Dev,
Thanks for the props. It is amazing how much differently I race in hot vs moderate/cold conditions. In 3 out of my last 4 half ironmans I went 4:40:xx and ran 1:37-1:40. Then there's St Croix with a 2:13 "run" on less power. Ouch. My other recent half's in hot weather weren't quite as abysmal as the run at St Croix...but still pretty awful.
I'm not trying to sound like a sandbagger but in all honesty I felt pretty crappy going into the race. As you know, I've been hitting it pretty hard since Epicman. I took it very easy last week, but it was apparent that my "a" game (whatever that is) wasn't being brought to Tupper Lake on Saturday. I was really in a deep hole of training fatigue (oh well). Initially I was going to target 270-275 NP for the bike...however that went out the window very early as it was quite apparent that my legs weren't up to the task. I had made the decision friday that I was most likely going to back off the bike and try to have a decent run (which I did for me). I was struggling to crack 200 watts in the days leading up to the race.
I thought it was pretty funny to look over and see you with about 3-400m left on the swim. It was a little disappointing to swim slower than last year even though the conditions were much better. The bike was very lonely after I passed burnman a little ways before the turn around. I think I caught 2 more guys after that. As for the numbers, I was probably 195-96 on race day (I've only had a few days lower than that...usually after my long run day).
Time: 2:23:59
Avg Power:244
Max Power:657 (woops)
Max Avg Power (20 min):256
Normalized Power (NP):256
WIntensity Factor (IF):0.753
Training Stress Score (TSS):132.6
Work:2,071 kJ
I was very happy that I made the decision to cut back on the power on the bike. I felt very solid on the run and was trying to just view things as a hard training day for IMLP. Justin Weiler passed me around the 10k mark absolutely flying (with a guy flying even faster in front of him). That was on the long gradual downhill. They must have been running sub 6:00 pace at that point in time. During the short out and back next to the lake I didn't see anybody close to me...so i decided to just get-r-done and let my pace slow down. It's not like I could have run A LOT faster...but I wasn't willing to bury myself either. My only real issue was a side stitch that cropped up on the run after taking in some water around mile 8ish. Thankfully it went away in less than a mile. I took in all of my calories pre race and during the ride. I literally only had water on the run. I'm guessing that I will NOT be able to do that at IMLP ;)
I also had some issues with my garmin on the bike. The recent firmware on the 910xt has a bug during auto-multisport mode...so i wasn't getting any distance readings (until I uploaded it to strava later). I could see time, power, NP and current speed. The bug sent me on a 5,500 mile Indiana Jones expedition to the atlantic ocean just off the coast of Nigeria. I found this pretty amusing...but apparently some people on strava have no sense of humour (intentionally spelled in UK form). This launched me way out in front for a June bike challenge on strava. When I looked at my email later sunday evening I had a bunch of "friend requests" from the UK and some very nasty comments from a couple of users in particular. Some people really need to get a life.
My only major complaints about TL are the handups on the bike. They really should not be handing up tiny water and gatorade bottles with twist off caps. I also got kinda hosed in transition. I was in the rack way over next to the motel (somebody said they moved it there due to mud...so i can understand that...it just kind of sucked. oh well). They should also group AG's together as much as possible in transtion. Aside from those 2 things...I'm a big fan of this race. Hopefully it does not die off with the HITS race in Lake George on the same weekend. The numbers at the HITS race were significantly lower than TL...as was the level of competition IMO. It is actually easier for me to do TL and stay at my in-laws camp than the HITS race (as it's on the northern part of Lake George). So I'd probably still opt for TL regardless.
IMLP should be fun (until it isn't). We should try to find each other at the start of the swim.
Beeeeeefcake!!!! ;)
edit: Just to be clear...I'm very happy with my end result. I feel like I managed my race well. However, as we discussed before the race...there is no perfect race. Hell...even crowie had issue's in his Kona record performance.
