Been a whirlwind of a last couple weeks,
after the great race I had in Penticton, BC for the ITU World Championships
where I earned my pro card for next season when I was crowned Overall Age-Group
the World Champion. After the race I took it easy for a few days after the race
with just some very light, low volume trained Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Then I prepared for a 4 day massive block of training Friday to Monday. The
schedule those four days and the couple days afterwards looked like this :
Friday:
·
Run – 8.7km, 15 minute Warm-up,
3km Tempo 3:27-3:30/km, Cool-down
·
Bike – 1.5 hours w/ 5x10
minutes at 90% FTP (Above Race pace)
·
Swim – 3.6km Swim with lots of
band work at race pace
·
25 minutes Strength/Core
Saturday
·
Run – 10.1 km w/ 8x1 minute
Hard at 3:06/km, 1 minute Float Recovery at around 3:50-4min/km
·
Bike – 2 hours w/ 1 hour and 10
minutes at 90% FTP (very aggressive and challenging pace to maintain for that
long), then 20 minutes at race pace (85% FTP)
·
Swim – 4.8 km w/ 3.3 km long
massive main set
Sunday
·
Run – 21.1km at aerobic pace
(1:30 minutes) on very hilly route
·
Bike – 2.5 hours at aerobic
pace
·
25 minutes Strength/Core
Monday
·
Chattanooga Specific Simulation
Brick Workout
o
1 hour at 35 minute bike
Workout: 3x6 minutes at 105% FTP (planned climbing wattage to simulate early
climb), straight into 40 minutes at 95% FTP (way above race pace very
challenging intensity to hold for the duration especially after big climbs)
o
Run straight off the bike: 10.2
km: 10 minute build warmup to race pace then, 6km at 3:37/km in the heat of
day, cool down
Tuesday (Active Recovery Day)
·
Run: 10km Easy (42:30)
·
Bike: 1 hour Easy in heat (no
fan, wearing long sleeves)
·
Swim: 3.6 km: 2km Main set of
200s
·
20 minute Strength/Core
Wednesday (Last Hard-ish Day)
·
Run: 15 km and biggest run
workout since my back exploded in March which kickstarted the string of
injuries: 3x2.5km on long uphill averaging 3:30/km, 4 minute recovery between
·
Bike: 1 hour Time Trial:
Averaged 301 W; NP 302W (5.3 W/kg)
Thursday we drove part 1 of 2 to
Chattanooga. We left at around 12:30 after a bike and run in the morning, and
arrived in Cincinnati, OH at around 9pm. I miscalculated how long it would take
to get from Cincinnati to Chattanooga, not taking into account that we would be
leaving Cincinnati in rush hour (and that our hotel was north of Cincinnati
meaning we would have to drive through the city to get to the highway). I
thought it would take about 4 hours to go from Cincinnati to Chattanooga; it
ended up taking close to 6 hours and 30 minutes. Once we got to Chattanooga, I
soon realized that I made a big mistake only arriving to such a big race late
Friday afternoon. I thought like most races I would be able to get my race day
things organized on Saturday (like getting race kit, bike check-in, and getting
information about how things would work on race-day at the athlete briefing).
It turns out, because the women’s race was on the Saturday (men on Sunday), all
these kinds of things had to be done on Thursday and Friday. There was not an
athlete’s briefing at all on Friday. Looked like they were expecting people to
get to town on Wednesday. This made getting things done feel extremely rushed,
and I felt very panicky for most of Friday and Saturday. It also meant I had to
learn about how transitions, and what the race morning would look like by
speaking to random strangers (many who gave differing information from one
another unfortunately). It also meant because we had to do all this kind of
stuff on Friday, the 70km recon ride that I had planned turned into only about
45km. All I want to do on my recon rides is to see the descents from the big
climbs, in this case the extremely fast and slightly technical descent (not as
technical as the descent on McClean Creek rode in Penticton, but much much
faster like 30 km per hour faster) from the massive and epic climb up to the
top of Lookout Mountain. On Friday, with zero warm up, I started my ride right
at the bottom of the climb (to keep the distance a little shorter – since there
wasn’t going to be time for a 70km ride). Even without a warm up, I pounded the
climb and was pumped at how well my climbing legs and where my aerobic ceiling
was (being able to comfortably sustain such a high heart rate and breathing
rate for such a long period of time – the climb is about 15 minutes long for me
at 6 W/kg). The descent though made me extremely nervous, since I’m really 1)
not a fan of heights, and 2) not a fan of going so fast on a bike coming from
doing 99% of my training inside (the 1% rides outside are for the most part
flat, and when there are hills they have straight as an arrow descents). Also,
for me it is almost impossible to go aggressively on a descent like that when I
don’t know the turns, not knowing the right lines to take into the turns, how
long the turn is, where the exit of the turn is when I can’t see the end of it,
etc. So as I was nervously going down the descent on Friday, I thought to
myself, “Okay, don’t worry Frank, you’ll come back tomorrow do this descent
maybe 3 or 4 times over, and then you’ll be good. Wait a minute. I can’t come
back tomorrow. The women are racing they will be on the course.” So that would
be the only time I would do the descent, which made me very nervous. On
Saturday before and after my pre-race workout bike and short brick run at
faster than race pace, I watched the bike of the women’s race and watched the
descent maybe 4 or 5 times over. Then I went to youtube and found a video of
someone riding the course with a go-pro, and I slowed the video down to 0.25 of
the speed and watched the descent until I had the descent memorized in my head,
so that tomorrow, on Sunday, I could go aggressively down the descent.
