Internal Mono(b)log

1500m SWIM Cat Ovr Time /100m	40.0 km BIKE Cat Ovr Time km/h	10.0 km RUN Cat Ovr Time /km	Tr1	Tr2
25 169 34:22 2:18	11 54 1:12:52 32.9	22 98 54:06 5:25	1:24	1:09

Pre-Race

I drove up to Gravenhurst on Friday 1/2 planning to camp in the back of the pickup, 1/2 hoping to find a motel on the cheap to rest my head.  I got lucky!  Most of Gravenhurst was sold out, but I managed to find a closet-of-a-room in a small motel across from the Howard Johnson’s for cheap.  This room was *small*.  With me, my gear, and bike in the room I had to walk on the bed to get to the door.  Small! But… there were no bugs, no dew falling in the room and the bed was comfortable and clean, so I won 🙂

After checking in and unloading, I pre-drove the bike route.  Not as good as pre-riding, but I wanted to save my legs for Saturday and was still feeling my century from last weekend a bit.  Driving the course a few things struck me: the course was beautiful(!) so much nature and scenery, but the road was not terrific; however, the MSC staff had already been down the course (probably multiple times) with road marking paint, highlighting potholes and other road hazards (Great work folks!!! Thank you!), the course was nice and roller-y and generally felt more downhill on the way out and more uphill on the return path and that a great deal of the course was heavily treed (no wind, shade, but possibly also hot and humid).

I decided that based on the sheltered nature of the course, unless I woke up to a gale, I’d run my tri-spoke front and disc rear.  My disc had a pretty aggressive cassette on it (11-21), so I quickly switched it over to a more hill-centric cassette (11-25), gave the bike a quick once over.  Put some fuel down my hatch and went to bed.

Race Prep

Woke Saturday morning at 1am and ate a banana and went back to sleep til 5 when my alarm went off.  Ate some blueberries and yogurt, packed the car and headed off to the race site.  In the morning I was sipping a blend of hornet-juice, carbo-pro, EFS drink and EFS pre-race.  I missed my morning coffee ritual and I believe that set me up for some problems later in the day (more on that below).

Pre-race checkin was flawless as I’ve come to expect with the MSC events.  Quick and clean.  Got my bike racked, my transition area setup, last minute checks done and did some stretching and some pre-race meditation.

Race Start and the Swim

The race start for Gravenhurst is modeled after the Escape from Alcatraz race, where the start is offshore and you’re ferried there by one of the steamships at the Gravenhurst wharf.   I used the time on the steamer to continue my pre-race meditation, to focus on my heart-rate and breathing and to try to stay on the of the pre-race adrenalin rush.

Arriving at the start in the steamer we all exited the boat and spent a few minutes in the water at the start line.  I positioned myself middle-middle and waited for the ship’s horn as our start.  HOOOT! And we’re away.  My meditation and focus pre-race seemed to be working well.  I kept telling myself: “swim your race”, “don’t cross over”, “breathe”, “relax”.  It was great!  I didn’t get my panic attack 30 seconds into the race from starting out waaay to fast as I have in the 2 previous races.  Clearly, I’m starting to get a bit of control over my swim-race psychology.

Now, in hindsight my swim time wasn’t stellar 2:18/100m (according to my watch, which I started just as I started swimming and finished a few seconds out of the water my pace was 2:10/100, which I’m happier about) is pretty slow and I can do/have done better, but I was so focused on pacing and holding myself back that I didn’t open the throttle too much at all.  So the pendulum swung the other way a bit too far – rather than having a panic attack because I was going hell-for-leather, I was sitting back in a comfy chair drinking a mint-julep.  Next time, I’ll strike for a more center-line chord 🙂

T1 and Bike

Coming out of the swim, and into T1 all was flowing well.  My T1 time was good, tho I need to remember some PAM or chub-rub or something to try to help get my wetsuit off a little faster.  Out onto the bike course all was pretty good.  I mount my bike, shoes already in pedals, elastic bands holding the shoes in the right places and off I go.  All is pretty good until…

I went to put my left foot into my shoe to discover that I hadn’t opened the velcro closure, so I’m riding up a slow grade, one foot in a shoe, the other trying to figure out it’s way into a closed shoe.  Then trying, nearly in vain, to open the velcro.  Then opening it so far that I pull the strap right out of the closing loop.  Eventually, I give up and stop. Fix the shoe, get my foot in it and pedal away, muttering not-repeatable obscenities at myself.  It kinda reminded me of Macca here:

Other than blowing probably 2-3 minutes wrestling with my shoes (yes I won’t be doing that again), the bike course went really well.  My cassette choice from the day before was good, the bike was performing well, I was hydrating and fueling ok (more on this later).  Generally felt really good on the bike, though I wasn’t passing nearly as many people as in previous races, so this told me that the field here was definitely stronger (perhaps not surprising given the number of Canadian national team members in attendance and the number of elites 🙂 ).

