Luckily enough, after joining my local triathlon club (OC Triclub) I got a very welcome email offering an early bird 3 for 2 discount to the Vineman Full Triathlon in Sonoma County at the end of July (roughly 9 months out). Perfect timing for the 36 week training plan that I purchased online- Needless to say, I got started right away.
Since my training volume at that time was quite high I might have taken a day or two off of my training just prior to race day to rest up a little. I met my goal of finishing under 3 hours (2:56) and learned that my bike fitness was not as strong as I wanted it to be. Three weeks later, I simulated a half Iron Man and ended up walking for about 25 minutes during the run after jumping into the bushes for GI emergency due to "racing fuel incompatibilities" -Note to self- never, I repeat NEVER use a soy based racing fuel EVER during a race or even during a training day...EVER! Soy and I aren't friends!
After that point I started to get into the meat and potatoes of long distance and interval training 18-20 mile runs, 100 mile bikes, 3500-4000 meter swims, bricks, etc. Slowly I replaced parts on my bike as they wore out from overuse- first a headset, then a bottom bracket then an Adamo saddle. I added aerobars that my cousin gave to me, too, off my bike rack to make my bike faster and finally got a professional F.I.S.T. fitting using Retul from Jim Manton at Final Fit who just got back from fitting teams participating in the Tour 'd France.
Jim did an AWESOME job of taking me through the fitting process and helped me modify my bike to make it more comfortable on my upcoming race. We had a great time talking shop as we are both professional biomechanics experts, he with the bike body interface, and me with the body movement interface. After the fit, all of the pain and discomfort on the long rides went away and I actually felt powerful on the bike as opposed to weak- how I felt before. I also gained 1-2 mph average over my longer rides.
This last piece really helped cement my confidence for the race and I went into the taper period just prior to my race feeling prepared and ready to put it all together so to speak. My goal going into the race was to finish in under 13 hours. My strategy was to race a conservative race since I had never put it all together before. My first priority was to finish...PERIOD.
The venue: The Vineman Triathlon course is situated in Sonoma County, CA. The swim venue is a 2.4 mi double out and back course, on the Russian River in Guerneville, CA The bike starts in Guerneville and double loops around Healdsburg, Geyserville, and Windsor for a full 112 miles- ending at Windsor High School. The run course is a triple out and back starting and ending at Windsor High School.
The bike course starts in the redwoods of Guerneville and loops through the beautifully scenic vinyards of Sonoma in a constant rolling hills course. There are a couple of small climbs, the most significant being on Chalk Hill Rd. east of Windsor. Over all the hills are only taxing in that they require a bit of skill to hold back enough to keep your heart rate low enough so you dont choke during the run. The key here is proper gearing, gear selection, and restraint. The road quality was pretty good except for sections of Westside Rd and Hwy 128/Chalk Hill Rd. which were full of potholes and patched over potholes. This made for a rough surface that required extra energy to keep the pace up as well as vigilance on the part of the riders so as to not lose control of the bike. Bottles of hydration and nutrition- littered the course after each significant bump. After Chalk Hill, the course runs mostly down hill and finally onto smoother roads on the way into Windsor High. Bike aid stations were at mile 18, 28, 38 and then every 10 miles after that. They were stocked with water bottles, Gatorade O2 Peform bottles, clif bars and porta potties
The run course is a triple out and back 8.73 mile course with aid stations every mile or so along the course. The first two miles are flat with two hills between miles 2 and 3 and another, more significant, hill between miles 3 and 4. After mile 4 there is a short 0.3615 mile leg that ends in a timing mat where you turn around. On the plus side- you get two aid stations right after another at mile 4 and mile 4. 73. The run aid stations each had porta potties and served water, ice, cola, gatorade, oreos, peaches, bananas, clif bars, shot bloks, gels, and pretzels. The run course was VERY WELL supported and monitored with event organizers within sight at every point on the course. They monitored the athletes very closely but kept the atmosphere fun with music, humor, costumes, dancing, and water sprayers.
My Race: As I mentioned before, I felt good going into the race with my only goals being: first- to finish the race in one piece and second to finish in under 13 hours. My strategy for this was to swim at a moderate but conservative pace and finish the swim between 1:10 and 1:20. I planned to take my time in T1 to make sure I had all of my ducks in a row for the bike portion of the race which would likely be the longest leg. During the bike I planned to keep my heart rate in zone 3 ride avoiding zone 4 as much as possible to conserve energy for the run. I was shooting for a 6:15-6:30 ride based on my training up to that point. T2 would be faster than T1 as there is much less to do. For the run I was planning on a roughly 10min/mile pace which would take me roughly 4 hours and 26 minutes based on my training runs with an all out attempt for the last 3 miles.
We arrived in Sebastepol on Thursday 7/28 and checked into our cute Racoon Cottage run by the very lovely innkeeper Jeanette. We had a super delicious dinner at the Willow Wood Market Cafe in Graton, CA recommended by Jeanette (we ended going back to the restaurant friday night because it was SOO good..) and went home to get some shut eye. Friday 7/29 we went to Windsor High School for the orientation and race packet pick up, shoe drop off, etc. Friday night was packing the car for an early and long day on Sat.
The alarm went off at 4 am, I had already packed the car the night before so, Chris and I just had to stumble around, put in the contacts, and put the kids into the car so we could get to Guerneville by 5:30am when the transition area opened. The drive was pretty uneventful and didnt take the full 40 minutes I had planned (more like 25min). The dreaded traffic jam that I had predicted on the tiny two lane road leading into Guerneville with 1000 athletes trying to all get in at 5:30am never materialized. We were able to park about 2 blocks from the transition area and I was able to get all of my stuff out of the car without rushing. I waited at the top of the hill leading into the transition area with about 200 other triathletes for about 5 minutes until they opened the transition area and then went in and racked my bike.
I must have missed seeing the special needs run and bike bag pickup areas at the top of the hill so I asked around and then went back out to take my bags to the drop off. At that point I realized that I had better use the potty asap before the crush so I did and, as usual, all of the toilet paper was gone. Luckily there were toilet seat covers so I became resourceful if you know what I mean...
The water starts are always a scrum and this one was no different. I barely managed to avoid getting kicked in the teeth although a couple of people swam over me at the start. I swam hard and then noticed an empty space in the water which I went for. I am not a particularly slow or fast swimmer so the fast pack separated from the rest of the pack and left me at the front of my pack. Eventually closer to the turn around point, a couple of the next waves swimmers swam over me. A funny thing I noticed was that because the water was murky and visibility wasnt good, periodically, people would converge on me from both sides. They came at me in a v shape formation until they eventually attempted to or were successful at swimming over me. After the first couple of times I got smart and backed off when they came, allowing them to crash into each other instead of me while I swam around the mess...heh heh heh..
Near the turn around point the river got a bit shallow and my hands were brushing the rocks on the bottom. I kept raising my elbows and then even committed a swimming form sin by taking my hands down my centerline (as I was taught as a child) to avoid the rocks. Eventually it became so shallow that I did one or two dolphin dives and found deeper water. I felt really good during the swim and even turned over on my back at the end of the first out and back to try to spot and wave to my family. The second loop was more of the first with more of the later wave swimmers passing me. I got out of the water at 1:14 right in the middle of my 1:10-1:20 goal time. I felt great in the transition area and was grateful to see wetsuit strippers for the first time in my brief racing career (they're awesome). In the OC Intl tri I almost pulled a hamstring trying to get out of my wetsuit so I really appreciated that touch (good job organizers!).
I took my time in T1- making sure I got in a few bites of my Koka Moka bar as I put on sunscreen, gloves, helmet, jersey, sox and shoes. I ran up the infamous hill coming out of transition to avoid all of the dorks who were falling over because they were in the wrong gear and trying to ride on top of their shoes.. The first 5 miles of the bike are fast and I struggled to keep my heart rate down as it was still a bit elevated coming off of the swim and from the excitement of the transition. The sharp turn into downhill at Sunset came quickly and luckily all of the pre race warning by race officials paid off. They staffed the turn with about 4 people and cones all yelling at us to slow down and ,unbelievably, an orderly slow moving line of bikes formed as we went around the curve.
After that there was a bit of gradual and periodic short steeper uphills that challenged my strategy of keeping my heartrate in aerobic zone and I ended up in low zone 4 a few times. I was able to control my heart rate after the first 10 miles or so and dropped it down to about 10 beats below Lactate Threshold. After about 15 miles my heart rate dropped to about 15-20 beats below Lactate Threshold with short excursions on the hills. The only time I exceeded my bike Lactate Threshold by a couple of beats was on Chalk Hill, a 3/4 mile 340 elevation gain. The course was rolling hills and parts of the road were of dangerous quality with potholes that could throw you off of your bike.
