Kansas 70.3 2013 Race Report

Quick placing statistics for 45-49 men:

•     Swim 35:05, 30^th place
•      Bike 2:41, moved up to 17^th place
•      Run: 1:35:59, finished in 13^th place
•       Total time 4:56:55, a best by 10 min for this course.

Prolog

The Kansas 70.3 has become something of a staple for me. It’s well timed for an early summer race and it’s (relatively) close by. 2013 was to be my fourth run of it. My goal — besides having a good race — was to re-qualify for the LV championships.

Last year, I thought that I was (in retrospect) a bit undertrained on my run, so I began to address that back in October 2012. After my post-season time off, I did a casual run focus for the remainder of the year, mostly running between half marathon and marathon pace for the “hard” parts, because that’s where I fell short previously. I was ok at running fast for a mile, or even a 5K, but not so great at running at that intermediate speed.

That led me into my winter segment (Outseason in EN verbiage), which I began at the first of the year. This was a later start, but good for me, because in previous years, I had gotten too tired by the end of it. Another change in the winter training is that I stuck to the TT bike, although I set the front wheel pretty high so I could look at something besides the ground in front of me. I also pretty much neglected doing the very short VO2 intervals (e.g., multiple 1-2 minutes at 120% FTP) in favor of 4-5 minute intervals at 105%. I felt more FTP limited than VO2 limited. I believe this was a positive change. My final change was that I maintained at 90 minute minimum long run. Again, this was against a perception that last year I was undertrained on the run…which had a basis in reality, since I hurt my hamstring in late Fall and didn’t start running much for a few months.

My first race of the year was the Ft. Dodge half marathon on April 21. On a decent day with a hard, but not shredding effort, I hit sub-90, so I was very pleased with that. Training for the rest of the spring was constantly interrupted by bad weather, travel and the like, but I did the best I could with it. On my long rides, I tended to do very long intervals at about 210 W, which was about 85% of my FTP, instead of shorter intervals near my FTP. I had experience feeling like I had overworked my quads sometimes previously, and that they took a long time to heal up properly. I also thought this was necessary, as I was doing longer long runs (up to 21 miles), but more on that another time. My goal was to be able to race as much as possible near 210 W, knowing the average would be lower than that…but having that be the goal watts on the dial.

Prerace

Given the limitations of the season, I was feeling very good about things, until the Saturday before the race, when I strained my quads while reffing a soccer match as a last minute replacement. I had already biked pretty hard that day, and I guess the sprinting for 90 minutes was a bad idea… I was ok on Saturday but woke up Sunday with quads as sore as they have ever been, even after a race. It was a shocker. There was nothing I could do about it except nurse myself for race week. I did not run more than half a mile all week, and I barely rode my bike…just two 30 minute very easy rides.

Friday, I helped with a local swim meet and left Ames some time well after 9 pm for the 4.5 hour drive to Lawrence. I had not realized the meet would go that late. Oh well. This was the first of a few very minor “problems” that came up, but I tried to just let them go.

Saturday morning I got up and checked in. I brought the bike into T1 and then left for a very pleasant lunch with some Endurance Nation folks. I learned then that there was very bad weather expected overnight and that we could bring bikes in on Sunday morning. Glitch #2. I went back and got my bike back out of the rack, drove the bike course again, and ran a couple errands before meeting some TRI people for dinner. I was 10-12 minutes late arriving. I was expecting only 2-3 people so I sat around waiting for them by myself for another 30-35 minutes before they spotted me. All I had seen were the families (people I didn’t know), not the racers I knew. Oops. Turned out that the place was very vegetarian unfriendly, and I ordered what I thought would be some potato wedges…turned out to be a big pile of locally made potato chips, but everyone else was finishing, so I let it go. I nibbled some but didn’t eat much. Glitch #3. By Saturday afternoon, I was feeling pretty good about the quads. That was a major plus.

Sunday morning, I rose at 4:00 but took longer to get ready than I had anticipated, so I got out the door later and arrived at about 5:05 or 5:10. This was later than I was comfortable with because parking is so slow there. The saving grace was that I had my bike with me, so the long (and I mean long) walk from the lot to T2 and then T1 was made much quicker. Glitch #4. I was not rushed at setup, but I did have to be efficient about it.

