Humbling to move up from the M18-24 to the M25-29, but its unavoidable I suppose!
http://www.thoroughbredtriathlon.com/2014/04/14/70-3-florida-aging-up-and-learning-the-hard-way/
Or if you don't want to read it with active links, here is just the text-
This weekend was my first race in the Male 25-29 age group. After clawing through the ranks in the 18-24 division and finally finishing on top at Ironman Florida last November, it seems only appropriate that my humble debut in the next age group would be at Ironman 70.3 Florida.
When we walked out the door at 4:00 AM to make it to the race site by 5:30, it was already warm and humid. Some would complain about the heat and humidity of the day, but after what felt like the world’s longest winter in upstate New York, I didn’t care how unbearable the temps got, even if they may have slowed me down a touch.
Once the bike was set up in transition, shoes clipped in and rubber-banded, there were still two hours before my race began, since ours was the last swim wave of the day. Breakfast was becoming a distant memory, so it was a good time to snack on some Perfect Fuel chocolate and sip some coffee. The Perfect Fuel energy bites make a perfect pre-workout snack, they are low glycemic and have ginseng, and aren’t so filling that they feel heavy in your stomach. Next it was time to don the brand new Champion System’s race kit, which had just gotten in two days earlier, just in time for the race! The material is incredibly lightweight and breathable, while still providing the necessary compression to keep things more hydrodynamic in the water and aerodynamic on the bike. After slipping into my wetsuit, I walked down to the beach. Remember Kate Hansen, the Olympic luge girl who became famous for dancing up a storm during her warm up, headphones blasting? If not have a click-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi8RO0R0_ho
This might have been exactly what I looked like during the final 20 minutes before the start, blasting my favorite fast pace dubstep through my X-1 Audio noise-cancelling/waterproof ear buds. Had to make sure the right beat got stuck in my head, four and a half hours is a long time to have Taylor Swift or John Mayer on repeat!
Finally our swim wave was ready to go. We waded out into the water and anticipated the start siren. For the first time since my college swimming days, I had some pretty good confidence in my opening 100 meter speed. As soon as the horn sounded, I found my way to the front of our wave with almost no contact. A couple of quicker swimmers took off from the front, but I felt very comfortable in my position within a pack of 3 or 4. Then we hit the wall of slow swimmers… because we were the last wave to go, there were literally hundreds of stragglers from earlier swim waves to be passed and trampled. Begin rant- slower age groups should be seeded in later swim waves; it would make the swim more enjoyable for not only me, but the people who get in my way in the water too! – End rant. After a high traffic swim, I was back to the beach with a decent swim time of 30:51, 6th out of the water in my age group. Not spectacular, but more than sufficient to start the day in contention.
I was able to sneak through transition pretty quick, slapped on my new Rudy Project sunglasses and Wingspan helmet, grabbed the bike, and was gone. T1 was a thing of the past in just 1:48, and I was on the bike course.
Knowing the winds were going to be mild and favorable, I elected to push a very low power, getting my bike up to speed using my strength, then letting the bike stay up to speed with a very aerodynamic setup and position. This helped me save quite a bit of energy, and honestly it felt like my new Ceepo Viper practically pedaled itself. Taking advantage of the rolling to flat terrain, I ticked off the miles at just shy of 25 miles per hour, and had a pleasantly uneventful bike ride. Other than having to shout “on your left” for the entire leg (a byproduct of the late swim wave and the slow waves starting earlier… but time to end the rant), there was little to complain about. A swooping tailwind carried us through the closing miles of the course, bringing me home in 2:15:15, now sitting in 1st.
The first steps off the bike always give a bit of foreshadow on how the run is going to pan out. Today, the steps told me “you are going to be quick, but it’s going to get real tough real soon.” Leg had a quick turnover back to my bike rack, but they had just a hint of oncoming cramps. With a transition time of 2:04, I headed out for the run.
