Geeky charts left in for those interested
Arizona came at the end of a real up-and-down year for me. After some good fitness gains in February and March, work and a recurrent quad injury really restricted training in the spring. Despite this, the beginning of the season saw a couple of decent results at the Victoria Duathlon and Lakeside, although I was running well below par. In the middle of June, I packed up my tri-bike and headed back to the UK for a 3.5 month contract, where although training again, it still wasn’t really consistent enough to do anything much more than maintain fitness, and my swimming in particular started to head south.
By the end of September, however, my running was starting to come back, and the end of my contract gave me the freedom to train full time for a while, and I was able to put five 25 hour training weeks together, starting with 10 days in the triathlon mecca of Lanzarote. Who says you can’t cram for an ironman?
Come race-week I was feeling pretty good. Regular sessions with Murray at Absolute Endurance had knocked my swimming back into to shape, and I was doing big sets of steady 100s in 1.40 in the pool, and 1.30s in the wetsuit. I was hitting 35-36kph and 210-220W averages on practice long rides, while my running was improving and I was nicely drilling in a low-effort 4.45-5.00 mins/k easy pace. Putting these together, I was targeting a 9.45 …. 1.03 for the swim, 5.05 for the bike and 3.30 for the run, with 7 mins or so for transition, which would give me a bit of wiggle-room against the previous year’s slowest Kona slot in my age-class of 9.54.
Pre-race
I flew down on the Wednesday, which gave me enough time to deal with a couple of worrying last minute bike crises (broken headset bearings, slipping seat, sheered seatpost bolt, the sound of cracking carbon/paint as a local bike shop clamped the bike on their work-stand, the usual). I rode the course (flat and fast) over a couple of days, and managed to get one lake swim in (cold). Catch most of the outdoor athletes meeting, which is constantly interrupted by the sound of fighter jets ret
urning to the nearby base. “The sound of freedom” we were told.
Pre-start
Rushed as always. Where does the time go?
Swim
It’s a bit of a funny start at Arizona. Once the pro’s start at 6.50, then the remaining 2000+ athletes have to jump in the water from the dock and swim 100m or so to the start, which doesn’t really leave much time for a decent warm-up… which I always seem to need to get my stroke dialed in.
It feels like it’s barely light, and as expected the water is cold and murky.
The course is tricky. The athlete guide shows it as a pretty simple rectangle; however the reality is that it curves following the lakeshore to the south. This gives you a choice, start on the crowded right where the route is potentially shorter, but you get bashed by swimmers trying to cut across from the centre, or start on the less congested left, where you can keep to the outside of the field, at risk of a longer swim. Not enjoying getting bashed around too much I choose the later option, positioning myself right on the extreme left, just behind the first row.
Off goes the gun… almost straight away I find one of the rescue kayaks still cross-ways across the course, blocking the path.. who of course can’t really move now either.. nice. There’s an almighty crush and fight to get round him. Bish, bosh, bash, legs grab, claw, claw. Lovely. I have a moment’s panic, keep going and eventually find a bit of clear water to settle.
I was now also discovering one additional disadvantage of starting on the left, in that it was hard to navigate. In what seemed like half darkness, the buoys were hard to spot, and it felt like people were swimming in all directions. Some are trying to cut across to the left, some are coming across from the right going straight, some are trying to follow the buoys. I was having real trouble getting a decent draft. As soon as I’d get one, a few strokes later I’d look up and they’d be nowhere to be seen, or I’d immediately start to get swallowed up into a larger group and bashed around again. I’m also struggling to get a decent stroke under stress…with all the bad habits coming back – dropped elbows, arms, shoulders.. the lot.
The first turn is horrible of course, as the whole field converges back over onto the left hand side, although I manage drift out enough for the second turn to be a lot less painful.
