Steelhead 70.3 Race Report

A 70.3 PR and highest Overall placement yet! I felt fully recovered for this one having 5 weeks between races. Body felt good and I was ready to hit it. Beware the run section is length, but I got to enjoy my first real battle. 

Pre-Race: My dad and I made this a quick weekend by driving out the morning of. I added a little stress to my race prep by borrowing Mitch’s wheel set and only giving them a short 4 mile test drive after checking in. Got a quick run in, dropped off the bike and swam in Lake Michigan. I also had one of my best pre-race sleeps, so that was excellent.

Drobs keeping me calm before the storm (also provided the haircut)

Swim (31:10 - 32nd OA): This was the first race where I actually started at the front. I had trouble convincing myself that I belonged there, but I’ve been landing top 10 overall consistently. So, I lined up in the 12^th wave and started about 1 minute after the cannon went off. My buddy Matt started up with me and got me to the line calm and ready to rock.

The first 25 yards were shallow, so I watched how far the athletes in front of me went out before diving in. Some started too early, so I used that to determine where I’d go. The water was rough for 6:30AM and the swells made it hard to sight. A huge perk to starting up front was I only passed about 10 swimmers and had little traffic throughout. Form went out the window as my focus was on swimming straight and navigating the waves. After that first turn buoy, the waves came from the side and I felt good about where I was at. Swimming with my watch covered again prevented me from checking splits and getting distracted. Nothing exciting after that point, and I enjoyed riding the waves back to shore after the final turn.

Time wasn’t as relevant as my overall position out of the water, so I am very happy with 32^nd and 12^th AG going into T1. (Although I didn’t have the feedback during the race)

Not going to document a photo of my T1

T1 (2:15): One of my best transitions… until the flying mount. I struggled to find my breath running up the sand but made it through quick. I had no issues getting the wetsuit down and pulled it off my feet at the bike rack. Putting on my helmet and grabbing the bike went smooth, and I had a very fast run down a mostly empty row. My T1 time was quick relative to the field, and I moved up 12 positions to 20^th starting the bike. Everything was great until I went to mount and didn’t have enough pedal stroke to get moving. Ended up sitting on my top tube scooting myself along like a toddler. Shoes were flopping around, a race photographer took about 20 pictures of it, just a mess. It probably cost me 20-30s. Someday I will learn.

Bike (2:15:38 - 11th OA): By far my best bike performance. I had a watt target of 240 and held that well, after the flying mount debacle… There were a few athletes ahead of me that I could see down the road, and it felt good to slowly reel them in while only focusing on power. The effort felt too hard, and I wanted to back it off (something I’ve done almost every race on the bike). As I came up to some turns, I was able to watch how fast others took them to see what I could do. I felt like I cornered well overall but had at least 2 turns where I slammed the brakes and lost some speed. About halfway through, I couldn’t see any riders between myself and the next turn. This worked in my favor and allowed me to focus on the watts. A cramp-like muscle pain formed at the bottom of my left quad but was more of an annoyance than anything. I kept an eye on it, but it never progressed beyond that. Around mile 35 I started to catch 2 more athletes as we were going into a headwind. Once I got just outside of 6 bike lengths, I backed the power down for a minute before making a surge. Despite the effort, I didn’t break away and they held on. At mile 40, I was expecting a nice cross-tailwind back to transition. It was more of a cross headwind, and that mentally drained me. Normally, I’d relax a bit and focus on having a good run. This time, I tried holding my power until that last mile. In doing so, I dropped the guys behind me. As I approached transition, I had my 2^nd mishap of the day on the flying dismount. I got my feet set plenty early and brought my leg over the top tube only to find out there was another S-turn. I lost a ton of speed and had to bring my leg back to pedal again. I lost another 10-20s here. So between my flying mount and dismount, I missed that 2:15 bike split to average 25mph. Nonetheless, I was happy with a NP of 237W and the 11th best bike split on the day. 

Jen capturing a little float in transition

T2 (1:53): Since the dismount only affected my bike split, my transition time was fast. Somehow my shoes settled perfectly and never caught the ground. It was very smooth running to my bike rack, and I sat down to roll on my socks and slip on the shoes. I got everything set quickly, grabbed my hat/nutrition/bib and took off. Run legs felt better than expected considering how hard I road, especially with that left quad pain.

