Tom's IM Santa Rosa race report
IMSR Race Report
The bottom line:
Time: 11:41:48
8/121 AG
308/2149 OA
Swim: 1:11:05
T1: 7:05
Bike: 5:57:34
T2: 5:16
Run: 4:20:44
13th IM
Legacy Kona spot for 2018 validated with this finish
Intro:
WTC bought the old Vineman and it is now IM SR but with some changes. I never raced Vindeman so I can’t compare the differences. The swim is a different venue in Lake Sonoma, the bike travels on some of the old Vineman roads and the run is now 3 loops along a river trail in Santa Rosa. It is a point to point bike with two transitions which always creates logistical issues.
Race Week:
This is a Saturday race. I drove with my wife 2/3 of the way from my home in Salem, Oregon on Wednesday after getting off work. Thursday we drove the rest of the way, arrived in SR, registered, checked in to my AirBnB (about 10 minutes by car from expo and finish area), and then went to a winery for some wine tasting. This would be my only chance with my wife to partake in one of the hundreds (thousands??) of wineries in the area as we would be driving home Sunday after the race. If I could do it differently, I would definitely take some time after the race to enjoy the wine country. Thursday evening was the team dinner with Brad and Heidi Marcus and Jacklyn Moore and her family. I was hoping to meet more of the team but for various reasons no one else could come. Friday was packing race bags, short ride to make sure the bike was in working order and then drive to the lake for bike check-in and T1 bag drop. My plan was to drop off the bike and bag, check out the flow through transition and possibly go for a swim in the lake. Pre race info on Facebook (the RD posted several videos) indicated there was no official practice swim but people could swim at their own risk any time that week. However, down near the water there was a sign that said triathlete swimming not allowed. What?? No mention of this at the athlete meeting. Most people were ignoring the sign but I choose to not swim. One last 15 minute swim wasn’t going to change my swim time on race day as I felt I could get a pretty good idea of the flow of the swim without actually getting wet. So we left to drive the bike course back to SR. I was really curious about the hills in the first few miles and how the low sun in the morning might affect those downhill sections that were going to be “no aerobars”. Driving the first 70 miles, my impression was that there were some fairly rough sections of road throughout and it would be rolling. Dropped off T2 bag which was basically hand the bag to a volunteer and then they set all the bags out so no real chance to go through T2 and see where your bag was actually going to be. The rest of the day was spent off my feet trying not to think too much about race day.
Race Day:
This race was scheduled to start at 6:10 AM, the earliest race I’ve ever done. Why I’m not sure. I thought I had heard that they wanted to start early so they could reopen closed roads earlier. It makes sense I guess but combined with the need to take a shuttle bus up to the lake (~45-50 minutes), it makes for an early day. So awake by 2:30 AM, ate, showered, dressed and out the door by 3:30. My plan was to drop my fully charged Garmin 920 in my T2 bag and then catch one of the first shuttles at 4 AM (shuttles were scheduled to run from 4-5 AM). Once again, pre race info indicated we would have access to our T2 bags on race morning. However, T2 was still blocked off to athlete access. If you wanted to put something in your bag you had to hand it to the one volunteer over the fence and trust they would put it in your bag and retie it the way I like to do it for fast access. I decided not to do that and so took my garmin with me to either wear during the swim or put in my T1 bag to put on after the swim. Off to the shuttle which was mostly uneventful up to the lake. There was a little congestion near the lake as buses had to get through the area where spectators were required to park but for my bus it wasn’t too long.
Worked through my check list (pump tires, turn on and pair wahoo, add fluid to bike, easy gear, porta-potty). Athlete meeting said no shoes on the bike. Water temp 76.1 just under the cut off for being wetsuit legal. I brought both my wetsuit and speedsuit so it didn’t matter much to me but there were plenty of people breathing a sigh of relief. I saw one post after the race saying IM wouldn’t want their first race in this location to not be wetsuit legal implying that the temp may have been above the cutoff. I don’t have any idea if that was true. Time to put on my wetsuit and get to the start.
Swim: 1:11:09 (goal 1:12)
This was a rolling swim start. Signs were being held up to assist in self seeding. Here is one thing that needs to be changed. The sign times were ten minute intervals (1:00, 1:10, 1:20...). Given the fact that probably 50% of an ironman field swims in the 1:10-1:20 range, there was just not enough space to accommodate all the athletes trying to get in the proper location. By the time I walked down the boat ramp to seed myself it was pretty crowded and I had to squeeze past lots of people to just get close to my goal of 1:10. In the end, I didn’t get myself high enough and ended up swimming past a lot of people on the first lap and didn’t find many fast feet to draft. Once the gun went off, we filed into the water along the edge of the boat ramp. This was a fairly narrow area which I think helped limit the number of people entering the water at any given time. I found the beginning of the swim comfortable and less crowded than other rolling start swims. I just got into my rhythm and moved around the course. I drafted on faster feet when I could, tried to swim on the very inside of each turn buoy, and protected myself with wide elbows whenever someone got too close. I did get hit in the eyepiece one time which caused my right eye goggle to get sucked down around my eye quite dramatically, At first I thought it might have broken or come off since it felt so different but it was just really sucked down on my eye socket. No harm done, except as noted in this photo. My swim cap came half way off at some point which I had no clue about until seeing my after race photos!
T1: 7:05 (goal 5:00)
T1 begins with a long run up the boat ramp, under the road, up another incline and then into transition. Two things I wasn’t sure about before entering T1: 1) would there be wet suit peelers and if so where would they be located and 2) how many volunteers would be in the change tent. Pre race meeting indicated there would not be volunteers in the change tent to help anyone. As I ran up the ramp peeling my wetsuit to my waist past lots of people walking I came upon the peelers under the road. I quickly identified one of the first large males, pointed at him, dropped and had my wetsuit in my hands before I knew it. I ran up the last incline into T1, through the line of bags, grabbed mine and into the tent. My goal was to have my helmet on before entering the tent but my bag was very close to the tent entrance so I got it on as I found an empty space next to a chair. As advertised, there were no volunteers in the tent. One was at the entrance and one near the exit I think although there may not have been anyone there because I don’t remember being shown where to put my bag when I left. Tri slide sprayed to the undercarriage and then repacked my bag. This seemed like it took forever to get my wetsuit into the bag. I actually took an extra second to make sure the bag was knotted because I didn’t want anything missing at the end of the day. I ran out of the tent carrying my shoes and sunglasses in my mouth. Ran with my bike to the exit where once across the mount line I slipped my shoes on, hopped on and was off.
I was waiting to see where the mount line would be. On Friday, they had a line on the pavement at the start of a little hill. I overheard several people say that during the 70.3 in May many people ate it after mounting because they couldn’t get any momentum to clip in. Because of this, I was prepare to run past the mount line up the hill before mounting because I didn’t want to risk a crash at mile 0. I did’t know where the line was until exiting T1 and saw they had moved it slightly onto a flat section. Not a long flat area but enough for me to mount without problems.
Missed my goal time, but was second fastest in my age group.
Bike: 5:57:34 (goal 6:00 conservative, 5:45 hopeful)
My primary goal coming into this race was to finish without incident. With that in mind, I was a bit more conservative in certain sections of the bike course, not wanting to risk a disaster. The sun into my eyes on downhill technical sections was a concern so I took it easy the first few miles. I’m not a very good down hill cyclist, in fact I’m probably in the bottom 20%. Two factors play in to this. One, I crashed 9 years ago and so I’m uneasy with high speeds. The second is I have struggled with balance issues for the past 15 years. In fact, one of the reasons I got in to endurance sports was because I think it helps my balance problems. A big medical work-up 15 years ago revealed that my carotid artery is close enough to my 8th cranial nerve to irritate it. For me, I have to rely a lot more on visual cues for balance and not just my inner ear. At times it’s ok and doesn’t bother me too much. At other times it can cause me to struggle especially on my bike. It’s cyclical and gets worse for a week or two and then better for a week or two. Unfortunately, the cycle was a little worse the week of the race. Bottom line for me, rough roads, traffic and sometimes higher winds can cause me to be unsteady in my aero bars. And unfortunately, this course had a lot of rough road causing me to not be able to ride in my aero bars for any length of time.
So off I went on the bike. My goal was to average 195 NP. I had done a race rehearsal at 208 NP so I knew even if my power was higher for short periods I could still manage. My NP for the entire ride ended up at 174, lower primarily because of rough road sections, long downhills in the first several miles and slowing through aid stations. When not in one of those situations I tried to keep my power in the mid 190’s.
The course is advertised as a beautiful ride through the vineyards. In actuality I was too busy avoiding potholes and rough road to look at anything but the road right in front of me. Sonoma county definitely needs to do some road repair. There were some sections a decent road, In fact there was a nice area several miles long that was newly repaved. The locals obviously know this is the road to ride because I saw several Saturday riders out on that section. Some sections though were truly pot hole repair upon pot hole repair. Bottle carnage was everywhere. When it wasn’t repaired pot holes, it was pitted chip seal. This was my least favorite bike ride of my previous 12. Once through about mile 68 or so you enter the loop section around SR. This is where you get in to more traffic. The long road section going east as you enter town had a moderate shoulder with car traffic passing you at higher speeds, thus making it interesting every time you passed a slower rider. And you definitely pass a lot of slower riders on the second loop. The only plus side of the loop section is that it is flatter and faster. Most of the roads were smoother but they still had a couple sections that were absolutely hideous. Bottle carnage everywhere. Most races have some bottle carnage as you cross railroad tracks or a change of pavement over a bridge. This was just everywhere. There were a few times when shadows were across the road in a particularly rough section and I just had to pray I didn’t hit a deep unseen pot hole. Fortunately, no major incidents on the bike but I definitely didn’t bike as fast as I could have given my fitness. I was so, so glad to get off the bike. Peed twice.
