Rev3 Quassy - Half Rev - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Positioned myself on the left side so I could go straighter to the turn buoy. With the beach angle, this is slightly shorter too. Went a couple back from the front. I wasn't going to run in as I know I'm not FOP on the swim and don't like fighting for position. Waded in as far as I could and still keep up with people. Usually that's over my waist as I'm more efficient walking. Dove in at that point and just swam.

Kept a nice pace that I could keep up for awhile. Didn't have much open water this year, but the two times I was out went fine, though not nearly for this long straight through. No issues though. Easy to keep my head in and go freestyle from the dive to when I stood up. Looks like it's easier to push along after going hard more often in the pool, even though it's been months since I did more than 300 yds straight in a swim set.

Nothing fancy for me, just stay where it feels like I could go all day, but just under working. Try to draft if possible, but don't force it. Like the amber tinted lenses. Can see rather well with them. Glad I brought those as the lake wasn't as clear as I'd been expecting from descriptions. It's fine, but when I hear "clear" I think of Wisconsin lakes where I can see down 15 ft or more. Here I'm not sure it's 5, though that's much better than right by me.

Finished the swim feeling ok. Stood up and went towards transition.

In the race, nothing. Did what I could with what I had. More effort doesn't gain me anything but wasted energy.

In training, swim more. Swim harder, and do that in more ways. I should be faster than this. I especially could use the fitness gains for later in the race even if there isn't much speed gain.

After getting up, walked my way out of the water while removing the wetsuit. Mine fits the arms rather tight and is tough to remove. Need to work on that so I can run too, otherwise I might fall. Removed cap & goggles to find my vision was cloudy. I wasn't disoriented and can't remember this feeling after swimming before. Stayed with walking to let this clear. I did not want to start the bike like this, especially when I'd likely be doing 35 or so 10-15 seconds after turning onto the road.

Vision set in and I started trotting. Just went through everything effectively. How do I get better at running on hard/paved surfaces? I can do it with any type of shoe, even vibrams, but not in bare feet. Just hurts too much.

Not sure what to do about the vision. Without that, I would have been going quite a bit faster.

Took off out of transition into the downhill to start. Discovered that my elbow pads absorb and hold quite a bit of water from the rain the night before. Didn't get it all out for an hour. Also while going down the hill, my powermeter went out (~5 min into the ride). Knew I should have changed the battery. This also means I lost cadence. HR never worked right, showing 200+ bpm the whole time. So now to do the entire ride with only speed, time and rpe. This is exactly why I made sure to learn what everything felt like in training. So that I could ride by feel and use the metrics as a check every now and then.

I rode at what seemed about my century pacing. I've done quite a few this year, taking advantage of the weather. And it paid off. Rode strong throughout, and was able to keep it down enough. Especially with surges on the hills. I used to attack too hard, but the feeling seems to be coming better. Cassette selection was good. I didn't really use the 28, but the 25 was nice to have for spinning. Would have made it with the 23, but this course is enough of a challenge as it is. Maybe next time.

What bothered me is that I never really seemed to take off. Like there was something slowing me down. Usually I bolt out and fly by people. Downhills, I just outrun them. Dropping very low with my setup (~7.3" saddle to pad drop), chin just off the bar. I reached 40 a number of times, but only maxed out at 44. It felt like the brake was rubbing, but that looked fine. Then I remembered the rear wheel pressure issues. Just dealt with it as best I could. Also found the valve cover had fallen off, leaving a gap in the wheel. That must be worth 30 watts. ;)

All the ups and downs on this course definitely keep things interesting. There is always something to focus on and look forward too. Some people look for flat courses to make it easy, and then complain about it being boring. This was one of the fastest 2.5 hrs I can remember. And I could have gone around again exactly how I did it the first time.

I'm sure I left a few minutes out there just from taking it easy on the trickier sections (for me at least), of which there were many. From the car, things looked much worse than when on the bike. Pre-riding would have been nice, but not sure how I could have made it out earlier. Also don't like riding much in the few days before. I went up the hills much faster than anticipated, it was actually fairly simple. A testament to some of the training rides, like a century with ~8,360 ft of ascending, with a number of hills steeper and harder than what was here. The long hill here was just a long hill. Switched between the 23 & 25 and spun right up with consistent pressure. After doing the other rides where I needed really work it with the 28, this was actually a bit easy. Not one hill or spot on a hill was a notable challenge to get over after the training rides. It was all just pacing.

