Tag: ironman

IRONMAN World Championship Race Report [October 8, 2016]

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A total of 11 days have passed since racing the IRONMAN World Championships in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii and I’m finally ready to reflect how my race-day unfolded.

This was my second time to the island and I really wanted to do much better than my 2014 result. But more importantly, I was looking to have a strong performance – something that I have been building up to for almost a year. Unfortunately, just a couple days before the race, I came down with a fever and chills that lasted nearly 24 hours. I knew something was wrong when the water in Dig Me beach felt cold…not even the delicious coffee from the coffee boat helped warm me up. This sudden turn of events left me with one option – to rest as much as I can and to head into race day knowing that I will try my best.

And so I did just that. It wasn’t pretty but in the end, I got myself to the finish line in 10 hours and 47 minutes.

Swim – 1:11:34

If you have been following my progression throughout the year, you might already know that my weakest part of a triathlon is the swim. With half ironman swims ranging from 34 minutes to 39 minutes this season, I had predicted that I would swim close to 1:16 in Kona. So imagine the surprise when I exited the water nearly 5 minutes under my expected goal! I drafted off the swimmers in front of me for the majority of the swim and exited the water feeling good; pumped that I had taken 11 minutes off my 2014 Kona swim. I took my time in transition to put on sunscreen before heading off to grab my bike.

Bike – 5:19:06 (21.06 mph avg)

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Anything can happen on the Kona bike course. The first two hours were fine; power was a little lower than expected and I was passing lots of faster swimmers along the way. It wasn’t until about 50 miles into the ride that I realized that the nutrition was not going down (or staying down) so I made the switch to try and take in more liquid nutrition at the subsequent aid stations. The approach to Hawi and the climb to the turnaround was met with a cross-wind coming over the right shoulder so I sat up during the climb to gain some more power.

I hit the turnaround, ditched my bottles and grabbed two new ones before the descent. Things were heating up and my nutrition plan had been compromised, either by the heat or the residual effects of my fever earlier in the week (or a combination of both).

Nonetheless, I hammered away as best as I could, knowing that I can still overcome a bad day by playing it smart. After descending from Hawi, I made sure that I would fuel up at each aid station since none of the solid foods were going down. At one of the last aid stations, I saw a volunteer hold up a bottle of Coke and I couldn’t resist. Coke never tasted so good after four and a half hours of drinking orange flavored Gatorade and water. With about 15 miles left, it was all headwind, a pretty steady one that forced me to stay tucked into aero-position in an effort to minimize drag.

I rolled into T2 feeling very hot, a little overcooked and ready to tackle the marathon run.

Marathon – 4:06:13

The original plan for the run was to negative split it by running the first half very easy. That plan went out the door at the very first aid station on the run when I felt light-headed and out of energy. My stomach was not having it today and I tried to nibble on some pretzels and bananas. At that point, I was hoping that this feeling would pass and that I would feel better. I decided to run between aid stations and walk through aid stations to grab enough water and nutrition.

Around mile 4, a guy ran up to me and told me to run with him. He introduced himself as Craig, wearing a Team Timex kit. We ran together for a couple of miles before he had to stop to take care of nature’s calling. But before we split up, he reassured me that “We will get to the finish line”. I used his words to motivate me at times when I wanted to just quit.

After walking up Palani Road towards Mile 11, lots of clouds rolled in providing some relief from the sun and heat. By this point of the marathon, some pretty nasty blisters had formed in under the balls of my feet. To remedy it, I took off my socks – which worked briefly but the pain from the blisters came back every time I ran longer than a couple of minutes.

There wasn’t much I could do to get rid of the blister pain and there was no medical tent along the Queen K. Along the highway, I saw some familiar faces…first Hugh and then Talbot, both of whom where not racing and were out cheering and taking photos.

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photo credit: Hugh W.

After passing the point where spectators were not allowed on the Queen K, I made my best effort to not stop running until the aid stations. I hit the energy lab and grabbed an entire can of Red Bull, chugged it and maintained a slow but steady shuffle. For the first time during the marathon, I did not stop to walk at an aid station. Exiting the energy lab meant I had about an hour left on the run (at my current pace). The blisters were killing my feet and I tried to focus on the runners ahead of me to take my mind off the pain. Eventually, I got to Palani Road and it was all downhill to the finishing line.

