On July 28, 2018, I traveled up to Santa Rosa, CA to compete in IM70.3 Santa Rosa.
Quick Race Summary
For those who just want the details:
Swim: CANCELLED
T1: NONE
Bike: 2:47:27
T2: 7:27
Run: 2:26:43
Total: 5:21:37 (153rd AG, 1171st overall)
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| This pic kind of sums up the day for me. People get in the way sometimes, not much you can do about it (please, limit your finish line happy dance to 5 seconds or less). |
Pre-Race:
I signed up for this race right after IM Texas, at which time I felt ready to go after a sub-5 hour 70.3. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to go right for me after Texas. I injured my neck in the pool (no training for over 3 weeks), got sick for a week, and have been dealing with crazy hours and stressful times at work. Despite all of that, I decided to go through with the race, but decided to focus more on the vacation and rest than the race performance itself. I wasn't able to maintain the consistency and volume of training that I knew I needed to perform well. So, this would be another 'fun' race instead of a PR attempt. On Wednesday the 25th, I packed everything up, and headed to Santa Rosa with my family.
I went for a ride Thursday morning, and did a full recon of the run course. I was pleased at how nice and cool it was in the mornings, even though I knew it would warm up quite a bit throughout the day. The run course was mostly on a narrow trail on both sides of Santa Rosa Creek. Though there were a few exposed sections, there was a decent amount of shade on the course. Hills were also fairly minimal. All in all, a decent and potentially fast run course, though the narrow parts have potential for some crowding.
Friday, I did a very short run with some form drills and striders to keep the legs awake, then headed to T2 to hang my running gear in my transition spot. I also wanted to see the pro panel at the race expo, so we hung out for a bit waiting for that. I also ran into Jim Manton from ERO Sports, who fits and aero tests many of the pros in the race along with a lot of us in PTC. Apparently I had just missed Linsey Corbin, who was talking to Jim as I came up. Next up was a drive up to Lake Sonoma to drop off my bike and gear at T1. I had no bike course knowledge, so I was eager to try and get a look at some of the roads I'd be racing on the next day. The area near T1 was extremely crowded, and the volunteers were having a tough time managing the traffic. We eventually got through and parked in a dirt lot a few hundred yards up the road. I walked down with my bike and made my way into transition. My spot was actually very close to the bike out area, but about as far from the entrance as you could be. This meant extra running after the swim, but a short trip to the mount line from my rack, which I think is ideal. I got everything situated, deflated my tires a little, then headed out. It was quite hot, and I didn't want to waste any energy baking in the sun. As we were driving back to Santa Rosa, I got a notification on my phone: due to potential fog issues, the swim may be shortened or cancelled... WHAT??
The night before the race, I had a nice quiet dinner with my family at a place called the Bird and the Bottle, which had excellent food (highly recommended). After a nice meal, I spent a few minutes making sure I had everything ready for race morning, then turned in nice and early.
Race Morning:
I woke up at 3:30am and did my usual routine (vitamin c, bottle of fluids, and two bonk breaker bars). I skipped the coffee, as our hotel had terrible coffee in the room. I grabbed my swim gear, another bottle of fluids, and headed out. my wife drove me to the shuttle bus pick-up area, and I hopped right onto a bus and started the drive up to the lake. As we got closer to the lake, the fog indeed showed up, big time. Driving over the bridge, you couldn't see anything below. I walked over to my bike, put my fluids and nutrition on, got my bike computer fired up, and made sure all the sensors were connecting. Lots of condensation had formed everywhere, but the gear in my bike bag was completely dry. I took my bike over to the bike tech area to air up the tires, and took the opportunity to run through the gears with my Di2 shifters to make sure everything was good. I inadvertently cut in front of about 200 people who were waiting in line for the pumps (my bad). I re-racked my bike, and headed down the hill to the swim start area. I heard there was a significant uphill run from the lake to T1, so I wanted to have a look at that, and also to see the swim start up close. The hill was definitely steep, but it turned out to be a non-factor. The fog was so thick you couldn't even tell what direction to head out for the swim, no buoys visible anywhere. I found a comfy place to sit and relax a bit, and sure enough an announcement was heard saying they postponed the race start hoping to let the fog burn off, but then later told us the swim was off. We'd be doing a time-trial start of the bike leg to get the race going. I headed back to my bike and started preparing.
Bike:
The time trial start without a swim was a new experience for me. The pros all draw a starting position out of a hat, and basically go out one at a time with a short time gap between each rider. For the age groupers, you go out in groups of 4 or 5, every few seconds, and go in bib number order. I was bib 2776 out of about 3400 people, so I had quite a wait on my hands. By the time I was lined up to head onto the course, it had been about 1 hour, 45 minutes since the first pros took off. I did have a little bit of extra nutrition, and water was available so I did my best to try and stay topped off before I started my race.
