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.

Fort Dodge Half Marathon Race Report

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/301184247

My first race of the 2013 season was the Fort Dodge Half Marathon, run on April 21, 2013.  I ran this race at the conclusion of my Winter Training mainly as a check to see how my run was coming along.  I wanted to be a little rested in order to have a good run, but it was not a major "A-race" or anything of that sort.

This year I started my focused training on Jan 1, again with the Endurance Nation group, on a 14 week high intensity cycle ending April 7.  The next week was strictly low intensity running and riding plus swimming, with my first longer rides the weekend of April 13-14.  I pumped up the intensity again for the first half of the week of April 15 because I knew I would not get my long ride in.  To be rested enough for the race, Friday was swim-only and Saturday was off.

Weather predictions for the race were rather dicey.  It looked as if it could be 40 degrees and raining.  Ugly.  By early race morning, we upgraded from "definitely ugly" to "might be ugly".  So that was a step up!  

I got up about 5:15 am to get out the door at 6:00.  That would get me to the race site by a little after 7:00.  The race was to be a point to point affair, with a shuttle running every 30 minutes to the start.  I needed to pick up my packet, so I wanted to be sure not to have any difficulties and I gave myself plenty of time.  The race was to start at 9:00.

As it turned out, the drive and shuttle worked out with ridiculously good timing, so I ended up being one of the first racers there.  I got my number without incident and was very happy that we got to wait inside a school cafeteria instead of standing outside.  By now, it seemed that the rain would stay abated, but it was pretty darn breezy and fairly cold.  Waiting outside for 90 minutes would have been painful.

The race was fundamentally a "test" for me, so I wanted to adopt a pretty sensible strategy that would give me a good time, but also be fairly low pressure.  I wanted to make a real honest effort, but not trash myself completely.  Given my 5K times in the 19:30ish range during the winter, I wanted to run sub-90.  I had been doing a 12-16 mile run once a week consistently, so I wasn't concerned about endurance, per se, but it was going to be a question of whether I could hold the Vdot pace at the longer distance.

I resolve to run the first 4-5 miles mainly by RPE and heart rate, knowing that a "solid" race would require me to keep below threshold.  I knew the best I could reasonably even hope for was a 6:45 pace or so, so for the first few miles, I would also be keeping an eye to make sure I wasn't abusing that.   But I wanted to run as close to even splits as I could.  Nothing fancy on a reverse split, and no heroics trying to save something that was fading fast.  I figured the middle miles would take care of themselves, and I would allow myself to go over threshold for the last 5K or so as necessary.

The course is shown on my Garmin output.  It was basically flat or very gently sloping except for one depression and corresponding hill near the half way point.  It ran through open areas for the first few miles, then mostly suburban residential, and then along a trail through and then along the edge of a park.   The wind was shifting direction, but generally from west-and-south. In park areas, it wasn't noticeable at all, except the last few miles along the park edge.  Surfaces were sidewalk, road, and well-groomed trail.  I dislike trail running generally because I don't like the uneven surfaces.  However, the trails here were well maintained...just a little slower than running on a road.

I warmed up about 25 minutes before race time to make sure I gauged the temperature and got over that initial horrible out-of-breathness that I always get if I just start raw.  That worked out well.

The race got off at 9:03.  I didn't know how many people were there at the time, but it was obviously well under 100.  It wasn't too hard to guess who were the serious runners likely to win.  I didn't see any women that looked like they would beat me, but you never know.  There were about 10 men that looked like they were pretty serious and 2-3 who I was pretty darn sure would dust me.  Sure enough, at the very start of the race, a pack of about half a dozen took off.  I could have kept up with them, but I was pretty sure I couldn't for the whole race, so I let them go.  I was content to be the guy behind the first pack who would pick off anyone who fell off its back...or at least so I rationalized.  :-)

I ran in tights, under armour top, hat and gloves.  The first mile (going east) was really into the wind, but everyone (including me) was pretty excited, so the pace was pretty quick despite this.  I ran 6:42.  The second mile retained most of this early excitement and I ran about 6:37 with the wind at least partly at our backs.  