The way back is less crowded, although again hard to navigate and draft. Looking round I could see that those around me were not exactly swimming with great strokes, which let me know I probably wasn’t having the best swim… however, I’m relaxing a little more, and it’s now a question of just keeping going and getting it done. With about ¼ of the swim still to go, I can feel myself getting chilly, and my legs starting to shiver.
Finally, I go under the final bridge, turn left and I’m lifted out of the water and helped up the steps… for a time of 71mins -- 148/455 cat, 671/2516 overall. I’ve made a right old hash of it.
T1
Coming out of the water I can really feel myself shivering and shaking, and I was feeling woozy… and I have to stop for some time on the run-in for some heaving. Getting my gear on with the shivering was tricky. Time = 6.55.compared to the fast guys taking 3-4.
Bike
The bike course is 3 laps, with first ten miles on wide boulevards making the way out of town, before hitting the bee-line, a scenic four-line highway that heads off into the outskirts of desert, with the final 3-4 miles to the turnaround heading up a steady incline.
Lap 1
As you can see, I wasn’t a happy bunny starting the bike. Despite having put a dry top on in transition I was freezing cold, and shaking still, and one of my legs felt like it was cramping, and I’m worried that I’m having problems with my quads again. The first 20-30 minutes are spent a good 20-30W below target just trying to get going.
Once we start heading north, to my surprise there’s also a lot of wind, which hadn’t been in the forecast. Draft packs immediately start to form, and I’m overtaken by a peloton of a good 15 people riding less than 1m apart, much to my annoyance. Fortunately, this seems to provide a much needed shot of adrenaline, and after being overtaken, I find myself cranking it up, and letting loose most of the words still banned on network TV as I re-pass. This was repeated a few times as I make my way pass a few more groups on the way up to the turnaround, and my wattage gets a little out of hand at times, buy I’m figuring that it’s better than the soft-pedaling was doing earlier.
At this point I’m starting to see the leading age-groupers coming down. Always a depressing sight when you realize you’re quite a way down from where you need to be, and it’s pretty hard work when you spend the day catching up, rather than having people to key off.
Once the turnaround is reached it’s time to fly…. Downhill and with the wind at my back. Coming up the hill seems like an endless stream of packs… grr…
It’s only at this point that I really start to be able to take in nutrition – a mixed of old-school Mars bars and high tech Vitargo, although it’s not particularly appetizing and I still struggle to get it down.
After reaching the turnaround in about an hour, I’m back in town to complete the lap in 1.42 (203W average), although at the time I thought I’d done it 4 minutes quicker.
This lap was also notable for me successfully managing to pee on the bike for the first time ever. Hurrah!
Lap 2
The wind’s really getting up now, and I’m struggling to get nutrition down again – particularly as having finished my first bottle of mixed drink, I’m onto my bottle of concentrate to chase with water, particularly as on reflection, I’ve definitely over-salted it. Up the hill to the turnaround is a real struggle – for some reason I often find it hard to get the power on when I have the wind against me, and it takes me closer to 1.05 to hit the turn. Time for a caffeine tablet.
Power-on again to special needs. The volunteer manning my number range seems a little uncertain as to what to do, and it seems to take an age to get my bag. I load up with new drink bottles, together with a treat bottle of flat coke -- delicious! -- race like you train, I think they say. Maybe I’ll put a thermos of coffee in there too next time.
The coke definitely perks me up, and I pick it back up again into town to finish lap 2 in around 1.48 (209W), and see the family which encourages me no end.
Lap 3… flys by… all of a sudden the wind has dropped and I’m feeling great, and even start having to reign in the power a little. I reach the turnaround this time in about 50mins, and really drill it back down the hill. Coming into town it’s starting to get congested as I’m catching up with more and more people on earlier laps, and it’s tough to get through at times. I finish in 1.41 (213W)
Total time was 5.11… 283rd overall, and 64th in my age class. Average wattage for the whole leg was 208W, 213W Normalized. Lower (and slower) than I’d been targeting (215-220W), or thought that I was doing, so a little disappointing, but I was feeling strong still.
