Internal Mono(b)log

Wow! What a beautiful day!! Really couldn’t have asked for or even conceived of better weather for this race.  Was a little cool in the morning, prob around 10C, but the high in the afternoon was only 21C, there was an occasional light breeze and the sky, for the most part, was 100% clear.  Amazing!

My goal for the race, being my 1st 70.3 was “Sub 6 hours”, with a stretch goal in the back of my head of a target of 5:30.  I kinda knew I wouldn’t do 5:30 (< 30 minute swim, < 3 hr bike, < 2 hr run, + t1 and t2), but it’s good to have a stretch goal and in fact, looking at my bike and run splits, I wasn’t far off…  Anyhow to the numbers:

31 of 115 in my age group I’m happy with.  Definitely pulled my socks up on the bike (and could’ve gone harder, but not sure what that would have done to my run), and held my position on the run (which is good because I frequently lose ground on the run).

The Lead-Up

I managed to get a room in Huntsville with a fridge and microwave, unfortunately it was also on the 2nd floor of a walk-up.  Not terrible if you have a suitcase, but when you have a bike, toolbox, bike-stand, food, transition bag, clothes, and other misc stuff it makes for a lot of stair climbing/descending.  (Note to self: In future request ground floor accommodations with fridge and microwave when booking.)   That aside, the ComfortInn in Huntsville was pretty nice and accommodating.  It is right next door to the Metro, so grocery shopping was a breeze and having the fridge and ‘wave meant that my diet wouldn’t need to change at all while I was in Huntsville, which is so awesome.

I did a light run on Friday and a light ride and swim on Saturday, just to keep things moving and to let off a little pre-race steam (but not too much).  I also found myself very much “in my head” – thinking about the race, keeping my excitement in check, planning, checking, rechecking.  Unfortunately, I think that Marcio and Antoni both were kinda looking forward to hanging out and I really just needed space: I hope I didn’t offend them, but it didn’t occur to me what was going on with me on Saturday, until after the race on Sunday.  Oh well, I’m sure they get it – everyone has their own pre-race way of dealing with things.  Marcio bounces off the walls, I get quiet and contemplative 😉

Saturday night I ate dinner early, at my evening snack early, had the TV off and was just reading/surfing with the room lights off.  By 8pm, my body sensing the low light and low stimulus was telling me it could sleep, so setting my alarms for 4:30am, that’s exactly what I did.  I woke at midnight and at 2am, each time, went to the bathroom, had something to drink and ate a banana and went back to sleep.  At 4:15, when my 1st (subtle) alarm went off, I woke, had 2 cups of double-espresso, a bowl of cereal on cottage cheese, 2 bananas and a tablespoon of peanut butter.   “Nature called” and my morning ritual was complete.  All systems were go.  I loaded my bike/run liquid nutrition and an icepack into a cooler and headed over to the race site (stopping at Tim Horton’s for another coffee).

Race-Day Prep

Arriving at the Deerhurst airstrip (where parking was for those offsite) at 5:30, everything was already in full-swing: multiple shuttle busses, generator powered lights bringing near-daylight to the space, cutting through the morning haze. Magical!  Still, surprisingly, no butterflies, excitement in check, all good.  I load myself and my gear into a shuttle and soon we’re off to Deerhurst.

At Deerhurst, it’s much like every other race: music playing, announcer announcing, people helping you  find where you need to be. I make my way to my bike and start setting up my transition area.  I’d acquired one of the best rack spots the day before (beside a light stand, at the end of a row, facing the bike exit) and so I had ample space to setup my transition area.  Everything went great, I had all the gear I needed, I put my computer on my bike, stowed the fuelbottles (2 clean-bottles [which I absolutely love] each filled with 4 scoops Carbo-pro, 3 scoops EFS sport drink and 1 pack Hornet Juice [800 calories]), filled the water bottle.  Got numbered, went pee, put on my wetsuit (Note to self: need to remember body glide to make wetsuit removal easier) and headed down to the water start line arriving there just as the Elites and Pros gun sounded.  Perfect, only 30 minutes to kill until my wave starts.  2 Rocktane gels down the hatch and I’m loaded for bear!

The Race: Swim

Entering the water, I saw something interesting bobbing at the waterline.  I wish I’d had a camera, because raising my arm under it I gained the passenger of a 2″ long baby snapping turtle.  Very cute and I felt a good open for the day.  After showing him to a few people, I put him back into the water and did a few minutes of warmup swimming as the previous waves got underway.    As the wave ahead of us was sent off, I did my visualization and breathing exercises, reminding myself to swim my swim, breathe, rotate, use the full stroke, and reach with my core (thanks Doug).  I’d set my Garmin 310XT to multisport mode and in the swim setting, I’d set it to alert every 10 minutes.  I expected the swim to take 40 minutes (knowing my pace), and was hoping to push a bit to get closer to 30, but we’d see what we saw.  The final countdown 15 seconds… 10 (I start my watch)… 5…4…3…2..1 and we’re off!

