Preparation
Last race was on Aug 1st, so over a month out, giving me plenty of time for 1 week of recovery, a block of 3 weeks of hard training and taper into this race.
That was the theory ... in reality I barely had 1.5 weeks of decent training right before the race. After the rest week from the previous race I started cycling again, and quickly the same cramps as during the past races popped up in my right anterior tibialis muscle. But this time at such a level I was unable to lift my foot coming of the bike. After giving it a week of additional rest with only light spins it still didn't get any better. Apparently I had an inflammation on the muscle, so had to take anti inflammatory pills and rest for a week, only allowed to swim with a pull buoy. During the forced rest I visited my physio to find a solution to lower the tension in this muscle on the bike, so he moved the cleats back a little. That was already 3 weeks gone, leaving me with just a little less than 2 weeks before the race, talking about a perfect race prep!
So I went into the race with little expectations, especially on the run as overall I hadn't had much run volume this year. Online I found some race reports, mostly of the full distance though, and some videos on YouTube giving me an idea about the race.
Location
Picked this race in the beginning of the year because it's less than 3 hours driving away and it fitted in my race schedule.
Registration, swim, T1/T2 and finish line are all located at the promenade in Almere Stad. So from a logistics point of view this race is very easy. The swim is a one loop in Weerwater which is an artificial lake, so no current whatsoever. The bike course was a flat one loop setup around the city of Almere Stad and the run course was a 3 loop setup around the Weerwater lake.
Stay
Drove up to Almere on Thursday, arrived around noon and managed to find some Italian restaurant in Almere Stad close to the race venue to get some pasta in. After showing my vaccination passport I was able to enter the race venue to get registered. The whole venue was well organized and I got registered in no time. I walked around the venue a bit to get familiar with the swim course, T1/T2, the changing tent etc. Then it was time to check into my hotel, as I booked really late my hotel was about 20 minutes driving from the race venue. I stayed at the Fletcher Nautisch Kwartier Hotel in Huizen, bit overpriced for what it is if you ask me. For the rest of the day I took the bike out for a short spin to see if everything was working fine, prepped my nutrition and the transition bags. As the race started at 10:30 I tried to be at the race venue around 8 am. After having breakfast I made sure the bike got checked in and transition bags were setup in the transition tent.
Swim 0:30:53 AG-1/60
- One loop, lake swim, setup. Not much wind on race day so not much chop, so almost felt like a huge swimming pool. Because of my left side breathing I love counter clockwise swim courses! So sighting was really easy for me avoiding swimming additional meters. The swim start used estimated swim time starting pens, I opted for the 30-34min pen. I didn't do a warm up run but didn't felt gassed during the initial part of the swim, right away I was able to get into a good rhythm. No problems with goggles leaking nor fogging up so that worked well this time! Tried to pay attention to my technique and started to pass people right away. Halfway I started to pass people from the first start pen, so I knew I was having a good swim. I don't believe anybody passed me on the entire swim so that's always a good feeling. Only after the last turning buoy it got a little crowded as I ran into some pink swim caps at that point, and swallowed quite a bit of water because of the chop / people crossing left and right but nothing to bad. Exiting the water I was happy when I saw 30 something minutes.
- 1st swim time in my AG, first time that happened to me, so really pleased with that.
T1 0:03:50
- No wetsuit strippers in this race, but didn't had to much issues taking the suit of. The run out of the transition tent to the bike is relatively long, but compared to the other T1 times in my AG I didn't do to bad. Might need to put my shoes on the bike to bring T1 times down, something to think of. I didn't use calf pressure socks this time, as I hadn't trained with them and wanted to avoid any additional strain on my calf / anterior tibialis muscles.
Bike 2:19:39 AG-6/60
- One loop pancake flat course setup, barely 31m of elevation, only factor taking into account is the wind, as most of the course is right next to the water it's open and unprotected from the wind. On race day there wasn't to much wind, so I never felt unsafe with a 90 on the front. Between 20 and 40k we had wind in the back and were moving really fast.
