IRONMAN 70.3 BOULDER : Official Thread

I'll be there.  I raced the full IM there in 2015.  My daughter went to the University of Colorado there so I've visited many times.

I'm staying in downtown Boulder.  PM if interested in a meetup.

I did IM Boulder 70.3 2018.  I intended to get a race report written before I returned to work but that didn't happen.  Overall I had a decent race.  I traveled to Winter Park, Colorado the week before the race for a family reunion with my parents and all of my siblings and their families.  The altitude didn't seem to slow me down at all in training at 9,000' elevation in Winter Park.  My breathing was in control and my lungs weren't burning.  I did have chapped lips and woke up in the middle of the night with calf cramps one night.  So I was worried about cramps in t he race.  I hydrated the best I could and took my electrolyte pills the day before and morning of the race.  

The swim felt really good.  My form seemed to be right on.  I started in the back of the 33-37 minute wave and was constantly passing people without seeing anyone passing me.  I however added a lot of distance to the swim by swimming wide. I have done two clock wise swims and this was my second counter clockwise swim.  The only other counter clockwise swim I did I also swam way wide.  I confirmed in a race 7 weeks after IM 70.3 Boulder  pull to the left.  I didn't feel any cramps come on until about 100 meters from the finish of the swim (If I hadn't added 200m to my swim I would have been in the clear).  As I stood up to exit the water my right calf cramped.  So instead of rushing through T1 I had to take things easy and baby the cramp.

I stared out a lot slower on the bike that I normally do. My target Heart Rate was 125-135 BPM and in race simulations earlier this summer my HR would be 150-155 coming out of the water and not come down on the bike to were I would be riding at 140-150 BPM even though in my Threshold bike rides I struggle to get over 130 BPM.   It took 5 miles of going really easy to get my HR down to 130.  I road easy for another mile to get it down to 125 then held my target at 125-130 for the race.   At the 2 miles of "no pass" zone I think my HR dropped all the way to 99 BPM and my speed dropped from 21 MPH to 14.5 MPH.  I wasn't very happy to have no pass zones in the Race.  I know that Ben Hoffman wasn't stuck behind someone going 14.5 MPH on that stretch so the course really was not a level playing field.  The Transition area was not level either but that is another issue.  This race had the worst transition area I have seen in my 5-6 races.  I did get passed by 7-8 people in the no pass zone which I was also not happy about.  The race marshal twas called out warnings to the people that apparently skipped the mandatory athletes meeting and didn't know what the "no passing" signs on the course meant. The race marshal didn't card anyone though and I noticed that they kept passing people after the marshal yelled at them not to pass.  After the no pass zone I played leap for the next 10 miles with 2-3 of the guys that had passed me in the no pass zone.  Then we had a flat section that seemed like a good section to pass people on and I went to the pace that I wanted to ride at.  My HR climbed up to 138 and for about 4 miles and left all my leap frog friends in the dust.  I may have burned some matches but was happy to jump up from 21 MPH to 26 MPH for a few minutes.  I slowed back down to 130 BPM and 21 MPH to save myself for the run.  A few miles later the Velcro on the water bottle between my aero bars came undone.  I tried fixing it while riding but couldn't get it threaded back through the brackets.  So I held my water bottle with one hand and the aero bar with the other for the next 4-5 miles to the last aid station.  I stopped at the aid station to fix the water bottle and since I was inches from the port-a-potty decided to use the restroom too.  I didn't have an urgent need to use the restroom but it was amazing how much more comfortable I was after I was back on the bike.  I noticed that the 3-4 guys who I had played leap frog with for 10 miles but buried in the dust during my 138 BPM surge were right back with me after my rest break.  I stayed with them for the rest of the bike leg (another 12 miles or so).  I ran out of water with about 5 miles to go (combination of poor planning and having the lid on one of my water bottle pop off will I was refilling).  I started to get cramps in my quads with 3 miles to go.  With both quads cramping up I again was taking things slower than normal in the T2.

