Race report: Great Floridian XVIII 2008 (IM-distance triathlon)

The Swim

The 3.8 km swim is two laps in Lake Minneola. Race morning a strong wind is blowing and the conditions are fairly choppy.

I place myself up front. The announcer starts to count down the race. At the gun I look at my watch and register the time 7:34 – 4 minutes late. Visibility is zero. I push fairly hard the first 2 minutes and then try to settle into a good pace, however, about 5 minutes into the swim a person from out of nowhere kicks me in the face. I hadn't seen that coming and I am doubly surprised when my goggles are kicked off too. Scrambling in the water I somehow manage to grab the goggles. That was close, had I lost the goggles it would have been a long and uncomfortable swim. I settle into my own rhythm again and give it an extra push. Very soon my heart rate is too high and the psychological claustrophobia of being locked in and committed to an entire day of non-stop exercise starts to play in my mind. To calm myself I take the "foot off the speeder" and try to swim easy and efficiently.

I feel like we have been swimming for about a kilometer and sure enough about 400 m ahead of us is the turnaround that will take us back to shore. Reaching the shore I look at my watch. 31-32 minutes for the first lap, not bad, just have to keep this up and I will finish in around an hour and 5 minutes which is good enough for me. I take it really easy during the beach turnaround keeping my heart rate under control. In Cayman I have trained the swim to run transitions on Seven Mile Beach with Johan Heath, Alex Harling, David Walker and others, so I am very familiar with the odd feeling of having to swim after a little run.

The second lap is pretty uneventful. I swim by myself all the way and basically cruise to the finish, hitting the beach, feeling good. Okay, now on to transition. There is still a long day ahead.

Race Status 1h05m23s
Overall 23/241
Age Group 7/48

T1

Coming out of the water there are people on hand to help us out of our wetsuits. I take off my watch to make sure it doesn't snag on my wetsuit and strip my upper body. I'm told to lie down and a twosome grabs my suit and strips it off me. I stand up and begin running towards the change tent while rolling up my wetsuit. A volunteer hands me my bike bag and points in the direction of the changing tent entrance. In the bike bag is another plastic bag – the wetsuit bag - for the wetsuit, goggles and cap. I fill the wetsuit bag and begin to fit on my bike shorts (for extra comfort), bike shirt, cycle helmet, glasses and Garmin, and with wetsuit bag in hand it's out to the bike racks. I drop the wetsuit bag outside the tent and start running towards my bike. Grabbing the bike I run out of transition passing the timing mat.

Transition time 4m36s
Age Group 10/48

The Bike

The 180 km course consists of one loop along rural country roads. No major elevation changes, but the first 60 km has numerous rolling hills and a steep but short climb up Sugarloaf Mountain. The last 30 km is also fairly hilly. Support/aid stations are located approximately 20 km apart.

I mount the bike and start pedaling. At this stage my feet are not in my shoes. After having built a little speed, I slip my feet into the shoes. Unfortunately I have not being paying attention to obstacles in front of me and suddenly find myself on a small but very steep hill. I panic and grab my gear shift, but shift up instead of down making it impossible to pedal up the hill. By this time I am half way up the hill and nearly at a standstill. The only option is to jump off the bike. Luckily I doesn't take me long to pull the bike up the last bit and I’m on my way. My Garmin has found all the satellites by now, so I start the timer - I guess about 4 minutes late out of transition. The first part of the course is on paths and roads and to my surprise extremely hilly. I certainly wasn't expecting this out of transition. In retrospect I should have done my homework and realized what was in store.

I am riding the course completely "blind", I have no idea what is in store. Small orange stenciled arrows on the road are provided as guides and larger arrow signs at key turns. There are a lot of turns, smaller hills and pathways on this first 5 km and in some parts the road surface is fairly rough. I fight the hills and wind and pass about 6 riders on the first 10 km.

By now my body has fully adjusted to the bike ride ahead and I settle into a nice pace. Half an hour into the ride I grab a power bar. My plan is to eat one of these every hour together with a gel. That will give me a little more than 300 calories per hour which is what is recommended for a person of my weight. I also have a bottle of Gatorade (around 200 calories) on my bike to top up with once in a while. At the first aid station I grab some water and fill up my front water bottle. This will be a ritual at nearly every aid station I pass for the rest of the ride.

