Post by Brandon on Oct 13, 2011 14:14:59 GMT -5
Myrtle Beach Triathlon RR
Grab a cup of coffee. This is a long one....
For 2011 the Myrtle Beach Triathlon was the host for the USAT Long Course National Championship and the U.S. qualifier for the 2012 ITU Long Course World Championships which will be held in Spain. I came into this race with the goal of gaining a worlds slot and a time goal of sub 4:50. On a ‘perfect’ day I thought 4:45 would be attainable. I knew that my AG would not be as large as WTC events, but that there would be quite a few folks going sub 5.
Training
Without going into a ton of detail about my training, I will say that I scheduled a 3 month build period leading up to this race. Key workouts were; swim – One session of 3 – 4.5K, typically masters workouts done at hard effort (above LT). Bike - Long steady session with a lot of riding near LT, including 10 – 20 minute intervals above LT. I also tried to throw in one mid-week LT bike with intervals in the 3 – 10 minute range. Run - training was based around two different types of key runs: 1) mile repeats which were done at 20 – 30 sec.’s below goal race pace on short rest. This was frequently my key run workout of the week and in a few cases repeats were run off the bike. 2) Less common were tempo runs, which were typically the middle 5-8 miles of my long run. Paces were near goal race pace and were either run as descending intervals or steady-state. The steady-state tempo runs above LT put the hurt on and were very infrequent, with one coming 5 weeks out and one 3 weeks out. Taper consisted of a 1.5 week slight reduction in volume followed by 1.5 weeks with a large reduction in volume. Intervals continued but with shortened duration.
Heading into the race I felt that my swim fitness was good….better than normal during race season. Bike fitness was suspect. I knew that I could push a bit more power for shorter intervals, but felt that I did not have many quality long rides in the ~6 weeks prior to the race. Run training…nailed it. Thought I could run a 1:35 off the bike on a great day. If I didn’t go sub 1:40 something was wrong.
Pre-Race
I decided to drive to Myrtle Beach because it was the least expensive form of travel and also allowed me to bring a bunch of crap, including being able to grocery shop before leaving and bringing familiar food for pre-race. Trip was ~700 miles, which equated to 12-13 hours of travel time. Had a great 3 bedroom house across the street from the Ocean lined up (thanks Dave!) which was shared with a handful of other athletes (who tore the course up on Saturday!) and a couple of sherpa’s. I was lucky to have the world’s best Sherpa traveling with me.
Athlete check-in was the day before the race. Made the 2-3 mile drive to the race site and got this done as soon as they opened on Friday. Put in a quick 45 min. brick after grabbing my packet. Workout was a 30 min. bike with 3-4 60-90 sec. intervals above race pace. After a quick transition took a 15 min. run with ~3 30 sec. intervals with 90 sec’s rest. Went back to transition later in the afternoon to rack my bike on the way to dinner. Hit a great Italian restaurant named Rossi’s for pasta and hit the hay around 10 p.m.
Race Morning
Alarm went off at 4:00 on race morning. Immediately ate breakfast, which as a bagel w. jelly, banana a chocolate chip cliff bar and coffee (~700 calories). About the coffee…I brought the CLE blend from Phoenix Coffee to get the morning started right. Phoenix coffee was the most important part of my breakfast, to be sure! Loaded the car with race gear and headed to transition at 5:30. My wave was scheduled to go off ~7:38 but the start was postponed by 15 minutes because the current was slowing as the tide changed. Even with the extra 15 minutes it was time to don the wettie and jump in the water before I knew it. Walked to the start with my favorite Sherpa and then headed out onto the pier to jump into the water.
