Florida 70.3 Haines City 5/20/12

 Florida 70.3 Race Report

I took a solo trip down to Florida in May for the Florida 70.3 race.  My uncle who works for Ironman had a house that he gladly let me stay in.  Being that it was the first time training through the winter, I wanted to measure my fitness level & see what kind of results I would get out of my increased training.  It was only May, but felt like August with the miles of training that were logged.  The new venue down in Florida made the race an unknown, but I did know that it was a very flat bike course & it would be hot (mid to high 80's).   Also, a legend by the name of Lance Armstrong was attending, which made signing up a bit easier.  The race site was very scenic & seemed like a perfect location for an Ironman event. 

Swim: First open water swim of the year & a non-wet suit race makes for an interesting start.  Add to it the course was an M-Shape with a record setting 6 turns, which was due to the water shortage in the lake in certain areas limiting the original out and back swim.  Minutes before the race kicked off was pretty spectacular with helicopters flying over the lake & a large media presence & spectators for Lance.  I was in the (30-34 ag), which was in the last wave to start about 1 hour after the pro men.  The swim started ok, but I feel behind right away after not making a hard effort for the first 200 meters.  I began to pick up the pace, but the swim turned out to be a huge mess.  Sighting/Drafting in open water is a skill that requires experience & I had a pretty good technique for doing this.  The holdup was the 100's of athletes clustered in front of you at every turn & trying to avoid them.  Every 6 strokes I needed to sight & 1/4 way through my head speared a guy's torso that was going the wrong way in the water.  For the last half of the swim I took a long detour to the outside to find open water.  Last year I was around a 1:33 per 100 swimmer for a 1.2 & thought I had improved over this past year.  This wasn't a great judge of swimming, but I know this race experience will help me through the season.  

Time: 31:53, which was around 1:39 per 100.     

Bike:

After a very long 3 minute T1 transition, where I opted for putting my tri top on after the swim (horrible idea since it was tight and very hard to get on) I finally made it out on the bike with a couple goals in mind.  First was to concentrate on fueling with a new strategy I planned, adding salt caps to my bottles, which made retain water/electrolytes since it was a very hot day & pickup 2 or more additional bottles on course.  Second, was to at least beat my Personal best of 2:30 for the 56 miles since I knew the course would be faster than Timberman 70.3 & that I had trained much harder this year.  Last was to really save legs for a sub 6:30 per mile run.  I had worked hardest on the run during winter & knew I was capable of big things. 

The bike was very flat the first 30 or so miles averaging almost 24 mph, which thinking back I would've like to push a bit harder.  After mile 40 or so I caught some head wind & there were some rolling hills, which slowed me down a bit.  I had managed to pass some age groupers that beat me in the swim & battled with one guy towards the last 5 miles.  Relating to athlete volume, the bike course was a mess with athletes all over the place.  There were times I would need to bike in the other lane to pass people into on coming traffic.  This is a result of being in the last wave, but did everything I could to manage it.  I was happy with the bike performance, but soon realized I needed another gear & to eventually take more risks on the bike as the season went on in order to finish on top.

Time: 2:26   22.87 mph    Personal Best                      

Run:

I have never been more confident in my running lately.  Between racing in my first 13.1 race in March,  trail racing in November, 17 miles training runs in Palisades Park in February to 3x 2 mile track repeats with 400 meter jog in between at 5:35 pace.  I knew the training had been done.  This confidence totally changed my mentality going into the run segment this year.  I came out fast in the low 6 min range.  The course is 3-loop with a couple decent climbing hills about 1 mile out.  On top of that the last wave start kills you as being on the course later in the day only leads to the temperature rising into the high 80's.  2 miles into the race a guy passes me while im going around 6:20.  I let him go & stick to my game plan as about 4 miles down the road I would pass him for good.  The main goal was to keep pace for the first lap, push the 2nd hard, and hold on for the 3rd.  I needed to keep my body temperature as low as possible and luckily they had ice cups that i would squeeze ice in my hands, put down my race top, and into my visor.  This really helped keep the heart rate in check.  In addition, a local resident was saving lives by hosing down athletes outside of her house, right on the hardest part of the course.  Thank you for the hose down! The only drawback was the crowds at every aid station.  There might as well have been a picnic at some stations, with athletes covering every table.  Some aid stations  I just had to pass due to overcrowding.  Luckily the finish line came soon enough & I finished with a 1:27 run split, which was 3rd in my age group & one of the top 15 or so amateur runs of the day.

