So I'm exhausted az. Poor grammar and a nonsense ensues:
5:20 AM Wake up, eat, drive
7:00 AM Arrive in Welland, ask random people with tri bikes if I can follow them to race site. They were pulled over at McD's. What triathlete stops there before a race. Maybe for coffee, but still... have a conscience.
7:20 Transition is all set up. I'm number 25, so I get to rack with the pros.
7:30 At least I thought I was number 25... Apparently my bib got jacked.
7:50 Tim: "Hey is my bib in that pile over there that you guys haven't looked in?"
7:51 Got my bib, head to pre race meeting. So much for warming up.
8:10 Wetsuit on, head to water. Swim a bit.
8:30 Gun goes off.
Race Time:
0:01 People get sassy in the Recharge With Milk Series. Two can play at that game. Or I guess in this case, several hundred.
0:10 Arms starting to hurt. Wishing I'd done more long sets in the pool and stuff...
0: 20 Getting a second wind now that the bulk of the swim is done. Girl beside me has good technique. Inspires my own technique to fall together
0:30 Approaching the swim finish. Wish I had've payed more attention in the pre-race meeting. Not too sure where the exit is.
0:31 Found some good feet. Hopefully they know where they're going.
0:32 Dry land at last. Now for the run to the timing mat, then T1
0:33:13 Official swim time. In hindsight, I'm a bit surprised. Thought it was going to be like 35 minutes.
0:34:27 Fast transition, even with putting bike shoes on before mounting. Feet hurt from gravel path coming out of the water. Hopefully thats gone in 2 1/2 hours...
...Foreshadowing: I wish that was the only hurt I got on the run...
0:40 Its a long bike ride. Trying not to blow up early.
1:00 Been riding into the wind for quite some time now. Averaging around 36km/h so far. Feels comfortable.
1:30 Theres a little over 30 people up the road. Not yet time to put the hammer down though. Still trying to conserve.
1:45 Dropped the ball in the bottle exchange by dropping a bottle. Its gona be a dry final kilometers.
1:50 5km out and back section. Getting a good view of the field. Nigel and Wolfgang way off the front having their own race. Stomachs starting to want variety. Too many gels, too much water. Gona hold off on feeding for 5k or so.
1:55 View of the field behind me: fucking cheaters, every single one of them. The 20 or 25 people behind me have formed two packs. If you're not strong enough to ride 90km on your own, stay home. I hate you. You are all bad people.
2:00 Time to move up in the world. Dropped the hammer and moved up to around 17th position.
2:10 Apparently other people also dropped the hammer. The pace quickens, holding on, but unsure if its a good idea.
2:25 Getting passed by drafters is really frustrating. Talking trash.
3:00:57 Feet on the ground. Decided on socks in T2.
3:02:00 Exit T2. Trying to put on hat, and put gels into a pocket already filled with sticky gel wrappers from the bike
3:25 First 5k right on goal pace, trying to reel in Scott Dickie. Feeling good, but its still way too early to make a move.
3:26 Apparently I'm not feeling good. Quads are cramping. Dropping way off pace.
3:35 Walk-running. Stomach is finally ready for nutrition. Taking everything at aid stations.
3:50 Yo-yoing past runners now. Its just as comfortable to run just under 5 min/km as it is to go slower.
4:10 Kid gives me a bunch of sponges. Tell him he's the man and he's pumped. Decide to see if the the legs will be able to tick over until for the next 5km
4:20 Nope. That was a lofty goal. Still walk-running, hitting 5 or 6 cups per aid station.
4:30 Home stretch. Running. Not sure how much is left, how long I've been running for or how fast I'm going. Eyes barely open. Almost running into people. Put on sunglasses so that people don't stare.
4:40 2k to go, but the quads are so still. I think I'm going to fall over. Gona have to take a break on the side of the path. Nobody's around me anyways.
4:45 I look like Terry Fox. My quads are so stiff that I can barely bend my legs.
4:50:42.6 Finish. Crowd is loud and happy. I am beat down and humbled. Standing is not an option. The volunteers don't seem to think this is out of the ordinary.
