Stanbaugh Traverse City 70.3 Race Report
Stanbaugh – 2019 Traverse City 70.3 Race Report
Link to Race Plan: https://endurancenation.vanillacommunities.com/discussion/26006/rich-stanbaugh-traverse-city-70-3-race-plan#latest
This was my first race since 2016, was a comeback race after some medical issues and was really a “B” race leading into IM Louisville in October (more details in race plan). My goal was to get back into racing and try to execute a good race.
It turned out pretty good for me with a 5:09:21 is a 30:13 PR. Bike was a 54” PR, but on a significantly harder and windier course. Run was a 14:53 PR on a twice-rebuilt ankle (PR for any half marathon, not just 70.3).
Swim was a disaster and is a big lesson learned. I have worked hard on swimming this year with nearly 100,000 yds and growing. My open-water swims have been faster than ever, consistently hitting upper 1:30/100yd to lower 1:40s/100yd. I seeded myself at the back of the 35minute group and felt good going into the water… until about the first buoy. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. My heart was racing. It felt like my wetsuit was crushing me.
I’ve never had a panic attack. There was not any emotional context to what was going on. I wasn’t afraid, wasn’t worried about drowning, nothing like that… I’m super comfortable in water. This has never happened. So, I flipped over and started swimming on my back, trying to relax and get my HR down. By then, I was also getting tossed around with everyone swimming past me, getting a lot more water in my face made it harder to get my breath. For the first time ever 9but not the last) I swam over to a kayak to catch my breath, thinking that a minute or two getting under control could save overall swim time.
That wasn’t working and I wasn’t getting close to the second buoy, so I took off again. Quickly onto my back, but at least making forward progress, made it to the corner and latched onto a paddle board. Tried to have a good laugh with the volunteer, but I couldn’t really laugh because I was wheezing and my heart was racing. She mentioned shore and I took off again. On. My. Back. This was a really nice lady who followed me nearly to whole back stretch and got my attention to point me the right direction / keep me from going in a circle (hard to sight while doing the back stroke)… when the buoys turned from yellow to orange, I was finally starting to settle and was able to start switching between back stroke and freestyle. My GPS track looks like an EKG.
Long swims give one a lot of time to think. I remember wondering how long it would take to get to the first red buoy. I remember seeing 10:00 on my watch just after the first corned and realizing that the podium was out of reach. I remember wondering if I was going to make the swim cutoff, and if I didn’t, deciding I just go ahead with the race so that I would get the execution practice. And then I remember thinking that I needed to take an extra minute in transition so that I could get my head on straight and not continue the string of misfortune on the bike.
I was very happy to get out of the water at 45:53, 136th / 180 and 1,577th of 2,200
Transition: I ran hard to my bike, put all my stuff on, then sat down in front of my bike and checked that I had everything, that I wasn’t making a mistake and reconciled myself to crush the first part section of the bike, then sprinted out of transition with my bike. Transition of 4:01 was 1:53 slower than the fastest in my division, but I moved up 22 positions to 114th.
Bike course had a pretty steep climb just over 1 mile out of transition. I was still messing with arm warmers etc. at the bottom, but then it was game on. I had planned to ride this section hard, and I did, moving up 66 positions in the first 16 miles (gotta love that draft).
I rode the bike pretty much according to plan with the exception of not really backing off at the end. There was a pretty stiff wind that changed from tail wind to head wind at mile 27 (beginning of second climb) and people were starting to look tired, so I kept riding and pushing the climbs.
I know that I could have ridden harder than IF 0.77, but I am not convinced that 0.80 would have been more than a few minutes faster. I was limited by how fast I was climbing, and I was climbing hard. I rode the first 10’ climb at 275w (94%) and going over 90% on the rest of the hills.
The problem was spinning out on the descents above about 35mph. My VI for the ride was 1.06. If you eliminate the sections where I was over 35mph (nearly 8 minutes), my VI was closer to 1.00. I would have needed a different gear setup that allowed me to push the downhills harder to have gotten much return on riding “a little” harder, so I took what I could and planned to run. My HR was completely under control the whole bike - you can see on the chart that Power:Heart Rate drift was only 0.3% and that when it maxed out (climbs), it quickly recovered to the average.
