“There’s no success like failure … ” – Bob Dylan
Yesterday’s first race rehearsal for upcoming Ironman Coeur d’Alene ended for me with no run. The RR is meant to be a 112 mile bike (or six hours, whichever comes first), followed by 6 miles or an hour of running. The idea is to test out pacing and nutrition protocols which you intend to use on race day. How well or poorly you do in the RR run is the primary outcome measure.
About 5 hours into the bike, I lost my mojo, and finished up with 106 miles in 5:57. When I got off, all I felt like doing was sleeping (that started about 45 minutes before the end), and was also a little dizzy. It just didn’t feel right to force a run. In the past, I would have just muscled through and done the run, but as I get older, I feel a little more fragile, and don’t feel the need to stress excessively just to prove I can. Uppermost in my mind was last fall, when I went in for a physical after IM Arizona. My blood pressure was fairly high, and took over a week to come back down to my normal levels. I’ve already demonstrated many times over to myself that I can push past feelings of not wanting to go on, and I saw no need to do that one more time when my body, especilly my brain, just didn’t feel right. I drove the 25 minutes to home, and napped for 2 x 20 minutes, then tried to figure out what went wrong.
1. Dehydration – nope. The ride started at 45F, going up to low 60s, with cloud cover when it got warmer. I took in 120 oz fluid, more than I ever have before on a ride like this. I pee’d twice on the ride, and then 3 times in the space of an hour (clear) after I got home. I weighed the same at the end as at the start, and my body fat percentage was lower, indicating good hydration status.
2. Insufficient calories – nope. I took in 1740 calories from Infinit and EFS, both of which include a small amount of protein, evenly spaced through out the ride. Again, more than I ever have before. I was specifically trying to increase my fluid and calorie intake on this ride.
- Uneven to excessive effort at any point in the ride – Possibly? For some reason, my Joule did not download the last third of the ride (I think it was a “Memory Full” situation), but I was keeping a close eye on the on-going data through out, and if anything, the last hour was at a much lower power. The following numbers are adjusted for the altitude, meaning I dropped by FTP by 6% for purposes of the calculation as I was riding at an average altitude of 7000 feet. Here are the numbers for various segments of the ride. Intensity Factor (% of peak onehour power, FTP/Variability Index (Measure of how steadily I’m riding/elevation gain: First 35 minutes: 0.67/1.04/+462′,-351”; next 52 min: 0.701/1.01/+842; 42 min: 0.684/1.05/-957′, 51 min: 0.715/1.01/+855′; a couple of admin miles thru town @ 0.69/1.1; 25 min/0.745/1.03/+617; 14 min/0.4/1.37/-646′; 14 min/0.624/1.07/-333′. The last 50 minutes of the ride was the same sort of terrain as the last segment, which I did at the same power levels. My peak 30 sec power was 0.99 IF, peak 1 min was 0.85, peak 2 min was 0.0.815, peak 5 min was 0.785, peak 10 min 0.76, peak 20 min 0.0.745… all of these segments started at the same time, 3:20 into the ride, when I was going up the steepest section of the whole route. Meaning, I was riding steady for about 20 minutes at about 0.7 of sea level IF/0.75 of my alt adjusted IF, with a VI of 1.03. This is the only segment I can find where I might have benefited from backing off a touch. I certainly had some room for that, as my average cadence up this hill was 78.
4. Trying something new – Yes. All my rides over 3.5 hours for the past 10 years, I have used Hammer Perpetuem as part of my nutrition. About an hour into this ride, I thought, “Hmm, I seem to be getting all the calories I’d intended, let’s see if I can just go with two sources instead of three, and not use any of the Perpetuem.” Not a plan I made in advance, as I had the stuff with me. But it takes up space, and I’m now using it in solid form, which is chalky and sticks to my teeth for a while, a little bit of a hassle. So when I got back, I looked up what’s in it. Besides the maltodextrin and soy protein as the major calorie sources (it would only account for 150 cal during the whole ride if I used it), it also has Sodium phosphate, L-Carnosine, L-Carnitine, Choline Bitartate, Chromium Polynictotinate, and Magnesium Stearate.
I know what the sodium phosphate does; I use a loading protocol with it in the days before an A race to aid with lactate clearance; the other stuff I had to look up. Like most supplements, I’m skeptical of claims about these things, but I’m willing to believe there may be something to them in a high stress activity like an IM. The Carnosine may have the most direct impact, as it’s a dipeptide (which the body can make) which ends up highly concentrated in neurological (including brain) and skeletal muscle tissues. The Carnitine seems to help insulin bring sugar into cells, another potential factor in how alert I was.
Bottom line learnings from this failure, to aid future success: 1. on those long hills in CDA, stay at 0.7-0.72 IF at all times. 2. Don’t drop the Perpetuem; keep using the solid tabs on long rides of 3 or more hrs. in the next 3 weeks.
Also, because today is cool, cloudy, and rainy, and my TSB is -39, rest today (go to the gym), swim and do the long run tomorrow, and rest the day after that, splitting up the two rest days in the plan at the start of next week.