I'm not sure where my power would have ended up, but a fair guess would be 260-265 as that's what many of the long rides were around. The taper has been shown to boost my feeling up substantially, but could also have been going easier than I think I am, as that happened in training as well.

I thought it was kind of interesting seeing all the waterbottles and contraptions people had on their bikes. From looking at the weather, I decided to use only 1 frame mount. It was plenty cool and that's all I've ended up using in past races/rides in similar conditions. I wasn't used to the bar mount yet with the new bars, and this was a rather technical course. I planned to use the aids and throw if I needed. Didn't even finish the one and was hydrated well enough.

Figure out how to manage rear valve cover in wet weather. Lost both now.

Take the bike over to tech support for proper inflation.

Get HR working. Too man problems going on. This needs to be fixed.

Replace powermeter battery. Keep better track of how long it's been in there.

Don't take nutrition in the last half hour (see run). Find out if this needs to be farther out than that.

In and out, nothing special.

Decided to use laced shoes instead of quick laces because of the steep descents. I've been sliding some with quick laces and it's a bit unnerving. HR was going crazy here too, so left with pacing. Not that much help with how much and how fast the terrain changes here.

Started out moving along, a bit dead legged from the bike, but that's normal. Was expecting the downhill to help out with that. It seemed to some. But another problem came up, my stomach was becoming upset. It was too much for so early in the run, so I stopped to walk just before the first mile mark. I hated to do this on a downhill because I can really take off on them, but it had to be done. I ended up needing to stop and walk a lot. Legs were tired, but still kept wanting to run.

A while later, my lungs were tightening up too. So for most of the run, I switched to something like a Galloway strategy. Run for a little bit, then walk. The airway issues seemed to be time dependent as any speed from normal running on down didn't make a difference to how long it took. At least my normal speed is near 7:00/mile, but still hated to walk. Did it for all steeper uphills as well. There was just no way to go faster without triggering something. After all the training, I was reduced to struggling like this to get through the run, but it really showed me what to work on for later.

HR was actually going in and out on the run. Sometimes fine, sometimes wonky. No in-between. When fine, it was only a few beats higher than my everyday pacing. So at least I had that going for me. It doesn't do that when I really overcook the bike.

Finished out the run trying not to get hurt. No sense pushing for a few minutes when I would be so far off what I expected and no chance of placing. The airway issue can take weeks to recover and I didn't want to do that. I probably drove some girl nuts as she was running continuously, working hard at it and I would come floating by and then a few minutes later would be walking. Probably happened a dozen times. I had caught her and eventually pulled away. My pacing otherwise would have been hers or slower, so run/walk was definitely the way to finish out. After the last hill, I just trailed in behind some guy running close enough to my pace. Didn't feel like making a foot race out of hit, and he was in the first AG wave anyway.

Most would point to bike pacing as the issue. I've gone too hard on the bike, and this wasn't it. My legs had a lot of power in them, and they also had faster turnover in them. I could still reach 5:30 on the downhills. Something I never have never come close to when running after a hard bike session. Turnover is not there. What to fix on the bike is more practice with positioning. It's very aggressive and I need more time to adjust. I can get through the bike leg ok, but I felt the airway constrictions a little at the end of the long rides. Running is harder than biking, so of course it would be worse in the race. I may need to go back up a spacer, but we'll see.

I also should not have had that last bit of gel 15-20 minutes out. It was just enough to push over and trigger the upset stomach issues. The position on the bike may also make it harder to digest as I'm over so far.

Swim more. Various abdominal muscles were tired way too early. Had side stitches on both sides, though thankfully not simultaneous. Energy was a little low as well, and I know I do fine running in transition runs, duathlons, and no-swim tris.

I want to write a better report to show what it was like there, but it's really difficult to describe. Kind of have to see it. And I'm tired of writing for now.