The course is a three loop run, which only becomes more and more congested as the race continues (sorry, that was the last rant, I promise). With the terrain being modestly hilly, or super hilly if you’re a Floridian, it was a little bit difficult to compare each mile and gauge effort by pace. Luckily I had my Suunto Ambit 2 watch, which gives me pace by GPS as well as heart rate data. Knowing what sort of effort could be sustained for 90-95 minutes took some of the guess work out, but not enough of it apparently. My first 5 miles were flawless, exactly where I wanted to be for average pace and heart rate. The next 6 miles began to slow from 7:00-7:10 per mile down to 7:20-7:30 per mile, which would have been strong enough to bring me home with a satisfactory run split. Then out of nowhere at the 11 mile marker, a side stitch came on and immediately paralyzed me. The sudden pressure in my abdomen pressed into my chest, and even crippled to a walk, breathing became shallow and difficult. My guess is that the lack of heat acclimation made it difficult for my stomach to digest the drinks and gels I had been consuming along the way, and now my gut was saying “enough is enough.” Between the shallow breathing and excruciating pain, I became very light-headed and dizzy, and thought I was seconds away from collapsing, just two miles from the finish. After walking and pressing on slowly, I was able to go back and forth between a slow jog and walk. I wrapped up the run course in 1:42:30, slipping back into 6th place and a 4:32:28 finish.
In hindsight, I probably should have run the first loop at a 7:20-7:30 per mile pace, and targeted a 1:37 run split. Pulling that 5 minutes back would have put me in 3rd. Instead, I tried to hold 7:00-7:10 per mile, aiming for a 1:33 run split and didn’t have the fitness to back it up. It’s definitely a harsh lesson to learn, since 3rd place would have been good enough for a 70.3 World Championship slot, but I’m choosing to read into as just that- a lesson. This wasn’t the perfect race by any means, and now I have experienced that there is a much smaller margin of error in the 25-29 age group. There will be no trip the 70.3 World Championships in Mont-Tremblant this September for me, but you can count on me to start clawing my way to the top of this new age group.
Last but not least, just want to thank my teammates on the Perfect Fuel Chocolate Elite Team for all their encouragement, Ceepo Triathlon Bikes for all the free speed on the bike course, my friends and family for following along all day, and most importantly my mom for driving me to and from the race and helping me carry my obnoxious amounts of equipment. Thanks for reading, see you at the next race!
Tim Russell, Pro Triathlete
Instagram- @timbikerun
http://www.thoroughbredtriathlon.com/2014/04/14/70-3-florida-aging-up-and-learning-the-hard-way/
Or if you don't want to read it with active links, here is just the text-
This weekend was my first race in the Male 25-29 age group. After clawing through the ranks in the 18-24 division and finally finishing on top at Ironman Florida last November, it seems only appropriate that my humble debut in the next age group would be at Ironman 70.3 Florida.
When we walked out the door at 4:00 AM to make it to the race site by 5:30, it was already warm and humid. Some would complain about the heat and humidity of the day, but after what felt like the world’s longest winter in upstate New York, I didn’t care how unbearable the temps got, even if they may have slowed me down a touch.
Once the bike was set up in transition, shoes clipped in and rubber-banded, there were still two hours before my race began, since ours was the last swim wave of the day. Breakfast was becoming a distant memory, so it was a good time to snack on some Perfect Fuel chocolate and sip some coffee. The Perfect Fuel energy bites make a perfect pre-workout snack, they are low glycemic and have ginseng, and aren’t so filling that they feel heavy in your stomach. Next it was time to don the brand new Champion System’s race kit, which had just gotten in two days earlier, just in time for the race! The material is incredibly lightweight and breathable, while still providing the necessary compression to keep things more hydrodynamic in the water and aerodynamic on the bike. After slipping into my wetsuit, I walked down to the beach. Remember Kate Hansen, the Olympic luge girl who became famous for dancing up a storm during her warm up, headphones blasting? If not have a click-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi8RO0R0_ho
This might have been exactly what I looked like during the final 20 minutes before the start, blasting my favorite fast pace dubstep through my X-1 Audio noise-cancelling/waterproof ear buds. Had to make sure the right beat got stuck in my head, four and a half hours is a long time to have Taylor Swift or John Mayer on repeat!