I found myself near the front of the wave at the start, quite by accident, but it seemed ok!   I got bumped a few times, but generally seemed to have space to swim, wasn’t biting anyone’s toes or having anyone bash my feet.  My sighting was good and my lines straight. Buzzzt! Went my watch – 10 minutes down.  Nice.  Feeling good, feeling strong.  10 minutes later: Buzzt again.  I’m happy, I’m very near (perhaps past, not sure) the 1/2 way mark (Note to self: know where 1/2 way is on the swim so I can pace a -ve split in the future), still feeling good and strong.  Buzzt! 30 minutes down, I can see the finish, swimming feels meditative, I pickup the pace a bit. Buzzt! 40minutes: I’m literally wading through the muck trying to get to the stairs.  Couldn’t have estimated that any closer, definitely need to improve that swim split, but not at the expense of the other 2 sports.

There are people at the swim exit helping strip suits, but I run past deciding it’d be better to generate some body heat on the way to the bike and I’m used to part-stripping the suit as I run anyhow so why take the time?  The run to the bike is longish – they say 300m, I think it’s more like 500m, but it felt more like 1000m 🙂  It’s mostly uphill and some is on (now wet and muddy) grass.  At one point I nearly take a tumble, but recover and make it to the bike safely.

The Race: Bike

My T1 is pretty good, the elastics holding my shoes decided to let go early (not sure why, didn’t spend time to figure it out), which probably delayed me 30 seconds as I tried to figure out what to do.  Decision: “nothing, get the bike and go” – winning choice to be sure.  Suit off, helmet and sunglasses on, and I’m off.

The Muskoka bike course was not new to me, but it seemed to pass very quickly today.  Definitely a combination of “no wrong turns” (pre-riding I made a few course errors) and race-day adrenalin.  I’m trying to remember to get fuel in, but there never seems to be a “good time”.  Amazingly quickly we’re at the 1st town and the 1st bottle exchange (at roughly 1/3 of the way through the ride). I don’t slowdown, and don’t take on water, thinking I still have plenty in my speedfil.  This was a mistake as I ran out of water before the next bottle exchange 33km away.  (Note to self: when offered water, take it!  Dump it if you don’t end up needing it).

My pacing feels good, and the combination of the super deep aero front and disc in the back gives me amazing speed on the downhills and a rotational inertial advantage on the climbs.  (I hit a top speed of over 80km/h). I’m feeling strong, but holding back: I want to make sure I have legs for the Mother-F@#$r climb near the end and for the run.

Pulling into the 2nd bottle exchange I grab some water and dump it into my speedfil, while riding, and keep on trucking. I didn’t get enough water, and would eventually run out again, but very close to the end, so it’d matter a bit less.   I’m at roughly KM 66 of 95, and decide that soon, I’ll pull out my “secret weapon” my EFS Handgrenade (EFS liquid shot, EFS pre-race, and a tablespoon of instant espresso all mixed with water in a gel flask): yes it tastes like hell, but damn does it give you a boost 🙂

I’m still feeling great, thinking I should be taking on more nutrition, but not feeling like there’s a good time.  Over the ride I do manage to get through about 1/2 of my planned nutrition (perhaps 1100 calories), so not terrible, but I think I’d have done better on the run if I’d managed to onboard more.

The last 15% of the bike course, I know from previous rides is tough, and I’m passing people on the climbs and feeling strong. I’m joking with folks, smiling and pushing through.  At many of the worst climbs there are spectators cheering us on – it’s amazing how much this helps and I make a point of thanking them.  It’s at this point that the need to pee starts to become my world.  I don’t really want to stop and find a tree and take the 3-5 minutes hit on my time.  “WTF”, I think. “If the pros do it, so can I”.  As I start descending a nice big grade, I stop pedalling, and have the most amazing pee of my life.  Yes, I peed on my bike and it was GLORIOUS!  I now understand 😉  (Note to self: wash bike today).

Climbing the nasty Mother hill near the end (last 5km), I resort to the “hand pumping the knee method” at one point to keep my cadence up.  Hey! Whatever works right 🙂  Soon enough I’m up and over.  The rest is gravy.

As I’m running my bike into transition I hear the announcer saying that the pro winners have already finished the race (a full 1.5 hours faster than me – remember they started 30 minutes before I did), I think to myself “Holy Crap! They’re FAST!”, I’ll never be that fast, but I’ll also never be 22 again 🙂

T2 is quick. Drop the bike, grab my fuelbelt with water and EFS liquid shot, race number around the front, visor and I’m off.

The Race: Run

As expected, the 1st 1-2km of the run is a bit wonky: legs don’t really like to run after riding for 3 hrs, but soon enough I find my stride.  I have my Garmin set to alert if I hit zone4 and otherwise to be quiet.  For most of the run – it’s blissfully quiet 😉  I’m running in mid zone3 and know I can do this for hours and hours.  I decide that the water-stations are for cooling down, I have my own fuel and my own water and it’s only a 2 hr run.  This turns out to be a great plan – every 2km or so I douse myself with water: one on my head, one across my shoulders in the front and one across my shoulders in the back.  The run is challenging but not insane. Having run it before I know what to expect and feel good about my pacing.

