Bandits Challenge 2008 Race Report

I just can’t help myself…once again, I have written a novel of a race report! If you are short on time, just scroll down to read the “Run”, “Nutrition & Hydration”, and “Things I Learned” sections. Or, if you are avoiding housework like I do, read on! You might also want to read the quick race summary I wrote yesterday.

Official Results

Swim 1500m: 34:00 (3rd AG), 149 bpm HR
T1: 2:34
Bike 29 miles: 1:31:12 (3rd AG), 151 bpm HR
T2: 1:34
Run 10k: 56:47 (5th AG), 158 bpm HR
Total Time: 3:06:06 (3rd AG)

I came off the bike in third place, and was able to put in a strong run to hold that spot, despite a fast woman chasing me down the whole run 🙂 Thanks to steveseer at BeginnerTriathlete.com for taking this photo of me on the podium. Kari Wilkinson took 1st place. Also, Check out my Race Photos!

Pre-race routine:

This was a “C” race for me, so I only tapered for a half week. It also turned out to be a recovery week in my training plan, so that helped me be fresh for race day.

The day before, I packed everything up as usual. I changed into my “race tires”, which are really just a fresher pair of tires and tubes. Got a pinch flat immediately, so had to change again. Did a 5 minute bike ride to test out tires, and left them inflated overnight. I figure if they are still inflated in the am, then they are good.

Headed out to race site at 3 am with my swim buddy, Tom H. We had a pleasant drive there, and arrived slightly before packet pickup. It was still dark.

A bit hard to clean my chain and fully inflate my tires in the dark, but I managed. I train with my tires at 120 psi, and race with them at 150psi. My “race tires” are rated for 160 psi.

Water had condensed on the top tube of my bike, so, taping my Gus to my bike didn’t work. So, I had just laid them into my helmet, with plans to stuff them into my bra during T1. I also removed the inner safety seal of a Boost drink, put the cap back on, and put that into my helmet. I laid more Gu and another Boost near my running shoes.

Event warm-up:

I planned to bring my bike trainer for the bike warm-up this race, but forgot! I didn’t think it wise to tackle that hill leading out of the parking lot before the race. However, a good bike warm up is critical. So, I watched other people riding up that hill and it didn’t look too bad. I decided I’d go ahead out for a warm-up ride. I put my bike in granny gear with the intention to get off and walk if my legs burned at all. I really had no trouble going up that hill in granny gear.

If I do this race again, I will probably use this road bike again, and not the new tri bike that I won (which I don’t even have yet!). After tackling that short steep hill, I spun up and down the mostly flat park entrance road twice, doing a few 30 second accels. After going back down into the parking lot, I put my bike in granny gear and then racked it. It was 6:45, and I had to go to the bathroom one last time. That pretty much took up the rest of my time, so no warm-up run, other than running back and forth to the porta potty! Did some stretching in the porta potty line.

Swim 1500 m

The air temperature was only 60 degrees, and the water temperature was in the 80s. A light mist was rising from the surface of the water. It was very picturesque; however, it was hard to see any buoys. There was a buzz of conversation amongst all the women in the water about where exactly was the first buoy. Finally, someone spotted it and pointed it out to everyone else. The horn went off, and we all started swimming across the lake.

I stayed within a tight pack of swimmers for a good ten minutes. Usually the pack thins out fairly quickly and I’m mostly on my own. People got in my way more than helped me in terms of drafting. Finally it thinned out a little.

Sighting the buoys was extremely difficult the entire course, because of that mist. I stopped and treaded water alot more than usual trying to find the orange buoy, then looking for a unique shape in the treeline to aim for beyond the buoy. The dang treeline was uniform – nothing stood out! All I could really do was follow all the yellow caps and flying elbows in front of me, and hope THEY were going in the right direction.

As we neared each buoy, I could begin to make out the bright orange through the mist, and could then sight against that. Swimming past the buoy…it became the same story as before where I couldn’t see anything, so just followed the yellow caps and flying elbows.

At about the half way point, some green caps caught up to me. That was the 45 year old guys. I got behind one guy and successfully drafted for a few minutes. It was hard keeping his pace. Then another green cap cut me off and I was on my own again.

During the times that I was able to see the buoy, I was swimming straight. I think while I followed all the yellow caps, I was swimming straight too. I felt I put in a great swim. When I exited the water, I was a little disappointed in my time of 34 minutes. Last year’s top females got a time of 31 minutes. So, I was either 3 minutes behind them, or they measured the course long. I hoped it was the latter. (I later learned that the swim course was a bit long).

What would you do differently?:

Don’t skip swim workouts! I’ve only been doing 2 per week, instead of 3 like I’m supposed to.

