Ironman Canada - Whistler, BC August 25th 2013

Ironman Canada - Whistler, BC 

Yup - it went well, as in really really well. <brag> I finished IMC in 9h 39min and 17sec, KQ, 4th place in my AG, 24th overall including the Pro field, which leaves me as 10th amateur overall if I did the math right. That's an IM PR on a course that Matthew Russell called the hardest Ironman course he had ever ridden. </brag> Mission iSUB9 is still out there - but not on this course and in this year.

2013 has been an interesting season. Moving from SF to NYC, living out of a suitcase, hip injury, lack of decent outdoor rides, no +M2 Revolution, arrival of the +CycleOps 400 indoor trainer, buying an apartment, running 57 times around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis reservoir in Central Park, Rev3 Quassy, 3rd AG IM 70.3 Syracuse and finally sharing life full-time with +Nicole Dubois - the year had it all so far.


Whistler is a perfect venue. An abundance of housing options, restaurants, parking, etc combined with people that live the outdoors day in and out makes for a great race. I saw equal amounts of high end mountain bikes as I saw pimped TT bikes. On the run there was a section where folks were riding a terrain bike on BMX and MTBs. Good choice!

But let's cut to the chase:

Race Day..::..Pre:
3.45AM Alarm. Good night sleep comes to an end. Coffee, recommended by doctors worldwide for breakfast followed by a plain 'kaiser' roll (pun intended) and some nuts. 4.45AM wake up Nicole and get ready to drive the 5min to Whistler for the shuttles. 

Athletes were allowed to take the shuttles, while poor spectators had to walk 45min to the swim start (room for improvement). iPod on - focus on. I arrived in T1 and all that was left to do was pump up the tires (CA_EN tyres) and get in line for the Port-a-John's (where did that name come from?). 
There weren't enough - as usual.

But the lake was amazing. So clear, perfect temperature, beautiful setting:

Photo credit +Nicole Dubois 

Race Day..::..Swim:

Despite my best effort to improve my swimming time, I didn't. Oh that is so frustrating! Argghhh! 

OK, otherwise uneventful, although I thought it was pretty crowded for almost the entire first loop. <opinion>I am still a HUGE fan of the mass start. It's part of the game. SwimSmart may comfort people, but I am going to predict that it won't save lives. The number of events is far too small to draw any meaningful conclusion on that. Numbered buoys, etc. are all good and welcome, it makes sense, but keep the mass start.</opinion>

Race Day..::..Bike:

The bike was a lot of fun, mainly because I was able to make up lost ground. After looking for my bike in the wrong aisle in T1 I quickly caught up with Jessica Yin, who eventually came in 4th in her AG and scored a Kona slot!). From there it is a net downhill to the bottom of the climb up to Olympic Park where they held the Nordic events, which is a ~6 mile climb. Gary Rafferty was looking good on this climb. I truly enjoyed the climb and the vistas of the Olympic structures - so inspiring. 

Best cheering squad

Superfast descent back to HWY99 and stepwise climb back up to Whistler for some cheers by the many spectators, the blue people and +Nicole Dubois.

After Whistler you have an 'endless' downhill - I almost couldn't believe how far it stretched. It's crazy long and you know that you have to come back up. Partly worried - partly excited I plotted the day ahead and concluded that this will play out well for me. Knowing that I am good climber, the only thing that I was missing right now were an extra 10lbs for the downhill!

Town of Pemberton was very lively and lined with spectators. What follows though is the dark spot of the course. A long ~20 mile Florida-Flat out and back. Me and 2 other guys in my AG were clearly working legally on this until we got gobbled up by this massive draft pack. This was TdF style peloton riding. I tried 3 times to break out in the front, only to be out-sprinted by someone who then would sit in front of me at a slower pace. Oh this was so frustrating. I almost lost my race MoJo. I know part of the problem was the course design, but a lot of people took advantage of it. 

My solution was to sit in the back, a good 10m behind the last person, and try to not get a penalty. Did I benefit? I don't know. I know that I was capable of riding faster than most of the people (since I passed at least 5 of them earlier when riding solo), but I was now also saving energy. On the flip side, my HR dropped and I lost focus. In the end this was the decision I made to come to peace with the situation, I figured that I would roll up the field on the climb back to Whistler. Comparatively speaking I also wasn't taking advantage of the pack with a clear separation between me and them (Kudo's to pro female ahead of me who did the same). The frustration was fueled by poor marshaling - the penalty tents were empty. 

But now back to the course, uphill for a solid hour+ or so and breaking clear of the pack within 10 minutes. Sad/funny that now we had a referee handing out draft penalties on the uphill! Naturally the same guys I was riding in close vicinity earlier where now back together - justice after all.