I finally took off, more than 2 hours later than I would have, had there been a swim. I immediately passed a group of people ahead of me on the first downhill. As I picked up speed on the descent, I went to change gears and realized that my aero extension shifters were not working! My left base bar shifters (which control my chain ring shifts) were also not working. The only shifters I had available were on the right base bar to control the rear derailleur. This meant I'd be doing all of the hills in my big chain ring, and that my front derailleur would be rubbing a lot when I was climbing.
The first decent hill comes at around mile 5. Normally, I'd say it wasn't too bad, but climbing it in a 53 tooth chain ring wasn't much fun. Still, I managed to keep my watts from going too crazily high, and surprisingly my heart rate and perceived exertion weren't as bad as I thought they'd be. I passed a lot of people here, and once we started the downhill, I was able to really settle into a nice rhythm. I did notice that starting towards the back meant I would have to pass a lot of people, and this frequently caused issues: braking, bad gear selection, and I came out of my aero position very frequently. Even with all of that, as we approached halfway on the bike, I checked my average speed and was hovering right around 21.5 mph, which I thought was decent, all things considered. A couple miles later, we hit the bigger hill: Chalk Hill road. I had never ridden this road before, but other people I know who have ridden it told me it was not much of a climb and not to worry about it. However, I thought it was a decent climb once I saw it up close. Once again, I had to go up in my big ring, but fortunately I had decided to put my 11x28 cassette on my disc wheel, so I shifted all the way down to a 53x28 for a lot of the climb, which was noisy as the cross-chaining rubbed my front derailleur quite a bit. I also quickly learned that if I stayed in the saddle with this gear ratio, I had to push really big watts. I was able to push less power by standing, and trying to sway my body weight over the pedals. I ended up averaging a little over 300 watts for that segment, which wasn't that high. I'd probably be closer to 250-260 watts if I had my other gears available.
Once I was past Chalk Hill road, I was looking forward to making up for some lost time on flatter roads. However, I hit my third and final 'bump' in the road. Not long after we came off of the climb, my front tire started feeling a little mushy. I could also hear a very distinct ticking sound each time my wheel made a revolution. I could see that something was stuck to the tread of my tire. I wasn't wearing gloves, so I decided not to try to wipe whatever it was off of the tire. I had to make a quick stop. As it turns out, it wasn't glass, or a thorn, or just a shard pebble. It was a tack! By now, my tire was nearly completely flat, so I went ahead and pried it out. It wasn't super long, but had a very wide base to it, not your typical thumb tack, but maybe something used for roofing? I don't know for sure. However, I later learned that many people got punctures due to these tacks, and I did see a LOT of people changing flats on this ride, especially within about 5 miles of where I was. So anyway, I didn't panic. I actually practice tire changes and knew I could make quick work of this issue, especially since it was the front tire, and not my rear disc wheel. To make it even easier, two volunteers on bikes came up to me and helped. One guy held my bike up while I dealt with the front wheel, and the other guy put my Co2 cartridge and chuck together for me. All I had to do is get the punctured latex tube out, put one of my spare butyl tubes in, and get the tire back on. I had the wheel back on and ready to ride VERY quickly. And since I was stopped, I went ahead and grabbed a 4mm allen key and popped my headset cover off to see if I could find the issue that had caused my Di2 shifting to stop working. I spent maybe 20-30 seconds and didn't see anything obvious, so I put the cover back on, and took off. The rest of the ride went without incident. I was still coming out of aero to avoid people more than I'd have liked, and I personally thought the road conditions (asphalt, bumps, potholes, etc) were very bad. I had to do a lot of bunny hops, wheelies, etc to avoid sharp bumps and holes, and the course was littered with ejected bottles, broken cages, and I even saw a couple of complete BTA systems that people lost. I passed two people who had wrecked, also (separate incidents). Overall, probably my least favorite Ironman bike leg, so I was happy to finally cruise into T2 in Santa Rosa. My official time was just under 2:48, and my moving time on my computer showed just under 2:43, so I basically knocked out that tire change pit stop in under 5 minutes! Not too shabby.
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| I never saw anybody drafting, apparently because I never looked back. |
T2:
I had a short distance from the entrance to my rack spot, which was nice. I changed into my running gear, and bagged up all my other stuff pretty quickly, but did have quite a distance to the run start. Along the way, I was looking for port-a-potties. I actually had to do the limbo under two rows of bikes to get to them, which wasted a bit of time. Finally, I made my way out to start the run.
