General
I am local to NOLA, so this is a race that I do nearly every year (barring injury). This year was going to be unique for me because I haven’t had what I would consider a good race in quite some time. I was DNS 2015 IMFL (overtraining), I struggled to a sub par IMTX 2015 (probably early stages of overtraining), I had a mechanical at Kona 2014, etc. The last race that I could hang my hat on was IMFL 2013. The feeling I had at that race was control, I was able to control my effort and accomplish what I wanted from start to finish, I was able to make a conscious effort with 8 to go to speed up and run hard. I wanted to race like that again.
NOLA wasn’t an A-Race for me, my marbles are in the IMTX 2016 basket so I can punch my ticket back to the Big Island and do the IM Worlds the service of putting my best effort into it from start to finish. Nonetheless, I did take a couple of days off in advance of Nola (no true taper prior to that).
Pre Race
First, I will include a brief work about predicted race conditions. All week, the weather forecasts were extremely consistent. Usually stuff down here changes day to day, but this one was pegged. We would have mild temps (60s to 70s), overcast conditions, and hellacious winds out of the East (min 20 mph steady 30mph gusts higher). This course is fairly simple, basically it is out 28 miles on the bike (to the East) and back, then out 6.5 miles to the West and back on the run. The swim is in “protected” waters inside a marina.
So I have a pretty well established routine that has never failed me. I am up at 3:00 (depending on race gun time and other logistics), I grab the obligatory 2 PBJs on white bread, get partially kitted up, get the whole lower GI thing working and get out the door. This event has been plagued with horrible parking, so athletes were told it would behoove us to arrive early to avoid race day parking stress. I was on site by 4:15. The parking rules (I could not make this up) were that the earlier you arrived, the further they would park you from the race site. Every single person arriving explained to every single volunteer how ridiculous this was, but alas, they were not in charge and we (at least I) had bigger fish to fry, so I let that stuff go and got to business.
Took the literally 0.75 mile walk from car to transition and got all the gear rigged up and ready to rock and roll. Despite wind conditions and despite the fact that I weigh somewhere between 133 and 138 (didn’t weigh in that morning), I am rocking the disc and the FLO90 front. I am going to be as aero as possible into that head wind, that’s where I will distance myself from many.
We catch an announcement that the race is delayed because all the buoys have been blown all over the place and the course has to be reset, no problem. This happens to be a TT start of sorts and this year, I am aged up to 40-44 which is starting mid-way back (generally I am upfront so this is a new perspective for me).
While all the course is getting reset and the pros are getting close to the gun, I run back and forth to my car to load up the stuff I no longer need and to grab a good warmup run and then get decked out for the swim (which was wetsuit legal as predicted all week long).
Swim
After much indecision, I got in the first place that I was allowed in the TT start, essentially first M40-44 but behind half or more of the race. I hop in the water and I am off. Briefly I will say that I am not the best swimmer in triathlon but that I am extremely comfortable, extremely consistent, and on great form right now. I thought in flat conditions, I could swim 27. These conditions were not flat, they were in a word “insane.”
The minute I hit the water, I am overtaking people, which is not so bad, what is bad though is the look on the faces of the people I am overtaking. They are fearful, they are panicked, they are doggy paddling with face out of the water. This is going to be bad.
The swim has an odd shape that I won’t describe in detail other than to say that the first leg of several hundred yards has a seawall on one side and the buoy line on the other. There is a picture floating around in cyberspace of people crawling up this wall to abandon the race, in the first few hundred yards. It was gnarly.
I try to hug the buoy line (which requires going against current some) and I am able to avoid much of the insanity, but the conditions are super choppy and I am catching water probably every other breath. What’s worse is that it’s not “rhythmically” choppy. There is something going on where the waves are bouncing off the seawall and making it impossible to time the breathing with the chop. Then I start to run into watercraft. Usually I would take this as a sign that I am of course (and I believed that briefly) but eventually it was apparent that these guys were in the thick of things to rescue people.
I could go on but I won’t, you get it, it was a hard swim, 74 people were pulled from the water and another 25 or so missed the swim cut. I was way slower than predicted but given what was going on, I draw no conclusion at all from my time/pace (33 minutes). I have not idea if I swam well, poorly, to my potential, etc., I was just happy to be out of the water.
T1:
I am up out of the water and start the plan; this is a long run to the bike, so no need to panic; there is plenty of time to get everything done. Goggles up, continue running, cap and goggles in hand, pull off wetsuit top and keep running. Get to the bike, wetsuit is off, helmet is on and I am OUT. Uneventful T1 just like I like them. There is a traffic jam at the mount line (my first experience with starting in the back of this race), I avoid all that drama and opt for a simple non-flying mount and I am gone.