I took the first mile or so of the run really slow to get to the first add station.  I was disappointing to discover that they didn't have any electrolyte pills or pickle juice.  I had a few electrolyte pills with me but need a lot more.  I took in a lot of water and Gatorade (since the Gatorade was the only thing that was going to help with the cramps) and was on my way.  The legs were felling okay and after they got transitioned into the run they loosened up so I started to speed up to get back on track with the planned pace for the run.  I passed a guy at mile 4 that wasn't going too much slower than me.  He wanted to know if I was in his age group.  I told him I don't pay any attention to the number on the left calf of other people I meet on the course but he was still pretty concern  to have a faster runner over take him.  I soon discovered that he was on mile 10 of the run and he eased up when I told him I was on mile 4.  I told him he could run with me but he said my pace was too fast for him.  He ran through all the rest stops and I stopped to get gator aid water and ice water (the ice water was to dump over my head) then walk through every rest stop so he caught me at every rest stop.  We stayed together for the rest of the first loop.  The second loop I needed to negative split.  I had had a nice first loop joking with other people on the course about the pace, the heat, the choices at the aid stations, where they were from, their race attire, their race team, etc.  Lap two was not going to be a jovial run.  It was business time.  At every point on the course I asked myself am I going faster on this section than I did on lap one.  If not I would pick up the pace.  I was stopping at every aid station and taking more and more fluids at every station (I stated with one cup of water but on lap two was doing about 4 cups of water).  I also started to hit the Coke on lap two. I took four GU on lap one but at the beginning of the 2nd lap when I started to speed up felt a little sluggish which I knew was from low glycogen.  The Coke must have done the trick.  After the first aid station on the second lap the sluggishness was gone. I was getting lots of ice water over me at ever aid station that was helping a lot with the heat and so I was able to keep trucking along on the run until about 10 miles in.  At that point I had the right hamstring cramp up on me.  It stopped me in my tracks.  I stepped off the road and massaged out the cramp and noticed I was about 150 feet from the next aid station.  So I limped to the aid station drank as much water and gator aid as I could, drenched myself again with ice water, then ventured out. A fast guy caught up with me as I left the aid station.  He stayed with me for a a little ways and I told him that all was going good until about 100 metes back where I got a cramp.  I told him I wasn't sure how the next 3 miles would go but as my legs loosened up again I pulled away from him and he never caught back up. I eased up just enough to keep my legs loose.  I was still asking myself if I was going faster at that point than I had gone on the first lap. One section I felt I was going slower (but didn't push to keep from cramping any more) but the rest of the time I felt like I was going faster than lap one.  Towards the end of the 2nd lap I saw the Red Bull arch 1/4 mile away and started to speed up to finish strong.  When I got the arch it wasn't the finish line.  I asked the spectators which way to the finish.  They said to keep going.  I did but was worried I was going to miss the turn and end up on a 3rd loop to the run.  I saw another arch 1/4 miles down the path.  This time an Ironman arch I surge on but when I got there that wasn't the finish either.  Again I wasn't sure where I was going and was told to keep going.  with the surges to what I thought were finishes my legs again became to cramp.  I didn't want to have to stop for another 1-2 minutes at that point to massage out cramps.  I was already at a positive split. So I kept going with a hunched over back and lifting my knees like a high knees drill to keep the legs moving.  I quickly came to the split to the finish and was happy to finally be off the running loop (and not be doomed to endless loops). 

So cramping was an issue.  The calves cramped in the final yards of the swim, the quads cramped in the final minutes of the bike, and the hamstrings cramps with 5K to go on the run. I PR'd by 2 minutes but felt that on a different day with better execution I could have taken another 10+ minutes off.  If I could do it over I would have taken about 10 more electrolyte pill with me and would have road the bike at 133-138 BPM rather than 125-130 BPM.  This was a learning race.  I decided that one race a years wasn't enough to keep progressing.  So after the race I signed up for the Redman 70.3 in Oklahoma City that was 7 weeks later.  I was at 5 hrs 7 minutes at Boulder so I din't reach my goal of going under 5 hours in my first race in the M40-44 AG.  I did a 4 hour 57 at Redman 70.3 but my USAT Score was only an 88.4 and my USAT number at Boulder was 89.4.  So I faired better at Boulder than I did at OKC which I attribute to training for the run in 105 DEG F afternoons all Summer in Oklahoma and to better execution of the swim.   The big I-Dot races are great for feed back on how you compete with other competitive athletes in your AG, but I enjoyed the smaller Redman race better than Boulder this year (I did Redman last year and didn't enjoy it as much as Boulder 70.3)..  

Note: This was my 4th 70.3 but my first Triathlon in Colorado.