With all I had left, I ran as fast as I could down Alii Drive and across the finish.

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celebrating with Kristin on her 4th place Age group!

Ironman Kona was yet another humbling experience that heavily tested my mental ability to keep going forward when all seems to go wrong. I certainly did not materialize my training on race day, but was able to dig deep mentally and not give up. 

Thank you to my family and friends that helped make this endeavor possible.

Thank you…

  • CEEPO Bikes, Marc-Andre, Gilles, Steve, and Joe for the bike support. The CEEPO Viper held up to those crazy crosswinds!
  • Team Chocolate Milk for the post-race recovery
  • ISM Seat, Brickwell Cycling, Headsweats, Honey Stinger and Rudy Project

The next blog post will include more about Kona, some more take-aways, and what is up next.

Thanks for reading! 

IRONMAN 70.3 Steelhead Race Report [August 14, 2016]

Another month, another race. After a breakthrough performance last month at IRONMAN 70.3 Muncie & securing my spot at the 2017 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships, I took a few days to recharge and recover before starting another training block.

Christina and I spent a few days training around the flatlands and cornfields in central Indiana before heading to Benton Harbor on Saturday. We arrived at Jean Klock Park around 2pm for race packet pickup – the registration line was incredibly long but thanks to our All World Athlete status, we skipped the line and breezed through registration in 10 minutes.

Afterwards, we did a short shakeout swim in Lake Michigan. Water temps were much warmer than I had expected…the one previous time I had stepped foot in Lake Michigan was during my 2010 trip to Chicago where water temps were in the low 60’s.

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Little did I know, the warm water temperatures would result in a non-wetsuit legal swim portion of the race.

Race Day – Sunday, August 14th, 2016

Swim: non-wetsuit announcement meant that I wouldn’t have the chance to swim in my Zone3 Vanquish wetsuit. Being in Wave #5, I started 16 minutes after the first wave along with the relay team swimmers. I lined up on the left side of the group in an attempt to avoid the thrashing and kicking of other swimmers that populate the middle and inside lane (right-hand side). Within a few minutes of the swim, I had found some feet to follow and decided that it was a comfortable pace. I spent the rest of the swim in the slipstream and reached the beach in 39 minutes and 38 seconds.

Although this is my slowest swim since last year’s Ironman 70.3 Eagleman, I had exited the water feeling very relaxed. Drafting for nearly the entirety of the 1.2-mile swim portion of the race proved to have saved tons of energy.

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Transition #1: Slapped on my Rudy Project aero helmet AND put on bike gloves for the very first time in a triathlon!

Bike: The legs were feeling super strong in the first hour of the bike, producing 245 watts of normalized power at 26mph. The roads were super bumpy and I was relieved to have worn my bike gloves. However, I had dropped one of my water bottles early on and had to grab a bottle at an aid station with about 10 miles left. The second hour of the bike was a slight fade, dropping my average power down to 241 watts for the 56-mile split. To my surprise, I was able to better my 70.3 Muncie time of 2:12:14 down to 2:11:59, a personal-best in time & power.

 

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Transition #2: Quickly racked my bike and sat down to clean off the sand covering my feet before putting on my New Balance RC1600 racing flats.

Run: There was one goal – to run even mile splits. Once out of transition, there were five other guys immediately up the road for me to pin down. I passed those guys within the first couple of miles and once I started the 2nd loop of the run, there was a lot more company. Nothing out of the ordinary happened as I ticked off each mile. With about two kilometers to go, I picked up the effort towards the finish, gave Christina a high-five as she passed me going the other way. The 13.1-mile run resulted in 1:27:03.

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Total race time of 4:23:44, a 2nd personal best finishing time in the half ironman distance.

Coming out of the water 29th-place in the Men’s 25-29 age group, the consistent bike and run combination ultimately placed me in 2nd-place [& 14th-place Overall].

Despite the unseasonably warm water conditions and losing a water bottle through the bumpy roads of south-western Michigan, IRONMAN 70.3 Steelhead provides an enjoyable race experience. Did I mention that they had CHOCOLATE MILK at the finish? Chug!!!


Thank you to all my sponsors, friends and family.

