People talk about feeling ‘different’ for tapering, and my taper was bad. While I was cutting training volume (but not raising intensity), my hamstrings were tight and sore. Mentally, I was burnt out after months of training; I was so ready to race and get it over with!! Somebody mentioned that I may have peaked too early. Whatever the case was, that was going on for about 2 weeks before the race.
I am the type that would get super nervous and excited about races, so I tried to minimize the time being at the race venue before the race. We drove up on Friday, had a packed schedule, which helped me to keep my mind busy. Checked in, meet up with friends and cycle U, then attended the welcome ceremony and the mandatory meeting, fun and busy day!
While I was packing, I decided to put my heart rate monitor in T1 bag, instead of wearing it to the start, which I normally do. I am not sure if it has any significant to my race, but something ‘new’ that I did for the race. More about this in T1 below.
Also, lesson learned from last year. Last year, I was so nervous the day before the race, I also told myself I couldn’t go sleep in the afternoon because I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. Big mistake! I ended up not getting any sleep at all.
This year, I took a nap here and there, stayed relax on Saturday and I actually had a good couple hours of sleep. I woke up around 1am, went back to sleep and had another 2~3 ok hours of sleep.
Race Morning
Again, I tried to minimize idle time but I woke up a bit too early. However, it was relatively uneventful that everything went pretty smoothly. Checked in the specialty bags, took the shuttle bus to the lake, pumped tires, wiped the bikes, unwrapped all the food, eat, drink, switched to low gear, checked brakes, put on my wet suit and ready to go. Was going to take a look at my T1 bag, but I figured it was ready and I was running out of time, so didn’t do that. Managed to get a short ~5 min warm up and I was ready to go.
Swim
The swim was a floating start; I planned to start at the beach, or somewhere I didn’t have to tread water. But thanks to Moses, we swam out and started by the start-line. It was a good decision because treading water wasn’t that bad at all, and there was a lot more space than expected, a lot of people did start on the beach. I was relatively calm and not nervous before the start.
My main goal for all swims is to stay calm, get into a pace and just keep on moving forward, which I did. I used to swim all over the place due to bad sighting, looking at the GPS data, seems like I did good this time, but I still ended up swimming ~2.6 miles I swam the whole thing relatively on course, I didn’t get punched or kicked or anything, I had a good swim! I am happy with my swim.
Note: The only bad thing was foggy goggle; I did stop couple times at the beginning and tried to clear it up. But then I gave up, it just kept on happening. I still yet to find a solution for this problem.
Garmin: 1:31:13 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/366331198
Official: 1:31:12
Last year CDA: 1:38:49
T1
I got out of water quickly, I was running to the wetsuit stripper and they were amazing! Saw Mandy and Elly, thanks for the cheering and volunteering, I got too excited and ran pass my T1 bag, probably lost some time there. Went in the tent, stayed calm (my memory from last year was ‘war zone’ and ‘panic’). It was busy, packed; I just keep moving forward and found a chair. Tried to stay relaxed and do my own stuff. Out of the tent and went to the rack, and my bike is lonely there, it was the ONLY BIKE at the rack! Depressing…Oh well… Not a great transition, but it’s ok.
I decided not to put on my heart rate monitor strap, I knew that I won’t be looking at HR during the race, and it would be too much work (time) to put it on in T1, so I decided not to use it.
Note: Practice transition! Don’t sit, there’s no need to sit. And practice to use your watch. At one point I looked at my watch and I thought I stopped it but it wasn’t, so I was wasting time worrying about the watch instead of the race. Again, practice everything for transition.
Garmin: 5:53 (probably I paused it for a bit) http://connect.garmin.com/activity/366331201
Official: 6:14
Last year CDA: 8:15
Bike
With last year’s experience, and also everything I read and heard about the bike course, or just ironman bike leg in general, I was going to be patient and held back most of the bike if not all of the bike leg so that I can run afterwards. My strategy was to find a comfortable pace, then just stick to it, or even switch to one lower gear. However, when it came with all the spectator, flats, down hills, it was tempting to go faster.
I brought two bottles of carbo-pro (8 scopes) + 2 nuun, one more bottle at specialty bag. Eating jelly bean and honey stinger waffles throughout the course, have no issue at all. Saw Mabel and Moses’ family heading back to Whistler; it is always great to have that!
Everything was working well until mile ~90, that’s when I rode back from Permerton to Whistler, got hit with the heat and the wall! ALL my legs muscle started to cramp up, I had the dilemma because I was having so much pain that I couldn’t pedal any harder (I was at my lowest gear for the last ~20 miles), at the same time I couldn’t stop moving neither, I basically had to find my ‘sweet spot’ so that cramping/pain is kept at its minimal, at the same time I could keep moving forward. GPS data shows that my speed basically average ~20mph for the first 90 miles then it drop to like 10mph. At one point I rode 35 minutes for 5 miles!!! (painful! Mostly mental and disappointed) And I had to stop twice with so much pain, with the intention to stretch my muscle but getting stuck with the bike standing by the side of the road because my quads and hamstrings were all cramping at the same time, so I just couldn’t bend my legs and stuck for a while. I drank lots of water, carbo-pro with nuun, salt pills, aleve, nothing seemed to work, and I pretty much had to deal with that for the rest of the race.
Tough bike course to say the least, could’ve been better, but it is what it is and I kept moving forward.
Note: started having minor cramps at mile 10. Still a mystery why this is happening, I only have had this 3 times, once during CDA last year, second time during Victoria HIM this year, and this was the third time. I think a high intensity swim before the bike is causing it. Never happen in training.
Should find out what is causing it.
Garmin: 6:31:07 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/366331202
Official: 6:31:13
Last year CDA: 6:51:43
T2
Got off the bike, limping through transition. T2 was uneventful. There was a lot of space when I got there. Everything went smoothly as expected.
Note: again, practice transition. Don’t need to sit just because there are chairs lying around. I should just keep moving.
Run
Right out of transition I was taking in all the energy from all the cheering, people were yelling “go Bruce!”, “Good job Bruce!”, I started to look around thinking maybe Mable, cycle U people, or friends are there, then I kept on hearing people cheering for me but I don’t see anybody!?!? Then I realized that my name was on the bib, lol… silly me.
Run was painful to start. I had to walk a lot so that I could keep moving; I made agreement with myself that I can only walk for a certain ratio, like .05 miles, then run for the rest of each mile. My cramping/pain would build up when I run, and I was basically finding my redline and tried to find that sweet spot where I could keep moving/running without stopping. Basically do that for the rest of the race but then the ratio kept getting bigger. I knew that stopping wasn’t an option, and I was consistently monitoring my watch to check my progress. I had a goal to finish before sun set, but my mistake was, I didn’t check what time is sun set! Haha..
I kept moving forward and used all the cheering as my energy that pushed me forward. Heading back to village and I asked one of the volunteers how far am I? he said 500 meter!!!! So I picked my pace way up and after couple turns I realized that he lied to me! Haha… but it’s all good, that helped me quite a bit at that moment.
I love the final stretch which is down hill, and the set up let many people to cheer. Love the finish, love the energy and there’s still day light!
Garmin: 5:09:33 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/366331213
Official: 5:09:29
Last year CDA: 5:41:49
I wonder if the crazy cramping didn’t happen, or wasn’t as bad, how would I do. I am happy with my time, great venue, great energy, great course. Did better across the board in all legs, I am happy with my race.
2013 Whistler 13:23:40
2012 CDA 15:09:56
