Kansas 70.3 Race Report. June 10, 2012

Kansas 70.3 Race Report

June 10, 2012

Summary

Absolutely nothing in my performance looks very good, but the conditions were very tough, and taking those into account, I am satisfied with the result.  5:16:42 overall, about 10 minutes slower than the year before.  45 min swim, 2:45 bike, 1:42 run.  Qualified for Las Vegas.  Woo too!

Prerace

Between 2 and 3 weeks before the race, I gave myself a minor hamstring twinge.  Up to that point, I had been very pleased with my training.  Swimming was a big point, and I had made a lot of progress.  Biking looked good, and was statistically strong; I was at my all time best FTP. Running, however, was (at best) the same as in previous years.  I had had a severe hamstring pull several months before and had not been able to work the run as hard as I wanted, obviously.  However, this meant more time on the bike, so maybe it was a wash.  Regardless, the hamstring tweak with a couple of weeks to go wasn't good, but it wasn't debilitating.  I managed it fine and did not hurt myself worse, but the running going in those last 3 weeks was definitely toned down from what I had planned.

I drove down to Lawrence Friday night after helping out with the kids' swim meet all Friday afternoon.  Unfortunately, it was very hot and I had to be outside all day.  However, as I drove down and drank a lot I felt better and better, and I thought I had probably fixed myself up well enough from being dehydrated.

Saturday morning I got up, loaded my gear and checked in.  I didn't have any local friends racing, but did have some EN teammates, so it was fun to meet them.  Registration was smooth, but as I was almost at T1 to check in my bike, I realized my front tire had flatted out.  That meant a long walk back to the parking area to change the tube.  Not the end of the world, but it was another very hot day, and I would have preferred to get out of the sun faster.  Lunch with teammates was great.  I had my last big meal before race time - a pretty stripped down pizza.  I drove the course in the afternoon to remind myself of where the sections of the hills were.  That was useful, but didn't give the perspective of the wind that was to be so important the next day.  The biggest takeaway was that the "entrance to the park" was actually miles from the finish and it was important to keep the racing head on for much longer than just to the entrance.

The evening was uneventful save for normal race preparation.  I had an early light dinner (5 pm 6 inch subway) and bought my usual Naked Juice smoothies.  Drank one right before retiring at 9 am, and two would be early breakfast at 3 am when I got up.

On arrival at the venue, I hung out in T2 to find out about the wetsuit ruling (so as to decide whether to bring it down to T1).  I learned, as expected, that wetsuits were not going to happen.  This was ok with me, and was good because it would save me a trip down to T1 after the race.  :-)

Swim

I went off with my wave, and at first everything was fine.  I felt like I was swimming strongly.  There was quite a bit of chop, but it didn't bother me nearly as much as it had the year before.  I projected myself as finishing in ~37 minutes because I felt like I was swimming a lot stronger, but would have to deal with chop and no wetsuits.  (I thought I had swum myself into shape for a ~32 minute smooth wetsuit swim.)

After the first turn, however, I went way off track.  Literally.  The first turn was into the sun, which is to be expected, but that doesn't help visibility.  By then, my wave had dispersed more than usual - which I attributed to the chop - and the density of swimmers around me was just very low.  The chop and (I think) a couple of small or under inflated buoys made it hard to see them.  As everyone knows, I also just can't see that well.  I accomplished the impossible.  I got lost.  

I wasn't so lost that I had no idea where I was going; after all I knew where the sun was and could see the shore in a vague sort of way (not the finish chutes...just the shore).  I made every attempt to look for buoys and swimmers, and I just kept going crooked one way or another relative to the course.  I got stopped by kayaks three times.  A few times I had to just stop and tread and look around to figure out where to head next.  I wasn't totally alone this whole time, but for some reason I just couldn't stay with even any small group.  Additionally, the water was very murky, so you couldn't easily follow feet.  At no time did I panic, but obviously this led to anxiety about my general performance.

While I felt like I was swimming well, it was clear that I just swam way too long.  I have no idea how far I swam, but I know the way back, which is shorter on the map was a hell of a lot longer in my experience.  I pulled up out of the swim and saw 44 min on my watch.  i was devastated on the one hand, but I knew it was going to be bad on the other.  At least I ended the swim feeling strong and ready to go.

T1

What to do now?  My whole goal of this race was to qualify for Las Vegas, i.e., the IM 70.3 championships.  I knew I had blown it on the swim.  Before the race, I had looked up most of my competitors and seeded myself about 10th, which would probably be good enough to get a spot on roll-down....but usually where I finish starts to get dense with finishers.  So who knows how much those ~7 minutes (I was guessing) cost me.  Ugh.

