Fantastic stuff Matt!

I love all the lessons. IHOP is your before race g-oto, eh? I like it! And IPA after, I am 100% on board with this one. Although, after a hard race it'll getcha quick!

Questions: How do you balance tactics (lesson six)  with lessons ten and twelve (plan/execution)

Example: If you want to keep your HR within certain ranges but a dude in your AG has passed you 4 miles into the run how do you decide whether you should race him or stick to your plan and see if it naturally sets you up. Maybe that's not a great example but I think you probably know what I am trying to ask. 

Also, I love what you said about embracing the weather.

Great race and great report Matt!  Love reading all your thought processes and lessons learned - lots of good stuff there.

That's one speedy bike split on those watts, you're a slippery dude!

Great job in less than stellar conditions!!! Embrace it, indeed. I love that you raced your plan and have come out of this one looking at all the data and moving forward. Congrats on a race well run and on all that education, which will be invaluable. Nicely done my friend.

Really great race, Matt.  Honestly, though, I think you're full of crap when you say you weren't well-trained for this and signed up only a month ago.  I think you've been secretly training for this as an "A" race since the start of the year, based on your stellar results!!

Lots of really great lessons you've learned and will carry with you for future training and races.  Can't wait to follow along and see how you put them to use!

Matt - thanks for the report and the lessons - a very good read! But mostly congratulations on what seems to be a well considered and executed game plan. And I was thinking the same as AREND - that seems to a fast time on 200w, especially in what sounds like windy conditions. Only advice I can think to offer is that if walking the aid stations is part of your plan (or plan B) then you should actually run the length of the station like you normally would, grabbing everything on the fly. Then when you get to the END of the station start your walk. You will find you will get the recovery you need much quicker, and you will get back up to speed quicker as well. trust me - this really works! Awesome job - really a fantastic race.

And, oh yeah. "I love the way this sucks!" That is pure gold right there.

Great overall result Matt, and that was a smoking fast ride.  Those power numbers are close to what I would target, but no way I'm getting that speed = jealous.

This is so awesome.

Thanks!  I love me some IHOP the night before a travel race, and at home we do pancakes and eggs the night before anyone's race or competition (swim, run, tri, fencing, whatever).  Good carbs, quality protein, makes it way through the system before even an early race... and delicious!

For me, the tactics need to support the plan.  Otherwise, a move that might get you a bit ahead in the race could blow up your larger plan (anything from testing a particular discipline at a race to not wanting to bury yourself and be fresh for another race, etc.).

In the case of this race, I was ready to go as hard as possible on the swim, so I grabbed the fastest feet and went off.  Then I decided to stay on them, even though I had a little extra, knowing that I'd work harder for the same pace or MUCH harder for a little faster (and maybe actually blow up, given that I was already near full gas).  So, I accepted a very fast swim on moderately hard effort over a slightly faster swim on a wicked hard effort.

As for switching to plan B or C, that is for me a different beast.  That happens only when things outside of one's control or the original expectations for the race (weather, a couple flat tires, a muscle tweak - something like these).  That's a change of strategy from your first set of goals to a secondary set (maybe your bike was terrible, so your PR plan is out, but you have a B goal of crushing the run and go for it, as an example).

In this race, the tactics on the swim supported my goals for the race (fitness test, practice, maybe break 5 hours but go as fast as I could while staying within myself, fun, not burying myself cuz a hard swim won't but a hard b/r would).  The weather on the run changed one of my overall goals to elevate not burying myself for 2-3 weeks to the top of the list.  For that, I changed my tactics on the run to walking and drinking and such, and also elevated the test of seeing if I could raise my HR over the last couple miles higher on my list.

If I was, instead, trying for a certain place in my AG, for instance, I would have raced more based on where I saw other old dudes on the run (lots of out and back loops, so I had a good idea where they were).  This would be an ideal course to practice those tactics for that goal, but my goal dictated different tactics on the run.

Make sense, or did I just manage to confuse the issue?

Matt

It's my super aero head - even under a helmet. 

Actually, one thing that was a benefit to being in a later wave (one of the few, as compared to the many downsides) is being able to legally sling-shot along as you are passing the slower riders from the previous SIXTEEN waves.  While it required a lot more concentration on bike handling to do safely (especially with the wind, rain and hail), I was able to get some shelter for a second or two coming up behind riders.

It wasn't a constant stream, but there were a fair number of opportunities to do this.  Oddly, more on the way out than back...  I wonder if that made less difference (going with the wind, whereas against on the way back) as the resistance increases with the square of relative speed, so rolling resistance would be proportionally larger going downwind, making a legal draft slightly less useful?  OK, that's way above my physics paygrade... 

What hurt was the power spikes to pass some of the who were leap-frogging (and I think trying to form a draft line).  Staying legal had me doing more short spikes in power than I would have liked, and the crowded course didn't help with that (when there was a knot of slower folks ahead and the people sucking my wheel - I had a bunch drafting off me for miles - would try to pass/box me in, I'd surge to not get cut off).  Wasn't a ton of situations like this, but even a handful during a race has an effect - at least on me.

Overall, that second part was pretty minor and I was able to ride a fairly consistent W.  The flatness of the course really helped with that, too.  While the surges are memorable, I don't think there were actually enough of them (when looking back at my power trace) to make a difference in my run.  Just enough to get grumpy about! 

Matt

After you get one race with a good draft on the swim, you will definitely be looking for fast feet from then on! 

Great meeting up.

Matt

Thanks!  Very kind words. 

I was definitely in good shape for this one, so I don't want to sound like, "Oh, I've been eating bon bons and guzzling beer and thought I'd do this tri thing as a hoot."  Although beer and bon bons do sound good... 

Ahem, anyway.  I was ready to race something and this one fit my schedule, which I only drew up a month before the race (didn't need a skedj for the base period).  I was looking for an oly, but this one was too tempting not to do.  I was fit, but was only 1/3 of the way through my build cycles. 

I was honestly surprised and very happy with the outcome, as it was faster than I'd expected!

Now off to some beer...  Hey, it's Friday of a recovery week. 

Matt

Jeez - so much good stuff in the replies here!  As an aside - thanks all!

Rusty, I will definitely try that on the next one at the stations.  Hadn't thought about it that way, but will give it a go, for sure.

Thanks!

As for the speed, see my response to Arend above on sling-shots (legal until I'm a pro - Ha!).  Also, I read ahead to Marc's post.  I definitely had a quartering tail wind until about the bridge before the turn.  That's where the hail turned back to rain and the wind shifted.  It was a quartering head wind to the turn and then a push until about the bridge again.  It was definitely a head/quartering head wind on the way back from about a couple miles past the bridge.

I think the wind shifted right around that cell that produced the really snotty weather.  So, I might not have had such an even split as Marc, but perhaps more from having a few miles with less wind (while in the "eye" of the cell?).  I suspect it might have moved sufficiently past that Marc had more wind (?).

I sure did like seeing those high speeds on the way out!

Matt

Definitely interested!  So.... How would one find said file?  Can I just export from TP or Garmin Connect?

What a great race you had Matt.  Very much enjoyed your race report. 

What an enjoyable, entertaining and insightful RR, Matt!  Sounds like you learned a lot from this race, but also races previous which allowed you to have a very good outcome from this race, with regard both to finish position (wow, you are fast!) and mentally.  Solid work!  I may need to re-read this closer to my HIM...