This year’s race was among other things about completing
unfinished business. As many of you
recall, the 2012 edition of the Racine 70.3 didn’t quite turn out as well as I
would have liked. At 4.1 miles into the
bike as I was turning a corner at a police controlled intersection I was struck
by a car, knocked off of my bike, and my day and season quickly ended due to a
separated shoulder. Here is the link to
the full report from last year: http://iruncodes.blogspot.com/2012/07/racine-54-race-report_18.html
Time: 2:51:10
IF: .74
Here is the short version of this year’s race report, the
longer version with a prologue follows below.
Overall, I am very excited and pleased with my overall
performance and execution of the race. I
had a lot of fun in the swim, sure there were probably 2-3 foot waves and an
interesting current but it was great. I
came out of the water 51st in my age group. The bike was fine – the mission was to
hydrate, fuel, and ride a good ride to hopefully set up a decent run, something
which has eluded me for a while. I was stoked
to be rocking my new bike and wheels. I
finished the bike in 98th position for the division, maybe a bit
slow for me. I transitioned to the run
and felt great. Intentionally slowed
myself down at the beginning then fell into a great pace. I picked up a lot of time on the run and ran
to my fastest half-ironman time in 4 years finishing in 79th
position for the age group with an overall time of 5:31:14. It was awesome seeing all of the Endurance
Nation team out on the course.
Prologue
The initial recovery from my separated shoulder was rather
painful and frustrating and the first couple of weeks I couldn’t do anything
useful with my left arm due to limited mobility and pain with movement. After about 2 weeks I think I was finally at
the point where I could take a shower, get dressed and get out of my house in
less than an hour. Needless to say, I
spent a lot of time lying in bed, on painkillers watching the Olympics and the
Tour de France last summer.
I very quickly started on physical therapy and met a physical
therapist who understood sports and my desire to return back to the same level
of performance that I had before the injury.
Physical therapy was a long road, at first twice a week in the office
with home exercises. I used the extra
time that I had budgeted for ironman training to rehab my shoulder. Twice a week became once a week and then
every other week. 7 months of PT later,
I finally graduated and transitioned over to returning to training.
Pre-Race
I had a rather interesting lead in to the race. 10 days before the tabs on my garmin 500 that
secure it to the mount broke. I called
up garmin and they quickly sent out a replacement that arrived 5 days before
the race which gave me time to reprogram the screens, test the connections, and
make sure that everything was working appropriately.
I arrived in Racine on Saturday morning and got myself
checked in. The entire check-in process
was pretty smooth, nothing really to comment on there. This would be my first race in the 35-39 age
group and racing with my new bike.
The race:
I woke up at 4am.
Drank a bottle of infinit, had some bites of a bagel, got dressed and
headed out to the race, found a place to park on one of the side streets and
made my way to transition. Joined the
team for a quick picture, and then finished up getting ready for the race.
I left transition just before closing at 6:30, everything
was set-up and good to go. I sat out on
the grass by the port-o-potty line. It
seemed to be moving quickly, but I just waited.
Around 7 made one final trip to bathroom, then the 20 minute walk down
to the start. Finished cliff bar 1 hour
prior to start of my wave as usual, finished one more small bottle of Gatorade
and then got ready to go.
Swim- Time 37:29
The swim was tough, but I had a blast. As we entered the holding area all of the
emotions from the previous year with the lows associated with the injury and
the highs with different parts of recovery, training, and life all occurred at
once. Overall, I was in a very good place
and was entirely ready to start racing.
There nice easterly wind which was kicking up a current and
waves. There were probably 3-foot waves
close to the shore with a strong current. This resulted in a nice fight to get
out to the first turn buoy. As I was
watching from the shore before my heat started I saw a bunch of people holding
onto boats or buoys in the first 200 meters of the race. The long swim south was fine. The water temperature was perfect for me and
breathing to the right was nice as all of the waves were coming over my left
shoulder. The waves stayed the entire
race, probably around the 2 foot range. There
were a lot of distressed swimmers holding onto the lifeguard boards, every buoy
had multiple swimmers holding on, and a considerable amount of back &
breast strokers. I lost the leaders in
my wave, quickly caught up with the previous waves and just kept pushing
forward. Shoulder felt fine and overall
it was a good swim. I felt as if I sort
of had a home field advantage as I do almost all of my swim training in the
summer in Lake Michigan and several weeks before went swimming with bigger
waves and white caps. My general thought
is to practice swimming in every possible condition so nothing is surprising on
race day. Overall my time was a little
slower than last year, but I think the lake conditions seemed to slow everyone
down a couple of minutes based on other reports I have read.
T1 6:35
This took too long. It was a long run out from the water
which might have contributed. Also had
trouble getting bike off of rack and forgot to turn on Garmin when I got back
to bike so slowed down a little as I was running out of transition to ensure it
would pick up the satellites.
