Raleigh 70.3 Race Report

Breakout OR Breakdown

After putting in a very solid pre-season and base, I was ready to use Raleigh as a measuring stick to compare my current fitness to where I was last year. I was also eager to get back out and the bike course and figure out what on earth happened out there. I had pushed more power than I ever had before and nailed my HR goals yet a 2:31 left me scratching my head. I had a little unexpected success at the Kinetic Half distance triathlon in the beginning of May so I was really interested in seeing what I could do on this course. The motto for the weekend was “Breakout OR Breakdown” meaning I was ready to have a huge result or bury myself trying.

Friday afternoon, I got my bags packed as I was waiting for my buddy Wills to arrive from Rochester. We got to bed early and slept in until 8 knowing that Saturday nights sleep was uncertain. We hit the road around 9AM and made it to Raleigh right around 11:45AM.

Once in Raleigh, we took care of chekc in, grabbed some brunch at Big Ed’s Country Kitchen, dropped our bikes off then checked into the hotel to pack and shave before heading to Mellow Mushroom to chow down on pizza.

Saturday night, we crammed a whole mess of people into our hotel room and fell asleep around 10PM

The alarm went off at a very dark 3:50AM and we stuffed our face with pancakes as we made our final bag preps and loaded up to head into the city at 4:30AM. We stayed at the comfort Inn but in the future, we may try to find a hotel right in the city to make race morning that much easier. Nonetheless, parking was easy and the drive was a very short 2 miles from the shuttle.

We made it onto a shuttle slgithly after 5:10AM and hunkered down for along morning of waiting. We got to the beach around 5:50AM and our wave didn’t start until 8:12AM. We took a lot of time to slowly and methodically prepare our gear, snack on banana bites, sip on Infinit, and use the bathroom multiple times.

As soon as we stepped off the bus, we found out that the water was too warm for wetsuits; a swimmers delight! Luckily, I keep my swimsuit packed with my wetsuit so I had a real nice, fast suit to wear over my race kit. unfortunately, the referees were being very particular that no material was covering shoulders during the swim at risk of a 5 minute penalty. I planned on wearing my speedsuit over my race kit on the bike but the shoulder rule gave me issues. As I saw it, I had 3 options:

1. Roll up the sleeves and hope they didn’t roll down in the water. Dryland tests made me realize that the material was far too tight around my shoulders and I didn’t want to risk that. Option 1 out.
2. Wear the bottom of the speedsuit and tuck the upper half of the speedsuit into the back of my swimskin. I know that the speedsuit is difficult to get on when dry and I didn’t want to wrestle with in while I was in transition. Option 2 out.
3. Forget the speedsuit. At the expense of giving some time back on the bike, I opted to forget the speedsuit. This eliminated any time it would have taken me to put it on in transition, the hassle of wrestling with it.

While waiting for our wave, we were able to get in for a nice long warm up. Last year, I swam solo here and knew I’d have to be warmed up enough to put some work in. This wouldn’t play out like an Ironman swim where I cna sit on feet and warm up through the swim. Had to have the engines ready to roar right out of the gate.

Swim (00:27:45 2 M25-29/ 15 OA): Strava File

As the horn souded, there was a bit of thrashing until things settled out pretty quickly. I eyed everybody up in the first 200-300 yards knowing that it would be very difficult to keep track of anybody once we started swimming through the endless waves ahead of us. From what I could tell, there was one swimmer wide-left who looked to be losing pace, one guy directly in front of me setting the pace, and the rest of the field crumbling behind us. A few swimmers were nipping at my feet in the opening yards but they quickly fell off. About 5 minutes into the swim a switch went off in my head telling me, “It’s time to get to work. You’re not going to be happy throwing time away on this guys feet.” I got up on his left hip, relaxed for a second then made a quick surge to pass him and open up a little gap on him. I was able to snap the rubber band pretty easily and he was history. If you had asked me, I came out in fron of that wave without question. To my surprise, it turns out there was somebody else out there that swam by me at some point. I honestly don’t know what happened as I had eyes on everybody off the line and didn’t see anybody go by but it was a bit chaotic out there and I guess it’s possiblehe rolled by me at some point. Either way, I am happy with my swim and know I stood a chance at hanging with the lead pro group. They weren’t that much faster than me, they had calmer, cleaner water to swim, and didn’t have to navigate through hundreds of bodies on course. Maybe someday ;)

T1 (1:38):

Swim to Bike transitions at this race are a breeze. The only way to make T1 shorter would be to include it in the swim course. I was fortunate enough to have a very easy spot to find about halfway through transition. I took an extra second or two to make sur eall my belongings ended up in my bag and I was on my way. It wsa great to see friends at the exit as I knew that I wouldn’t see them until the ride was over.