T2: 5:16 (goal fastest in AG)
Transition was all about being as efficient as I could. After dismounting it was about a block run to T2. I had no clue where my bag would be, so had to rely on the volunteers to direct me to the correct row. There were several volunteers helping find bags, in fact nearly ran over one since the space between the rows was very narrow. Once again, no volunteers in the tent. I dumped my bag, shoes/socks on, quick spray with sunscreen, and repacked my bag. Grabbed my go bag and out of tent. No one there to tell me where the bag should go so I think I just left it there. Needed a quick stop in the porta-potty and then on my way.
4th fastest in my age group. T1 and T2 combined times netted me second fastest overall in my age group, but fastest of the top ten.
Run: 4:20:44 (goal 4:30 conservative, 4:10 hopeful)
As I began my run I started putting the things in my go bag on, hat, arm coolers and race belt. Then just settled into my goal pace for the first 6 miles. My HR for the last part of the bike was mid 120’s so that was my goal. In addition I was using the stryd power meter and had planned on running at a power in the 220’s. My only screen I looked at for the whole run had HR and power. I never looked at my pace. After the first 6 miles I thought I would try and bump my power to 230. It was challenging to keep my HR from creeping up to mid 130‘s while power was at 230. Ultimately, I opted to watch the HR more than the power. When you're at mile 10 knowing you have 16 miles to go, it’s hard to say I’m going to push higher. I basically didn’t want to bring the suck any closer.
The course is three loops along the river on a trail. Flat packed gravel/dirt on one side and paved on the other. The end of each loop is back by the finish area where the spectators are. The trail section has very few spectators so I often times found myself thinking “another mindless trail run”. It wasn’t mindless in that I didn’t concentrate on my running, just mindless in the fact that there were no other distractions from spectators. The high was in the low 80’s so I filled my ziplock bag with ice at each aid station. Took in gatorade at each station as well with gel and water every 4th. After about the half way point I felt I didn’t need ice in my kit or under my hat so I ditched the freezer bag. My goal was to run the whole way with minimal drop off in pace. Post race analysis shows I did slow a bit from around 9:20-9:40 pace to start to a 10:30 pace at the end. That being said, most people were slowing significantly more than that. In fact, there were people that took off out of T2 quite fast but they were walking by mile 3! 23 miles is a long way to walk buddy! At about mile 23 I mentally pushed harder. It doesn’t show on my splits, but I was definitely working harder and my HR stayed up for the most part. The last mile was a big push. I was surprised that there weren’t more people finishing around me but that left plenty of time for Mike Reilly to call my name “way to go Tommy”, say this was number 13 in my quest for Kona and he would see me in Kona. This was pretty special for me. I heard what he was saying (often times the music and crowd drowns out what he is saying) and pointed at him as I crossed the line. No one calls me Tommy (I think my grandmother did when I was 2) but at IM #1 in Penticton 2005 the announcer called me Tommy and now Mike Reilly did on my 13th. Kind of unique bookends to my Ironman career so far!
What did I like: I liked the swim. Not too crowded, warm water that was clear enough to see the bubbles from the feet in front of me.
One short section of newly paved road on the bike!
Flat run course.
Finish with Mike Reilly calling my name.
What I didn’t like: No volunteers on the change tents. This altered my race plans through transitions and probably cost me a minute total. Probably not a big deal for me since I wasn’t fighting for a Kona spot but would be to others.
No access to T2 bag on race morning. I suspect this was due to the lack of volunteers which affected several areas of the race. They weren’t able to confirm they would have wetsuit peelers until I saw them during the race. The change from a 2 loop run course to 3 loops was probably a volunteer factor.
Early 6:10 AM start, shuttle busses leaving from 4-5 AM. Shuttles took about 45 minutes to get to the lake. I made sure I was on one of the first busses. People that didn’t get on until after 4:30 would have had only 30-40 minutes or less in transition to set up before the start.
Rough roads. There are obviously a lot of factors that go into figuring out an Ironman bike course. They will have to work on routing over smoother roads before I would ever consider doing this race again. I’ve heard lots of complaints about the loop section as well. When you hit the second loop, you are joined by lots of slower riders that you have to pass with busy traffic.
Lack of spectators on 3/4 of the run course.
Conclusion:
I have to say it was great meeting Jacklyn Moore (and family), Brad Marcus and Heidi Marcus at the team dinner. Also, met Wendy Watson and Brian Graffin on the run. It was great racing and hanging out with you for a couple days. Thank you Sheila Leard and for everyone’s encouragement on race day!
Thanks for reading.
Comments
Watching you train the the cycle this year was exceptional! So consistent and focused all the way through to race day!
Love reading the report and reviewing those pics! I like the way you put ranges around your goals too.
Top 10 AG with a solid run says you took all the fitness and applied it well during race day. Just damn strong!
Congratulations!
SS
Great job and you looked strong the whole way!