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<p>First, let's just say I'm happy I blew last years time of 11:50:15 (my best moo time) out of the water with a 11:06:54. Which is great and I'm happy about it, however this race was no different in terms of execution than the 11:50 race last year which was a sufferfest. I had the same setbacks as last year and the race was a complete sufferfest from about mile 70 to the finish with severe headaches developing on the bike. The main difference this year is that I was in much better shape, much stronger, I tapered well, and had experience with this sort of thing, I knew how to survive. Interested in more read below, but first the swim.....<br><br><b>Swim: (goal 1:10, actual 1:11:47 (1:54/100m), last year 1:18:55)</b><br>
I have this belief (foolish or not) that I should swim below 1:10 in every IM race based on my pool swim times. But unfortunately OW swimming has a few tricky points I’ve yet to master and the top one is swimming straight. I decided before the race instead of trying to swim from buoy to buoy, which has caused me to veer in and out and waste time, I would focus on the furthest buoy and sight on a landmark near and just swim to it. I have to say that worked, but I did find myself swimming wide of the buoys on the long sides of the rectangle. I was ok with that. When I rounded the first loop I looked at my watch to see 35 minutes something…. I was a little surprised as it seemed so slooowww, I thought I might be near 40. So that gave me some motivation and I swam the next loop the same as the first, as I was coming in, I looked at my watch and it said 1:09. I was hoping to come in faster and break 1:10. Also you have a bit of a stretch at the end to get to shore, so by the time I hit land I was in the 1:11 area. My watch also said I went 2.7 miles, which may be accurate. Swimming a bigger loop can certainly make it more than 2.4 miles. I’m good with the time though, so I took off.<br><br>
T1: I’ve never been able to go under 8 minutes in this T1. Its long and includes a rather interesting helix you have to run up barefoot. I was determined to break 8minutes. I moved steadily and my breath was actually under control. I thought I might go anaerobic trying to sprint up the helix, but I was good. I ended up with 6:30 without much difficulty, just a steady pace through it and I was happy.<br><br><b>Bike: (goal time 5:36 20.0mph avg, actual 5:44:36 19.5mph avg, last year 5:55:59)</b><br><br>
So my goal wattage for the race was 170-180 based on my FTP and half iron wattages. As long as I kept each mile in that range and reduce power spikes on hills I should be ok. I realize some miles might be a little more as there would be more climbing where I would allow my wattage to get to threshold but not beyond it (I even went with a compact crank and 11-28 so I could spin), and some would be less as I would be flying down a hill at 40+mph and not pedaling. This worked beautifully and I felt great holding that wattage with no problem. I typically train on this course near 200watts. I push it, so come race day the reduced wattage seemed quite comfortable. However things went from great to horrible in a matter of miles.<br><br>
How? Well I’m still trying to figure that out for certain, but I have evidence it was not biking too hard from the power data. In fact on every climb, I would be passed by everyone, no exceptions. My goal was to have my lowest wattage at the base of the hill and then shift down at the crest to maintain wattage and generate speed quickly going downhill and gaining momentum into the next. This also worked beautifully because everyone that passed me standing and cranking on those hills I would catch them on the downhill as they coasted. So I was able to maintain my effort throughout and not lose anything, which is exactly how you should do a hilly course like this (according to Going Long at least).<br><br>
My bike computer was set to go off every 15 minutes, where I would take a sip of my nutrition and down some water. I did this exact plan at CdA early this year and it worked famously. At the 56 mile marker I noticed my nutrition bottle was only ¼ done! It's hard to believe I wasn't paying attention to this earlier, but here I was. It should have been more than half way done as you need to take more calories early to compensate for the calorie deficit you incurred on the swim, at least I was thinking this and its what I did at CdA. So here I am racing my 7th ironman and I’m doing something so silly as a nutrition mistake. A few things happened, one, I just wasn’t hearing my watch go off, and if you ever did an ironman, you may notice that you can sometimes forget about eating and drinking if you are not careful. For whatever reason I couldn’t hear it. So not only nutrition but I wasn’t hydrating. Its such a rookie mistake I was very made at myself at this point. Embarrassed in fact. I knew something was wrong as my head started hurting so much and I was getting that dizzy feeling. You’ve got to be kidding me, this was last year all over again. I wanted rip my helmet off at that point and have an official DQ me, It was unbearable and suffice to say my watts plummeted in the second half.<br><br>