I really wanted to break 5 hrs on the bike, but it didn't happen on Sunday. Maybe it would have worked without the flat out-and-back in Pemberton, but who knows. In the end, this was a super split and poised me to do well on the run.

Race Day..::..Run:

Swift transition into the running shoes and out on the run. 2 loops of mixed paved valley path and gravel. Very windy and partially shaded. An excellent run course. After St.George my definite favorite. Great job organizers. I struggled on the first lap and lost about 3x2 min having to stop at the bathrooms. Very frustrating. So I ended up passing the same guys 3 times, I wonder what they thought. It was fun with the out and backs to see the Pros, as well as the crew: Jessica, Gary, Adam and Jason.

Lap 2 was fantastic. I wasn't running nearly the pace I intended to run, but I clearly budgeted my effort well as I was passing people all the time. Of course some just came off the bike and were on lap 1, but at the turn around I got a good look at the folks in my AG. I hadn't figured all of them out, but had a pretty good idea who is in my AG and where they are. 

The turn-around really marked the beginning of the best racing I have done so far I think. I was running a good clip and just on the edge of going too fast. This is the first IM where I didn't drop my HR towards the end. Slamming coke I was able to pass even the guy that I thought I could never pass - and unlike other times I passed people I must have done it with such dominance that none responded. 

That put me on the final mile well clear of the next competitor and only 30s behind #3 (which of course I didn't realize). I was able to enjoy the finish line, greeting people, smiling, stopping for +Nicole Dubois and finally doing a silly move across the line. 

Still featuring Pro Time

Race Day..::..After:
Very excited about my performance and the outstanding results from my fellow +M2 Revolution team mates:

Jessica - going to Kona
Gary - IM with a newborn!
Adam - first timer
Jason - looked strong on the run
Walter Lee - last official finisher

You rocked it, eh!

Doing a practice swim

Wildflower 2012 - Race Mojo :-)

This last weekend (May 5th/6th) I've been down at the 30th Wildflower Triathlon Festival at Lake San Antonio, near King City. 2 years ago I did my first half Ironman there in preparation for IM Switzerland. The next 2 years were just a bliss, with a sub 10h Ironman, a Kona slot, Kona and 2 AG 1st's last year. Some of you may have noticed that I was struggling to find the right kind of motivation for 2012. And after a disappointing sub-par performance at the Metro Duathlon some 2 weeks ago I had real issues getting pumped for this one. But I am happy to report that the tides have turned after this amazing race. So let's roll!

View of the lake with Olympic Distance race in progress

Brett and I drove down Friday afternoon, stopping to pick-up pre-ordered food at Olive Garden - genius! All went well with packet pick-up, pitching tent's, etc. It was quite nice to have GGTC and SFTri clubs right next to each other, good set-up. I did go to bed around 9.30, but somehow slept terrible - which lately always happens when I don't care too much about the race (oddly enough). 

Transition Area

Ah what am I boring you with my pre-race routine, let's just say all went well and at 8.30AM the horn blew for my wave start. First Triathlon swim of 2012 - let's see if all this time in the pool paid off. The lake was really nice and warm, a tad too warm for me even. And there it happened again, few hundred yards in I find myself questioning the whole Tri-thing and nothing I can think off get's the dark picture out of my mind. Yet given the options, I decided to continue. Stoked to come out of the water with the race clock under 1 hour, ie sub 30min swim for Stefan (for all of you that want to say that this was a fast swim - no it wasn't! It was the darn hours spent in the pool!!!!). This is where things really picked up for me and the good tri-vibes seem to come back after the big post 2011 nadir. 

Smooth transition onto the bike and out along the lake to go up the first big hill. Kaiser-style I motored up over it and out of the park. This was the one and only point where someone passed me all day on the bike, I tried to hang on, but quickly decided against it. So a lot is being said about these hills and how you should take them easy. I would disagree. I am not advocating to attack them (and I certainly would go at them differently on a training solo-bike ride), but let's face it, you need to put a good time in to be close to the top finishers. Enough said. The rest of the ride was a total blast, keeping food/fluids/HR/etc under control I was gobbling up people that started ahead of me at a constant pace. This is a tricky situation though as you feel so fast and you need to remind yourself constantly to ride aggressively to stay on pace. 'Nasty grade' comes and goes and I still haven't seen Brett, who I pictured either catching up to me before 'nasty grade' or not catching me during the bike. When I rolled down into transition I was shocked to see so few bikes back 'home'. Hummm, must have been a fast ride. Switch shoes, ready to run, out of T2. 

