2011 KS 70.3 Race report

Executive Summary

• Goal time sub-5:00; actual time 5:06:51 (slow swim for everyone)
• 6^th place in age group
• Swim improved regarding placement if not time; bike iffy but ok; good run
• Minimal nutrition worked fine for me. 300-350 cal total on bike. ~600 total for race.

Saturday

Christopher and I drove down to Lawrence on Friday night and had dinner with EN friends. Our plan was that Chris would ride the bike course Saturday morning while I checked in, etc. (He is getting ready for a race in July.) Then we would drive the course.

We slept in and then got over to the venue a bit before 10:00 a.m., which was the opening time for registration. Chris got his gear on and we headed up to the check-in area. After a bit of confusion from the staff, he found the volunteer check-in and got on his way. I checked in easily as well. I put my number on my bike and headed over to T1. I was pleased to find that my space would be very easy to find coming out of the water. I checked my bike in and practiced finding the spot a few times, then left happy after deflating my tires.

With Chris being out for about 3 hours, I went back up to the outdoor expo area. I was feeling optimistic; the T1 spot seemed like a good omen. I bought a few small knickknacks and met some friends from TRIracers and Endurance Nation, but tried to keep mostly in the shade and hydrated. After Chris returned, we got Subway for lunch and then drove the bike course. This was a good thing. Although none of the hills were outrageous, I had forgotten just how constant they were. Chris was an excellent and invaluable course guide.

We then checked into the hotel and joined the TRIracers for early dinner. I made sure to keep it very simple: pasta with a plain sauce. We sat outside in heat and sun, which I didn’t care for, but I did my best to minimize the problem. After dinner, Chris and I retired to the hotel after buying some stuff for breakfast in the morning. He went to sleep and I finished up packing for the morning. The last step was to shower and then (yuck) apply a heavy dose of sunscreen. As in 2009, I obsessed over the weather, which didn’t look good (storms…), but there was nothing to do about it, so I went to sleep.

Sunday Pre-Race

By morning, it was clear that the weather would cooperate. Breakfast was 500 calories worth of Naked Juice smoothies with protein and one small breakfast bar (so I wouldn’t feel hungry) all before 4:00 am. This worked fine. I was not hungry all day, well into late afternoon.

We arrived on site a little before 5 am, but that was not quite early enough to avoid the crowds. Chris took off for his volunteering duties on his bike and I walked up to T2 to set up my gear. (This was the first race in a while that I used almost all the available time; note to self: get to KS 70.3 VERY early next time!)

I headed down to T1 and set up my stuff – inflated the tires, set out my shoes and socks and laid my helmet on the ground by my bike with my glasses inside. I checked the straps of the helmet just to be sure they hadn’t gotten dislodged like at Steelhead last year…. After a final trip to the portapotties, I put on my wetsuit and tried using a new (to me) spray-on silicone lubricant to be able to get it off.

Swim

The swim was a deep-water start. I discovered that I hadn’t taken off my wedding ring, so I quickly transferred it to my bigger middle finger, knowing it would not come off that way. The course was approximately 950 m out, 200 m left turn, 750 m return – very simple.

I felt pretty confident starting out. The water was in the mid-70s but I felt very comfortable in the wetsuit. The gun went off, and I started swimming, focusing on the stroke I’ve been working on. Everything seemed to be going fine for the first couple hundred yards. It was not super-crowded, but I noticed right away that I was having some trouble drafting. Shortly I wondered what the hell was going on with some super-kicker next to me. Then I thought maybe it was some annoying boat not too far from us. Then I figured out that that we were actually subject to much choppier water than we had realized. This seemed to get worse as we got out into the water. There were two effects for me. First, drafting was near impossible because of all the water-induced jostling of bodies. Second, it was just more “work” to make progress. The first leg felt longer than it should have. The worst section, though, was the short leg. The current/chop just was making progress much more difficult. It was a relief to turn back to shore and get back to “normal crappy” conditions. I was never scared or confused, but I wasn’t happy about the situation.

As I got out of the water, I glanced at my watch and, in horror, saw 40 minutes. I was really disappointed, and knew that was probably the end of my sub-5:00 day. I heard Chris yelling for me, and that cleared me out of my funk and got me going again.

Bike

Transition was relatively smooth. My wetsuit came off easily, so I’m going to use this silicone spray again. I whipped off my goggles and got on my glasses and helmet. Sock, sock, shoe, shoe, grab the bike and run. I did cheat to get a drink from a water bottle. Bad idea to do anything standing still, but I was quite thirsty. (Bad William! Bad William!)