Time: 1:27:53  

Overall: 4:33 7th AG. 50th Overall



My only company for the weekend. Jeep Sahara & the Felt Da3



Great 1st race of the season.  I built confidence in my run & now I can take some different strategies into the next race of pushing harder on the bike.  The top guys had about 6 or so minute advantage bike split & that seems to be the difference right now.  Also, at this point you only can accomplish what you put in & that means more free-time lost to training, less job focus, earlier wakeups, less social life.  The difference right now of me stepping up to the podium is about 5 more hours training a week.  I thought the 10-12 hour training weeks were heavy, but after researching the top guys put in around 15-20 per week.  I know I can reach the top, but the main question to answer right now is how bad do I want it. 



2010-2012 Volume Training Comparisons

2010-2012 Training Volume:

2010: 

            Hours    /  Volume (In miles)

Swim:  46.10 hrs / 79.5 miles

Bike:   87.94 hrs/ 1,692 miles

Run:    45.96 hrs/ 376 miles

2010 Total:   180 hrs / 2147.5 miles

In 2010, which was my first season I focused on a heavy swim schedule.  Mostly 3 smaller swims per week (2500 or less) & single swim volume reaching 5,000 meters.  During the year I had minimal run speed work included in my workouts, meaning no track workouts, strictly running for time/mileage & lots of bricks (bike/run transitions).   Similar with bike workouts I would get distance in with no specific exercises incorporating intervals, which made for weak performances.  I took off mostly the whole winter from SBR for 4 or 5 months Oct-March & started going to the gym again.  The muscles used while biking are totally different than what you would normally use while running or playing any other sport.  So this 1st season I had to train my legs to be able to hold a consistent and steady cadence while slowly gaining bits of power. 

My average week during peak season would be roughly 4,000-6,000 swim, Biking of 70 -90 miles, Running 10- 20 miles   8-10 hours a week.

2011: (Late season training Oct-Dec)

Swim: 48.66 hrs/ 88 miles

Bike: 133.15 hrs/ 2,657 miles

Run:  85.37 hrs/ 675 miles

2011 Total:  267.18 hrs/ 3420 miles

In 2011, I made a switch & hired a great coach mid season, Joe Mac for some knowledge of speed work both running & biking.  My weekend rides were done with a purpose & instead of putting in big single workout mileage I concentrated on more frequent & more intense workouts.  Instead of doing a big 3:30 bike on the weekend I would do a 2:30 bike roughly 40-50 miles and focus on key 15-20 minute race pace intervals including a warmup and a cool down.  If you can separate your workout into 3 different segments it is much easier to tackle.  Along with specific weekend rides I would get in a quick hour spin indoors that worked on power intervals, mostly 2- 3 min repeats on the biggest gear with a 1 minute recovery in between.

For running, I would do a weekly track workout starting in July that would work on 800's, 4x 1 mile repeats @ 5k pace (sub 6's) with a small recovery in between sets.  Track workouts prove to be essential if you want better times during your race as they raise your Vo2 Max Heart rate, which results in a stronger heart & your body's ability to deliver more oxygen to those legs.

After my last triathlon in October I didn't stop training for the winter.  Instead I worked heavily on my run over the winter months.  I knew my race performances in 2011 were disappointing during the run , but a lot of that was a result of  tired legs from the bike & trying to understand the 4th discipline of nutrition during a race.    

2012: (1st time Off-Season Training)(Jan-June Data)

Swim:  35.63 hrs/ 67 miles

Bike: 104.07 hrs/ 2,049 miles

Run:  57.68 hrs/ 484 miles

2012 Total: 

In 2012, I have proved that off season training has totally payed off.  Right after my last race in 2011 I put together a solid plan to run around 10 miles a week through December.  Late January, I linked up with Andrew Shore & a couple guys from the GCT Tri crew as they were training for the Boston Marathon & it was a huge boost.  I started increasing my long runs on the weekends and during February I had a couple solid 17 mile runs in the freezing cold that covered the whole Palisades Park (Extremely Hilly), where the New York Ironman will be held.  This was a great training base and even better since I would be racing on that same run path in the August Ironman.  To add more fuel to the fire for motivation, Joe Mac asked me to join the Mid-Atlantic Pearl Izumi Triathlon Team.  As my first official sponsor they provide me with some great apparel including race kits, jackets, shoes & all the good stuff.  In march, I ran my first 13.1 race in March in a time of 1:21. I am building up for Ironman NYC right now & I put in about 140-180 miles per week biking, 20-35 miles running per week, while keeping my swimming and the backburner around 6,000 meters per week.