Finish Line Feels 

Run (1:20:12 - 4th OA): I wanted to go out hard on the run to make sure I didn’t leave any time in the first few miles (goal of under 1:20). I had a good sense of the HR I could hold from Chattanooga 70.3, and knew I had a little more to give early on. Despite trying to push, I couldn’t elevate must past 165bpm. Before I hit the first hill, I was at a 6:05 but quickly slowed to a 6:25 at the top. I knew I’d get that time back but wanted a little more from myself. My left calf injury from St. George flared up starting a mile 2, and overall the first 4-5 miles were tough. Instead of needing to hold myself back, I found myself just trying to hold a decent pace. I kept thinking this just won’t be my day. Without an athlete in sight, I felt like I was going nowhere.

A spectator told me I was in 9^th (gun time at least), and this was the first time I had a sense of where I was. Mile 4 is when I finally saw some guys and was able to check the gap (over 2 minutes back at first). This is where things started to improve, my cadence picked up and I started to Pac-Man my way up like I’m used to. I slowly reeled in 2 guys and was coming up on the 3^rd. *Once of the nicest interactions I’ve ever had in a race, the guy told me I was now in 6^th place as I passed him. I’ve never had someone try to help me and usually get cussed out or ignored if I dare ask someone their age… I thanked him and got his bib number, so thank you Aaron Mahoney for that needed boost.

At this point I was about to start lap 2 and saw 1 more guy on the same lap as me. After I passed him, I assumed I was in 5^th but couldn’t tell who was on their first or second lap anymore. I held steady until mile 8, which was a turnaround at the top of the course. I saw I guy behind me that I hadn’t passed, so I knew he was catching me. He had to have closed 1-2 minutes since no one was behind me out of transition. He got on my heels, and I pressed a little bit more to prevent an easy pass. From 8-10, he stayed off my shoulder and tucked behind into the headwinds. I was getting annoyed and just wanted him to pass or drop off. In that moment I made a mental switch and thought of Lionel Sanders. This was my first “battle” where I risked increasing my effort in order to compete. Instead of complaining, I wanted to make him to suffer. Prior to the race, my wife also told me to go at mile 10, so the timing was right. I pushed up the last major hill and heard his breathing labor worse than mine. I pressed more as we rounded the top and stayed on the gas. It was hard to tell where he was as we continued to lap people on loop 1, but we finally made that turn to the finish. With 1.5 miles to go and a big downhill, I opened it up and couldn’t hear him anymore. Not wanting to show weakness, I never turned to see where he was. At the bottom of the hill was another athlete, and I switched my focus to chasing him and forgot my pursuer. He was at least 100 yards up with 1 miles to go, and I slowly started to pull him in. Athletes just starting the run were yelling, “he’s yours”, “he’s fading”, “go get him!” With ½ mile to go I eased up a touch as I got to his shoulder, then put in a surge for a decisive pass. It didn’t look like he was going with me, but I started my “sprint” with 400 yards to go regardless. I came across the line putting 20s into him and 30s into my chaser. I closed those last 2 in 5:49 and 5:46 and almost broke that 1:20 mark.

Post-Race: In the end, I landed 4th overall and 2nd age group with a 4 second PR of 4:11:21. My goals were to crack top 5 overall and take the age group win. My AG winner also won overall, so it’s a tough one to swallow. I am stoked with my performance, but as always…I’m not completely satisfied.

From here on my focus is on building for Kona. I have 2 more 70.3s in July/August, but those won’t be anything more than hard training days to me. I’ll be working with Brent Pease as my coach until then, and I can’t wait to see where we land in Kona.

 

Chattanooga 70.3 Race Report

I wasn’t sure what to expect 15 days after the Ironman World Championship. I felt like my cardio was mostly recovered and ready to go, but my legs were a different story. Going into the weekend, we had a late start to our 10 hour drive and arrived around 1AM Saturday morning. We slept in as much as we could before tackling the pre-race activities. Ty and I were efficient in knocking out the logistics and opted to skip course recon. I was dragging all day, and my legs did not feel ready after a spin and short run.

Time to Fly

Race morning was flawless with parking, bike setup, boarding the shuttle and taking care of those last few pre-race details =) I also hung out with a Spaero Elite Teammate (Brian) while waiting to start. It was nice having a friend to keep my mind busy and to suit up with. I’d say the only “mistake” I made over the entire day was not lining up early enough. It was warm, so we didn’t want our wetsuits on for too long. My intent was to be 50-100^th in the water. I ended up being around 1,500^th in the water because math (started at 7:27, so 4 athletes/4s x 27 minutes x 60s = 1620). One quick note is I felt hungry before getting in the water. Normally I time my Gu 30 minutes before the swim and sip electrolytes until the start. It ended up being about an hour, and I tossed my bottle too early.