Run:
I wasn't very exited about this upcoming half marathon, considering the level of preparation I had. However, I was pleasantly surprised that I actually felt quite good heading out of transition, and for the first couple of miles. I was averaging about 8:55/mile pace, but I knew that would get even slower once I started walking the aid stations, which I had planned to do after the first 5k or so. There is a trail section on the far side of the creek trail that you traverse twice (a two loop course) which I really liked. It was very shaded, and felt like a slight downhill. At the end of it, you make a sharp right turn onto a bridge overpass where there is also an aid station. I decided to take my first aid-station walk here. All seemed well, until I resumed running. The ball of my right foot was suddenly very painful. I hadn't stumbled, tripped, or stepped on anything that could have hurt my foot. So I had to assume that it was some sort of cramp or muscle pull. I thought about stopping, taking off my shoe, and trying to massage or stretch it a bit, but I was afraid I might exacerbate it. So, I just slowed down, and had to limp through my walk breaks at the aid stations. My mile splits became super slow at this point as the walk breaks became longer and more frequent with the continued pain. I focused on moving forward and getting closer to the finish, despite the slow pace. I saw a couple of PTCers out there, and tried to shout encouragement as they went by, and I ran for a bit with Steve Lis as he passed me. Before long, I found myself with about 2 miles to go, and I managed to pick up the pace slightly. Once I was off of the creek trail and back onto the city streets, I wanted to pick up the pace even more, but the pain in my foot spiked up. So I had to just cruise it around the last corner and into the very long finish chute. I was very relieved to be done with this race. Despite a terrible run split (2:26), this was still faster than I ran at St. George, Oceanside, or Taiwan. But still, after my HIM PR earlier this spring where I ran a 1:52, I'm holding myself to a higher standard.
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| Aside from some foot pain, I actually felt OK on the run. |
Notes:
Nutrition:
My usual plan of taking in roughly 1000 calories from wake-up to swim start is still a good plan (two energy bars, one bottle of Infinit, and then one GU gel shortly before start). However, in the future, keep at least two hours (~600 or more) calories available in case of a delay like we had with the cancelled swim. On the bike, I drank Infinit and water the entire way, and ate one GU gel. That was plenty, and allowed me to avoid the carnage at the crowded aid stations. On the run, I carried nothing. I drank gatorade on the first lap, and switched to red bull and coke on the second lap. I backed off on water consumption after lessons learned at IMTX. Energy levels and hydration were fine.
Gear:
Swim - Had the swim taken place I was prepared to use my sleeveless Roka Maverick Pro for the 1.2 miles, but had they shortened it to the 1,000 yard option, I was going to use my Roka Viper swimskin, mostly because I like it and haven't had a chance to race in it yet. But alas, no swim, so not much to write about here.
Bike - Rode my Felt IA16 with HED Jet+ Black wheels (60mm front, disc rear) with latext tubes and Continental GP4KsII 23mm tires. This was the first puncture I have had since switching to latex tubes more than a year ago, but no setup was stopping those tacks! Gearing was 53/39 front rings with a 11x28 11-speed cassette. I am very glad I opted for the 28, since I didn't anticipate climbing in my big chain ring! Everything about the bike setup was fine except for the Di2 shifting. It has been a week since the race, and I still don't know what was wrong with it. I finally had to take all of the junctions apart and reconnect everything, and now it seems back to normal. I used my Giro Aerohead helmet, which worked out great. Not too hot on the slower parts of the course, and great for the windier sections.
Run - I wore my Hoka One One Mach shoes, which have been good for the most part. My right foot was extremely painful for about 9 miles of the run, and continued to hurt until about Wednesday of the following week. At first I thought it was something serious like a fallen arch, but I think it was just muscle/ligament strain from not getting enough mileage in prior to the event.
Logistics:
We stayed at the Best Western Garden Inn on Santa Rosa Ave, which was fine. There is no advantage to being much closer to the race expo area, as it gets very crowded with vehicle traffic, closed roads, etc. Plus, no matter where you stay, you still have quite a drive up to the lake for bike and gear drop-off. I boarded a 4:15am shuttle to the lake on race morning, which was too early. If I were to do it again, I'd move my whole schedule about 30 minutes later (i.e. rise at 4am, catch a bus at 4:45 or 5am.)
Conclusion:
Well there's a saying: "they can't all be winners" which is true of this race. In the last year of racing I've had several podiums and set PRs at all distances that I race, and I finally had a bad race here. I knew going into this event that it wouldn't be a good one, with injuries and a lot of other stuff going on that impeded my training. So I can't get too down on myself. And I am happy about how I responded to the bad luck, especially how quickly I dealt with my punctured front tire. Regardless of the lack or preparation or the slow finish time, I should be happy that even out of shape and under prepared, I can hop into a 70.3 (or 69.1 as it turned out) and get to the finish line in the top 1/3 of the field.
Next Race: IM70.3 La Quinta/Indian Wells (MAYBE, if I'm happy with my run fitness at that time)
