Jeff's 2010 Heart of the Rockies Race Report

A great day at Heart of the Rockies for Jeff!!!

Saturday Pre-Race:
On Saturday afternoon we met up with Angie and the rest of the TriLife team for a pre-race workout. We spent the majority of our time working on open-water swimming tactics/techniques as well as our transition set-up, I found this to be very helpful. The workout was fun but more importantly, we were able to work out some kinks in the race plan for the following day, I definitely used what we covered in the race and found it saved me swim and transition time. Throughout the day I spent time reviewing my race goals and visualizing the race sequencing and any issues that might come up during the race.

My pre-race goals were as follows:
1. Have fun and work hard.
2. Practice nutrition/fueling for Calgary 70.3.
3. Improve upon last year’s time at this same race (27:53, 1:23:44, 45:03)

Sunday Pre-Race:
Arrived at 7am (8am race start) to set up the transition (using Angie’s tips), followed by a short warm-up run with Sebastian then off to the lake for a short warm-up in the water. Overall, I felt confident and ready for the race to begin.


Swim:
My original plan was to find Angie’s feet to see how that felt, however in the confusion of the race start I was unable to find her and was forced to swim solo. Eventually I found someone to follow (after a few elbow’s/punches to the head). I had no issues sighting (again using techniques that Angie reviewed with us the previous day) and felt strong in the water, I focused on “rolling my shoulders” with each stroke, and could have held the pace for longer (I think). When I exited the swim I was somewhat surprised by the clock as I swam 27 minutes at Wasa in June, overall I was very pleased with the start of the race, not to mention the swim workouts that Richelle has prescribed to me have definitely improved endurance ability! Swim time – 25:19

Transition #1:
Had trouble getting the wetsuit off my ankles, but other than that it went quickly (compared to Wasa), time was approx. 1:37 (which was counted as ‘bike time’). Rode sockless, no issues.

Bike:
Given the course profile (very hilly in both direction), my plan was to take advantage of the ‘downhill’ sections on the way to the turnaround and then do as best as I can on the return. I spent most of the ride in the aero position and was feeling good, unfortunately I ran out of Inifinit at the 20km mark of the race (I need to take more than 1 bottle next time). I knew I was going faster than last year and was pleased with what I was able to push, I was passing people and getting passed by about the same amount of people (whereas last year I only passed a handful of people on the entire ride). I tried to hold off Sebastian for as long as possible, as he is an extremely strong rider (and this gave me some good motivation), but he passed me at the 30km mark and was out of sight in a matter of minutes. At this point the bottle of Infinit that I took is feeling great (thank you Richelle!!) and I did not feel hungry or anything like that. Coming back into town I felt good and was anxious to start the run (as this is my favourite event). Bike Time – 1:19:44

Transition #2:
Was quick into transition, minor delay in getting my socks on for my running shoes (for the future need to look at sockless running shoes), time was approx 1min.

Run:
Similar to the bike course, the run course at Heart of the Rockies is very hilly (which works to my strengths), as mentioned before, I was happy to get running. Nutrition consisted of 1 Honey Stinger gel at the 2.5km mark of the run, I was also very thirsty and was taking 2 cups of water at each station, however I was pleased to experience no stomach issues with the Infinit off of the bike. As typical on most of my running races, I try to focus on how I am feeling and not necessarily my actual pace on the garmin, this way I can go as hard as possible without worrying about time. I felt great on the run (the program from Richelle has incorporated a lot of brick workouts which are great practice for race situations) and was not passed by a single runner whereas I was able to pass around 15 people, the run went very well and if I was going 100% I could have possibly pushed it a little faster (I wish the run was a little longer J). Run – 42:54


Overall Thoughts & Observations:
1. Had fun (well it is fun when the race is actually over!).
2. Need additional fuel for the bike, as I seemed to be very thirsty. Taking 1 gel at 2.5km worked well for the 10km race, for longer races I would plan on taking additional gels (at 8.5km and 15km’s).
3. All of my goals were accomplished, including improving significantly on last year’s times.
4. Special thank you to Coach Richelle as she has given me an aggressive program (since I joined Team TriLife 2 months ago) which has been pushing me in training, with the goal of getting me stronger for the races. I feel with her program that I have been improving in all aspects and thus giving me confidence for the upcoming race, bring on 70.3!
5. Areas to improve include working on my cycling ability, as this again held me back in the overall picture, but improving 4 minutes compared to last year is a good start, I am pleased with the progress. I am anxious to see what will happen after another year of solid training on the bike. In the mean time I need work on getting more overall speed on the bike.
6. I enjoy running the most.
7. Swimming: it is very important to get on someone’s feet as soon as possible in the race.
8. Transition #1: need to practice getting my wetsuit off quicker – maybe cut the bottom of my suit to my ankles?