Ironman Mont Tremblant, Canada is a very well organized race with in the village of Mont-Tremblant. Beautiful Ski resort area. You can check more details about this place on Ironman website.
This year it was very interesting and challenging year for me, I did not train this race in traditional TriAthlon approach where pacing comes high priority,I had RAAM as my 'A' race, so I had to spend more time on Cycling in tempo and threshold, Swim/Run moderately.
Race week: Aka tapering week is a challenging week. Mentally it hard, maintaining race weight is even harder. I was not only tapering, managing my weight gain by eating less carbs than usual, no sugar(though I sneak a spoon or two Mocha chip ice cream) and reasonable amount of protein for first 3 days. As race day approaching I started eating regular amount of Carbs and Proteins, drink enough fluids, this year I had to hydrate more because of heat and humidity, as we go for packet pick up, I checked my weight, I was 148lbs, which was 4lbs less than last year. I was very happy, so far every thing going as planned.
Saturday, the day before the race, I did some leg openers both bike and run, did not want to swim(recently feeling pollen allergy from fresh water lake so I avoided it, avoid any kind stuffy nose for race day) better not to risk it. Prepared T1 and T2 Bags,Changed battery on my power meter assuming it was used for some time and don't want to take chances running out of juice on race day(long story short, it did not go well) later dropped of the bike at T1 including T1 and T2 bags, and off the feet rest of the day.
Race Morning: Usual routines, wake up at 3:15, eat break fast, half a cup oat meal, Banana, and Peanut butter, 1 cup of coffee. After breakfast routine sat on the couch and relaxed a bit in meditation pose, just rehearsing the day. 4 O clock take shower, prepare with gears, timing chip, skin suit and head to T1 at 4:50Am, After body marking we head into T1 prepared bike with water bottles and pump up tires at 100PSI, generally I do 105 this time I had to drop it to 100 as its going to be warm day.
Now bike is all set, I gulped other 300calories of liquid nutrition than headed to swim start around 6:15Am, Did some warm up swim and stretched a bit, all set to go at 6:45Am
Final time: 9:59:59
Over all: 82nd
Gender Ranking: 70th
Age Group: 14th
I am happy with the results, Sub-10 something off my mind now, and work hard get better in next race. I did learn quite a bit from this race. There are some do's and don'ts, will work it out in next race.
This year it was very interesting and challenging year for me, I did not train this race in traditional TriAthlon approach where pacing comes high priority,I had RAAM as my 'A' race, so I had to spend more time on Cycling in tempo and threshold, Swim/Run moderately.
Race week: Aka tapering week is a challenging week. Mentally it hard, maintaining race weight is even harder. I was not only tapering, managing my weight gain by eating less carbs than usual, no sugar(though I sneak a spoon or two Mocha chip ice cream) and reasonable amount of protein for first 3 days. As race day approaching I started eating regular amount of Carbs and Proteins, drink enough fluids, this year I had to hydrate more because of heat and humidity, as we go for packet pick up, I checked my weight, I was 148lbs, which was 4lbs less than last year. I was very happy, so far every thing going as planned.
Saturday, the day before the race, I did some leg openers both bike and run, did not want to swim(recently feeling pollen allergy from fresh water lake so I avoided it, avoid any kind stuffy nose for race day) better not to risk it. Prepared T1 and T2 Bags,Changed battery on my power meter assuming it was used for some time and don't want to take chances running out of juice on race day(long story short, it did not go well) later dropped of the bike at T1 including T1 and T2 bags, and off the feet rest of the day.
Race Morning: Usual routines, wake up at 3:15, eat break fast, half a cup oat meal, Banana, and Peanut butter, 1 cup of coffee. After breakfast routine sat on the couch and relaxed a bit in meditation pose, just rehearsing the day. 4 O clock take shower, prepare with gears, timing chip, skin suit and head to T1 at 4:50Am, After body marking we head into T1 prepared bike with water bottles and pump up tires at 100PSI, generally I do 105 this time I had to drop it to 100 as its going to be warm day.
Now bike is all set, I gulped other 300calories of liquid nutrition than headed to swim start around 6:15Am, Did some warm up swim and stretched a bit, all set to go at 6:45Am
Swim: 1:15: 26
Swim
takes place in Lac Tremblant, its single loop of 2.4miles; luckily this year
water temperature was 71F, very comfortable to swim in wetsuit. However the age
group wave format did not go well, it’s a chaos, fast swimmers roll on you, lot
of elbows, my goggles knocked out at least 3 times.
