dannymcfee

2012 Hong Kong Standard Chartered Marathon - Pre-Race

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:53:00 +0000

It's been a busy and cold winter. I'm not making excuses for limited training but just stating facts--busy and damn cold. Earlier this month I flew to Vegas for work (CES show) and only managed to squeeze in a 2 hour run, a couple of bike trainer sessions and a short swim. Then the week after I headed off to San Diego and managed to run 51K over a week's time. Coming back to Hong Kong I jumped right into to Chinese New Year holidays and family commitments (and jet-lag)--all of which had to take priority over training. Anyhow, I cranked out a 42K running week and now I have to switch to taper mode with only a handful of days to go until race morning.

I looked back at my 2010 HK SCM performance to see if there were clear areas that I could strategically manage better. Check it out:

This chart is primarily looking at heart rate. From what I gather, "A" probably caused "B." I set off too hard running in Z5 for 8 kilometers and then settled into race pace for the middle section and then finally collapsed at 32K and just suffered my way slowly on to the finish.

"The Called Shot" - Babe Ruth, 1932.

This year I'm not going to let myself get so excited at the start and will set right into a 5:15 - 5:20 pace and then simply try to hang on. If all goes well that will land me a 3:45 marathon and a 10 minute PR.

2011 Ironman 70.3 Asia Pacific Championship - Race Report

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 07:32:00 +0000

For this report I'm going to jump straight in to the race coverage and leave out my usual efforts at providing peripheral detail. You can find all that stuff in my report of the 2010 race.

The Day Before

For anyone not following my history of racing, I should mention that the 2010 Ironman 70.3 Asia Pacific Championship was my first long distance triathlon. Despite having completed the 2010 race as well as two other 70.3s (Singapore and Taiwan) and a full IM in between (France), I was just as nervous as the year before. I kept telling myself that it was irrational nervousness since (1) I know the course, (2) I've had a solid year of racing and (3) my preparatory training was very solid. Unfortunately, I think that "irrational nervousness," despite it's semblance to some chapter that one might expect to find in a sport psychology journal, doesn't exist. I was nervous thus there must be a cause. Two guys sitting at a bar having a beer. One guy asks the other, "Why do you think I was so nervous?" the other guy replies, "Dude, cuz you're a pussy.". I'm always fascinated by American use female genitalia as an adjective to describe weakness when in fact it is one of the most powerful things on earth. Seriously, ask yourself, which had more impact on the history of mankind, the vagina or the gun? To further the digression I'll add here that in Italian, a negative connotation of the female genitalia does not exist. Oddly I think the Italians understand that you don't mess around with the Figa. Anyway, so I was nervous and after some thought I considered nervousness to be a good thing. I think it mainly came from the fact that mentally I was prepared to race on the edge and push the limits of my ability. No matter what your preparation is, knowing that you are deeply committed to inflict considerable pain upon yourself will make you nervous.

Registration and check-in at transition were simple and straightforward. This event is extremely well organized so you can basically shut off the part of your brain that would normally worry about logistics and administration. I went for a short 30 minute run at a relaxed pace with a few sprints to wake up my legs and remind them that they were about to get tested. I also took a very short dip in the sea just to say hello to the liquid that I'd be fighting to push behind me the next day. I also spent quite a bit of time and money with the bike mechanics making sure that my machine was perfectly tuned.

After the official carbo loading pasta dinner, I was back in my hotel room at 7:30pm and in bed by 8. It took me at least an hour to fall asleep. Damn nerves.

Race Morning

At 4:00am my alarm went off and I went straight for coffee. As usual, no breakfast other than two cups of coffee. Emptied the bowels, downed a liter of Nuun enhanced water and then by 5:00 I was leaving my room for the short walk to transition.

As I was going through body marking they made an announcement on the loudspeakers that compression calf sleeves were not permitted during the swim. No sense in trying to argue so I took my calf sleeves off and stuffed them into my run bag. They are a pain to get on and I knew that most likely I would not take the time to fight that battle in T2 but figured I may as well toss them in the run bag in case after the bike I felt that my calves were on the verge of having cramping issues.

It had rained all night so my bike was drenched. I came prepared with a rag to wipe it down. Fortunately I didn't leave my shoes on the bike overnight and was happily snapping them in the pedals next to a bunch of bikes with soggy dripping shoes attached. I cleaned up my bike, tested the gears and brakes, added my nutrition and fluids and then headed off to the swim start.

The Swim - Andaman Sea (1.3K)

After a brief 10 minute warm-up swim I joined the queue for the start. I had hoped to be closer to the front (not because I am fast but because this would allow me to get quicker access to my preferred line to the first buoy) but in the end I found myself stuck smack in the middle of all male competitors ages 18 to 39. I worked my way to the left-most side and waited for the gun. Having tried and failed going out hard and fast a month earlier at Ironman 70.3 Taiwan, I'd decided to stay smooth and consistent this time. I planned to avoid the melee at the start by swimming to the outside of the pack and then move up the field once the breast strokers were dropped.

At the start I shuffled among the crowd down to the water and out toward the shallow breakers. I didn't dolphin dive this time as it was fairly crowded and instead decided to stay on my feet and keep working toward finding an angle on some open swim space. By about waist deep I dove in and quickly found a good rhythm without too much kicking and punching.

Halfway to the first turn buoy I came up for a 3-stroke sight and saw that I had plenty of room to veer toward the inside line without putting myself into chaos so I did just that. Shortly after I was on a beeline for the buoy and feeling good. There isn't much to report for the remainder of this swim leg. I stayed on my best pace and had no issues with breathing or clashes with other swimmers.

I hit the shore and climbed out of the water feeling much more in control than the year before. Instead of gasping for breath as I ran over the sand mound toward the lagoon I was running comfortably and looking forward to rinsing off the salt in the murky pond.

The Swim - Freshwater Lagoon (600m)

Learning my lesson last year, I stayed to the left side after entering the lagoon and was able to jog out into the water a very long way before diving in to swim. As I was jogging I focused on taking deep breaths to get my heart rate and general composure under control.

Although I could definitely feel the difference in buoyancy, I was able to stay on form since, contrary to last year, I had done the bulk of my swim training in the pool.

As with the sea leg, there isn't much to report here other than to say I kept a straight line to the exit and managed to stay consistent in my strokes throughout the swim.

2011 Swim Time: 41:11

2010 Swim Time: 43:43

T1

I wasted no time in transition since I had everything I needed already waiting for me on the bike. I stopped by my bike bag on the rack briefly but only to toss in my swim cap and goggles and then was on my bike and pedaling shortly after.

2011 T1 Time: 2:29

2010 T1 Time: 2:16

Bike (90K)

I set out on the bike feeling weaker than expected. My respiration and heart rate were in check but my legs felt tired. Nevertheless, I knuckled down and worked into an average speed of 32kph for the first 20 kilometers. I figured that I just needed to get the blood flowing in my legs again and then I'd feel better after a while. Luckily I guessed right and was feeling much stronger after about 20 minutes. For kilometers 21 to 40 I managed to pick up the pace to 35kph.

I managed the first short climb at the 42K mark without without any issue. As before, a good percentage of the riders around me dismounted to walk their bikes up the hill.

Kilometers 41 to 60 were a notch slower at 28kph due to the rolling hills and the start of a torrential downpour. I started to see numerous crashes along the course and had to be extremely conservative cornering in order to stay upright. My plan was to embrace the rain and try to enjoy its cooling effect rather than let it ruin my race. I took the corners and descents ridiculously slow but dug down deep on straight sections. Despite my enhanced caution I think there was about 5 or six times where I was fractions of a second away from losing control of the bike. I recall one long straight downhill that opened up into an exposed valley after emerging from the trees. As soon as I left the protective cover of the treeline, I was getting blasted by heavy rain and cross-winds while going over to 50kph. One particular gust of wind knocked me sideways and my counter-weight-shifting caused a bit of fishtailing with both the front and back wheels. Once balanced out I jumped on the brakes and cut my speed in half while my heart rate practically doubled at the same time.

At 72K I reached the final climb. I was feeling slightly beat up after being pummeled by rain and questioned whether I had the juice to power up the last and most difficult climb of the bike leg. I debated with myself whether to walk the hill or not until the just a few meters before the base of the hill. Call it ego I guess but I just didn't want to dismount and have to deal with myself the next day. The road was essentially a waterfall. It was a steady downhill stream of rainwater about 2cm deep. I saw a couple of riders next to me lose traction and go down. I knew I had to focus. Fortunately I had some experience climbing similarly steep but much longer climbs during typhoon storms in Hong Kong. I knew that staying upright required extreme attention to detail. Shifting the body weight too much over the front end reduced the rear wheel's traction and can result in spinning in place which then leads to toppling over sideways. As I climbed I was carefully examining every inch of road in front of my and steering toward any pronounced granulation I could see. The picture below is not of the Phuket climb (and only probably half as steep) but more or less illustrates what I'm talking about. The green dots show the line I would take in order to avoid spinning out.

Once the final hill was behind me I cranked the speed back up to around 32kph and rode steadily on through to the finish. It turns out that my average heart rate over 90K was only 128bpm (77% of max HR).

2011 Bike Time: 2:56:51

2010 Bike Time: 3:07:42

T2

After passing off my bike to a volunteer I ran to the bag racks grabbed my run bag and ducked inside of the changing tent. After dumping out all of my run gear a volunteer inside helped me stuff my bike helmet and shades back in the bag. Nice! I greased my toes in Vaseline, put on my shoes, visor and run belt and then headed out to run.

2011 T2 Time: 2:17
2010 T2 Time: 2:42

Run (21.1K)

Throughout the day I never once hit the button on my watch that would show me cumulative time elapsed. I figured that I would definitely beat last year's time and that was good enough for me. So when it came down to the run, I only had one goal: sub 2 hours. Previous 70.3 times: 2:05, 2:12, 2:22. Best stand-alone half marathon time: 1:43. I was super determined to have a solid run.

So what did I do? I came out of transition running like a bat out of hell. The odd part is that in my head I was keeping the pace nice and steady to save myself for the second 10K lap. But after the first kilometer I realized I was running a sub-5 minute pace. I think I said "whoa" out loud and dialed it down aiming for 5:30/k pace. The next split was 5:08, then a 5:14, then 5:19. Finally I managed to get on a 5:30 pace after 5K of running. That first 5K felt too easy and despite knowing better I ended up running it too fast.

To make a long story short, I ran the first 10K in 55 minutes and the second in 1:01. Tack on the final kilometer then damn, over 2 hours again. I'm generally happy with my effort on the run since I think I pushed myself quite hard; however, I didn't at all run as smart as I should have.

2011 Run Time: 2:03:11

2010 Run Time: 2:05:45

2011 Overall Time: 5:45:56

2010 Overall Time: 6:02:08

2011 Ironman 70.3 Taiwan - Race Report

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:02:00 +0000

Introduction

This year was the second running of the Taiwan 70.3. Before getting into the nuts and bolts of the the race, I'd like to highlight some key points:

Race Organizers: Taiwan Ironman Triathlon Co., Ltd. did a brilliant job of putting this race together. Every detail was looked after and this resulted in a very smooth experience for the athletes.

The Venue: Kenting, Taiwan. I have been to Taipei more times than I can count on my fingers and toes and only now finally ventured to the south side of the island for this race. I seriously wish that I discovered this place earlier! Its a gorgeous beach town with lots of nature, small local shops / restaurants and crystal clear sea water. For anyone looking for a weekend getaway alternative don't forget southern Taiwan! Two thumbs up.

The Locals: Surreal is the only word I can think of to describe what it was like to experience such an abundance of genuine friendliness. The Kenting locals will infect you with their smiles and warmth.

I took a 9:00am flight out of Hong Kong on Friday morning and arrived in Kaohsiung just over an hour later. From there I loaded my bike and bags in a van that I had arranged in advance and rode for an an hour and forty five minutes down to Kenting. My hotel, Yoyo Resort B&B, was directly across from transition. For anyone looking to do this race next year I highly recommend this hotel. Its a tiny boutique spot but the rooms are spacious and clean and most importantly its super convenient on race morning.
By the time I finished checking into the hotel it was about 12:30. I had roughly 6 hours remaining to assemble my bike, journey 20 kilometers to registration at the official race hotel (YOHO Resort), check in my bike at transition and have a short trial swim. It was a busy day but I managed to get it all done.
After a nice dinner near the beach I hung out for a while on my hotel's open rooftop and watched the buzz in transition as other athletes were making their final preparations.

At 9:30pm I switched off the lights and hit the sack.

Race Morning

4:00am my alarm went off and I headed straight to the kettle to boil water for coffee. I took the coffee up to the rooftop to relax and watch the volunteers arriving to prepare transition for opening at 5:00. Sitting there on the rooftop I started to think about how unprepared I was for this race. Heavy work commitments in the month of October resulted in numerous missed training days. I felt that my swim and bike were fairly sharp but I lacked decent long runs. After a brief moaning session with myself I decided to start thinking positively about the day ahead. I figured at T2 I'd remind myself to stay relaxed and aim for 5:30/k splits to put me under a 2 hour half marathon. Relax, smile and get it done.

Photo by: Darryl Carey

At around 5:15 I grabbed my gear and headed over to transition to add nutrition to the bike, make final checks and then have a warmup swim. Just before 6:30 they called us out of the water to clear the way for the pros to start. The pros were to go off at 6:30 and then over a thousand age groupers would start all at once after the pros completed their first lap of the course. I decided to test myself this time and instead of lining up conservatively toward the outside, I stood right at the front with the most direct line to the buoy. In order to avoid getting buried by other swimmers I would have to go relatively hard from the start and then ease into a more reasonable pace once the breastrokers were at least 50m behind me. As I was going over this plan in my head I looked to my right and saw Chris McCormack "Macca" standing a few meters away. Awesome! I didn't hear any buzz in advance that he would be racing and it was an nice surprise to see him on the start line and be in the same race as the two-time Kona champ. If I would have paid more attention to twitter I see now that he did give some hints that he'd be there.

The gun goes off for the pros and we watch them swim off into the distance. As expected, Macca is first to pop his head out of the water after the first lap. He puts on a bit of a show by stopping, turning around and walking back toward the second place swimmer. Just as I'm thinking WTF it all suddenly makes sense as he latches on to an incoming wave and body surfs most of the remaining distance to shore. Once all the pros had come around it was time for the age group madness to begin.

Swim - 1.9K

I ran into the water trying to stay as close to the front as possible and once I was about knee deep I switched to dolphin diving until I was at a decent depth. Unfortunately my plan didn't work out too well. My swim speed just isn't fast enough yet to hold onto the front pack and it wasn't long until I stuck in a body blender. I had the buoy rope line to my right shoulder and bodies to the front, left, back, bottom and top. There was so much chop that I wasn't getting any air and had to stop and tread water for a few seconds to regain control of myself. I felt the onset of panic and knew that I had a short window to calm myself down before it destroyed any chance of having a decent swim. I took a couple of deep breaths and looked for the nearest sliver of open space so I could ease back into swimming again. Then it suddenly dawned on me that there was plenty of space to swim on the right side of the buoy line. There was no regulation that required us to stay on the left. I think most people stayed to the left simply because there was a rope and it had the feeling of being somewhat of a swim course barrier. I swam under the rope, resurfaced and set off swimming practically alone in open water. I didn't have to do any sighting at all since I had this rope next to my shoulder that would take me straight on a beeline to the buoy. The only disadvantage to this approach was that I had nobody in front of me to draft behind. The remainder of the swim was mostly uneventful. I found a steady rhythm and just kept turning the arms over on through to the finish. I should add that the visibility was amazing and allowed me to see other swimmers as far as 20 meters away. The sea floor was nothing but white sand and there wasn't the slightest hint of marine life. I couldn't help wonder if the nearby nuclear power plant had something to do with the absence of sea life.

Swim Time: 43:16 (new 70.3 PR)

T1

After coming out of the water we had 500m to cover before reaching the bikes. I stripped my wetsuit down to my waist immediately after coming out of the sea and then removed it completely just after reaching the showers located half the distance to the bikes. We had to run up a couple sets of stairs as well but this wasn't too bad.

T1 Time: 3:43

Bike - 90K

The course consisted of two 45K laps. According to my internet research on the route I heard it was slightly hilly and apparently extremely windy. As a precaution, the race organizers banned the use of disc wheels. This wasn't a problem for me since I don't own a disc but the fact that they banned them made me worry a bit about my near-disc F9Rs. I was hoping not to have too much trouble with cross winds as this can lead to nasty high-speed crashes.

