Splits:
Swim: 1:03.21 (Nineteen Rogue SS)
T1: 2:59
Bike: 4:58.42 (4min penalty incl.) (Scott Plasma 3 Premium,
ZIPP 404/808 clinchers, latex tubes, Zipp Tangente 21(f)/23(r) tires)
T2: 2:29
Run: 3:09.28 (Newton Distance S)
Total: 9:16.59
Nutrition: ~1200cals of UCAN (bike only) & 400-500 cals
of GU Roctane (run only) & roughly 8-9oz Coke after the Energy Lab.
5th in M35-39AG
51st Overall
20th Amateur
.JPG) |
| I now have a collection! |
There are still lots of thoughts bouncing their way through
my head at this point, but I’d like to get some notes of the race down on paper
before they vanish into thin air. Last year’s performance in Kona goes down as
one of my best race performances. I remember feeling like the race was easy on
my way to a 3rd place finish in the M35-39AG. This year brought some
interesting changes and challenges which I’ve mentioned here plenty of times
over the last 12 months:
*Our son born last fall.
*Several months of questions about my health as it relates
to melanoma.
*New job.
*As a result of the uncertainty of what the three things
above presented, I decided it would be best to take the reigns of my coaching
& training plan after having worked with MarkyV over the prior two seasons.
The season went really well with PRs in the 5K (sub-16 at
Carlsbad 5000), 10K (sub-34 at Bolder Boulder), AG wins at Eagleman 70.3 (KQ),
Boulder Sprint and Boulder 70.3. I wanted to prove that last year’s race in
Kona wasn’t a fluke and that I could remain competitive at the Ironman
distance. I knew that with the two top guys from the age group returning, fast
guys who aged up this year and returning athletes who had raced fast here in
the past, it would be a very competitive race.
I spent the week prior to the race pretty much holed up in
the condo, not doing much with my longest workouts of the week being a
50-minute ride on Monday and a 40-minute run through the Energy Lab on Tuesday.
Everything else was 30 minutes or less. Tuesday brought an unexpected wrinkle
when my lower back really tightened up. An emergency bodywork session with Todd
(along with some aspirin) and I was starting to feel back to normal by Thursday
afternoon and by Friday I was feeling pretty damn awesome.
So there’s your preface to the race.
Race morning came after a very, very sound sleep. I woke up
at 3a and laid there for a half hour or so before whipping up some pancakes and
oatmeal and my first cup of coffee in a week. I would have to say I felt
fabulous.
SWIM:
Per usual, I lined up way far left. I’m not such a fan of
contact while swimming, so lining up out here gives me the best opportunity to
get through the swim unscathed and able to find and maintain a rhythm. I felt
strong the whole way through the swim – no fatigue, no contact, some feet here
and there to pull me along and my lower back felt great…no tightness, no
nothing. I came out of the water feeling strong and less fatigued than I ever
have. The water was a bit more choppy than last year, so coming out 40 seconds
slower than in ’11 wasn’t anything to get all concerned about. After looking at
the rankings, I actually finished higher in the AG in the swim than a year ago
although with a slower time…in the end, quite happy with the effort.
T1:
A touch slower than last year due to the fact I took a
little extra time to lather on some (a lot) Planet Sun sunscreen on my neck,
arms and shoulders. As a result, I don’t have any burns anywhere.
BIKE:
I had been riding stronger than last year, so I was
interested to see what the day would bring while in the saddle. The first
several miles saw its share of madness with a crowded course and some
aggressive riding by the boys, especially on the climbs. Once onto the Queen K,
I was moving my way up the field without trying to push too hard.
About an hour into the ride, I felt like I had cleared my
way through most of the mess of riders only to get swallowed up by a pack of
about 50 riders. Once this
happened, a lot of us were looking around and talking at each other like “this
is nuts.” I spent the next 10-15 minutes trying to figure out what to do…get
spit out the back, work my way to the front, hide in the middle… I made a
couple of efforts to get to the front but realized that this was probably going
to destroy my race with the power surges so I would move my way back into the
pack and drop back while getting pulled along. It was a mess. Add to this that
people were both down in their aero bars and sitting up, it was a recipe for a
huge crash. I made one more effort
to try to get to the front in the hopes that one of the upcoming climbs would
break things up a bit. I ended up getting stuck behind someone on the far left
of the lane. No room to the right for either of us…and if I move left, I’m
crossing the yellow line. So I’m trapped in drafting hell at the exact moment
that an official comes up and offers me a red card. Fan freaking tastic.
 |
| A rare moment in the first 25 miles when I didn't have anyone within 5 feet of me. |
I spent the next couple of minutes cursing WTC and thinking
my race is over. Stupid world championship races being affected by pack riding
is what I was thinking. “Screw this…I’m never coming here again.” That thought
was soon replaced with “well, maybe I should just spend the next season on
getting my swim to 58 minutes or better…or better yet, turn pro and be
guaranteed an empty course.”
So many thoughts were racing through my head. I let that
pack go while I simmered a bit heading into the penalty tent, which was a ZOO.