I had rehearsed finding my bike, so I got there smoothly. Everything was as I left it.

I made an instant decision on how to deal with the race that was a slight change of plans.  I felt I could no longer take risks that might cost me time in the end.  I knew it was going to be very hot, and get hotter with every hour.  I also knew that the bike would be windy.  I decided that my best chance was to race "smart" rather than aggressively, and hope that too many of my competitors would blow up on the run.  I decided I would drop 10 W from the bike to deal with conditions and save something for the run...and use a modified PE-based approach on the run (more on that later).

The only bad thing about T1 was that doing all this thinking distracted me and I forgot to take off my skin suit.  Last year, I left my swim cap on, so goodness knows what I will forget next time!

Bike

My bike was uneventful.  Maybe that's as is should be.  I knew it would be windy and it was.  I knew it would be hilly and it was.  I knew it would get warm and it did.

I felt good going out and was pleased not to feel like I spent half an hour recovering from the swim.  In retrospect, I am a little disappointed with my overall watts numbers (175 NP, 1.05 VI), but the simple fact is that it was hard to hold the watts that I wanted (190 on the dial for current watts) in large sections of the course.  When the wind was blowing straight at my back, it was tough to keep up the watts.  When the wind was blowing (and gusting somewhat) straight across making steering/stability an issue, it was tough.  When I was going straight into the wind on flats, I noted that my speed was the same if I really, really hunched down and rode a little easier (because it's hard to push as hard when all scrunched up) or when I was in my normal position riding at target power.  Again, I made an instant decision to go with scrunched up and hope I was saving a little more for the run.

I broke my power segments into half hour blocks.  The highest power half hour was the first...which is not good execution, but this was also one of the major into-the-wind and uphill segments.  So, while not great, I'm not disappointed with that.  The lowest half hour was 120-150 minutes (which again, on its face, is bad), but this was the section that was most wind-aided and had lots of downhill segments where I was coasting over 35 mph.  So again, I'm not too upset with that.

Hydration and nutrition were to be kept simple.  I had a bit over 250 calories of InfiniT in my Speedfil A2 (essentially a big, refillable torpedo mount bottle with a straw) and water on the down tube. There were three exchanges on the course.  Up to the first one, I focused on downing most of the InfiniT. At that point I took water and put it in the Speedfil and took Perform as the down tube bottle.  This let me focus on getting more water in without drowning myself in calories. I finished the diluted InfiniT, then squeezed the Perform into the Speedfil. I repeated this at the second and third station, and this got me about 450 calories and as much water as I wanted.  Worked great.

I wish I could make the bike segment story more entertaining, but there's not much more to it; I got tired like everyone does, but not badly.  I felt ready to run.

T2

I was sure glad to get that skin suit off!  One layer gone and I was instantly cooler.  Other than that, T2 was smooth.  Grabbed my sunscreen, sprayed it on while I ran out, and dumped the nearly empty can in the garbage as I left.  Perfect.  In retrospect, it turns out I didn't lose more than 15-20 sec tops taking off the skin suit, either.

Run

Under ideal conditions, I thought I was in shape for a run in the low 1:30s, i.e., at or near 7:00 miles.  I had done that kind of run last year on a flat course in good conditions, and I knew I was in comparable, but not better, run shape.  But I also knew today wasn't ideal.  

But I know pretty much exactly what it feels like to run near 7:00 pace in a HIM.  As noted earlier, I had decided to stick with a PE approach.  I was aware of generally what kind of paces to expect for hot temps, and I knew I didn't know exactly the temperatures were...so I would just try to run the appropriate effort, glancing at the pace to make sure I was in the right universe.  Going from base pace to 95 degrees, the classic Daniels table suggests that pace should slow by about 5% (ca. 7:20), but experience and data collected at EN suggest this is a severe underestimate.  For the IM run, about a 20% slowing (ca. 8:20).  I guessed that for the HIM run it would be somewhere in the 15% region, near 8:00.

(I learned during the run that my Garmin was making my "miles"  about 2% too long.  I have adjusted the times here, but most of what I saw on course would have appeared a few seconds per mile slower.)

Starting out on the run (somewhere around 10:15), I got delayed by a volunteer who flagged me coming out of T2 for some reason, but then I got going fine.  Mile 1 was 7:20, which was fine, considering the delay and the general settling that I always need for about half a mile.  Mile 2 was downhill and mile 3 uphill.  They averaged 7:00.  Perfect. But then I started feeling the heat. By this time (calculating back), it must have been about 10:30 to 10:45 am. and it was 85 degrees or more (again, looking this up).  Miles 4-6 were about 7:30.  By this time I had begun to suffer, like everyone I'm sure.  But I kept trying to draw on what it should feel like to run at this stage and not worry about the pace.  According to weather records, it got over 90 degrees by about 11:30 am, which would be somewhere in the range of mile 9 for me.

