Ironman Coeur d'Alene : Official Thread (Page 69)

This is actually a great post.  Thanks.  None of those hills look to be killers.  (Unless I missed one )

Any veterans want to comment at what times in that video they think are the "tough" parts or areas to be paying a lot of attention to?

2. I am trying to do this.  I tried the PB Perform last weekend and it went fairly well.  I went out yesterday to buy 4 or 5 of the different PB gels.  I noticed many of them have caffeine.  I believe it was vanilla and raspberry cream that don't.  I am going to try them to see how they sit on my long ride this weekend and see what flavors I can handle.

8.  Interesting!  I may try this.  Josh had a good point though, only stop if you have to.

9.  I am getting nervous!  ...in a good way.  :-)

10.  AWESOME!!

Thanks Gary!

Outbound with Lake CdA on your right - following the run course - there's a bit of a hill around 1:15 on that film where the road curves.  The run turnaround is partway up that hill (if they keep the run course the same as last year).  Beyond that, 1:37 is a turnaround and the location of the bike special needs drop.  That entire lake stretch can get windy as well.

2:55 - 3:30 is the flattest, straightest part of the course - maybe a *slight* incline in that direction but it's very comfortable for cruising.

[Edit: also note once you get out here, portions of the course are open to traffic]

4:33 starts an uphill grind - welcome to Hayden!  4:54 is steep.  5:10 is probably the most dangerous corner on the course -- it's marked with S L O W in chalk and it still catches you offguard.  Brake early and more than you think you need to there.  5:23, 5:33, 5:45, 5:55 all short but steep.

Basically that first section with Lake CdA on the right isn't too bad.  The Hayden section is hilly.  I don't think the camera view in the car really does it justice, but overall it's a good video.

Also one last thing - some of the roads in that video look worse than I remember.  I think they did some repaving last year.

Thanks for the feedback.

Glad to hear they repaved.  Some of those roads looks pretty rough.

By the way, I wanted to add that it really is a beautiful bike course and the crowds are phenomenal.  I like the frequent turns in the course.  There aren't many parts where you feel like you're riding a neverending road to nowhere.  The spiky hills in the Hayden portion really serve to spread out the riders and you won't see much drafting.  We did bunch up on some of the climbs but the course marshals let that slide as people are doing 7mph anyhow and having small friendly chats.

Thanks for the posts back to mine. I will do the up tempo rides and some longer ones. About what I have done over the last several months for my run and it has helped a lot. Also thanks for the kids run info. My son will love doing that.

Hope all is well for you all and training is going well.

Oh and for me it is Coke if I have a soda and Jameson for my real drink of choice

Have a good one.

The light was really bad in the picture... it was a blizzard although you can't see any snow falling in the pic but very little sun was getting through.  Anyway, I had to adjust the white balance and the contrast to make it stand out more... and it made the name more yellow than it really was.  I conced that altering the photo used in your p!$$ing contest is pretty lame.  Perhaps I lose for cheating.

Okay, I've cooled down and I'm back to say I'm sorry I vented and got personal, and would delete my post if BT would let me.  Maybe it's been too many long hours these last few weeks trying to figure out what to do about Libyan (and other fallen/falling regime) assets... but I talked to my NATO rep and they declined to target Atlanta for airstrikes over this.  I stand by the substance of what I said (I'm stubborn like that), but should not have put a PERSON in my crosshairs. 

Rocketman - my apologies for the tone of my comments.

IMCdA'ers - my apologies as well.  I hope you can glean the helpful substance from my comments and ignore the rest.

Perfect.  Thanks. 

To be clear...agreeing that it's lame is not the same as saying you are lame.

And yes you lose for cheating.  The use of PED's gets you an automatic DQ.

PED = Pi$$ Enhanced Digitography 

We are all crazy is right haha. Thing is, you cant get an appt with me. I'm not at the office enough to take you all on. I'm out training as much as possible too. Someone tweeted its only 95 freakin days!