With about 40 km into the ride we make a sharp left and then another straight after that. There in front of me is mighty Sugar Loaf Mountain, the highest point in Florida. Well there is no way back, will just have give it my best shot. It is a short, but steep climb. I put my bike in the third lowest gear, stand up in the saddle and start pedaling hard. It is tough, but actually feels nice to be out of the saddle pushing hard on the pedals. It seems to be getting steeper and steeper on the last bit before it finally starts to level out around the summit. There it’s done, my heart rate has risen at least 30 bpm.

The next 20 km consist of hills and rollers, some of which I am able to power over with hardly any loss of speed. I am generally careful not to push too hard on the descents. The wind gusts at times grip my bike (or my high profile wheels) making it very uncomfortable to ride any faster than 60 km/h.

Around 65 km into the ride, we reach the flats. At this stage I still have other riders around me. I settle into a nice grinding pace. I slow a little as I am trying to eat my power bar. A cyclist passes me. He doesn't get too far ahead. He seems to be going at a reasonable pace, so I decide to follow him staying around 20 m behind to avoid a drafting penalty. It is very comfortable just to let him lead. I stay behind him for the next 25 km. He starts to slow and I pull away. I pass another rider shortly thereafter wondering whether the 100 km mark is some sort of barrier for these riders. I certainly haven't increased the pace, but simply kept it going.

The next 50 km I am all by myself. I sometimes wonder whether I am going the right direction or have taken a wrong turn. With about 30 km left, we start sharing the course with those doing the half Ironman (IM). I start passing a lot of slower riders, clearly part of the half IM crowd. The ride will soon be over. For the past 40 km or so I have felt the need to stretch my back and lift myself out the saddle which is far from comfortable right now. I am really looking forward to getting off the bike. Up in front of me I spot a rider who seems to be travelling about the same speed as me. It must be a full IM rider. When we reach the lake, he is only 20 meters in front of me, but this time I am not worried about overtaking, rather I spin the pedals, stretch and focus on the run ahead. We reach the dismount area at the same time.

Below is a graphical presentation of my ride. On the y-axis is my speed measured in km/h and on the x-axis is the distance. From the graph you can clearly see the parts of the course that are hilly, i.e. where there is high variability in the speed. Bike Split: 5h20m04s
Overall: 7/241
Age Group 1/48

Race status: 2nd in age group, 8th overall.

T2

I hand off my bike to a volunteer and receive my T2 run bag. I rush into the change tent. I make a reasonably quick change, taking of bike jersey and helmet and putting on socks, running shoes and a cap. I also put some sports jelly beans in the back pockets of my tri suit. I ask a volunteer for sunscreen, but there is none left. I am already a bit sunburned on my arms and legs and it is not going get any better. Not much I can do about it now, so I head out of the tent and pass on my stuff to a volunteer. Then it occurs to me that I haven't taken off my bike shorts. I quickly take them off and put them in the bag the volunteer is holding, now on to the run. But no, I haven't put on my race belt either. I grab the bag from the volunteer and start rummaging through it to find the belt with number. There got it. I put it on and off I go. That was unexpected. I hope I am not confused from dehydration of something. Looking at the watch as I run out of transition I can see I need around a 3h30m marathon to put me in contention for a sub 10 hour time. I entertain the thought of trying a 3.30, but decide I will just run by feel to begin with and not look at my Garmin.

Transition time: 4m09s
Age group: 5/48

The Run

The 42.2 km course is criterion style with three laps around Lake Minneola. Each lap also has a 1 km flat out and back section on the South Lake Trail. Support/aid stations are located approximately 2 km apart. Each support station is equipped with water, thirst quencher, ice, sponges, cola (defizzed), fruit and assorted foods.