T1

I put on my socks, briefly hesitating thinking if I should wipe all the grass off my feet. Decided not to and then put my shoes on.

I grabbed the Gus and Boost out of my helmet and stuffed them into my tri top bra. Then strapped on the helmet. Then took the Boost back out of my bra and twisted the cap off.

I grabbed my bike and started running. As I did this, I drank the Boost, spilling some of it all over myself. Luckily, it was Vanilla, not Chocolate, so it didn’t make a stain on my tri top! I will remember that for next time 🙂

I probably don’t really need Boost during an Olympic, but was testing my half iron nutritional strategy.

What would you do differently?:

Use my fuel box for Gus. I don’t think it would hurt my aerodyanmics to have that strapped onto my top tube, especially since sits behind my aerobottle anyway.

Bike 29 Hilly Miles

I did my flying mount, which turned out to be a mistake for this race. There really is not much distance between the mount line, and that hill. Not enough coasting room to get my feet clipped in. I just barely got clipped in and then hit the hill.

Climbing that hill out of the parking lot was fine, because my road bike has triple and it was in granny gear. But for a brief moment I was distracted and ran into the grass shoulder. What an idiot! I was able to recover, and rode back on the pavement, and continued riding up. Phew! Just then, I looked up and there was the race photographer. He smiled at me, as if to say “Nice recovery”. Then he snapped my photo. He did a good job waiting to take my picture. I’ll probably buy it.

This race was a practice run for my half ironman race. I wanted to practice using Boost during T1, and then going easy on the bike for twenty minutes to give my stomach time to digest that. I went easy for just over ten minutes. Then I got antsy and started to pick up the pace. Then my stomach cramped up. This happens to me alot during races, actually, so I am used to it. I ignored it and kept going, and kept up with the rest of my nutritional strategy: Gu every 30 minutes.

The first half of the bike, I rode a good steady effort, but didn’t push really hard. I even looked around to enjoy the scenic mountain views and farmlands as I rode.

I worked hard up the hills, but not so hard that my legs burned or that I got out of breath. Going over each hill, I stood up to accelerate back to race pace. Going down the worst hills, I got into as tight an aero position as possible, and coasted. Sometimes, there’d be someone in front of me who was pedaling down, and I was going the same speed while coasting 🙂

I didn’t see anyone in my age group. I figured I was just behind all the super fast women. Then a woman in my age group with a yellow shirt passed me. I wondered who she was? Was she one of the three fast chicks? Or someone else? I figured she was someone else, and I wasn’t going to let her beat me on the bike. So, I started pushing harder and passed her. She passed me. We did this a few times. Finally, I let her get ahead, with the plan to shadow her. I shadowed her for a long time, but she finally drifted away. I decided to let it go and just stick with my own pacing plan. Hard, but not too hard. I hoped that she WAS one of those three fast chicks.

Near the end of the bike, I passed a woman with 48 on her leg. She had a white and blue tri suit on. After passing her, I picked up my pace to a hard effort level. I didn’t want to let her re-pass me.

What would you do differently?:

For that Half Ironman, hold back the urge to go harder, and wait the full twenty minutes. Maybe even thirty minutes. For my next Olympic, don’t take the Boost.

Don’t do flying mounts at this race, or any race where there is not any coasting room.

T2

Coming off the bike, I was very pleased that my bike split was 1:31. Last year’s top females had bike split of 1:31, so how could I have gotten this time given that I hadn’t gone “all out”? Wow, I guess my bike training, especially those hill repeats on Mt. Sinai Rd, has really paid off!

I had planned on drinking another boost during T2, but my stomach still felt cramped, so I skipped that. I had two Gus tucked into the pocket of my Palm Holder water bottle. I grabbed that, my running hat, and was off.

What would you do differently?:

Nothing

Run 10k Very Hilly!

This was a two loop course, each loop having three legs, so there were six turn arounds. That gave six chances to see who is behind you. And I knew that woman in the white and blue tri suit was behind me!

When I first started running, I changed my stopwatch to not show the time. I was just going to put in the best run I could, and try to relax and not worry about my time. I was heading out to tackle that short steep hill out of the parking lot, feeling strong, happy about my bike split, when I saw my friend Rebecca Dewire. She said “Go Carol, you look great!”. I gave her a smile and a wave.

I ran steady and strong until the first turn around, not thinking at all about what my place was. During that time, I saw Kari Wilkinson. She was several minutes ahead of me. I knew Kari would take 1st or 2nd, so then I started to watch the females as they went by. Soon after, I saw the yellow shirt girl who passed me during the bike. I wondered if Kari was in first place? Maybe yellow shirt girl was in second place. Didn’t see any other females my age, tho I wasn’t really looking before now, so maybe someone was ahead of Kari.

