There is no such thing as a “routine day” in long course
triathlon. The only thing you can
guarantee is that there will be challenges.
Beyond that, you just hope you’ve prepared for every possible scenario
and have the level-headed awareness in the heat of battle to adapt to what the
day throws at you. The Grand Rapids Tri
(2014 USAT Long Course National Championship) threw me a couple of curveballs,
but I am happy with how I handled the day and finished it strong.
Leading into this event, I was strangely calm and
collected. Besides the usual race week
tension and stresses, there were some additional life obstacles that needed to
be overcome to make this race even possible.
I was impressed with the level of sanity that I maintained throughout
the week and the confidence that I felt going into race day. Midweek, I posted on social media; “Feeling
an eerie calm for race week. When you
put together the best hand you can, you’re confident in showing your cards.” I think there is a lot of truth in that. I knew I had put in the work and I was ready
to see the results. In our pre-race
conversation, AJ said something in particular that really resonated. He told me to just go out there and show
everyone my current level of fitness. He said that if I could do that I would
have a great day. I know this sounds
elementary, but when examined further it really means a lot. We typically hope to go out on race day and have
this superhuman day – the kind where the mom lifts the car off her child in a moment of incomprehensible strength. AJ wasn’t asking this of
me. He was simply asking for me to go
out and show everyone how fit I was. I
repeated this to myself several times during the race and it really helped to keep
the feelings of being overwhelmed at bay when something wasn’t going exactly as
planned. Once again, when you’ve put in
the work, you don’t have to lift cars off babies.
Kim, Jet and I began our journey to western Michigan on
Friday for this Sunday event. It was a fairly
easy five hour drive that we split up with a stop in Toledo to have lunch with
my Mom and Stepdad – thanks for the sandwich!
Upon arrival, we checked into our luxurious (sarcasm) accommodations at
the Super 8, grabbed some dinner and did a little walking around East Grand
Rapids. Saturday began with a quick spin
on my race setup and a short open water swim on the course. After quickly picking up my packet, it was
time to carbo load!! The venue of choice
for this feast was the local Bob Evans for their advertised all-you-can-eat pancakes
for $4.99. I would say that I certainly
got my money’s worth!!
The rest of Saturday was basically filled with some final
race preparations, eating, and grooming.
By 9:00 PM, I was in bed with the Ole Miss baseball game on TV.
As it always does, race morning came early. I had my alarm set for 4:00 AM, but I woke up
at 3:30 and decided to get my day started.
With a quick trip down to the communal microwave, my race day nutrition
plan was underway.
Like all other Type A athletes, I had been closely following
the race day weather forecast and the ever increasing chance of
precipitation. Earlier in the week, it
had been a 30-40% probability, but by Saturday it was very clear that we would be getting
wet. As it turned out, the water began
falling from the sky at about 5 AM and ended right around when I began to
run. For those familiar with my past, I
am quite wary of riding my bike in the rain due to a particular wet road
wipeout that I had on August 5th, 2012. On race day, the part of your brain that
warns against such hazards is definitely numbed, but mine never seems to quite
turn off since that day. Thinking that
the rain would pass through at some point, I made it a point to keep my run
gear dry in transition and hope that I would save a few ounces of excess water
weight in my shoes for the opening miles of the half marathon. This turned out to be a good investment of
effort.
Swim: 33:07 (If accurate, 1:42/100m)
Definitely not the sub 30 minute, half iron swim I’ve been
hoping for, but I’m not disappointed in this time. My Suunto Ambit2 had this as slightly
long. Open water GPS is definitely not
100%, but I am very confident that this was at least 1.2 miles, and possibly slightly
longer. I felt very controlled in this
swim – maybe too much. I have definitely
made the mistake in the past of coming out WAY too hard and then severely
struggling through the swim and allowing it to negatively affect my entire
race. I came off the line hard to fight
for my space in the lake, but then settled into a solid rhythm early. I found myself at the front of what I would
call the “chase group”. I wasn’t sure
how closely together the guys in front of me were, but it looked like there were going
to be about 20 strong swimmers out front and then the rest of us. Being in the front of this pack is not where
I wanted to be, but it is where I was destined to be on this day. There was one other guy who was definitely a
stronger swimmer than I was, but I’m guessing that he has a competitive pool
swimming background because his sighting skills were basically
non-existent. He would literally perform
breast stroke about every 10-15 seconds to sight before going back into
freestyle. When he was actually
swimming, he was quick, but his frequent breaks made me faster. I got sick of running into his feet, so I
eventually put in a surge to get around him near half way.
I could definitely feel the difference in this race from the
time I spent swimming open water in Clermont.
My sighting was much better and I never found myself fighting to stay or
get back on course. I made my turns at
the buoys with much more speed and precision than in the past due to a few
pointers that AJ gave me one hot afternoon in Lake Minneola. I never once had to break rhythm to execute
my swim – that makes up for a lot.