Swim
The swim was in the intracoastal waterway. I expected saltwater, but it turned out to be freshwater. I still can’t figure out how this body of water was not salty but was affected by the tides. Weird. The swim course was a little unusual. It was an in-water start and we had to swim around a pier from a boat dock area to get into the intracoastal where we would swim our loop. We then had to swim back into a different boat dock area and exit onto a different pier. My wave was ~50-75 athletes. I lined up on the front and to the left which is my typical position. The gun went off and I was in a small pack that formed on the outside of the main pack. I was swimming hard to stay in position and after ~75 yards I decided to swim over to the main pack to look for feet. Right after I joined in the main pack we had to ‘jog’ out of the dock area and into the intracoastal. Got bumped a little and took one decent knock to my back/left side…but nothing bad enough to really affect my swim. Was able to get into a nice rhythm within 400 yds.
Made the turn buoy swimming hard but steady and immediatey notice a bit of a current sending some chop into our faces, but worse than that was the sun glare that made it impossible to see anything. Sighted on the packs of swimmers ahead because I could not see any buoy’s. Tasted gasoline in the water a couple times during the final ½ mile and got really upset to be swimming in the intracoastal which is designed for and used by boats, not people. The only thing I could do at this point was swim out of it as quickly as possible. Angry about the sun in my eyes and nastiness in the water I almost swam directly into the final turn buoy and headed towards shore, sighting off of a building near the swim exit to find the stairs up to the pier.
Swim 34:22. Pace 1:47
T1
Came into T1. Stripped wettie. Grabbed bike and gear. Left. Uneventful.
T1 time 1:52
Bike
The bike was a 2-loop closed course on the local highway. I was expecting it to be flat, which it mostly was. Steepest grades were on the overpass. I thought there would be potential for wind, and indeed there was wind. Lots of wind. We hit the headwinds on a long slow stretch of road with a bit of a grade. I did my best to not burn all my candle’s on this first loop as I knew we had another and expected that the winds would be worse on the 2nd loop. They were. The goal on the bike was to ride hard but under control on the first loop. The 2nd loop I would gauge my effort on how I was feeling and push some bigger gears if I felt strong. The bike was also time to take in my calories and H2O. I had a bottle of Perpetuem with ~650 calories and a gel flask with ~250 calories of hammer gel. Every 20 min. I would take in some calories with the goal being 250-300 calories/hr. on the bike along with ~20 oz. of water and some salt. I felt like my HR was a bit high starting the bike after a long run through T1. I started hydrating immediately, but waited until ~8 min.’s into the ride to take in any calories, which was a mistake.
Early on into the bike I began to feel like I was losing power and concentration. This is likely because I was in a bit of calorie debt after the swim and is something I have experienced in the past. In hindsight, I should have started to get in some calories immediately out of T1. Also, I need to find a way to get in some calories between breakfast and the swim. I took in zero calories in the 3+ hours before the race started. I was not hungry, but I do need to avoid this downturn early in the bike.
After getting in a few feeding cycIes my energy perked up and I continued to ride steady into the headwinds while keeping a nice high cadence, especially on the uphill grades. There was one really nice long downhill section with a great tailwind where I lowered my gear and cadence and was able to steal some recovery time while flying through the course. When I turned out for the 2nd loop I was a bit disheartened by my pace. The winds were taking their toll, but I made sure to ride within myself. I was not getting passed my many riders in my AG, so I kept telling myself that everyone’s bike splits were going to be slow with the wind. I did get passed by a couple of small packs of riders from waves behind me. I had a few choice words for the wheel suckers.
For the most part, the bike was uneventful. I got in my nutrition, fluids and salt and grinded into the wind. I knew that my bike fitness was suspect coming in and that I wouldn’t be making up much ground on the bike. I just wanted to hold position, which I seemed to be doing pretty well. At about mile 40 of the bike I began to get uncomfortable and ready to get onto the run. This is typical for races such as this with no climbing where I maintain aero position with little movement for the entire course. I tried to address this in outdoor training by riding aero as much as possible, which was not enough (due to traffic lights, hills, etc.) I need to address this in the future in two ways: 1) long trainer sessions and 2) continue to tweak fit. All in all, I was a bit discouraged coming off of the bike as my goal was to ride sub 2:30. Good news was that I got in my fluids and nutrition.