Don't get me wrong, its great and I love it, but its a heavy load lately.

LOL!!  Amen!  ...I might fall asleep if I laid on one of those couches though!

Can we stand one more post on nutrition drinks, specifically PB Perform??

I've been an Infinit user and have planned to go that route again, but I did have GI issues last year at CDA resulting in tossing of cookies 4 miles into the run. (No, I did not ride too hard -- I was well within HR zones [even below] and at my targeted pace. In hindsight I do think I took in too many calories given the heat of the day, to which I was not acclimated.)

So the question... if I were to play around with PB Perform, does anyone know if it's better to try powder form or off-the-shelf already mixed? They serve off-the-shelf already mixed on the course, I think? Anyone know or have suggestions as to this?

As I said, I don't think it was my drink that was the problem, but rather calorie intake in the heat (a condition for which I was not able to train). One of my big goals for this year is to keep ingredients in my tummy the whole way!!

I agree with trying to use the pre-made bottles if at all possible.  As I hinted earlier, I am not 100% confident that the pre-made bottles have identical ingredients to the powdered mix.

I also think you are very smart to conclude your stomach troubles resulted from taking in too much, which likely would have happened regardless of the product used.

One thing to keep in mind while rehearsing your nutrition plan in training is that your body needs something different at IM pace when it is 60 and dry vs. 80 and humid.  You'll need to adjust your nutrition according to race day conditions, and it will be helpful to sort of have a 6th sense about what you need (developed over multiple long training sessions).

In general, the warmer and more humid it is, the more fluid you'll need to take in.  But you can't just drink more sports drink, or you'll end up with too many calories and a GI revolt.  Likewise, there comes a point (a point we should all strive for during the race... but better to be slightly under than slightly over) where you are maxed out on the amount of liquid and calories your body can absorb (given your current pace)... at that point it becomes about adjusting your pace for the conditions (slowing down will 1 - decrease the rate you are sweating, 2 - decrease the rate you are burning energy, 3 - increase the proportion of fat used as an energy source (which does not need to be replaced), and 4- increase the rate at which you can digest).

In the end, it is all about going as fast as you can while still being able to meet your refueling (water, calories, electrolytes) needs.  It's okay if you exceed that threshold (ie begin to run a nurtitional deficit because your pace exceeds refueling capacity) for the last part of the marathon... but you don't want to bonk at mile 90 of the bike or 6 of the run.  The hard thing to remember is that you need to find the sweet spot between effort and fueling GIVEN THE CONDITIONS ON RACE DAY.

That's actually a pretty average number, especially considering the heat in Kona.  Maybe a little on the low side for McCormack's weight (~170lb?).  I think I was at about 250/hr last year on the bike (150lb) and I could've done less, in hindsight.

My point exactly.  People think they will grab a GU at every aid station or a cup of gatorade and a powerbar and pretzels, etc... and all of sudden they realize they just ate 1000 calories in 20 mins, then they are on the side of the road trying not to get too much on their shoes.   250 calories is what, 2 gels and a couple of sips of IM Perform and hour??  Heck, the twix bar idea I mentioned killed my calories for that part because I think it alone is like 500, which probably explains why i did not eat it on the run.  Then again, and I am sure there is real science, that was almost all the basic sugars the body uses first as energy.

Read labels before and understand how quickly you can get to 250 - 300 calories.  most will be amazed.  For the record, my basic nutrition is 1 gel every 20 -30 minutes.  Twice on the bike i will replace the gel with a bar (I need solids) and I cut the gatorade (Perform) with water to get some of the nutrients. 