Starting my assault on the bike course

Bike (02:21:06 3 M25-29/ 23 OA): Strava File

In the past month, I have tweaked my riding just a tad and it has been giving me some pretty major results. I was eager to get outon this course and see how those changes translated. I was also hoping the wind decided to be at our backs instead of in our face, as it was last year. Right out of transition, we climbed for a bit to get out of the park and onto the roads. The bike course was new this year, as evidenced by the addition of an early out and back that allowed us to start rolling right away. I could tell in the first 10 minutes that this was going to be a frustrating bike course. It was absolutely packed with bikes,  a luxury of being one of the last waves to start. I think I blew my lungs out yelling “On your left,” most of the way through the course. One benefit of the congestion was that I had to stay focused at all times and did not fall asleep and becaue of this heightened awareness, the time was flying by. I coudln’t believe how fast the first hour flew by. Lately, I have broken my 70.3 rides down into 5x30 minute sections to help myself mentally and I forgot to lap at the hour because I just wasn’t expecting it to hit that quick. Aside from the bike and vehicle traffic, I loved this course. I felt as though I was gaining momentum the entire ride and my average speeds reflected that until the last 10 miles where we started to climb back into the city. One huge benefit of my placement in the waves was that I came out of the water with a lot of 30-40 year old guys that were trying to chase down the swimmers form their group. I was able to work with them a ton and a group of about 4-6 of us stuck together and paced each other through the majority of the ride. I was extremely pleased that when a new member came into the group and tried to ride off the front of it, I was able to go with them and not spike my HR or power. I ended up dropping the majority of these guys on the final run into town and was very pleased to get off the bike in a new 70.3 bike PR. I rode 2:22 a few weeks back but it was on a short course. Riding 2:21 on a verified course was a huge motivator.

I was very good about my nutrition, having two bottles of Infinit mixed to 315 calories, one lara bar halfway through the ride, a few salt capsulses as needed and a flask of UCAN with 10 miles to go. The flask of UCAN was new for me as I was looking to feel more stable and alert through the run. I’m typicaly running hard enough that taking care of nutrition on the run course is not really an option. It’s more a game of taking care of it on the bike and keeping the system happy on the run. The UCAN worked well as far as hunger was concerned. I wasn’t starving the last 30 minutes of the run per usual.

T2 (2:00):

I was lucky again with my T2 placement as my bike was in the second row as we entered transition. Nothing to report here. Got in and out smooth taking just enough time to make sure my socks were on well. I knew I was going to be soaked from dumping water on myself on the hot course and wanted to try to mimimize any chance of blisters. Wool socks are clutch btw.

Run (01:29:57 2 M25-29/ 26 OA): Strava File

It gave me a huge surge to come flying out of T1 and see friends again. I noticed that I had been on the course for 2:52 and knew that the race was mine to mess up. Another year of heat acclimation and experience on this course allowed my run plan from last year to actually work this year. Really focus on running the uphill sections steady and strong and try not to beat the crap out of the quads on the downhills while letting the HR drop a few beats. I made it up the first 3 mile climb running faster than anticipated, roughly 6:45 miles and man were they turning over easy. At the top of the hill, I told myself “Just be smart and get here again, then let it rip home.” Running the downhill portion of theh course was killing me. I tried my best to focus on run form and allowing the HR to drop from 170s to as close to 165 as I could get. This turned out to be about 168 but I was still holding onto the pace very well. I came through town and tried to check my emotions. My support crew was very excited for me and I knew that things were going great. I made it through the first half of the run course in 45 min and still had some gas in the tank. If I lost focus anywhere in this race, it was on the second climb. I was paying attention to run form and staying as easy as I could. I unintentionally let the HR drop a little and had some of my slowest miles of the day by a considerable margin. The good news, I made it to the top of the hill feelings great and it was time to put in my last 20ish minutes of work. I turned the screws a little bit on the way down the hill and was happy to see some miles coming back under 7 minutes for me. With 1.5-2 miles to go I knew I had enough gas in the tank to let it rip a little bit. It was highly uncomfortable but I kept taking deep breaths and finding comfort in my discomfort. I started pretending people were chasing me down in the last mile, for all I knew they might have been on the wave-clock, and was able to close out the race in a mile around 6 flat. Looking back, I probably ran a little scared and could take some more chances and dig deeper into the pain cave earlier in the run.

Overall (04:22:26 2 M25-29/ 26 OA):

The finishing stretch takes an eternity to run but I turned the corner as 4:20 ticked off on my watch and I told myself there was no chance I was going to see the 23rd minute of the 5th hour of the race. I buckled down, dug deep, and finished off the day with an exclamation point. My friends were waiting for me at the finish and it was great to give everybody a hug and smile elthoguh I was far too spent to show my true excitement. They know how appreciative I am of them and how much it means to me that they were there. Their presence certainly allowed me to put it all out on the line today. I spent the rest of my day cheering on friends and bringing my boys on course home. Although the temperature may not have reflected it, it was a hot day out on that course and it was a tough one to fight through.

I’d like to extend a huge thank you to my friends that made the trip to support us, my friends and family that could not attend but sent positive words of encouragement and congratulations, my BTC family who I always keep close to my heart as I race, QT2 Systems for keeping my fitness tuned up and ever-improving, and Peluso Open Water for whipping me into perhaps the best swim shape I’ve been in since I was a college swimmer.

Spent soooo much time with this crew over the weekend.

I look forward to putting some work in between now and Syracuse at the end of the month. I’ll be heading to NY for that race then sticking around to train and get ready for Placid camp at the end of June. Lots of tough work ahead of my but it will all be worth it at the end of July. I’m hungry for Placid! Until next time, get after it!

Danny Boy