Yet another chapter in my triathlon journey comes to an end with Ironman Boulder. My 2015 racing racing season is still not over, but with my A race behind me, there's no more pressure.
We reached Boulder on July 25, one week before the race. That's not enough time to acclimatize, but better than just 2 days. Rental road bike from spinlister.com worked out pretty well until my TT bike arrived through TBT on Thursday. For some reason, I was thinking that the week before the race would be all rest, so even the short workouts felt too much, but I think they really helped keep my muscles sharp and somewhat get used to the Boulder conditions. Athlete checkin on Thursday was a breeze. Love the Ironman backpack they gave us this time around. I could definitely use it as a transition bag for local races.
Within a day of reaching Boulder I started feeling super dehydrated. Apparently, altitude does that to you ;) I upped my water intake but that didn't help much. Starting Thursday, I further increased water intake until every pee was clear, and supplemented it with OSMO 2x/day.
I didn't feel like doing the pre-race sharpening on Saturday but went ahead and did it anyways. Went for bike and gear checkin at 11AM and it was already super hot outside. I couldn't imagine racing the next day in that kind of heat.
Race morning
I could barely sleep all night. Woke up at 3AM, showered, and drank the coffee I had got from Starbucks the previous night. Had Ensure for breakfast, for a total of 440 cals. The swim start was at 6:30, so the plan was to reach T1 by 5:15. We had to drop off special needs bags at Boulder High School and take a shuttle to the reservoir. There was a long walk from where the shuttle dropped us, to the transition. Made T1 by 5:20. Body marking, pumping up the tires, checking nutrition, going for round 2, putting on the speedsuit, all that took an hour and before I knew it, people were lining up for the swim. I had to make my way through hundreds of athletes lined up in the chute. Water temp was 77.5 deg and it was declared as a wetsuit-optional swim. I was NOT going for podium or KQ, but still decided to go non-wetsuit for the heck of it.
Swim
I managed to make my way past the wetsuit folks and to the non-wetsuiters seeded at 1:15 swim time. I didn't get time to warmup and knew that I will have to use the first 15 minutes of the swim to do so. Instead of being able to relax and warmup for the first 15 minutes, I was struggling to weave my way through the slower swimmers. The field started to slowly thin out and I found my rhythm. I was trying to keep my legs relaxed and use the legs only to balance my body roll. I was swimming by myself 2/3rds of the way, but finally managed to find a pair of feed after the second turn-around. I held onto that pair of feet for next 10 minutes or so until that guy decided to go off course. I quickly found another pair of wetsuit-wearing feet which I followed all the way to the swim finish. It ended up being a nice relaxed effort and I was happy to see 1:06:xx on my 920XT. The only issue was that my legs were feeling tired in spite of my keeping them super relaxed and mostly just using them to keep lower body up and balance the roll.
What worked:
- Drafted last 1/3rd of the swim
- Kept the effort relaxed
- Breathing every 3 strokes worked well in spite of the altitude
What didn't work:
- Legs were tired, especially the right hip was locking up
- Didn't try hard enough to draft during first 2/3rd of the swim.
T1
This was a disaster! I really wanted to wear calf sleeves for this race as they have proven to help me. But since the swim was non-wetsuit, I didn't want to wear them while swimming. I didn't have time to put them in the bike gear bag so I stuffed them inside the speedsuit. In T1, it took me 90 seconds or so to just put on the calf sleeves. I was going to do a semi-flying mount with bike shoes clipped in, but that turned into a stunt gone wrong. The rubber band holding the right shoe upright had snapped and as the right pedal went down, the shoe bumped hard into the road. Then something happened and I slammed my left knee into the metal edge of the elbow pad. I had a small cut from it, but it luckily wasn't very painful. After a couple of attempts, I managed to get both my feet in and start the bike.
What worked:
- Jogging to the bike and out of T1 in socks felt good
What didn't work:
- Too slow
- Wasted time putting on calf sleeves
- Forgot to stuff 3 e-gels from the T1 bag into the tri top pockets
- Mounting the bike was embarrassing
Bike
After the complete failure of a bike mount, I was on my way. I was keeping it nice and relaxed at least on the legs, but HR was still a bit high. I was having a super hard time keeping the HR below 140 bmp. Power was lower than I wanted and HR was higher. I was expecting effects of altitude to show, but not that extreme. I was still making decent speed so I decided to go by perceived effort and pay only peripheral attention to HR and power. HR was 145+ but I let it be as long as it wasn't spiking above 150.