I feel pretty good. There is a slight tightness in the stomach, but not something to be worried about. I have tried much worse. The first few kilometers roll by, most of the people I pass are doing the half IM. I have no idea of my race position. My pace has decreased a little and my stomach is also tighter now. I don't like where this is heading. I have to rid myself of this stomach problem. About 7 km into the run I grab a banana from the aid station. This will be a first for me eating a banana on the run, but I am hoping it will calm my stomach. I walk for about 30 m while I have the banana and a healthy cup of water. About 3 km later I feel better. I look at my Garmin, I've run the first 10 km in around 51 minutes, wow, that is faster than I was expecting. More kilometers roll by and I've completed the first of three loops. Only one person has passed me and I'm clearly running better than most runners out there.

At the start of the second lap I start running with a guy doing the IM. He was ahead of me out of transition. It's nice to run with someone else. We don't exchange many words, but just get on with the running business. There are many more IM athletes on the course now, a lot are barely running. I hit the half marathon in around 1h50m. I have been slowing a bit lately and I seem to be slowing even further. The last kilometers have been tough and it is certainly not getting any easier. Looking at my watch I reckon my km splits have been between 5:30 - 5:20 for some time now. For the rest of the second lap, I more or less manage to keep the same running pace, but start to walk the aid stations to ensure hydration and energy. I also try and eat some of the sports beans I have brought with me, but just can't seem to stomach them. Each aid station adds about 20 seconds extra to my time but I'd rather be able to run later than blow up.

At the start of the last lap I lose my running buddy. My left thigh is tight. I am not worried about the thigh at this stage unless I gets worse. My strategy of asking (or should I say shouting) for a cup of ice at every aid station and pouring it down your trisuit to let it seep down to my crutch seems to have worked wonders. I have had no problems with heat so far although it is a fairly hot and fairly humid day. An IM runner passes me going around a 4:45 min/km pace I guess. I try to stick with him for a while, but it is tough going and I decide to stay true to my pacing strategy instead and loose sight of him after a while. I look at my Garmin and realize I only have about 10 km to go. I'm nearly there and feel good. I might as well try and increase the pace now. Even if I blow-up I'm still looking at a sub 11 hour finish which would be awesome. I look at my watch with about 5km to go. I'm running a sub 5 minute per km pace now. I'll break 10h30m! Closing in on the transition area I increase the pace even further. I hit the final steep hill just before the downhill to the finish. I push fairly hard up the hill and 20 m from the top I start sprinting. I'm nearly there now. I feel like I'm flying. A sharp left and I can see the finish line. I raise my arms as I cross the line.

Run Split: 3h43m28s
Overall: 10/241
Age group: 4/48

Final Race Time: 10h17m43s
Overall: 8/241
Age group: 2/48

Post race analysis

I have come a long way since I started to entertain an IM last year and the prospect of qualifying for Hawaii. It has taken a lot of training to get to the point where I am now, and I’m ecstatic that I have just managed to complete an IM.

For a first time go at the IM distance I don’t think I could have had a much better race. I was well prepared and used my experience gained during the Florida half earlier in the year to guide my training. Of special importance was the run training with Scott Brittain and Russel Coleman. I am certain that the sessions with them have helped to push my run endurance to new levels.

Key take-aways

• Keep goggle straps underneath swim cap.
• Have a pacing strategy, I felt I was holding back all day, finishing strong ensured a good time.
• Although it is tough to eat, have Power bars and gels by the clock.
• Only take a couple of bags of sports beans on the run.
• Grab a cup of ice at every aid station and pour down the trisuit.
• Try eating a banana to solve stomach issues.

For the next IM event, which hopefully will be a Hawaii qualifier, I will try to depart from my conservative racing strategy. I am not sure it is worth pushing much harder on the bike. But I certainly want to take some more risk on the run and try a sub 3:30 marathon.

However, the year is not over yet, there is still the Turtle Tri in about three weeks and the Cayman marathon two weeks later. I am looking forward to giving the Turtle Tri a good go. I expect I will be chasing the fast swimmers on the bike and running like crazy to keep some of them behind me on the run. For the Cayman marathon, I am not so sure I want to try and push the pace. I have been entertaining a 3 hour finish, but the IM has drained me of a lot of energy. Nonetheless I will certainly go for a 3:15 finish which is my Boston qualifying time in my age group.