Finally our swim wave was ready to go. We waded out into the water and anticipated the start siren. For the first time since my college swimming days, I had some pretty good confidence in my opening 100 meter speed. As soon as the horn sounded, I found my way to the front of our wave with almost no contact. A couple of quicker swimmers took off from the front, but I felt very comfortable in my position within a pack of 3 or 4. Then we hit the wall of slow swimmers… because we were the last wave to go, there were literally hundreds of stragglers from earlier swim waves to be passed and trampled. Begin rant- slower age groups should be seeded in later swim waves; it would make the swim more enjoyable for not only me, but the people who get in my way in the water too! – End rant. After a high traffic swim, I was back to the beach with a decent swim time of 30:51, 6th out of the water in my age group. Not spectacular, but more than sufficient to start the day in contention.
I was able to sneak through transition pretty quick, slapped on my new Rudy Project sunglasses and Wingspan helmet, grabbed the bike, and was gone. T1 was a thing of the past in just 1:48, and I was on the bike course.
Knowing the winds were going to be mild and favorable, I elected to push a very low power, getting my bike up to speed using my strength, then letting the bike stay up to speed with a very aerodynamic setup and position. This helped me save quite a bit of energy, and honestly it felt like my new Ceepo Viper practically pedaled itself. Taking advantage of the rolling to flat terrain, I ticked off the miles at just shy of 25 miles per hour, and had a pleasantly uneventful bike ride. Other than having to shout “on your left” for the entire leg (a byproduct of the late swim wave and the slow waves starting earlier… but time to end the rant), there was little to complain about. A swooping tailwind carried us through the closing miles of the course, bringing me home in 2:15:15, now sitting in 1st.
The first steps off the bike always give a bit of foreshadow on how the run is going to pan out. Today, the steps told me “you are going to be quick, but it’s going to get real tough real soon.” Leg had a quick turnover back to my bike rack, but they had just a hint of oncoming cramps. With a transition time of 2:04, I headed out for the run.
The course is a three loop run, which only becomes more and more congested as the race continues (sorry, that was the last rant, I promise). With the terrain being modestly hilly, or super hilly if you’re a Floridian, it was a little bit difficult to compare each mile and gauge effort by pace. Luckily I had my Suunto Ambit 2 watch, which gives me pace by GPS as well as heart rate data. Knowing what sort of effort could be sustained for 90-95 minutes took some of the guess work out, but not enough of it apparently. My first 5 miles were flawless, exactly where I wanted to be for average pace and heart rate. The next 6 miles began to slow from 7:00-7:10 per mile down to 7:20-7:30 per mile, which would have been strong enough to bring me home with a satisfactory run split. Then out of nowhere at the 11 mile marker, a side stitch came on and immediately paralyzed me. The sudden pressure in my abdomen pressed into my chest, and even crippled to a walk, breathing became shallow and difficult. My guess is that the lack of heat acclimation made it difficult for my stomach to digest the drinks and gels I had been consuming along the way, and now my gut was saying “enough is enough.” Between the shallow breathing and excruciating pain, I became very light-headed and dizzy, and thought I was seconds away from collapsing, just two miles from the finish. After walking and pressing on slowly, I was able to go back and forth between a slow jog and walk. I wrapped up the run course in 1:42:30, slipping back into 6th place and a 4:32:28 finish.
In hindsight, I probably should have run the first loop at a 7:20-7:30 per mile pace, and targeted a 1:37 run split. Pulling that 5 minutes back would have put me in 3rd. Instead, I tried to hold 7:00-7:10 per mile, aiming for a 1:33 run split and didn’t have the fitness to back it up. It’s definitely a harsh lesson to learn, since 3rd place would have been good enough for a 70.3 World Championship slot, but I’m choosing to read into as just that- a lesson. This wasn’t the perfect race by any means, and now I have experienced that there is a much smaller margin of error in the 25-29 age group. There will be no trip the 70.3 World Championships in Mont-Tremblant this September for me, but you can count on me to start clawing my way to the top of this new age group.
Last but not least, just want to thank my teammates on the Perfect Fuel Chocolate Elite Team for all their encouragement, Ceepo Triathlon Bikes for all the free speed on the bike course, my friends and family for following along all day, and most importantly my mom for driving me to and from the race and helping me carry my obnoxious amounts of equipment. Thanks for reading, see you at the next race!
Tim Russell, Pro Triathlete
Instagram- @timbikerun