“I committed the cardinal sin of trying something new on raceday…chocolate gu in a gel flask…”
“I dropped my bottles and salt tablets at mile 12, but didn’t stop…”
“My coach suggested that I run as hard as I could early on to build a big cushion for when I started to slow down.”
It’s the end of the year and time again to review how things have gone for people in their big A races. There is no better place to do this than in reading people’s race reports. You not only get the true story behind the splits on race day, you get a good level of insight as to the athlete’s personality. Most are very compelling reads, and almost everyone contains a great lesson of what not to do on race day.
The previous three quotes were all taken from race reports about Ironman Arizona. The finisher times were 13:30ish, 10:13ish, and 9:20ish (not on that order), but just reading the quotes you can tell that these athletes didn’t have the race they were looking to have. Race Day Execution is not hard, per se, but we Type A triathletes do our best to muck it up (myself included). Let’s take a closer look at these three, but if you have your own options please add them to the comments below…
#1 The Gel Flask Problem: I have been here and it sucks. You feel like it’s a big practical joke b/c you have gel, you just can’t eat it. It’s like your forearms need to be the size of The Hulk’s to get the gel out…no gel = fewer calories = a problem.
The Gel Flask Solution: First of all, you would have tested this before the race. But if you didn’t, you would have the presence of mind to know that there are aid stations every 10 miles apart on the bike with lots of gels and food, etc. If you didn’t want those, you could always pull over to open the top of your gel and eat it (might lose 30″ a pop there). Bottom line is if your stuff ain’t working now, doing nothing about it ain’t gonna make it any better.
#2 The Dropped Nutrition Problem: I see this all the time, especially folks in a hurry like the fast AGers and PROs. In a rush, they hit a bump, lose something and continue on hoping not to lose the pack/precious minutes. And this story always ends the same….disaster.
The Dropped Nutrition Solution: Bottom line is if you have custom nutrition or supplements, you will need them. You must stop. Stopping will cost you 2-5 minutes max, but it will prevent that 1-2 hour meltdown at the end of your day b/c you ran out of calories. IM and 70.3 racing is such a long day that 2-5′ is nothing. At least with the proper nutrition in you, you’ll be READY to hurt and chase people at the end of the day.
#3 The Pacing Problem: Why go easy now when you have lots of energy…let’s go faster and “bank” time for when we slow down? This is no more evident than at the start of the bike/run of a long-course triathlon. 99% of the people out there are just f-l-y-i-n-g at speeds they have no business attempting to implement. The rub is that they are zapping their bodies of the precious fuel and resources they’ll need later in the day…it’s a short-term approach to a long-term problem.
The Pacing Solution: This one hurts a lot for me to read, just b/c Ironman racing is such a simple concept. It’s really a TT against yourself, against the conditions, course, and the clock. When you strip away the competition and other distractions, then you are left with you vs the distance with the clock staring you down. While you can put time into a competitor, there is no “banking” of time against yourself. Just not possible. You can, however, over-reach early and make the inevitable endurance challenge at mile 18-ish of the run just that much harder. Steady conservative running for first 6 miles (when everyone else is running too fast), followed by 12-14 steady quality-paced miles, then 6-8 miles of sucking it up — the EN strategy for running an IM marathon – has helped more than 75 people this year have great runs.
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To complement this post, we’d like to offer our readers $10 off the EN 4Keys DVD by using the code XMAS2008 through Monday, December 8th. Whether it’s a gift of learning proper triathlon execution is a perfect gift for yourself…or for that training parter that you really want to see have a breakthrough in 2009!
See you online!
Patrick
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