Considering the lower than optimal amount of fitness I have at this point, my goal was to swim normally, shoot for very very good transition times, bike extremely conservatively (like a Z2 spin), and then do what I could to run the half marathon continuously, regardless of pace. A successful execution of this plan would hopefully also mean that my hips were not destroyed after the race.
RACE SUMMARY:
Swim: 37:41
T1: 5:33
Bike: 2:52:37
T2: 3:46
Run: 2:19:17
Total: 6:00:30
PRE-RACE: I drove up to Santa Cruz on Friday morning, with my family along with me. It took about 6 hours (including stops) to get there. We stayed at the Chaminade Resort and Spa, about 4.5 miles from the wharf area, sort of up into the hills north of Santa Cruz. Once we got checked in and settled, we headed into town, to the PTC House so I could hopefully get a practice swim in with a few club members. Timing didn't work out for that, but we did get checked in as a group, and ended up all going out for dinner together.
On Saturday, we had breakfast at the resort, then headed over to the PTC house again. I did a run course recon on the bike with Vicky and San. We rode all of the run course except for the Wilder Ranch loop. The run course looked very nice, and we got a look at most of the hills on the course. My bike was riding great, with just one small issue of the gear ratio metric not showing up on my computer. My Di2 system needs a bluetooth module to get that data, so I was wondering if something happened to it (battery was fully charged, and gear shifting was perfect). I didn't worry about it since it was just a 'nice to have' feature and not critical. After the ride, we headed over to transition to rack bikes. The transition area was very nice, on an artificial turf surface. Plenty of room for everyone, and with no gear bags. After hanging the bikes, we took it easy. My family took a trip out to San Jose to visit friends, so I hung out with the club for the rest of the afternoon/evening. We had dinner near the wharf (I had chicken parm with penne pasta). After that, we took a quick stroll on the wharf and then chilled at the PTC house. I ended up getting back to my hotel after 10pm, and quickly packed up the stuff I'd need in the morning so I could get to bed. I think I was finally in bed at about 10:45pm.
RACE MORNING: I woke up at 4:30am, and actually had a decent night of sleep. I ate one Bonk Breaker bar, and grabbed pop-tarts for the drive over to the PTC house. I also drank a bottle of Gatorade (Gatorlyte actually) and a 16oz bottle of water. We left the hotel at 5am and I think I was at the house by 5:25am. Since the house was basically right between transition and the swim start, we were able to head over and prep our gear in transition, then return to the house. My bike was ready to go, and in fact when I booted up my computer, the gear ratio data field was working again. There was ample room to lay out gear for the entire race. Back at the house, we got swim gear on and then headed over to the swim start area. I had time to get into the water, acclimate to the temperature, and swim around a little bit. I made the last minute decision to keep my tri-suit top up, underneath my full-sleeved wetsuit (I was debating using my sleeveless wetsuit earlier). I went over to the swim corral and had no problem getting into the 33-35 minute group. The race started on time, and I just stood in the group waiting my turn as they let us out 4 swimmers at a time, every few seconds.
SWIM:
I made the short run into the water, and got to swim depth pretty quickly. There was no surf to deal with at all (despite weather warnings preparing us for up to 4-9 foot breakers race morning). The course layout was basically three sides of a rectangle around the wharf. Navigation was trivial, and swimmers were not bunching up at all, so contact was minimal. Despite what most people said after the race about the swim, I did feel like there was a minor amount of chop, but still nothing that would make the swim difficult at all. Probably about the best conditions you could hope for in an open ocean swim. I could tell after a short amount of time that my shoulders did feel a bit restricted, but I wasn't having any trouble. Supposedly the surge/current was in our faces on the way out, then at our backs on the way back in but I honestly couldn't feel any difference throughout the course. During the final one third of the swim, I had more incidents of contact, or people veering in front me, but those probably only cost me a few seconds over the entire swim. Once I finally felt sand, I stood up and ran out of the water. I looked at my watch and saw 38:05, which was nowhere near as fast as I was expecting. I didn't expect a PR or anything, but that is extremely slow for me. My official time ended up being 37:41, so I must have missed the timing mat when I stopped my watch.
Transition 1:
I felt a bit out of breath as I was running up the sand toward the concrete walkway that lead to the street. Once I took the upper half of my wetsuit down, I felt better. I worked my way around groups of people putting on shoes or flip flops for the bumpy run up to T1. Once I got onto the bumpy trail part, I was relieved that it wasn't very painful. I wasn't sprinting or anything, but I made good time. Removing my wetsuit was fairly quick, but as usual my suit got stuck over my calves and around my very inflexible ankles. I anticipated that happening and was able to force the suit over my feet and get it off. I put on sunblock, my bike shoes, a Halo sweatband, and my helmet, then ran to the exit. My T1 time was 5:33. Considering the overall distance, I was happy with that.
