Ironman 70.3 Maastricht Race Report, The Netherlands, 1 Aug 2021

on

Preparation

I think this was the first time they organized a 70.3 version in Maastricht so I was unable to find any race reports to have an idea about how the race would go, I was able to do a course recce 2 weeks before the race but kept the pace really low so no idea about race split time.

Due to the cancellation of the race in Anhée I had 6 weeks between my last race and this race. Finally I was injury free and able to get a little more run training in. Although I only had 1 long run of 18 km leading into this race. Only drawback was that I received my 2nd shot of Covid-19 vaccine 4 days before the race. With muscle aches on Friday and stiffness on Saturday I wasn't really sure how my body would react on race day. 

Goals for this race were to swim around 1:35/100m, keep it steady around 270-280W and not blow up on the bike and a solid run without any walking or shuffling. 

Location

This race is less than 1 hour driving for me and it fitted in my schedule, so it was an easy pick. Normally the race finish etc. would be in the city center of Maastricht, but because of Covid-19 they moved the finish line and run course out of the city center to avoid big crowds. 


Swim start/finish and T1/T2 were located on the Meuse riverside at the Griendpark. Finish line was located at the Limburg Government buildings. So from a logistics point of view this race is very easy.

Because of the heavy rain/flooding's of the past weeks the river Meuse flow rate was still higher than usual, and on Saturday the decision was made to cancel the swim portion and replace it with a 5.3km run, so it would become a run - bike - run. One loop run, one loop bike and 2 loop run setup.

Stay

As the race venue was only one hour away, we didn't opt to stay close to the venue and just made the trip on race morning.

Run 0:21:03 AG-29/262

  • A simple out an back loop, with the turnaround point being a bridge, so only a little bit of elevation. 
  • As on Saturday my calve muscles felt really tight, I made sure to have a decent warm up. First athletes were set to start from 9 am onwards, with 4 athletes starting every 9 seconds. The line of athletes waiting at the starting line was huge! Because I didn't wanne ruin my warm up and stand in line for what could easily be 30 minutes and because I didn't want to be packed up with +2000 athletes still taking Covid-19 into consideration I went all the way to the back of the line. I passed time jogging around with a few pickups and in the end it was well passed 10 am when I finally started my race.
  • I didn't had a pace in mind for the 5 km run, just wanted to run by feel and feel comfortable. I felt pretty good right out of the gate but was still surprised by the pace at 1k being around 4:00. I didn't feel gassed so just kept the rhythm going and managed to make it to T1 without any issues. 

T1 0:02:08 

  • No struggling with a wetsuit in this transition, just pulling running shoes off and putting cycling shoes on. No issues at all in T1, actually as most of the bikes where gone already it was really easy to find my bike!

Bike 2:20:17 AG-13/262

  • One 90k loop, with 530 meters of climbing listed in the athlete guide although my bike computer only registered 488 meters. I was able to do a recce 2 weeks earlier so I more or less knew what was coming, a few climbs, nothing long but some are pretty steep. Some of the decents are pretty quick as well and the last 15ish kilometers are flat and fast. 
  • Because I started at the very back of the field I was picking off cyclists at a pretty high rate. The target was to keep power around 270-280W, so I did my best to keep my numbers in check. However with all the surging passing people and the climbs it took me about 45 minutes to get my heart rate down and finally settle down. On the flats I stayed around 270-280W and on the climbs I tried to stay below 320W.
  • Even with sticking to these numbers the first hour my tibialis anterior (the one on the outside of your shin bone) was cramping up, the only explanation I can come up with is that my cadence was way higher than I'm used to. Might be possible as I tried to keep a high cadence to save my legs. After a while I shifted up a little to lower the cadence and the cramps disappeared. 
  • After the last climb I really started to feel my quads, so instead of using the last stretch to speed up I used it to pull back a little and hopefully have something left for the run. I guess I need to lower my 270-280W target as my legs just cant seem to keep up with it. 
  • A drawback from starting so far back in the pack is that you have to pass tons of people, and every pass has a risk associated with it, I think I ended up beside the road three times because somebody tried to overtake somebody else just when I was overtaking them, although I yelled numerous times left before overtaking. Glad I have some decent bike handling skills due to my MTB background otherwise it could have ended up pretty bad, just feel lucky I didn't crash or puncture during those occasions. During one of the faster decents there were some people signaling and I thought they indicated a right turn, in the end it was a left turn and I almost crashed into the rider in front of me. As there was also an ambulance I think they were indicating somebody had crashed or so. When I passed the rider in front of me I apologized to him because I had almost taken him out. 
  • Nutrition plan: first 45min empty my aero bottle with a mix of water and 2 gels, from there onwards continue to drink from my front hydration system and have a gel + salt cap every 45min. Plan was to grab a bottle at the second aid station (km 68) to make sure I had enough fluids. I managed to grab the bottle I wanted, but it popped out a minute later while jumping over a curb. So fluid wise I only had the 2 bottles of iso in my hydration system and the aero bottle filled with water and 2gels. Maybe that is what caused the cramps in the later stage of the run or attributed to the dizziness. 
  • AG 5% is one of the better bike results I had so far and I didn't expect an average of 38.4km/h on this course. Mixed feelings as my legs were unable to cope with the target power numbers, which are based of 80% FTP (341W), so probably need to dial that back or train more!
  • NP of 255W is even a tad higher than my previous race while I wanted to keep this race more in check, I think I did a great job riding to my numbers after the first 45 minutes though. 