Bike calories: ~800 (~600 Perpetuem and ~ 200 gel). ~308 cals/hr avg.
Fluids: ~50 oz’s plain water.
Salt: 2 SaltStick tabs
Bike 2:36:11 pace 21.5 mph
T2
Racked bike, changed shoes and carried hat, race belt and nutrition through the exit. Get in, get out.
T2 time 1:27
Run
Run was three loops with quite a bit of shade. It was also flat with lots of trees lining the road (hence the shade). I saw an osprey overhead during the run. What a beautiful bird! I thought that I would despise the 3 loop course, but it wasn’t bad. It was nice to get the crowd support each time the loop neared transition. Going into the race I thought my run fitness was good and that this would be where I would be able to solidify a good race. Through the first 2 miles my legs were very tight and I really doubted how things would turn out after the windy bike ride. Once my legs loosened up things were going quite well and I was nailing my spits with consistency and under control. Run plan looked like this; miles 1-3 take it easy and loosen up. Miles 3-10 run hard, but steady and under control. Miles 10-finish run hard and give it all that’s left in the tank. Nutrition plan was to take a bit of water at each aid station and one hammer gel every 30 min. Take 1-2 salt pills (which I did not do). Also planned to dump water over my head and stuff ice in the jersey as much as possible to keep core temp down.
Once the legs loosened up I was clipping off the miles according to plan. Took gels right on schedule and was sipping water. Felt great. At the halfway point was beginning to work a little to maintain pace, but was still comfortable. I continued to have to increase my effort slightly to keep pace from mile 6 until mile 10. I was still relatively comfortable when I hit the 10 mile mark, where I looked down at my watch and saw 4:25. I started to do some math and felt that I still had a shot at 4:45 or at least a 4:47, even if I couldn’t quite nail the final 3 miles. So, I picked up the effort to where I was uncomfortable. This lasted about ½ mile and then the wheels fell off. You can call it blowing up or whatever you want, but the bottom line is that I immediately began to suffer and my pace dropped significantly. I began having all sorts of pain all over and begin to get dizzy with a queasy stomach...a couple of times I thought I might leave my Perpetuem and Hammer gels on the side of the run course. It took all I had just to keep moving forward, thank goodness I only had about 2.5 miles to cover at this point, because my race was over. Looking back at my splits, they tell the story well…
7:00/6:59/7:01/7:12/7:07/7:08/7:18/7:19/7:22/7:21/7:38/8:13/9:20
Run 1:37:07 pace 7:25
Run Calories: ~270 (3 hammer gels). ~167 cals/hr avg.
Salt – zero SaltStick tabs on run. This was a mistake. Should have taken at least 1 tab.
Total Race Calories: ~1070; ~225 cals/hr avg.
Total Time 4:50:56
35-39 AG 9/21
Overall 54/292
Overview
Overall I was happy with my result. I left 2-3 minutes on the run course in the final 5K to be sure and perhaps a couple more on the bike course by riding too conservatively into some of the headwinds. Other than that I could not have squeaked out much more time on the fitness that I had this year. I earned a spot to 2012 ITU worlds in Spain, but with only 21 people finishing the race in my AG and 20 worlds spots I could have walked the entire run course and still got in. My impressions on the race were mostly good. My biggest complaint was swimming in the intracoastal. With all of the boat traffic the water quality was terrible. Tasting gasoline may have ruined the race for me and may keep me from coming back. It may not have the immediate health effects of swimming in a toilet, but I don’t want to swim there nonetheless!
Also, there were not enough volunteers at the aid stations on course. It was not a huge problem but definitely limited the amount of water cups I could take at each aid station and also would have been a problem if I would have dropped a hand-up on the bike course as you only got one chance to grab a bottle. Besides that the race was well run with a fast field. 12 athletes broke 4:30 and 30 athletes broke 4:40. The only thing that might keep me from doing this race again is the swim, although the high level of competition, nice closed bike and run courses and worlds slots could bring me back despite the nasty swim.
