Race Week
I’ve felt like I’ve been racing a lot lately which is fun but I was using it as an excuse to not train as hard on the dates before and after races. I determined that this race was going to be a training day with no taper and no recovery afterwards. I cycled 3.5 hours the day before out to Seven Springs immediately followed by activities with the family which gave me no time to stretch, roll, etc. My goal was to use this race in place of a couple tempo workouts that I had scheduled for this week and I wanted to try and maintain a HR around 175.
Race Morning
Breakfast - Brown rice cake with Almond Butter and Honey, 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder in coconut water with a packet of orange Emergen-C, coffee, water
Warm-Up - nothing significant. Ran from the swim finish up to transition to see what it would feel like across the street, rocks, up the hill.
RACE
Swim - 400M
Goals: Time Goal: 6:40 / 1:40 pace (this was to include the long run to transition)
Non time Goal: Build quickly and finish hard
Results: Official time: 07:20; 1:50 pace
I wasn’t focused. I chit-chatted before the race start and almost forgot to line up. I wound up lining up to the far left when I usually line up exactly with the buoy line which in this case should have been the far right(we were keeping the buoys on our right). This kept me out of the fray of swimmers but I was fighting to get in and added some overall distance to my swim. I was just warming up by the time it was over. I never got into a good fast groove. When I got out of the water to run to transition, I was around a lot of people just kind of jogging/walking up the hill and it was hard to get around them.
Bike -
Goals: Time Goal: 37:00, 20.11mph
Non-time Goal: HR: 165-175;Concentrate on using power from my glutes instead of my quads.
Nutrition: 2 scoops of Fixx and a Skratch labs in aerobottle
Results: Official Time: 38:04 /19.54mph, Avg. HR 160
For some reason my Garmin wasn’t calculating my average speed or distance so I had no idea what I was averaging. I figured this was ok because I was mainly focused on HR anyway. I couldn’t get it up for 2 reasons. First, my legs were kind of heavy from the day before. Second reason was I really suck at turns and every time I slowed down for the turn, my HR drops. I need to fix this problem.
Run-
Goals: Time Goal: 21:27 / 6:55 pace
Non-Time Goal: HR 175+, go as hard as I can
Nutrition: None, sips of water on course
Results: Official Time: 22:42 / 7:19 pace; Avg. HR: 168
Again, I didn’t know my pace due to my Garmin. Again, I couldn’t get the HR up even though I felt like I was pushing hard. My legs were tight like they had braces on them and I knew I had tension coming from my lower back. I don’t think that I could have gotten to the pace I wanted even if my Garmin was working correctly.
Overall Race Time Goal: 1:07:37
Overall Race Non-Time Goal: Push the HR to 175+, try to redline the whole time.
Overall Race Time Results: 1:10:24
Overall Race Non-Time Results: This was not a very successful race or training day considering what I was hoping for. In order to correct this in the future, I believe I need to increase the number of tempo runs and bikes I do. Fortunately, in my training plan for my “A” race this summer (Deuces, Show Low), it is calling for that exactly. I need to increase my confidence in holding a fast pace and higher HR. I also need to stretch and roll more. Tight legs hold me back physically and mentally. Finally, I need a pre-race warm-up. A 10-15 minute run with some strides could go a long way.
