Huntsville 70.3 Ironman notes 🏊‍♂️🚴‍♂️🏃‍♂️

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

After a few weeks of recovery, here are a few notes on the Huntsville 70.3 Ironman.

The short version (given there’s lots of details below) is that the course was fantastic, though very hilly, and I managed to shave 15 minutes from my last 70.3.

Pre-race

No surprises here. There were scheduled times for registration and all we needed was the receipt from our online payment. With that, they handed over a wristband, timing chip, stickers for my bike and helmet, a hot-pink swim cap for my age group, t-shirt, and a morning gear bag for transferring clothing from the swim start to the run finish.

Next up was dropping my bike off at the transition. There were two stickers for the bike, both of which had my bib number on them and matched the number on my wristband. Staff at the transition entrance used these to make sure the bike belonged to me, before letting me in. Then I tracked down my transition spot, which was nicely equidistant from the swim, bike, and run entrances.

That was it for the Saturday events, other than eating some tasty Thai food and getting a good night’s sleep. Sunday (race day) started early, so that I could set up my transition area by 6:30. I took about 10 minutes to get everything organized and visualize how I’d move through the zone.

Swim

We were organized into age groups for the swim start. As one of the older groups, we started 20 minutes after the first wave. We waded into the lake and floated around the start line, until they announced our group and we started swimming.

The water was a nice, cool temperature and I felt good throughout. The last third of the swim was in the river between Fairy Lake and Lake Vernon. So, we got pretty crowded and had to manage a fair bit of contact.

In previous triathlons, I’ve had trouble with dizziness when getting out of the water. This time I increased my rate of kicking for the last five minutes or so to get the blood moving around again. This seemed to really help and I had no issues with being light headed this time.

The swim ended with a long 500m run along pavement into the transition zone. During this, I was able to wiggle out of the top half of my wetsuit, in preparation for the rest of the transition. Once I was at my transition spot, I pulled off the wetsuit and quickly consumed one caffeinated gel. Then helmet and bike shoes on, and grabbed the bike to run out to the bike mount line.

Bike

There was light rain during the swim which left the start of the bike course a bit wet and slippery. After a kilometre or so, that dried off and the bike course was gorgeous with lots of hills through the Canadian Shield. By the end, we’d accumulated 1,100 m of elevation and it was important to manage the effort and not burn out. I stuck with a heart rate target of 155 for most of the course with a few exceptions for the bigger hills. That left me with lots of energy for the run after about 2 hours and 50 minutes of riding.

I had a 750mL bottle of electrolytes and 500mL bottle of water on the bike that I consumed throughout, along with a Cliff bar and two energy gels.

The bike course was open to traffic, so we had a few cars to contend with. But, they were very careful and I didn’t see any issues.

Run

T2 was straightforward. I racked my bike, took off my helmet, and switched to running shoes and a hat. One more caffeinated gel and off I went.

My plan was to maintain a 5:30 minutes/km pace for the run with an emphasis on keeping it slow after the bike transition. I immediately had to slow down even more though, as the course starts off with a really steep uphill.

This was followed by a steady uphill from about km 5 to 10 with a big downhill and then back up again on one very steep hill. I came close to walking on this one, but managed to keep a slow pace all the way up.

In Tremblant, I intentionally walked through each aid station on the run. This time I ran through each with one water doused onto my head and one Gatorade to drink.

I’d planned for two gels on the run: the first around km 8 and second around km 14. Somehow I managed to loose one though. As a result, I came very close to hitting the wall on the last 3 km of the run. After a real struggle through km 18, I was able to pull it back together well enough to finish in 1h58m.

Post-race

I’m happy to have improved my time from the Tremblant 70.3. I was in the top third for my age group and top quarter overall. So, well within my top half goal. More importantly though, I was able to enjoy the experience (excluding km 18 of the run).

Just one lesson learned: pack an extra gel or two. They don’t take up much space and the consequences of insufficient fuel are significant.

Milton Sprint Triathlon 🏊‍♂️🚴‍♂️🏃‍♂️

Sunday, June 4, 2023

That was fun! Really well organized, friendly racers, and great weather. There were 466 racers, though other than the parking lot, it didn’t seem crowded.

