Preparation
For this race I worked with Jamey Yon from TRiYON Performance who provided me with an individual training schedule and advice. Going into race week I felt in better shape than for any race before.As always I had some minor injuries during the weeks leading up to the race, some irritated tendon on the bottom on my foot, some iritated tendon on the top of my foot and some pain on the outside of my knee. All these minor injuries messed up my running training a little, so I was unable to get all the run mileage in as scheduled.
Over summer I had a bike fitting done at InsideOutSports in Charlotte, hoping it would improve my position and efficiency on the bike and save my legs a little for the run.
I read some race reports to get an idea about the race in past years, they basically all said the same: super flat and fast on the bike with possibly some strong winds, a quick swim and a quick flat run.
So basically I headed into the race with the goal of beating my PR. (once again as I had failed to beat my PR for 3 races in a row!)
Location
Selected the Wilmington race because its pretty close for me, less than 4 hours driving. Being it close to the sea as well made it interesting to visit as it had been a while that we had seen the ocean. Being able to complete the North Carolina challenge as well was a factor (completing both Ragleigh 70.3 and North Carolina 70.3 in the same year) There is as well a must see in Wilmington, the North Carolina WWII battleship.
This is a point to point swim, point to point bike course and a one loop run course. So logistically it is not the easiest one. Swim start is located at Wrightsville Beach, T1 is located at Wrightsville Beach Park, T2 is at the base of Harnett street in the center of Wilmington, finish line is one block away from the Wilmington convention center.
Stay
We were hoping to stay at a hotel really close to the convention center, but as we were really late in booking a hotel room they were all fully booked already. Another host hotel however, the Comfort Inn had still rooms available, as it was located about midway between the finish line and the swim start, and had an Olive Garden close by we opted for that one. It turned out to be a really good choice, both convention center and T1 were like 15 minutes or less away from the hotel by car.As race day was on Saturday this time we drove to Wilmington on Thursday morning after I had gotten my last short training in, arriving just on time for the first mandatory athlete briefing. Having completed the check-in and after a short recon of the finish line and T2 area we headed to the hotel and Olive Garden to get some pasta.
Friday was gear bag and bike drop of day. Pleasant surprise was that the breakfast in the hotel was better than expected, so no need to head to IHOP. We headed to the convention center to get my bike gears checked as I didn't feel 100% comfortable with how they felt. Unpleasant surprise was that even for a less than 5 minute rear derailleur tuning they still charged like 20 dollars. During IM70.3 races in Mexico, if you stay in one of the host hotels they have a mechanic on side to help you with things like that and they might just charge you a symbolic 5 dollars. Drop offs went smooth, was pleased to see that both in T1 and T2 my rack positions were great, no hard time at all finding it or remembering where it was for race day. Having done the drop offs we drove around a bit in Wrightsville Beach, enjoying the view and stopped to wet our feet in the ocean. To wrap the day up we headed back to Olive Garden and grocery store to pick up some bagels and bananas for race day morning.
On race morning we woke up at 3:00 AM, had my big breakfast of 2 bagels with honey, 2 eggs, a banana and some light Gatorade. Headed to the Hilton hotel close to the convention center where the shuttle took me to T1, from there other shuttles took us to the swim start. I was lucky this time that my AG started in the first swim wave, so no extreme long wait for me.
Swim 0:26:09 AG-11/100
- I looked at the swim course multiple times in the athlete guide as it is not a normal triangle or square, but a point to point course, and still once in the water it looked totally different. More than once I had to sight heavily to know in what direction to head. It is a salt water canal swim and wet suit legal, so bound to be pretty fast, additionally the tide was pushing as well, so I was expecting a fast time, even more so as I had trained quite a lot on my swim.
- I didn't really had a real warm up, so took the first few minutes in the water to get warmed up. Directly when starting the swim you could feel the salt water, wet suit and current helping a lot during the swim. Tried to swim technically all the way through and didn't feel like going into red zone at any moment, near the end I was even able to pick the speed up a little and pass some more athletes. Almost at the end some athlete thought it was a good idea to start grabbing my ankles, if you touch my feet a few time during a swim I don't have a problem with that as visibility can be pretty bad during open water swims, but grabbing my ankles multiple times? no way! so I handed him some strong kicks to get rid of him. A little later someone tried to swim right over me while there was plenty of space all around us to pass, not sure if it was the same a** but we exchanged some punches, first time I ever had all of this going on during a swim! Water exit went pretty smooth as there were plenty of ladders to climb out of the water. Normally I get out of the water like in the middle of the pack, so pleased to know I got out of the water 11th out of 100.
T1 0:04:56
- This was a very long run out of the water to the bike, felt like my heart rate was killing me. During this run I took the time to take the wet suit of till my waist so just had to strip it from my legs at my bike. Took the time to put on my pressure calve sleeves and of to my favorite part of the Tri. Rack spot was right at the T1 exit so didn't had to run far with my bike, loved that.