Ugh, reading that first part of your note made my stomach sick just thinking about taking that much in while racing.  But yes, it's easy to be tempted to do something like.  Definitely recommend practicing your nutrition all the time in training to nail down what works, THEN have some ideas for plans b and c, cause you never know what might happen out there.  I was pretty methodical in my IM with my nutrition, but accidentally left a few of my gels in my T2 bag.  So, at mile 15 I was out of "my" stuff.  But I had plan b in case something happened to that stuff, or if I just couldn't stand the thought of another GU.  So, I switched to grabbing some gatorade and some banana cause I knew that worked fine for me before in practice.

DO NOT FORGET YOUR PRE-RACE NUTRITION!  Before your workouts, try to simulate what you plan to eat before the race--while not necessarily the same amounts, at least the same type of food.  Though, when you get to the big, big workouts, trying to get close to that same pre-race breakfast is helpful.  With that, think about how long you will want to eat before the race, and use that same time delta in your practice runs too. 

One gel every 20-30 minutes on the bike AND run?  Do you practice this on you long runs or rides? 

For my long ride last week which was about 4 hours, I brought 2 gels (Hammer, since I didn't have any PB gels) and a couple of bars and drank 3 bottles of "PB Endurance" which is the same thing as "PowerBar Ironman Perform".  I am using the powder version since I won it at a race.  I did notice on the back of the powder container it says not to dilute as most people do with other powders including myself.  While I was at the store I noticed there were about 3 different flavors of Perform, I hope they only serve the flavor I tested with at the race!

Okay, maybe a stupid question here, but when people are talking about not being able to make up the nutrition lost if you forget to eat "X" number of calories an hour, how do you handle that on the swim?  Do you eat something between loops 1 and 2?  Do you just assume the blood sugar/glycogen stored from the morning breakfast is enough?

All this talk about nutrition and people's experiences with it going wrong on race day is making me more nervous about this aspect than any other.  So far I haven't been on long enough rides to really know how I'll feel on race day, but I'm definitely finding after about 3 hours of ~ 200 calories/hour that

1) it seems to be a good amount for me

and

2) I really HATE how sweet everything tastes towards the end of the ride.  I felt the same on the run in the HIM I did last August.  Every sweet thing I had brought (gels) made me feel nauseated just thinking about them.

This weekend I have a 60-70 miler on tap, so I'm hoping to test out some less-sweet items.  Anyone have any suggestions? 

So, what I did (and do for HIMs too) is have my pre-race b'fast b/w 2.5-3 hours before the race. I personally go with a peanut butter/jelly/nutella on a homemade waffle with a banana on the side (and for IM I had a bit more of the PBJ sandwich--just recently added the nutella in place of some PB and WOW, yummy, and also had a hard boiled egg)!  Then, I sip on sports drink between then and the race, not a lot and not strong concentration (used GU in the past).  Then, 15 minutes before my wave goes off, I take a GU.  I didn't notice myself getting hungry at all during the IM swim and just hopped right into my nutrition routine once I got on the bike (though I give myself about 10-15 minutes to let my HR get settled, and legs going). 

I know this is a lot of talk and could make some nervous, but that's why the most important thing for it now is to practice and experiment so you know what you want game day.  So, some things friends of mine have done (I'm an Infinit/GU user myself) for a little less sweet:
- one friend lived on fig newtons on the bike. She used them for every training ride we did as well
- some people cut up cliff bars
- peanut butter crackers
- while sweet, some friends use twizzlers and laffy taffy

It's kind of just what floats your boat.  I found that while I love Infinit, and in a HIM don't need more than that on the bike, for rides that go past the 75 mile mark, I just get a little tired of it and want something a little solid, so I go with the cut up cliff bar or payday just to change it up a bit. I'll admit, the payday was too much chewing for me, I'll stick with Cliff bars in the future.

2) I really HATE how sweet everything tastes towards the end of the ride.  I felt the same on the run in the HIM I did last August.  Every sweet thing I had brought (gels) made me feel nauseated just thinking about them.

This weekend I have a 60-70 miler on tap, so I'm hoping to test out some less-sweet items.  Anyone have any suggestions?