By about 10 minutes in I decided to double check that the heart rate was under control and start thinking consciously about how fast I was going.  The pack up ahead was still there, although it was spreading out a little.  My HR was around 160-161, and I thought my threshold was about 165, so this was fine.  It was time to just run smart and wait for a little rough spot...and get through it.

As I write this report, I cannot remember why mile 3 was as fast as it was, but looking at the map, it appears this was the most open area going north, so my guess is that this was a tailwind issue.

On the race map, there is a big left turn just short of the 4 mile mark.  This is where "local race" came into play.  The girls staffing the water table were chatting away, and directed me into someone's unpaved driveway instead of the park trail.  Fortunately, the driveway was short. :-)

During mile 4, I spotted my first "victim" from falling off the pack.  I could have just run by, but I resolved to stick at my pace, and it was PAINFULLY slow to catch up with him.  After turning left at the mile 4 mark, the wind was pretty much a non-factor as I remember.  Mile 5 was my first kind of rough spot.  It passed, as I talked myself into believing it was from the unpaved surface.  At about the half way point I was passed by a guy apparently in his early 20s.  He would be my foil for the rest of the race.  He blew by me fast enough that I couldn't understand how he was behind me to begin with.  We passed another guy falling off the back before we exited the park.  We traded back and forth a couple of times, but it always seemed to me that it was I who was going steady and he was erratic.  In retrospect, the data bear this out.

The half way point was marked by a very nasty hill in a suburban neighborhood after way too much turning.  According to Garmin, it was only 80 feet up, but it was really tough.  Mile 7 is what killed any chance I had at my PR, too.  Going up that hill and then recovering it cost me.  7:20.  Ugh.

At that point, I actually got kind of worried.  As stated before, I didn't want to absolutely shred myself, but I wanted to do well.  23-year old guy kept stopping and walking and then running by me again.  I resolved to pick it up and experiment with a balance of pace, RPE, and HR and settled down by the mile 8 marker...and this basically worked out to a 6:50ish pace for the remainder of the race.  After mile 8, I was just focused on getting to the next mile marker without going slower than 7:00 and without spiking the HR.  And if I could get 6:45 again without really hurting myself, that's what I wanted.  

As it turned out, there would be no more 6:45 miles.  It was a 6:50 world and I was living in it.  A modest hill here and wind in your face there, and that made it a 6:55 world a couple of times.  But I was very much in "just grind them out and count them down" mode.  I caught one last guy - a high schooler.  I'm sure he could run a 5 K minutes faster than me, but he didn't have the endurance to make it all the way through 13.1.  Mr. 23 stop-and-go got his act together and stayed ahead of me.

In the end, though, this was a very satisfactory race.

• HR was 161 2 minutes into the race.  At the 10 mile mark, it was 164.  Over the last couple of miles it bumped up into threshold range, and I finished in the upper 160s.  Almost perfectly as planned.
• Final time was 1:29:31.  (I forgot to hit my Garmin for a little while).  This was less than a minute short of my PR from a couple of years ago.  That was on a nearly perfect day on an entirely blacktop course with no single big hill.  So the PR still stands, but I have to think this was a nearly equivalent effort.
• Cadence was essentially constant at 91 ± 1 except for that hill.
• There was a positive split, but ignoring the big hill mile, it wasn't really that bad...maybe not perfect but ok by me.
• According to the Vdot tables, a 1:29:31 half marathon corresponds to a 19:31 5K.  Spot on.  Run training validated.

Here are the mile splits:

1	6:42.3	1.00	6:42
2	6:36.6	1.00	6:37
3	6:34.7	1.00	6:35
4	6:43.8	1.00	6:44
5	6:46.3	1.00	6:46
6	6:43.1	1.00	6:43
7	7:20.0	1.00	7:20
8	6:50.9	1.00	6:51
9	6:54.6	1.00	6:55
10	6:51.6	1.00	6:52
11	6:54.6	1.00	6:55
12	6:57.6	1.00	6:58
13	6:51.7	1.00	6:52
14	:55.7	0.11	8:22

The guy that won the race was one of the two or three middle aged men you would pick out of the crowd for sure.  He was 49 but looked every bit the part of "fast runner guy".  The next two were my 23 year old foil and another guy his age.  Then me.