I jumped on the gas from the beginning and started passing people one after another. I had never ridden the course before so I set my effort level at my usual 100K pace and figured I would just adapt to the course dynamically as I discovered it. I'd go hard when I felt good and ease off a bit if I sensed my legs were in trouble. On the first lap I think I was slightly over ambitious and was getting hooked on passing others. In my mind I was hearing the click of a computer mouse moving me higher on the final result spreadsheet: tick, tick, tick, tick. It became addictive but at the same time harder to maintain. At around 43K I had a wake up call that put things in perspective. I heard police sirens behind me and glanced over my shoulder and saw Macca coming up behind me. For a fraction of a second I thought of picking up the pace to avoid getting passed but then my better judgement prevailed and I held my speed of 35kph (according to my Garmin) while he cruised by at what must have been around 43kph? The disgusting part was that he looked almost asleep at the wheel. Here I was dancing around threshold and he's dominating the race at apparent ease. It was nice to be able to experience first hand just HOW GOOD Macca is at his job.

I didn't have much trouble at all with the hills or wind on this course. The hills definitely bit into my speed but they were mild gradients and easy to manage. The wind was a little tricky on the down hills and I swerved just a bit adapting to a couple of gusts. All in all I'd say it wasn't difficult to deal with. In a post rate tweet, Macca exaggerates a tad by saying: "Nice race win here at Ironman70.3 Taiwan. If u think Hawaii is hot and windy, you should come here. Crazy hot & crazy windy. Glad to be done."

On the second lap I had planned to ease off just a hair and ride a bit more conservatively in order to save juice in the legs for the run. But, something happened that changed my plans. I got pissed off. I started to see a ridiculous amount of drafting going on. I mean blatant in-your-face pace lines. Whenever I found one of these I tried initially to ignore them and keep my distance but then usually they became a mass in front of me that was causing me to slow my speed to maintain the legal gap. After a few seconds of slowing down my brain would start to boil and then I'd drop a gear or two and fly past the group weaklings and open a gap in front of them. Most of the time I never saw the group again but there was one occasion that really sent me over the top. Just following a long downhill where I'd made up some major ground at 62kph I caught up to a pace line of about 8 riders. Judging by their attire and bike selection I'd say that most of them were Taiwanese locals but sitting in the middle of the bunch was a western guy in Hong Kong kit (not sure which club or squad as I haven't seen this kit before). Anyhow, long story short, I blew past them and opened up a massive gap and then dropped down to a steady pace. I thought I'd never see them again but then about 10K later the group caught up to me and as the western guy passed he said, "Nice burst of speed mate" in a sarcastic tone. Its like he was telling me that I was an idiot for expending that much energy since his team of cheating f*#%s would eventually catch me. I reach down and wrapped my hand around the full water bottle on my down tube but then paused there for just enough time to come to my senses. That guy is lucky I managed to control my road rage as he was damn close to being struck by my water bottle missile.

Soap Box Rant: Seriously people. Why intentionally draft in a non-draft-legal race? If drafting is your thing then sign up for an ITU or other draft-legal race and have a blast. I'm curious if these cheats also take the same approach to the swim and the run. Would you sneak on a pair of swim fins? Take a short cut to save a few Ks on the run? Probably not right? So why blatantly take the piss on the bike? The answer is simple: because it is easy to get away with. In the end it comes down to the character of the athlete. If you aren't there to truly test yourself against the distance and simply want to get from point A to B by whatever means possible then I suppose cheating doesn't really matter to you. If that's the case than I honestly cannot understand why you signed up for the race in the first place. Do you want impress your friends with the t-shirt, finisher medal and photos? Hmmmm I might be onto something here. I think I should start organizing super ultra mega distance triathlons around the world. 10K swim, 500K bike and 80K run. The catch is you don't actually have to swim bike or run more than a few meters. In my events we will take your photo in the water, on the bike and on the run. We will even dump buckets of sweat from real athletes over your head for effect. Then we will give you a t-shirt and finisher medal than you can wear around town with pride. Based on the number of cheats I've seen I think this idea would make me a fortune. Entry fees will be similar to WTC events in order to maintain socioeconomic prestige. End rant.

After the drama was over I looked down and saw that I only had 20K left to ride so I eased up a bit and started to minimize fluid and nutrition intake so as to ensure a relatively empty gut at the start of the run. Soon-after I was cruising into to transition with my feet out of the shoes and then jogging to rack my bike and get ready for the run.

Bike time: 2:44:19 (Average speed 32.86kph)

T2

I was quite happy with this transition. Rack the bike, shoes on, helmet off, visor on, go. No dilly-dally whatsoever. I was anxious to see whether my lack of run training would be a problem or not.

T2 time: 2:43

Run - 21K

I set off running uphill. What I didn't know at the time was that I would be running uphill pretty much non-stop for the next 8 kilometers. My first two kilometers ticked off right on scheduled pace--even 5:30s. Then I started to feel hot and weak. My next split was in the low 6s and then I ended up stuck there. I was over heating and simply out of gas. At 7K I passed a fellow Dragon that was having dizzy spells and unfortunately wasn't able to finish. By the 8K aid station I resorted to taking walk breaks. The aid stations appeared every two kilometers and I was grabbing every ice sponge I could get my hands on to cool myself down.

The excessive indulgence in sponges created another problem. My shoes were completely soaked and by the halfway point I developed painful blisters on both feet. Then somewhere in the the latter part of the half marathon I caught up to another Dragon that was also taking a walk break. I made the pass but then turned and saw that he was trying to run again and so I slowed to let him catch up so we could run together. The two of us kept each other going on through to the finish by walking the aid stations (and a couple hundred meters after each) and running as fast as we could in between. I'm still quite irritated with my performance on the run that day. In the end I suppose its reflective of my training to a degree but I also made some poor choices on the bike and with sponges on the run that also played a factor in my result. Live and learn. I have another 70.3 in Phuket coming up in less than a month so I intend to seek full run redemption!

Run time: 2:22:13

Overall Time: 5:56:14

I'll end by saying that even though I'm not happy with my performance, the experience was fantastic. The course is challenging and scenic and if my schedule permits I will definitely be back in 2012 to have another crack at this.

2012 Ironman Entry Options

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:37:00 +0000

I put together a quick table to get a better idea of what my options are for doing another full IM in 2012 (Current as of the date of this post). China, Korea and Japan no longer host IM races so this leaves me with very tough (and expensive) choices considering that I'm based in Hong Kong.

I'm thinking Texas or Switzerland. This coming year the family decides my racing plan so let's see what they decide!

Ironman 70.3 Taiwan

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 06:25:00 +0000

Game time again. 小心台灣，神經病的老外馬上到啦!

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

Ironman World Championship

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 08:18:00 +0000

Here's my guess on the final result in Kona this year:

Men:
1. Andreas Raelert
2. Craig Alexander
3. Marino Vanhoenacker
4. Faris Al-Sultan

Raelert has last year's result eating away at him for 12 months. He will not compromise anything this year. I figure he will follow shortly behind Craig as he eats away minutes from Lieto and Vanhoenacker and then take the lead to finish in the last 6K. Faris isn't gunning to win (even though he should be) and will place high just from the lack of pressure and general enjoyment of racing fast.

Women:
1. Mirinda Carfrae
2. Caroline Steffen
3. Chrissie Wellington
4. Julie Dibbens

Chrissie is a IM god but I don't think it is meant to be her year in Kona. That recent crash will slow her down on the bike and run just enough to open the door for Mirinda to smash through to the finish with a sub-2:40 run. Caroline will finish just seconds in front of a suffering Chrissie.

Ok, so all of the above is generally a load of crap because anything could happen on race day. I'll be glued to ironmanlive.com and would really like to see Faris and Granger step it up and take the top of the podium (although I can't pick them as winners due to their recent interview statements indicating they are a bit laaa deee daaa this year.)

Will be a good show.

Good luck to all racing. Smash it.

Hong Kong Triathlon Challenge Race (Sprint)

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 05:13:00 +0000

Race Morning
The starting point of this race is roughly 12 kilometers from my front door so I didn't do much in the way of preparation for this one. The alarm went off at 4:30 and after a few cups of coffee and lounging around I was out the door an hour later to meet JoggerJoel en route to the start line.

Equipment Checklist
-Cervelo P3 (same gearing as for IM France but removed the Speedfill and bento box)
-Hydration: Xlab cage on aero bars
-Wheels: FFWD F9R
-Running Shoes: Zoot Ultra Kalani
-Goggles: Zoggs Predator Flex
-Mavic Tri Race bike shoes
-Race Belt w/ number

For a sprint distance race I saw no need to go overboard on gear, bling or nutrition.

Weather
23°C
Overcast
Slight chance of showers (didn't happen)
Significant chop and swells in the Tolo Harbour

Swim - 750m

I didn't manage to get in much of a warm up swim since the kayak volunteers kicked me out after a few strokes. Apparently they didn't have resources to ensure the safety of warm-up swimmers in addition to those that were already on the course for earlier waves. It's a deep water start and the melee had already begun before the gun went off. Everyone was struggling to stay afloat in the choppy water and we managed to kick the hell out of one another's shins for a minute or two while waiting for the count to reach 1.

Credit: Janice Mei-Yei Lai

I decided to experiment with going out hard to the first buoy in the hopes that I could get close to the front pack and avoid getting trapped in breast-stroke land. Had I been in decent swim shape the plan might have worked. Instead I was out of breath halfway to the buoy and quickly getting swallowed up in white water and arms and legs. I had to slow down (or at least reduce effort) drastically in order to bring my breathing and form back under control. I think for the 200 meters or so that I went hard it took me another 200 to recover. Eventually I found a pocket to swim in and swam steadily to the exit. This was definitely a poor swim performance.

Official Swim Time: 15:37 (2:04/100m pace)
Garmin Time: 15:31 (2:04/100m pace)
The 6 second discrepancy is probably due to the jog up the stairs between water exit and the timing mat.

This is a pretty disappointing result as I'm probably in shape to swim around 13:30.

T1
Uneventful. Jogged out of the water to the bike, tossed my cap and goggles down, race belt on, helmet on and go.

Official Time: Unknown. The official results lumped transition times into the bike or run or a bit of both--I can't be sure.
Garmin Time: 3:35

Bike - 20K

This was my strongest section of the day and I managed to rip through at an average speed of 35 kph. Drafting was legal so I took advantage of every opportunity that came along. I was able to link on to a very fast group for 4 out of the 5 laps on the course. The hairpin turns are a bit tricky and staying on the tail of a draft was always a challenge. I had to basically sprint 300 meters at full tilt at every turn around to stay with the pack. The effort paid off though because once I was in the slipstream I could ease off and let my legs recover for 2 kilometers until the next turn. During the bike section i took down about half a bottle of water. This turned out to be a big mistake that I would only realize on the run. In the future for such a short distance race I don't intend to take any gel or fluid at all.

Official Time: 37:28 (32kph)
Garmin Time: 34:37 (34.6kph)

T2
Again--uneventful. I racked my bike, spun my race belt around, ditched my helmet, put on my running shoes and off I went.

Official Time: Unknown
Garmin Time: 0:51

Run - 5K
This was a two lap course. My first lap was miserable with a side stitch on my ride side. I tried to keep my legs turning over quickly while jamming my fingers into the stitch to try to release the cramp. I adjusted my inhalation patter to match a different foot strike (this sometimes works to clear a stitch) but that wasn't helping either. I guessed that I had about a minute and a half lead on JoggerJoel because I had seen him coming in off the bike as I was heading out on the run. With this pinch in my side I wasn't able to stick to my plan of sprinting the first few kilometers at a low 4:00 pace. I figured if I was able to run the first 2 kilometers between 4:05 - 4:15/k he would be disheartened when seeing me at the turnaround and think to himself that his perceived fast pace wasn't eating into my lead. Well none of that played out at all. I did a 4:45 for the first kilometer but then dropped to 5:05 for the next. That was all JoggerJoel needed to make the pass. He blew by me at a 4:15 pace and I contemplated going with him but just let him go. If I could go back and do this race again I would have gone with him. It would have only cost me 12 or 13 minutes of intense suffering but I would have been much happier with myself at the end for digging down and going for it. Another race another lesson. I won't let that happen again.

Official Time: 22:19
Garmin Time: 20:47

Results
I'm going to go ahead and post this report now without my times. The results haven't been released. Once they are I will revise the post to include them. According to my Garmin data comparison of this race and last year's, I was a minute faster on the bike and about 4 minutes faster on the run. I couldn't accurately compare the swim times because this year's course was extended by 250m.

Final Official Time: 1:15:24
Final Garmin Time: 1:15:30

This landed me in the top 29.41% of the 35-39 age group. (25th place out of 85 old farts). Not satisfied with this but that's good as it keeps me hungry.

2011 Ironman France - Race Report

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 10:19:00 +0000

This report is long overdue but I'm finally getting off my butt to get it out there. I think the main reason for the delay is that I am still trying to figure out for myself exactly what happened that day. The photos and race results tell me that I swam 2.4 miles, biked 112 miles and ran a marathon in 13 hours and 46 minutes. I do of course recall much about the day but there are countless things that don't seem to add up. My training was a fraction of the volume that numerous "experts" say is essential for the "just aiming to finish" lot and I didn't have a single physical issue (cramping, bonking, nausea, gastronomic-intestinal issues, over-heating, etc.) come up the whole race other than the basic stress of swimming, biking and running. I'm just saying yo...WTF!!? I'm half disappointed that 10 years from now I can't say, "On my first Ironman I lost a finger to a shark, crashed my bike into an old lady in a wheelchair and crawled to finish the marathon with poo stained legs."--ROCK STAR! My mental picture of what it would take to finish an Ironman was built on numerous bits and pieces but all stemmed from something amazing I saw on television when I was 16: Mark Allen and Dave Scott's historic race in Kona Hawaii.

I know this is a bit corny since that race also spawned more than half of the triathletes on the planet not to mention I didn't exactly run out to by Speedos back then. A seed was planted nevertheless and then last year I finally got around to giving it a try. I'm getting away from the point. What I'm trying to express here is the mental concept I had of this challenge leading into the race.

The NBC Sports 2010 Ironman World Championship Special (in particular the opening segment) was deeply stuck in my head. Imagine not being able to get the following sentence out of your thoughts for months: "Ironman is, the single toughest event you will put your body through, in your life." I had all of these images of bike crashes, collapses and ambulances in my head and I think it took me quite a while to overcome all of that and find a way to believe in the possibility of the achievement.

Training

Here's a glance at my average weekly training (in hours and minutes) over the 30 weeks prior to race day (excluding the final taper week):

Swimming (Pool): 0:58

Swimming (Open Water): 0:44

The bulk of my pool swims tended to consist of 100m repeats focused on technique. Open water swims were targeted at improving confidence and endurance.

Golden Beach, Hong Kong

Bike (Indoor): 0:57

Bike (Road): 2:27

Trainer work was usually a 50/50 mix of big gear mashing intervals and zone 2 100rpm spinning. Road cycling was a 50/50 mix of zone 2 spinning and 3 - 4K climbs at 10%+ gradient.

Running: 2:03

Most of my running was on moderate rolling terrain but occasionally I would head up into the mountains to break up the routine and build a bit of leg strength.

Average hours per week training: 7:09

Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong

Some other possibly relevant stats (30 weeks prior to race):

Resting Heart Rate: 46

Sleep: 35 hours / week

Work: 45 hours / week

Commute: 10 hours / week

Longest Run: 2 hours 19 minutes

Longest Swim: 3,800 meters

Longest Bike: 5 hours 17 minutes

Nutrition: Non-existent. I ate and drank whatever I felt like eating and drinking. In the end this turned out to be a 50/50 mix of relatively healthy home-cooked Chinese food (always with steamed fish) and lamb kebabs, pizza, burgers, fries, beer, wine, etc.)

Now, put this history in front of anyone that knows anything about triathlon and they will tell you that it looks like a dreamer preparing for an olympic or maybe half Ironman distance race. Fortunately for me, there is more to Ironman than swim bike run. I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching the race course and preparing myself mentally for the challenge. I read almost every blog/race report I could find, downloaded and studied the Garmin GPS data for the bike course from athletes similar to myself (weight, build, previous race times), generated and meticulously studied an elevation profile with gradient detail I created in Google Earth, reviewed hours of course footage on YouTube, spent who-knows-how-many-hours visualizing swim start/T1/T2/broken goggles/pain management/flat tires/.../.../..., and sought out and picked the brains of experienced mentors. Don't get me wrong though. I stand behind the possibly famous quote of unknown origin "You cannot will your way to the finish line." Within that tiny 7 hours of weekly training I put in a lot of quality work and there were numerous sessions where I practically buried myself.

I think my general approach to Ironman training can best be summarized as flexible and focused. I trained as much as could within the hours of free time available and always attacked my weaknesses. I only decide what my morning workout will be the night before. I'll usually first define what I need to work on most and then plan the duration and intensity. Whether its swim, bike or run, I always set my gear out before hitting the sack. Its harder to talk your self out of a workout when your stuff is there looking you in the eye (this is of course assuming that I even make it to the point of having open eyes).