BIKE:
Even though the mount area for the bike was a bit narrow, I had no issues cleanly and quickly mounting my bike and getting started. The first few miles have quite a few turns, and it was a bit congested, making it tough to get up to full speed, so I just stayed relaxed and tried to avoid wasting energy. There is a narrow section that was designated as a No Pass Zone, and I actually passed a few riders not realizing that we weren't out of the zone yet. For a minute or two, I was worried that a race official would come up and tell me I was DQ'd. But nothing happened. Once we got out onto Hwy 1, things opened up a bit and I settled into my Z2 power. I noticed that passing was sometimes a hassle. During the section that had rumble strips, I kept finding myself having to slow down because there was nowhere to pass the rider in front of me without riding over the strip. Eventually, I just stayed to the left of the strip to avoid the slower people on the right. I also occasionally saw groups of riders who were drafting. Not huge ones, but groups of about 5 to 10 riders. While this annoys me, it really doesn't impact my race personally, so I tried to just ignore them. There was quite a bit of fog, and a lot of moisture building up on my helmet visor, to the point where it was dripping. We went up and down some hills (I'd call them rollers, not climbs) and I was doing a decent job keeping my power output steady, not letting it climb too high on the uphill. We went through a very small town called Davenport, after which the sun started showing. We also started hitting some head winds as well. Before long, there was a section with many, many orange cones with a lighthouse in view off to the left, signaling the turnaround point. After the turnaround, I could definitely feel the tailwind that we had for a few miles, and at about mile 32 I hit the only glitch I had during the entire bike ride: a ball of scotch tape and somebody's frame number got stuck to my bike, causing me to come to a complete stop so I could remove them. The tape was just on the front tire, and came of pretty easily, but the frame number took a trip down my chain and into my rear derailleur, getting stuck. I was able to get it out of my pulley wheels by pedaling backwards, but it took quite a bit of work to get it cleanly off of my chain. Luckily it didn't make it into my cassette. I hopped back on the bike and got back up to speed quickly. I figure I wasted no more than 2 or 3 minutes tops here. The rest of the ride was basically the reverse of the first 24 miles, only I was smart enough to never go right of the rumble strips on the return trip. I also did the same DQ-worthy mistake by passing several riders in the No Pass Zone on the way back. I saw 5 riders going single file and slow, so I blew past them, then saw the 'No Passing Zone - End' sign shortly after. Whoops! But again, no officials came after me. The last few miles were very slow with congestion. Sometimes I'd come up on two or three riders abreast of each other. I'd yell 'on your left' but sometimes it would take awhile for someone to actually move. This made the last 3 or 4 miles unnecessarily slow. I finally went down the last small hill and got ready to do a flying dismount. Even though I undid the velcro, my right foot got stuck in the shoe and required that I grab it with my hand to pull it out. This cost me a few seconds, but more importantly took away any cool guy points I was due for the dismount! My time was 2:52, which I thought was decent for the low effort I put out. I did that on only 165W, with an average HR of 122bpm. I think I could have easily put out 20W more without impacting my run. Variability Index was a bit high at 1.05, but that's probably due to the easier effort I tried to maintain, as well as the several occasions where I soft pedaled or coasted behind slower riders while working out opportunities to pass. As far as perceived effort, that felt easier than a cruise down the river trails with the club. Super easy. In fact, I'm amazed that effort resulted in a sub-3 hour time. At any rate, I had no excuse not to feel good to start the run, and should also just feel lucky that I didn't get caught abusing both of the No Pass Zones!
Transition 2:
As I ran my bike back towards the entrance to the transition area, I got stuck for maybe 10 seconds behind a guy who was having trouble running with his bike. Once I got by him, it was smooth sailing. I quickly re-racked my bike, dropped the helmet, and started putting on socks and shoes. My socks were a bit hard to get on, due to the humid conditions, so I actually sat down so I could more easily yank them on. Shoes went on quickly, then I stood up and put sunblock on. I grabbed my hat, glasses and bib and put them on as I ran to the run exit. Aside from the socks sticking, everything was very smooth. 3:46 for the whole transition, bringing my total transition time to 9:19. That's pretty good for me, and I'm happy with that result.