Grab a cup of coffee. This is a long one....
For 2011 the Myrtle Beach Triathlon was the host for the USAT Long Course National Championship and the U.S. qualifier for the 2012 ITU Long Course World Championships which will be held in Spain. I came into this race with the goal of gaining a worlds slot and a time goal of sub 4:50. On a ‘perfect’ day I thought 4:45 would be attainable. I knew that my AG would not be as large as WTC events, but that there would be quite a few folks going sub 5.
Training
Without going into a ton of detail about my training, I will say that I scheduled a 3 month build period leading up to this race. Key workouts were; swim – One session of 3 – 4.5K, typically masters workouts done at hard effort (above LT). Bike - Long steady session with a lot of riding near LT, including 10 – 20 minute intervals above LT. I also tried to throw in one mid-week LT bike with intervals in the 3 – 10 minute range. Run - training was based around two different types of key runs: 1) mile repeats which were done at 20 – 30 sec.’s below goal race pace on short rest. This was frequently my key run workout of the week and in a few cases repeats were run off the bike. 2) Less common were tempo runs, which were typically the middle 5-8 miles of my long run. Paces were near goal race pace and were either run as descending intervals or steady-state. The steady-state tempo runs above LT put the hurt on and were very infrequent, with one coming 5 weeks out and one 3 weeks out. Taper consisted of a 1.5 week slight reduction in volume followed by 1.5 weeks with a large reduction in volume. Intervals continued but with shortened duration.
Heading into the race I felt that my swim fitness was good….better than normal during race season. Bike fitness was suspect. I knew that I could push a bit more power for shorter intervals, but felt that I did not have many quality long rides in the ~6 weeks prior to the race. Run training…nailed it. Thought I could run a 1:35 off the bike on a great day. If I didn’t go sub 1:40 something was wrong.
Pre-Race
I decided to drive to Myrtle Beach because it was the least expensive form of travel and also allowed me to bring a bunch of crap, including being able to grocery shop before leaving and bringing familiar food for pre-race. Trip was ~700 miles, which equated to 12-13 hours of travel time. Had a great 3 bedroom house across the street from the Ocean lined up (thanks Dave!) which was shared with a handful of other athletes (who tore the course up on Saturday!) and a couple of sherpa’s. I was lucky to have the world’s best Sherpa traveling with me.
Athlete check-in was the day before the race. Made the 2-3 mile drive to the race site and got this done as soon as they opened on Friday. Put in a quick 45 min. brick after grabbing my packet. Workout was a 30 min. bike with 3-4 60-90 sec. intervals above race pace. After a quick transition took a 15 min. run with ~3 30 sec. intervals with 90 sec’s rest. Went back to transition later in the afternoon to rack my bike on the way to dinner. Hit a great Italian restaurant named Rossi’s for pasta and hit the hay around 10 p.m.
Race Morning
Alarm went off at 4:00 on race morning. Immediately ate breakfast, which as a bagel w. jelly, banana a chocolate chip cliff bar and coffee (~700 calories). About the coffee…I brought the CLE blend from Phoenix Coffee to get the morning started right. Phoenix coffee was the most important part of my breakfast, to be sure! Loaded the car with race gear and headed to transition at 5:30. My wave was scheduled to go off ~7:38 but the start was postponed by 15 minutes because the current was slowing as the tide changed. Even with the extra 15 minutes it was time to don the wettie and jump in the water before I knew it. Walked to the start with my favorite Sherpa and then headed out onto the pier to jump into the water.