Schizophrenia

I'd say there are 3 distinct voices in my head that are in constant dialogue throughout long training days or races:

-"Mike Tyson": This is the animal that wants to sprint all-out all the time, vomit, and then do it again.

-"R2D2": this is my body's CPU that gives me serious feedback concerning injury, fatigue, energy, temperature, etc.

-"Henry (as in Kissinger)": This *$#@er is a master negotiator and chameleon. He starts smooth talking before the race start and doesn't give up until I finish or DNF. His primary mission is to convince me that modifying my objectives--pacing, strategy, nutrition--is the wise thing to do.

Fortunately, not one of these voices holds controlling shares in ME, Inc. I have to live with these dudes from time to time but I hold the steering wheel. My first Ironman was, I think, without crisis significantly due to my successful extraction of meaningful information from these three amigos and simultaneous dismissal of their bullshit (Yes even R2D2 is full of crap occasionally).

Off to Europe

The family and I left Hong Kong for the UK nearly 2 weeks in advance of race day. This was part of a complex arrangement that I had reached with my wife in order to integrate vacation and racing. Traveling with a bike, a 2 year old and the early symptoms of the flu is of course challenging so I'll leave out the details and just summarize it as 15 hours of suck. By the time we finally reached Nottingham it was clear that I did in fact have the flu. I wasn't overly concerned though as I had nearly 2 weeks to recover and I figured as long as I kept my lungs clear of snot (thereby avoiding a secondary respiratory infection) I would be in good shape come race day. The flu and the cold rainy English weather were perhaps blessings in disguise as they forced me to rest, get plenty of sleep and recover from jet lag. After a week in the UK it was time to head to France and I was feeling much better.

Nice, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France

Ahhhh the French Riviera in June. The weather was just how I like it for racing, hot and not too humid. This was my second time in France but first trip to Nice. As this is a race report and not a holiday story I will leave out detail on the sights, smells and wonders of southern France. Suffice it to say though that I absolutely love the place, loathe most of the service/help but would definitely go back again and again if my bank account would give me permission.

We checked into a small Service apartment about 2 kilometers away from the swim start called HiPark Residences. The room was a "studio" and only had a pull-out sofa bed. It wasn't the most comfortable for sleeping but otherwise the place was great and full of triathletes (as I suspect most hotels in Nice were at the time). We had an outdoor balcony which I quickly converted into a bike maintenance zone. We arrived late on Wednesday night and so we hit the pillow as quickly as possible.

JoggerJoel and I worked out a schedule for the days prior to the race so that we could ensure a healthy balance of family/training time. Actually the only training we really intended to do was a recon of the first climb on the bike course, a bit of easy swimming and a short run. By the looks of the schedule below it would appear that we were try to kill ourselves in training before the race but it was more less just blocked-off time where we could get away from the family for a bit and focus our minds on the race. (In case either of our wives read this [they won't], please note that this blocked-off pre-race time is important!!)

(Click to Expand)

We roughly followed the schedule. Here is a short summary of the key points:

-Registration: Smooth and well organized process. Hats off to Triangle Events for their meticulous attention to detail!

-Bike course recon: We went a bit longer than planned and ended up cycling for around 3 hours and 40 minutes on Thursday morning. We kept it VERY light though and were cycling like grandpas. In hindsight I think we should have cut this half. This is the same thing I said about my pre-70.3 Singapore ride. It seems I don't learn.

-Easy swim: First attempt was cut short after JoggerJoel and I saw bright yellowish greenish jellyfish about 400m out from shore. We chickenshitted it back to shore and went for a bite to eat. I went back for a swim by myself the day before the race and managed to get in a relaxed 1,000 meters without any jellyfish problems. I knew I needed a confidence building swim so, at that point, even if I saw jellyfish I was going to swim on through. Lucky I didn't find one.

-Short run: JoggerJoel and I went out for a 5K run on the promenade and, as expected whenever not running alone, went unnecessarily fast. We ran a 24:49 5K (a minute per kilometer faster than our target marathon pace). Oh well. We felt good and went our separate ways for family time.

-Official Carbo-Loading Dinner: I managed to fill up on pasta quite quickly as we were among the first in line. After about 15 minutes from the start of the dinner the queue was a few hundred meters long and I'm guessing the wait for refills was around 40 minutes. The food was so-so but I wasn't really expecting fantastic pasta when it was being prepared in bulk for over 2,000 hungry triathletes.

-Race Expo: I made a couple of trips to the Expo and was pleased to see that it was much bigger than those at 70.3s I'd been to in the past. I stocked up on a bit of IM bling and CO₂ cartridges (mine were confiscated at the Hong Kong airport). I entered a contest at the Compressport booth where I would win free compression gear if I most closely guessed my finish time. Somewhere they have a photo of me standing there with an iPad showing 12:45 (I was being optimistic). The bike mechanics were also there and I had them re-install my front tubular as I noticed it was a millimeter or so off-center.

Equipment Inventory

Street-Wear Bag:

-Flip Flops

-Shorts

-T-Shirt

-Mobile Phone

-Bottle of Water

-€50 (post-race beer money)

Bike Bag:

-Sleeveless Dragon's jersey

(In the jersey pockets: 8 Gu Chomps, 8 Gu Roctanes, Mini bike pump)

-Moeben sleeves (to stay cool and avoid sunburn)

-Gloves

-Helmet

-Sunscreen

-Sunglasses

-Race Belt w/ number

-Small bottle of water

Run Bag:

-Running Shoes: Zoot Ultra Kalani

-Visor

-Sunscreen

-Spibelt loaded with: 2 Gu Chomps, Ibuprofen, Salt tabs

Bike Set-up:

-Cervelo P3

-Hydration: Speedfill + Xlab cage on aero bars

-Gearing: SRAM Red 172.5/50-34/26

-Wheels: FFWD F9R

-Bento box: Multi tool, valve wrench, CO₂ valve, salt tabs, tire levers, tubular tape, Nuun Tablets.

-Spare tire strapped on seat-post under seat

-Mavic Tri Race shoes clipped in and suspended with rubber bands

Swim Set-up:

-Goggles: Zoggs Predator Flex (Love these!!)

-Wetsuit: Orca Alpha (Super flexible fast suit)

-Covered all exposed skin in BodyGlide (to avoid rash and jelly fish)

-2XU Tri Shorts underneath a Champion System one-piece tri-suit. (My club tri-suit has zero bike padding so I went with a bit extra)

Day Before The Race:

Although the plan was to do little if anything I ended up spending quite a bit of time on feet shopping and touring around town with my family. Bike check-in was a breeze and extremely well organized. I immediately strapped my time chip to my ankle so as not to forget the next day. Race Number marking the day before the race was a bit silly as it washed off in the shower that night. Am I to extrapolate that showering is not a standard French practice?

In the end it was very chilled out day. I got in a relaxed swim at the beach and had an scrumptious albeit risky dinner: mushroom risotto, raw oysters and beer. I would not recommend eating raw anything the day before an Ironman but I chose to be stupid and got lucky. I was in bed and passed out by 9:30pm.

Race Morning:

My Alarm went off at 3:45. I am sure of this because I was wide awake looking at my phone when it went off. I was only up for a few minutes before the alarm however and was happy to have had a solid sleep. I had two cups of coffee, 500ml of Nuun enhanced water, dropped weight in the bathroom, kissed my wife and daughter and then headed out the door for the 2K stroll to the start line.

I remember being fairly relaxed and loose during the walk to the beach and probably had a smile tattooed on my face. I was taking things slowly and trying not to think too much about the specifics of the upcoming swim and instead focus more on how cool it was that I was there in Nice and about to have an awesome day of triathlon in gorgeous terrain. As I came closer toward the promenade I saw that there were several night clubs still in operation and their drunken patrons were wandering all over the place.

I reached the transition area at 5:15 and ran through my final gear checks. With a borrowed pump I inflated my tires to 145psi, added Nuun tablets to my water bottles, connected my Garmin 310XT to the bike and turned it on (I decided not to take it on the swim since I would have a clear idea of my swim time from the official clock after exiting the water) and gave the bike a general bounce and shake test to make sure everything was firm and in place. I stopped by and had a chat with JoggerJoel as he was making his final preparations and then headed off to drop off my street wear bag at the collection point. At that point I couldn't help but to think more about the upcoming swim because I was done with all of the morning preparation and standing there in my bare feet with nothing but wetsuit, goggles and swim cap. Breath in, breathe out, stretch the neck, stretch the arms. Time check: 5:45. I headed down to the water for a warm up swim.

As I was warming up I remember being surprised at how relaxed I was. Most of the other competitors had steely expressions or appeared to be forcing themselves into calm. I was just having a blast and loving the perfect weather with a cheesy grin on my face.

After 10 minutes of easy swimming I headed back to shore so that I could get a decent starting spot. On the way I ran into JoggerJoel again and he was looking just as excited as I was. All the work and wait was behind us and now were finally there and about to see for ourselves what all this Ironman business is about.

They organized different zones based on expected finish times as a means to ease congestion. Hoping to avoid the washing machine I lined up on the left side in the 1:18-ish crowd. The announcer was screaming into the microphone half in French and half in English and doing a pretty good job of getting everyone excited. I remember the last 5 minutes before the start vanishing in a flash.

3, 2, 1 . . .

Swim-Mediterranean Sea (3.8K)

Photo By: Bene Altshul

The swim course consisted of two loops. The first loop clockwise at 2.4K, then a short land exit and reentry for the final counter-clockwise loop of 1.4K.

Contrary to rumors I heard about extremely physical swims in European Ironman racing, I found this one to be the most peaceful of any swim start I'd ever done (not many of course). Perhaps the painful stones we had to walk over had everyone moving slowly and easily into the water. I remember reading about the stones from other race reports and thinking to myself that these guys were just moaning wimps. I take it all back. Those damn stones hurt like hell to walk on. They are smooth and mostly flat so its not a problem of jagged edges but they protrude in every which way and its impossible to find a comfortable angle for any step. Another reason why I think this was a calm start is probably because I am comparing it to shorter races that have a higher percentage of novices in the field. I think kicking and flailing increases exponentially when you have newbies all over the place.

Photo By: Bene Altshul

Once I was out on in the water I had no problems quickly getting into a rhythm. I jumped on the feet of a guy in front of me and stuck with him to the first buoy. I had swimmers to my left and right and our little group seemed to be passing a good number of others. I remember smiling quite a bit during the first kilometer or so because it was such a gorgeous swim. I'd rotate to breathe and see the sun rising over the mountains set against a cloudless blue sky and then turn back into into insanely clear water where I could see bodies swimming all around me. The buoys were spaced out quite far from each other so sighting was a challenge. I managed to get lucky on the first lap and held a reasonably straight line.

Exiting the water after 2.4K I was feeling really strong and dove in for the final lap. The short shuffle out of the water spiked my heart rate a bit but I managed to get it back to what I'm guessing was the upper end of zone 2 after 100m or so of slower pace. I had much more trouble on the 2nd lap with sighting and I ended up following a pack that veered off course on the way back to shore. I think what happened is I got into a hypnotic state where I was just thinking about swimming technique and breathing without paying too much attention to my direction. Once I realized I was off course I adjusted my line and noticed that I was also near the front of a huge chase pack and could swim more or less alone if I could get myself over and in front of it. This pumped me up a bit and I dug in and swam hard toward the swim finish. With 300 meters to go I increased my kick to get the blood flowing in my legs in preparation for the bike.

I climbed out of the water and before I had even thought to unzip my wetsuit, the swimmer behind me yanked my strap down and then jogged in front of me saying something in French. I assumed he was asking me to return the favor so I obliged. Nice! I stripped the top of my wetsuit down to the waist and jogged into transition.

Swim time: 1:27:15

I reminded myself here to take it easy and that my goal for the race was to finish and gain experience at the distance. I stripped the wetsuit off, put on my bike jersey, sunscreen, arm sleeves, gloves, sun glasses, helmet and then jogged over to my bike. Heading out of transition I saw my wife and daughter on the other side of the fence and they were shouting, "go dada go!" I was soooo happy that they managed to find me amidst the endless stream of competitors and also pleased that the swim time forecast I gave to them was almost spot-on. After blowing kisses I was on my way to a very long day in the saddle.

T1 Time: 0:06:42

Bike - Alpes-Côte d'Azur (180K)

"The bike circuit of the IRONMAN France - Nice will cross 17 towns and villages of the inland area of Nice, including Gordon, the ‘most beautiful village‘ of France."-ironmanfrance.com

Check out mapmyride.com's 3D tour of the course:

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Following some advice I picked up in a few books and forums I only sipped small amounts of water for the first 20 minutes on the bike. After that my nutrition plan was as follows:

alternate taking Gu gel and Gu chomps every 20 minutes
follow gels/chomps with a couple of mouthfuls of either Nuun enhanced water or pure water (I had my Speedfil full with 1.2 liters of Nuun water and fresh water in a standard bottle mounted to the aero bars--target was to maintain intake of 65 - 70% Nuun water for electrolytes and 30 - 35% pure water. The Speedfil was easily refilled with water and Nuun tablets at aid stations and the bottle on my aero bars was chucked into the collection zone and replaced with a full one.)
Aside from always drinking something following nutrition intake I planned on sipping small amounts of fluids whenever I felt like it.
I wanted my last solid nutrition to be taken with no less than 30 minutes to go before reaching T2 and I would also significantly decrease (but not cut out) fluid intake--the goal being to minimize the content in my gut that would swish around on the run and cause cramping.

I'll jump the gun here and say that I stuck to the above plan and it worked exactly as I had hoped. I only deviated once and grabbed what I thought was water but turned out to be coke. The sugar was a nice surprise and didn't give me any trouble.

The first 20 kilometers of the bike went by in a blur. Had I presence of mind I might have glanced around at the scenery along the Promenade des Anglais but instead I was entirely focused on settling down after the swim and finding a comfortable rhythm on the bike. I was also forcing myself to take my effort level down a notch or two as this would be a ride taking me into "uncharted" length/duration and I wanted to have plenty of oomph in reserve in case it was needed.

Around the 20K mark I started the first and steepest of all the day’s climbs up the Côte de la Condamine. Fortunately the steepest section was only 500m in duration so I managed to power through it rather quickly and then revert to previous average speed of around 28kph. On through to about the 50K mark was a gentle ascent through the Côte de Gattières and gradual departure from the urban city.

Then came the monster climb of over 20 kilometers up the Col de L’Ecre to a summit elevation of 1,120m above the sea that I had climbed out of not so long before. Not far into the climb JoggerJoel came flying up from behind. I figured I had a 10-minute lead on him coming out of the swim and was shocked that he had managed to devour that well before the halfway point. I knew that he would catch and pass me but didn’t expect it so soon. We chatted a bit about the swim and then he carried on up the climb at a pace I couldn’t hang with. Part of me wanted to dig down and go with him and I probably could have, at that reasonably moderate gradient (ranging from 2 – 7%), managed to stick with him to the top; however, I would have been risking my entire race by nearly destroying my legs in the process. Once again I was reminding myself to adhere to my own plan and carefully spend my energy in a way that I felt would get me to the finish line. The sun was starting to make its presence known as I kept hammering up the mountain at around 10kph. Glancing down I saw that my kit was heavily salt stained and this served as a good reminder to stay on top of my salt and electrolyte intake. Up, up, up, up, up--seemingly endless climbing. I recall at one point another rider said while passing me, "Enough of this shit already!" I couldn't have agreed more. My feet were starting to go numb but it was probably more of a general nuisance than pain. Later during the bike ride the numbness increased to the point where I couldn't feel much from my feet at all. I kept my legs turning over but couldn't help to wonder if I would see black and blue stumps where my feet used to be come the end of the bike leg.

At last I reached to the top of Col de L'Ecre and was ready to start recovering position against the countless riders that passed me on the way up. Over the next 40 or so kilometers I cranked it up to an average speed of 32kph. I had no HR monitor but I would guess I was probably in high zone 2 or low zone 3. I remember questioning whether I should ease off the pace and be conservative but decided that it was basically "free speed" since my legs were feeling great at +/- 100rpm. In the end this was the section of the bike that I enjoyed the most. I was down in my aero bars flying past numerous competitors at nearly double their speed and at the same time not really pushing myself very hard. From this point until the end of the bike leg it was rare that anyone passed me. It seemed that most people were using the relative flats at the top as recovery from the climb as were I had gas in the tank and was dying to get back to speed. This all comes down to body weight. A competitive climber typically weighs no more than their height in inches x2. Applied to myself I would need to weigh 144lbs (65Kg) in order to be optimally competitive at climbing--yeah right!! 2010 Ironman World Champion Chris (Macca) McCormack had a few things to say about Ironman Nice in his book "I'm Here to Win" that made me feel a lot better about having stepped up to the challenge and how I fared against the Alps:

"I also know which races to avoid because I'm just not suited to them. For example, the French guys are phenomenal climbers and very strong bikers. So I have to look at courses and be selective. Take Ironman Nice . . . please. They'd have to pay me a hell of a lot of money to go there because I just can't climb with these little guys. It's just physics. I weigh 170 pounds. These guys are 130 pounds. They get on the bike and bounce up these fifteen-mile climbs. They put minutes into you and you're just trying to survive."