Overall placements for each segment include both male/female pros.

Swim (27:51 - 9^th AG / 65^th OA): Starting late on the swim, I was anticipating this being a cluster. With the river, I think there were varying tactics like swimming towards the center for fast current vs hugging the shoreline to cut distance. This probably widened the field and I didn’t have many swimmers around me. My goal was to simply sight the furthest buoy since they curved a bit, and I wasn’t going to sit on anyone’s feet. I pushed my pace from the start and feathered that “this is too hard” mentality. Out of the age groupers, I ranked 24^th. This was by far my best swim (relative to the field). I passed several hundred athletes, but it wasn’t apparent with everyone spread out. The pace is difficult to compare with it being 1.4 miles downriver, but this was the hardest I had pushed in a 70.3 swim.

T1 (3:22) – I had no issues getting my wetsuit down, and the volunteers yanked it off in one pull. Everything else was smooth despite narrow bike racks and navigating through athletes. I fumbled with clipping in my first shoe at the mount line, but that’ll show up in my bike split. I moved up 9 places despite opting out of a flying mount.

Bike (2:22:50 – 8^th AG / 86^th OA): Once I got on the bike, I started out a little hot. In the first mile I was around 270W and needed to cool that down right away. Part of this was starting uphill and staying left passing a slew of athletes. The wind was also out of the south, so we had a headwind out and tailwind back. One benefit of starting back on the swim was getting a slight draft when passing athletes, but I bet this was nullified by additional navigating and waiting to make passes. It took a while for my HR to settle down, and I was in the upper 160s for the first 20-30 minutes. I finally settled in and got it into the mid 150’s. About 40 miles in, the passes took longer and we were more spread out. Until this point, I was averaging around 230W, but my average speed wasn’t where I wanted it. I was happy with the power numbers given how my legs felt the day before. The last 30 minutes I fell into a bit of a lull. I let my power drop and ended up at 221W (some is expected preparing for a flying dismount). My normalized ended at 231W and was in my goal range of 230-235. The bike was my weakest on the day based on the 23.8mph average. This is where I lost most of my time. But to end on a positive note, at no point did I notice or blame fatigue from St. George.

T2 (2:27) –  I had a well-executed flying dismount, and a quick run to my bike rack. My shoes kept catching the ground, so I may need a solution to grab those precious seconds. I rolled my socks more than last time and struggled a little less getting them on. Grabbed my hat/nutrition/bib and went out hot to start the run. I got everything assembled before the timing mat and felt good.

Run (1:22:02 – 3^rd AG / 33^rd OA): I Love starting the run needing to hold myself back. Even though I was only ½ mile in, I liked seeing 6:05 pace. The first mile was uphill, and I split a 6:17 followed by a 6:10. It felt fast, so monitored my HR closely to try staying under 170bpm despite the heat. My highlight was passing Miranda Carfrae while she was on her 2^nd lap. When I caught the female pro just ahead of her, she asked me how far back Rinny was (20 yards and closing…) I spent the entire run weaving through runners and hitting fluids at each aid station, especially on lap 1 before the course got even busier. My plan to stay under 170bpm for the first half went out the window by mile 3, so I upped it to 172 and still felt comfortable at this effort. Coming off the full 2 weeks prior made the run fly by. I was halfway done before I knew it at a 6:24/mile average, and I upped my HR to 175. Still feeling relatively comfortable at this effort, I opted to miss a few aid station handoffs due to athletes blocking tables. As always, seeing my wife gave me a boost, and she relayed my position and time gaps. I knew 5^th place was almost locked up, and I was ready to close the last 40s on 4^th with 4 miles to go. Miles 8-9 is where I really had to work and felt that fatigue setting in. HR was occasionally touching 180 and I focused on keeping my cadence. With 2 to go, I saw Ty for the last time. She reminded me, “You wanted a fight? Well it’s time to fight!” I held that HR over 180 for the last 1.5 miles and pressed into it. With a net downhill finish, I closed in a 5:52 mile and topped out my HR at 189.