At 25km into the 40k bike I pulled the pin on an EFS Holy Handgrenade to help pump me up for the climb back into T2 and for the following 10k run.  Damn that’s good stuff. Tastes like hell, but does it work.  Definitely encourages hydration!

My pre-drive was right – the trip back definitely felt like more climbing than descending.  Still no crazy hills, nothing that had me needing to get out of the saddle and throw the bike around to get up.  Just gear down and keep spinning.  Did have a few 650+watt spikes, but not many and nothing sustained to burn out the legs.

T2 and Run

My Bike through T2 was pretty clean.  T2 transition for me is usually pretty simple.  If I were comfortable running without socks I could probably shave another 30 seconds, but don’t know that I want to risk my feet for 30 seconds… Off into the run my legs were ledden.. need to do more brick workouts to get these puppies working better after spinning.  About 1k into the run I developed the desire super urgent need to pee.  I tried to ignore it, but there was no ignoring it.  Off to the side of the road… aaaaaah… ok there goes 45 seconds… maybe a minute… starting running again… GI cramping.  Hrm.. is this a nutrition problem or a coffee ritual problem…” just keep running, the cramp will go away”, I tell myself.  Every water station I took on water and doused myself.  It was hot!  Really hot!  Cramps turned into runners gas.  I started feeling bad for anyone behind me, and hoping that the gas remained gas and didn’t try to become solid (it stayed gas, fortunately, but the cramps didn’t go).  Picked up the pace in the last couple of km, more in the last km, sprinting in the last 300m.

Post Race

Immediately post race, while superheated and crampy, I found the milk booth where they were giving out free chocolate milk.  I slammed one back and grabbed another to sip.  Almost immediately finishing the 2nd container it hit my crampy, super-hot stomach and I felt like I was going to loose it.  I felt faint, nauseous and like I was going to vomit.  I dunked my hat and a towel in some icewater and put them on to try to cool off.  Stuck my hands in some icewater, found some shade and sat.  And sat… and sat…  Eventually after over an hour, I start to regain normalcy.  Still crampy but less so.

After the race I had to do another hour training run.  I grabbed my fuelbelt and some water and headed out.  Damn it was HOT… it was probably 1pm at this point and the sun was just beating you down.  Even with my litre of water in the fuelbelt I was dehydrated.  On the way out I stopped at a garden centre and had a shower in their hose, then stopped at a home hardware to use their washroom and cooled off in their sink.  On the way back also stopped at the garden centre for another quick cool off.

Nutrition Review

• My pre-race sipping drink seemed to set me up well for the swim.  250 calories and a bunch of “go go” juice.
• On the bike I had the EFS Handgrenade, water in the speedfil, and 2 waterbottles with hornet-juice, efs and 2 scoops of carbo-pro (360cal/bottle), also had a flask of hammergel espresso.  I only consumed the handgrenade, 60% of 1 of the waterbottles of fuel, a small sip of the hammergel (not even 1 serving), and not nearly enough water.
• On the run, I had a flask of EFS liquid shot that I had a couple of small sips of and was only taking water from the aide stations

What would I change?  On the bike, I was carrying far too much fuel for the duration of the race, and not consuming enough of all that I did carry.  Why take the weight if you’re not going to consume it?!   I also carried bike tools, co2 and a spare tubular, but had no intention of changing a flat at the side of the road, so again, carrying extra weight for no good reason.

The big problem for me was the cramping during the run.  At 4pm, when my body finally had some coffee in it and it went to the washroom, the cramping finally stopped… I had the feeling that this was probably the root cause for most of the day, but couldn’t convince my body that it was time to go anytime prior to 4 after the double espresso I had before my drive home kicked in.  Why didn’t I have coffee in the morning?  I dunno.. it’s not like there wasn’t a 24h Tim’s a block from my motel?

Lesson: don’t change anything on race day!    It doesn’t seem to matter how many times you drill it in to your head, something innocuous always seems to “get you” 🙂

Many thanks to the MSC staff and volunteers and all the contracted personel (police, ambulance, photographers, time takers, massage, Hero Burgers, etc.) for making the day so thoroughly enjoyable!  You all ROCK!