As I sit down to write this race recap for Ironman Syracuse 70.3, I still have a bit of mixed feelings. This is my third 70.3 of the year and one could make a pretty strong argument that this was my best performance of the year. One, being my coach. I tend to agree with him although my first two 70.3s this year were a bit of a mixed bag. At Ironman Muncie 70.3 I cramped horribly because of some botched decisions in regards to nutrition on a terribly hot day (mid 90s) and watched myself slide from racing in 1st for three and a half hours all the way down to 6th - with two people passing me within the last half mile of the race as I stood on the side of the rode unable to move due to cramps. My second 70.3, Ironman Steelhead, was actually only a 69.1 as the 1.2 mile swim was cancelled due to rip tides and 30-40 mph wind gusts. This led to a time trial start on the bike which meant that you really didn't know where anyone else was within the race. You simply were racing the clock. I managed 4th at that race and made a bit of a breakthrough on my run - my breakthrough simply being not cramping. Hardly my best run performance of the year but happy knowing we'd solved the cramping issue. I did have a pretty solid bike at Steelhead (2:15) and combined with a decent run effort put me in a position to race the Ironman World Championships at the 70.3 distance in Las Vegas. While waiting to claim my spot, I started doing some math and looking up flights and realized that, with the race being only four weeks away, I simply didn't have the funds to make it work. After discussing with Coach, we decided to add Syracuse to the schedule in place of Vegas knowing that I'm only going to get faster. If I qualified for Vegas on that day, I'd be sure to qualify in future races.
Which brings me back to Syracuse. The weekend started on Friday as the girlfriend (my biggest fan) and I made our way up to Canandaigua (I had to google that just to be sure I got it right Coach), NY where my coach and I finally met! Honestly, I feel like I've known him (you) forever and coming up for the first time could have been the 500th time. We quickly got to work by nerding out on all things triathlon and then made our way down to a local lake for a quick swim (remember this) and then out for a quick ride to shake out the legs. He and his amazing wife, Bonnie, treated us to a monster dinner at a local italian spot to make sure the glycogen stores were topped off for the big weekend ahead. Later that evening, another coached athlete and friend of mine, Phoebe, made her way to Coach's house with her friend Shirley. Phoebe would be racing her first 70.3 at Syracuse (which she rocked). After a big pancake breakfast thanks to Chef Dan we made the hour drive to Syracuse to get myself and my bike checked in and then headed to dinner with my family - my other biggest fans!
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This was the first race my Aunt had ever come to and one of many that my mother and her fiance have made the trip for. (I was/am so thankful for their support! Couldn't do this all without them.) The girlfriend and I made our way back to the hotel and started prepping for the early morning to come and I quickly realized I was missing something incredibly integral to my race the next day. I've apparently liked to make a habit of, um, forgetting things needed for race day. Last year, I forgot the skewer for my front wheel after tossing it in the grass while loading my bike on my friend Jon's car roof rack. Thankfully it was a local race and his wife and Joelle (the girlfriend) raced back to the house to fetch it while I was swimming. They literally tossed it to me as I raced into transition. I ended up taking the overall win at that race. On this day, I decided to leave my Xterra Vendetta wetsuit at Coach's house. I think subliminally I left it on purpose hoping to create the same mojo. I immediately called coach, and as always, he eased my anxiety and assured me I'd PR the swim because of this little snafu. Plus, he was coming to the race and said he'd be sure to have it to me before the start. Crisis averted. It was finally time to sleep which I did little of which is unusual as I typically sleep soundly the night before a race.
Race morning started at 4:45 AM. I got a quick shower to wake me and then we were quickly out the door and headed to the race start. I found a combination for breakfast that seemed to work for me at Steelhead so have kept it in rotation - one large banana, one large plain bagel and a bottle of chocolate Ensure. Ensure? Yes, Ensure. Its quite calorie dense, high in carbohydrates and electrolytes and because its liquid, digests quite easily. Plus, I happen to think it tastes quite good as well.
