This Sunday, I was racing my first triathlon in a long time, the 1/2 Ironman distance race in Hannover (called Mitteldistanz or middle distance in Germany). I’m not quite sure what to make of my performance, but first let’s have a look at the race.
Before the race
Friday and Saturday I made sure that my bike was in working order. As I had taken the plunge and splurged on new race wheels (a pair of used but as good as new Zipp 404s), there was some scrambling around to make sure I had the right tubes with long enough valves. The week had been pretty stressful, and I was glad I had the chance for a little nap at noon on Saturday. Still, I was probably not very rested, even if my training volume was pretty low in the week leading up to the race.
On Sunday, we drove for two hours to Hannover. It was pretty close to the end of the bike drop off, but I preferred to get some more sleep and a big breakfast in. Once I get settled in the big transition area, I had enough time to put on my race clothes and warm up a bit for the swim. It was going to be the first really hot day of the year, so I made sure I had enough water to drink.
Swim
Up to a week before the race, it was pretty cold and there were some worries that the swim would have to be canceled. The week of the race it was quite warm, though, and with a wetsuit it wasn’t cold at all.
I got into the water maybe 10 minutes before the start of my wave, so I still had some time to hitch the wetsuit up after the initial contact with the water. I was ready and hoped for a good day!
The swim itself was pretty uneventful. It was in a canal which meant that it would be 1k up the canal, turn around a buoy and then 1k back. The initial mayhem cleared up pretty fast, and I was swimming pretty much by myself. At the turnaround I had a quick look at my watch and was very happy to see a time of just over 17 minutes. I managed to stay focused on my stroke and and felt pretty good the whole time. The whole swim was over after 35 minutes. With about 5 minutes under my estimated time the swim must have been short. :-)
An easy run up to the transition, put on the help and grab my bike.
Bike
Once on the bike, I had problems to get my HR down. I wanted to get under 120, but a combination of heat, mental lapse and people overtaking me prevented that. My wattage was in the goal range of 140, but the HR stayed just under 130. After a while, I just figured that the excitement of the race had increased my HR, and I decided to stick with the wattage. At the end of the first loop, I was quite happy – AP at 138w, NP at 147 (so I was riding quite even), but a speed of 31,3 and HR at 130.
As had happened the last time I did this race two years ago, wattage and the other data didn’t quite match. I figure that the Ergomo has some problems with the heat we were having and giving me low numbers. But so far, I hadn’t really dug myself a hole, but it was clear that I shouldn’t really increase my effort in the second and third loop.
By this time, I was pretty much riding with the same people – usually getting dropped on the uphills, and then catching people again on the downhills (even riding by wattage does that). On the second and third lap, I kept things pretty much the same. I still dropped wattage a bit towards the end (133AP/143NP for the whole ride), and it was getting really hot. I’m not sure if I was drinking enough, I didn’t pee at all this time during the ride. But I had eaten quite well and was hoping for a good run.
Total ride time: 2 h 48 min 12 secs
Run
After dropping off my bike, I changed into run clothes and went off. After the first k or so, I stopped for a quick pee. I pretty soon noticed that I was really hot and tried to cool down with water. But – as had happened on the bike – I didn’t really get my HR down to where I wanted it to be. I wanted to run at about 125 with a cap of 130, but I hardly managed to get it down to 130. I even put in a few walk breaks to get the HR down, but all to no avail. I tried what I could – water, coke, a cookie, but couldn’t manage to get anything solid down. At the same time, my pace was over 6 min per k, so I was relatively slow as well.
I was feeling pretty crappy, too, and I was getting a quite disappointed. I struggled through the first loop, happy to see my wife (and the dog) for the first time since the start, and was almost ready to throw in the towel – there was no way I was able to lift the pace. But I didn’t want to have the bad experience before my IM race and pushed on. I took my time at the aid stations and made sure I was drinking as much as I could and hoped the Coke would help, too. Between the aid stations I was using my FuelBelt to further cool down. By the middle of the second loop I was feeling a bit better. At least I managed to run a half-way decent pace – even with the breaks at the aid stations I was running faster than 6 min/k and started to overtake a few people. That didn’t last too long, and towards the end my pace slowed again. I knew I would be at over 2h10 for the run, so I just relaxed a bit and took it easy for the last few k. I was really relieved to reach the finish line and was pretty wrecked after that.
Total run time: 2 h 11 min 33 secs
Evaluation
As stated above, I’m disappointed with my performance last Sunday. As you can see from my expectations before the race, I was hoping to be able to go a bit faster, especially during the run.
Then again, I think I did the best I could during the second part of the run. I did not break down completely and just walk it in (which I did two years ago), even if the pace was slower than I was hoping for. The feeling will probably be what it will be like in the second half of the marathon in Frankfurt – and I will be happy if I manage to run in the 4h20min region.
So here are my takeaways from this race:
- No need to worry about the swim – some more longer sessions and I shouldn’t have a problem with the IM swim if I don’t expect much under 1h20min.
- it is important to get my HR down after the swim – otherwise I’ll be just overpacing.
- I have to re-calibrate my Ergomo numbers again. For IM, stay within the HR targets even if wattage seems low. On Sunday, 140watts were a bit much.
- When it’s getting hot, make sure to drink enough! Pee before the half way point …
- Still, I feel confident to be able to ride a 29 km/h average, which would translate to a 6h22m time for the 185k bike (Frankfurt will be a bit long this year).
- As with the bike, make sure to get HR into acceptable range after transition. That will probably mean walk breaks, so I should just start walking the aid stations right from the start to take enough fluids.
- With the HR lower, I should be able to get some calories down during the start of the run. (Something that I just couldn’t do in Hannover.)
- Make sure to lower the overall stress in the week leading up to race. Hopefully I can take a few days really easy – sleeping in, staying at home etc.
I will try to simulate the run pacing on another training brick I have planned for this weekend – maybe a two hour ride and then a 16k transition run. I just hope that Frankfurt will not be as hot as Hannover. But you’ll never know and I just have to take things as they come and make the best of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment