Skipping much of the uninteresting bits about the progression leading to the day of competition, I can say that it was relaxing and offered nothing unexpected or detrimental to my performance. As is becoming the custom, I pre-prepared dinner the day before the day before so I did not have to risk the unknown when in Toronto. Chicken and rice stir fry prepared at my girlfriends apartment in London - satisfying and seemed to do the job just fine. Two nights out I went for an unstructured run with some pick-ups... I went sans GPS but I could tell I had my legs back. The night before I went for a hesitant ride through downtown Toronto... The roads were surprisingly empty so I cranked out a bit of time at race pace. Again, all engines seemed to be firing. The temperature had been red-hot all week but were just beginning to dip on Saturday. Sunday was set to be a perfect day.
Transition opened at 5:30 the next morning with my wave off at 6:50, so I was up and eating breakfast at 4:00. Yoghurt, muslix, hemp hearts, home-made power bar and coffee - perfect light but calorie dense. Upon arriving at transition I did not have to fight for a spot on the rack - they were all predetermined based on age/number/wave/whatever. I just had to find my sticker. Easy. Quick bike around the run course for warm up, run around the bike exit/entrance, and almost zero line at the portapotties... Man, everything was going smooth.
Due to the nature of the swim course, they did not offer a swim warm up. Being a somewhat inexperienced swimmer, I have not developed a must-do warm up routine... and sometimes I pretty much forgo warmups in practice anyway, finding myself doing tempo pace swimming instead. UNFAZED (sp?).
My wave included males under 29, relays and para-athletes. This meant that I would be starting with Simon Whitfield, as he was doing a relay. For a second I considered starting near him and wasting myself in the first 25 meters so I could say I swam over Simon... but came to my senses. There is no way I could swim that fast, even for 10 meters.
This was my second race in a wetsuit, and I am loving it. The first 200m was a bit of a washing machine. I took a couple face-kicks but managed to get over all the slower people and find a pair of feet to guide me for the rest of the 1300m. Otherwise, uneventful. I came in with a split of about 22:10, a personal best in or out of the pool. This would be good enough for 30-something on the swim.
Transition was smooth. Not lightning, but smooth. Maybe 10 seconds slower than the fastest person through, but solid.
The bike leg was along the Gardiner Express. I was expecting pancake flat. It was never literally flat, always moving up or down, but never more than about 3% grade so an easy course. Headwind all the way out, tailwind back. The first half of the ride I was averaging about 255W, and came back averaging about 240W. Looking at my power chart from the race, after halfway my power was clearly trending downward as was my heart rate, so I really should have been pushing more. I was passed by slightly more people than I passed, but held a higher power than last race so all was not lost. Regardless, I was worse than 80th on the bike leg, so I have a lot of work ahead of me. Great, since I love riding.
This race I decided to try a different nutrition plan. The goal was 1 gel before the swim, then 2 gels on the bike and one bottle of water. Nutrition as needed on the run. At 10km on the bike I took my first gel. I took water no problem, but could not stop burping and tasting the gel. I couldn't convince my body to put down another gel so I left it on the bike. I still had gut cramps for the first 4km of the run, so I've got to figure something else out.
Run transition was again, smooth, but not the fastest. I could work on this a bit I guess.
Now the run. Despite cramping for nearly half the run, I did not let that slow me down. I was running with a tailwind for the first half, headwind for the second and that is reflected a little in my speed data. Luckily I had a few carrots just ahead of me to work my way to for the first 2km, and a steady stream of bodies to jump to through the rest of the run. I was only passed by two guys, but I think I passed one of them back. In the last mile I caught a guy in my age group in a team Canada suit. Every time I pass someone I assume they would jump in on my pace and let me drag them... This guy let me blow by him, extending my lead to about 25 meters. I thought I was going clear but with about 800m to go I checked back and he had held that 25m. I knew my muscles were wiggly and tired meaning I wouldn't have much sprint so I had to put enough gap into him to discourage the sprint... However he was still able to hold that 25 meters after my final surge. Coming around the final bend into the wide, grassy finishing chute, I just had to take one more look back... and there he was on my shoulder. I had to counter the sprint and I held him on my shoulder for a while. Unfortunately he had just one more second worth of glycogen on me and managed to edge me out by about 1 second on the line. This put me, as previously reported, 5th in 20-24 and 33rd overall. Although I wish I would have podiumed, I improved on my first olympic attempt by 10 minutes and still placed rather competitively at nationals. This was a huge success. Onwards to some rest and recovery, a small build up to a local sprint race, and then a fall running block. I am tres excited.
Training tip/Data analysis
I think I'm going to add a new feature to my posts. A training tips/data anaylsis section, hopefully directly related to the above post. In this instalment I will use my heart rate data from the race and compare it to the rest of my season to determine my triathlon run leg limiters. I may not always be right, but this is my attempt of making sense of the data I have gathered on myself.
In the past I've done max HR tests to determine threshold running HR, but lately I've been basing the number on my total collected HR data all year. Looking at time spent in zone vs HR range (bin size ~2bpm) you should see two distinct downward steps. The first, at the lower HR would be your aerobic threshold, or, where you transition from burning predominantly fat to glycogen. The next is your anaerobic threshold, or, what would be associated with a 10-15km race or 45min all out effort... give or take. For me, these two numbers are about 173 and 185 respectively. For my 10km at this race, my average HR sat at about 183bpm, including the time it took to raise from my naturally lower bike HR. If I was fully rested and running an all-out 10km I would have expected a higher heart rate, but due to muscular fatigue from biking, I was only able to push my aerobic system to that threshold pace, corresponding to a 37 minute 10km. Being that my running threshold heart rate should correspond to a race lasting about 45 mintues, in theory I should be able to push a higher heart rate. I think this is telling me that my limiter for a triathlon run is definitely my cycling and strength. If I was seeing my heart rate maxing out, I would know that the limiter in my running is that my aerobic system can't keep up. Another possibility is that I was so aerobically taxed during the swim and bike that I just didn't have any more to give. This is possible, but my cycling heart rate showed no evidence of this as I sat right at my threshold HR (after allowing it to slowly drop from the swim) until the last couple of km where I allowed my pace to drop a bit to spin out my legs.
Adam "R&R" Fortais
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