Setting up transition is typically a rather uneventful time but apparently upstate New York cools off considerably over night in September. We were greeted with 44 degree temps that I was not prepared for. Again, I forgot to pack other shoes (recurring theme?) so found myself bare foot in damp grass with 44 degree temperatures at 5:30 AM. My feet were numb before the day even started and it wasn't until 5 miles into the run that I finally regained feeling in my toes. Apart from the markedly cool weather and lack of wetsuit for the time being, set up was actually uneventful. It does involve a lot of staring at your transition area as you run through the setup of everything and double check that everything is laid out in a way that allows for speedy transitions as evidenced here (notice the bare feet):
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After ensuring everything is as it should be, its off to hang out at the swim start and wait for my wave to go off while sipping on a concoction of First Endurance EFS Drink and a scoop of PreRace.
Coach arrived with my speedy Xterra Vendetta wetsuit with plenty of time to spare, but I quickly donned it as it was so cold that hanging out for 40 minutes in my wetsuit seemed like the best way to stay warm. We talked before the race but also on race morning about me pushing a little harder on the swim today as I felt that I was holding myself back in previous races. This is us talking right before my wave went off:
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I've been seeing my times continue to drop in the pool and knew I had the speed and felt I had the endurance. I had no time goals for the swim as 1.2 mile swims from race to race are rarely exactly 1.2 miles. Some short and some long. I just wanted to push the pace and see where that got me. I positioned myself at the front and just off center. The plan is always to push it in the first few hundred yards to gap from the main group and then settle into my pace. It's semi odd talking about ME pushing the pace and gapping the main group from the start since it was but just a year and a half ago that I almost called it quits in my first triathlon swim of only .4 miles after feeling as if I might drown in a sea full of other people clawing for the first swim buoy. I've come along way since that first race and I have to continually remind myself of that. For the first couple hundred yards, there was one other guy from my wave swimming with me but at some point within the first half mile, I lost him. This also coincided with coming up and swimming through all of the waves in front of me. It can cost you some time having to fight through all the earlier waves and it probably did on this day, but I did what I could to navigate through and sped into T1 feeling great, and much warmer than before I jumped in the water. On my run into T1, I could hear coach yelling that I had a stellar swim but still wasn't sure where I was relative to the rest of my age group. (Turns out, I had the fastest swim of the day in my age group and the third fastest overall. Definitely happy with the result but still have more in the tank. I still don't feel as if I'm pushing that hard and plan to continue to push the pace in the water.) As you can see, relative to the ambient temperature, I was clearly quite hot! Thankfully, my Kiwami Amphibian literally does not absorb any water so I kept warm even after stripping the wetsuit. (It somehow does this while also being incredibly breathable.)
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This would be where the title of my post comes into play. I had read that the first 10-12 miles of the bike course was a bit, uh, hilly. This should be expected from a race in Syracuse. I guess I just failed to realize how hilly the course would actually end up being. Those first 10-12 miles gave me a glimpse of what I was going to see for the rest of the day. I had pretty specific power goals for the duration of the ride and planned to be slightly aggressive on the climbs knowing that the bike is generally the strongest of the three sports for me. Within the first couple of miles, we started going up. And then continued going up for the next 10 miles. You'd crest a hill only to see another, bigger, hill looming just a few hundred yards ahead. This seemed to repeat itself for so long that I finally started thinking to myself, "are we ever going to come down from this?!". Doing some quick math over the first part of the course, I knew I was in for a slower day than my previous bike times simply because the course wouldn't allow for it. Knowing that everyone was riding the same course I settled into my power zones and just kept plugging away. I generally always hit a bit of a dead spot about an 1:45 into a 70.3 mile bike leg that lasts for a few minutes. Whether its just boredom at that point or my nutrition starts to wonder a bit, I'm not sure, but it always happens. I was diligent with my First Endurance EFS Drink and EFS Liquid Shot throughout the ride and I took a big gulp of some Liquid Shot and quickly was back on the grind. Although, unexpectedly and very shortly after, I was passed which rarely happens on the bike leg. I'm not trying to boast but it just doesn't typically happen. I made a glance to my left and quickly recognized who was making the pass. James Chesson is a northern New Jersey triathlete and an exceptional talent. I took a 4th overall at an olympic earlier in the year that James took first at. Super nice guy and on his way to grabbing up his pro card. I stayed with him at a legal distance for a few miles but eventually backed off a bit. In hindsight and after Coach's review of my power file, I should have stayed with him all the way back to T2 as my variability index was 1.02 and I actually got stronger over the course of the 56 mile ride (meaning I was producing more power with a lower heart rate at the end of the ride than I did through the first 3/4s.). I managed a second best bike split of the day despite falling below my power goals for the ride.