RUN:
Almost as soon as you leave transition, you make a right turn up a pretty decent hill. I was curious how I'd feel going up this, as it would reveal a lot about how the rest of the run was going to be. I was pleasantly surprised when I cruised right up it with no problem. My HR was good, and stride felt nice and smooth with no hip pain. I hit mile 1 in 9:14 and the next two miles in 9:24 and 9:27. I still felt good, but did notice a little bit of stiffness in my lower back. We hit the first downhill shortly after the third aid station, and then a decent uphill right after that. On this uphill is the first place where I didn't feel that good. My legs felt a bit weak on the climb even though my cardio was still holding up. Once the road flattened out I felt good though, and continued clicking off 9:30 to 9:40-ish miles all the way to the entrance of Wilder Ranch, where we would be hitting the non-paved trail portion of the run. Not long after you enter the park, you make a right and descend down what I think is the biggest hill on the course. It was long enough to really build up some good speed. A little bit after that, you head up to the trail loop, which is where I finally had to start slowing down. The uneven trail, especially the ruts, were very tough on my hips, and for the first time in the race I started feeling pain in both of them. I still made it to mile 7 averaging around 9:30s/mile pace, but that was probably because I was able to make up some time on that initial downhill. I was definitely running slower on the dirt and sand. The views on the trail were fantastic though, and even though my running ability was starting to deteriorate, I took the time to enjoy the views. Once we got out of Wilder Ranch I had to make a bathroom stop. The first porta-potties I reached were full, so I had to wait a little bit for an open one. I took the time to stretch my lower back, get some sunblock, and drink some red bull while I waited. After that, I got going again but definitely wasted a couple of minutes. My next mile split was over 12 minutes as a result. I knew the next big challenge would be the last biggish hill just after 10 miles. After cresting that, the rest of the course is pretty easy, maybe one or two small rollers, and finally some downhill to the finish. After I crested that hill, I walked the aid station at the top of it as I took in more fluids, then got back to running. My pace was a solid minute to 1:10/mile slower than it had been on the first half, but I was managing the hip pain pretty well, so I didn't let it bother me. I kept up the effort, walking the remaining aid stations and then finally was able to get back down under 10 minute pace near the end. The sweeping downhill to the beach finally came, and I was able to move down that hill at a good pace. When I made the right turn at the bottom, I was afraid my extremely light 'super shoes' were going to rip! I saw my family as I made my way to the sand, then took a few awkward steps to the finish. My time was a very slow 2:19. All things considered, I can't really complain about that time. I barely did enough training to expect to be able to run 13.1 miles, and looking back on my data, I really only see 4 or 5 minutes I could have taken back if I didn't use the bathroom or walk a few aid stations. And in reality, had I just run that course without the swim + bike, I'd be surprised if I could go much faster than 2:05 to 2:07. So going a few minutes slower than that in a 70.3 is probably good for what I had to bring to the table. But I will say, finishing in an overall time of 6:00 annoys the hell out of me. Had someone told me a couple of miles from the finish that I needed to pick up 31 seconds to go under 6, I would have found a way.
NOTES:
-Nutrition/Hydration:
--Pre-Race:
I ate one Bonk Breaker bar and two Pop-tarts before the race, and drank one 16 oz Gatorlyte, and about another 16 ounces of water. Probably between 700-800 calories and 32 ounces of fluid.
--Bike:
I drank two 24 ounce bottles of orange Tailwind, mixed to 300 calories each, plus I took a water bottle and drank as much as I could within each aid station. I also took 3 Maurten gels, for a total of 900 calories and at least 72 ounces of fluid.
--Run:
At each aid station from mile 1 to 8, I took one cup of Gatorade (I also took a cup of ice water while waiting for a bathroom to open up). From 9 miles on, I drank just Red Bull at each station. While I don't know the exact fluid and calorie amount, I can say I absorbed it all without issue and felt plenty hydrated, with no energy issues.
-Gear:
--Overall:
I wore my black and white DeSoto Fli-suit, which worked very well, though I did feel like the legs were a bit constrictive when I first put it on. Once it was wet from swimming, it fit great though. Also, despite putting on sunblock in T1, T2 and at my bathroom stop on the run, my neck and triceps got absolutely torched in the sun. I think it may be because the neckline is lower than my bike jerseys or running shirts. I wore my Garmin Fenix 5X watch, and a Polar H10 heart rate monitor. The watch worked just fine, but the HR monitor battery started running low in the last half of the run (according to messages on my watch). I checked the battery level with the Polar app before the race, and it said the battery was good, so that sort of annoys me. But the important thing is that the H10 monitor was indeed waterproof as I had it under my tri-suit and wetsuit for the swim, and it still worked (even giving some data during the swim).
--Swim:
I wore my Roka Maverick X full-sleeved wetsuit with my tri-suit top all the way up, and with my HR monitor fully equipped underneath. For goggles, I used Roka F2 (light amber lense). These are the closest I have to clear goggles. No fogging or leaking, visibility and navigation on this swim course was trivial. However, I do think the wetsuit/tri-suit was a bit restrictive, impacting the back part of my stroke, possibly slowing me down a little bit. Next time I race in water 60 degrees or above, I'll go back to the sleeveless suit and see how that goes. Water temp for the race was given as 60.5 degrees.
