Painful Lesson
Yesterday was my final tuneup race prior to IMLP, a half-iron distance race in Peterborough Ontario. The weather was almost perfect and as usual there was a great turnout for this well-run IM Canada qualifier.
My plan going into the race was to take it easy - keep things at IM pace, no more. That would mean a likely 6 hour + finish time for this half, which would be a pretty slow time for a half.
The swim went well. I didn't push it at all and came up with a very good time anyway, mainly because I only have one swim pace. Pushing the swim for me is futile, all it does is burn more energy for very little return, results-wise. So I work on form and on staying comfortable and out of trouble. I managed to keep my line (very important) and in spite of being grabbed (!) from behind a couple of times I hit the beach in just over 34 minutes for the 2k.
So far so good.
The bike was supposed to be a cruise, no big effort and no over-exertion. I THOUGHT that's what I was doing, but evidently my perception of my effort is a little off. Looking back on the ride I can see now that I did push things a little too hard at times. That would come back to haunt me later in the day.
Whenever I race against my friends M and D, I can guage how well I'm doing by how long it takes them to pass me on the bike. I get out of the water ahead of them every time, but as every triathlete knows the race is never won on the swim. On this day I somehow stayed away from this two-man peloton for the entire ride. That alone should have told me I was going too fast for this race.
Finished the ride feeling really good. Really really good. A bad sign? I started out pretty easy on the run. It was hot, but no hotter than my last couple of training runs so I felt ok. The run on this course is an endless series of rolling hills. Not easy. But I was going to stick to my plan of walking the aid stations and every couple of kilometres to simulate my IM plan of walking all the aid stations (at every mile of the run). I managed to climb the first couple of hills ok, but soon began to run out of gas. My HRM was showing about 160 bpm on the climbs, a long way from my max of 179 but still kind of high so I started walking the uphills.
I actually didn't feel too bad other than just tired until the last 5-7k. At that point my breathing was getting shallow and I started getting a weird cramp in my side. I don't think the HRM was helping my comfort either, and it kept slipping down so I doffed it with about 5k to go. I'd had enough bad news anway so I didn't miss it.
I dragged my butt over the finish line in 5:46:something and immediately started feeling a LOT worse. Like 'I'm going to throw up" worse. I've never felt as bad so soon after a race.
I did manage to pack up my gear, but the thought of any post-race food was not appealing. In fact a quick and discrete hurl in the grass outside the transition area was more the thing. Felt somewhat better after that.
What went wrong, besides pushing too hard? Hard to say. Some kind of nutritional error, I'm assuming. I'll have to research that. One problem may have been that I drank too much of the wretched Gatorade on the run. I never drink that stuff normally, preferring instead the more refined Cytomax. I'll have to find some way of carrying my own hydration for IMLP.
The big lesson though, is that an IronMan (or even a half) is a LONG race. Really long. Go slow, take it easy and keep well inside the comfort zone on the bike because the real race starts late in the day and if the tank is empty it won't be pretty. Blowing up in Peterborough might actually turn out to be a good thing.
Special thanks to M for taking on the driving duties post race - I couldn't even see straight let alone drive a car, so I was extremely grateful for the ride. And for pulling over on highway 115 so I could throw up again. And for the coke, which helped. And for letting me crash at his house for a couple of hours until I was ready to get in my own car and drive home.
My plan going into the race was to take it easy - keep things at IM pace, no more. That would mean a likely 6 hour + finish time for this half, which would be a pretty slow time for a half.
The swim went well. I didn't push it at all and came up with a very good time anyway, mainly because I only have one swim pace. Pushing the swim for me is futile, all it does is burn more energy for very little return, results-wise. So I work on form and on staying comfortable and out of trouble. I managed to keep my line (very important) and in spite of being grabbed (!) from behind a couple of times I hit the beach in just over 34 minutes for the 2k.
So far so good.
The bike was supposed to be a cruise, no big effort and no over-exertion. I THOUGHT that's what I was doing, but evidently my perception of my effort is a little off. Looking back on the ride I can see now that I did push things a little too hard at times. That would come back to haunt me later in the day.
Whenever I race against my friends M and D, I can guage how well I'm doing by how long it takes them to pass me on the bike. I get out of the water ahead of them every time, but as every triathlete knows the race is never won on the swim. On this day I somehow stayed away from this two-man peloton for the entire ride. That alone should have told me I was going too fast for this race.
Finished the ride feeling really good. Really really good. A bad sign? I started out pretty easy on the run. It was hot, but no hotter than my last couple of training runs so I felt ok. The run on this course is an endless series of rolling hills. Not easy. But I was going to stick to my plan of walking the aid stations and every couple of kilometres to simulate my IM plan of walking all the aid stations (at every mile of the run). I managed to climb the first couple of hills ok, but soon began to run out of gas. My HRM was showing about 160 bpm on the climbs, a long way from my max of 179 but still kind of high so I started walking the uphills.
I actually didn't feel too bad other than just tired until the last 5-7k. At that point my breathing was getting shallow and I started getting a weird cramp in my side. I don't think the HRM was helping my comfort either, and it kept slipping down so I doffed it with about 5k to go. I'd had enough bad news anway so I didn't miss it.
I dragged my butt over the finish line in 5:46:something and immediately started feeling a LOT worse. Like 'I'm going to throw up" worse. I've never felt as bad so soon after a race.
I did manage to pack up my gear, but the thought of any post-race food was not appealing. In fact a quick and discrete hurl in the grass outside the transition area was more the thing. Felt somewhat better after that.
What went wrong, besides pushing too hard? Hard to say. Some kind of nutritional error, I'm assuming. I'll have to research that. One problem may have been that I drank too much of the wretched Gatorade on the run. I never drink that stuff normally, preferring instead the more refined Cytomax. I'll have to find some way of carrying my own hydration for IMLP.
The big lesson though, is that an IronMan (or even a half) is a LONG race. Really long. Go slow, take it easy and keep well inside the comfort zone on the bike because the real race starts late in the day and if the tank is empty it won't be pretty. Blowing up in Peterborough might actually turn out to be a good thing.
Special thanks to M for taking on the driving duties post race - I couldn't even see straight let alone drive a car, so I was extremely grateful for the ride. And for pulling over on highway 115 so I could throw up again. And for the coke, which helped. And for letting me crash at his house for a couple of hours until I was ready to get in my own car and drive home.
posted by carbonman at 9:28 PM
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