Bike
The bike course is pretty simple, there are minimal elevation changes and minimal cover from an East wind. I hit the first long straight section (Hayne Blvd) and I start getting to work. I have a reliable FTP of about 256 right now, but that has all been indoor and little of it has been in aero position. As such, I am not 100% on what my target is going to be starting off this ride.
The plan was to work hard into the wind and take advantage of my size and low CdA and then let the wind push me home some and recover, hydrate, fuel and start the run course ready to rock. If I was feeling great, working hard into the wind was going to be 210 watts, as it turned out, I did in the 192 range. I was passing people left and right like they were standing still. These winds were brutal. Every way we went, my helmet was being lifted off my head like it was being ripped off by an invisible hand. Every time I went for a drink (from the regular BTA bottle), I upset things just enough that I thought I was going down. I’ve only race Kona one time, but the Kona winds had nothing on these winds (granted the Kona winds require navigation of pretty significant descents and that wasn’t the case here).
I hit the turnaround having averaged right at 21mph and then let things settle, I fuel up to make sure I am hitting calorie/caffeine/salt targets, make sure the bladder is empty get back into position and let the wind take me home. I was pushing probably only 170 watts at this point but the average speed back to T2 was 26.1 mph.
I really thought that no one would pass me after I made the turn. I figured that the tailwind would shrink the speed differential between everyone. At mile 36 (I made note because it was the only rider to pass me on the day) a rider in my AG went past me like he was wearing a jet engine. He did this while I was doing at least 26 potentially higher.
After that, all just ticked away and shortly I was back at T2. I didn’t set a time goal for the bike, but I really in the back of my head want to be a sub 2:20 guy (and still run well of course). These conditions had me right at 2:23. Not close to a PR (I have gone 2:20) but given the amount of passing that I did and the amount of carnage that I saw, I thought I was doing fine at this point.
I didn’t have a watch on during the swim, I didn’t know when my feet hit the water, so all I knew at this point was that my ride went OK and it was time to start thinking about finishing this thing off.
T2:
Flying dismount right at the line and run to my spot without issue, I rack the bike, drop the helmet, socks on shoes on, grab the belt with everything hooked to it (garmin, glasses, hat, flask, etc) and I am gone. As I turn at the end of the rack and down the main exit row, I hear a metallic clink. Half a second of thought and I say “meh, I am not carrying anything metal to drop” and I high tail it to run out while putting on hat, putting on glasses, putting on belt, putting on . . . where the hell is the garmin!
I turn around and run back toward my rack (everyone and their grandmother informs me I am going the wrong way). By the grace of god I find my garmin and start running the right way again. Before I reach “run out” I realize that the metallic clink was the strap clasp and it is long gone. I am going to have to hold this damn watch for 13.1 miles. Like I have said many times, if I had a dollar for every time I have been screwed by either the 305, the 310, the 910 or my other 910, I would have enough money to buy yet another garmin that could once again screw me over.
Run
The run plan was simple, continue the bike plan, work with the wind when you can and crush everyone when the wind works against you. I pull out of T2 and I am flying. Like many people, when I get off the bike for a 70.3 or a 140.6, I feel like I could run 5:00/mile forever, which of course is bogus.
So I look at the damn garmin and it tells me that I am sub 7:00 out of T1. Really this felt fine, the wind was doing much of the work, but I was in control and I made the decision to back it down to 7:15 or 7:20 and save up for the turn around. I am ticking off the miles, feeling fine, taking in probably 100 cals per half hour or so, grabbing fluids as needed, no problems. My HR is firmly in the “training” run range of about 140 which confirms further that the wind is doing its job. When I see someone I know and we chat for a second, I tell them that my race starts at 6.5 and not a step sooner.
I am still passing people left and right, at this point, I have been passed by one guy as we left T2 (I nicked him on the bike at mile 53 or so, he was just getting me back and was in a younger/earlier group). He was a great runner, I never saw him again. A lady pro caught me somewhere around 4 or 5, but she too probably started 20 minutes in front of me and was just coming back. She left me too. All in all, I am passing people quite often and I can remember exactly where and when I was passed each time, so I take that as a good sign. I still don’t have a total race time available or an age group ranking or anything, but I am in control of my day and that was my goal. So far so good.
My beautiful bride runs out to see me at mile 3.5; what a pleasant surprise, I had no idea she would be able to get out here, I crest Bayou St. John and at the foot is my mother in law with my 2.5 year old boy! I take an extra half second to stop and give him kisses and then I see my Mom at about mile 5. What a great run and I am super hopeful that I can catch them all again on the way back in.