A quote from USAT Tri Coach Lorie Tucker who raced 2011 IM France (13 hours 44 minutes--beat me by a nose!):

" In this race, with the monstrous French Alps climbs, I was passed by probably 2,000 cyclists. However, when you get passed by people named Pierre, Konstantine, Thierry and Marcel it's almost amusing."

Cheers Lorie. I wholeheartedly agree that it was ALMOST amusing.

After 100 kilometers I started into the last of the significant climbs up the Côte de Saint Pons. It is a 7 kilometer climb and while it was not pleasant to be going up again, psychologically it was easier than the big climb since I had ripping descents to look forward to shortly after the summit. Somewhere more than halfway through the bike course (possibly after the second big climb but I can't remember exactly) there was a fire station crew that brought out their hoses to cool off dying riders. As I approached they were gesturing thumbs up or thumbs down (as in spray or no spray) and I launched my fat thumb high in the air. Seconds later I was drenched head to toe in cool water--niiiiiiiice! On to the descents.

I'm not a very experienced descender so I was aiming to stay conservative with my speed in order to avoid going over a cliff but I was pleased to discover that most of the journey down was not very technical and I could could stay close to full speed. Nevertheless, I started to see wrecks and bails on the hairpin turns. There were also a few people that appeared to have abandoned the race entirely and were usually flat on their backs under a tree with their discarded bikes somewhere in the vicinity. As I started to get further into the downhill section my neck and upper spine were beginning to give me trouble. I felt what I can only describe as electric pulses firing off and it seemed that I had pinched a nerve somehow. As with my numb feet this wasn't a debilitating issue but caused me a good deal of discomfort. I tried to stretch it out as much as possible but had to keep my head tilted upward to maximize vision on the road. With about 40 kilometers left to go my bladder had reached its capacity thus presenting me with a dilemma. I could either stop and piss and lose about 5 minutes of time or try what I had never succeeded in doing in training rides: "on-bike evacuation." I went for the latter. On a mild straight decline I stopped pedaling and tried to relax as much as possible. Finally I unleashed a piss storm from hell at 25kph. Mid-stream I glanced over my shoulder and saw that there was a guy riding behind me about 100 meters back that had also stopped pedaling. I figured he saw the trail I was leaving behind and was either attempting to do the same or just giving me a bit of privacy. 5 pounds lighter and feeling good again I refocused my attention on the ride and kept turning the pedals toward Nice. After about an hour of flying downhill I rejoined the same road we took on the way out and was cruising the flats toward the finish at a comfortable 28kph.

I was trying to maintain a heightened sense of vigilance in the final section of the bike leg. Apparently this is where a lot of mistakes are made or crashes occur. After having been in the saddle for over 6 hours its easy to let the fatigue get the better of you and in an instant you can wake up in a ditch wondering what the hell happened. Its also time to focus on the legs and spend a bit of time stretching the calves and shaking out the aches and pains before the run. Coming back onto the Promenade des Anglais was awesome. I was stoked to almost have the bike leg behind me and could not wait to start running. I removed my arm coolers and gloves on the fly to save time in transition. Despite my love for cycling I was pretty much sick of my bike at that point. I slid my feet out of my shoes well before the dismount line and then hopped off the bike to see if my feet were going to cooperate.

Bike Time: 7:20:21

After a couple of minutes of walking through transition the blood started to return to my toes and I could at last feel my feet again. I followed the same plan in transition as with T1 and tried to be timely but not rushed. I ditched the bike helmet and jersey and slid on my running shoes and visor. I squirted a gob of sunscreen in my hand and started my jog out to the run course.

T2 Time: 0:07:25

Run (42.2K)

The run course is a 4 lap out and back along the promenade with aid stations located every 1.7 kilometers. My plan was to walk all of the aid stations. I was quite specific with the rules I gave myself on this. I would start my walk only after my foot crossed the first table and then would promptly resume running on the first step after the last table. I knew that not defining this in advance would lead to all kinds of extended unnecessary walking thanks to the voices in my head mentioned earlier.

I set off aiming for 6:15 kilometer splits but as usual misjudged the first couple and was running around 5:45. Eventually I settled into the low 6s and started chugging my way along from aid station to aid station. In the graph below you can see my switch to walking clearly. The yellow represents cadence (data gathered from a Garmin foot-pod) and the green is running pace (The elevation line is misleading as the variance isn't shown. It was a pancake flat course):

(Click to Expand)

It was quite warm out (25°C/77°F) as I was starting out the run just before 3pm but I seemed to be handling it well. After completing the 10 kilometers and not having any cramping issues I knew that I would be in good shape for the whole run and would just have to deal with general fatigue and sore feet.

There isn't much that I can report about the run as it was executed precisely to plan. At 17K I stopped at a portable toilet and had to wait behind one person for my turn, drained the lizard and then was back out on the run. On each of the 4 laps I saw JoggerJoel on the other side of the course and we slapped hands on the pass. At first we were trying to calculate the time between us but eventually it became pointless math since he was running strong and holding onto his 30 minute lead.

I'd say there were two main factors that motivated me to keep running throughout the marathon: Crowd support and the ridiculous amount of other competitors that were seemingly walking the entire run leg. Constantly throughout the run we were cheered by name (printed on our race number). Allez Daniel! Courage Daniel! With all of the that support I can't quite grasp how some people chose to lollygag it. Random stat: over 200 competitors had run times in excess of 5 hours 45 minutes. Granted some of that lot were fighting their way through every step and couldn't have gone faster if their life depended upon it but I bet the majority were just being slackers (if it is even fair to call an Ironman a slacker).

At the turn-around point of the final lap I knew I had it locked down and was feeling in control. My feet were killing me and I was starting to struggle with holding pace but knowing that I had just one 5K stretch to go until the finish helped keep me charged up. As I veered into the finishing chute I saw my family on the side cheering me on. It was here that I made the biggest mistake of the whole race by not picking up my daughter to carry her across the finish. It seems that this is one of those rules that is clearly stated but rarely followed or enforced. I just didn't want to end up with a DQ after a very long day carving out my first Ironman. In the future I am definitely taking my daughter across the line--even if it gets me a DQ.

I came through the finish and was slammed with a wave of relief. Finally I could STOP! A volunteer placed the finishers medal around my neck and then I followed the flow of others out to collect my street wear bag and the all-important finishers shirt.

Run Time: 4:45:04

Final Overall Race Time: 13:46:47

Aftermath

I dug out my mobile phone and called my wife and with a bit of creative navigation we found each other in swarm of people near the finish line. Amazingly we also ran into JoggerJoel and his family and we made arrangements to eat dinner together and would rendezvous at JoggerJoel's hotel later. I had some time to myself before meeting up with everyone again and went straight a cold beer at a nearby cafe. After 2 beers, everyone had arrived and was ready for dinner so we ditched the bikes at JoggerJoel's hotel and went to a restaurant at the adjacent hotel. It was at this point when things went a bit crazy. I remember ordering a rack of lamb and a beer and then excusing myself to go to the restroom. Then the next minute I am vomiting everything in my stomach (which I guess was only 2 beers). I returned to the table and excused myself from dinner then walked across the street to the grass covered center divider and collapsed on my back. I remained there for the entire dinner and at some point JoggerJoel joined me as well. I was officially destroyed.

After a solid night of sleep I was back on my feet the next day and starting my family time with excursions in and around Nice. I was surprised at how well I was moving around and remember thinking that the pain was less than that experienced after half Ironman races.

It took quite some time for me to see the full scope of that race's impact on my body. I am writing this now close to 2 months after the race and have had a difficult time in returning to normal training. I took 5 days off of training after race day and had a plan of gradually getting back into a speed-oriented routine to prepare for various local sprint races. To make a long story short, I went too fast too soon and am now paying for it. I still know next to nothing about Ironman recovery but I learned the following the hard way:

-Suppressed Immune System: I've come down with every bug in the air from A to Z since the race and I'm guessing that a better approach to post-race nutrition, sleep and training volume would have solved this.

-Tendons and ligaments: Although muscularly I felt fine to return to relatively high intensity training, I think my tendons and ligaments were on a different program. Since the race I am dealing with all kinds of injuries that I haven't faced since my novice runner days. I have a very tight right ITB that is giving me some knee trouble and a swollen left achilles tendon that has put a stop to my running. I know how to work these issues out and will soon come around them but I think that all of this crap could have been circumvented through a more intelligent approach to race recovery.

Translating the entire experience into grade school marks:

Preparation: C

Execution: A

Recovery: F

Final Grade: C

So I passed. That, at the end of the day, was the whole idea. Yet, honestly I lack catharsis. I've checked this box in the lifetime accomplishments list but I still have much more to do with Ironman. I don't think I will be satisfied until I've had a race where I took calculated risks and came through the line on the last fumes of consciousness. Such a performance may not even land me a Kona spot and I think (I'm not sure yet) I would be okay with that as long as that race on that day was a masterpiece.

See you again soon Ironman.

2011 Ironman France

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 08:59:00 +0000

IMF Video

Race Report coming soon....

2011 Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore - Race Report

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 05:33:00 +0000

T - 2 Days

The first thing on the schedule was a "Swim Course Familiarization Session." Unfortunately I never managed to find the swim course on my first attempt as I turned the wrong way when I arrived at the water front and walked about 4 kilometers in the opposite direction. According to my iphone navigator I seemed to be walking in the general direction of the race registration (around 14 kilometers away from the race transition area). I decided to keep walking toward registration. In hindsight I would have been better off taking a taxi because what turned out to be a 10K walk in 31°C / 84% humidity had me drenched in sweat.

I saw Faris Al-Sultan out on the road for a run and was a bit star struck. It was just days ago that I was watching his slow motion swim exit on a downloaded copy of the NBC Ironman World Championships special. I don't think I could sprint as fast as he was jogging.

It turns out I wasn't the only lost boy scout. In the days leading up to the race, here are some examples of the questions asked to me or those that I overheard together with the answers that I had to figure out for myself:

-Where is transition? Transition is along the bicycle path near Bedok Jetty. Bedok Jetty is about the only thing you will find on any map that will get you close to where you want to go. Getting to the bicycle path itself can be a bit tricky as it involves locating underground tunnels that get you beyond the East Coast Pkwy and out toward the Singapore Strait. If you have given yourself enough time for getting lost then biking there should not be too difficult. Otherwise I recommend hiring a van from your hotel and they can, hopefully, drive you to where you need to go as long as you have printed out a map.
-Do we have separate bike and run transition bags? No. There is only one "transition bag" but interestingly enough it is not used. See related answer below.
-Where is registration? Suntec Exhibition Center. Unless you are staying nearby, take a taxi.
-Where do I collect my timing chip? Timing chips are not distributed with the material collected at registration. They are given out during the bike check in at transition. This little detail was only mentioned in the digital copy of the race guide.
-Is it true that we have to run 500 meters after existing the water on the first swim lap? No. After exiting the water after the first swim lap, it is a short out-and-back 20 - 30 meter jog around a barrier and then back into the water for the second lap. There were cups of water held out for a quick drink before swimming again.
-Are there changing tents in transition? Not that I saw but apparently they were there somewhere. For future reference note that public nudity is illegal in Singapore.
-Where do we leave our transition bags? There is no rack for transition bags. It is also not permitted to leave the bags in the transition area next to your bike. So what is the bag for you ask? I have no idea but I saw some people use it as a transition mat (despite the warning on the loudspeaker about leaving bags in transition). All of the bike and run gear needed for the race should be laid out as you wish next to your bike. Personally I like this kind of transition setup because its fast.
-Where is the personal bag storage check in? Just keep asking everyone until you find it. It is difficult to give clear directions as its in the middle of a grass field. You can use your "transition bag" to check in any items on race morning that you want access to immediately after the race. Athletes are given two stickers that have your last name and race number on them. These are to be attached to each side of the transition bag. You would think that the race number and last name would be used for identification purposes but when I checked in my personal bag on race morning I was given a tiny slip of white paper with an entirely new number on it. I asked the volunteer what I was supposed to do with this paper as I was about to race and she suggested that I try to memorize it. Wow. Brilliant. I stuffed it next to my, errr, family jewels. I was happy to find it still there after 70.3 miles.
-Where are the carbohydrates? (Asked at the official "carbo loading dinner"). They are officially located at any Italian restaurant of your choice but not at the "Carbo Dinner."

Here's a 2 minute map production to give you an idea where things are:

Perhaps next year we can get really creative and have race registration in Malaysia, and the Expo in the Philippines.

In order to keep this report somewhere short of a novel I'll need to bullet-point some issues that I'm otherwise tempted to go on and on about:

-Race Expo: Gigantic Banner was misleading. The expo inside was jammed into three tiny rooms that were not much larger than a Hong Kong restroom. Come on folks--you can't call that an "expo." Couldn't find any IM bling other than a heftily priced cycling kit.

-Carbo Loading Dinner: Held 2 days prior to race. The only carbohydrates I could find was fried rice. The rest was straight from a Chinese take out menu.

T - 1 Day
Longer that ideal day of easy training: 2 hours of cycling, 30 minutes running, 30 minutes swimming--all in HR Zone 1. If I could go back and do it again I would probably have cut the time on the bike in half. I don't think that extra hour did me any particular good.

I packed everything I would need for the race into the single transition bag I was given and then jumped on the bike for the ride over to transition. On the ride over the sky open up a piss storm. I ran into the Japanese pros Maki and Hiro Nishiuchi on the way over and they were standing under shelter waiting for the rain to subside. (By the way, to learn more about how you can help the victims of the Japan quake, check out Hiro's blog.) Looking up at the sky I guessed that it would rain for quite a long time and I needed to make sure I had enough time to get everything done in transition before it closed. Out into the rain I went.

I arrived at transition and took a spot in a long queue to collect my timing chip. There was no cover from the rain and I was standing barefoot in what was formerly a grass field but had turned into a muddy marsh. 40 minutes later I was asked to confirm my details on a laptop screen and then I was handed a timing chip. Next stop, bike check-in. The "safety check" consisted of a front and back wheel spin with a brake check. I passed. Since it was still raining, I decided to leave only my bike and helmet in transition. I took everything else with me back to the hotel in order to keep it dry. I'd be sure to arrive early in the morning with enough time to set up my transition.

Having spent quite a bit of time out in the hot sun I was not as hydrated as I should have been. Even with the afternoon rain it was still hot. At around 6pm I finally started taking on water with a purpose.

For dinner I had a small pizza and a plate of pasta from Pastamania at Parkway Parade mall. It was more or less fast "mock-Italian" food but it was close to my hotel and got the job done. JoggerJoel ran into a friend from Hong Kong that had arranged van transport from the hotel to transition in the morning and offered us both seats. Departure time 6am sharp. Perfect!

Back at the hotel I laid out my race equipment on the bed and double checked that everything was present and in working order.

Swim:
-Zoggs Predator goggles with mirrored lenses (anticipating bright sun)
-Body Glide
-Swim Cap
-Tri Suit
-Garmin 310 XT w/ HR Strap
Bike:
-Bike Shoes
-Race belt with number attached
-Bike Nutrition: 4 Gu Gels, 3 Gu Chomps, salt tablets
-Rubber bands (for bike shoes)
-Sun glasses
-Chamois cream
Run:
-Race belt #2 with additional race number and 4 Gu gels attached
-Running shoes
-Visor
-Baby powder
Post Race:
-Flip flops
-Shorts
-T-shirt
What I should have packed but didn't:
Raincoat

As I laid down to bed I was sipping water and going over the race in my head. I felt that this race would be a bit more difficult than my previous 70.3--mainly with the swim leg as my training volume was way down. My race plan was the following: Enjoy the swim, race my bike with guts and survive the run.

On a side note, I had done a lot of work on getting into decent bike shape since my previous 70.3. I invested in a Cervelo P3, Lemond Revolution trainer and dialed in my bike fit with the expert advice of the folks running Ttbikefit.com. After trial and error at local fits in Hong Kong I finally found a solution. Two thumbs up to these fitters! I have never felt so comfortable in such an aggressive position. Also, my "time in the saddle" in the months prior to the race was close to double what it was before 70.3 Phuket.