Race results here: http://www.truetimeracing.com/results.php?id=3123

As I write this, it's two days later.  I am a little disappointed with how sore my legs remain, but I am optimistic that I will still be ready to go by next weekend.  I can always swim. 

IM 70.3 Las Vegas RR

It is with great mixed emotions that I write this report.

As I have made clear, competing at the Worlds for the 70.3 distance was my big goal for this year, and I was successful in qualifying for it at the KS 70.3 in June.

The result of the worlds were...well...a reflection of my own stupidity.  Because of that, this race report will not have the normal feel of my others.

First, just a bit of prelude for those who do not know:  the Las Vegas course is very fair and challenging for a Championship course.  The bike is almost constantly up and down, with a net rise in elevation, since T1 and T2 are maybe 15 miles apart.  None of the hills is excessively steep, but it's pretty relentless. It's September in Las Vegas, so it's going to be hot.  The run is a three loop L-shaped course that is basically up for half and down for half.  It's not steep, but it's certainly enough for you to notice at the end of a race!

I felt physically prepared.  I had a good taper and good training.  Unfortunately, I developed a head cold in the couple of days beforehand, but it was not enough to keep me out.  I felt more or less under control with some decongestant and pain reliever.

On the one hand, I am very pleased.  I had a great swim.  My time of 37:xx with no wetsuit was quite comparable to where I have been in wetsuit swims previously.  I got out of the water feeling strong and ready to go.  I had gotten some prescription goggles so I could see better and this was wonderful.

The bike transition there is nutty-long.  I got going fairly efficiently and was happy enough.  There were aid stations about every 12-13 miles, and I drank 8 bottles over the course of my ride, seven of which were Perform, and one water.  I was in nearly the last wave, so the course was not crowded at all.  As usual, I got passed going uphill and passed people going downhill.  While I would have been happier with a little faster bike split, I was intentionally being conservative, knowing the run would be very hot and tough.  After about an hour on the bike, some of the people in my AG who passed me were coming back to me...so everything seemed to be going as per my normal pattern.

I got onto the run, and started to go.  It was hot and difficult, but I was going fine.  However, I had a malfunction with my Garmin.  First, my HR strap battery apparently chose race day to poop out.  Either that or I was dead sometimes, and crazily high on my HR sometimes.  This was frustrating, because I had planned to race by HR rather than pace, given the course and conditions...so I went to RPE, glancing at pace.  Secondly, I don't know exactly what I did, but I was using the watch in multisport mode, and it did not behave as I expected... it stopped for a while and I really didn't notice until I had no idea how much it had missed...so I gave up using it for distance.

I continued my run and passed a particular landmark for the third time, and turned in to the finish.  I raced very hard the last mile or so, and managed to out race a couple of guys in my age group.  I was really excited...even though I knew it was totally middle of the pack stuff.

But in the end, I discovered that I had skipped one of the loops somehow.  I still can't figure out how this slipped past me because I was counting the mile markers as I went, but I can't deny the evidence.  My finish time of just under 5:00 is unrealistic, and I am missing two checkpoints (there were two of them per loop).  I was in decent enough condition and would not have had any trouble finishing the race more or less at the pace I was going.

I have made an estimate of how much longer I should have been on the course, and it's about 40 minutes, meaning I should have finished in about 5:40.

The irony is that - maybe because of the late start and therefore higher temps - maybe just the luck of the draw - who knows... that time of 5:40 would have been very close to the 50th percentile "A-goal" I had.  (That would have required a much faster time in 2011)

I am, of course, really frustrated about this.  But it has given me a mission to accomplish for 2013.  I have unfinished business.

Pre Las Vegas 70.3 Training Report

I posted a report before my KS 70.3 and found it useful to go back to and think about, so I am doing the same again here.  The KS race itself was bedeviled by very tough conditions and a bad swimming incident, so my time wasn't where I wanted it to be, but (other than the swim thing), I had ultimately judged it successful, and I did meet my goal of qualifying for the WTC 70.3 Championships.