Bike 2:26:28 AG-11/100
- Beforehand I had heard / read that the bike course was really flat and fast, but could have some strong wind. Flat, fast and enormously boring describes it perfectly. It was basically a long way out on a highway and then all the way back.
- During T1 some athletes passed me as I took my time to get through T1, think I passed them all within a few minutes on the bike though. I directly felt pretty good and got into a good pace right away. There are 2 bridges with some metal work that you both pass twice, do take caution when you pass those as they are tricky. As my AG wave started first in the swim there was almost nobody around on the bike course. For most of the time there was nobody in front or behind me for as far as I could see. So no target to aim for, together with the flat course and being just straight on a highway it made it extremely boring so was happy to get to T2! Right before getting to T2 there is one steep bridge, that is about the only part of the bike that hurts, especially as its at mile 53 or so. This was my 5th IM70.3 and I think the first time I didn't feel safe during the bike course, as you basically share a highway with traffic that goes at their normal speed. My last IM70.3 I had done about 2h29min on a hilly course so my time of 2h26min was ok but not a huge improvement as this was an all out flat and fast course. I held on to my 11th place from exiting the water on the bike, where normally I make up a lot of positions on the bike.
- For nutrition I had 3 bottles of Gatorade Endurance with 2 packages of Gatorlytes spread out over the 3 bottles. I took 1 GU a few minutes in the bike, another one after 1 hour and the 3rd and last one at 1h45min, together with the last GU I took an amino acid as well.
T2 0:02:38
- Rack position was great, almost right at the arch so didn't had to run far with the bike nor count any racks. Transition went smooth, stopped at the sun blocker table to get neck and shoulders covered, took probably less then 20 seconds anyway. Had moved back to normal laces, might move back to elastic laces though, just to avoid being worried on the run that my laces would untie.
Run 1:56:04 AG-37/100
- One single loop here, through downtown Wilmington and around Greenfield Lake, once you get to the Lake the run is pretty shaded which does help. Overall a relatively flat course.
- As I always cramp up almost immediately when starting to run I had added Gatorlytes on the bike so was hoping for the best this time. I felt great right out of T2, legs felt good. Started with Base salt and Gatorade right away in the hope of keeping the cramps at bay. About half a mile into the run however I already felt that I couldn't push at all or I would cramp up, which I wanted to avoid at any cost. So I kept going at a pretty low pace hoping it would get better over time. As always people were passing me on the run, but I tried to keep my own low pace, as I knew that once I cramp up it would go even slower. At about half way I thought I had picked up the pace a bit, but splits don't seem to show that. Last like 3 miles I really started to feel without energy and dragged myself to the finish line, about half a mile out I had to do a sidestep as there was some bad pavement that triggered my whole right leg to cramp up so I stood there for a while before I could start again and make it to the finish line. In all my previous IM70.3 races my runs were over 2 hours and with a lot of cramps so in the end still relatively happy with my run as I didn't totally cramped up and made it within 2 hours. I dropped from place 11 to 21 on the run but still, I wasn't racing them but myself so all good.
- Nutrition: about every 15 minutes I licked some Base salt, took 3 GUs spread out over the run and drank a Gatorade at each aid station, additionally took 1 amino acid about 1 hour into the run.
Overall 4:56:13 AG-21/100
- I didn't had an idea of my swim or total finish time when I got to the finish line, I knew that I had done the bike in under 2.5 hours and the run under 2 hours so I was pretty happy with that as other races my run was always over 2 hours. And compared to other races I didn't had nearly as much cramping issues on the run.
- Afterwards learning that I had a PR on all of the 3 legs gave me a great feeling. If I hadn't cramped up on the last half mile on the run I would even have finished within the first 20 athletes of my AG! My goal was 5.5 hours, I have beaten that big time so pretty happy that all the training paid of! So will be aiming for position 15-20 for my next one.
Some lessons learned
- Nutrition plan of adding Gatorlytes and Base Salt worked for this weather, in future take in some Coke during the 2nd part of the run for fast sugars.
- Read up on saving quads during bike course for the run course, maybe get a second opinion on bike fitting to help with this, or bite the bullet and finally buy a real Tri bike?
- Having a rental car was a huge plus for us because of T1 and T2 being like 20 minutes apart
- Great race if you want to break your PR, very boring bike course though, so doubt I will repeat this one, never know though.
Result
- Swim 0:26:09 AG-11/100
- T1 0:04:56
- Bike 2:26:28 AG-11/100
- T2 0:02:38
- Run 1:56:04 AG-37/100
- Total 4:56:13 AG-21/100
Tags: HIM North Carolina race report, race report HIM North Carolina, 70.3 North Carolina race report, race report 70.3 North Carolina, Ironman 70.3 North Carolina race report, race report Ironman 70.3 North Carolina
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