So here I was again, I thought maybe I could start taking in more perpeteum to compensate, but that just made me sick of it. Once you hit this state, there is no way to get out of it, you just need to deal with. My thought was to grab some calories in the form of bananas at the stations and chug them down. I was done with my perpeteum. It worked out.<br><br>
Towards the end of the ride I started to get some strength back and picked it up a bit. I ended up averaging only 158 watts for the ride as compared to a goal of 175. 158 still gave me a 5:44 bike. I’m surprised it was so fast on so little watts. But I am small and weigh 140ish, so maybe I’m pretty aerodynamic and don’t produce a lot of drag. That’s good to know a 5:44 on this hilly course is still pretty good. It also confirms that my goal watts based on FTP of 175 would get me in the 5:30s maybe 5:20s.<br>
In the end, I know for sure I did not bike too hard in the first half, and I also know for sure I was careless when it came to taking in fluids and nutrition. I’m just wondering if there was something else.<br><br>
T2: Well I got into T2 and saw my buddy Alon, who was a bike catcher, he gave me some shoutouts, and that was great. But I was out of it and I was trying to think how to manage this run. Bonking before the marathon begins, well that’s no fun. I took my time here, I originally only expected to take a few minutes in T2, but I sat down and chatted with a volunteer, had a few cups of water, went to the bathroom, then took off<br><br><b>Run: (goal 3:38, actual 3:59:48, last year 4:22:40)</b><br><br>
Based on what I did at Steelhead running in the 7:20s, I figure running in the low 8:20s would allow me to break 3:40. Steelhead isn’t exactly a cake walk either. I was very confident about this coming into the race as my running has been better than ever… I mean EVER! But that all changed on the bike when I was thinking how I was going to slog through this. Like I mentioned once you bonk in an event like this, you can’t really get out of it. You can live with it and deal with it ensuring it doesn’t get worse, or it can bring you to your knees EASILY. If this was my first or second or third ironman, it would have been a walkfest I’m sure of it. The dizzy feeling just felt like I could collapse, but I knew what I could do. Get some cola, get some pretzels, and get broth as soon as I can find it. I’ve been here before, that enabled me to get through this.<br><br>
Suffice to say I wasn’t hitting 8:20, I was however able to go 8:30, but walked the aid stations trying to recover, which made my pace around 9. I felt like quitting several times on every fricken mile, but I just kept moving. I spoke to my wife who was working aid station #2, telling her I wasn’t good, then I saw my folks and daughter at camp randall, but I was still out of it at that point as it was only like mile 3. Then I saw my friend Mike coming back from state street and he was looking pretty strong, got a high five and felt a little better. Once I got to state street I got another boost and started to come around. I was really anxious to see my Tri-Umph teammates out on the course, but didn’t see the first person until I has heading back to the stadium and that was Louie. It was great to see others now out on the course and that kept me going. When I hit my wife again at aid station 2 which was about mile 11, I was sub 8 pace and I went by saying “I’m back!”. Got a little carried away there, a mile later I was back to my routine.<br><br>
I had several bursts throughout the marathon like that, that really kept me in the game. I was a little worried about what would happen in second half, but I pretty much maintained my pace throughout. Like I said I was more prepared for this race than any other I’ve done, and much more fit, my execution was just lack luster. There really is no excuse for that, completely my doing.<br><br><b>Total: (goal 10:38, actual 11:06:54, last year 11:50:15)</b><br><br>
That said 11:06 suffering like that I’ll take it any day of the week. I truly believe I could have went 10:30s that day with my fitness level and taper and with my half iron race times. I crushed my last year time by 44 minutes even with the same difficulties and this really puts my confidence level at an all time high. I’m much closer than I was last year. 10:12 would have gotten me to Kona. I’ll work hard over the winter raising FTP again, and really tighten things on my nutrition. I believe I’ll be in a great position next year. Plus I have a great team and great coaches to help me train and get razor sharp for next year, something I didn’t have until earlier this year. I believe I’m much closer than it may look right now. In the end this was a race about execution and I had lacked that today, but even so, I was able to keep moving much faster than I have ever before which I’m very proud of.<br><br>
The good thing about all this, I remember writing the race report for IMOO 09 and I was done. I mean I was ready to throw in the towel, I did throw in the towel. I didn’t want to do any of these again and that led to a DNS at IMAZ 09. I didn’t think I could go any faster and thought I had some medical issues that inhibited from “going long”. At CdA 2010 I had to drag myself to the start line, but after racing that I realized I CAN get my nutrition right, I can do this. After MOO 10, I realize I’m fast enough to do this to someday get to Kona. If I can put them both together I believe I will do much better and I really look forward to next year to taking another big step.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Yes I'll be doing MOO 2011 and CdA 2011 again!!</p>