Swim

I felt fortunate to be in an early wave. We left at something like 6:50. I don’t know the exact time. The weather was good for Kansas; it was relatively cool, and no gale-force winds. The water was only slightly choppy. I had my prescription goggles with me. It is hard to describe what a huge difference this makes, both in seeing the course while waiting and seeing the buoys while swimming.

There were somewhat more than 100 of us in my wave. For the first few hundred yards, I got beat up more than any other race I can remember, with the possible exception of the 2009 IM WI race. It seemed crazy, since there really weren’t that many of us! The other crazy thing was that I hit by two guys on kayaks, even though I was totally on-course. I presume they had gotten some order to stay much closer in this year, but they were out of their minds…right in the middle of us. Once I swam into one with my head, and once I got rammed in the side. Nuts.

I ended up choosing to swim wide of the scrum for a while. In my head this was risky because I know I don’t swim entirely straight without sighting and I have such bad memories of getting lost here last year (without the fancy goggles). With them, I managed to stay on course. After the first several hundred yards, the scrum settled down, even though by then we were starting to overlap previous waves (and, I assume, some fast folk from previous waves were beginning to catch us). After the first turn, the swim was uneventful. I thought about the work I’d done trying to catch and pull deeper. I thought about how much easier it is to sight with a wetsuit on. I thought about how endless these swims always seem. And I counted strokes. Over and over.

Emerging from the water, I saw a 35 on my watch. This was a big, big deal psychologically — a great way to start the day. Almost as good was the fact that most of the bikes in my area were still on the rack. I had done better than average on the swim.

After the race I saw that my T1 was about 30 seconds slow this year. I think that mistake came from me being too perfect about getting stuff into my Green Bag for them to take up to T2. Those are 30 seconds that are hard to get back. Oh well.

Bike

My bike leg was a mixed bag. On the face of it, I did well. I finished 4 minutes faster than I have previously on this course, but the power statistics were disappointing.

I had my Garmin set for a 5 mile autolap. The first 5 miles were to be just get going and get the heart rate down, with little concern for power. For this whole segment I had vision issues because I couldn’t get my sunglasses to stop being fogged up (glitch), but this eventually went away (whew). I started gradually passing people. The waves were in “reverse order” with older people first, so this was not a big surprise. What was a surprise was how few people I saw in my age group. I knew I couldn’t have been among the leaders after the swim, but I did not note many people that I was catching, nor did many catch me.

The 5-10 and 10-15 mile segments went fine. My power target of near 210 W felt great, and I was averaging just under 200 W, which was right around the normal 0.8 target I have and was to be my best. It was windy. It is always windy at Kansas. It felt at least as windy as any race I remember there, but of course I am imprecise in that memory. I tried to use this to my advantage, but honestly, the really fast guys probably are all probably either good at that too or just so strong it didn’t matter. I kept my head down and tried to stay narrow. Here is a picture of me someone snapped as I got to the crest of a hill. (Yes, that is my right clavicle sticking out of my shoulder. I separated it a few years ago.)





My nutrition plan was simple. I had two bottles of Gatorade (from mix, not the crap they sell in stores): one in a Speedfil A2 and one in a regular bike bottle. Every bottle is about 150 calories. I would drink Gatorade or Perform mostly and guzzle water at the aid stations if I were thirsty. I knew I could get away with this because it wasn’t going to be that hot. At the first aid station, I got a bottle of Perform to put into my empty Speedfil. I noticed that the top of the Perform bottle was loose and as I tried to open it, the top came off! Fortunately I had the sense just to pour it in to the opening of the speedfil, and this went quicker than it would have with the lid on. Glitch turned into blessing in disguise. By the end of the aid station I was ready to grab a second bottle (of water) slug a bunch of it down and toss it aside. All good.

Some time in here, I suddenly developed a severe pain in my right medial quad, the big muscle just above the knee on the inside (not the big quad going all the way up). This was a different place than I had strained at the soccer match, but it scared me. I was suddenly very concerned about what this was and what it would do. Would it get worse? Would I DNF? Glitch.