Special shoutout to Christina’s parents for being our race ‘sherpas’!

Thank you for reading 🙂

IRONMAN 70.3 Muncie Race Report [July 9, 2016]

Racing and completing the 2016 edition of Ironman 70.3 Muncie, Indiana definitely puts it on top as one of my favorite races. Christina and I checked in on Friday, the day before the race, and was greeted by Chris, one of my Team Chocolate Milk teammates. We did a short swim in Prairie Creek Reservoir to test out the water temperature followed by check-in at the Ironman expo adjacent to the reservoir.


Race Day – Saturday, July 9th, 2016

Since we stayed in Indianapolis, our wake up call was at 3:45. We were in no rush since we calculated the drive and also allocated the expected parking delays near the race venue. By 5:30am, we had arrived at Prairie Creek Reservoir, ate breakfast, and headed towards transition for final preparations.

I often joke around about IRONMAN’s All World Athlete program, because essentially, it is a “frequent flier program” and not an accurate indication of personal performance on a global level. HOWEVER, due to the “AWA” program and my current ‘GOLD’ status, Christina and I were awarded with low race numbers; 121 and 31, respectively. Low race numbers meant that we racked our bikes in the very first row of transition, making it easy to remember our location. Go AWA!

The first swim wave was at 7am and my wave was 19 minutes arrears. Water temps were over the wetsuit limit so a slower time was expected. The first half of the swim was quite pleasant – the yellow buoys were easy to sight and I felt in control. With the sun directly in our sights on the way back to shore, it was challenging to sight my line. All I hoped was to see one of the buoys every few minutes to see how much I veered off course. The result – 38 minutes 10 seconds…and 30th (yes, 30th!!!!) out of the water in my age group. That is certainly not the result I was hoping for, but there was still 69 miles of racing left…

I quickly ran through transition as fast as I could, slapped on my Rudy Project Wing 57, grabbed the Ceepo Viper and went to work! The goal was to average about 240 watts for the 56 mile bike ride. With only about of 1000 feet of total elevation gain, the bike course was super fast. For me, I mainly focused on staying relaxed, while targeting riders up the road. The first hour of the bike was a little softer than the second half, but it proved to be a successful tactic, resulting in a personal best 56-mile, 2:12:14 bike split…and 4th in my age group.

Running out of transition, I knew that there weren’t many guys ahead of me; maybe 10-15 guys at the most. The goal for the run was to execute an even effort; no looking at the watch, no heart rate monitor; just feel. By mile 2, I passed a guy in my age group, putting me in 3rd position. The legs were feeling strong but mainly because I kept on reminding myself to keep my cadence up. If the run cadence falls, so would everything else. According to the tracker, I passed the halfway mark of the run averaging 6:15 min/mile pace. From the turn around, I kept my effort as consistent as possible. I saw Christina at around mile 9 and she was looking strong and focused.

My secondary goal was to make it to the Mile 11 marker before emptying the tank. By mile 11.5, I could see another guy up the road and didn’t know if he was in my age group, so there was only one option – pass him and hope he doesn’t have a response to the pass. By mile 12.3, at the last aid station, I made my move and didn’t look back until I crossed the finishing line with a personal best 13.1-mile run time of 1:24:19.

[Yes, that guy I passed at mile 12.3 was in my age group.]

Total race time – 4:18:23, 10th overall, 2nd in Males 25-29 category.

I was overjoyed by this performance – a personal best finish time in the half ironman, 56-mile bike split and 13.1-mile run off the bike.

Aside from the slower than expected swim split, my bike and run combo proved to be on form. There is still a lot of fine tuning to be done before I can consider myself ready for IRONMAN Kona in less than three months. 

Both Christina and I qualified and claimed our spots at the 2017 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships on September 9th and 10th at Chattanooga, Tennessee. 


Thank you to CEEPO Bikes, ISM Seat, Team Chocolate Milk, Honey Stinger & Brickwell Cycling! Thank you Chris & Molly Day for the hospitality, Mr. & Mrs. Lauer for hosting and race sherpa, and Katie for driving my bike back to NYC! 

Next up is IRONMAN 70.3 Steelhead on August 14th, where Christina and I will be looking to improve on both our results. 


Thanks for reading!

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