My bike ended up 2:35:30, 16th place and 5th best bike in division, 88th best bike overall
I had planned 3+ bottles for the bike and I had under 3. I couldn’t stop peeing… was getting nearly 1,000mg salt per hour, but the water was going right through. I was holding the calories on plan and didn’t feel dehydrated at all.
T2 – I barely stopped moving. I did pull my bike jersey off and put on a singlet for running because I knew that, even with cool temperatures, the sun had been super hot on clear days. Out of T2 in 2:29 in 17th place.
The run was by far my best performance in any race. I had a short stop at a porta john on the way out of Transition. I ate most of the banana from my T2 bag and took a gel at mile two, held the other one until mile 6. But, instead of running the planned 250w and 8:10ish, I was running closer to 270w and 7:40ish. I thought about backing off, but I had screwed the swim up and followed it by a bike that left me feeling good, so I just went with it. I have had some pretty strong training runs off the bike, so figured I could hold it for a while anyway. I saw lots of people I knew, was trying to chase some down and to make certain others didn’t chase me down. Then I saw my boys at the turn back to town (≈mile 5) and they told me I was in 10th place. Game on. I negative split the run, maintaining HR and driving it up from the start of the bike until the end of the run.
A couple data points: I feel good about nutrition because I was able to keep building heart rate off the bike throughout the run driving to 171bpm at the finish. Cardio drift was pretty good, only losing 1.6% over the course of the run.
Finished the run in 8th place of 180 in my age group and 156th of 2,200 overall. I moved up 128 places in my age group and 1,421 places overall.
Lesson’s learned:
- Don’t swim in a dry wetsuit. I should have had it out and practiced in this wetsuit before the race. I keep this suit for races only, but in previous years, it has always gotten wet.
- Do the swim warmup. It isn’t always available, but use it if it is.
- I believe that if I would have pulled the collar open and let water into the wetsuit, it would have resolved the problem quicker.
- Practice the backstroke… get stronger and learn to sight. 36 hours after the race ended, the only real soreness I have is in the back-stroke muscles!
This was the first year for the Traverse City 70.3. It is really a fantastic venue. The swim is cool, clean water, the bike is challenging, and the run course is not too challenging and it loops around enough that it is super spectator friendly. The town / surrounding towns really got a lot of people out to support the race. The police that were watching the intersections were incredibly enthusiastic and encouraging everyone all day, the locals were out all around the bike course. By far my favorite 70.3 and one of my favorite races / venues.
Thanks for all the support. Especially to Anna, she has to bear the brunt of me :-)
She had a fantastic race full of PRs too.
Comments
@Rich Stanbaugh awesome way to finish after that swim. I agree with your lessons learned. I had the same thing happen to me in Grand Rapids 2018.
Your bike is so much stronger than 2016. I bet you burned a ton of calories on that swim and still had an awesome bike and run. A negative split on any run in a HIM is impressive. I was happy to see you fly by me at the run turn around.
I agree with everything you said about the venue. TC crowd, police, volunteers and staff were all top notch!
Good luck with you Louisville build! Let’s do a scone ride soon!
@Rich Stanbaugh Congrats to you on an excellent day. You looked really strong at Blue Ridge Camp and clearly your run is just as strong as your bike! Well done.
Congratulations @Rich Stanbaugh If the only thing you have to fix is getting your wetsuit wet then you're in great shape for IMLOU!
Congrats on your amazing recovery and comeback race! Strong bike but no surprise:-) That run was the wild card , learning how to run again to a HIM run PR in 1 year , its no longer a wild card. T's smoking. Big Kudo's to handling that swim. Now you have your temporary limiter to work on !
Wow what a strong race. Especially considering the struggle with the swim. To overcome the time lost is a great thing, but the mental aspect of that setback could have been lasting also. Nice race execution and nice PRs! Congratulations.
Way to get it done @Rich Stanbaugh ! Impressive to see how you continued to get stronger throughout your day. Impressive that you PRd the half marathon distance as well! You have a lot of mojo to carry into your IMLOU build.
Great job @Rich Stanbaugh! You were smart about working through the swim issues. Great bike and run. Best wishes as you put the finishing touches on IM Louisville prep. Let's hope for some good weather (I do Chattanooga the week before 🙂)!
Thanks for sharing this out so we could learn all about how it played out! Time to get back to work now! 😉
~ Coach P
@tim cronk @Sheila Leard @Clark Mitchell @Scott Liston @Jeff Phillips @Sid Wavrin Thanks so much for the encouragement and nice kind thoughts.