I have this belief (foolish or not) that I should swim below 1:10 in every IM race based on my pool swim times. But unfortunately OW swimming has a few tricky points I’ve yet to master and the top one is swimming straight. I decided before the race instead of trying to swim from buoy to buoy, which has caused me to veer in and out and waste time, I would focus on the furthest buoy and sight on a landmark near and just swim to it. I have to say that worked, but I did find myself swimming wide of the buoys on the long sides of the rectangle. I was ok with that. When I rounded the first loop I looked at my watch to see 35 minutes something…. I was a little surprised as it seemed so slooowww, I thought I might be near 40. So that gave me some motivation and I swam the next loop the same as the first, as I was coming in, I looked at my watch and it said 1:09. I was hoping to come in faster and break 1:10. Also you have a bit of a stretch at the end to get to shore, so by the time I hit land I was in the 1:11 area. My watch also said I went 2.7 miles, which may be accurate. Swimming a bigger loop can certainly make it more than 2.4 miles. I’m good with the time though, so I took off.<br><br>
T1: I’ve never been able to go under 8 minutes in this T1. Its long and includes a rather interesting helix you have to run up barefoot. I was determined to break 8minutes. I moved steadily and my breath was actually under control. I thought I might go anaerobic trying to sprint up the helix, but I was good. I ended up with 6:30 without much difficulty, just a steady pace through it and I was happy.<br><br><b>Bike: (goal time 5:36 20.0mph avg, actual 5:44:36 19.5mph avg, last year 5:55:59)</b><br><br>
So my goal wattage for the race was 170-180 based on my FTP and half iron wattages. As long as I kept each mile in that range and reduce power spikes on hills I should be ok. I realize some miles might be a little more as there would be more climbing where I would allow my wattage to get to threshold but not beyond it (I even went with a compact crank and 11-28 so I could spin), and some would be less as I would be flying down a hill at 40+mph and not pedaling. This worked beautifully and I felt great holding that wattage with no problem. I typically train on this course near 200watts. I push it, so come race day the reduced wattage seemed quite comfortable. However things went from great to horrible in a matter of miles.<br><br>
How? Well I’m still trying to figure that out for certain, but I have evidence it was not biking too hard from the power data. In fact on every climb, I would be passed by everyone, no exceptions. My goal was to have my lowest wattage at the base of the hill and then shift down at the crest to maintain wattage and generate speed quickly going downhill and gaining momentum into the next. This also worked beautifully because everyone that passed me standing and cranking on those hills I would catch them on the downhill as they coasted. So I was able to maintain my effort throughout and not lose anything, which is exactly how you should do a hilly course like this (according to Going Long at least).<br><br>
My bike computer was set to go off every 15 minutes, where I would take a sip of my nutrition and down some water. I did this exact plan at CdA early this year and it worked famously. At the 56 mile marker I noticed my nutrition bottle was only ¼ done! It's hard to believe I wasn't paying attention to this earlier, but here I was. It should have been more than half way done as you need to take more calories early to compensate for the calorie deficit you incurred on the swim, at least I was thinking this and its what I did at CdA. So here I am racing my 7th ironman and I’m doing something so silly as a nutrition mistake. A few things happened, one, I just wasn’t hearing my watch go off, and if you ever did an ironman, you may notice that you can sometimes forget about eating and drinking if you are not careful. For whatever reason I couldn’t hear it. So not only nutrition but I wasn’t hydrating. Its such a rookie mistake I was very made at myself at this point. Embarrassed in fact. I knew something was wrong as my head started hurting so much and I was getting that dizzy feeling. You’ve got to be kidding me, this was last year all over again. I wanted rip my helmet off at that point and have an official DQ me, It was unbearable and suffice to say my watts plummeted in the second half.<br><br>
So here I was again, I thought maybe I could start taking in more perpeteum to compensate, but that just made me sick of it. Once you hit this state, there is no way to get out of it, you just need to deal with. My thought was to grab some calories in the form of bananas at the stations and chug them down. I was done with my perpeteum. It worked out.<br><br>