Bike
Based on previous training rides, races, etc, I was hoping
for an IF around .75-.8. I find that
when I get above .8 the run significantly suffers. This IF is based off of a recent power test,
but I think that I might just be able to put down higher numbers for shorter
periods of time. Either that or I am
just soft.
I started off on the bike feeling pretty good. HR settled rather quickly and I was just
cruising along trying to keep power in check.
Honestly I wasn’t really in that big of a rush to get anywhere at the
beginning. I made it to the infamous
corner from last year and of course there was not a single car at the
intersection! Anyway, I took it nice and
slow, raised a fist in celebration and then got to work. At first the ride was quite tolerable, but
after 56 miles of some really awful expansion seams I was just flat out
done. I think this may have been my 8th
half ironman and these were some of the worst road conditions that I can ever
remember. Hit one seam pretty hard and
it caused the arm pad to tilt and angle all the way down to the basebar. It became really difficult to find a rhythm
and I think that cost me some time on the second half of the ride. Overall felt pretty good getting to
transition. Legs were not shot, back
felt fine, and mentally was really ready to get off of the bike and start a
run.
Nutrition was as follows: 2 bottles of Infinit over the
first 1:45 (550 cal total), 1.5 bottles of Perform (262 cal) over the last 60
minutes of the bike for a total of 812 calories consumed. Also 1.5 bottles of water. Hydration was just right. I needed to go to the bathroom upon arrival
in transition. I was probably around 150
calories behind, but better than I have been in the past.
T2 – I registered late so was not racked with anyone in my
age group. As a result when I returned
to transition I had no clue where I was in relation to anyone else. It didn’t really matter as I wasn’t shooting
for any spectacular placing. Waited a
minute for a port-o-potty to open up, but used that time to fill water bottle
and tie shoes. I don’t think I lost too
much time…and no, peeing on the bike is just not going to happen.
Run –
Total time – 1:51:19 (8:29/min miles)
My VDOT from 2 weeks ago gave me a MP of 7:40 and a LRP of
8:58. My plan at the start of the race
was to go 3 miles in the 8:45-9:00 range, then spend the middle 7 miles at
8:30, and then the final 3 miles drop down to the 8:00-8:30’s with whatever
energy I had left.
So, the first mile was according to plan, ran a little too
quickly for mile 2 and then basically was running according to plan.
I was and still am very excited about my run. Honestly, the run has always been one of my
weakest parts of triathlon, I was never a runner and over the past several
years have tried to make strides to improve.
This time is only 11 minutes slower than my stand-alone half marathon PR
and is my fastest time for this part of the race in 4 years! Thinking about the race, and the pacing, I
felt really good in the middle of the run.
I pushed the pace, but not too much and although it “hurt” and I went
into my own little hurt locker for the last 3 miles, it felt great to be able
to “race” the half marathon. Most
importantly, the other part that I really enjoyed was being able to pass people
during the run. Usually I am the one
that becomes demoralized when people are passing me left and right, and on
Sunday, I was that guy that was just cruising along weaving between people and
having a great run!
I ran with a Nathan hand-held bottle. I filled it up in transition with ½ of the
left over bottle that I hadn’t used on the bike and added ice at the aid
station leaving transition. I would then
either add ice or more perform at the aid stations as I needed. This is the second race that I have used this
approach and really like it. The bottle
is secured with a strap to my hand so I don’t really have to “hold” on to
it. At the same time, my hand is
directly against the ice cold beverage so it serves as a cooling effect for my
body. Finally, and most important for
me, I had the luxury of being able to have a swig of nutrition and hydration
whenever I wanted on the course and didn’t have to wait for an aid station to
pop up. I plan to use the exact same
set-up for Wisconsin in September.
The Aftermath
Made it back to transition, took forever to pack up my
stuff, saw another EN teammate and we talked for a little, and then headed back
to my car, repacked and headed back home.
Legs were appropriately sore the following day but have managed to swim,
run and I am looking forward to getting back onto track for the remainder of
the season in preparation for the Ironman in Madison.
Some final thoughts
So how do I break 5:30?
It seems as if there are a couple of low hanging fruits that I can
easily nab. I need to go a little faster
in transitions, and maybe pick up a minute or two on the bike and it will be
easy. Well, of course that will require
me to actually run well again so we will see how that all plays out.
I do think that one of my keys to success during this race
was something that Coach Rich said during the lunch the day before. The general context of the thoughts on
execution was to “disconnect yourself from the time.” Essentially, disconnect what was happening in
real time from the outcome. Honestly, I
think that it worked out pretty well. I
did not spend any part of the race wondering if I would make a certain time cut
off, wondering if I was going fast enough.
Instead, I just raced. I pushed
the envelope where I felt I could, held on at other points and generally tried
to just have a great time racing for whatever the outcome might be. In the end, this relieved a ton of
stress. I watched my paces, I watched my
power and heart rate on the bike and I just raced in the moment. In doing so.
I ended up with one of my fastest times and one of my best executed
races.
Now onto the final stretch of training for Ironman Wisconsin.