Swim
The swim was in the intracoastal waterway. I expected saltwater, but it turned out to be freshwater. I still can’t figure out how this body of water was not salty but was affected by the tides. Weird. The swim course was a little unusual. It was an in-water start and we had to swim around a pier from a boat dock area to get into the intracoastal where we would swim our loop. We then had to swim back into a different boat dock area and exit onto a different pier. My wave was ~50-75 athletes. I lined up on the front and to the left which is my typical position. The gun went off and I was in a small pack that formed on the outside of the main pack. I was swimming hard to stay in position and after ~75 yards I decided to swim over to the main pack to look for feet. Right after I joined in the main pack we had to ‘jog’ out of the dock area and into the intracoastal. Got bumped a little and took one decent knock to my back/left side…but nothing bad enough to really affect my swim. Was able to get into a nice rhythm within 400 yds.
Made the turn buoy swimming hard but steady and immediatey notice a bit of a current sending some chop into our faces, but worse than that was the sun glare that made it impossible to see anything. Sighted on the packs of swimmers ahead because I could not see any buoy’s. Tasted gasoline in the water a couple times during the final ½ mile and got really upset to be swimming in the intracoastal which is designed for and used by boats, not people. The only thing I could do at this point was swim out of it as quickly as possible. Angry about the sun in my eyes and nastiness in the water I almost swam directly into the final turn buoy and headed towards shore, sighting off of a building near the swim exit to find the stairs up to the pier.
Swim 34:22. Pace 1:47
T1
Came into T1. Stripped wettie. Grabbed bike and gear. Left. Uneventful.
T1 time 1:52
Bike
The bike was a 2-loop closed course on the local highway. I was expecting it to be flat, which it mostly was. Steepest grades were on the overpass. I thought there would be potential for wind, and indeed there was wind. Lots of wind. We hit the headwinds on a long slow stretch of road with a bit of a grade. I did my best to not burn all my candle’s on this first loop as I knew we had another and expected that the winds would be worse on the 2nd loop. They were. The goal on the bike was to ride hard but under control on the first loop. The 2nd loop I would gauge my effort on how I was feeling and push some bigger gears if I felt strong. The bike was also time to take in my calories and H2O. I had a bottle of Perpetuem with ~650 calories and a gel flask with ~250 calories of hammer gel. Every 20 min. I would take in some calories with the goal being 250-300 calories/hr. on the bike along with ~20 oz. of water and some salt. I felt like my HR was a bit high starting the bike after a long run through T1. I started hydrating immediately, but waited until ~8 min.’s into the ride to take in any calories, which was a mistake.
Early on into the bike I began to feel like I was losing power and concentration. This is likely because I was in a bit of calorie debt after the swim and is something I have experienced in the past. In hindsight, I should have started to get in some calories immediately out of T1. Also, I need to find a way to get in some calories between breakfast and the swim. I took in zero calories in the 3+ hours before the race started. I was not hungry, but I do need to avoid this downturn early in the bike.
After getting in a few feeding cycIes my energy perked up and I continued to ride steady into the headwinds while keeping a nice high cadence, especially on the uphill grades. There was one really nice long downhill section with a great tailwind where I lowered my gear and cadence and was able to steal some recovery time while flying through the course. When I turned out for the 2nd loop I was a bit disheartened by my pace. The winds were taking their toll, but I made sure to ride within myself. I was not getting passed my many riders in my AG, so I kept telling myself that everyone’s bike splits were going to be slow with the wind. I did get passed by a couple of small packs of riders from waves behind me. I had a few choice words for the wheel suckers.
For the most part, the bike was uneventful. I got in my nutrition, fluids and salt and grinded into the wind. I knew that my bike fitness was suspect coming in and that I wouldn’t be making up much ground on the bike. I just wanted to hold position, which I seemed to be doing pretty well. At about mile 40 of the bike I began to get uncomfortable and ready to get onto the run. This is typical for races such as this with no climbing where I maintain aero position with little movement for the entire course. I tried to address this in outdoor training by riding aero as much as possible, which was not enough (due to traffic lights, hills, etc.) I need to address this in the future in two ways: 1) long trainer sessions and 2) continue to tweak fit. All in all, I was a bit discouraged coming off of the bike as my goal was to ride sub 2:30. Good news was that I got in my fluids and nutrition.