Awards

Overall, I am very happy with the race I put together. Going in, I didn’t feel like myself and already had the excuses lined up. St. George 15 days prior, driving in at 1AM the morning before, and just not feeling it. With the amazing support of my wife and her ever increasing knowledge, she had me as ready as I could possibly be (both mentally and physically). My main goals of the race were to take any spot on the podium and to enjoy pushing my limits. Other than the last bit on the bike, I’d say I achieved both. I’m sure St. George played a factor in my performance, but I can honestly say I didn’t think about much it or use it as an excuse to back off. I landed 4^th AG and the 7^th overall amateur. I loved the venue/course, and it felt so good to lean into the discomfort instead of being on damage control. I felt great all race and it reminded me of my performance at Tulsa when I got that KQ.

Wifey

Next up is a little recovery and some maintenance before Steelhead 70.3 in 5 weeks. After that, it’s full tilt until Kona in October with some fun races to incorporate with my training.

Ironman St. George World Champs Race Report

So much to unpack so strap in! Although this wasn't the Kona I was looking for, it brought me one step closer to the real deal. 

Pre-Race: The thing that worried me the most going into this race was recovering from a calf strain 12 days out. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to finish, let alone compete at the level I wanted. Without much improvement, I cut running for 10 days and biking for 7 prior to the race. I added a few extra swims to offset but felt this was the worst taper I’ve ever done. I intended to bike a few key parts of the course and run at elevation to solidify my final preparation. This was my hardest course to date with 7,300 ft of climbing on the bike and 1,500 ft of elevation gain on the run. The weather also played a factor where the 2^nd half of the bike had 20-30mph winds, and temps hit 90 on the run with more wind. Overall, I was intimidated by the course and had a poor mindset from the super taper.

When I went to athlete check-in, I got pulled for a random drug test. I was very happy to see Ironman taking this seriously, but I also hate needles and it took about an hour to get through the entire process. Every supplement I take needed to be listed with duration and frequency, so it was very extensive.

 

Swim (1:01:23 – 20^th AG / 200 OA): A 1 minute PR lake swim for me! 1 thing I did differently was cover my watch under my wetsuit so I could peel it off quicker. Plus it prevented me from checking the time and my 500 splits. The water was a chilly 60 degrees and calm race morning. Other than the initial minute after running in, I loved the colder swim. I went out hard for the first 100-150 yards hoping to find the feet of someone swimming under an hour. Unfortunately, we caught the swim wave in front of us early on, and I started to lose the green caps in a sea of purple. I kept pushing along until I got to the first turn buoy about ¼ way through the swim. The water opened up after working through that first wave, and I felt the tickles of someone swimming on my feet. They never disrupted my stroke and backed off any time I needed to swim through more swimmers. Around the halfway point he pulled around me and I quickly took advantage. I swam at a very comfortable effort on his feet and let him take care of plowing the path. Any time I was outside the wake, I had to increase my effort to stay on him. Based on that, I knew I wouldn’t drop much (if any) time by going around. Other than down river in Louisville, this was my easiest Ironman swim. I had no issues and got through it at a moderate effort.

 

T1: (4:53): This transition was not good. I struggled to undo my velcro and couldn’t get the wetsuit pulled down before the strippers. Instead, I continued running to the change tent while I worked on it. The tent was packed since I was in the last male swim wave, and I had to walk behind a bunch of athletes taking their sweet time. Luckily, I decided to do a flying mount, so I only had my helmet hanging in the bag. I threw my swim gear in, popped the helmet on and ran out with the bag. I located my bike quickly and had a very fast run to the mount line. Nothing fancy swinging my leg over and stepping on the shoes to get going. I made sure the rubber bands all snapped and slipped on my shoes without issue.

 