By 10:30pm I was finally asleep.

Race Morning

4:00am alarm. 5.5hrs sleep. Not ideal but I felt rested and ready. I immediately continued hydrating. In addition to my usual 2 cups of coffee (I brought my own this time instead of relying on Nescafe Instant), i gulped down just over a liter of Nuun enhanced water. As always I didn't have anything to eat. I know that this is not the healthiest of habits and I should start integrating breakfast into my life but it also didn't make too much sense to change anything on race morning.

After a final re-check of my transition bag I was out the door for the van ride to transition.

I went straight to my bike and carefully laid out my gear for the transitions. In past triathlons I have balanced my helmet on the aerobars with my race number and sun glasses inside. Since this time I was using a Xlab torpedo mount water bottle, my helmet didn't have a spot on the bike to balance safely. Rather than risk it getting bumped off I decided to set it on the ground with my glasses and race number inside. I added a bit of baby powder to the rim of my running shoes so that my sweaty feet would slide in a bit easier, stocked my bike with nutrition, rubber banded my bike shoes to the bike frame in horizontal position and voila I was done.

I lined up for body marking and then headed over to the swim warm up area.

Swim - Singapore Strait (1.9K)

This was a two lap swim course. Each lap was lined with rope. The first lap was inside and smaller than the second on the outside. This was a waved start with 7 separate start times. This ensured both an even flow of bringing all competitors into the race and total carnage as waves were still starting literally right over the top of swimmers trying to exit their first swim lap. Here is my parody version of the swim course:

I jumped in the water for a bit of easy swimming to warm up and get the blood flowing in my arms. There was plenty of space to warm up outside of the swim course. I put Body Glide around my neck, armpits, shoulders and just underneath all of the edges of my trisuit hoping to avoid the friction burns I developed during the Phuket swim. The water was a toasty 27°C--perfect by my standards. Visibility was very low. I guess it was around 1 meter. That wasn't a major issue anyway since I wasn't planning on sightseeing.

I walked over toward the swim start to watch the elites and the 5 other waves before me take off. As the women were exiting the water from their first swim lap, the horn sounded for the start of of the Men's 30 - 34 group. There wasn't really a clear distinction between the exiting area and the start so this resulted in the women getting completely pummeled head on in the water by the early 30s men. I tried to imagine what it must have been like to be one of them. I would have been looking forward to reaching the beach and starting my final lap, stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe...then SLAM!!...a 85Kg body drops on top of me, then another and another...I can't see anything but white wash and become completely disoriented..struggling for air I finally see the shoreline but more bodies are coming directly at me. Wow. Must have sucked to be them.

Photo by Federico D'Incà

Watching the chaos unfold on the swim course I almost forgot about my own start.
I scrambled over to the staging area but was near the very back. I knew it was going to be like swimming in spaghetti from the start since we were all compressed into a narrow lane. Since it was a counter clockwise course I chose to stay on the right. I figured I would have the rope boundary at my shoulder for most of the first lap.

On a side note: According to a post-race statement on the IM Singapore website, it seems they have no plans to change the wrestling, oops i mean swimming, course for 2012: "We'll further improve but keep the compact and unique two-lap, two-lane swim route..." If I race this again next year I will change tactics entirely and start near the front and go out hard. I don't know if I have the speed to hold on to that position but I it must be better than swimming back in the body blender.

Photo by Federico D'Incà

Although in the weeks building up to the race I was very nervous about my swim having fallen completely off form during the winter (see February race report) I was surprised to be feeling fairly relaxed with 60 seconds until the start of my wave. I think I felt a good degree of confidence knowing I had put in some work toward getting back into basic swim shape. Also, it was nice to look around and discover that I was physically larger than the majority of my competitors--thus making the the swim start slightly easier to navigate.

The horn blasted and we were off...at least eventually after a bit of penguin waddling across the sand to the water's edge. There is a steep drop off once entering the water so there was no dolphin diving or running. By the time we hit knee-deep water we could feel the beginning of the drop and leaned forward into the swim. Unless you were in the front, diving was not possible because of the congestion of bodies. We had no choice but to lay down into the pile and try to make forward progression as best we could. The entire trip to the first buoy was slow and with constant contact with other swimmers. After rounding the buoy the pack opened up just enough to start proper swimming. I was just getting into a rhythm with my stroke when I was slammed in gut with the heel of a breast-stroker. It knocked the wind out of me and before I could rotate to try to catch a breath the same heel came back and hit me square in the left goggle lens. Fortunately the second blow was not as strong and I was able to catch a quick breath and swim out of his kick zone and then quickly past him. This was the only major incident on the swim but more or less the entirety of the 1,900 meters was full of physical contact. Nearing the exit of the first lap I noticed that I was passing some swimmers from the previous wave. Before I could reach over and pat my own back I also noticed that I too was being passed by swimmers from the wave after mine. We came out of the water for a short jog around a marker and then jumped back into the ocean. I noticed that my timing chip strap was loose (probably from the dozen or so times some other swimmer grabbed hold of my ankles). I quickly bent down to refasten the velcro and give it a bit of a twist for extra security.

The second lap being larger than the first, I planned on increasing my effort (and hopefully speed) after the first buoy. Things I was thinking 1 kilometer left to go:
-stay streamlined
-body rotation / "breathing from the hips"
-lean into the water with my chest
-relaxed recovery with fingers almost dragging the water surface
-patient catch
-hold the water
-high elbow pull
-maintain wide tracks

I was visualizing a swim form like the image below while trying to somehow replicate it but probably didn't come very close:

I felt strong throughout the remainder of the swim but only really made a major pace increase toward the last 100 meters. The pack was starting to congest again as we neared the finish. I sighted quickly and saw that there was a mass of bodies building up at about the time I was projected to exit. I dropped two gears and swam hard through, and a few times over, others in front of me. This surge felt great and left me wondering if I could manage the entire distance with that kind of aggression. I think that a good portion of mid-pack swimmers probably take the approach that I have in the past. If I get bumped on the left I shift to the right. I am more or less like a courteous pedestrian walking down a crowded street saying excuse me, pardon me at every step. In that last 100 meters I think I figured out how to RACE in triathlon swim. I will experiment with this a bit in some local sprint races and see how it goes. The idea is to learn how to swim over bodies. Use legs, butts, backs, heads, arms or whatever and just pull myself forward. Its a race after all and there seem to be no specific rules against underwater brutality short of manslaughter. Don't get me wrong, I don't by any means intend to sacrifice the goal of achieving excellent swim technique. Technique is essential for speed and economy of effort. I merely suggesting that technique is the base but with a thousand other swimmers around you it is helpful to also have the guts and ability to fight for your own space and stay calm throughout the process.

I came out of the water and looked at my watch. It didn't make any sense to me how the swim could have been so slow. Something was messed up but I didn't have time to figure out what it was. I let it go because I still had plenty of work to do on the bike and run.

Post-race chatter seems to hint that everyone was pulling slow swim times and it was either due to water current issues or an improperly measured swim distance.

Singapore 70.3 Swim time: 53:09
Overall Rank 676/1538 (Top 44%) Age Group Rank 161/294 (Top 55%)

Compared to Phuket 70.3: 43:43
Overall Rank Top 68% Age Group Rank Top 53%

Negative Improvement in Age Group: -2%

T1

We had a bit of a jog from the swim exit to T1 but I enjoyed it because it gave me a moment to collect my thoughts and think through my bike transfer before arriving. I reached the bike, tossed my goggles and swim cap on the floor, put race belt, sun glasses and helmet on, splashed a bit of water on my feet to remove sand, un-racked the bike and jogged to the mounting line.There was a queue at the bike exit. Finally reaching the mount line I discovered a wall of riders in front of me that were straddling their bikes with shoes on trying to get their cleats to lock in place. Once I finally had a few meters of open rode I jumped on the bike, bare feet on top of pre-clipped pedals and immediately hit the gas to reach racing speed. Once at a decent pace it took me less than 10 seconds to slide my feet into my bike shoes and close the velcro strap.

Transition Time: 3:52

Compared to Phuket 70.3: 2:16

Bike (90K)

I felt strong on the bike from the very beginning and went out hard. After a few kilometers the road widened a bit and I downed a pack of Gu chomps and some water to replace fuel spent on the swim. After the Phuket 70.3 I felt that I could have gone harder on the bike without significantly impacting my run. The plan for this race was to go very hard on the bike as if I didn't need to save anything for the run. This would be a good experiment to learn how a hard bike effects my running ability under race conditions.

On the first lap (30K) I must have passed at least a hundred riders. Nearing the end of the first lap I was starting to feel the effects of the effort. If my quadriceps could talk they would have said, "hey there superman, we're cool for the moment but how long do you plan on keeping this up?" I decided to ignore my legs' warning and hold the pace. It was easy to distract myself from the suffering as there was always something interesting unfolding on the course. At the aid stations riders were trying to grab bottles at 30kmph and would of course fail. This resulted in flying bottles and careful dodging for anyone behind. I have to admit missing a couple of my own first attempts at grabbing bottles. I saw a few people stranded at the side of the road after a crash or flat. One guy must have just crashed as I passed because his bike looked to be in pieces all over the road and he was laying on his back with half of his face covered in blood. Ouch. I saw that he was coherent and moving so I kept going. I was extremely happy to see that same guy later on the run route struggling to finish with bandages wrapped around his head. If you are out there and reading this mate, you inspired me and I'm sure many others. I applaud your uncommon courage and determination.

As with my last 70.3, despite the warnings against drafting during the race brief, I saw plenty of violations and outright pelaton formations. I suppose this is something that I will have to get used to since I see it in every race.

On the second lap I set a target to keep passing riders at the same frequency as the first lap. There were a couple of other guys in my vicinity that seemed to have the same idea as we continued to leap frog one another all the way to the finish. I'd look ahead and see a string of riders and then open space ahead of them then surge through the pass and then hold that pace about another 30 seconds to create a small gap and then settle back to race pace. Then usually around 5 minutes later someone else would pass me and do the same. Again, 5 minutes later I would pass that same rider again. This became a bit of a game to see who could outlast the other.

On the final lap I made the most aggressive move of the entire bike leg. A peleton of drafters passed me and then eased off the pace just in front of me. They did this in a relatively narrow section of road and were then blocking me from counter passing by riding side by side. After a kilometer or so the road widened and I took off. I dropped a gear, slid a half inch forward in the saddle to bring the entirety of my quads into play and passed the pack of cheaters and then just kept hammering for 5K. I wanted to open up an unrecoverable gap and demonstrate to these wankers that one guy alone against the wind could annihilate their team effort. I looked over my shoulder and saw nothing but empty road. That burst had my heart rate sailing and legs aching but I knew that I had to stay on pace. Easing off too much to recover would negate the effort i had just made. I gritted my teeth and kept the cadence and speed on target. I was taking Gu Chomps or Gels about every 20K but as I started to get closer toward the bike exit I took a bit more nutrition and fluids in in order to be ready for the run.

On another side note, I read an interesting article from PacificHealth Laboratories the other day suggesting that its a bad idea to increase fuel intake during the latter part of the bike:

"...with around 30 minutes remaining in the bike leg you must sharply reduce your rate of nutrition intake and allow your stomach volume to come down to a level that is manageable for the run. I recommend taking an energy gel with water or a few swigs of a sports drink with 30 minutes to go and another drink with 15 minutes to go, and that’s all. If it’s especially hot, drink at 30 minutes, 20 minutes, and 10 minutes. This advice is precisely the opposite of what I hear many coaches and triathletes preaching. They encourage long-distance triathletes to “stock up” on nutrition towards the end of the bike leg..." Full article here.

As I approached the finish of the bike I slid my feet out of my shoes but left them clipped to the pedals. I reached the dismount line and with a swing of the leg I was on my feet and jogging side by side with Storm (my bike's name in case you missed the earlier blog introduction). At the Phuket 70.3 we had volunteers to grab the bikes from us but here we had to re-rack our own bikes--not necessarily a bad thing. The first few steps jogging into transition were rough as my legs were feeling like jello. But after a few seconds the wobbles subsided and I started to feel stronger on my feet.

Singapore 70.3 Bike Time:
30K Split: 51:12 (35.16 km/h)
60K Split: 50.45 (35.47 km/h)
90K Split: 51:37 (34.87 km/h)
Total: 2:33:34 (35.16 km/h)
Overall Rank: 439/1538 (Top 29%)
Age Group Rank: 111/294 (Top 38%)

Phuket 70.3:
Total: 3:07:42 (28.77 km/h)
Overall Rank: 362/641 (Top 56%)
Age Group Rank: 61/128 (Top 48%)

Improvement in Age Group: 10%

T2

In the 2 minutes and 13 seconds that I was in transition, i managed to do the following:
-rack bike
-remove helmet
-remove bike race belt
-put on run race belt
-put on running shoes
-put on visor
-rub a gob of chamois cream on my sore bits (tugged up the right leg of my Tri suit in case someone is curious how I managed that)
-downed a big swig of water

Time: 2:13
Phuket: 2:42

Run (21.1K)

There isn't much I can say about the run other than it was flat and very hot. My first kilometer splits were far to fast but I'm starting to think that it wouldn't have mattered anyway as the long run in the sun would make me it's slave in the end. At the first aid station they had ice cold sponges and as soon as I squeezed one over my head I knew that these sponges from heaven were the only things that were going to get me through to the finish. I soon learned that it wasn't going to be that easy. Only a handful of the aid stations were equipped with sponges. I needed to find something else to get me to the finish and it would have to be my legs. The interim stations carried water, sports drink and occasionally some gels, coke or bananas. I was getting increasingly frustrated because I was sufficiently hydrated and needed to cool down much more than I needed a tiny dixie cup of water. Message to the organizers: more sponges please!!

At 16 kilometers I finally had to slow to a walk. This wasn't an easy decision but the heat was making me dizzy and I felt it was the safest thing to do to ensure finishing. I limited my walking to about 2 minutes at each aid station. I had 5k to go and I planned to run station to station to the finish. I picked up the pace for the final 2K and then it was done. The finishing experience was not nearly as grand as in Phuket. Nobody placed a medal around my neck or cooled me off with cold sponges. A girl handed me the finisher medal wrapped in a plastic bag and said ,"Here you are." Within minutes of finishing the clouds opened up another piss storm on Singapore. It would have been nice if it had done that during my run!


Photo by Emma Bishop of BeyondTransition

As I walked away from the finishing area I thought of my family back in Hong Kong. I wished they we there but at the same time knew that it was not an ideal race for spectators due to the heat and rain. I will, though, definitely be counting on their support to get me to the starting line of IM France and to collect what is left of me at the finish!

Singapore 70.3 Run Time:
4K Split: 21:04 (5:16/k)
14K Split: 1:07:52 (6:47/k)
Total: 2:12:36 (6:17/k)
Overall Rank: 450/1538: (Top 29%)
Age Group Rank: 110/294: (Top 37%)

Phuket 70.3:
Total: 2:05:45 5:57/k
Overall Rank: 310/641 48%
Age Group Rank: 55/128: 43%

Improvement in Age Group: 6%

All in all I'm fairly satisfied with this result. Comparing Singapore and Phuket times, I was slower on both the swim and run but faster on the bike. I think that it doesn't make too much sense to compare times between two different events since the factors like climate and terrain have too much variance to be comparable. I suppose the most accurate indicator of improvement between one race and another is age group position. I'm guessing that the athletes toeing the start line of these races vary much less than the course and conditions.

Total Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore 70.3 Time: 5:45:24 *PR
Overall Rank: 450/1538: (Top 29%)
Age Group Rank: 110/294: (Top 37%)

Phuket 70.3 Time: 6:02:08
Overall Rank: 310/641 48%
Age Group Rank: 55/128: 43%

Improvement in Age Group: 6%

2011 Standard Chartered Half Marathon – Race Report

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:03:00 +0000

2011 Standard Chartered Half Marathon – Race Report

Distance: Half Marathon (21.3 Kilometers)
Start Time: 05:45
Weather: 13°C, 77% Relative Humidity
Terrain: Predominately flat with moderate rolling hills over the final 6 Kilometers.
Bib #: 55495

One would think that after the countless races I have joined over the last two years that I would have pre-race logistics and general preparation down to a science. Last year I took every race very seriously and began planning everything days in advance (kit, nutrition, recovery bag contents, travel, etc.). Since this year I down graded from the full to half marathon, I didn’t bother doing much in the way of planning. Mistake. The night before the race I laid out my kit and stuffed some gels and cash for the taxi ride home in my race belt. I decided to skip checking in a bag at the start so I get could sleep in an extra thirty minutes.

At 4:00am the alarm went of and I went straight for the coffee machine. 2 cups later, right on schedule, I shuffled into the restroom to lose 2 pounds. I forgot to set out socks so I had to do a bit of digging around in the dark to find a pair. Next I was searching for my number bib everywhere but finally remembered that I left it in the car. I was out of the door by 4:45.