@Brian Hagan - it was a big boost of energy to see you out there!
@Coach Patrick - yes, on to Louisville (as soon as my head cooperates with getting back to regular hard work!)
@Rich Stanbaugh - great performance and thought out executions. Curious what you figure out with the swim more. I find it hard to believe you didn't get water inside the wetsuit from normal swimming. The backstroke rescue of your day was excellent on the spot thinking that only comes from veteran experience on the course. Alot of IM swims don't allow for getting wet first including IMKY.
@Rich Stanbaugh It's ridiculous that you were able to continue after your trauma in the water. I'm most impressed with the run - you have put the ankle and hernia issues well and truly behind you, and can now run they way you are supposed to - fast, and faster @ the end. That must've felt really good.
Thinking about your swim, along with your episodes of altitude sickness which I have personally witnessed, I'm wondering if SIPE might be the issue here. I'm pretty sure you've heard of it. Remember years back Jenn Edwards had to deal with this?
Anyway, I wouldn't pass it off as simply "anxiety" or "dry, tight wet suit". Get a medical opinion; I don't want to see this happen again, my friend.
That aside, I am so glad to know that you are back to running and biking in a race as hard as your training and preparation shows you can.
@Rich Stanbaugh Nice job getting the swim done then on to great bike and run. I had a similar experience at lake placid in which added on over 15' to my usual IM swim. I to am generally comfortable in the water, not fast but have had no issues in my years of racing until this IM. I don't recall any wheezing in my experience as it was lack of swimming in a wetsuit.
@Scott Alexander , @Al Truscott & @Gordon Cherwoniak - Thank you.
I've don'e two Open Water Swims since the race (wearing the same wetsuit) with zero symptoms that I experienced during the Traverse City race. I didn't have any lingering effects from the bad experience during the TC swim, mentally or physically.
@Al Truscott - interesting thoughts on pulmonary edema... my feeling was more like that of hyperventilating. Super rapid & shallow respiratory rate, a little dizzy a kind of tightness in my chest (no pain etc... just felt like being squeezed. At the time, I felt like my heart rate was high, but I cannot confirm this (didn't wear the swimming Garmin strap). In retrospect, the super fast breathing and light-headedness may have made me think that my heart rate was higher than it was.
As I calmed a little and tried to swim, the rapid breathing and other feelings would immediately return. The didn't really go away much while resting. The back stroke kept me moving forward slowly, but I could not catch my breath ding that either. I could talk and laugh with the volunteers, but couldn't catch my breath. About halfway through he swim, the symptoms became more manageable and I was able to keep moving more regularly. They continued to improve the rest of the swim... by then, I was just swimming poorly. You can see the evidence in the chart below:
About 100m in the Problem started, I would rest, try to restart and then have to stop. Unfortunately, HR data did not download for this swim.
What I'm taking away from this:
In any case - this is behind me now. No harm done. On to Louisville.
Great race! Congratulations on all the PRs and 8th AG finish! That's huge! And way to recover and come back from a not-so-great swim. I've had very similar eposides in the swim, more than a few times. Like you mentioned it's not a panic attack but more like being out of breath and not being able to get it under control. I've figured out the trigger for me is simply starting out too fast and not getting in a swim warm up. You might think you're taking it easy at the start but with the adrenaline going and in racing mode, it's easy to be swimming faster than you think. Here's what has been working for me. Always do a swim warm up if it's available, 10 mins is ideal which includes several 20 seconds of fast swimming. If a swim warm up isn't possible, I'll do a 5 to 10 min run just to get the heart pumping/blood flowing. If zero warm up, then I force myself to go slow at the start by doing the catch-up drill for the first 100-200 yds. Also, a mantra helps too such as "slow and smooth". Once I feel warmed up I turn on race pace. Additionally, you can start practicing race take out efforts in your swim workouts. For example try 3-4 intervals of 200 or 300 yds where the first 75 is fast/race take out speed sighting 2-3 times per 25. Then settle into race pace sighting 1x/25 for the remainder of the interval. This will simulate a race start and get you used to (but probably never comfortable) with the feeling of starting fast/spiking your HR and then recovering while swimming at race pace.
Good luck at Louisville!