

2) IMMT is certainly hillier and I’m pretty sure I will be targeting ~235-245W depending on my last 3-4 ~5hr rides before the race.

3) I think I can survive IMMT with the on-course nutrition (without my down tube bottle cage). However, I will keep my rear bottle cage on to be able to take an extra bottle when I start to get light the 2^nd half.