JohnnyKay and Fred Doucette's HIM/IM focused Mentor group-CLOSED (Page 46)

dhopman - 2011-05-27 3:51 PM

So me and my 3 other training buddies have been doing tri's together for the last few years now. I've pretty much dominated all of them, but I knew the other guys made huge fitness gains leading up to IMTX. Long story short, I got beat by one of my buddies...by 7 stupid minutes. Now I'm thinking about all the ways I could have made up that time...here are our splits...mine first, then his:

Swim: 1:06:23 / 1:26:31

T1: 4:28 / 5:56

Bike: 5:54:49 / 5:27:23

T2: 5:40 / 3:05

Run: 4:34:05 / 4:35:20

 

Swim - Obviously this was his weakness. I really could have pushed harder on the swim...I don't think it would have had a huge impact on my overall performance since I'm a front quadrant swimmer and you really don't need your arms feeling fresh for the bike or run. Both of us went sans wetsuit. I think a couple minutes faster on this leg wouldn't have been a huge increase in effort. Oh, I cramped my left calf twice too which didn't help.

T1 - I was happy with T1 - nothing to change here.

Bike - This was clearly my buddy's strength. He biked over 27 minutes faster than me. I was really happy with my time and effort management though. Here's the kicker - he has a Cervelo tri bike and aero helmet. I have neither. His aero set up on a flat course like this was easily a 5-10 minute advantage.

T2 - I changed socks and didn't have Yankz. I know he did have Yankz. My fault for not taking advantage of that really. It probably cost me another 30 seconds.

Run - This was purely a mental game I think. The course had three loops. I saw him on loops one and two, and knew I was about 8-10 minutes behind him. I hit a really rough patch at the start of lap 3, had to walk and just couldn't get started again. More mental toughness in that moment could have cut my mile walk down to half a mile - that's probably a few minutes saved. Also, I was walking longer than I needed to through the aid stations. It's just not necessary to walk through the WHOLE aid station. Grab what you need, get it down, grab your sponges, and get going again. That strategy would have easily saved me another few minutes. Little did I know that my buddy was hurting worse than I was on lap 3. I actually made up a little time on him that lap despite my full mile of walking.

At the end of the race I definitely had some gas left in the tank. He ended up in medical getting two bags of IV fluid. I'm glad I wasn't in his situation but I wish I had pushed a little more.

Okay I'll stop whining. There's always something to improve right? I don't know if I'll ever do another Ironman...but these lessons could probably be applied at the Oly/70.3 distance too - which I'll definitely stay active in.

Happy Friday 'yall.

PS - I think over half my toe nails are black or are about to be. =)

dhopman - 2011-05-27 4:51 PM

So me and my 3 other training buddies have been doing tri's together for the last few years now. I've pretty much dominated all of them, but I knew the other guys made huge fitness gains leading up to IMTX. Long story short, I got beat by one of my buddies...by 7 stupid minutes. Now I'm thinking about all the ways I could have made up that time...here are our splits...mine first, then his:

Swim: 1:06:23 / 1:26:31

T1: 4:28 / 5:56

Bike: 5:54:49 / 5:27:23

T2: 5:40 / 3:05

Run: 4:34:05 / 4:35:20

 

Swim - Obviously this was his weakness. I really could have pushed harder on the swim...I don't think it would have had a huge impact on my overall performance since I'm a front quadrant swimmer and you really don't need your arms feeling fresh for the bike or run. Both of us went sans wetsuit. I think a couple minutes faster on this leg wouldn't have been a huge increase in effort. Oh, I cramped my left calf twice too which didn't help.

T1 - I was happy with T1 - nothing to change here.

Bike - This was clearly my buddy's strength. He biked over 27 minutes faster than me. I was really happy with my time and effort management though. Here's the kicker - he has a Cervelo tri bike and aero helmet. I have neither. His aero set up on a flat course like this was easily a 5-10 minute advantage.

T2 - I changed socks and didn't have Yankz. I know he did have Yankz. My fault for not taking advantage of that really. It probably cost me another 30 seconds.

Run - This was purely a mental game I think. The course had three loops. I saw him on loops one and two, and knew I was about 8-10 minutes behind him. I hit a really rough patch at the start of lap 3, had to walk and just couldn't get started again. More mental toughness in that moment could have cut my mile walk down to half a mile - that's probably a few minutes saved. Also, I was walking longer than I needed to through the aid stations. It's just not necessary to walk through the WHOLE aid station. Grab what you need, get it down, grab your sponges, and get going again. That strategy would have easily saved me another few minutes. Little did I know that my buddy was hurting worse than I was on lap 3. I actually made up a little time on him that lap despite my full mile of walking.

At the end of the race I definitely had some gas left in the tank. He ended up in medical getting two bags of IV fluid. I'm glad I wasn't in his situation but I wish I had pushed a little more.

Okay I'll stop whining. There's always something to improve right? I don't know if I'll ever do another Ironman...but these lessons could probably be applied at the Oly/70.3 distance too - which I'll definitely stay active in.

Happy Friday 'yall.

PS - I think over half my toe nails are black or are about to be. =)

tri808 - 2011-05-27 8:21 PM

So as you may have noticed, I updated my avatar from a recent race picture.  Then I took a closer look, and zoomed in on it a bit and noticed something I haven't really seen before...I mean I knew my legs were getting a bit more toned from the past year of training...but had no idea they looked like this when racing.

 

trigal38 - 2011-05-27 7:59 PM I'm changing my weekend workout in a major way tomorrow. My plan calls for 8 repeats of 4 min run, 10 min bike, 4 min run I guess for transition practice. Instead I'm going on a 75 mile bike tour with a group of friends. This will be my longest ride ever. Hope I don't screw up my plan too much but I'm going to do it anyway!

kaburns1214 - 2011-05-28 6:01 AM

Not ewww, hot.  When I was at the doctor for my back issue she told me I had good quad definition, I think it just shows how much hard work you've put in.

Fred Doucette - 2011-05-28 3:11 PM Kelly how is the back doing?

tri808 - 2011-05-29 4:13 PM

Got in my last long run...well it was only about 8 miles...but felt really strong throughout.  Then swam about 1k.

Going for a 90ish minute ride tomorrow, then playing in a golf tournament in the afternoon.  Tuesday should just be a easy run...Wednesday short run and swim...then it's off to Kona.

On a downer note...just heard one of our training members was clipped by a car last week.  She broke a bone in her arm and had surgery.  She'll be out for the HIM, but may get the ok from the doctor to race IM CDA...which is her A race. 

The way the accident was described to me was that she was coming down a slight hill in which you can get up to 30 mph coasting...riding in the wide shoulder.  The car that clipped her was coming from the other direction, and wanted to make a left turn in front of her coming across traffic.  The problem was that there was a line of cars in the left lane (going the same direction as the biker), so they stopped and formed a gap for the driver to make the left turn.  So naturally he made the left, but the cars were blocking his vision from seeing the biker (she's only about 5' and rides a 650 bike).  So yes, while the driver is at fault...there could have been some precaution taken by the rider when the cars were backed up and the gap was formed.  She didn't see the car at all because she was riding aero and if anything was looking to the right to see if cars were coming out of the right side of the street rather than from the left.

So just be careful out there.  While we may have the right of way...we can still do our part to be alert and help avoid accidents.  Not every accident is because someone is talking on their cell phone or texting.  Sometimes the honestly don't see us.