I reached the race start at about 5:20 in Tsim Sha Tsui. The place was buzzing with excitement and I noticed that runners were already beginning to queue at the start line. I was wearing an old pair of sweat pants / top that never quite fit right and had planned to ditch them at the road side a couple of minutes before the start. Despite the cold temperature I felt pretty warm standing among thousands of other runners so I stripped of the sweats and chucked them to the side of the road. I think when I pulled down my sweatpants my race belt (containing gels and taxi cash), unbeknown to me at the time, went with them.

The Run

Following tradition, the countdown to the start was in Cantonese. Sap! Gau! Baat! Chat! Luk! Ng! Sei! Saam! Yi! Yat! Then the horn blasted and we were off. I was about 20 or so meters back from the front so it took 30 seconds or so before I reached the Champion Chip timing mat. By the way, why do people try to start “running” before reaching the start line? Basic physics or common sense would tell us that it should take a bit of time to spew thousands of queued runners out onto a relatively narrow course. It reminds me of driving on a congested freeway. There are always motorists that are somehow “special” or in more of a hurry than anyone else and try to cut-in and lane-swap their way forward. This can only result in increased congestion and reduced net speed overall—for everyone on the road. It only takes a handful of “special people” or let’s just call them manufacturers of inefficiency, to create an utter mess. Keep in mind that I am only ranting about what happens before crossing the starting line. Naturally, everything that happens after that is a race. Perhaps next time I will consider starting the race wearing a gas mask while double-fisting pepper spray—but then that would make me one of the special people wouldn’t it? Damn.

My target for the race was to run a PR at sub 1:43 (set in Nottingham Robin Hood Half Marathon in Nottingham, UK). I didn't really have an aggressive plan of how to beat this time and just figured that I would know by the halfway point if I was feeling strong enough to go for it. I would need to run an average of 4:50 splits to get there. I decided to up the tempo just slightly so that I could be close to a 4:50/K average by the halfway point but not so much that I would blow up too early.

Kilometers 1 - 5 cumulative average split: 05:06

Somewhere around 8 or 9K I saw Thomas Kiprotich zoom by the on the opposite side of the road in the lead. He looked relaxed and graceful holding onto a lead of around a minute. Gi Ka Man (紀嘉文) came by in second but was visibly laboring in his pursuit of Thomas. It must be a mixture of frustration and fortune for local Chinese runners to have to regularly compete with a super fast Kenyan that hangs his hat in Hong Kong.

At the 11K mark I was still holding on to a good pace and roughly calculated that I was on schedule for a PR. The final 6K after emerging from the Western Cross Harbour Tunnel would be the deciding factor. I would need to have significant fuel in the tank to power over a series of rolling hills. I felt the onset of stomach cramps but used the old trick of switching my inhale breath to sync with the opposite foot. After a few minutes the cramps were gone. It also helped to have the distraction of seeing the leading pack of Kenyan runners float by on the opposite side of the road for the full marathon. It looked like a group of 10 or so runners all in a tight bunch so as to control any surges or breakaways.

At 12K I reached down for a Gu but to my surprise my race belt was not there. I spent the next kilometer cursing myself for my stupidity after finally figuring out that I left it at the start line with my sweat pants. I knew that there was nothing to be gained by dwelling on the mistake. I had an important decision to make very quickly. I could either decide that the lack of Gu already cost me a chance at a PR and just ease up on the pace or I could stay focused and improvise by taking on more of the Watsons Iso-tone energy drink that was available at each aid station. I'm glad that I chose the latter--despite additional adverse consequences that we will get to later.

When I reached the entrance of the Western Tunnel I recalled how miserable I was at this same spot during the full marathon a year earlier. That brief reflection gave me a bit of a boost and I charged through the tunnel. The tunnel is about 2 kilometers long. The first half is downhill and the second is up. I lost satellite connection on my Garmin 310XT so I didn't know my splits (and still can't figure them out).

Kilometers 6 - 13 cumulative average split: 4:54
Kilometers 1 - 13 cumulative average split: 5:00

I didn't have all of this math figured out while on the run but this clearly indicates the importance of running even splits! A 0:0:12/K pace increase after the slow first 5K only resulted in 0:0:06 improvement of net average pace. To get a PR, I would have needed to run the final 8K to the finish at an average pace of 4:30/K. Its entertaining considering this now as it is clear that there is no way I could have pulled off that pace; however, I didn't know that at the time and still had high hopes as I emerged from the Western Tunnel.

Not long after the tunnel the rolling hills made their appearance. My legs were not responding and I started to struggle with some GI issues probably connected to the Is-tone stuff. Within the span of nearly a kilometer I realized that today was not a PR day. I didn't drop the ball entirely though. I kept the legs turning over and ran through Central, Wanchai and finally into the finishing district of Causeway Bay. Once in Causeway Bay it is a much easier to run with your chin up as the streets are lined with supporters cheering and chanting every runner passing by.

The last kilometers passed in a blink and I crossed the finish with a reaction-less expression. I thought to myself, "Well, at least this was a decent Sunday long run in the bank."

Despite having IM France as my "A" race for 2011, I'd still like to think that I can improve my PRs over various running distances while I am at it. I don't think I can safely cling to that as a goal though. If it happens then great but nothing is more critical to me than building the fitness necessary to finish in France.

Run Time: 1:47:18 (18 seconds slower than the HKDRC Half marathon I ran 4 months earlier--which is a much more challenging course. )

2011 Hong Kong Dragons Winter Warriors Race #1 - Race Report

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 08:43:00 +0000

2011 Hong Kong Dragons Winter Warriors Race #1
Date: February 12, 2011
Swim: 600m
Bike: 16K
Run: 6K
Time: 07:00
Air Temp: 13 Degrees Celcius
Water Temp: Damn cold.
Location: South Bay Beach, Hong Kong Island
Hours of sleep the night before: 3
Why 3?: Because I am dumb.

The Swim

I am flabbergasted by the amount of swim fitness that I have lost in the month away from the water. This race was a welcome smack in the face to remind me to get back in gear both for IM 70.3 Singapore at the end of March and of course IM France in June. I think there were 6 or 7 Dragons that toed the line that morning. That's a rather small turnout and I can't help now but to think that the no-shows were the wise ones. Wait, scratch that. The no-shows are the weak. We strong, strong like bull. (I'm still not convincing myself)

I made a rookie mistake during frantic packing the night before and forgot to throw my goggles in the bag. Fortunately another Dragon had a spare pair to loan me on race morning. Lesson learned: Do not expect a borrowed pair of goggles to fit well, keep out water or not fog up. As someone shouted out "30 seconds to start" I was standing there tugging and fiddling around with my goggles to try to keep them attached to my face. My fingers were numb from the cold and I don't think I could feel my feet at all in the cold sand. "15 seconds!" I was still messing with the damn goggles when the horn sounded and we ran for the water. That first splash was pure hell. I may as well have jumped into an ice hole (I seriously do not understand how some folks enjoy ice swimming in Speedos as a hobby). Within seconds my heart rate went from 60 to an estimated 175 bpm. Having not swam since the sun took a vacation more than a month ago I had absolutely no feel for the water and no muscle memory of stroke mechanics or breathing technique. By the first buoy I had succeeded in reaching dead last place in the water--and it got progressively worse from there. Freestyle became nostyle to side stroke to breast stroke to back stroke to floating and gasping. It felt like total pandemonium in the brain. I was cold, out of breath and pissed off at myself. Despite repeated efforts to just relax and have an easy controlled swim (not fast but at least respectable) nothing was working and I was stuck just sloppily splashing my way through the 600 meters. When I came out of the water the beach was empty and everyone else was already on their bikes.

600m - 13:40

The Bike

There isn't much to say about the bike course which consisted of 4 loops of 4K with some moderate climbing and descents through traffic that we had to take slow for safety reasons. My T1 transition was about 2 minutes (relatively fast considering I had to climb a set of stairs and strip off a wetsuit) After about 2 kilometers I caught my breath, shook off the swim and got down to business. I managed to pass one person on the bike saving me from being last overall.

16K - 41:01

The Run

My T2 transition was about 5 seconds. I was determined to make up more ground on the run. I was hoping to pass at least 2 others but only managed 1. I had major stomach cramps on both sides but still managed to hang on to a decent pace.

6K - 33:10

Conclusion: Overall this was a sad performance but much needed benchmark. I will put this behind me and get to work on all 3.

Bling

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 09:21:00 +0000

I have finally put together the "Shit That Will Kill Them" machine (thanks Lance for coining the perfect descriptor). I have been having some trouble with the fit though and my lower back is destroyed. I can't point the finger to anything in particular (LBS fit job, saddle height, saddle angle, saddle to drop distance, stem length, fitness, cleat position, posture, saddle type, etc. etc.) I decided to put the future success of my long rides in the TT position in the seemingly capable hands of TTBIKEFIT.com. I produced a cycling video and sent it in for analysis. Let's see how it goes!

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Storm. Yes, Storm like:

I thought about naming her Rogue which would fit nicely with the concept of Shit That Will Kill Them, but then I decided against it since Rogue takes the life out of everything she touches. Considering that I will be riding her I decided I'd better keep name hunting. Then I came upon Storm. Perfect. Okay...riding the storm...Riders on the Storm by the Doors?? Lame. Not enough power and determination in that song. Searching searching searching...found a metal band called Stormriders. There we go. Check out these nice family friendly lyrics from their 1994 track "Into Battle." A bit harsh but I think this is the attitude I'd like Storm to have. Done. Let's see how Storm's increasingly lethargic rider can keep up.

Ironman France 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 09:32:00 +0000

The clock seems to be ticking faster than I had imagined toward June 26, 2011. I am doing my best to prepare for this race despite the cold temperature and travel schedule but it never feels like enough.

It has been months since I registered for this and I still don't have anything write about. For my first full IM I think its better if I do the talking with my arms and legs.

Here are a couple of images of the bike course:

2010 Ironman 70.3 Asia Pacific Championship, Phuket, Thailand - Race Report

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 05:55:00 +0000

2010 Ironman 70.3 Asia Pacific Championship, Phuket, Thailand

The Night Before

By 5:30pm I had everything set for the race. My bike was racked in transition and run / bike bags were stocked and checked in. I had some minor mechanical issues to sort out with the bike during the day. My stem cap was shredded but thanks to the on-site mechanics they were able to sort it out. I also discovered my shifting was a bit off and I dropped a chain during a test ride but this was fine-tuned by the mechanics as well. Perhaps stupidly, I swam two laps of the Lagoon swim leg (total 1.2K). A day earlier I had already test-swam the sea leg (1.3K) and I didn't plan on doing any swimming the day prior to the race. I changed the schedule at the last minute in order to swim from my hotel room (at one side of the lagoon) to meet JoggerJoel at the transition area (the other side of the lagoon). JoggerJoel and I then swam back across the lagoon after the mechanics exhausted themselves on the extensive last minute repairs required for his little Cervelo P3. I say little because...really..its sooo small and cute..you should see it! It must be the smallest frame size Cervelo produces.

Bike bag: Giro helmet, Oakley Jawbones, O2 Creations Racebelt, 2,400mg Ibuprofin,
Run bag: Profile Design 4-bottle Fuel Belt (Nuun enhanced water, 2 chocolate Gus, 2 Cliff Shot Blocks), 2 bananas, Powerbar, TeamTBB visor, Asics Tarther (Japan Version) running shoes with LockLaces.

Note: The above was in the bags the night before the race but I made some changes on race morning: I took the helmet and glasses out of the race bag and set them on my bike's aero bars. There was a rule against leaving anything on the ground in transition area so I wanted to keep my bike bag simple: swim gear in and race number out. Also, I knew my run bag was heavily over-stocked but I wanted to have tons of options in case I was really hurting off the bike.

I went to the pre-race pasta dinner at the Laguna Beach Resort. I was expecting a bit more hoopla but it turned out to be a fairly relaxed meal. I suppose most of the athletes were trying to stay emotionally compressed. Our table was mostly occupied by the JoggerJoel and McFee family entourages but we had an interesting guy (I think French?) next to us that was telling us horror stories of the race's bike leg. Apparently he had ridden the route on a rented motor scooter and said that it was absolutely insane. "In Europe we would make a tunnel, but here they make a crazy road going vertical over the top of the mountain!" The table became a bit quiet while JoggerJoel and I were thinking to ourselves, "Ummmm....I hope he is exaggerating..."

After 2 plates of pasta I was well full and headed back to the hotel room to get to bed early. Gladly, I wasn't experiencing any pre-race jitters at all. Somehow I had managed to keep myself in zen mode. Psychologically it was as if I had only planned a light jog the next day. So far, this part of my race plan was falling perfectly in place. I decided that rather than fill my evening with re-thinking every aspect race preparation I would be better off enjoying a full meal followed by a couple of beers and some laughs with the family (just like any other non-pre-race-day). Whatever I lost in nutritional preparation I regained tenfold in mental framework and pure sleep. I knew that sleeping so early was going to be a bit difficult as I was staying with my wife and 1 year 363 day old daughter. My daughter was definitely not ready for bed and was full of energy. Thanks to the super support from my wife (aside from her comment that she noticed the yellow warning flag for jellyfish was raised at the beach) I was allowed to toss a pillow over my head and crash. I woke up once in the middle of the night, checked the time on my phone...12:30am...okay good...zzzzz...back to sleep.

Race Morning

I woke up again at, what some might still refer to as the middle of the night, 3:50--just ten minutes before the alarm was set to go off. I had to creep around the room like a ninja to avoid waking everyone else up. I had two cups of nasty Nescafe instant coffee out on the patio in the dark. Lesson learned: (1) Bring my own good coffee to enjoy on race morning and (2) don't sit outside in the dark near a lagoon and expect not to get killed by mosquitoes.

The transition area was scheduled to open at 5am in order to allow athletes last minute access to their bikes and bags for final adjustments. After a kiss on the forehead to wife and daughter I was out the door at 5 sharp for the 15 minute walk to transition. The walk was perfect. It gave me the chance to get a little blood flowing in my legs and enjoy the warm Thai morning air. I saw a few other athletes emerging from their rooms on the way out. Greetings were usually exchanged in the form of a grunt responded to by a grunt...but there was one guy that came out the door yelling "wahooooooga!!!" to which i answered "ahh heheh..err..g'day" (guessing he had to be an Ozzie). I was wearing my racing singlet, flip-flops and an old race t-shirt. I also brought my iphone and headphones so I could listen to some moto music before the start. Officially I will only admit listening to Metallica but anyone that knows me well might suspect I was rocking out to Korean pop (long story). All but the singlet, swim cap and goggles would be ditched at a drop bag check-in just near the start.

I arrived at transition to find only about 50 others ahead of of me. Body marking was quick as there was no queue. I pumped my tires to 160 psi (tubeless) and did a quick test of mounting over my rear bottle cage since it appeared I might have trouble swinging my leg high enough to clear it. I haven't raced or trained with one of these before and despite the age-old wisdom of never trying something in a race for the first time, I decided a new type of bottle cage wouldn't be a big deal. No worries though as the mount went smoothly. I set the chain on the small ring and in a medium gear on the cassette. I noticed a few bikes around me had the chain on the big ring which boggled me. Lastly, I set my helmet and glasses on the bike and ran through a visualization of transition: jog to bike bag, put on race belt (with race number already affixed), put swim cap and goggles in bag, jog to bike, glasses on, helmet on, un-rack bike, jog to mount line. Good. Nice and simple. I met JoggerJoel shortly thereafter in transition and helped him with his set-up. Then we both went over to the ferry that would take us across the lagoon to the swim start at the ocean front.