I breezed into T2 feeling super fresh and ready to attack whatever the run had to throw at me, or so I thought. And this is where I made my first mistake of the day. Having not driven the run course or even knowing what to expect considering that it was a new run course this year, I started out way too hot. Within a mile of exiting transition you're presented with the first steady and moderately long climb. Again, an error on my part, but I attacked that first hill and all subsequent hills on the first loop of what would be a two loop course. After the first, came a bit of rolling hills and then after cresting the last of the rollers are presented with what appeared to be a vertical wall just ahead of a big downhill section. My first thought upon viewing this "hill" was, "no way we're going up that...twice." Sure enough we were and once at the base of the climb it wasn't as bad as it appeared. By no means was it easy and having trained in NYC all year, I've seen nothing like what the course presented, but, should have expected the unexpected! Coach was on the course at various points giving me updates on where the rest of my age group was. At or near the beginning of the run, I was still racing in first. It was on the start of my second loop that I was passed. Admittedly, this is crushing. I'm racing in first for the majority of the day and then get passed three and a half hours into the race. Never mind that it was also about this time that the erroneous vigor I started the run with started to catch up to me. I'm seven miles into 13.1 already finding myself having to dig deeper than I should have to gut out the rest of the day. I struggled from mile 7 all the way home. Shortly after the first guy passed, around mile 9, the second pass was made. Another shot to the gut. I'm sucking my EFS Liquid Shot and taking down coke (for the caffeine) from aid stations hoping to snap out of it. Not on this day. With about 2.5 miles to go, Matthew Curbeau made the last pass of the day. Matthew is a Rochester area standout with an exceptional run and a bright future ahead of him. Try as I might to stay on his feet, I had already burned up all my matches earlier in the run and had to let him go. I was in a very dark place those last few miles and you can see it on my face here:
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I finished the day 4th in my age group and 22nd overall, which includes the pro field. There's plenty to be happy about (a top 3 overall swim, my family and girlfriend being there and a solid bike effort) but I can't help but walk away from the race a bit disappointed. Yet again, I lose the race on the run. It's no secret though. My run is my limiter right now. How much of that is execution and how much of that is fitness, I'm not sure, but I need to be better at executing and will always need more fitness. I know it will come, but I'm impatient and frustrated easily when I can't get it right.
As mentioned, Coach insists this was my best performance of the year. I'd agree, but argue that I didn't get a complete chance at Steelhead. Regardless, every race is a chance to learn something new. I surely took away some key learnings at Syracuse and can only look forward. My biggest race of the year still looms in the distance and is what all the racing and training for the last nine months has been geared toward.
Next up. Ironman Arizona.
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Which brings me back to Syracuse. The weekend started on Friday as the girlfriend (my biggest fan) and I made our way up to Canandaigua (I had to google that just to be sure I got it right Coach), NY where my coach and I finally met! Honestly, I feel like I've known him (you) forever and coming up for the first time could have been the 500th time. We quickly got to work by nerding out on all things triathlon and then made our way down to a local lake for a quick swim (remember this) and then out for a quick ride to shake out the legs. He and his amazing wife, Bonnie, treated us to a monster dinner at a local italian spot to make sure the glycogen stores were topped off for the big weekend ahead. Later that evening, another coached athlete and friend of mine, Phoebe, made her way to Coach's house with her friend Shirley. Phoebe would be racing her first 70.3 at Syracuse (which she rocked). After a big pancake breakfast thanks to Chef Dan we made the hour drive to Syracuse to get myself and my bike checked in and then headed to dinner with my family - my other biggest fans!