4:52 Where is my chocolate milk and hamburger? I was promised these things, but they are nowhere to be seen.
So yea. That was the day. Pretty rough race, not what I was hoping for. As far as I can figure out here is why:
Stuff that went well:
The bike: the training was there and it was too early in the race for nutrition to screw it up
Transition: didn't mess around, so my times were pretty close to the winners
Run Technique: even when I was deep in the hurt box, I'm confident I looked pretty decent.
Stuff that didn't:
The swim: need more consistency in the pool and longer sets/strength sets. Lost a lot of strength over the winter due to illness and haven't been able to get back into regular gym sessions.
Open water skills were 7/10 which probably wasn't a major factor.
Nutrition: bottle exchange skills need work. Should've slowed down for the 2nd bottle exchange. Took in a little under 2L on the bike, would've liked 2 1/2 or more.
Need a stronger stomach to take in more gels. I was hoping for 8 or 9 on the bike and took in 6. On the run I got 1 in, was hoping for 2 and had a 3rd just in case. Probably would've gona better had I taken all 3.
Salt??? Might've played a roll in cramping.
Run: The speed is there. 1:26 in the Waterloo Half. The strength is missing. Gotta run hills, do squats and get the bulk back in my quads.
So what am I going to change:
More volume. Long bricks especially. Not enough fatty acids are being oxidized.
More strength. It'll help the bike split and hopefully solve the bike-run problem.
Stop doing most of the other crap and do mostly sprints as my intensity. Easier to recover from than longer intensity work. Not going to do too much threshold work either. Thats what races are for.
Sunday 26 June 2011
Thursday 16 June 2011
Race Report - KW Classic
Well it has been over two weeks since my last post and almost a week since my last race, so I think it's about time to write a post.
Last Thursday, I was coaxed into riding the local O-cup bike race. 9 laps of 6.5 km with a bunch of tight corners and a pretty steep climb. I thought "hey I own a bike, maybe I should do that!"
As is the tradition with O-cups, I registered about an hour before the registration closed and the next day my preparation began. The Friday before the race was the culmination of the last 6 weeks of training in the form of a 3 hour ride that included 4x30min just below LT with a hard run off the bike. That went well, but I would've preferred to have a bit more time to recover from it.
Anyways, Sunday came and I jumped out of bed at the crack of 6:15, demolished some power-cheerios and exploded out the front door to meet a couple of guys who were also racing. We rode south to he race and made it to the check in before it closed. Once we figured out how to mount our numbers on our jerseys, there was no turning back.
The warm ups came off with 10 minutes to go and with 9 minutes to go I was shivering almost as violently as the cycling that was about to be dealt out by the likes of Tim Rhodes.
The start was really anticlimactic. Just as soon as the pack got moving, there was a 180 degree turn around that we would have to take on at the start of every lap. Everybody was really jittery, especially a couple of equally inexperienced triathletes who obviously didn't realize bike races are about looking cool because they were wearing compression socks. I immediately saw that I was far superior, at least in fashion sense...
Once we got up to speed, the real fun began. Corners in a pack are pretty exciting, especially at 60km/h with people on either side of you. So yea, that happened. Then came the hill. I didn't get a good look at it the first time because some clown fell off his pedals and was subsequently ripped on by the entire field. Poor kid.
The next lap was about making my way to the front, because the pace felt so pedestrian that I was sure the people I was riding with would be dropped. The hill still felt pretty manageable at this point. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry, so I hopped out of the saddle and everything was gravy.
Lap three came and with it, a couple of accelerations that made the pack really jittery. People seemed to be slacking off half the time and sprinting the rest of the time. I was starting to get confused.
I can't quite remember if it was lap 4 or 5, but at some point I missed the memo that one of these accelerations would be the real deal. It was a downhill where people were just grinding the biggest gears. I wasn't feeling that kind of power in my legs, so I had no response. The field slipped by and as soon as I realized this, I set about the impossible task of bridging back to the pack.