Towards the end of the ride I started to get some strength back and picked it up a bit. I ended up averaging only 158 watts for the ride as compared to a goal of 175. 158 still gave me a 5:44 bike. I’m surprised it was so fast on so little watts. But I am small and weigh 140ish, so maybe I’m pretty aerodynamic and don’t produce a lot of drag. That’s good to know a 5:44 on this hilly course is still pretty good. It also confirms that my goal watts based on FTP of 175 would get me in the 5:30s maybe 5:20s.<br>
In the end, I know for sure I did not bike too hard in the first half, and I also know for sure I was careless when it came to taking in fluids and nutrition. I’m just wondering if there was something else.<br><br>
T2: Well I got into T2 and saw my buddy Alon, who was a bike catcher, he gave me some shoutouts, and that was great. But I was out of it and I was trying to think how to manage this run. Bonking before the marathon begins, well that’s no fun. I took my time here, I originally only expected to take a few minutes in T2, but I sat down and chatted with a volunteer, had a few cups of water, went to the bathroom, then took off<br><br><b>Run: (goal 3:38, actual 3:59:48, last year 4:22:40)</b><br><br>
Based on what I did at Steelhead running in the 7:20s, I figure running in the low 8:20s would allow me to break 3:40. Steelhead isn’t exactly a cake walk either. I was very confident about this coming into the race as my running has been better than ever… I mean EVER! But that all changed on the bike when I was thinking how I was going to slog through this. Like I mentioned once you bonk in an event like this, you can’t really get out of it. You can live with it and deal with it ensuring it doesn’t get worse, or it can bring you to your knees EASILY. If this was my first or second or third ironman, it would have been a walkfest I’m sure of it. The dizzy feeling just felt like I could collapse, but I knew what I could do. Get some cola, get some pretzels, and get broth as soon as I can find it. I’ve been here before, that enabled me to get through this.<br><br>
Suffice to say I wasn’t hitting 8:20, I was however able to go 8:30, but walked the aid stations trying to recover, which made my pace around 9. I felt like quitting several times on every fricken mile, but I just kept moving. I spoke to my wife who was working aid station #2, telling her I wasn’t good, then I saw my folks and daughter at camp randall, but I was still out of it at that point as it was only like mile 3. Then I saw my friend Mike coming back from state street and he was looking pretty strong, got a high five and felt a little better. Once I got to state street I got another boost and started to come around. I was really anxious to see my Tri-Umph teammates out on the course, but didn’t see the first person until I has heading back to the stadium and that was Louie. It was great to see others now out on the course and that kept me going. When I hit my wife again at aid station 2 which was about mile 11, I was sub 8 pace and I went by saying “I’m back!”. Got a little carried away there, a mile later I was back to my routine.<br><br>
I had several bursts throughout the marathon like that, that really kept me in the game. I was a little worried about what would happen in second half, but I pretty much maintained my pace throughout. Like I said I was more prepared for this race than any other I’ve done, and much more fit, my execution was just lack luster. There really is no excuse for that, completely my doing.<br><br><b>Total: (goal 10:38, actual 11:06:54, last year 11:50:15)</b><br><br>
That said 11:06 suffering like that I’ll take it any day of the week. I truly believe I could have went 10:30s that day with my fitness level and taper and with my half iron race times. I crushed my last year time by 44 minutes even with the same difficulties and this really puts my confidence level at an all time high. I’m much closer than I was last year. 10:12 would have gotten me to Kona. I’ll work hard over the winter raising FTP again, and really tighten things on my nutrition. I believe I’ll be in a great position next year. Plus I have a great team and great coaches to help me train and get razor sharp for next year, something I didn’t have until earlier this year. I believe I’m much closer than it may look right now. In the end this was a race about execution and I had lacked that today, but even so, I was able to keep moving much faster than I have ever before which I’m very proud of.<br><br>
The good thing about all this, I remember writing the race report for IMOO 09 and I was done. I mean I was ready to throw in the towel, I did throw in the towel. I didn’t want to do any of these again and that led to a DNS at IMAZ 09. I didn’t think I could go any faster and thought I had some medical issues that inhibited from “going long”. At CdA 2010 I had to drag myself to the start line, but after racing that I realized I CAN get my nutrition right, I can do this. After MOO 10, I realize I’m fast enough to do this to someday get to Kona. If I can put them both together I believe I will do much better and I really look forward to next year to taking another big step.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Yes I'll be doing MOO 2011 and CdA 2011 again!!</p>
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