Bike (5:23:46 – 16^th AG / 184^th OA): Normally I’m not the biggest fan of mantras, but I chose one for this race. Respect the course. The bike started out in the low 70s, so comfortable and not too warm before the sun got up. Early on the course was Packed. Riders were all over and it was very difficult to navigate around them all. The most dangerous parts were the early descents trying to work through traffic at 40mph. I settled in quickly though and accepted that I was not going to hit my power targets. I knew what was coming, so I decided to hold steady and keep my HR where I wanted it. As I continued to settle in and tackle the early hills and wind, my power slowly started to go up, so that was encouraging. Nutrition was flawless, and I ended up grabbing a lot more water from aid stations than I originally planned on. I was drinking at such a rate that I only skipped 3 aid stations the entire ride. Once I got through 60 miles of mostly headwind, I was through “part 1” in my mind. This was where I would climb about 2,000 feet in the next 25 miles. Everything was going smooth, and I even had a few words with some athletes I was playing merry-go-round with. 60-85 is what I considered “part 2” and it got me to the highest elevation of the day around 5,000 ft. The climbs getting there were tough, but manageable with a tailwind to help. At the top I noticed myself feeling a little nauseous and dizzy. It clicked that I hadn’t done any training at altitude, so I just stayed focused on waiting for the descent to begin. I checked my average speed at 20.1mph, so I was happy to see I’d be close to biking a 5:30 by the end. Going down the canyon was nerve-wracking with the 20-30mph crosswinds increasing throughout the day. I knew fast and confident descending would pay off, so I pedaled until my legs spun out and tucked it best I could. Once I got to the bottom, I had one last 1,500 ft climb back up Snow Canyon, then it was all downhill to the finish “part 3”. Even though I drove it, I underestimated how difficult this climb would be. With the wind at my back, it got incredibly hot and it was the first time I noticed my sweat dripping. My HR was in the 160s and I had to maintain the effort to stay upright. Once I hit the top, it was time to bomb down one last time. This time the crosswinds were even worse, and I just needed to get to transition safely. This being lap 2, there were more athletes to weave in and out of. The final 5 miles, I averaged 34mph =O

Overall, I was happy with my time, but the average watts were about 20 lower than I had planned. Normalized was about 10 lower.

T2: (2:59): This transition was smooth other than a struggle to get my socks on. Having bike catchers sped it up and it was just an ok transition for me. I grabbed my hat/nutrition/bib and got everything in place on the go. My run legs have felt better out T2, but overall I was pretty happy with how I handled my effort on the bike. 1 thing I did different for this race was stash a water in my T2 bag to stuff in my kit during the run. This bottle came in handy between aid stations as they got more crowded on lap 2.

 

Run (3:22:05 – 5^th AG / 84^th OA): I lowered my expectations for this run before the race started, so I was hoping to run a 3:15-3:20 given the elevation and conditions. I started off hugging the top end of my HR zone for the first 6 miles and used that as my guide regardless of pace. I believe this was a good decision because pace was relative when ascending or descending the 2 main hills. In the back of my mind, I wanted to be under 10 hours. It helped me press more as I hit key points in the run and kept my mind busy with time calculations. I stuck to the plan and focused on seeing my wife, dad, and other supporters to push me along. The heat was tough, but I believe the wind hurt my pace just as much. My legs were the limiter though, and I never really challenged the HR zones as they were meant to increase throughout the run. Around mile 3 Ty decided it was time to tell me I was in 17^th place with 3 guys in striking distance. Just stick to the plan and I’ll work my way through them. The next update I got was I was in 14^th place with a long (but manageable 8 minute gap to 10^th, according to Ty). After I got through lap 1, I knew what to expect for lap 2. My final update from Ty told me I was in 11^th, but 4 minutes back from 10^th with 5 miles to go. Ty’s instructions, “make these the best 5 miles you have ever run”. Even though my pace was fading, I shuffled up that final climb. Checking splits at the top, I knew I could run 8-minute pace and still break 10 with over 250 ft of net downhill. I ran hard when I felt “good” and managed when it was time to fight. Most of the last 5K was a blur, but I remember cruising by the struggling runners as I made that final turn around the M-Dot monument towards the finish.

 

Total (9:55:04 – 10^th AG / 66 OA Amateur): Overall I thought I managed my day incredibly well. I would also say that is the deepest I ever had to dig, but it was pretty much on the run alone. I may have had a little more to push on the bike, but I expected some carnage on the run to make it back up. It ended up working out because I Pac-Man’ed my way from 17th to 10^th AG.

I wanted to land myself a top 10 AG finish and be under 10 hours, both accomplished in the final miles of the run (once again). For now, I believe that is just how I need to race until I can further my swim and bike. On this course, and with the competition present I am stoked with my performance. But as I do, I am already analyzing and trying to figure out where I need to train more and be better. This was a world class field of athletes, and I want to elevate my performance to become a true competitor. My next Ironman will be in KONA!