It didn't take long for my entire body to be bathed in lactate. I put my head down and pedaled. And pedaled. I got to about 100m of the pack. A lap later, still 100m. One more lap. Still 100m. Then they started to slip away.
At this point I realized I wasn't going to be catching them, so I decided to wait for somebody to ride with. It had been about three laps since I'd seen a rear wheel up close, so I was pretty tired. The only problem was, nobody was in sight behind me.
The rest of the race wasn't that exciting. I was more worried about recovery at that point, with Welland half iron coming up on the 26th. I found a couple of guys to ride with and on the final lap, showed them how to ride up a hill and finished with a bit of dignity.
All said, I had a good time and learned a lot. I would definitely race more bike races, but I'd prefer to have some more specific training first.
Another thing I learned is how to clean water bottles that have been left with a bit of gatorade in them over the weekend. Rice, baking soda, dish soap, shake.
Results
Last Thursday, I was coaxed into riding the local O-cup bike race. 9 laps of 6.5 km with a bunch of tight corners and a pretty steep climb. I thought "hey I own a bike, maybe I should do that!"
As is the tradition with O-cups, I registered about an hour before the registration closed and the next day my preparation began. The Friday before the race was the culmination of the last 6 weeks of training in the form of a 3 hour ride that included 4x30min just below LT with a hard run off the bike. That went well, but I would've preferred to have a bit more time to recover from it.
Anyways, Sunday came and I jumped out of bed at the crack of 6:15, demolished some power-cheerios and exploded out the front door to meet a couple of guys who were also racing. We rode south to he race and made it to the check in before it closed. Once we figured out how to mount our numbers on our jerseys, there was no turning back.
The warm ups came off with 10 minutes to go and with 9 minutes to go I was shivering almost as violently as the cycling that was about to be dealt out by the likes of Tim Rhodes.
The start was really anticlimactic. Just as soon as the pack got moving, there was a 180 degree turn around that we would have to take on at the start of every lap. Everybody was really jittery, especially a couple of equally inexperienced triathletes who obviously didn't realize bike races are about looking cool because they were wearing compression socks. I immediately saw that I was far superior, at least in fashion sense...
Once we got up to speed, the real fun began. Corners in a pack are pretty exciting, especially at 60km/h with people on either side of you. So yea, that happened. Then came the hill. I didn't get a good look at it the first time because some clown fell off his pedals and was subsequently ripped on by the entire field. Poor kid.
The next lap was about making my way to the front, because the pace felt so pedestrian that I was sure the people I was riding with would be dropped. The hill still felt pretty manageable at this point. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry, so I hopped out of the saddle and everything was gravy.
Lap three came and with it, a couple of accelerations that made the pack really jittery. People seemed to be slacking off half the time and sprinting the rest of the time. I was starting to get confused.
I can't quite remember if it was lap 4 or 5, but at some point I missed the memo that one of these accelerations would be the real deal. It was a downhill where people were just grinding the biggest gears. I wasn't feeling that kind of power in my legs, so I had no response. The field slipped by and as soon as I realized this, I set about the impossible task of bridging back to the pack.
It didn't take long for my entire body to be bathed in lactate. I put my head down and pedaled. And pedaled. I got to about 100m of the pack. A lap later, still 100m. One more lap. Still 100m. Then they started to slip away.
At this point I realized I wasn't going to be catching them, so I decided to wait for somebody to ride with. It had been about three laps since I'd seen a rear wheel up close, so I was pretty tired. The only problem was, nobody was in sight behind me.
The rest of the race wasn't that exciting. I was more worried about recovery at that point, with Welland half iron coming up on the 26th. I found a couple of guys to ride with and on the final lap, showed them how to ride up a hill and finished with a bit of dignity.
All said, I had a good time and learned a lot. I would definitely race more bike races, but I'd prefer to have some more specific training first.
Another thing I learned is how to clean water bottles that have been left with a bit of gatorade in them over the weekend. Rice, baking soda, dish soap, shake.
Results
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