It seemed like there were only 3 volunteers at this tent and everyone was
yelling in every language imaginable. It was taking forever to get numbers and
names taken down and at one point, the rider next to me was holding three
stopwatches all reading different elapsed times for his penalty. It was
madness. At least I pressed the lap button on my Garmin when I rolled in so I could
get an accurate count of my time spent there. Otherwise, it might have been 5-6
minutes before being set free.
Once I was back riding again, I let out a nice scream just
to get rid of some frustration and let the next pack that came through go by. I
needed to start riding MY race. I never saw another pack after that and was
able to concentrate on what I was doing.
The ride from the start to the turnaround in Hawi yielded
virtually the same power numbers and elapsed riding time (ie: not including 4 minutes in the penalty
tent) as last year. I put in a solid effort for the last 10K up to Hawi at
about 15 watts higher than I had been riding up to that point.
I grabbed my special needs bag and picked up two bottles of
fresh UCAN with 360 cals each.
Once on the descend back to the Queen K, I was feeling as
good as I ever have from a physical and mental perspective at this point in the
race. My legs felt fresh and my stomach felt great. I knew that the most
crucial part of the ride was coming up: the section from Kawaihae to the
airport on the Queen K. I’ve usually had the power fall off a bit here in the
past. Plus, this is where the unrelenting headwind and heat start to really
become a factor.
The field was starting to thin out a bit and I was no longer
getting passed…I was the one doing all of the passing now. I rode the section
from Hawi to Kawaihae about 90 seconds faster than last year on about 20 more
watts.
Once onto the Queen K, I started rolling…and I mean rolling. I was working my way through what I thought was the
front of the AG field. I passed Adam Zucco and Tim Hola out here – two guys I
have never passed while on the bike at this race…and I was still feeling great.
I even passed a couple of strong local guys from Colorado who were also swept
up from the earlier pack, so that just increased my confidence. As an
indication of how much harder this section of course was in relation to last
year, I rode the section from Kawaihae to the airport in the exact same time
(1:10) on 13 more watts (231 in ’11 vs. 246 in ’12) on an arguably faster bike
(Trek TTX in ’11 vs. Scott Plasma 3 Premium in ’12).
Coming off the bike, I was still under 5 hours including the
penalty. Not too bad I thought…a quick comparison showed that ’11 riding time
was 90 seconds faster than ’12 riding time with a wattage comparison of 236NP
in ’11 to 244NP in ’12. Tough day out there!
T2:
Two seconds faster than last year. BAM!
RUN:
This is where my races are usually made where most others go
to die. It took a mile or two for my legs to feel normal and was still able to
put down sub-7minute pacing, which was the realistic goal for the race. I
figured 3:00-3:03 would be expected for the day.
The first 10 miles were on
point, coming through in 1:09.45 with all of them coming in at 6:55-7:02. It
was also during this section where I got an update that I came off the bike in
8th in the AG. EIGHTH! Last year, I was 25th off the
bike. With this knowledge, I knew all I had to do was be smart and execute and
things would fall into place.
Once out onto the Queen K, the pacing really
dropped. But it wasn’t to the point where I was in panic mode as I was still
passing and not being passed. So although the pace was slowing, I was still
moving up through the field. It wasn’t until through the Energy Lab where I
started to move backwards. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had moved my way
into 3rd in the AG. I thought that at best, I had made my way to
fifth. But with the drop of Sami, I was higher than I thought. On the Queen K,
I was passed pretty quickly by Sam Hume and Chuck Sloan and was in serious
damage control mode. I thought that I might have been 6th or 7th
at this point but my mind was in a fog so numbers were just swirling in my
head.
It wasn’t until I was passed again at about mile 23 or 24 by another guy
in my AG that I just needed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. The
good news is that this most recent pass, although quick and decisive, didn’t
yield much more than that. He never put more than 20-30 feet on me through the
top of Mark and Dave Hill, and it was obvious we were both struggling. I got
gapped pretty good coming down Palani and might have been 150-200 feet down.
But I tried to be cautious on the decent so that my quads wouldn’t seize up.
Back on to Kuakini, I needed to commit to letting this guy beat me or go deep
and see what I had left for the last mile. I thought to myself that if this guy
beats me for a podium spot, I wouldn’t be able to live with it if I didn’t try
to do anything about it. I started to push a little and could sense that I was
getting closer. He looked real bad and I started to think that maybe, just maybe, I could catch him by the finish. It wasn’t until
the turn to the decent of Hualalai when I was really able to turn up the gas
and make the decisive re-pass as we turned on to Ali’t Drive with about 1/3
mile left in the race. In the end, I put 27 more seconds on him in that last
stretch on Ali’i. I didn’t know it until I was getting a post-race massage, but
that final pass WAS for fifth place and a second straight Umeke Bowl.
My 5th IM World Champs is in the books. It
certainly goes down as the most satisfying.
If there’s one thing that I learned out there on Saturday,
that it’s that you CAN let huge packs go by and still have a good race if you
execute your plan.
1 comment:
Congratulations on an awesome performance!!! Great job. :)
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