In swim my strategy was simple just to pace
it, draft as much as possible, follow Bubbles and swim straight(preserve energy).
I did not have big expectations this year’s swim as I am weak swimmer and I
injured my shoulder 6 weeks before RAAM race, which setback my swim for 8 weeks
and I did not swim until four/five weeks into this race. For four weeks I
trained with swim coach Craig Lewin(Endurance Open Water Swim Coach) he trains
Channel swimmers, one of the best coach around here, he throw me workouts, and executed them. My Final swim time was 1:15:26, I PR’d my
swim by 4 Minutes compare to last year.
Here is the strava file: IMMT Swim on Strava
Bike: 5:10:26
Biking takes places part in High way, part
in the Mont Tremblant village, Its a two 56Miles loop. Course includes rolling
hills, some serious climb at the end of each loop, a total 5000+ feet of
elevation gain. Roads are very well maintained, very smooth, so you can take
risk with smooth rolling tires, not to worry about flats. The high way section
can get tricky at times with head wind or cross winds.
My Coach Phil Wong( Ex-Pro Cyclist,
Mountain Biker), gave me some race zones, I want to stick to those zones while racing, for
reference I attached that workout to my handle bar. As
I started my bike leg, I was surprised and frustrated to see my Power Meter not
connecting to my garmin, I might have screwed it up but I don’t know
what was wrong, Whole season trained with it not working made me
panic.
As I move into 1Mile mark, I hit another
bad luck, congestion, this forced me to move out of Yellow line, and then there
comes the officials warning me, received Yellow card which means I need to
stop, sign at the Penalty tent and go, but this made even more frustrating, I said to myself I am going hard no matter what, so
I ended up pushing bit hard in the beginning, goal is to make up lost time both with Penalty and leaders(
luckily my yellow card was only warning no time penalty). I followed all the Zones based on Heart Rate
and executed them as per coach, but at Miles mark 75-100 I could not push
at higher end of the Z4, but I managed at low end Z4.
My Nutrition was simple Gluten free Maple,
Honey waffle(Homemade), and packed little over 1200 calories of liquid
nutrition with electrolytes, its too much but forecast said Hot and Humidity so
I packed little extra, I ate every 20Minutes and sip electrolytes, then every
aid station I take water drink enough and rest pour on me, it was hot. Last 20
Miles into race, I was having liquid food with no protein, and stopped solid
food, because my solid food also includes protein which is not good for run(I
always had GI issues with it so I avoided it). And it worked out perfect.
Finally Bike leg was over, My total time was 5:10:26 but moving times was
5:08:xx, I ended up wasting 2 minutes looking for Penalty tent, trying to fix Power
Meter, still 8Mins PR from last year.
Here is the strava file : IMMT Bike Leg on Strava
Run: 3:23:56
Run course is two 13.1mile loop, First 3 Miles rolling hills, next 3Miles were
slightly downhill, than 3Miles uphill, which is false flat, and 4 Miles into
town was rolling hills again. This year 3rd 3miles section was very
challenging, as we come into small town we are climbing hills and heat was high with high humidity, no
shades made it worse.
My run was more confused than I want to
execute, I had some plans(Go hard or go home), but weather really screwed it
up, because I never ran in heat and 90% humidity in races before, so going hard was foolish decision of me(likely would
have been in medical tent rest of my day), so I ended up pacing at Z2 instead at Z3, which was safe bet.
Nutrition,
I took some caffeine in the beginning of the race but for some reason
they don’t work for me, they spike HR high and was so hot I had to stop caffeine after 10Miles. Rest of my race I was doing cola in every aid station, drank water,
chewed ice, pour water on me. Final time was 3:23:58, PR’d by 2 Minutes compare to last year. Over
all I am happy with this results, now I know I can handle heat very well and I
can push hard next time.
Strava file: IMMT Run Leg on Strava
Final time: 9:59:59
Over all: 82nd
Gender Ranking: 70th
Age Group: 14th
I am happy with the results, Sub-10 something off my mind now, and work hard get better in next race. I did learn quite a bit from this race. There are some do's and don'ts, will work it out in next race.