Around mile 35 I felt one of the bolts in my left cleat (the one with the wedge) loosen and cursed my luck as this was the one piece of equipment I had forgotten to check. I was in a conundrum: If I pulled my shoe out of the cleat at mile 56 when I got my special needs bag, I might not be able to reclip in to my pedal but if I left it in the pedal I would have a less than satisfactorily functioning cleat. So at mile 56 I left my shoe on the bike while I hit the porta pottie. When I came out I thought I'd just check if the bolt was still on the shoe (last time this happened it disappeared and I was unable to recleat). Luckily it was still there and I had brought my allen wrenches. In my excitement I wasnt able to get the bolt threaded with the wedge in so I pulled it out and managed to get the bolts back in. Phew! As I started to pedal away towards the special needs truck I realized, though, that I had accidently screwed the bolts into the wrong threads . This caused knee tightness which could turn into the catastrophe of full blown knee pain or injury if not fixed right away. So- after getting my special needs bag, I sat down on the side of the road again and fixed my cleat again....20 minutes lost peeing and fixing my cleat- but those 20 minutes allowed me to finish the race uninjured so they were worth it. As a bonus I got a practical lesson about pre race equipment checks...
Normally when riding I plan water bottle refill stops into my route but during the race I started with one of my usual 28 oz bottles of Hammer FIZZ and then drank what they supplied on the course. As a result, and because of my conservative plan, I was likely over hydrating on the bike course- I drank so much of the supplied water and Gatorade O2 bottles after my bottle of electrolyte drink was empty that after my first dismount at mile 56, I had dismount three more times on lap 2 to pee (this cost me another 10 min or so) taking my bike time to almost 7 hours (6:58) and 30 min over my bike goal. Lessons learned: 1 need to figure out my sweat rate and 2: bike fitness has a lot of room for improvement. Still, I passed a number of people and I likely had the slowest and heaviest bike out there. I was riding a converted 22 year old chrome-moly 1989 rockhopper comp frame with dura ace cassette and a 40- 50 chain ring on the front, T-2 aerobar and 7700 dura ace shifters (thanks Chris Lombardo of The Bicycle Mechanic for keeping her ship shape!). I don't even have any idea how much my bike weighs but it is slower than the carbon tri bikes on the uphills and faster on the downhills...
Once again I took my time in T2 massaging my feet out before putting them into my running shoes. I borrowed some sunscreen from a helpful soul on the way out, and gulped down 3 endurolytes and the last of my Gatorade O2 bottle. Run pace started great at 9 min mile with heart rate at aerobic threshold and I decided to change my fuelling plan for the run. My original plan for the run was GU chomps every 30 min but by then cola slushies, gatorade, and water would provide plenty of calories (I estimated about 40-50 cal/ cup 1-2 5 oz cups per aid station would give me roughly 200 cal/hr that I planned for). This plan worked out really well and I will continue this in the future because, frankly, I was beyond sick of gels and chomps, I dont really like them in the first place even though my body tolerates them well, and sticky gel wrappers are a pain because they get everything else sticky (like bar ends, hands, tape, jersey, etc) I will likely be searching for alternatives for bike nutrition for my next event...
The sun was out at this point but there was an afternoon breeze and two of the aid stations had water sprayers. Although I felt good for the first couple of miles, by the time I got to the first hill between miles 2 and 3, I lost my nerve for a moment and walked up the second half of the hill to keep my heart rate down. In retrospect this was my main mistake on the run and I was then tempted to and did walk the second half of each hill, and starting with the second lap each aid station entry and exit. I was really dragging at the end of the second lap and dreading the third lap when I spotted my wife, son and daughter right next to the finish/turnaround chute- I looked at the timer and saw 12 hours on the clock, did a quick calculation of my previous pace, and realized that not only would I not make my time goal of 12- 13 hours but I may even exceed 14 hours- I waved to my family as I went through and went out on my third lap determined to pick up the pace.
I continued with the same strategy of walking the aid stations although I didn't allow myself to walk the hills any more and then, as I rounded the turn around point and the timing mat at the beginning of the last of 6 legs of the run, I felt lifted. Although my heart rate didnt budge I picked up my pace, had a bounce in my stride and was determined to finish before sun down.
At that point I decided to not stop for any more liquid after the second aid station and to run the last 3 miles at the maximum sustainable pace to make sure I beat the sun. I picked it up to about 8:45/mile pace which took my heart rate to about 153- well below my non exhausted lactate threshold of 165-170 bpm. In my exhausted state that was my lactate threshold. I must have passed 50-70 runners in the last three miles and particularly in the last mile as I ran all out. I pretty much passed every one I could see in front of me and as I entered the chute I saw one last guy about 100 yards ahead of me- maybe 30 yards from the finish line. I took the challenge and cranked it up to max, the crowd started to roar as they realized what was about to happen and I riled them up even more waving my hand over my head, encouraging them to go louder, as I screamed past this poor guy. Surprise of all surprises- into the tape that they were holding for each and every finisher (a very nice touch to the finish). I finished the run in 5:06 about 40 min slower than my goal time- testament to all of the walking...