At thirty minutes til race start I was still managing to keep my emotions in check and hang on to zen mode; however, this was becoming increasingly difficult as my rival JoggerJoel was quite the opposite. I can only describe him as pumped up to the tenth power. I had to manage the situation similar to the way one might handle an engaging conversation with a person struck with the flu. In other words, "Its nice to be here in this moment with ya buddy but please don't get any of that shit on me." For some, the whole get-pumped-up thing might work but I knew that, for me, a successful swim depended heavily upon my ability to stay cool. As they say, "whatever floats your boat"..or in this case your body..from point A to B in the fastest way possible. JoggerJoel and I jumped into the Andaman Sea for a short warm-up. I swam an easy 50m or so and was more focused on getting a feel for the water than getting the blood flowing in my arms. I looked out at the swim course and had a one-way conversation with it. "So, we meet again bitch. I swam you day before yesterday and it was easy. Today I'm gonna make you hurt." Now, I know this sounds like the antithesis of zen but rewind that conversation and play it back slowly with a calm smile. There, that's more like how it happened. Looking back to the shore from the water I miraculously spotted my wife and daughter looking for me at the crowded start. I scrambled out of the water and jogged up the steep sand slope to meet them. I didn't expect that they would make it out of bed on time to be at the start so seeing them there was an awesome surprise. We took a couple of photos and then it was time for the first wave (Pros and age 18 - 39 males) to line up for the start. The announcer sounded very similar to Michael Buffer (famous boxing announcer that coined "Leeeeets get ready to ruuuuummmmmble). I let the music, cheers and hype go in one ear and out the other. I worked my way roughly toward the left side of the starting queue on the beach so that I could have access to my preferred swim line on the outside of the chaos. At 6:59am the horn sounded and the pro athletes were off--less Raelert and Crowie (still curious why they REALLY no-showed). From where I was standing in the pack of age-groupers I couldn't see them go or enter the water. All I heard was Mr. Super Announcer say "The 2010 Ironman 70.3 Asia Pacific Championship is underway!" For me, this translated to "Danny McFee you have 59 seconds until you are in the water swimming." The horn sounded again for Wave 1 and we all sprinted for the water.

The Swim - Andaman Sea Leg (1.3K)

Splash. I dived into the the sea among the crowd. Since I swam that course earlier I knew that it was shallow for quite a good distance so I dolphin dived a few times through the chop and out into deeper water. On each dive I noticed I was passing quite a number of others that were trying to swim their way through the shallow section. For about 300 meters I had some minor struggle with other swimmers. I was either passing over slower guys or being swam over by faster ones. Eventually I found a decent pocket toward the outside of the main pack. I tried a couple of times to draft closely behind the feet of guys in front of me but that never lasted for long since the few guys I tried to glue myself to were inconsistent in kicking and would switch from flutter kicks to scissor kicks to no kicks. I knew I had to get past these ones quickly before they formed a wall in front of me. After moving forward a bit in the pack I tried drafting from the side and this worked out much better. It was challenging to synchronize my strokes with the ones I was drafting off of without expending too much energy but I finally found a decent rhythm and flowed through about 500 meters with minimal effort.

Near halfway through the sea portion of the swim the pack began to string out and I started to become more aware of my surroundings. This is usually about the point in my swims where irrational concerns arise about anything and everything. I repeated the following a few times over in my head: smile, enjoy this, exhale under water, body rotation, relax, effortless swimming. This did the trick and I was completely relaxed and on a good pace (by my standard). I saw a couple of white jelly fish a few meters below but wasn't really concerned since the current didn't appear to be taking them anywhere anytime soon. The salt water was starting to create a minor friction burn in my armpits. All things considered I was feeling good and enjoying the swim. After a kilometer of swimming I could feel the onset of fatigue. I was on the final stretch back toward the beach with 300 meters to go and losing energy. Time to introduce my back-up mantra, "Just keep swimming dada!" This is a modified line from the Nemo story book I read to my daughter at night. In the book its actually Dory telling Nemo to "just keep swimming" so he can make the swim team (but in Nemo the movie its of course Dory telling Marlin to "just keep swimming" on his quest to find Nemo). I should end the tangent now before it gets out of control. The Nemo mantra made me smile and keep hacking away. Before long my fingers brushed the sandy bottom and I was up on my feet running over the 100m sand hill toward the fresh water lagoon. I spotted my wife and daughter again cheering from the side--a nice spirit-booster just before plunging into the green pond for another 600 meters of swimming.

The Swim - Freshwater Lagoon Leg (600m)

The first splash was refreshing as the cool freshwater quickly washed away the sea salt. I took a few strokes but my hands were still touching the muddy bottom. I decided to stand up and see how far I could jog through the water. I managed to take a good ten steps with slimy mud oozing between my toes before being waist deep. I dove back in and returned to swimming. The 100m jog from the sea combined with the jog in mud raised my heart rate a bit too high and my initial breathing was a mess. I switched to a side-stroke for about 30 seconds in order to settle my breathing. 550m to go. With reduced buoyancy in freshwater I was having trouble keeping a streamlined position. I slightly increased my kick frequency and took longer gliding strokes to compensate but it was clear that I was going to deal with this "sinking" sensation for the duration of the lagoon leg. As in the sea, I stayed the left side of the main pack. I'm currently a left-side breather (I'm slowly working on bilateral breathing) so this made it tricky to stay on course. I didn't want to lose time in excessive sighting so I tried to find another swimmer to keep on my left and trust that they were following a beeline to the finish. I settled in next to a pink cap swimmer (the pink caps were Wave 2 that started 5 minutes after I did). Since he caught up to me I figured he was trustworthy for taking care of sighting. I figured wrong. The sounds of splashing arms vanished and I had the sensation that pink cap and I were the only swimmers in the lagoon. I quickly sighted and noted we were quite a bit off course and hence made a major direction correction. Bye bye pink cap, keep swimming toward the trees if you like. Back on track and 200m to the exit ramp. I opened the throttle to spend whatever was left in my arms since they are less needed for the rest of the race. After a short shuffle through slimy mud again I felt the carpeted ramp beneath me and started my jog into T1.

Swim time: 43:43
Average Pace: 2:18/100m

T1

T1 went relatively according to plan. I had a brief hangup trying to untie my bike bag to access my race belt and ditch my swim cap / goggles but quickly decided to rip the bag open instead. I skipped the changing tent since I didn't require privacy to put on a race belt. Everything else went just as visualized earlier. Glasses on, helmet on, bike un-racked, go.

T1 Time: 2:16

Bike Leg (90K)

I felt good from go on the bike. Mounting was a breeze and just as in my earlier ITU race I cruised ahead of a few other faster swimmers that were at a dead stop looking like they were trying to mount an elephant. The first three kilometers vanished at a 1:49/K pace and then after a rough section of road I heard a bang behind me. I looked back to see one of my rear water bottles, together with its cage, flying down the road. I shrugged it off and kept on pace figuring I had plenty of fluid remaining with a down tube bottle and one in the back. As I rode through a few more kilometers it was clear that the roads were not in ideal condition and would require constant focus. One lapse in attention could lead to a dropped wheel in a crack or an encounter with a deep pothole. I then noticed a jingling sound as if something on the bike was loose. I was reaching around shaking every component with in reach to see if I could identify the problem. I cycled through the full range of gears to make sure it wasn't either of the derailleurs--no problem there. WTF? Was I being followed by an invisible rain deer? My best guess was that it was somehow related to the lost bottle cage in the back but I couldn't reproduce the jingle by shaking the cage from side to side. At 16K a minor speed bump caused my second rear bottle cage to dislodge and go flying. Aggh. At this point I didn't care so much about the lost water since I was too pissed at the stupid design and/or my bike shop's installation of the cage. I had to enjoy the sound of jingle bells for the rest of the ride. I discovered only after the race that the sound was coming from two retainer nuts that came off of the bottle cages and fell into a small plastic pocket in what remained of that stupid Profile Design setup. See it here. At 17K I arrived at the ramped bridge to cross the highway. I dismounted and made the short trek up and over to the other side. I remember reading about these dismount areas before the race and thinking it was lame to insert such a thing in the middle of a bike race but in hindsight I have to admit that it wasn't too bad at all. It gives everyone a chance to see how the legs are feeling while jogging--a sneak preview before the run of sorts.

With the bottle cage distraction behind me, finally I started to get into cycling mode. The scenery was awesome. We weaved through various villages, towns and farms and quite often there were supporters on the roadside cheering us on. In many sections of the ride there were school classes in uniform who seemed to be competing with each other for the loudest cheer. I'm sure after 5 hours of screaming they were voiceless but it was great for us riders. For most of the first 40K I was down in the aero position and it was slowly taking its toll on my lower back. My local bike shop guy strongly advised against using a road bike fitted for a "tri-ish" body position. He said he has seen too many lower back injuries resulting from this over the years and a TT bike should always be used for 70.3 and full Ironman races. Hrrmmm....I was starting to think he wasn't lying to me. Come IM Singapore 70.3 I will definitely be on a P3 TT. But then what about IM France? How am I supposed to conquer Cote d'Azur on a TT bike? Wait, am I on tangent again? Sorry.

At 42K I started the first major climb of the course. I knew from studying the elevation profile that it was short in duration so I had no intention to go easy. I downshifted completely but stayed on the gas. To my surprise almost everyone was dismounting to walk their bikes up the climb. I saw about 15 walkers while just myself and another guy stayed on the bike to gut out the ascent. Next thing I knew I was at the top then flying down the backside. The descents throughout the entire course were usually controlled yellow flag areas. The rules required that we not exceed 20kph in these zones and no passing was allowed until the green "all clear" flag was waved. The next 30 kilometers were rolling hills and I was up and down out of the aero drops accordingly. My splits in this section were all over the place but looking at the numbers I was probably averaging high 1:50s. Twice I was passed by mini pelatons. I was surprised to see this as the organizers were quit firm on their anti-drafting regulations during the pre-race brief. Apparently these people (I saw both men and women in these groups) didn't mind cheating and were happy to risk time in the penalty box if caught by a drafting marshal. One of the women might have been from Hong Kong since as she cruised ahead of me she said, "good job Dragon!" Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a champion of justice here--particularly since anyone cycling in my vicinity was hours away from cash prize contention; however, personally I'd like to sleep at night knowing that the finisher medal on the mantle was earned fair and square. At 65K we had the second and final dismounted bridge crossing which went just as smoothly as the first.

At 72K the start of the last two climbs began. Same as before, everyone was walking. As I was out of the saddle cranking away I started to wonder if maybe I was the stupid guy and these walkers knew that staying on the bike would destroy the legs for the coming half marathon. The first of the final climbs was brief and I enjoyed a bit of downhill to bleed out lactic acid build-up.

Then the final big climb began. Holy shite. Surprise surprise, everyone walked it. I was getting a bit pissed as the walker's lolly gagging looked extremely tempting. A quarter of the way up the climb I had to ask myself a hard question: When the day is done and someone asks you, "did you walk the hills?" how do you want to answer? My answer must have come at a primal subliminal level because immediately I felt as if every artery, vein and capillary in my body was injected with adrenaline. Excuse my Chinese but this is what went through my mind: "Fuck you little mountain and all your walking slaves, I am going to kill you and everything that breathes around you." I started hammering away and it hurt like alcohol and razor blades. The more it hurt the more I pushed. As I neared the final meters before the summit a roadside comment from a dad with his two sons calmed my profane approach to the climb and brought a huge smile to my face (wherever you are, THANK YOU). He said, "Now THAT is how its done boys!" At that point I didn't care if my legs were trashed for the run. I had conquered the famous Phuket climbs and now I could ease into a reasonable pace to the bike leg finish (avg 2:05/k). During the final kilometers to the finish I remembered that JoggerJoel was still chasing me down. I had no idea where he was but figured that he had to be close. He is lighter, tougher and faster than I am cycling hills so I knew he must have made up some time lost to me on the swim. I was looking forward to him catching me on the run and testing my ability to respond. I took my feet out of the cycling shoes about 300m shy of the dismount line. I also came out of the saddle to stretch my lower back and calves as I spun toward the end. Dismount went smoothly and I passed the bike over to a handler then started the jog through T2.

Bike Time: 3:07:42

Average Speed: 28.77kph

T2

I was a bit clumsy in T2. I grabbed my run bag from the rack and jogged into the changing room. I think that the changing rooms are generally a waste of time and unnecessary. For anyone racing this event in the future I would suggest (1) Do not tie your transition bags (not even a slipknot) and (2) pack only the bare minimum essentials in the bag so that you can grab them at the bag area instead of taking the entire bag into the tent. This is a bit challenging because hanging around too long in the bag area could cause congestion for other runners. Plan on grabbing what you need in a matter of seconds. Once inside the changing tent I ripped open my run bag. I set my bike helmet on the floor then put on my shoes, visor and fuel belt. I stuffed the bike helmet bag in the bag and then tossed in a pile of other bags (I wasn't sure if that was where it was supposed to go but I wasn't going to stop and ask). Finally, I was out the door and on the run.

T2 Time: 2:42

Run (21.3K - aka Half Marathon)

From the start I could tell that this was going to be a tough half marathon. My "running legs" were there and I could keep them turning over but definitely not at my usual pace for a half. I was hoping to average at least 5:30 kilometer splits.

Split 1: 5:02
Split 2: 5:10
Split 3: 5:21
Split 4: 5:32
Split 5: 5:45

See a pattern? Yeah, I did also and immediately tried to correct it.

Split 6: 5:37
Split 7: 6:03

Oops. My attempt to squeeze more out split 6 left me dry for 7. I was feeling like I was running at the mercy of whatever my legs would give me. At the 5K mark I saw JoggerJoel's wife and daughter at the side of the road. I took the opportunity to ditch my fuel belt as the aid stations were frequent and well-stocked with water, sports drinks and gels. As I ran by JoggerJoel's wife asked me, "Where is my husband!?" to which I could only reply with my arms in the air, "I don't know but he should be close!" I also saw three other Dragons on the course--this proved to be helpful as we shouted out encouragement to one another at each pass.

At 8K I finally saw JoggerJoel on the other side of the road. I estimated that he was about 3 kilometers behind me. Not knowing at the time that he had a nasty spill on the bike, I shouted out "JoggerJoel is moving slow!" in order to egg him on to putting in a good fight. Here's an attempt to lay out the crazy math I was trying to sort out while running the next kilometer. 21-8=13, 21-5=16, If J and D pace both = 6:00/K, then D has an 18 minute lead, if J increases speed to 5:20/K and D stays constant at 6:00/K then D should still cross the finish first by 2 minutes. I'm not even sure this is correct but this exercise in stupidity took my mind off what my legs were doing for a few minutes. The takeaway from the math exercise was that victory was within JoggerJoel's reach if he carefully increased his pace and I faltered. 12K to go and I had one focus: no stopping to walk, just keep running. The halfway point was a turnaround right near the final stretch to the finish. There was a sign directing finishers to the right and "2nd lappers" to the left. Oddly enough I wasn't depressed by the sight of the finish line so close yet far away--somehow it motivated me. Keeping with my strange habit of speaking to race obstacles, I looked at the finish line arch and said, "See you in a little while, bastard." Enter modified Nemo mantra: "Just keep running dada!" I smiled and continued slogging forward. At 16K I saw JoggerJoel again at the exact same place I saw him on the first loop of the run course. This meant he hadn't gained any ground over the last 10 kilometers and I had hung onto my 3K lead--Sweet!

5K to go. I checked the total elapsed time and had another math moment. I calculated that if I could pull out a 27 minute final 5K that I would be under 6 hours for the whole race. I tried to pick up the pace for about 500 meters but my legs were not going to give me any more speed. My thoughts of sub-6 quickly evaporated, until the final 2K. I found myself in a comfortable stride with two other runners and one of them suddenly said, "If we pick it up a notch we're sub 6." I decided to forget checking his idea against my watch. We all started pushing harder toward the finish. Somehow running in a pack let me squeeze out energy I didn't know was there. I made the last turn into the final stretch and saw that the clock had already ticked past 6 hours. Doh! I saw my wife and daughter standing on the outside of the barriers as I ran toward the line. I turned to wave and just then the announcer yelled into the microphone, "Here comes Daniel Malcolm McFee from the USA!" The next thing I know I'm holding the finish line tape above my head and someone is placing a medal around my neck. three steps forward and someone else takes two ice clod sponges and drains them over my head. Somewhere mixed with the cold water and sweat were probably a few tears of relief and joy. I staggered forward a bit more while wiping the various liquids out of my eyes and then saw my wife and daughter again. Although my daughter was only a day shy of two years old, judging by the expression on her face I am sure that she at least understood that her dada just did something crazy. We linked up with JoggerJoel's wife and took a spot in the stands to watch JoggerJoel finish. Outstanding race course. Awesome experience. I will definitely be back again next year to break 6 hours.

Run Time: 2:05:45

Final Overall Time: 6:02:08

2010 Ironman 70.3 Asia Pacific Championship, Phuket - Pre Race Post

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:03:00 +0000

I'm just about 2 weeks away from the start of my first half Ironman (70.3). I feel prepared yet nervous at the same time. I suppose that's to be expected as I recall feeling the same way before my first half marathon in 2009 (Nottinghamshire, UK). The jitters quickly fade after the heart rate gets going.

Phuket was an easy choice for the first 70.3 as its quite close to Hong Kong and is an awesome holiday destination. 1.9K Swim, 90K Bike and 21K Run here I come. From what I gather the swim and bike legs will be quite challenging.