I tried to go into management mode, testing it extensively. I tested what happened at various wattages and at different positions. Ultimately, it turned into a “governor”. Going over 210 W or so was very painful, but it didn’t seem to get worse as long as I did not push it into that pain zone. Because I was uncertain, I went slightly conservative and began to coast any time I was over 35 mph instead of continuing to push up to 40 mph. I was forced to drop the average watts. I tried to keep the numbers over 200, but it was a very mixed bag as the pain ebbed and flowed. In retrospective analysis, my NP dropped to 185-188 range from the 198-199 it had been for miles 5-15. I tried my best to race smart and just deal.

I was annoyed by a group of 3-4 riders, two of whom were in my AG that were clearly drafting off one another but who kept passing me on the uphills while I would catch them on the flats. (Explain THAT one to me for guys that are drafting in the wind…) The course was not dense with riders where I rode in the pack. There was never need to draft because of space. I played fair, and rode up straight behind folks and went around them to pass — that is entirely ok — but at turnarounds, I could see that the course was more crowded behind me.

At subsequent aid stations, I intentionally played my “unscrew and pour” game. I couldn’t believe how loose these things were. I wondered how many people who wanted to use them like normal bottles were crushed when the lid came off their bottle.

If there was any benefit to my leg hurting as it did, it was that I arrived back at the park in pretty good shape, although I wondered how the leg would hold up running. I took another glance at the watch as I came in. I didn’t see the exact time, but I thought it said 2:41. In each of my three previous tries, I had done the bike in 2:45-2:46. I didn’t know my average power this time, obviously, but even with the leg problem, I knew I was at least at my previous power, and I was satisfied, given the circumstances. It wasn’t the disaster I was concerned with when the leg struck

T2 was quicker than previous years, though I didn’t know this at the time of course. I am not certain why. I just took off my helmet, put on my shoes, grabbed my number and hat and started running out. Not sure what was different than before.

Run

Well, here we are, aren’t we. This is where the race was going to be decided. Could I hang on for a good run, or would it fall apart?  That is exactly how I felt.

The most satisfying thing happened in the first half mile. One of my Draft Boys finished about 1 minute ahead of me on the bike. I got half of that back in transition and shortly ran by him like he was standing still. Or at least that’s how it played in my head. Take that, Draft Boy.

My A-goal for the day was to average about 7:20 miles. That would put me in line with my best runs of this course. If I had a great day, of course, I would take it, but I wasn’t expecting a stellar run after the whole ref/quad thing.

I find the first two miles of the KS 70.3 run course to be the hardest ones. (Well, maybe except for mile 10.) You start out going back into the bike riders in the direct sun and it’s just sort of an ugly, hot out-and back. And that first mile of a HIM run never feels good anyway. The last couple of years, I have just not even started looking at my watch while running the first couple miles.

This time I probably should have. Miles 1 and 2 were too fast. I cannot explain this based on how they felt, but they were both under 7:00. I need to back to looking at my watch after about half a mile.

It was warm, but not hot at this point. I still was trying to have my “How can I at least race as smart as I can with what I have today, because maybe it’s note perfect” hat on. Between mile 1 and 2, I decided the answer: ice. I’ve been burned a couple times in the past underestimating the temperature as I ran. I wasn’t going to let that happen this time, so I was going to ice no matter the temp felt like, and I was going to get one or two miles before overheating that most other people wouldn’t. That was

Run nutrition was to be simple: a cup of something with calories (cola or Perform) and as much water as I wanted at every aid station. I’ve done the calculation and the experiment. A big slosh of sports drink every mile is enough for me; I figure each is around 30 calories. I carry a couple gels in my top pocket just in case.

Starting at the second aid station, I started with the routine of dropping ice into my shorts and hat. (It’s kind of funny running by someone while ice cubes in your crotch are shaking around making a strange noise while they try to figure that out…I know… TMI.)

My second favorite moment of the race was when a college age woman at the aid station near mile 4 handed me a big cup of ice. I took it and in a single motion dropped it down the front of my shorts. Let’s just say that her reaction made it clear that she had never seen anyone do that before. I let myself chuckle at that.

Mile three was at the right pace, about 7:15. The marker is at the base of a hill that has given me trouble every year. It’s short but very steep. Although it is largely shaded, it comes right after a long completely exposed stretch. I felt so good in mile three that I knew I wanted to beat the hill this time.