Swim

Mass start by age group for the swim. Temperature was quite nice. Other than an elbow to the nose coming around the last buoy, a pleasant swim 😀.

Bike

The course confronts you almost right away with a steep 320m climb up the escarpment that really tests the legs. After that, some nice rolling hills, until you come back down the escarpment, hanging on for dear life, as you hit about 70 km/hr. Terrifying and exhilarating end to the ride.

Run

Mostly in wooded trails which is nice. Though still has some hills. Since it is only 7K, you can push it, if anything is left in the legs from the bike.

Transitions

These didn’t go very well. I was rather dizzy coming out of the swim and struggled with balance while getting the bike shoes on in T1. This has happened before and is something I should be training for. So, 3:21 on this one.

Then 2:09 at T2 while I fiddled with my shoe laces. I really should have switched these to elastics. Just didn’t get around to it.

Nutrition

I kept is simple: one caffeinated gel at each of the two transitions and a Nuun in the water bottle for my bike.

Apple Watch

This was my first event with the Apple Watch Ultra. Battery life (the main reason I got one) was excellent. I was at about 90% charge the night before, wore it to track sleeping, and then got to the end of race day around 9pm with close to 60% charge.

I also really liked the Triathlon workout in the Multisport category. The automatic transitions worked really well, marking when I started and stopped each component of the race. So, all I had to do was hit the action button at the start of the swim to start the workout tracking and then stop the workout at the end of the run. Everything else worked automatically. Nice to not have to worry about fiddling with the watch at each transition.

How much does a Triathlon cost? 🏊‍♂️ 🚴‍♂️ 🏃‍♂️💰

Friday, November 18, 2022

Other than knowing if I was physically capable of finishing, the main source of uncertainty when I signed up for my first triathlon was how much it would cost. Starting out, I had one pair of running shoes and some goggles from my kids' swimming lessons. So, I knew I’d need to invest in a lot of gear.

Here’s the list of what I ended up buying along with some commentary. Of course it is important to note that these costs can vary widely, based on what you may already have and the budget you’re willing to spend. For several of these items, there’s a very wide range of costs from barely good enough to really fancy. I tended towards the medium-low end of the distribution: enough to get good, reliable equipment, but far away from top end. I figured I should at least finish one triathlon before investing too much money in equipment.

All amounts are in Canadian dollars and rounded to something reasonable.

Swimming

• Wetsuit: $400 for the Nineteen Pipeline a decent entry level model
• Swim equipment: $200 for a bathing suit, flutter board, goggles, swim cap, and other gear
• Swim buddy: $70 and important if doing any open water swimming. Provides visibility for boaters, something to hold onto if you need a rest, and some storage space
• Swimming fees: $100 for access to a local municipal pool for a few months. A common alternative is to join a swim club, which would be more expensive, but would also include coaching and community support

Total: $800

Biking

• Before investing in a bike, I invested $200 in a bike sizing session. No point in buying a bike that didn’t fit!
• Bike: Of all the items in the budget, this is both the most expensive and the most variable. You can spend $15,000 on a fancy bike or get by with a used one in the few hundred dollar range. This Trek for $2,500 both fit my needs and was actually available (COVID-induced shortages wreaked havoc on bike supply chains)
• Turns out that fancy bikes don’t come with pedals, so another $200 for those and $300 for shoes
• Also, based on the bike fit, I swapped out the handlebars with another set for $200, plus aero bars for $300
• Another $500 for clothes, water bottles, bottle cages, and a repair kit
• Given I started training in the winter, I added an indoor trainer for $1,000
• Bike computer: $400 for the Garmin Edge 130. Since I was already tracking metrics via my Apple Watch and iPhone, I kept this one simple, mostly just to have easily visible metrics during long rides on the weekend

Total: $5,600 (yikes)

Running

• This one is pretty easy, two sets of running shoes at about $200 each

Total: $400

Other

Some odds and ends:

• Trisuit: $200
• Registration fee for the event: $500
• Accommodations for three days: $1,000. This one is obviously pretty variable, based on the event location
• A coach for 6 months at $280/month and worth every penny

Total: $3,400

In the end, about $10,000! Seems like a lot (and it is), though it was spread out over 8 months. Plus, this was essentially my only hobby and leisure activity for that time. Nonetheless, I’m grateful to my family for putting up with this.