- The first 10k or so was all about trying to get my heart rate down, just trying to stay relaxed, so the power numbers there weren't great. Some athletes passed me, with people drafting horribly of each other but I just tried to stay clear from them and stay relaxed. After a while my heart rate was more or less where I wanted it to be and I started to catch up to people. I closed the gap to one of the athletes that I noticed drafting earlier and he was still doing the same. After a while however he wasn't able to stay with the athlete in front of him. I didn't want to give him even a second of draft on my wheel, so I surged passed him making sure he didn't get into my wheel. From that moment on I sat in out of the drafting zone of the athlete in front of me, as he was keeping a good pace which corresponded as well with my target power numbers. On a left hand turn however he crashed on some wet strip on the road, luckily he looked fine and got up right away. I managed to go around him but it meant from then onwards I didn't have somebody setting the pace in front of me and just focused on my power output while picking up athletes one by one. After about an hour I started to feel flat, it really surprised me because I was sticking around 250W and in training I had pushed 3x20@270 or higher without to much problems. I don't believe it was a nutrition issue neither because I had followed my plan so far, but just in case I took in an additional gel to get some extra fuel in the system. It didn't got any better, I just had a hard time pushing 250W, which normally shouldn't be a problem, especially not this early in the race. My heart rate wasn't going through the roof neither, I just felt flat. So the section where we had head wind didn't feel pleasant at all, to be honest anything after the 1h ish mark didn't feel pleasant, even near the end where we had wind in the back didn't really felt like a relief. From time to time I felt my left calf twitching up which did concern me because I had injuries in that calf last year that got me sidelined for months. But after a while it seemed to fade away. Positive news was that I never felt the cramping in my anterior tibialis muscles, so adjusting the cleat position seems to have resolved that issue. The last 5k or so I gave my legs some relieve as I really felt without any gas in the tank. At that point I felt totally flat and was thinking about calling it a day in T2.
- AG 10%, averaging 38.6km/h, so actually not as bad as it felt while being on the bike. NP of 227W while I was aiming for 240-250, so disappointed with that.
- Never on the entire course did I feel unsafe, big shout out to the organization!
T2 0:03:56
- No cramping at all jumping of the bike, for the 3rd race in a row, so guess the new bike and its fit are doing their job. Racking my bike I was still thinking about not doing the run and calling it a day. But well ... shuffled through T2, put my running shoes on and of I went anyway.
- Laced running shoes as I try to keep my feet steady in the shoes to help prevent my running injuries, will always be slightly slower than elastic laces in T2.
Run 1:53:38 AG-38/60
- 3 loop setup around the lake, relatively flat with only 53m of elevation.
- Looks like this bike always makes me run "fast" the first k of the run 😆. But looking back at the splits it went downhill from there really quick. Never felt like I could push it and in the first lap I felt one tiny twitch in my left calf so didn't wanne risk trying to push it anyway, scared to strain / tear something yet again. Looking back at my heart rate during the run it's clear I never really pushed it. Just felt flat like on the bike. The last lap was really painful, a little over 18k my hamstrings cramped up forcing me to walk a bit. The last 1.5k I was finally able again to jog a little to the finish line.
- AG 63% is just bad, but expected because of the lack of run training due to injuries.
Overall 4:51:55 AG-13/60
- Very happy with the swim as I got the fastest swim time in my AG, not happy with my bike as I felt flat after barely one hour at 250ish W, surprised I still got away with the 6th AG bike split. Then the run ... well I knew the run was going to suck and be painful as I just couldn't put in the training you need to run at a decent level whole year round so no surprise there, just glad I didn't got injured to be honest.
- Aftermath: The night after the race I started to get really really sick, including diarrhea and vomiting for hours. Still not sure what caused it, was I stick going into the race? Did I get something in my system during the swim? Did I ate to much right after the race? Hard to tell but I hadn't slept wel the last couple of nights before the race, so there might have been something lingering in my body. It might as well explain why my heart rate took so long to drop on the first part of the bike and I felt already spend after an hour on the bike at a power level I can normally sustain for way longer than one hour. During the run I was feeling cold while the athletes around me were complaining that it was so hot, so maybe that's an indication as well something was wrong 😅.
- As a reminder how much it hurts to run a half marathon when you are totally out of running shape: painful finish line pics 😆
Some lessons learned
- Anti fog marker and different method to put my goggles on seems to work in training and under race conditions.
- This was one of the best organized races I have done so far, especially the post race part (showers / buffet).
- Would love to do this race again! Loved the venue, swim course, bike course and run course. Hopefully I get a chance to go back and try to beat my own time.
Result
- Swim 0:30:53 AG-1/60
- T1 0:03:50
- Bike 2:19:39 AG-6/60
- T2 0:03:56
- Run 1:53:38 AG-38/60
- Total 4:51:55 AG-13/60
Tags: Challenge Almere-Amsterdam race report, race report Challenge Almere-Amsterdam, Challenge Almere-Amsterdam 70.3 race report
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