The hill replied that I wasn’t superhuman.

I won the battle of the hill, but it wasn’t by a landslide. I overcompensated after and that mile was around 7:24, when it should have been slower by maybe 10 seconds. By the end of mile 4, I was feeling like I was going to be able to do this thing and hang on ok. My running did NOT feel elegant, as I like it to, but I was getting results. My quad wasn’t hurting me significantly, but my stride just wasn’t quite right. It meant more mental work than usual to stay on form, but I was willing to do that. It’s hard to explain. It wasn’t about “running through pain” or “turning myself inside out” or anything like that. It was “holding it together.”

In that mood, I didn’t feel like giving any little kids high fives, and I was not as cheery as I try to be (perhaps unsuccessfully) most of the time when I see teammates or clubmates on the run. I saw Matt Aaronson for the first time and he said something very encouraging. I think all I did was nod. Sorry about that. I did manage to get a hand out for the crossing.

Shortly after the mile 6 marker,I got to the place where you choose to finish or go to the second lap. On the one hand, this was awesome. All I had to do was run this very doable, familiar loop one more time. On the other hand, I had hardly seen any people in my age group on the run. I am used to gradually running up through the field, so this was disturbing. Was I going slower than I thought? On the second lap, I always assume I am passing people who are on their first lap, not my direct competitors. Whether that is true or not, you never really know. I did know that I would no longer have any idea whether I was making progress. It felt like a very static race.

Miles 7-9 were uneventful. I saw Betsy Hogeboom and a couple more EN folks. I had slowed a little, down to the 7:30 range, but I was ok with that, even if I wasn’t thrilled.

It was about to be me and the hill again.

I won.

I didn’t go very fast up the hill, but dammit, I ran up the hill.

But the hill left its mark.

Mile 10 was tough. The hill got in some good shots and I was around 8:00. On the last out-and-back (I think), I saw Matt again. I grunted something and he sounded a lot cheerier than me. I finally saw a guy I could identify as in my age group who was ahead of me that I could tell was on my lap. He was running faster than the bulk of the crowd, like I was. That wouldn’t be the case for someone 45 minutes behind us. With 2 miles to go, he was maybe a minute ahead of me. I wanted to catch him. I turned out that it wasn’t to be; I ran those miles hard, and I could sometimes see him at turns, but I couldn’t pull him much closer. The first fast miles and my Battle with the Hill had taken a toll and I couldn’t get much faster without turning myself inside out. Knowing I want to race again in a couple weeks, without anyone in sight, I let that go. There was no sense in risking injury to gain 10 seconds at this point. Run hard, yes. Very hard, yes. Run foolishly, no. I ran the last couple miles near 8:00 pace again, but I did manage to finish the last half mile or so strong.

As I finished, I clicked off to see 1:36 on the watch but my math skills were not that sharp. That was about 1 minute longer than my dream time based on previous runs here. I saw the big clock at the finish saying something like 5:17. I thought to myself that we had to have started more than 17 minutes after the male pros, just counting waves. (I was in wave 7.) I didn’t find out for sure until a little while later, but I was pretty sure I had broken 5:00, which was my A-goal overall for this race. And I had done it despite the biking that I knew was unspectacular. And I even did it without a trip to the med tent. (For those keeping score at home, my unbroken stream of not peeing [whether on the bike or elsewhere] in HIM races remains intact.)

I waited for Matt, who I knew could not be far behind me. We congratulated each other and took a picture together post race.

I got back to my phone and looked up my time on line. I was thrilled with the time (4:56:55), but honestly I was disappointed to have placed 13th. I had hoped for top 10 and a chance at a Las Vegas slot. That said, after I got over that disappointment, I realized that this was really a great race for me. There were just too many first-tier athletes there — they had all beaten me fair and square. I think I had a better performance than the year I did qualify, but my place was worse and there were fewer slots. I did hang out for the off chance of a long roll down, but it wasn’t to be, except in a couple of age groups, and mine was not one of them.

As I write this, a couple of days after the race, I am of course still stiff and sore, but I feel fortunate that the muscle that gave me trouble during the race is only moderately worse than anything else. Despite the disappointment about the placing, I think this may be my best half ironman race of the 9 I have done. I have had two better times, but those were on much easier courses without the wind issues.