After the first turn around, I saw the woman in the white and blue tri suit. She had strawberry blonde hair. Oh crap, strawberry girl is not far behind me. She’ll catch up! I better pick the pace up and try to hold her off. At this point, I thought I might be in third place. Still not sure, but I was going to race as if I was.

I remembered a training run where I was following a buffman. I had been trying to keep up with him, and focusing on “digging in deeper and working harder”. That did NOT make me go faster. Rather, focusing on fast cadence and good posture DID make me go faster. So, I grabbed onto that thought and focused on fast feet and good posture.

The next turn went down a huge steep hill. Huge. I ran as fast as I could down that hill. Faster than was probably safe for my knees, but I am good at fast down, so I decided I ought to use that to my advantage. Then there was a shorter uphill. Then another downhill. Then a turn around. Ahhh- another chance to gauge where strawberry girl is. It looked like she was in the same position.

JUST HOLD ON…

I had to tackle all those hills again, this time going UP the worst hill, instead of down. As I ran up THAT hill, there was chatter amongst everyone whether it was better to walk or run. I kept running, albeit slowly. Then a young guy pulled ahead of me and switched to walking, stating that it’s definitely faster to walk. I followed suit, eyeing him to see if I was going the same pace. I was not, so I went back to running. My run pace equaled his walking pace.

After that hill, was about 1/3 mile back to the start, around a traffic circle, then back out for the second lap. There, I saw strawberry girl again. I was still ahead, but still too close for comfort. Each time we passed each other, I looked straight ahead and held my posture to give her the impression that I was strong and fast and not worried about her (tho I WAS). From the corner of my eye, it appeared that she was doing the same thing to me.

I kept up my strong effort, and my “good posture, fast feet” focus. At the next turn around, strawberry girl was definitely closing in. Oh crap, I still had a long way to go, I was getting really tired, and I still had to tackle the worst hills – AGAIN. This is where it got real hard. I started chanting “no more bobble head, no more lolly gag” in my brain, (referring to a blog where I talked about hold my head up, not letting myself slouch; and not letting my feet lag on the ground – they must snap right back up, FAST). Over and over I chanted this “No Bobble Head, No Lolly Gag”, to where it became a word jumble in my brain and merged into things like bobble lolly, gaggle head, and boggle lag. Then I switched to “Just Hang on – Suffer Well” – the Depeche Mode song that inspires me. That become just “Suffer Well”, then finally “Suffer”. I chanted that the rest of the time. That was less of a brain-ful, and pretty well described how I felt!

As I rounded the corner to go down that steep long hill, I glanced back. I didn’t see her. Still, I knew she must be close, so I ran down that hill lightening fast. I felt it in the back of my knees. I hoped my knees could take this beating! Then up another hill, then down, then around the next turn around. This was the last turn around, the last opportunity to see strawberry girl before the finish. This time I looked her in the eye, trying to send the vibe “You can’t catch me”. She was trying to send me a similar vibe, I’m sure.

As I approached that steep long hill, I considered my options. I knew I had a 1/3 mile of flat that I’d have to sprint to the finish after tackling that hill. I knew I had to get up it as fast as I could, yet still be able to sprint. I recalled a couple years ago, when I studied Chi Running. Chi Running has a unique hill strategy that involves running with a sideways step up hills. This shares the workload among different muscle groups. I decided to try that. 5 strides to the left, 5 center, 5 right, 5 center, repeat… This felt right, so I kept this up, as hard as I could without killing myself. (Kari is a Chi Running instructor, btw.)

When I got to the top of the hill, I glanced back. Strawberry girl was about at the half way point on the hill. I started sprinting as fast as my tired legs would allow. It probably wasn’t really that fast, but it was fast enough. I glanced over my shoulders a couple times to make sure she wasn’t speeding up behind me. She wasn’t.

When I crossed the finish line, I was so relieved that my hard effort was done. And so happy I had put in such a strong run. I didn’t know what my time was, and didn’t even care.

What would you do differently?:

Nothing – this was my best run ever!

Post race

Warm down:

Jogged to the lake and jumped in for a cooling soak. Felt great, and had a nice long conversation with a 30ish guy from Tennessee. Then I went to my transition spot to put sunscreen and a t-shirt on to protect my skin from the warm sun. I met another young guy who was wearing strange toe running shoes. I asked him if those were like barefoot running. He said they were wind surfing shoes, and that yes, he wore them to give him that barefoot running experience. We had a nice long chat about that, and it made me wonder if I ought to start wearing my racing flats for all runs. I like them so much better than my training shoes!