Swim Course:
We start with a 1.28K swim in the sea and then exit the water to a 100m sprint to a fresh water lagoon where we complete the final 620m. Note that fresh water is less buoyant that saltwater so the transition to freshwater will surely mess with my brain. I tend to swim better when I float. Errr...duhhh. Let's see how this goes. My plan is to ease up the pace a bit before I exit the saltwater to make sure my heart rate is steady between 130 and 140bpm. This should put me in a better condition to adjust to freshwater. Then hopefully I can find a rhythm in the lagoon after a couple of hundred meters so I can pick up the pace and have a strong finish to the swim. Overall, I think the key to my having a decent swim is to stay clam and relaxed. If I tense up, push to hard or panic I am done for. Let's just hope I don't swim into any of these:

Actually, although there is always a risk of a jellyfish encounter in open water swimming, I'm not particularly worried about it. I will be father back in the pack so hopefully the front swimmers will act as machetes for anything lurking out there.

Bike Course:
This is the first running of the Phuket 70.3 so there is not much information online about the bike course. However, a good portion of the route is the same as the Laguna Phuket Triathlon that runs every November. From what I hear via rumors the course is extremely hilly and very difficult. Finally today I found some information on the elevation of the climbs posted by Palermo Francesco. I will line up this guy's figures for Phuket against a recent training ride I did in Hong Kong to give you an idea where we stand. Its also worth noting that this guy rates the difficulty of the course as moderate. Of course, it always relative to the ride.:

Phuket 70.3 Route (according to Francesco Palermo)
Accumulated elevation gain: 548m
Max elevation: 158m

A Recent Hong Kong Training Ride with JoggerJoel
Accumulated elevation gain: 1,377m
Max elevation: 907m

By the numbers I should have no problem crushing the Phuket hills. Nevertheless, I have heard too many comments about how bad the hills are by folks that have finished the Phuket Triathlon. In the end, this is a big unknown for me and hard to form a decent pace strategy for the bike in advance. I think I will probably go hard on the flats and then ease up for all the climbs. I won't really know where the big climbs begin so if I discover, mid-climb, that the peak is a few hundred meters ahead then I will open it up and power over. The plan is to always start the climbs easy. I don't want to go balls out into a mountain guessing that its just a hill and then have to painfully grind my way to the top. Remember GI Joe says "Knowing is half the battle." Well, 2 weeks to go and I feel like I don't know jack smack. If the above plan fails I will just turn the pedals until I see its time to get off the bike and run.

The Run Course:
This should be a flat and fast course that winds through various resorts and golf courses. There should be plenty of cheering friends, family and tourists along this route which will be nice as a pick-me-up after the bike leg. I don't really have a plan for the run as it will heavily depend on how I feel getting off of the bike. I think the only thing I will be sure to do is to take the first 10K a little easy. I want to avoid bonking and leave something in the tank for a stronger 11K to the finish. I'd be happy with myself if I ran this as a negative split. Another factor that may change my run tactics is JoggerJoel. If he catches me on the run (for the record I think he believes he can catch me on the bike) then I will have to switch things up a bit. At this stage, let's just say that I have a plan and it doesn't involve cheating, weapons or nudity. I'll let you know in the race report if I needed to use the plan and if it worked.

Lastly, just a side note on traveling with a bike. I decided to buy a soft case to pack up my Synapse. I am planning on wrapping cardboard around as much of the frame as I can and then zip tying it for security. Let's see if I come back =) or =(.

Wish me luck!

33rd HKDRC Half Marathon “Hong Kong Half Marathon” – Race Report

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 06:44:00 +0000

I’m finding it quite difficult to put words down to summarize a road running race as opposed to a multi-sport event. There’s just the starting line, the run and the finish line—ooh la la, so exciting. After switching to triathlon focus in May of this year, my passion for pursuing PRs in pure distance running races is deteriorating. In 2009 I finished 18 running races. We are nearing the end of 2010 and I have only completed 5—marathon, 2 half marathons, 5K and 10K. I don’t, however, harbor any regrets. After 6 months of training in swimming, cycling and running I feel much more fit than when I was in marathon shape at the beginning of the year. I’m guessing that a year from now I should have no problem breaking PRs in pure running races despite not devoting all of my training to that discipline.

33rd HKDRC Half Marathon “Hong Kong Half Marathon”

“The racecourse is a demanding out-and-back route encompassing the scenic Plover Cover Reservoir, Tai Mei Tuk, Tai Po, New Territories. The race stars at Bradbury Jockey Club Youth Hostel next to Plover Cove, heads along Bride’s Pool Road to Wu Kau Tang Road and proceeds to Luk Keng…” – HKDRC

Pre-Race: I wasn’t taking this race very seriously as the course is so hilly that it eliminates any half marathon PR attempt. I considered this rather to be a perfect tune-up for the upcoming IM 70.3 in Phuket. I suppose somewhere in the back of my mind I was hoping to at least come around with a faster finish than the year before. In 2009 I slogged across the finish at 1:54:08 (pretty sad considering I PR’d at 1:43:39 in the UK just 2 months earlier).

I arrived an hour before the 7:30am start and saw that most of the other runners were already "bibbed" and running strides. I decided to take it easy and relax by the water front sipping Lucozade.

I had missed breakfast due to a rushed experiment at splicing an old iPhone USB cable to recharge my Garmin 310XT (left my proper charger at the office). The experiment worked! In case anyone ever tries the same, inside the white cable housing you will find, among other things, a red and black cable. The red is the “+” and the black of course is the “-“. Plug the USB cable into your PC, Mac or other power source then hold the red cable to the charging ring on the watch adjacent to the mode button and the black cable should be held to the charging ring adjacent to the power button. I’m sure there is some way to rig up a solution for holding the wires in place while the watch charges but in the interests of time I decided to just hold them in place by hand. I think it took about 1 minute per 1% increase in charge. Lesson learned: check your gear (including watch) the night before training or racing.

Back to the race. I managed to get a nice spot very near the front of the starting line. As I’m standing there waiting for the gun to go off I’m looking around and see nothing but serious facial expressions. Everyone seems to be in the zone and ready for their performances of a lifetime and here I am feeling like I’m standing in line at the grocery store—la dee da. I was half tempted to ask the guy next to me why everyone was wearing running shoes. I think another reason I was über relaxed could be explained by the organizer’s interesting choice of music. The precious minutes before the start are supposed to be for getting pumped up right? How could I do that to the sounds of 80s slow jams?

The Run: I kept the throttle low over the first 6 or 7 kilometers in order to save some gas for the bigger hill to come. To be clear, there are hills from start to finish on this course but there is one monster decent and climb smack dab in the middle that can suck the life out of your legs very quickly. Starting slow turned out to be a bit depressing as I was getting passed and “chicked” left and right. I had to tell myself to ignore it and stick to my pace plan as I’d have plenty of time to catch up to this lot with the energy reserved for the climb. 10K mark: downed a chocolate Gu just before the aid station so I could follow it with some water. At about 11K the monster climb began. Sweet revenge time! Although I’m famously slow on hills, I managed to pass a great deal of runners that, judging by the expressions on their faces, had no idea what the course was like before the start. After about 13K, all of the course’s major obstacles were now behind me. I had 8K to go and my HR was hanging steady at 156bpm. Systems check. Legs okay, lungs okay, energy okay. I figured it was now time to start racing. I didn’t want to finish feeling like I hadn’t spent everything.

I upped the pace and tried to stay mindful of form and turnover (two factors that tend to slip in the latter portions of most of my races). The final 5K to the finish went by in a flash—at least as I perceived it. I came through the line at 165bpm, salt stained and out of breath.

Hit stop on the Garmin: 1:47:02. Not an overall PR but at least a 7min course PR. I can live with that!

Overall I was happy with this year’s performance and race experience. The weather was perfect for running. Partially cloudy, 26˚C and slightly breezy. Congrat’s to HKDRC for a successful 33^rd running of this event!

I have a small announcement to make that I really should give an entire blog entry to but have yet to synthesize my thoughts on the matter. I am now officially paid and registered to race IRONMAN FRANCE in Nice on June 26, 2011. SWIM: 3.86 kilometers (2.4 miles), BIKE: 180.25 kilometers (112 miles) RUN: 42.195 kilometers (26.2 miles a.k.a marathon). This is either really awesome, really insane or insanely awesome, really. I’m still trying to wrap my head around what I’ve got myself into and what it will take over the coming 8 months to get in the right condition to finish. qu'est-ce que tu deviens?

2010 K-Swiss Hong Kong ITU Triathlon - Race Report

noreply@blogger.com (Danny McFee) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:31:00 +0000

This is my first race report. After 2 years of competing in some amazing events around the globe, I decided it is time to jump on the race blog bandwagon and jot down down my experiences in the hopes of putting my readers to sleep.

K-Swiss HK ITU Triathlon (1500m Swim / 40K Bike / 10K Run) - October 24, 2010

Pre-Race: I felt physically prepared to at least complete the distance but was not in peak form. One week prior to the race and I was finally getting over a long three week bug/flu/cold--whatever you want to call it. My training volume was low and frequency sporadic. In the week before the race I decided it was probably best to spend more time doing open water swims in the morning. This would hopefully allow me to regain a feel for the water and boost confidence in order to minimize race day swim anxiety.

4 days to go and it starts to look as if the race will be canceled entirely. Typhoon Megi was predicted to make a turn and head straight for Hong Kong--ETA race day. As the hours rolled by the weather predictors seemed increasingly sure that Megi would hit Hong Kong and it would be one of the largest typhoons in this little island's history. I started to turn off the switch in my mind and think about what movies I would watch from the sofa while the storm blasted against my windows. Then came the news--the race is ON! Wooha. I had the damnedest time finding that switch to flick it back to game mode. The process of prepping my bike, race kit and nutrition helped to get my mind back into gear and come Saturday night I was pumped and ready for action.

Race Morning: I was up at 4:00am and out the door by 5:30 after a light breakfast and lots of coffee. I loaded my bike carefully into the back of a taxi for the 30 minute drive to HK Disneyland. On the drive over I looked out the window and saw a guy driving a convertible with his Cervelo P3 in the back seat. He had obviously noticed my aero bars and seat post hanging out of the back of the the taxi as he flashed a grin and gave me a thumbs up. It was an unspoken "yeah...we are on the road to battle mate" moment. Registration, numbering and transition prep went very smoothly. My fellow Hong Kong Dragon's Tri Club peeps were all over the place--good turnout.

Eventually I found my main rival JoggerJoel and he seemed full of energy. I couldn't help but start to doubt if I was going to be able to put in the work required to come out ahead at the end. Some background on this rivalry might be helpful. Joel kicks my butt in every running race we ever enter together. He finished over 10 minutes ahead of me in the 2009 HK Standard Chartered Marathon and more than an hour and a half ahead of me in this year's Solomon Two Peaks 21K Trail Race! On the bike we have more or less the same ability. The swim is the only place where I can do some damage. Mind you, I am a total mid-pack slow swimmer. Fortunately for me JoggerJoel swims at the speed of a starfish. For this race I was sure I would come out of the water with a significant gap but then I would be hunted down and reeled in over the next 50 Kilometers of biking and running.

The Swim (1,500m): 2 laps of a long rectangular 750m loop.

We were not given much time for a swim warm up. I think it was somewhere around five minutes. This was just enough time for me to do my good deed of the day and warm up the competitors around me with a healthy stream of caffeinated urine. My target was to avoid a repeat of a brutal swim start (hundreds of meters of arms, legs and white water) in an earlier race. I chose to start on the outside and closer toward the back. This way I could dodge the chaos and deftly work my way through the slower swimmers that went out at a speed much faster than they were capable of maintaining. The plan partially worked. I avoided the chaos of arms and legs and managed to stay calm and relaxed for the first few hundred meters but then when I decided to increase the pace to improve my position, battling through the field of slow and unpredictable swimmers proved to me more challenging that I had imagined. Swimmers toward the back tend to have a mixture of all the bad habits. They don't swim in a straight line, they have huge kicks in all directions and their speed is never constant. I would swim up to a group of 3 or four of these guys, have a quick sight and find my window and then go for it. The problem is that the window was no longer there by the time I arrived. I started to get a bit frustrated and recall even grunting as I twisted my torso to come around (or sometimes over) flappers but then realized I was expending a lot of energy with this aggressive swimming and decided to move to the extreme outside of the pack. This probably added another 50 or 60 meters to my total swim distance but it made for a much more enjoyable and controllable swim leg. When I turned the corner for the final 400 meters I saw there was a small pack of guys about 40meters ahead of me. Booya, time to hit the gas. I caught them well ahead of the finish and then remembered a quote from some running magazine or book I read, "pass with AUTHORITY." The idea is to demoralize the one you are passing and minimize the chance that they will try to up their pace to hang with you. And so I passed as if I was being chased by sharks. It worked. I exited the water with a comfortable lead on that group (but still mid-pack overall).

Post Swim Condition: I felt pretty strong coming out of the swim. My HR was hanging around 150bpm. I had a bit of friction rash in the armpits but not enough to break my concentration. I think I was probably smiling and happy to have the most nerve racking part of the race behind me.

T1: We had a 900m jog from the water to the transition area. This wasn't ideal but not the end of the world either. I was quite happy with the whole transition. Threw down the swim cap and goggles, race belt on, goggles on, helmet on, bike off the rack and GO. At the mount line I was happy to have done a bit of practice in advance because I passed about 5 guys that were at full stop trying to clip into their pedals. My shoes were already clipped in and rubber banded to the frame so I went from running barefoot with the bike to riding without the slightest slowing of pace.

Bike (40K): Hammer time. This was a drafting-legal race. In other words, fast and fun. It felt like 40 kilometers of high speed train hopping. From the start I was on the hunt for a wheel to suck. I had to gun it full effort for a few kilometers to catch the back end of what seemed to be a fast pack of local cyclists. "Seemed to be fast" is the operative phrase here. Learning from past mistakes, I consistently kept an eye out for a passing pack of riders on the right. At the last race I failed to pay attention and missed many opportunities to jump on to faster groups of riders. Not again. For the first half of the bike leg I was bouncing from pack to pack and not feeling guilty for letting the other guys do the work at the front. The second half was different. I just barely caught the wheel of a group of 5 extremely fast British riders. I could tell right away that these guys were not going to fade and if I could hang on with them to the finish I would have a great bike time. Since I was to be more than a passing tourist wheel sucker, I felt obliged to share some of the work at the front. When the rotation brought me to the front I put my head down and pushed like hell with everything I had until the lactic acid began to eat away at my speed. My decline was quickly noticed by the next in rotation and someone else would assume the lead. This only left me with a handful of seconds to recover before having to dig in again to catch the last wheel. The cruise into T2 was relatively uneventful. I let the group of riders I linked to go as they seemed to be flying almost dangerously through the final technical section. We had to slow the pace a bit to navigate a twisting path around Disney's Inspiration Lake but, honestly, my legs were thankful for it!

Post Bike Condition: My lunges were in good shape and HR was averaging 145bpm over the bike leg. In fact, I noticed that MY HR was 5bpm higher throughout T2 than on the bike! My legs felt a little wobbly at first but I didn't let myself worry about it too much as I was expecting my "running legs" to kick in after about a kilometer into the run.

Run (10K): I was expecting that my legs would start to feel better after a few minutes of running. At least this is the phenomenon accounted for in numerous other triathletes blogs. Oddly enough, I felt strong from the first step out of T2. The only way I can make sense of this is to assume that it was mainly psychological. (1) I was glad to have the swim, bike and two transitions behind me and only the finish line ahead and (2) I estimated from seeing my rival JoggerJoel on a couple of loops of the bike course that I had about a six to eight minute lead. I told myself that all I needed to do was to run steady kilometer splits under 5:15 and JoggerJoel would have to run a 10K PB to catch me at the line. After the first Kilometer my Garmin 310XT beeped at me and I glanced at the screen to see my first split: 4:56. I couldn't help but smile because that was much faster than perceived effort. At only 1K I knew I had the rivalry race bagged and I felt like I had a marathon left in my legs. The run course was 4 loops with 2 aid stations on each loop. This was a bit overkill but nice to have anyway. At each station I grabbed two cups--one dumped over the head and the other down the pipe. Over the last few kilometers of the run I let my mind drift to the Phuket, Thailand IM 70.3 coming on December 5th. Oh its on, its soo soo ON.

Post Race Condition: I finished feeling like I had a strong race but not like I left everything on the course. This race served as a good confidence builder for Phuket. I have some doubts about how strong I will perform against JoggerJoel in Phuket as the bike course is extremely hilly. Hills and I do not get along as I just don't have the power to drive my 195lb ass up long climbs. After the hills, I may find my experience on the run to be totally different and could end up jelly-legging the entire half marathon with speedy JoggerJoel chomping up the gap. Its going to be an interesting battle worthy of listing on sportsbetting.com.

Swim: 36:42
T1: 8:09 (including the 900m run from water to bike)
Bike: 1:12:36
T2: 3:29
Run: 48:56
Total: 2:49:50