T2
Stupidly I forgot to get out of my shoes approaching T2, so ended up having to make my way through transition in bike shoes, while my legs weren’t yet in bike mode, which is never particularly pleasant. After that it was pretty uneventful… put on shoes, cooling hat and vest, race belt with some concentrated Vitargo, pull up compression socks and pee. 2.22 in all, ok considering
Run
The run course looks terrifically complicated but essentially consists of three laps each made up of three-mini-loops. Although mainly flat and around the swim lake, there’s a small detour into the desert park with the one long hill on the course, supplemented by four little ones each lap to get onto the bridges. From a supporter’s perspective it’s great as they can see you up to 9+ times if they’re prepared to keep crossing the bridge in the middle.
Setting off I’m feeling pretty good, nice high cadence, focusing on efficient stride. One focus of this year has been building up the cadence, aiming for 96 where possible. Some might say more of a mince. One thing I’ve noticed is that it helps me to run well straight off the bike even if I’ve absolutely shredded my legs.
I’m feeling so good in fact, that despite having pace on my watch and desperately trying to control myself, I’m going too way too fast…. 7.10, 7,.20 for the first couple of miles. Fortunately I managed to pull back to about 7.45s which felt ok, so I went with it. Slightly better than Placid last year where I’d set off at about the same pace, but had tried to keep it up for most of the first half of the marathon before imploding in a nasty mess.
Still there was lots of overtaking going on. Quite a few people were already in death-march mode. With the temps now in the 80s, I’m loving my cooling vest. It’s effectively a sponge that you soak in water, so it feels like a cool hug… just what you need when the temperature gets up.
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Nutrition was coke from the start, plus water supplemented by the odd swig of concentrated Vitargo. Bizarrely it seemed a little hard to get water or Coke at some of the aid stations, as only the Gatorade volunteers seemed to be switched on enough to shout what they had … some kind of odd sponsorship deal perhaps? A welcome exception to this was a guy at aid station 6, who raced after me twice cup of coke in hand after I’d missed it at the aid station…. What a hero!
The rest of the run was generally ok.. just a question of gritting my teeth, keeping going, and watching the miles tick-by, and trying not to let the pace drop too much, although on reflection I should have focused more on keeping the cadence high in the last third as the day got tougher
And then to the finish. As I entered the chute, someone seemed to be right behind me, so last 400m was real eyeballs out, and I pretty much fell over the line, with some kind of hyperventilation going on.
Final run time. 3.32, for 24th in my age group, and 113th overall.
Total time, 10.04, 35th in my age group, and 156th overall.
For a moment, I’m a little disappointed not to have broken 10 hours, then I decide I need to go and lie down.
And that was it. I spend a good 20mins lying down, before heading off for beers and chicken wings. I manage to miss both my buddies finish, as they cross the line faster than expected… sorry guys! Any potential disappointment at not hitting my target time is reduced by the field being so strong this year that I would have needed a 9.33 to qualify for Kona pre-roll-down.
Aftermath
At times during the last six weeks training I would occasionally worry “what if you don’t qualify”.. after making such a huge investment (time, financial and emotional), but as I sit here already a quite a few pounds heavier it doesn’t really seem to bother me. I think I pretty much did as well as I could have done given where I was in September, and full time training was kind of fun. (Warning: try at your own risk.. you become vary boring and run out of laundry fast).
And who knows with another year of swimming, making sure I practice more in open water (duh!), another 15W on the bike, working on a more aero-position, and getting my run speed back, maybe 9.30 isn’t that much out of reach after all!
Thanks as always to my wife Jillian for continuing to support her husband’s crazy obsession, and her family for coming on yet another jaunt to support, Murray for the swim coaching, Cindy and Sarah at Absolute Endurance for patching me up throughout the year, and the Attackpoint crew for their motivating comments on my training log. Everything else was my fault.