It was immediately clear on the bike that the swim had cooked me more than I was used to. I hoped that everything would calm down fairly quickly, but the swim-fatigue lasted longer than I would have liked, maybe 20 minutes.

My original aggressive plan had been ~175 W for the opening of the bike, and as high as 190-195 W after that, based on a guess of a 2:30-2:35 split. However, that first 20-30 minutes didn’t feel very good, and the speeds I was able to get on the day with the hills made it clear I wasn’t going to get that 2:30ish split no matter what. I made an on-the-fly decision dropped my wattage goal to around 180 W, knowing I would likely cook myself if I went 195 W for 2:45. I had a small snafu with my Garmin that caused me to miss a small portion of the course and I cannot properly input into PowerAgent or WKO+, but in the end, it was clear that I met this goal based on the analysis I can do with GTC and Golden Cheetah.

During the bike course, I passed more often than I was passed, but I did notice a couple of guys in my age group that blew by me. I was using the even-power strategy, so over and over I got dusted up the hills only to catch people down the hill or on the flats. There were plenty of spots where I could cruise without pedaling with speeds in the mid 30s mph. There was this one guy that did this repeatedly with me during the course… he would repeatedly get out of his seat and destroy me going up a hill and I would catch him. There were a few guys from my age group that I thought I was keeping close enough to catch on the run, but I wasn’t going to kill myself on the bike to get them. I did catch a couple of friends (Nelson and Jass) who routinely out-swim me, but I was glad to see they seemed to be biking strong. I did not see a lot of drafting, and the course was not packed in my area, either.

Because of the mild weather, I had opted to put all my nutrition in a single bottle and drink water from the course. I had a 500 calorie bottle of InfiniT and made sure to drink some about every 15 minutes. I didn’t finish any of my water bottles completely before any of the aid stations, but exchanged for a full one each time.

As the bike was approaching the 2:00 or 2:15 mark, I was pretty sure I could come in somewhere around 2:45. I had hoped to go faster, but I knew I didn’t have anything much faster that day. Mentally, I resolved that I would just live with the result. I was pretty spent and knew that I hadn’t had 2.5+ hours worth of harder riding in me that day. I think the swim bothered me more than I would have liked. I decided to play the run in a very “normal” strategy, not being super-aggressive to try to catch anybody, taking risks for places. I thought I was too far back for it to make much difference, and I figured I could put up a decent run and be happy with a good, if not killer, day.

As I pulled into the end of the bike, I took note of the amount of my calorie bottle that remained. It appeared that I had only consumed about two-thirds of it, i.e., around 300, maybe 350 calories. I decided I needed to be careful about nutrition on the run.

Run

I came into T2 smoothly and found my spot. I took off my helmet to find that I had done the whole bike with my swim cap on! I quietly and quickly wondered how much that had cost me, but there was nothing to do about it. Got on my shoes, grabbed my stuff, and went. At the first aid station, I popped a gel and got some water to wash it down.

My super-aggressive goal had been 7:30 for 3 miles and then as close to 7:00 as possible for the remainder of the run.

I resolved not to look at my Garmin for half a mile so I wouldn’t get all upset that I was going too slow coming off the bike. I looked finally and found myself going along at around 7:15. I deliberately slowed down to the easiest pace I could bring myself to go, which was right around 7:30. The geography of the course was generally mild with some slight gradients, excepting one big dip/hill. In the end, that geography put me at around 7:15 for the first three miles. The hill was too steep to run fast down it but it would definitely cost some time going up. By this point, I was aware that I was making progress through the crowd. I saw several EN and TRIracer friends, which is always great. The turnarounds were long enough that it was hard to judge about any progress from one to the next. Crowd and teammate support was awesome. It is so cool to get a boost from seeing folks.

After the 3 mile mark, I tried pushing closer to 7:00 for a little while, but it felt too hard. I was feeling good near 7:15 and decided just to stay in that range, and if there was a lot left, use it in the last 5K. I realized that this has been the pattern of my good HIM runs. Instead of running the first three miles as slowly as I’d like, I tend to find an intermediate pace that feels very easy. Then I tend to keep the pace constant, but it just feels harder and harder.

The one concession I made to speed was that I came to a walk for 5-10 steps to get my nutrition at the aid stations. I never felt close to a bonk or anything, but I knew I was going on the low end, so I felt like I had to be sure I got something down. I believe I took the “Gatorade” (PowerBar brand…) 7 times. That would mean 125-150 calories at 3-4 ounces on average, plus 100 calories from the gel, for a total of about 225-250 calories total on the run and under 600 during the whole race.

The KS course is two loops, so there are people coming onto the course at the same time at the I’m starting my second loop. Some of them look pretty good; some are suffering already. I will admit to getting a private chuckle from passing a few people who clearly had no idea I was a full lap ahead of them when they said something about good going. I was always as polite as I can manage.

