Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Great way to end the season... Deer Creek Fall Challenge 70.3

WOW!  Amazing race!  Never felt better in a race before!  My first true 70.3 attempt and it was 4:37:06 good for 6th overall (5th amateur), 1st AG.  Followed the race plan from Coach AJ Baucco (www.baucco.com)  pretty closely and had an amazing experience as a result, especially since this is a new distance for me.  Never suffered in a bad way, felt I had the strength and power to build and build right through the very end.

After a frustrating start to the 2013 season...  August and September were solid.  After 10 years in triathlon (including lots Ironman and Olympic races), I finally made a serious attempt at a 70.3 - with only about 6 weeks of "long course" specific training.  First 8 months of the season was about road racing crits, and olympic tri.

Below is the detailed recap of the race...  it's written mostly for me and my Coach AJ Baucco to review... but provides some insight into the race plan and execution.

Swim 30:38- I started right behind Jim and dolphined right out to the front for a moment... swam hard to the first buoy (200m?), then turned and settled into a good rhythm.  Too good.  Felt like pool swimming, and when I turned to breathe like in the pool, I inhaled a wave and took a lot into my lungs.  about the scariest moment as I couldn't breathe for about 10 seconds, then coughed some out, got some air in, and was able to shake it off and get back into a decent rhythm... but I lost the fast feet.  Off and on solo swimming and drafting.  Kept focus on turnover and good early pull (and not breathing any more water).  Don't have official split yet, but was out just under 30 minutes by my watch.  about 1 minute run from beach to T1.

Bike time: 2:30:48
Out on the bike :  My HR was about 180 when I started out.  Had to work hard (going easy) to bring it down to target rate.  That took about 2 miles/6 minutes.   The targets were 155bpm for first 28 miles and 157 for last 28mi (156 avg).  Actual splits were 156 (21.0avg) for first 28 and 162 (21.7avg) for second 28... a little more aggressive, but also had 2 of the 3 sets of hills in the second 28.

At first I had a really hard time with the low HR target.  It felt stupid slow, and I was getting passed (which rarely if ever happens to me on the bike), which pissed me off, but I stuck pretty close to the plan.   Glad I did!  I passed most of those guys late on the bike or on the run.

Second loop, I worked a bit harder, and my HR followed.  At least no one was passing me now...  Still felt easy and the nutrition was  going in pretty well.  (I kind of figured out during the bike that it must be part of why the low HR is so important...  so the stomach can process what is in it, and take on more fuel... instead of bloating because I can't proces it, and then shutting down my intake, leading to a bonk later.)   Second loop was 156-160 (21.3mph)

Third loop, worked harder still, and this felt more like what I'm used to racing, intensity-wise, and I got to pass back some people, which made my ego happy.  163avg for 3rd loop (22mph)

Rode into transition still feeling pretty good, except the small of my back was getting a bit sore.  A combination of the actual cycling and pushing a lower position on downhills and into the wind, but I have also noticed that is worse when I'm pulling my head up in the swim for lots of sighting, which I think I was doing today in the swim.  Nutrition plan was pretty close.  4 full bottles over 2.5 hours (so I should have drank a little more... I have to work on that some more) and I took a gel at start of bike and every 40min thereafter on the dot with my timer.

Run 1:33:31:
Starting the run, I felt pretty good.  Came off the bike around 12th place from my estimate.  Amazingly, I ran so well and used that to move up to 6th overall.   I'm so used to running fast off the bike because of the short course racing this year, that I struggled to hold the first 1/2 mile (net uphill) at 6:40/mi pace.  I saw this and slowed down to 6:58 (172bpm) for the first mile... I knew I had to keep my HR down, so next mile felt stupid slow, and was 7:15 (175bpm).

The plan was to keep increasing my effort/HR little by little from there, which I successfully did.   The miles splits and HR avg were:
3-7:18, 176
4-7:13, 178
5-7:20, 178
6-7:21, 179
7-7:11, 180
8-7:09, 182
9-7:13, 183
10-7:06, 184
11-7:06, 188
12-7:06, 189
13-7:07, 192

Run nutrition:  I started with a 2 bottle fuel belt of EFS (16oz total).  Sucked on that between aid stations during the first 6.5 mi loop.  I kept right on the gels at 40 min which carried over from the bike.  Clockwork.  Asked for ice, water and Infinit at each aid station (roughly 1 mile between).  2nd loop I went for coke more than Infinit just to keep things mixed up... I had a LOT of sports drink this day!  I took a lot of salt caps on the run too.  Started as 3 every couple of miles as a preventative...  second loop, I could start to feel a few "pings" in my quads.  More salt caps.  last 4 miles, that was my only concern about letting myself fully fly and sprint the last mile...  more 'pings' in both quads, despite another 4-6 caps with about 3 miles to go.   Nothing slowed me down or caused a problem, but I just was wary about trying to go bananas and end up with a cramp I'd have to stop and stretch out or something.

Emotionally:  Swim was good except for the literal near-drowning.  That shook me up for a few minutes...  but I soldiered through.  (What a different day/outcome if I had put my hand up, or couldn't have even done that!!)

Bike was tough for me at first.  Like I said, people I know I could crush on the bike were passing me, and frankly it was embarrassing to my ego.  But I trusted in the plan, and didn't want to mis-execute and not learn from the experience of the day.  Turning up the heat on the last 15 miles was satisfying...  was quite happy to pass a lot of people then and gain some ground and still be fresh for the run.

Run was just plain fun!  Who says that about a 1:33 half mary after a swim and a bike??  I do!  The way I was able to build and build and keep taking spots from people was just a great feeling!  The second loop in particular was great fun as I really got pushing it and the body was able to consistently respond.  My speed may not have drastically increased during the run (7:14/mi first loop and 7:09 second loop)... but seeing the others suffer and slow down and get passed while I felt great was something I've not fully experienced before.



Could I have gone faster on the bike?  Of course.  But could I have held on to the run like this afterwards?  Probably not in my current conditioning state.  That's next.

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