IM St. Croix

[BryanU]

So far, nothing about the past week has been conducive to a good race - I had a sleep deficit the night before we left, flew out at 11:30pm to arrive in Chicago for 3 hours then on to Puerto Rico where we had to gather baggage, walk it half a mile to check in again and fly on to St. Croix, arriving around 4:30pm yesterday. Very little so far has gone smoothly - almost not being given seats on the last flight, the bike and some bags arriving on a later flight to St. Croix and then the accomodations. I'm currently sitting outside the resort office waiting for a room. We got in yesterday evening, got our keys and dragged our bags and bikes up to our 3rd floor room - it was great! Nice big open kitchen connected to a spacious living room with stereo and DVD player, glass doors opening up to an ocean view, and a loft with king size bed. Sarah opened the closet to find someones clothes. The only other room available was a bright green and neon yellow first floor studio so we settled into that for the night, got some dinner at the neighboring restaurant and finally got to bed around 11pm. Not a great arrival.

Day 2: After getting up and getting our bags re-packed (just the thing you want to do each day) we talked to reception and they gave us another room - we checked it out and it was a smoking room. :mad: We left it for them to sort out and just hoped for the best when we got back later. We walked into town (about 2 miles) for the 11am harbor swim and swam the course. The salt water defintely adds a new element to the swim and the "breeze" had me thinking about CdA 2007 (it wasn't quite that bad but it wasn't great). Visibility is about 30 feet and you can see the bottom most of the time - sand, tropical fish, sea plants, and the occasion tire or bottle or metal rod. After lunch, I went through registration and then a 30 minute run (at which point I was dehydrated more than any 90 minute run at home) and now I'm waiting for a room again - at 3:46pm. They have one but it's being cleaned and its nice, but not nearly as nice as the first one, which makes it seem much worse than it is.

So far, the weather has been 75-85 degrees (and that's the forecast - 75 at night, 85 in the day) but it feels much warmer because the humidity hits you.

Tonight is the Carb party and Jump Up festival in the main part of town. But it's also my last chance to get some good rest and try to switch my clock to 3 hours off yours.

...

[andrew]

Good luck with the race Bryan, eat them up on the bike like you do with us :)
85 deg sounds fantastic, though not for a marathon!

[mgordon]

Bryan,

I know you'll make us proud down there, just give it everything you've got. I am sure all of that "man-work" around your house has made you
"strong-like-bull" so you'll be fine in the hills there. Plus the cheater rings, pardon me, Q-rings on your bike should helps propel you up those hills. I say just get in contact with Crowie on the bike and then rest up to unleash the fury on the run:)

Good luck, I'm anxiously waiting to hear the results!

Michael

[benbiggles]

Bryan,

Your journey makes Cindy and I missing our 2:45 ferry seem not so bad afterall! At least we know we have a room in a very nice four star hotel waiting for us ;)

Kick ass and do as Michael says, but don't run like Andrew, otherwise you have gone twice as far as you need to :eek:

Our energy is with you, god knows i'm not racing this year so have plenty to spare

[catrenajs@yahoo.com]

Good luck Bryan! Remember to have fun, too. Isn't that what it is all about?
Catrena

[BryanU]

Things have (thankfully) slowed down a bit now. Last night's Jump Up festival was fun, with streets full of people, steel drum bands, food and artisans but we didn't spend much time there - after a long wait for dinner, we were ready to turn in. We have moved into a good room and allowed our bags to explode across the place. My bike is assembled and inflated and I spent a little time riding part of the run course today. They paved about 400 yards of the bike/run course yesterday but nearly every inch of the rest of the course (from what I've seen) is worse than the worst pavement I've seen around seattle. On my ride, I lost 3 bottles in the first 3 miles - one of them, litterally disappearing in front of my eyes, when it rolled into a hole in the road as a car passed over it. :confused: I was less about 30 feet away and couldn't figure out how it could've just vanished like that until I got right next to it and saw it standing up in the hole. :eek: After the ride, I stopped by the makeshift bike shop and asked for a flat tube, bought some scissors and got out the electrical tape. 15 MacGyver minutes later and I now have rubber coated carbon fiber bottle cages with security straps.