I also got to chat with someone from Triathlete Magazine about how this race compared with Kona. Check out the article here: https://www.triathlete.com/culture/news/how-did-the-world-championship-in-st-george-stack-up-to-kona/

This was a novel, so thanks for sticking it out until the end! Despite how much I wrote, there is so much more I neglected to include. Hit me up if you want to hear more, and I’ll have another race report coming after Chatt 70.3 in 2 weeks.

 

Matt

Indoor Ironman Distance Triathlon

On my journey to qualify for the Ironman World Championships in Kona, I created this blog and titled it “Road to Kona.” Before qualifying, I wanted to document my training to engage and inspire others to chase their own goals. Now that Kona is 8 months away, I am continuing my training for the race itself. Even though my initial goal was reached, I want to continue pushing myself to new heights as I set even bigger goals (more to come). At this point, I feel like I have barely tapped into what’s possible.  I am hungry to see just how far I can push myself these next 8 months. As I do, I hope to see others chase their dreams with the same ferocity. 

So what started as a joke about making “Road to Kona” T-shirts, turned into a challenge at our YMCA (which does include t-shirts and tanks!) The challenge is to complete all 3 Ironman triathlon disciplines before I race the 2021 World Championship race in May, and the 2022 World Championship in October. You can find all of the details here: https://www.tworiversymca.org/blog/road-to-kona 

***To kick off the challenge, I will be completing an indoor iron distance triathlon at Two Rivers YMCA on February 19th. This also started as a joke that I should do the challenge in a day… Now that the preparations have been made, I am excited to spend my day inside the Y doing what I love. 

 

Starting around 6:15AM on February 19th: I will swim 4250 yards in the pool, bike 112 miles on Zwift using my own bike/trainer in the cardio room and run 26.2 miles on a treadmill with Zwift tracking in the background. Friends and training partners that will be joining me for parts of the event in support, and I hope to have lots of visitors throughout the day!

Going “back” to Kona!

Well, it’s been a minute since I’ve cranked one of these out. A lot has changed since my Ironman Wisconsin race report, so here is a quick update on everything.

Leading The Ugly Christmas Sweater Run

After placing 2^nd AG at IMWI, I did not receive a Kona slot. I had already deferred Kona 2021 to race Ironman St. George next year on May 7^th. Without a slot for fall 2022, I decided to sign up for Ironman Maryland to re-qualify for Kona 2023 instead. Last month, I received an email from Ironman stating that they reallocated Kona slots back to Madison. Despite already having Maryland on the calendar, I took my spot. So now, I am racing both the 2021 and 2022 Ironman World Championships next year. If that’s not confusing enough, I am trying to move Ironman Maryland over to Ironman Florida (3 weeks post-Kona instead of 3 weeks pre-Kona). Florida will be my attempt at a 3^rd qualification, for Kona in 2023.

At this point, I am back to building up my base as I prepare for the 2 biggest races of my amateur career. I haven’t set any real expectations other than to finish well and take it all in. Once St. George is over, I may re-evaluate some goals for Kona.

 

More exciting than all of that was coaching 3 FIRST TIME Ironman finishers and a Boston Qualifier this fall.

Jeff finished Ironman Wisconsin in a blazing fast 10:24 as his 3^rd ever triathlon. His first 2 were sprints and this was his first marathon as well!

Ken and Gail both finished Ironman Florida as their FIRST EVER triathlon. They fought through incredibly tough swim conditions and finished with plenty of time to spare.

Brooke raced 2 marathons this year to qualify for Boston. In the Spring, she PRed by 23 minutes and only missed the BQ standard by 5 minutes. After a huge summer of training, she nailed her qualification and PRed by another 9 minutes! (5 under her qualifying standard)!

Next year I have 2 more athletes looking to complete their first Ironman at Maryland as well. I couldn’t be more proud to coach athletes with such big goals. With that, here is a shameless plug to my coaching website.

https://mjacksonmultisport.wordpress.com/ 

Ugly Christmas Sweater Run: 1st Place

As an aside, here is my current 2022 race schedule:

May 7th – Ironman World Championship - St. George
May 22nd – Ironman Chattanooga 70.3
June 26th – Ironman Steelhead 70.3
July 23rd – Iowa DeWitt Sprint Triathlon
July 30th – Route 66 70.3
October 8th – Ironman World Championship - Kona

November 3rd – Ironman Florida

That’s all for now!