In retrospect, ideally, I probably should have taken a little more just plain time off after KS.  This would have shortened my training for LV (bad), but in the way things worked out, I felt pretty spent and slow in most of July.  (In August, things really started coming around better.)  That said, the family took a week's vacation in early July and starting AFTER that would have been too late.  As a result, it's hard to really say I did anything too terribly wrong given the circumstances.

I continued to follow the general EN plan, but made a few adaptations.

• I continued to swim more than called for (with the ACAC masters group) through the end of July. After that, I shortened the swim workouts down to the hour range, but usually had more than 3.  (And I swam on my own, as the club was off for a month.)
• I was unmerciful on myself in maxing out the number of full 2 hour (or even a little longer) runs possible, of course keeping it to 1 per week.  I got to 2 hours faster than my plan called for and stayed there longer.  However, I did not push the speed on them as much.  For these, running the time at a decent pace (no collapsing allowed), no matter the conditions, was the major goal.   I have no proof, but I have a general observation that it feels like I do better with some overdistance training, even if it means sacrificing a little of the "quality". 
• In my Pre-KS report, I noted that I was ok with the threshold running, but that I was really hurting in the MP and HMP running.  Those paces seemed like way too much work compared to how long I should be able to run them.  In July and August, I sacrificed a fair amount of (50%?) of the threshold pace running in favor of longer HMP-MP segments.  This had the predictable affect of making that pace easier to hold; I probably threw away any chance at getting any faster in a 5K sense, but I really thought this was closer to race specific effort, and I wanted to do even a little better running in LV than I had at KS.
• I had faced a bit of an "intensity burnout" earlier in the year.  For this round, whenever that would start to come on for the bike (which is where it usually happens for me), I would still push the watts expected (maybe even a few more), but do it sitting up rather than in aero.  This relieves the quads for me, but let me get the aerobic work in and get in my race pace (~80-85% FTP) work without having devastated legs.  Only time will tell, but I have felt very good about this.

As noted earlier, July was pretty discouraging.  Nothing was ever over target, and often things were a bit shy of where I'd want them to be.  It was also a crazy busy month for the family and at work, and this may have contributed to fatigue, etc.  However, as August matured, I really started feeling more workouts coming together.

I write this with just under a week to go before the race while in the midst of taper.  Total volumes for the weeks starting July 2: 8 (4 vacation days), 10 (2 vacation days), 15, 14, 11.5, 15.5, 15.5, 11.5, 10, (and this is race week).  So I've put in my time.  And the 11.5 and 10 hour taper weeks have been still hard... no just giving into exhaustion and limping into the race.

I normally have pretty wild oscillations of feeling good and lousy during a taper.  This has been considerably more mellow along those lines.  I have not had any workouts recently that just dragged or where the quads just moaned as they often do.  Is this luck or being a little fresher?  Again, I can't prove this, but I think it may be being a little fresher from easing off the bike a touch as described above.

As a result of these modifications, I basically think I gave away my opportunity to get inherently faster during this two month buildup for LV.  However, what I think I got in return was the opportunity to build where I was to a much more solid level.  My testing numbers would cease to be artifacts of a particularly strong effort/day.  I am hoping that the small gains I might have made are banked against a much greater "insurance" against the day being tough.

I should ultimately comment that another rationale for this modification of my KS prep was that the LV race is KNOWN to be one in tough conditions.  I know it's hilly, and I know it's going to be very hot.  I do ok in hilly, but I'm not the greatest in hot.  So building up the foundation has been meant to be a bulwark against the fact that I may be running in 100 degree heat.  I'm not going to be running 6:45 equivalents on the hot hills in all likelihood, so let's get tough for what I am capable of.  Or so I rationalized.

I probably qualified in the bottom quarter of the field.  I have looked at the times from 2011, and that does seem realistic, to the extent that I have to guess what the effect of the heat is on people.  The 50th percentile of the 45-49 age group was very close to 5:10.  I've done 4:48 on a pretty flat course and 5:0x a couple of times on the KS course, but not sub 5:10 in that kind of brutal heat.

Being realistic, I should be pleased if I place in the second quartile (from the bottom) in this race, and that will be my "B" goal.  My "A" goal will be to be in the top half of the field.  That is, I believe, a very significant challenge, without being an utter pipe dream.

Wish me luck.

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.