I had passed several people in my age group in the first 6.5 mile lap, but as the second lap begins, you can never know for sure whether you are passing (or being passed by) people on the same lap as you or people 6.5 miles behind.  Given the conditions, the people on the second lap might be going just as slowly as people in the age group who were just starting.  I knew this, and decided that I had to take everyone with a number near mine seriously.  But I wasn't going to go too far off my PE-based pace until the last few miles.  I couldn't blow up.  That had to be avoided at all costs.  I had to hope a few of my competitors would.

The course has two significant out-and backs on each lap.  I began watching carefully on the "out" trying to find people in my AG that were within striking distance. For miles 7-9, my pace dropped to about 7:55-8:00 as it heated up more. I passed the last 45-49 male I saw during the race as I approached the one steep hill of the course, and I decided to take one tactical power walk up that hill, confident he couldn't pass me back.  Matt Aaronson from EN saw me and yelled at me, and I tried to yell back that I was ok and taking a tactical walk.  That mile captured almost all the uphill of the course, and I was almost 8:45 for that mile.  (I got delayed at an aid station, too, but that's my fault...).  I watched carefully during the last out and back and didn't see anyone ahead of me in the AG in striking range.  I sure hoped I hadn't missed anyone.  I finished the last miles in about 8:10 pace and averaged about 7:47 for the whole run.  I worked very, very hard, but - to be honest - was glad I didn't feel like I had to sprint to catch anyone.  But I was fully prepared to turn myself inside out if anyone caught me...but no one of any age over ~25 did in the last couple miles.

After the race was over, I discovered that the next person in front of me beat me by over 3 minutes.  That meant I had been right about not seeing anyone in front of me within range for the last couple miles of running.

My aid station strategy was pretty simple again.  I know it's pretty oversimplified-sounding, but I've figured out that if I get one "cup" (3-4 ounces) of coke or sports drink at most of the aid stations, I'll be fine.  So that's what I did.  I slowed down enough to get the nutrition down every time.  I tried to get two big swigs of water.  And I tried to get as much ice as possible.  I put some down my shorts every station after mile 3 or 4 and I ran with ice in my hands pretty much the whole time.

After the race, I was able to analyze what happened using the finishing times.  It turns out I passed 9 racers, and was not passed by anyone in my AG.

Overall

This was NOT the prettiest race I ever did.  Not by a long shot.  It was hard, and parts of it were disappointing.  I still am hitting myself about wasting so much time in the water.  It was disappointing to slow as much as I did on the run, but I knew that was the game I was playing, and I find it really hard to complain too much that I should have done better.  Like always, I was giving it pretty much everything I had the last 3 miles or so.  Like everyone probably, I wanted to stop in the last three miles, but I gutted it out.  I kept appealing in my head to all the work I had done and I was not gong to give in and throw that away.

In the end I placed 11th, 3 min behind guy #10.  I was 10 minutes slower than the year before.

I looked up the top 10 finishers on Athlinks.  The guy who won (in 4:31!) had a PR.  Wow.  More power to him.  Out of my league.  Of the next 9, 7 had done KS in the last three years, and one had done Vineman (a similar course).  Every single one of them was at least 15 minutes slower than before, and the average was 19 minutes slower.

To that extent, I take solace in only going 10 min slower than my best on this course.  Before the race, I had thought I would be about the 10th seed from among the people who I saw had registered.  So 11th was right in line, particularly given the number of late entries (almost 4 weeks worth).  I would not have seeded myself over anyone who finished in front of me had I known they were all there.  The closest one had a 10 minute advantage over my best time, comparing same course to same course.  (He came in 9th.)

After waiting literally hours, it was time to do the roll downs.  Because this was a targeted race by WTC, there were more spots than usual, but the fields were also stacked with good racers more than usual..or at least mine was.  The few women's slots went very, very quickly.  There weren't many roll down slots, and the people were there ready to claim them.  The 30-44 year old men, though, had more spots and went more slowly.  When they got to my AG, there were 3 slots untaken and I was 3 positions out of an automatic slot, so I knew i was in.  As it happens, placers 9 and 10 weren't there, so I took the first roll down, and the next two were claimed by people very shortly after my name.  So I guess it was only the 30-44 men who were slackers about wanting to go to the championships!  

This goes down as a qualified success.