Ironman Wisconsin Race Report

Last race of the year for me! Other than pacing the QC marathon and jumping into a local 5K, I am done for the season. With Kona moved to February, I can take my time off a little sooner than planned. This should give me enough time to get my mileage back up for February 5^th. Huge thank you to Scott for these amazing pictures to help illustrate my day.

Taking dad to start his first Ironman / Hardest part saying goodbye to my wife

Pre-Race: Everything felt good going in, and the body was recovered and ready to go. I woke up earlier than normal, but it was worth it for close parking and extra time. Everything was smooth and I got down to the swim start with plenty of time to properly seed myself. The weather was Perfect for a fast day with light wind, cloud cover all day and a high of 73.

Swim (1:02:27 – 13^th AG / 63 OA): A PR lake swim for me! There was a little chop on the water, but nothing like the swells in 2019. I was around 50-60^th into the water and went out hard. After the first turn, I settled in best I could, and pushed hard with the wind assist. I never felt completely in control and only had a few spurts where I was locked in. Into the wind, I did my best to stay in someone’s draft on the back stretch. Lap 2 was a cluster when lapping the swimmers that started later. Not being that fast, I spent more time zigzagging since I wasn’t overtaking quick enough. I never found a rhythm on that 2^nd lap and was very much ready to be done. This was a 5s PR over Tulsa, so I’m happy with the result given the 2 loops and “chop”.

T1/T2: (4:01 / 3:55): Glancing through everyone’s T1, mine looked to be in the top 5 or 10. I was fortunate to receive a lower bib for AWA (164) and had one of the better bike racks this time around. This helped me in both T1 and T2 since we racked our own bikes.

Bike (5:19:04 – 4^th AG / 17^th OA): There seems to be a theme of losing my Tailwind bottle. Going through the bike tunnel at mile 1, I hit a massive bump and down it went. 300 calories and most of my electrolytes were lost, so I grabbed 2 extra bottles of Gatorade Endurance to replace the calories. I wasn’t quite hitting the watt numbers I wanted, but the pace seemed good. Almost all of loop 1 was solo until the 70.3 merged towards the end. Loop 2 was filled with more 70.3 and full athletes. This made the descents and turns much more difficult to navigate. I caught a second wind around mile 80 and was pushing good numbers until about mile 95 where I dropped off again. I think I was lacking a little hydration and struggled into the wind heading to T2. The course ended up being 1.5 miles long, so I think I would have been closer to a 5:15 split. Proud of my bike, but wish I had a little more to give with a 21.3mph average.

A miserable run, but still got my feet off the ground

Run (3:15:08 – 2^nd AG / 12^th OA): The worst part of my day and I definitely didn’t feel like Pac Man. Abdominal pain from the very start, and I was passed twice right in the first 4 miles. I suffered more than I’m used to and could only hold 7:20-7:30 min/mi. My stomach started to loosen up and I was able to hit some miles closer to 7:00 as targeted. The whole run was grueling, and I only had a few short moments feeling good. I was getting splits to 2^nd place AG (who passed me early on) and made that my goal. I ended catching back and ran with the guy in 2^nd. It was cool to see mutual respect and support out there even though we both wanted 2^nd. After pulling away, I kept an eye on our gap at each turnaround. As I was also getting the time gap from my support, it turned out we started the swim within seconds of each other. This meant I didn’t need to worry about the rolling start. I slowed up a few times after mile 15, but he wasn’t taking time back. I held on until the last 2 miles and kicked it in a hard as I knew how.

I’m not too thrilled with this run (only seconds faster than 2019) and having run a 3:02 at Ironman Tulsa.

Congrats on a strong fight and keeping me honest

Overall, I’d day I had a good day, but it certainly was not my best. I don’t think I had any more time to grab in my swim or either transition. I am not sure I had much more to push on the bike given my HR was 5bpm higher than Tulsa. Watts were identical between the 2. As stated above, I was not happy with my run. I felt like I should have been about 10 minutes faster with how perfect the weather was. I only Pac-Man’ed my way from 11 to 7^th Overall and 3^rd to 2^nd AG.

 

I wanted to land myself a top 5 overall finish and age group win by the end of the 2021 season but came up short. I don’t think there will be any more race reports coming out this year unless you want to hear about my marathon pacing next week. For now, I’ve got my eyes set on some serious recovery and plenty of beer.

I’ll plan on releasing my 2022 race schedule and plans once a few more things are ironed out. As always, thanks for the support and listening to my ramblings!