Bike calories: ~800 (~600 Perpetuem and ~ 200 gel). ~308 cals/hr avg.
Fluids: ~50 oz’s plain water.
Salt: 2 SaltStick tabs
Bike 2:36:11 pace 21.5 mph
T2
Racked bike, changed shoes and carried hat, race belt and nutrition through the exit. Get in, get out.
T2 time 1:27
Run
Run was three loops with quite a bit of shade. It was also flat with lots of trees lining the road (hence the shade). I saw an osprey overhead during the run. What a beautiful bird! I thought that I would despise the 3 loop course, but it wasn’t bad. It was nice to get the crowd support each time the loop neared transition. Going into the race I thought my run fitness was good and that this would be where I would be able to solidify a good race. Through the first 2 miles my legs were very tight and I really doubted how things would turn out after the windy bike ride. Once my legs loosened up things were going quite well and I was nailing my spits with consistency and under control. Run plan looked like this; miles 1-3 take it easy and loosen up. Miles 3-10 run hard, but steady and under control. Miles 10-finish run hard and give it all that’s left in the tank. Nutrition plan was to take a bit of water at each aid station and one hammer gel every 30 min. Take 1-2 salt pills (which I did not do). Also planned to dump water over my head and stuff ice in the jersey as much as possible to keep core temp down.
Once the legs loosened up I was clipping off the miles according to plan. Took gels right on schedule and was sipping water. Felt great. At the halfway point was beginning to work a little to maintain pace, but was still comfortable. I continued to have to increase my effort slightly to keep pace from mile 6 until mile 10. I was still relatively comfortable when I hit the 10 mile mark, where I looked down at my watch and saw 4:25. I started to do some math and felt that I still had a shot at 4:45 or at least a 4:47, even if I couldn’t quite nail the final 3 miles. So, I picked up the effort to where I was uncomfortable. This lasted about ½ mile and then the wheels fell off. You can call it blowing up or whatever you want, but the bottom line is that I immediately began to suffer and my pace dropped significantly. I began having all sorts of pain all over and begin to get dizzy with a queasy stomach...a couple of times I thought I might leave my Perpetuem and Hammer gels on the side of the run course. It took all I had just to keep moving forward, thank goodness I only had about 2.5 miles to cover at this point, because my race was over. Looking back at my splits, they tell the story well…
7:00/6:59/7:01/7:12/7:07/7:08/7:18/7:19/7:22/7:21/7:38/8:13/9:20
Run 1:37:07 pace 7:25
Run Calories: ~270 (3 hammer gels). ~167 cals/hr avg.
Salt – zero SaltStick tabs on run. This was a mistake. Should have taken at least 1 tab.
Total Race Calories: ~1070; ~225 cals/hr avg.
Total Time 4:50:56
35-39 AG 9/21
Overall 54/292
Overview
Overall I was happy with my result. I left 2-3 minutes on the run course in the final 5K to be sure and perhaps a couple more on the bike course by riding too conservatively into some of the headwinds. Other than that I could not have squeaked out much more time on the fitness that I had this year. I earned a spot to 2012 ITU worlds in Spain, but with only 21 people finishing the race in my AG and 20 worlds spots I could have walked the entire run course and still got in. My impressions on the race were mostly good. My biggest complaint was swimming in the intracoastal. With all of the boat traffic the water quality was terrible. Tasting gasoline may have ruined the race for me and may keep me from coming back. It may not have the immediate health effects of swimming in a toilet, but I don’t want to swim there nonetheless!
Also, there were not enough volunteers at the aid stations on course. It was not a huge problem but definitely limited the amount of water cups I could take at each aid station and also would have been a problem if I would have dropped a hand-up on the bike course as you only got one chance to grab a bottle. Besides that the race was well run with a fast field. 12 athletes broke 4:30 and 30 athletes broke 4:40. The only thing that might keep me from doing this race again is the swim, although the high level of competition, nice closed bike and run courses and worlds slots could bring me back despite the nasty swim.