This was an awesome race, extremely well organized and I one I would recommend to others for being a well organized and challenging event. Lessons learned from this one were 1) equipment check ALL equipment prior to race 2) Need more bike fitness which will support my run better 3) find out in advance what race drinks will be provided so I can plan better for the bike and not spend so much time waiting for the porta potties. With all of those in place I should easily be able to shave 90 min off of my race time. I was overwhelmed with emotion at the finish, to say the least. This is the first race that wife and kids attended and I now realize what a difference it made. I am excited for the next couple of races in the que- a couple of half IronMan races in Sept and Oct to finish the season.
Pre Race Nutrition: Hydration for pre race week with Hammer FIZZ
4 tablets of Standard Process Min-Tran (Calcium/Magnesium)
Salt all food- Trader Joes Sea Salt grinder
Std Process Drenamin and Cataplex B (6/ day- morning, noon, evening)
Std Process Organically Bound Minerals (2/day)
Std Process Congaplex (3/day)
Night before the race:
Std Process Min-Tran (4 tabs for sleep)
Race morning: Std Process Min-Tran (4 tabs)
Std Process Catalyn (3 tabs)
Std Process Drenamin and Cataplex B (2 each)
Std Process Organically Bound Minerals (2)
Std Process Congaplex (3)
Std Process Wheat Germ Oil (3 perles)
Hammer FIZZ 28 oz
3 hard boiled eggs
3 Hammer Endurolytes
T1 Koka Moka bar (380 cal), 8 oz Hammer FIZZ
Bike to mile 18 Rest of the 28 oz bottle of Hammer FIZZ
3 Hammer Endurolytes every hour on the hour
Bike after 30 min GU Roctane on the hour, GU Chomps on the 15 and 45. (~400 cal/hr)
GU Gel on the 30, Gatorade O2, Water ~30 oz/hr based on stomach "feel"
(~75 cal/hr) Total estimated ~450 cal/hr intake.
Run: 3 Hammer Endurolytes every hour on the hour, Cola slushies to cool my body temp
during first lap and for caffiene. After that Gatorade and water at every aid station
Total calorie intake estimated ~200-250/hr.
Post Race: 1 pkg of Hammer Recoverite, 3 scoops of Std Process Whey Pro, 1 scoop
Trader Joes Green Drink, 16 oz Trader Joes unsweetened vanilla Almond Milk
Medi Herb Boswellia Complex (1)
Medi Herb Vitanox (1)
Std Process Min Tran (4 tabs)
Std Process Organically Bound Minerals (2)
Std Process Drenamin and Cataplex B (2 each)
Std Process Congaplex (3)
Std Process Wheat Germ Oil (3 perles)
Later that night: 1 Avocado, 28 oz Hammer FIZZ
Next morning: 1 pkg of Hammer Recoverite, 3 scoops of Std Process Whey Pro, 1 scoop
Trader Joes Green Drink, 16 oz Trader Joes unsweetened vanilla Almond Milk
Medi Herb Boswellia Complex (1)
Medi Herb Vitanox (1)
Std Process Min Tran (4 tabs)
Std Process Organically Bound Minerals (2)
Std Process Drenamin and Cataplex B (2 each)
Std Process Congaplex (3)
Std Process Wheat Germ Oil (3 perles)
Equipment: Garmin 310xt GPS multisport watch and HR strap
Swim: TYR goggles, speedo silicone ear plugs, Aquasphere Ironman wetsuit
Bike: 1989 Rockhopper comp Chro-Mo frame, Shimano Deore XT U brake, LX
derallieurs, LX triple crank biopace 28, 40 round, 50 round, rear cassette: Dura ace 7
speed 10-20, Adamo Road saddle, OG Avenir mountain bars with bar ends, T-2 clip
on Aero bars Dura ace 7700 bar end shifters, Forte 90mm stem, Forte steering tube
converter. Wheelsmith mountain wheels with Deore XT hubs and skewers,
Specialized 1.5 Armadillo kevlar tires, Deore XT pedals, spd shoes and cleats.
Garmin bike cadence sensor and GPS attachment kit.
Run: Asics Gel Kayano 14 with Garmin cadance sensor