 

Matt

Ohio 70.3 Race Report

A 70.3 PR and highest Age Group placement yet! After the race, I took a week off from training to vacation with my wife. I am a little behind on getting this one out, so hopefully it’s still good!

Pre-Race: I had a big training weekend after DeWitt, and my body was beat up. I took an unplanned rest day Wednesday before Ohio, so my legs felt the most rested since the full taper going into Tulsa.

I felt very good going into this race and was expecting a favorable result. With predicted thunderstorms on Sunday, this felt very similar to Des Moines. I was happy to have had that experience and prepped as if the race wouldn't be altered.

Swim (30:16 - 45th OA): My fastest swim to date, finally putting my new Zone3 swim skin to the test. Having just knocked out a 5K swim on Friday at the Delaware YMCA (nicest facility I’ve ever been in), I was feeling good about my swim. I seeded myself at the back of the 27-30 minute group, and this ended up being perfect. I only passed around 10 people, and was enjoying catching/drafting/overtaking throughout most of the swim. I swam even harder than at Des Moines, and really feathered the “this is too hard” mentality.” As I am finding out, I can cross that line and still have enough in the tank for the remainder of the race. All in all, my best 70.3 swim, but it still cost me the AG win. More to come :)

T1 (2:15): My transition was great until I got too excited and ran past my bike… I think I went wrong by not having a clear way to identify my spot (rookie move). This was also my first race back where the bikes were on top of each other again. Not rubber banding my shoes had been working as of late, so I opted to put on my clips at my bike.

Bike (2:13:17 - 24th): This was probably the highlight for me. The bike course was one of the fastest I’ve ever ridden with two 10 mile straights to start the ride. The first straight was one of the smoothest roads I’ve ever ridden and was averaging a little over 26mph. Now, I apologize for dellwing on this 1 mishap, but it’s been bothering me. I am meticulous with my setup and always check for brake rub/gearing/etc. After settling in that first mile, I noticed my bottle cage was completely loose. It was tight before leaving transition, and within a mile was all sloppy. I have never had my downtube cage loosen, ever. To remedy it, I held the bottle in my mouth while leaning over to tighten the screws. I was losing time and didn’t want to risk crashing, so I gave up on it and at mile 20 my cage gave up too. I lost 200 calories of tailwind as the bolt fell out, bottle slid into my cranks and rear tire launched it into the ditch. The empty cage then dangled into my cranks as I pedaled, so I had no choice but to break my cage and hang it on my aero bars until the next aid station 15 miles away. Not ideal, and I seriously question if someone messed with my setup… Without a bottle cage I had to improvise with adding Gatorade to my aero bottle and grab additional aid as needed. Nonetheless, I averaged just over 25mph for my fastest bike split yet.

 

T2 (2:08): I thought I was pretty quick running with my bike, but I discovered I need to be faster. My Dynamo teammate Thomas came off the bike seconds behind me and BLEW by me going into transition. He put 20s into me just like that! It didn’t help that I once again ran past my rack… Need to add some color to my transition bag.


Run (1:23:22 - 4th): I had been waiting for the run all day, and was ready to hammer down. Starting off, I checked my overall time and saw I could break 4:10 with a 1:22. Out of T2 I was told 3rd AG and 5:30 back from 2nd. Not getting too excited, I stuck to my HR for the first 3 miles focusing on settling in. I really had to hold back as it was taking forever to overtake each runner in front of me. By the time I started loop 2, I was in 2nd. I held a steady push until mile 11 and then made my final move. I gave everything I had those last 2 miles and soaked in the crowds. I received a ton of encouragement from the athletes just starting their run as I suffered that last mile.

Always playing catch up

Post Race: In the end I landed 6th overall and 2nd age group with a PR of 4:11:25. My goals were to be top 5 overall and take the age group win, but I am still very happy with the result. Now, when I said the swim cost me the race, here is why. The athlete that won my age group and took 5th overall swam 5 minutes faster than me, and I was only able to close about 1 minute of that. This is not to say that I need to swim a 25, but I know what I need to work on so I don’t lose the race on the swim.




Bringing my guy home

Adding a shameless plug down here at the bottom. As the expenses for my trip to Kona are coming, we will be hosting a little Fun Run to raise money in East Moline.

Time: 7:00AM on August 15th.

Location: QC Running Club at 733 15th Ave, East Moline, IL 61244.

Donation Page: GoFundMe