--Bike:
I rode my Felt IA16 tt/tri bike. Wheels were HED Jet+ Black (60mm front, disc rear, Continental GP5000 tires with latex tubes). I used 53/39 chainrings with an 11x28 cassette. I don't think I needed the 28, but I did use it more than once. I wore my Giro Aerohead helmet with a Halo sweatband. Sweating wasn't an issue, and even though there was some mist building up on my visor, it had zero impact on overall visibility. The bike setup was perfect for this course, no issues whatsoever.
--Run:
I wore my Asics MetaSpeed Sky shoes with Drymax medium cushioned socks, which were awesome on the pavement, but pretty unstable on the rutted parts of the trails. I still think the awesome part on the pavement outweighed any time I may have lost on the trails. I was pronating in them a lot on the trails, but its hard to blame the shoes when that could just be my own strength/stability issues. I wore Oakley Radar sunglasses, and my Ironman Oceanside finisher's cap throughout the race. Aside from getting bad sunburn on the back of my neck and both triceps, all my gear worked fine.
-Logistics:
--Travel:
We drove to Santa Cruz in our minivan on Friday, taking about 6 hours (with stops) to get there.
--Lodging:
We stayed at the Chaminade Resort and Spa, which is about 4.5 miles from the Wharf area (swim + finish line area). The resort itself was nice, but for the race it was not a good choice. The routes from the hotel to where we needed to be for the race (i.e. transition area, village, race morning) were not safe to ride on a bike, and took much longer to drive than I expected. It turned out to be a lot easier to hang out in town, usually with other club members at the PTC rental house and only head back out to the hotel when we were done for the day. If I were to do this event again, I'd choose a hotel or house rental much closer to the wharf.
--Food:
Food was easy to find. Lots of choices of restaurants, and crowds were rarely an issue. Also plenty of grocery stores.
-Improvements:
--Swim:
Swim training has been going well, but I swam a bit slower than expected, even though conditions were good. I think to some degree, my wetsuit/tri-suit setup was constricting me a little, possibly impeding my stroke. Also, I just haven't been doing any open water swimming. Race day was the first time I had worn a wetsuit since IMCA last year. Two solutions to this: 1) drop a few pounds. I never got all the way back down to my race weight range from last year. I need to do that. And 2) If the water is warm enough, consider using the sleeveless wetsuit with the tri-suit all the way up. Should be less restricting, plus faster to remove in transition. And of course, I need to get into full race gear and do more open water swimming.
--Bike:
I don't think there was much to change about the bike. I purposely pushed low wattage to make absolutely certain that I would have good legs to run. 165W is quite a bit lower than I push for a full distance Ironman. I had a LOT of power in reserve had I wanted to push harder. As far as this course goes, I could avoid issues with passing people by staying to the left more often (especially near those rumble strips). Aside from that, the bike went extremely well. The tape/sticker thing was just bad luck and highly unlikely to happen again.
--Run:
I knew overall run fitness was my biggest challenge for this race. Considering the amount of running I've been doing, I think I did okay here. Back in May, I was barely able to run for 5 minutes. Though this run was more than half an hour slower than my best, I'm still happy I was able to complete it. To improve: get more training volume in, and lose a few pounds to get back into a good body composition. Also, my hip is still an issue. I've had this injury for a year now. I can't expect to run well when I have to deal with pain and stiffness before and after every run that I do. I need to really get to the bottom of this injury if I expect to make my running an asset during a triathlon.
--Transitions:
I'm actually pleased with my transitions here, but of course nothing is perfect. In T1, I could have shaved a few more seconds off had my wetsuit come off more easily. I should consider trimming the legs an inch or two to make it easier to get over my calves and ankles. In T2, I don't see much I could have done other than to simply run faster. The socks were a bit of a time suck, so maybe I can consider shorter socks, adding foot powder to eliminate the sticking from moisture, or test out sockless running with my racing shoes. That being said, I think this is the best I've done in transition in any Ironman event, so I'm happy with that.
Conclusion:
I'm pretty frustrated to be competing in Ironman events while nursing an injury, but I am happy to have done the event and not wasted the entry fee and all that. I more or less achieved the goals I set out for this race. Sure, I see areas where I could have gone faster. But I'll worry more about overall time when I'm healthy and have a higher training volume leading into an event. The course was beautiful and challenging, though not overly difficult. I would consider doing it again someday. One big thing that came from this event is that my family is starting to agree that once in awhile, I need to come to these events on my own so I can focus a little more on the race, and not so much on logistics surrounding the family.
Next Races:
I have Ironman 70.3 Indian Wells on the calendar, but I'm going to skip it if I can't shake this hip issue within a few weeks. In fact, if I don't heal up in time to get ready for Indian Wells, I might take a long break from running (and triathlon) and focus on other sports for awhile. Running just isn't agreeing with me and dealing with the constant injury is getting old. So, we'll see.
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