I'm hoping to be in bed by 8 tonight, up around 3:30am, getting ready to leave the hotel around 4:30am for the 2 mile ride/drive to town - transition opens at 5am and my wave starts at 6:39am (that's 3:39am to you) - 6 minutes after the pro women and 9 minutes after the pro men (so, Michael, I'm hoping to catch Crowie around mile 15 of the bike :) - wouldn't that be nice). I'm really looking forward to this race.

OK, enough blabbering for this day - I'm sure I'll have plenty to say after tomorrow. The only question is whether I'll have the energy to say it, or the time - we've already booked jetski and sailing tours for early next week. :p

[MikePritch]

Bryan, no "jogging" out there. have a great race. looking forward to hearing about it.

[benbiggles]

Following Bryan on Ironman Live - Swim 34:55 (1:50/100m), Bike 2:46.18 (20.2mph).

He is still running but seems to he hurting out there, first 6.55 miles at 8:26 pace. I know he will hang tough and I am sure negative split the run, think the back half of the course is a little easier.

Come on Bryan :)

Here is the link to his stats - http://ironman.com//events/ironman70.3/stcroix70.3/?show=tracker&y=2008&race=/events/ironman70.3/stcroix70.3/&bib=268

[benbiggles]

He came off the bike in 10th in his AG, think he is now 17th - Here is the link to the 35-39 AG - http://ironman.com//events/ironman70.3/stcroix70.3/?show=tracker&y=2008&race=/events/ironman70.3/stcroix70.3/&bib=268

[Heidi]

Are you back from your "vacation" :) ? Race Report?

[BryanU]

OK, this is the draft version of my Race Report - it includes a lot of extra stuff that you might or might not be interested in. Why? Because I wanted to track everything that I was thinking and feeling for my future reference and planned on paring it down for public viewing. However, in it's detail, you might find something that I missed - or find something useful for yourself.

I got back on Friday night and wrote most of it while there but finished off the last of the run on the plane.

If you find it too long to read, just ask me how it went and I'll give you the abbreviated version - like I did for a race or two last year. :)

Here goes...

[BryanU]

----------------------------------------------------

Saturday, I was feeling a little like I was getting a sore throat. I had chosen to do a taper for this race – I hadn’t tapered for a half since my first half about 3 or 4 years ago.

Last 2 weeks, nearly always wore long pants and long sleeve shirts and a jacket. Bike workouts always included winter clothing, including skull cap and gloves – run workouts included sweatpants and jackets. Sarah often asked if I had been rained on when I returned from a run due to the soaking wet jacket.

Race Day

Woke up at 3:45am, coffee, oatmeal – heading out the door, where I forgot to unlatch the chain on the door and ripped it right off – I’m feeling strong! Body marked, set up transition, sunscreen, jog – feeling good. Suited up and swam over to the island for the start. The weather yesterday was cloudy and windy and (somewhat) cool – only around 80 degrees. Today was looking similar so far.

Pro men at 6:30am, pro women at 6:33am, my wave at 6:39am. Started hard and quickly settled into a comfortable pace – the sea seemed calmer today than in practice. I followed feet quite a bit but think I was swimming too easy most of the time. A few times, I picked up my pace and bridged gaps to other groups and then settled in. I had no idea what my time was but felt like I had barely done anything – probably a combination of the Mercerwood master’s group I’ve been swimming with and having swum fairly easy. I later found out that my swim time was a (slightly disappointing) 34:55 – 128 OA.

For the bike I had decided to try a different race plan than the ones of last year, believing that it would greatly benefit my run. Previously, my race plan was to go all out on the bike (which ended up being around 173bpm average) and then just gut-out the run for whatever I could. For this race, the plan was to hold back on the bike, ride a steady power output, and hope it paid off on the run. The St. Croix bike course is famous for The Beast – a ¾ mile long hill at mile 20 with an average grade of 14 and a maximum of 21 percent. Many people simply step off their bike and walk this. I had opted out of driving the course, feeling it wouldn’t help for the race plan I was going to use. This morning I ran into Mitch Gold and his advice was to make sure not to ride the first 20 too hard because the following 25 or so are hills into a headwind.