Toward the end of the run, I’m feeling a little energy deprived, have gone through all my EFS liquid shot (Note to self: pack 2 to have known nutrition on the run – it’s not a lot of extra weight) so grab some of the Powerbar Gel from the aide stations.  This is a mistake: after I eat them I remember that powerbar gels don’t sit well with me and I start burping and farting like a some sort of wild-thing.  *sigh* oh well.

The last 7k of the run I’m being paced by a 61 year old guy, who seems to be effortlessly striding along.  His effortless stride is somehow comforting to me and I hang with him for some time before picking up the pace to finish.

Approaching Deerhurst the run path to the finish seems to take FOREVER (Note to self: eyeball the finishline so you know where it actually is before the race start). I’m sprinting, pushing as hard as I can. I’m elated, I’ve had so much fun.   What a rush!  I start laughing at myself because the thought that keeps going through my head is that I want to do it again (right now!).

Some smart person had setup a sprinkler near the finish.  I stand it it’s flow for a while then head down to the beach for a swim to bring my core temp down and “ice bath” my legs.  Good therapy that I’ve discovered at previous races and will do after every race unless there’s something stopping me from doing so.

I finished strong, I’m still smiling (the day after) and I’m surprisingly mostly pain free – a little tightness in my calves, ITBs and glutes, but nothing is sore.

General Comments: Positive

I had a great time.  The organization, volunteers, and clear experience in running this type of event shone through in every fascette of the 3 days I was in Huntsville.  My great time was, I think, shining through: I was yelling encouragement to those finishing ahead of me on the run, to those behind me as I was heading in.  On the ride, especially on the tough climbs, I’d joke with people and try to get them to smile even though it hurt.   I shared my mantra with a few folks (“The spirit of Chrissie propels me! The spirit of Chrissie propels me!“), it makes me smile whenever I think it and certainly got a few chuckles on the course.

The course is challenging, but fun and beautiful.  I was really impressed with how well the tar and chip section of the road had been swept, it wasn’t a smoothly paved road, but it was significantly better than it had been on any of my pre-rides.

General Comments: Improvement Would Be Nice

To the Race Planners/Event Co-ordinators/Race Director

I had such a great time, I’m almost reluctant to offer these suggestions.  Please understand that I had a great time and these would have just made it that little bit better for me and perhaps others:

• On the bike course, I’d really like to see penalties handed out for drafting and center line infractions.  There are many announcements about it pre-race, but I frequently see people who are obviously drafting, which an official in plain sight, but nothing is done and they don’t seem to care.  Yea perhaps I’m whining because I try to follow the rules and they are flaunting them, but still 🙂 [I saw this one 50+ athlete who was constantly drafting, blocking and in my sight committed 2 center line infractions, at one point with oncoming traffic – I thought he was going to die!  Fate being what it is, I think I also saw him fixing a flat 2 km from the bike finish].
• On course it’d be nice to see some fruit options: perhaps orange wedges or part-bananas on the run?
• In the  post-race meal, more veg and gluten-free options would be nice.  I’m used to not being able to eat at buffets so this isn’t a biggie for me, but it’d be nice 😉

To the other Athletes

3 things and all related to the bike course:

• Please, PLEASE! When you’re passing, please, give me a quick “On your left”.  It’s not hard and it could save us thousands of dollars in bike repairs and a spoiled race.
• Also, when someone is passing you and they’re yelling “On your left”, it means 2 things: 1) heads-up, here I come and 2) (politely) get the F! out of my way.  I saw so many people riding 2 abreast, essentially blocking.  I’d get angry and start yelling at them to pass or not, but not to block.  No I’m not that competitive, but when I’m whistling down a hill at 60+ km/h and can’t get around you because you’re unable to decide if you’re passing or not it’s dangerous.
• I know we’re all out there to have fun, but can you at least try to abide by the rules: ride right/pass left, don’t draft, don’t block, don’t cross the center line.  If you get passed, use the time to stretch where you’re falling back to stretch your back and rest your legs.  You get a slight draft advantage by being passed, so enjoy it!

Finally

Big thanks to Ironman corp and Subaru for putting on a great event.  To the town of Huntsville for being so welcoming and hospitable to us atheletes, some who travelled, literally, around the world to be there. Special thanks to Ian from IMFIT.ca for coaching me to such a solid finish in my 1st 70.3 distance event.  Ian is an amazing bike fitter and stellar coach.  If you’re in the market, talk to me for a referral.

While I’m still basking in the glory of my finish yesterday, my mind is now turning to Panama in February. My goal time for Panama is 5:30 with a stretch of 5:15, I’d really like to qualify in Panama for the 70.3 Worlds in Vegas in 2012. The course is flat and I have 6 months to train towards it – I think it’s do-able.  Hell! I know it’s doable.  Giddyup!