IM RSA Race Report (2 of 2)

Having thought a lot more about the race.  There is plenty of lessons (hard ones) to be learned and as, more things to be happy about.   

After going on safari and seeing the winner of my age group lug around his trophy taking photos of it in front of elephants, rhinos, lions and various signs made me realise how much desire and anger I have for this sport.  I will remember this on race day in France.  He is also a smoker that can run 3 hour marathons and posted a 8:40 in NZ.  That's just scary and infuriating.  He may smoke, but as a German, I'm sure his training is wicked and deserves what he gets.  It's his 3 AG win, don't you think its time to go PRO?  His swim is terrible, which is why he doesn't, or so he says.   

The swim was good for me, my second 56 and change swim.  I'm actually very happy about this considering my average meters per week going in.  I guess swimming in a 50m pool has its advantages.  I was two minutes faster on the first lap, but that is fine considering I was swimming away from the mass of people to the first buoy.  Nothing crazy on the swim for me, pretty normal, started front row and just went for it and after 200m, settled and go into a rhythm.   I don’t feel I went too fast for my training and looking forward to getting in more kms/week in preparation for France.  

T1 was quick (~2mins) considering there were no wetsuit strippers, that’s a first for my IMs, no strippers.  Oh well, I sat down and did it myself.  Helmet and sunglasses on, Co2 in pocket and I am off running to my bike.  A quick check of tyre pressure, all good, thank god.  I wasn’t prepared to change a tubie AGAIN.  Cyclocross mount and I was off.  Slight difficulty snapping the rubber bands holding my shoes in place, had to reach down and break them.  

The bike, time wise, was good.  And I felt good on the last lap which is also a good sign I recovered slightly from my too fast first lap.  In my first post I mentioned that I didn’t believe my power readings for the first lap.  Why?  I have never been more ready to race.  I had good sensations in the legs in the rides prior to the race.  Running was good.  I was rested.  Taper was good.  I was ready and rested.  Maybe I have never entered a race so rested, so strong?  At least I know, not at AZ when I had a powermeter.  The others, well, never really had the spring in the legs like I did here.  My lap times were very close, 1:42, 1:45 and 1:45.  My extra 10 watts on the first lap average got me 3 minutes and a second lap of pain.  My legs were not feeling well towards the end of the first lap and second.  I got a caffeine gel and that made things much better for about 20mins.  The wind got stronger and switched directions by the end of the ride.  My last lap had favorable wind coming into town as the previous two had headwinds.   There was considerable drafting on the first lap, but they were also out in force to stop it.  After the first lap, they seemed to have disappeared.   My watts were the exact same as IM AZ, but my time was 25 minutes faster, got to be happy about that.  I really want to ride at 75% of my THR wattage some day.  I’m thinking with all the climbing, France has a good chance of that happening. 

The beginning of the run was a lot like the first lap of the bike.  I was slowing down every 100meters to get to 5min/km pace.  I started out of T2 at 4:30/km.   It felt really slow at 5/km but I knew that my bike wasn’t going to let me go faster.  I think 5:15/km would have been the best pace for the first 10km to gauge.  While I was running 5min/km in long training runs, that probably wasn’t my IM run pace.  It took quite awhile for my run legs to come around.  They usually come around sooner, maybe I worked hard enough on the bike this time!  That is good.  I think.  They went from decent to pain pretty quick.  My quads were feeling sore and beat up.  About that point after running on very crowned roads, I began to feel a slight nagging of my Achilles.  It had been bothering me before, in the weeks prior.  This is when I started thinking past this race and not wanting to injury myself.  That would be a major setback for France.  I stopped to chat with Jen.  She said I can’t quit.  I walked for a bit with her as she was convincing me to start running again.  I did.  I don’t like being defeated, and I not sure why I got there so quickly.  All I can think of is I rally wanted to use my next race as an excuse to quit this one.  I’ve never thought that why before, but I have never had two IMs on the books either.  This race was really fast and pretty deep last year for Kona, so I wasn’t looking for that, just wanted to PR.  It was doable on paper.  

I ended up 6^th in AG, total shock.  The heat really killed people that day.  A 10:22 should not be 6^th…  It was hot, but didn’t affect me, guess the Middle East has its advantages.   The winner, mentioned earlier, was 25min off his normal marathon.  I suppose I was that far off, but not because of the weather, mentally I could not push myself.  I mean, I was weaker than normal, looking ahead and now racing, not going into the pain cave, afraid of not coming out the other end…  I don’t know, another hard lesson learned. 

Things for next time:

• Believe, believe and believe your powermeter readings! 
• Double check your math upon using new nutrition
• Have two spare tubulars
• Have several reasons and remember them when the going gets tough to get you through to the finish