Through transition and onto the bike, I settled into my target bike heart rate of ~165bpm, which felt very easy. About 2 miles in and the main pro pack came past at about 50 mph with Crowie in front, pointing out potholes to the following pack. Mile 20, I begin the climb up The Beast. They had painted the names of each hill near the top of each hill on the course and The Beast had 1/10 mile markings and gradients painted all the way up – very nice. I found The Beast to be little to worry about; just a slow grind to the top, switching from seated to standing a few times but, as I started up The Beast it began to rain – hard. As I neared the top, it was a downpour with poor visibility and I knew that it was followed by a windy descent with a sharp left turn at the bottom – not what you want to ride in a downpour on carbon wheels with race tires. I took the decent with caution (not normal for me). For the rest of the course, there were some decent-length flats and plenty of hills – and a row of about 10 speed bumps which I bunny-hopped and passed about 10 people who were braking for each one. During this portion the sun came out and it was getting warm. The headwind that everyone spoke of during this portion was definitely present but wasn’t bothering me at all – I started telling myself that I was invisible to the wind. For the last 10 miles, I started easing back slightly to prep for the run. I had been riding at a higher cadence than in the past and my legs felt great. The only bad part of the last 10 miles was #242 who was in my age group and was keeping one bike length between himself and another cyclist, except when he was behind me when he would sit in on me. I told him off twice and was told by the other cyclist that he had been doing that the whole ride. I did my best to forget about him and focus on my race, knowing that negative thoughts don’t help. (I saw him in town after the race, checking out results with his teammates and let them know they had a cheating teammate – as they were praising them for his outstanding ride time.) The weather during the ride went from cloudy to rain to sun to partly cloudy but never really felt hot except for a few miles during the bike. 2h46m – 20.2mph – 70th OA.

Transition went fine – socks and shoes, grab a bottle, visor and number and start running. This is when the heat hits – it was just short of 10am, about 85 degrees and humid.

The Run course is two loops – each loop has about 2 miles on road and 2 miles through the grounds of the Buccaneer Resort – on gravel, pavement and grass – with 3 hills on the way out and a few hills in the resort – not a lot of flat. Aid stations were plentiful at 6/10ths of a mile apart and well stocked with the usual goods including ice and sponges.

From the first steps, it felt bad – heart rate too high and hard to get good breath. I struggled through to the first aid station at about 1 mile, where my left quad was twinging slightly. I tried a quick massage and very light stretch but it was threatening to cramp so I kicked back for a full quad stretch but my hamstring began to cramp – this is a scary position to be in with opposing muscles on the verge of cramping. My solution was to start walking until the cramping subsided then continue to run. Within 20 feet, the cramping was gone so I began running, but walked part of every aid stations and parts of the uphills, where I would walk to the top and start running again. My heart rate was going into the 180s (~200max) and I was getting the chills – one of the signs of overheating.

The walk breaks were used to lower my heart rate to the 160s and to try to get a grasp on why I was feeling so bad (aside from the lack of any chance of heat acclimation prior to arriving here on Thursday) – I had hydrated well on the bike, with about 35oz /hr including plenty of electrolytes and calories (too much of one?), and had not ridden hard at all. I started the bike with 4 hours worth of calories and electrolytes in water bottles and drank just over 3 hours worth. The best thing I could think of was that I had under-hydrated with respect to the amount of electrolytes I had consumed. Around mile 4, I switched to plain water and ice only.

Nearing the turnaround to start the second lap, I was passed by another in my AG and I jogged after him, matching his pace since it was an easy pace for me – and chatted with him for a few. Just past the turnaround, I saw Sarah and walked with her for about a block, telling her how bad I had been feeling. Finally, she said “We didn’t come here for you to not give it your best shot” – and I was off, hearing “I’m watching you, no more walking!” as I took off at around a 7-7:30 pace and feeling very good. I immediately passed the guy from my AG and said “I think we’ll be seeing each other some more”, then realized that I was feeling too good now for him to see me again. I stopped only at aid stations for water and ice, plus some on my head and on each wrist. With 10 miles down, I began the last part of my race plan – the 5k. I started grabbing Pepsi and water and a little of everything during shorter walk breaks, and started counting off the 35-39AG markings that I was passing. Skipping the last aid station, I passed 2 more from my AG as I saw the finish line. If you’ve ever done the Grand Columbian, you know that the finish line means that you still have to circle the block – this is similar except that you have to go about 11 blocks with 2 hills. I passed 1 or 2 more in my AG on the way to the finish, giving it everything I had left – averaging 187bpm for the last 2 miles. 1h51m – 90th OA.