Felt good for the first couple of miles, although the downhill running already seemed to be incompatible with my legs. I really wanted to run a 7min/mile average, and held on to it until about mile 4, which harbors the big hill (really big hill). Wasn't too worried to go below that pace, since I figured I could make it up later. This is where I was passed by Kevin Coady, who just runs so amazingly fast (how?!?). Walking up the really big hill I passed to guys that said that 3rd place was just ahead. Darn - I knew it - he was the guy that I caught up to on the bike, until we jo-jo'd into transition (me-light-guy-uphill-fast <-> him-heavier-guy-downhill-bomb). I kept a constant distance until the wheels really fell off after the big descent at mile 6ish. Running through the campground I sucked no positive energy at all from the cheering crowd, it was pure pain. There were apparently people half-naked with beer and hotdogs, haven't seen anything. Finally mile 9 marks the turn into the pit, at the bottom of which, shortly after the turn-around I see Brett coasting down the hill yelling 'FINALLY'. I knew my day was doomed, but yet, somehow got a little bit of a push for the crawl out of 'the pit' and according to Brett actually pulled away on the flats. I felt like a carrot dangling in front of him, although he probably pictured a corn dog or something more substantial ;-) With about a mile to go, we enter the final stage, all downhill until the finish. I am running with everything I have - which looking at my watch was very little. I hear the tap-tap, tap-tap, and just shout out 'NOOOOO', turns out that's not Brett, it's Rich Viola, who just took 10mins out of me (how on earth can you swim so fast?!?), he asks if I am cramping - 'no' I say, just want to stay ahead ;-) But tap-tap, tap-tap again. Here he is, just yards behind me, the finish in sight, Brett catches up to me, we turn around <- no one in sight. ?Epic battle with potentially deadly outcome? Or just enjoy? We run side-by-side up until the finish line, where Brett takes the win he deserves, since he really slowed down to run with me for the final 200 yards. He was the stronger athlete and took 5th that day. Big congrats. That was the most fun racing I ever had. Beautiful!

Overall I am super happy with my result. Given the lack of focus, this turned out to be a great race. PR'd the course by almost 30mins compared to 2010. 6th AG, 23rd overall and 15th fastest bike split (courtesy of M2 and powercranks), outbiking my fellow team mates Brett and Virgilio (ups did I just say that). Now onto a revised training plan --> it's all downhill from here ;-)

Great weekend also for fellow athletes, Sandrine AG4th, Virgilio-Erika-Norman relay 2nd, etc ...

Brett and myself before the start of the race

Another beautiful morning in San Francisco - Air temperature 55F - Water ... about the same

M2 Group Aquatic Park Swim April 27th 2012

Just in time to get the Open Water Mojo for Wildflower a few of us M2 athletes gathered for quick AP swim this morning. 7AM and the sun just making up over the Berkley hills, we got ready with our usual routine of applying body glide, corking orifices and adding layers of neoprene. Mike started his ballet routine ...

Looking awfully good this morning (missing Kahn, shown later)

The water was colder than last week, but tolerable (OK it's cold, but hey, it's AP after all). Some of us ventured out to the opening and caught a glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge, while some stayed along the buoy line, all of which are acceptable options. Kahn and I had a quick wrestle - perfect preparation for wildflower ;-) ... but then he was gone ...

A quick 30-45mins later everyone was back on dry land ... some already dressed ... some never got wet ...

... while others had the technique for sand removal nailed:

Great fun it was. See you all and more next time as the M2 group practices mass starts, kicking and banging as well as drafting. Put Friday 7AM on your calendar for this summer.

Powercranks week 3 and beyond

I realize that I haven't been updating my progress with the Powercranks. Guess I shouldn't have promised weekly write-ups. As of today it's been around 6 weeks. Right after my last update on Dec.17th I left for a trip to Germany/Switzerland with about 2 more 2x20min indoor sessions. Before leaving I felt pretty confident using the cranks on early season group rides and I was looking forward taking them out for a spin in January. 

First ride in 2012: I went on group ride with the M2 training group. It was a decent paced group ride and either Christmas took its toll, or I wasn't ready for the pace ... after about 40 miles it HURT! I was trying to paceline with Dan to catch the other that left us at the pit stop, but I couldn't keep the pace. Riding home the last 15+ miles was SO HARD. Every stroke took a lot of mental focus and I was very close to lock the cranks. Of course that didn't happen. With that experience I continued my 2x20min indoor sessions during the week (twice a week)

Second ride 2012: M2 groupride again and I felt that I was mainly suffering from post holiday lack of fitness. This weekend we were up for a ~75miler through Sausalito, Fairfax, Pt.Ryes and back via HWY1. This time I felt great, we did several rounds of pacelining and I was able to go with the boys. Climbing back over Tam on the return hurt, but I was able to hold on. I am still not confident enough to get out of the saddle, especially in a group ride.

Looking ahead: I'll continue to use the cranks indoors twice a week for easy spins and I'll take them on more group rides. Let's see if they help improve ;-)

Here is another movie I found on youtube. Seems like a Swiss company picked up the concept as well and of course we trust the Swiss!