Let’s review those Ironman cliches, add a few more, and see if we can draw some conclusions.
“You can’t win the race in the swim, but you can lose it.”
“Bike for show, run for dough.”
“You should ride one gear easier than you think you should”. An alternative way to say this: “At the end of the bike you should feel like you could have gone 15-20 minutes faster.”
“In the end, it’s not who runs the fastest, but who slows down the least.”
“Trust your training”
“Keep moving forward; you never know what’s happening up the road in front of you.”
“The race doesn’t begin until mile 80 on the bike.”
“The race doesn’t begin until mile 18 on the run.”
“If you hit a bad patch, keep going; it’s a long race and there’s time to recover.”
“Take care of your nutrition and pace, and your time and place take care of themselves.”
Well, let’s see. I was first out of the water in my age group, and the guy I passed for the win came out over 20 MINUTES behind. His swim surely contributed to his loss; my swim did not hurt me, either in time or in effort. I swam easy, and my time was right in the range I have done at CDA for the past four years.
Next, biking. I think there were several issues with my bike which disappointed me, despite those cliches. First, I changed my nutrition strategy from the past several, successful races. When I first started doing these 12 hour races, I would eat one or two nutrition bars during the ride. After hearing numerous suggestions to avoid these solids during the race, I switched to a liquid based source of calories, and this coincided with my reaching the next level of performance, starting to win races and qualify for Kona. This race, I ate a bar, with 280 calories, in the first hour or two of the bike.
The theory here is that, at the effort levels involved, the gut can’t absorb the calories from solid food as quickly or completely as it can from liquid sources, so creating a threat of bonking. I was feeling sapped in the last 1-2 hours, and this may have contributed.
Second, after following the cliches above about going a little easier rather than harder on the bike for two years, I did improve my results, but thought I could do better. So last year, in all my races, I notched up the effort level in the bike, and saw personal bests in all distances. The main reason this worked was that I had a couple of early season races to experiment with, and found that my run did not suffer (*I* suffered, but my times did not) despite the extra effort on the bike. So I had confidence that the new strategy would work, and felt comfortable using it in the big, long races. This year, my only early race was WAY early, and my bike time/effort level reflected the paucity of training to that point. To wit: my time for the full 56 miles of the half ironman in Oceanside was 2:54, with an average heart rate of 133; my time for 56 miles for the first HALF of this Ironman was 2:54, at an average heart rate of 124.
Starting the second lap, I felt a little drained. This was from the nutrition mistake, not from excessive effort on the bike. When I hit the 22 miles of hills at mile 78, I did not raise my game, and my time suffered. *I* was not suffering; if anything, I was doing everything I could to AVOID suffering – not my usual style in the last 30 miles of an Ironman bike, when I usually put the hammer (gently) down, and start passing people. Instead, I was being passed.
This depressed me, and I let the “bad patch” control the rest of my ride. I was NOT trusting my training, when it’s clear I should have. A heart rate average for the whole 112 miles of 117, after 123-4 for the first half – I had a LOT more in the tank I could have used. Should have used? Who knows.
So the race seemed like it was ending there at mile 80 on the bike, and I didn’t feel myself starting to race again until mile 18 of the run. At which point I was proving the most ironclad of all these concepts: it’s not about who’s the fastest, but who slows down the least. I did not slow down at all during the run, while my competition went from 9:00 minute miles to over 10 minute miles. My gain, his loss.
So, I’m going to copy all those cliches, and post them on my door, to remind me once again how to race the race.
It’s now about 10 days out (June 21-June 30) and I’m beginning to feel like training again. I took my first post Ironman run today, 4.5 miles in 40 minutes, along with a 2500 meter lake swim in 45 minutes, and some weight lifting. I’ve got a bit of mental energy back. Along with the disappearance of that sense of profound exhaustion, I think I’m ready to ramp up again.
The next three months will be about getting enough bike miles in so there will be no question about trusting my training, and riding at the effort level I know I should. I’ll keep posting about those bike trips, and a few small, fun races and events in between.
Oh yeah, the Tour de France starts on Saturday. For those who think Lance Armstrong is a serious contender again – well, he’s a *contender”, in the sense he should finish top ten, but the race is really one man’s to win or lose: Alberto Contador. He’s one of the two or three best stage race climbers in the world (the others are Carlos Sastre and Andy Schleck), and he has improved his time trialing so he does not give up anything significant in the Race of Truth. Seriously – he just (June 26th) won the Spanish national time trial championships by over half a minute.
Predicted order of finish:
Alberto Contador
Andy Schleck
Cadel Evans
Denis Menchov
Carlos Sastre
Lance Armstrong
Other names you’ll hear about on Versus TV, but who won’t really be posing a challenge for the overall: Levi Leipheimer, Micheal Rogers, Tony Martin, Kim Kirchen, and Christian Vandevelde. Pellizotti and Nabili will also be in the mix.
Much of the excitement apart from the time trials and mountain stages will come from Mark Cavendish vs. Tyler Farrer in the sprint finishes.