A few swim housekeeping notes; water was warm! Beginning a few weeks out, I began seeing
water temperature reports in the 70’s. I
had a really hard time believing it, but sure enough it was! During my pre-race swim on Saturday, I was
quite comfortable in just my Funky Trunks briefs. I knew that my De Soto SpeedTube pants and
Speed Vest would be my rubber of choice to avoid overheating – this worked out
perfectly. I was also pleased to find
out at packet pickup that I would be in the first wave and wouldn’t have to
deal with any traffic from previous waves in the swim or bike. While it can be an advantage on the bike to
have the cumulative draft, I prefer to just keep my head down and handle my
business.
Overall, I felt like I paced my swim well and felt very
comfortable (in relative terms) coming out of the water. I do wish I could have found a good draft
partner to shave a little time off this split, but it didn’t happen. Onto the bike!
T1: 1:35
It was a quick run from the swim exit into the transition
area. In a first for me, the transition
area was actually set up on a two lane road leading away from the reservoir. This made for one very long and skinny transition
area. The race organizers had made the
addition of mats for us to run on this year. While I hadn’t experienced this race
without, I can say that having the mats was nice on my bare feet. Once I got to my bike, I quickly discarded my
De Soto neoprene, put on my Brooks Airbrush Studio painted Wingspan, and popped
on my Rudy Project Hypermask sunglasses.
My sunglasses were completely fogged up due to the 100% humidity, but I
hoped that would quickly clear once I got rolling – they did.
Bike: 2:21:55 (23.7 mph)
It’s hard to be frustrated with a bike split of any distance
where you average 23.7 mph, but this was the hardest I’ve ever worked for this
kind of speed. We came into this race
with a plan of riding the first half of the bike with a HR in the high 140’s
and a power average of ~280 watts. The
second half would then build to a heart rate in the low 150’s and bump in power
to ~285 watts. While you can never
assign a speed to a given HR or power value, you tend to get a good idea of what
to expect from countless hours of training.
I honestly believed that if I could execute this plan, I would certainly
ride sub 2:20 and hopefully closer to 2:15.
Well, I ended up pushing 291 watts and riding almost 2:22. Even more frustrating for me was to be passed
by probably at least eight other riders and not being to go with them while staying
in my acceptable power output window.
I still don’t know if I had something mechanical holding me
back slightly or if the extra thick air on this day just didn’t want to allow my
big frame to pass through without a major effort.
I had given Stella a major cleaning and lube job prior to race day, but
it’s possible that something wasn’t rolling as smoothly as it should have been –
who knows.
**WARNING: This next paragraph describes bodily functions
and fluids not normally discussed in this blog.**
With the cool, rainy weather conditions being what they were, I had to
improvise slightly for my nutrition plan.
Upon waking I could tell that this day would be a big “pee” day. I’m not sure if it’s all endurance athletes,
or maybe just me, but I go through cycles of hydration. Some days I will drink until my teeth float
and I rarely have to “go”. Other days, I
can look at a glass of water and nearly wet my pants. Unfortunately, this day
was going to be one of those “wet my pants” kinds of days – literally. My nutrition plan calls for a bottle of
sports drink prior to the start. I made
it through about half the bottle before I gave up because I knew that it would
cause more trouble than it was worth on this day. During the race, I had to “relieve myself” in
each discipline at least once. Normally,
I can make it through an entire half iron without having to go once. Since it was a wetsuit swim, I was able to
relax my legs enough in the final couple hundred meters to let it go – not a
big deal. On the bike, it’s pretty
standard operating procedure to coast down a hill and let ‘er rip. On the run was a new one for me. As you’ll read soon, I was cruising along and
there was no way I was going to stop. I
waited until I was on a wooded section of dirt trail with no one immediately
around me and did what I needed to do.
This was while running a sub 7 min pace – I really know how to make my
parents proud, right!?
So, besides my bladder’s frequent demands, my frustrating
lack of top speed, and having to restrict my fluid intake, this bike was good –
oh wait, did I mention the off-road like road conditions?? Yeah, apparently Michigan doesn’t feel the
need to maintain their tarmac as well as other states. In fact, we saw several billboards along the
interstate stating this. I would say
that the middle 10 miles of this out-and-back course were some of the worst I've raced on and it
really sucks the power out of your pedal stroke. The more tired I get and further I get into
caloric deficit, the more every little crack, bump, and patch tends to tick me
off. Once again, maybe it’s just me.
T2: 2:19
Not my smoothest transition, but not a train wreck. As I came down the long, skinny transition
area, I realized I had never found my rack while coming from this
direction. I was looking at the range of
bib numbers posted on the end of each of the racks (there must have been 100
racks). Somewhere in my brain fog, I must
have forgotten my bib number and turned around not once, but twice on the
narrow path. Eventually I found my rack
and my still-dry run gear. I threw
Stella on the rack by her handlebars, popped on my Swiftwick socks, Karhu
Forward4’s, race belt, hat, and a clean pair of Rudy’s.