I see the turn around and tell myself that I have been “off” since the bike turn and that it is time to go to work, 6.5 miles is nothing, who gives a damn if it is windy. For some reason (and in hindsight, this is actually a perfect thought to have), I think of that scene from Rocky IV. Apollo is show boating with Drago and it is all fun and games and then the Russian Coach yells something from the corner and Drago drops the hammer and it is “boom boom and out go the lights.” That is what I thought of. Get to that turn and then kill this thing.
I make the turn averaging right at 7:19 miles. I immediately have to zip up the jersey and turn the hat around because the hat was going to blow off and the jersey was a balloon/parachute, I am told the winds were steady 30s with gusts into 40s, I don’t know if that is accurate or not, but I surely have no trouble believing it.
I am running strong now and keep checking the watch to see if the effort is bringing the pace down. It wasn’t going down but it wasn’t slowing either. New goal: even split this race, can I run the same pace into the wind that I ran with the wind at my back. On a day like today, that is a huge negative split all day long and it is also a strategy to put a hurting on anyone that overran the front half.
I catch mom again on the way back and thank her profusely (as profusely as possible without stopping). I was so happy to see her. Mother in Law and 2 year old are still at the foot of Bayou St. John on the way back, I run by for a brief stop and a pat on the head this time and the little man is not impressed; he wants to talk about the rocks he is playing with (I get one caught in the lugs of my Newton Elites).
Cruising back to the 3 mile to go now and I am holding pace despite the insane wind, my HR is rising as the effort would typically cause, I made the turn in the low 140s but looking at the data now, from the turn on the HR steadily rose up to 165 until the kick where I launched it to 175. I approach the 3 mile to go and I see Ironwife’s car. She isn’t going to surprise me this time. WRONG, she is holding the 2 month old in her arms. I stop again to kiss the butterball baby and to thank my wonder bride for letting me do this stuff. I tell her I am going to crush this thing and I am off. She gives so much to allow this insane pursuit, I owe it to her to crush this thing. There is a famous Prefontaine quote “To give anything less than your absolute best is to sacrifice the gift.” In my mind the gift that I would be sacrificing is all the work that she does that allows me to be out here. No gift sacrificing today. I am 3 miles to go and I am going to put time on people.
I don’t feel in trouble at all, I still haven’t been passed since that lady pro and I continue rolling and zipping along as much as the wind allows. Around now a relay runner catches me and I jokingly tell him that it’s not cool to be on fresh legs right here. He laughs, apologizes, and smokes me. I crest the big bridge around mile 12 or so and there is a very clear straightaway that really lasts forever, though it is only 1 mile; we race this course often, sometimes multiple times per year, this straight always surprises me that a mile can take that long. A young racer comes through and makes the last pass on me of the day (he was in his early 20s and looked awesome on the run).
I cruise the chute pumping fists and am super excited to have been in control of my whole day, that’s all I wanted and as far as I knew that’s all I got.
Post Race
I run into a bunch of buddies right in the chute who ask how I did, I say I felt great but they wanted to know my times and splits, all I knew was that I ran right at about 1:36 and that I did negative split the run by a few seconds. I went and got in line at the massage tent and got something to drink. Got the massage, went back to the car that was parked on Saturn and swapped out some clothes. I call my wife and tell her how we did and thank her again again. At this point she asks if I know anything about the results and I 100% knew nothing.
She tells me that I am 3rd in M40-44 (by far my best placement at a big time race), that I rode 2:23 and ran 1:36 and swam :33 for a total of 4:37. It wasn’t a PR time, but it was definitely my best 70.3 I have actually gone faster in every discipline in a given race, but today really couldn’t be compared to any of those other efforts.
My AG ended up with 3 slots to 70.3 worlds, but the entire podium turned them down. I can’t say why the others did, but I turned mine down because I am all in for Kona (even if I don’t have my slot yet) and there is no way I can make both of those trips. I would like to remain employed and married and I don’t think the Australia/Kona double would help either of those goals.
Looking at results a couple days later, I have only one regret. I lost 4 spots by less than a minute (none in my AG). This is why I despise the TT start. There was no one near me from behind, there were only 2 people within a mile in front (whippet young guy and relay runner guy). I can’t say that I would have beaten any of those 4 others, but I can say without question that we all would have gone much faster because I would have made them bleed to beat me by less than a minute. They may have beaten me, but we all would have finished faster.
Ironman Certified Coach
Currently accepting limited number of new athletes
Last edited by:
Jim Martin: Apr 21, 16 12:44