T2 0:02:35

  • Quads already felt hurt during the last stretch of the bike leg, so I was expecting the worst when jumping of the bike. Fortunately no cramps when running through T2. Picked up the bike bag, took cycling shoes off, running shoes and visor on and of I went. Still used normal shoe laces as I didn't want to take any risk of my feet slipping in my shoes taking all the running injuries I had the last couple of months into account.  

Run 1:53:09 AG-152/262

  • Out of T2 its about a 1.5ish km run to the 2 loop pancake flat run course. 2 aid stations on each loop, which seemed little, as the loop is probably a little short of 9km, so that's an aid station every 4.5ish km. 
  • Because of the out and back and 2 loop setup, it got pretty crowded on the run, at the aid stations it was tricky to even get one cup without running into other folks. I tried to grab at least 2 cups each aid station to get enough fluid in. 
  • Running out of T2 my quads hurt at every step, I thought they would cramp up any time, but fortunately they didn't and I tried to get into a rhythm. My watch didn't pick up a GPS signal so I didn't paid attention to the pace it was giving as it was a rough estimate. Running along with another athlete he told me we were running at 4:20 pace, which was actually faster than I was hoping for. After a while he ran a tad faster than felt comfortable to me and I didn't try to keep up. I hoped the pain in my quads would lower over time, but nope it stuck with me for the entire run. 
  • Looking back at the data in Strava it looks like my watch finally grabbed a GPS signal around 9km into the run where my pace was around 4:30, from there on it basically went downwards. The second lap felt horrible, near the turn around my body wanted to walk but I thought hell no I don't wanne walk, just suck it up. Maybe 1km after the turn around I started to feel dizzy and when I blinked my eyes it was all black, this didn't feel safe anymore so I gave in and started walking. After a while the dizziness went away so I started jogging again, but because I walked for a bit I started to cramp up almost immediately when trying to run again. So from there on it was jogging, cramping up, stopping, walking and trying to jog again till the finish line. During that last stretch it started to poor down and I took it as a welcome refreshment. I noticed that my watched stopped recording, but I didn't really care because I didn't even wanted to know my pace by then as it was horrible anyway. 
  • Looking back at my heart rate data, it looks like there was a brief spike around the time I started to feel dizzy and started to walk, so not sure what happened there. Actually over the course of the run my heart rate went down instead of climbing up. 
  • AG 58% and a 5:22 pace isn't anything to be proud of. Only positive thing is that I came out of the run without any injuries and my calves felt good all way through. 

Overall 4:39:10 AG-67/262

  • Overall not too happy nor disappointed with my race, like most of my races I just had to much fun on the bike to feel bad about it afterwards, but of course you pay the price for it on the run. Because of the still limited amount of running I was able to do this year I don't even know if a slower bike would have resulted in a great run. 
  • AG 25.6% isn't my worse nor best result, but certainly there was room for improvement today. 
  • Not sure if the dizziness / cramps were due to nutrition or still a result of the second doze of the Covid-19 vaccine from a few days earlier. 

Some lessons learned

  • Only using the front hydration system plus the aero bottle worked, just make sure you grab a bottle during the last aid station (and hold on to the bottle😁) to take in a little extra fluid, especially for a hot race. 
  • Try to start a run recording on my watch a few times on race morning and/or the days before in the hope it finds a satellite quicker during the race and sync up the watch on location through Garmin Connect to grab EPO/CPE data.
  • Great race to do again, hopefully with a swim in the Meuse river next time. I love the bike course as its challenging and has a little bit of everything with climbs, downhills and straights. Hopefully the run is again in downtown Maastricht next time, as this out and back course wasn't to interesting. The spectator support was amazing, although the run course was pulled out of the city center to avoid big crowds, there were still lots of people lined up along the course. Even on the bike course there were tons of people cheering us on, which always makes it more fun for the athletes.
  • Only negative/disappointed point for me was the recovery zone after the finish line, there was no shelter for the athletes and it was poring down, so it would have been great if they had setup some tents for possible rain cover. As well the recovery food available was one of the most limited from all the IM70.3 races I have done so far. 

Result

  • Run     0:21:03     AG-29/262
  • T1       0:02:08
  • Bike    2:20:17     AG-13/262
  • T2       0:02:35
  • Run     1:53:09     AG-152/262
  • Total   4:39:10     AG-67/262



Tags: IM70.3 Maastricht race report, Ironman 70.3 Maastricht race report, race report IM70.3 Maastricht race report

Comments

Post a Comment