From mile 3 to 9 or so, the run was pretty uneventful except for a near-constant mild abdominal stitch. I was starting to want to see the miles tick off as it got notably tougher to keep the pace. I had to start looking at the Garmin to assure myself I was going as fast as I needed to. The fatigue was definitely muscular, not bonking.

The last 5K was an exercise in following through what I started and giving pretty much everything I had, even if the splits of 7:20-something do not show I was working so hard. I got into the beginning of the very long chute, and Chris yelled at me to hustle as there was someone behind me. It took an incredible distance to accelerate to my top available pace, but I finished as hard as I could and held off the guy behind me. I knew I had given my best, at least on the run.

The race-based splits were way off. Accounting for the race geography, my splits ended up about as even as they could possibly be, with a few seconds per mile fade at the end. But not more than a few seconds. My final run time was 1:36:35, a PR by a little over a minute at the HIM distance.

That was it. I was spent. I just put my head down on something (about a 4 foot stack of water bottles) and stood there for quite a while. Someone came over to ask me if I needed medical assistance, but what I needed was time to recover.

Post Race

After the race, I spent most of my time standing, as I was sore all over. It felt like every muscle I had was sore. I saw friends and Chris and got to check in with everyone. I thought I had PRed the run, but hadn’t seen an official time. Finally I got my phone and Cynthia had texted me to tell me I got sixth and I almost started to cry; I couldn’t believe it. I checked and she was right.

Before the race, I had written “I will NOT fall asleep on the swim. I will ride steady at first and hold hard in the last half hour. I will show discipline in my run and I will have nothing left at the end.” Aside from the mental compromise I made with myself about where “riding steady” was, I have to think this was a success.

As the statistical measures below will show, the lesson I really need to take from this race is that I should not get discouraged from my mid-race numeric results. I need to just bear down and stick with the plan or improvise as need be…but focus on doing the best I can and let things sort themselves out in the end.

Some technical/statistical notes

Transitions

We can’t all swim as fast as Andy Potts or run as fast as Rini. But we can try to be as fast at transitions. I’ve tried to go minimalist, with the exception that I generally put on socks and shoes before mounting my bike.

T1 had a pretty normal setup, but my tactic had been to be as sure as I could where it would be. I was far from the bike exit, but it was paved, so I figured I could run with my cleats pretty easily. I still spent an extra 10 seconds finding my bike, and I cheated by taking a drink, but otherwise, it was at least OK.

At T2, I had a very minimalist setup. A pair of shoes and a ziplock bag. Inside the bag was my hat and a can of sprayon sunscreen. I dropped my helmet (and swim cap!!!), slipped on my shoes, and picked up the bag. Before hitting the exit (again, the long way from where I was), I was jogging/running, had my hat on, and had sprayed my arms, ears, and neck. I was lucky that Chris was at the exit, so he kept the sunscreen, but I had been prepared to just toss it in the garbage on the way out.

So let’s see how I did compared to some random pro, like, say, Chrissie Wellington:

• T1: Chrissie 1:28, William 2:51. Ouch. That whole glasses and shoe thing clearly costs me. She’s also probably better at getting off the wetsuit. I can improve.
• T2: Chrissie 1:09, William 1:08. OK, that’s better. J

Statistical measures

Swim:

• 2011 KS, 41 min , 437^th, 70.3^rd percentile overall, 79^th percentile AG;
• 2010 Steelhead, 34 min, 542^nd, 70.0 percentile overall, 85.8 percentile AG
• 2009 KS 38/5 min, 722^nd, 67.5 percentile overall, 73^rd percentile AG
• If the larger events grow mostly in the middle, not at the top, I am improving. If they grow in a “flat” way, my progress is minor. This is my worst event in terms of placement, no matter what.

Bike:

• 2011 KS, 2:45 290/1476 overall, 17/124 in AG
• 2009 KS, 2:45 484/1487 overall, 41/156 in AG
• Clearly enough, the conditions must have been a bit tougher in 2011. I still wish there had been a more measurable time improvement, but clearly enough I moved up within the cohort by holding the same time.

Run

• 2011 KS, 1:36:35, 189/1476 overall and 5/124 AG
• 2009 Ks, 1:39:12, 484/1487 and 27/156 AG
• In 2009 there were 16 male 45-49 runners under 1:40 and there were only 11 in 2011. Again, this indicates at least anecdotally that the race was a little slower in 2011. So this represents my best improvement. This is ironic in that it was already my strength. Maybe, though, it represents better management than actual run improvement; hard to say for sure.