Run: 1:24:25 (6:26/mile)
Coming off my bike ride, I knew that I wasn’t where I wanted
to be in the field. I had counted myself
around 20th at the bike turnaround and I knew I hadn’t caught many,
if any, half iron athletes on the way back home (we mixed with the Olympic distance
cyclists for the last 12.5 miles). I
knew I had ridden strong, but didn’t have the split I wanted. The bike has always been my weapon and it had
not been as effective as I wanted it to be on this day. This meant that I had 13.1 miles to see what
my legs had left.
Coming into the race, we had confidence that I could run a
sub 1:30 off the bike. This would mean
that I would need to average a 6:50/mile pace or better. Basically it would come down to whether my
legs still had the strength following a ride that was over budget on power and
whether my heart rate would stay low enough for me to run that fast on this
day. The rain had stopped at this point,
but the cloud cover was still solid and temps were very reasonable. My heart rate had stayed low on the bike,
much lower than I planned, so I was hoping that trend would continue on the run
since it is my typical limiter.
During this entire run, the worst I felt was in the opening couple
miles. I had no idea how fast I was
running as I was purely monitoring my heart rate.
It was hanging low like I hoped so I began to push up the effort. The issue was that this effort felt tough… like,
really tough. Even though the perceived effort was very high, I was a slave
to the heart rate and it told me that I could sustain this effort. It seemed that my Suunto had gotten slightly
off track and the first couple one mile auto-lap splits were erroneous. When I hit the “Mile 2” sign, I hit a manual
lap and saw 12:40 pop up – 6:20/mile – no wonder it felt tough, but SWEET!
I don’t think I finally hit that point of being comfortably
uncomfortable until about mile four following the first turnaround. At that point, I knew that even though I didn’t
feel well, I could sustain. I kept
throwing a mix of Gatorade and Pepsi into my stomach at each aid station and
I took a tug on my gel flask whenever I could stomach it.
By the second lap, the course was full of fellow half iron
athletes working on their first lap. I’m
quite sure I gave several of them a scare when I quickly came up behind them
making one or more of my assorted guttural sounds, burps, or highly taxed
breathing. I can just imagine their
thought of “look at that big ghastly man!!”
Others seem to want to encourage this giant locomotive of a triathlete as
I rolled down the tracks. No matter what
their reaction was, I was on go. I never
walked one step of this half marathon.
If they didn’t get my desired beverage out in time when I went through
the aid station, I just ran through and would double up on the next mile. I was on a mission.
Coming into this race, my half iron run PR was a 1:30:18 from
earlier this year at Florida 70.3. My open
half marathon PR was a 1:26:21 back in 2011 – I don’t run many open half
marathons these days. If you would have
guaranteed me to run 1:28 off of a 291 watt ride, I would have asked where I
needed to sign. So running under 1:25
was a very pleasant surprise.
Finish: 4:23:24
I finished knowing that I hadn’t placed where I wanted or
hoped, but I had turned in a very respectable time and had a breakthrough run
performance. Who shows up and how they
perform on race day are two of many variables that are well out of my
control. I did have hopes of bringing
home a National Championship, but that didn’t happen. I know that I gave a ton of effort, executed smartly,
and I had been beat on this day. That is how it
goes. This event was immensely more
competitive than it was in 2013 and much more so than I anticipated it being in
2014. I have been wanting for this race (USAT LC Nats)
to pick up steam and I had gotten my wish… Oops.
In the end, I had run my way into 6th in the Male
30-34 age group and 22nd Overall.
I will take away a lot from this race; I can pee while
running, my bike may not be my only weapon any longer, and I can run with some
of the best long course athletes in the country. Overall, I had put in 30 weeks of hard work
for this race and I think I gave a good display of my current fitness with my
performance. On top of that, I was rewarded
with a new half iron PR!
So, what’s next?
Well, right now I am sitting in Panera Bread enjoying coffee without
worrying about whether the caffeine will take away from any workouts later in
the day. In other words, I’m shutting it
down for a bit. I put in a huge volume
of work this winter and spring and it’s time to let the body and mind fully
recover before pushing it for the second half of the season. What do people who don’t “exercise” 25 hours
a week do?? Once I get going again (in a couple weeks), I will begin to sort
out the fall racing schedule. On the
table are: Ironman 70.3 Muncie, Challenge New Albany, Ironman 70.3 World
Championships (pending qualification at Muncie), ITU Long Course World
Championships, and Ironman Cozumel.
As always, big thanks go to all my supporters. Obviously, my girlfriend, Kim, for being the
world’s best tri sherpa. My coach, AJ,
for preparing me and motivating me to perform at this level. Also, to the athletes that I coach. They may not realize it, but they encourage
me every day by getting out there and getting their sessions in despite all the
obligations that they have in life.
Thanks for reading!
If there is anything that I can do to help you reach your endurance
sports goals, please let me know! Have
fun and be safe out there!
Ryno
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