Crossing the finish line, I dropped hands to knees, nearly toppling over. I was assisted to the nearby medical tent, covered with wet towels and asked a few questions – to which I’m pretty sure I correctly slurred the answers to. As my face began to tingle, they checked my vitals and offered an IV– “yeths pwiesz!”. A few pints of IV and a half hour in the med tent and I felt great – and they finally let me go.

[BryanU]

Looking back on this race, I have some ideas about what I did and didn’t do well. There are many things that could have contributed to my performance and a number of errors I made throughout the day – and weeks leading up to the race. I don’t know for sure about any of these things but here is a list of some of the thoughts I have:

Lack of heat acclimation – though I tried to wear extra clothing on runs and throughout the day, I underestimated how hot and humid it would be. Next time, I would try to acclimate a little more before departure and then do more workouts in the days before the race to acclimate better.
Bad race plan – My plan to race at lower perceived intensity than in the past, and use HR as a gauge (normally, I just go by feel) didn’t work out but maybe it could work out better if I had better HR ranges to work with. I need to do some testing to find my zones better because I believe I raced too far below my potential. This might also have kept me from really feeling warmed up during the bike so the run hit me harder. I definitely feel that I swam and biked far too easily for my conditioning.
Started the run too fast – I didn’t feel like I started the run fast but, looking at my GPS data for the start of the run, I was running 7 min/mile off the start. Needless to say, I should have gone for a slower pace, especially when I wasn’t feeling well – I also tried this and found it difficult. More T-runs after long rides would help – and I need to make sure they are long enough to feel the full transition to running form off the bike – and to work on pacing.
Poor time acclimation – With a 3 hour time difference from home, I was waking up for the race around midnight and the 6:39am wave start was 3:39am. I should have set a better schedule for getting up earlier (and going to bed earlier) each day leading up to race day – probably a week out would have been beneficial. That said, I’m not sure this caused me any ill effects on race day.
Travel schedule – We left the Wednesday night before with a layover in Chicago (3-4 hour flight) and another in Puerto Rico (5-6 hour flight) to arrive in the evening on Thursday. A better plan would have been to try for a non-stop flight, a layover that allowed a longer uninterrupted flight, or a planned stopover along the way to avoid nights on planes and a loss of full training days on the way.
TAPER – I have tapered for IM races but not Half-IM’s and don’t think I will again – not more than a few days to a week at most, especially for a Half-IM. I raced well under full training load last year and believe that it was more effective than what I did for this race. The type of taper I did could have been better also – I missed a few days of training in the final week due to schedule conflicts and unplanned changes at work.
More…\

[benbiggles]

Interesting stuff Bryan. Yes you really do need to dial in at least some rudimentary intensities in each discipline to more effectively take advantage of your 'actual' conditioning.

A power meter I feel would be of huge benefit to you. Chris, I am sure will second this. You clearly had a good level of conditioning going into this race. Out of interest if you are willing to share, what were your performance goals?

I have found that regular performance trials and realistic prescription of race day performance goals (where I know an athlete has certain aspirations) is a sure fire way to condition the athlete to what to expect on race day, they know this because it has become second nature in training. Now this does not consider acclimation but does go a long way to ensuring the athlete is 'ready' and does not make pacing execution mistakes.

Want to go out and ride 21mph for an ironman then you have to do this repeatedly in training (and some rides in excess of this). If your longest hardest training rides are not close to this then the expectation was unrealistic. I am sure you follow where I am headed. Combine this with lactate profiling and putting 'limits' on max hr during race day and everything should go smoothly......should ;)

Anyhow great race report and good job for calling out the cheater.

[Ryan]

First off let me say great race either way Bryan, I think it would be fun to someday do a race when I actually passed people and not have them all pass me:)

Ben- with all of your racing experience all over in many climates I am some questions.
A. I know that people pull it off (might be all pros), but how would you recommend someone from a climate like we live in here, prepare for a race like St. Croix, (heat, humidity).
B. Also how do you think someone should best prepare for an out of town race when they really don't know the terrain etc. It seems that unless you live on the course/close by it is pretty hard to duplicate it.
C. I know that for me due to high body fat/size the heat is a major factor as my sweat rate is brutally hard to stay in front of and not have issues.
Thoughts?