Race morning started at 4:45 AM. I got a quick shower to wake me and then we were quickly out the door and headed to the race start. I found a combination for breakfast that seemed to work for me at Steelhead so have kept it in rotation - one large banana, one large plain bagel and a bottle of chocolate Ensure. Ensure? Yes, Ensure. Its quite calorie dense, high in carbohydrates and electrolytes and because its liquid, digests quite easily. Plus, I happen to think it tastes quite good as well.
Setting up transition is typically a rather uneventful time but apparently upstate New York cools off considerably over night in September. We were greeted with 44 degree temps that I was not prepared for. Again, I forgot to pack other shoes (recurring theme?) so found myself bare foot in damp grass with 44 degree temperatures at 5:30 AM. My feet were numb before the day even started and it wasn't until 5 miles into the run that I finally regained feeling in my toes. Apart from the markedly cool weather and lack of wetsuit for the time being, set up was actually uneventful. It does involve a lot of staring at your transition area as you run through the setup of everything and double check that everything is laid out in a way that allows for speedy transitions as evidenced here (notice the bare feet):
Coach arrived with my speedy Xterra Vendetta wetsuit with plenty of time to spare, but I quickly donned it as it was so cold that hanging out for 40 minutes in my wetsuit seemed like the best way to stay warm. We talked before the race but also on race morning about me pushing a little harder on the swim today as I felt that I was holding myself back in previous races. This is us talking right before my wave went off:
I breezed into T2 feeling super fresh and ready to attack whatever the run had to throw at me, or so I thought. And this is where I made my first mistake of the day. Having not driven the run course or even knowing what to expect considering that it was a new run course this year, I started out way too hot. Within a mile of exiting transition you're presented with the first steady and moderately long climb. Again, an error on my part, but I attacked that first hill and all subsequent hills on the first loop of what would be a two loop course. After the first, came a bit of rolling hills and then after cresting the last of the rollers are presented with what appeared to be a vertical wall just ahead of a big downhill section. My first thought upon viewing this "hill" was, "no way we're going up that...twice." Sure enough we were and once at the base of the climb it wasn't as bad as it appeared. By no means was it easy and having trained in NYC all year, I've seen nothing like what the course presented, but, should have expected the unexpected! Coach was on the course at various points giving me updates on where the rest of my age group was. At or near the beginning of the run, I was still racing in first. It was on the start of my second loop that I was passed. Admittedly, this is crushing. I'm racing in first for the majority of the day and then get passed three and a half hours into the race. Never mind that it was also about this time that the erroneous vigor I started the run with started to catch up to me. I'm seven miles into 13.1 already finding myself having to dig deeper than I should have to gut out the rest of the day. I struggled from mile 7 all the way home. Shortly after the first guy passed, around mile 9, the second pass was made. Another shot to the gut. I'm sucking my EFS Liquid Shot and taking down coke (for the caffeine) from aid stations hoping to snap out of it. Not on this day. With about 2.5 miles to go, Matthew Curbeau made the last pass of the day. Matthew is a Rochester area standout with an exceptional run and a bright future ahead of him. Try as I might to stay on his feet, I had already burned up all my matches earlier in the run and had to let him go. I was in a very dark place those last few miles and you can see it on my face here:
As mentioned, Coach insists this was my best performance of the year. I'd agree, but argue that I didn't get a complete chance at Steelhead. Regardless, every race is a chance to learn something new. I surely took away some key learnings at Syracuse and can only look forward. My biggest race of the year still looms in the distance and is what all the racing and training for the last nine months has been geared toward.
Next up. Ironman Arizona.