I was taking 1 e-gel every 30 minutes and I had only 4 e-gels, which meant I would need to use on-course nutrition for the remaining 1 hour before I can pick up more e-gels from special needs. After 1.5 hrs into the ride, I started feeling a bit drowsy. That was new for me and I decided to try some GU/Roctane gels from the aid stations. I needed those to fill the difference anyways. Caffeine did the trick and I was feeling fresh again within minutes after downing Roctane.
Overall the bike went by fairly quickly. I was feeling tired towards the end and a slight feeling of hamstrings and calves locking up if I tried to push. In the last hour I increased the salt intake, but I was afraid I was already lagging behind on salt. My normalized power was only 131W, so over-biking was definitely not the issue. The extra salt in the last hour definitely helped and I ended the bike feeling decent.
The second half of the bike was very hot and it helped to douse myself with cold water at every aid station. The routine was to pick up two cold water bottles at each aid station. Put one bottle in the bottom cage, squeeze the other in the aero bottle, and douse the rest through the helmet vents, on the face and the back. I'd use the bottle in the bottom cage for additional dousing before the next aid station.
What worked:
- E-gels worked very well.
- Drinking water to thirst
- Dousing cold water on the head to keep myself cool
- Going by perceived effort when HR and power were not matching expectations
- Peeing on the bike (4x)
What didn't work:
- Felt drowsy on the bike, so it'd be good to mix in some caffeinated gels
- Ran low on salt. Should've had 3 tabs/hr
T2
Fly dismount from the bike worked well. With the socks, I was able to easily jog through transition. The black track which gets super hot, was covered with carpet which made the jog to transition comfortable. I quickly put on vaseline lined socks, Clifton 2s, grabbed the bib belt, bottle and visor and took off. A quick bathroom break cost me a minute, but there's nothing I could have done about that.
Run
Started the run super easy at 9-9:30 min/mi pace, :30s slower than planned. HR was still hovering above 145 bmp. Legs were feeling good, but the plan was to cap HR at 150 for the first half marathon. Pace wasn't what I wanted it to be though. I averaged 9:10 pace for the first 7 miles and was hoping to pick up the pace after, but disaster struck! After mile 8, I started getting slight cramps in the upper calves. I dialed it back and went into damage control mode. I immediately grabbed two tubes of base salt at an aid station at the junction of the "flux capacitor" as DC calls it. The recommended dosage is one thumb of base salt per hour, but I quickly licked 4 thumbs of base salt followed by 2 Metasalt tabs within 15 minutes. I was definitely not bonking and I knew I could push if it wasn't for the cramps. Sadly the damage was done and I could only reduce further damage. Low oxygen levels was making it even harder. I put my head down and kept digging in mile after mile until mile 20. I was saving the hyperventilation trick for the last 10K. At this point I was running at 10:15 or slower pace. Starting mile 21, I started breathing deeper and faster to get in more O2. As I was expecting and knew from experience, the cramping sensation started disappearing and the pace started going up. I was able to hammer the last 2 miles at 7:30 pace and finish strong-ish.
What worked:
- Starting easy and capping HR to 150
- Adapting by slowing down and taking extra salt
- Stopping drinking after realizing that I was a bit bloated
- Not bonking (HR stayed up and finished strong @ 170bmp)
- Walking aid stations and short steep climbs
What didn't work:
Lagged behind on salt which caused cramping. It was too late in the game to turn things around.
Final Result
SWIM DETAILS | Division Rank: 18
| Split Name | Distance | Split Time | Race Time | Pace | Division Rank | Gender Rank | Overall Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 2.4 mi | 01:07:18 | 01:07:18 | 01:44/100m | 18 | 101 | 118 |
BIKE DETAILS | Division Rank: 75
| Split Name | Distance | Split Time | Race Time | Pace | Division Rank | Gender Rank | Overall Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 112 mi | 05:41:26 | 06:55:55 | 19.68 mph | 75 | 308 | 335 |
RUN DETAILS | Division Rank: 53
| Split Name | Distance | Split Time | Race Time | Pace | Division Rank | Gender Rank | Overall Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 26.2 mi | 04:17:11 | 11:19:02 | 09:48/mi | 53 | 195 | 222 |
Transition Details
| T1: Swim-to-bike | 00:07:11 |
| T2: Bike-to-run | 00:05:56 |