Thanks for the props. It is amazing how much differently I race in hot vs moderate/cold conditions. In 3 out of my last 4 half ironmans I went 4:40:xx and ran 1:37-1:40. Then there's St Croix with a 2:13 "run" on less power. Ouch. My other recent half's in hot weather weren't quite as abysmal as the run at St Croix...but still pretty awful.
I'm not trying to sound like a sandbagger but in all honesty I felt pretty crappy going into the race. As you know, I've been hitting it pretty hard since Epicman. I took it very easy last week, but it was apparent that my "a" game (whatever that is) wasn't being brought to Tupper Lake on Saturday. I was really in a deep hole of training fatigue (oh well). Initially I was going to target 270-275 NP for the bike...however that went out the window very early as it was quite apparent that my legs weren't up to the task. I had made the decision friday that I was most likely going to back off the bike and try to have a decent run (which I did for me). I was struggling to crack 200 watts in the days leading up to the race.
I thought it was pretty funny to look over and see you with about 3-400m left on the swim. It was a little disappointing to swim slower than last year even though the conditions were much better. The bike was very lonely after I passed burnman a little ways before the turn around. I think I caught 2 more guys after that. As for the numbers, I was probably 195-96 on race day (I've only had a few days lower than that...usually after my long run day).
Time: 2:23:59
Avg Power:244
Max Power:657 (woops)
Max Avg Power (20 min):256
Normalized Power (NP):256
WIntensity Factor (IF):0.753
Training Stress Score (TSS):132.6
Work:2,071 kJ
I was very happy that I made the decision to cut back on the power on the bike. I felt very solid on the run and was trying to just view things as a hard training day for IMLP. Justin Weiler passed me around the 10k mark absolutely flying (with a guy flying even faster in front of him). That was on the long gradual downhill. They must have been running sub 6:00 pace at that point in time. During the short out and back next to the lake I didn't see anybody close to me...so i decided to just get-r-done and let my pace slow down. It's not like I could have run A LOT faster...but I wasn't willing to bury myself either. My only real issue was a side stitch that cropped up on the run after taking in some water around mile 8ish. Thankfully it went away in less than a mile. I took in all of my calories pre race and during the ride. I literally only had water on the run. I'm guessing that I will NOT be able to do that at IMLP ;)
I also had some issues with my garmin on the bike. The recent firmware on the 910xt has a bug during auto-multisport mode...so i wasn't getting any distance readings (until I uploaded it to strava later). I could see time, power, NP and current speed. The bug sent me on a 5,500 mile Indiana Jones expedition to the atlantic ocean just off the coast of Nigeria. I found this pretty amusing...but apparently some people on strava have no sense of humour (intentionally spelled in UK form). This launched me way out in front for a June bike challenge on strava. When I looked at my email later sunday evening I had a bunch of "friend requests" from the UK and some very nasty comments from a couple of users in particular. Some people really need to get a life.
My only major complaints about TL are the handups on the bike. They really should not be handing up tiny water and gatorade bottles with twist off caps. I also got kinda hosed in transition. I was in the rack way over next to the motel (somebody said they moved it there due to mud...so i can understand that...it just kind of sucked. oh well). They should also group AG's together as much as possible in transtion. Aside from those 2 things...I'm a big fan of this race. Hopefully it does not die off with the HITS race in Lake George on the same weekend. The numbers at the HITS race were significantly lower than TL...as was the level of competition IMO. It is actually easier for me to do TL and stay at my in-laws camp than the HITS race (as it's on the northern part of Lake George). So I'd probably still opt for TL regardless.
IMLP should be fun (until it isn't). We should try to find each other at the start of the swim.
Beeeeeefcake!!!! ;)
edit: Just to be clear...I'm very happy with my end result. I feel like I managed my race well. However, as we discussed before the race...there is no perfect race. Hell...even crowie had issue's in his Kona record performance.