Later, I saw my swim buddy Tom H with my friend Scott Dewire. We chatted for a while, and they both had great races. I also saw Kari and chatted with her. She said I had come in third place. Strawberry girl walked up and Kari introduced us. She was one tough competitor.

I looked around for steveseer from the BeginnerTriathlete site, because he said he’d be wearing a BT shirt. Sure enough, he was. I went over and talked with him and his friends for quite a long time. We wondered where firefighter5765 was, whose name was Andrew. Just then, we saw a guy sprint across the finish line, and the announcer called out “and here comes Andrew from Kannapolis…”. We figured that was him, so we walked over there to congratulate him, and we chatted some more. What a great bunch of folks over at BT! I’m glad I rediscovered it.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

Stomach cramps. I could have maybe gone harder on the bike.

Event comments:

This was a tough, challenging course. I loved it!

Nutrition and Hydration

I used this race to test my Duke 1/2 nutrition and hydration strategy. It was almost perfect today. I ate more than usual the day before the race. About 800 calories over normal. That was good, except I ate dinner too late, at 7:30 pm. That made it hard to eat my pre-race meal. Here’s an outline

Nutrition:

• 3 hours before race: peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a big white pita bread (the pita alone was 220 calories). Because I had eaten dinner so late, I wasn’t at all hungry. I forced myself to eat the sandwich anyway, but only could eat half of it.
• 45 minutes before:Gu
• Right Before: Gu
• T1:Boost. Go easy on bike for 20 minutes to let this settle. I ended up starting to go hard after 12 minutes, which then caused my stomach to cramp!
• Every 30 minutes on bike: Gu
• T2: Boost (skipped this due to stomach cramp)
• Every 30 minutes on run: Gu, last one Expresso flavor with 2x caffeine

Hydration:

• 20 ounces of water in my aero bottle with 1/2 NUUN tablet
• 20 ounces of water in my bike cage with 1/2 NUUN tablet, to refill aero bottle
• 1/2 spare NUUN tablet wrapped in plastic taped to my aerobottle, in case I need more water at the hand-off (I did take another bottle at the hand off, but never used it).
• 20 ounces of water with 1/2 NUUN tablet in my palm holder.
• Carried a tube of NUUN with tablets already split in half in my left hand, in case I needed to refill water on the run. (I never did, which was good, because I didn’t spend any time at aid stations. Luckily, not a hot day!
• One last note – I liked carrying the NUUN in my left hand. At one point, I stuck it down my bra. But then my left hand started doing that crazy flip thing, so I put the NUUN back into it. Definitely helps me to hold something in my left hand

Conclusion: For the Duke 1/2 iron, I will eat dinner at 4:30. That will give me time to fully digest that meal. Then I’ll be able to eat that PB and J sandwich easier, and maybe even eat the whole thing. I will definitely take a Boost during T1 and T2 for the 1/2. And I will definitely go easy for a full 20 minutes on the bike, and also the first 10 minutes on the run.

For an olympic, I think probably Boost is overkill, and the Gu is plenty.

Update after Duke 1/2: this nutrition strategy worked great for the Duke 1/2 race. The only thing was that during the run it was soooo hot, and I had to refill my palm holder water bottle alot, and it was a pain getting the NUUN tablets into it. Need to practice that little task!

Things I Learned

• Don’t do the flying mount unless there’s plenty of flat road for coasting while clipping shoes in.
• Eat an early dinner the night before a race, at 4:30 pm. That gives your tummy time to settle
• Coasting down hills in a tight aero postion is just as fast as pedaling down, yet the rest you get allows you to have more energy for the next climb – this is just awesome, awesome to the max!
• Electrolytes are critical to race performance. 1/2 NUUN per 20 ounces of water, plus the Gu seems right for me.
• The Chi Running uphill strategy really works! Back when I was trying out the Chi Running, I had abandoned it because it made my knees hurt. So, be careful with this, i.e., ease into it gradually. I may only use it for races, not sure yet.
• It IS worth sacrificing a little time on the bike, so you have more in you for the run.
• Use my fuel box for Gus, rather than chance them not sticking to my top tube. I don’t think it would hurt my aerodyanmics to have that strapped onto my top tube, especially since sits behind my aerobottle anyway.
• It definitely pays NOT to look at my time during the run. I can just relax and focus and do my best
• Add flashlight to my race checklist!

Revelation

As I wrote this race report, it dawned on me that I was one of the really fast chicks in my age group at this race. 🙂

If you read my race report this far, THANK YOU! Also, Check out the Race Photos!