Overall heading into the race I’d say while
I felt confident in some aspects of the race, I also was feeling not so
confident in my swim, and there was a very slight worry about my running legs,
and pretty tired still from travelling and the whirlwind of a week
post-Penticton riding such a high (once the “high” wore off the fatigue from
the race and travelling caught up to me). My hips were good, but earlier in the
week when ramping up the run volume on hills, my left Achilles was becoming a
problem, and by Saturday the Achilles was thick and red. I joked though that it
wasn’t a big problem in my head, maybe actually a little nice in a weird way,
because Achilles tendonitis used to be a constant problem 4 years ago in 2013,
and the years before, and I ran well regardless. In fact, before a half
marathon 4 weeks prior to the 2013 Scotiabank Marathon I had a severe bout of
it where the Achilles had a big bump on it and was about as thick as my wrist.
But even with that I came 2nd in a sprint finish in the Run for the
Grapes Half Marathon against a very good runner from McMaster Cross Country at
the time, and then continued to run with the problem for 4 weeks until STWM
where I averaged 3:38/km for 42.195km. So it was a problem, but I knew I would
be able to run through it. I was more nervous about my swim. Unfortunately
after Labour Day, every single pool in Vaughan closed for 2 weeks. On Monday,
when I had a lake swim planned, a major thunderstorm hit just as I was getting
ready to go. On Tuesday I swam at the pan am centre which was reduced down to 3
lanes, and in my lane were some kids doing doggy-paddle and stopping at random
points in the middle of the lane – the lifeguards are useless there are didn’t
seem to be too concerned about this. On Wednesday I had a swim planned at
another pool, but out of the blue just before the swim started, a club rented
out the pool for a swim meet (even though no one ended up showing for the
competition). Thursday and Friday we were travelling so there was not time for
swimming, so that meant essentially that I hadn’t swam in almost a week heading
into the race. For someone who does not have a swim background, I feel I need
to stay in the water all the way to race day, maintaining the same frequency,
and still keeping a decent amount of volume, to keep my feel of the water. Still
with taking all this into account, I was ready to just go as hard as I could, and
to compete. What I mean is that even though obviously I’ve been competing in
races all season and doing pretty well in the majority of them, it has still felt
for most of those races that I entered the race just trying to survive and even
in Penticton’s case for example survive and outlast my competition in the long
distance race. Going into this race, even though I have still some of the same
injuries such as the hamstring and now an Achilles problem, I felt like I had
turned the corner and was now going into the race pretty confident that the
body would hold up and could actually try to push it hard without the fear of
impending doom. Also the course would be a major challenge on its own, so I
think that helped direct some of the attention to an external focus rather than
focusing entirely on how I was feeling inside.
The swim is a net up-current swim in the
Tennessee River, the bike featured a massive climb up the famous Lookout
Mountain which was 5.5 km long with two long stretches (total of 4 km) well
into the double digits of % gradients (all the way to 22%), and then a bunch of
big steep and long hills on the rest of the ride giving a total of more than
3600 ft elevation gain. The challenge though didn’t stop with the bike, the
21.1km run had 1100ft of gain. There was literally not a single flat section on
the entire run, it was all up and down, with a mix of long gradual climb and
descents, and short steep climbs and descents. It would be the hilliest
half-marathon, within either a 70.3 or stand-alone half, which I’ve ever run (I
have run 16 half marathons). The other challenge of course would be the fact I
would have to weave around competitors form start to finish since my wave
(25-29) was the second to last wave to start. I started at 9:06 am, the pros
had started at 7:30, meaning before I have even started they would be halfway
through the bike, and there would already be more than 2000 people out on the
course – because they did the women race on Saturday and the men on Sunday it
meant they could double the amount of competitors since they were now spread
across 2 days. This meant in total between the men’s and women’s races there
were 4500 competitors, making this the biggest Ironman 70.3 of all time.
Race day arrived, and I had my usual
pre-race nerves, but was a little calmer than normal since this time I knew I
would be able to run, and despite the Achilles actually had some wicked run
workouts leading into the race. It was pretty weird though getting to the race
to set up transition at 6:30am, but not starting for another 2 and half hours. The
national anthem was absolutely stunning performed by a Tennessee blue grass
group on the banjo. I was ready. Then I got to see the pro start, the gun
sounded and they dove off the dock. I said over to my Dad, “I guess the pros
dive off the dock, and then us age-groupers will just start from in the water
beside it.” The next age group lined up, and they also dove off the dock. I
started panicking. I started shaking with fear, and went from being psyched and
pumped to being absolutely terrified. It is embarrassing to admit, there are a
few things that really freak me out: being on a ladder, needles, rodents of any
kind, and diving. When I was little doing swim lessons, when it came to the
part of the lesson to dive, I would keep circling back to the end of the line
and would get away without having to dive. Something about it just freaks me
out, and I’ve never done it. I was panicking thinking crazy things like I would
pull out after even all this work. However, thankfully, I started to see a few
people out of each row of people to start by just jumping in, and that was what
I decided I would do. I figured even if someone snickered and thought me
jumping in looked funny, after I started swimming and powered my way through
the entire field, they would soon stop laughing.
9:06, I was off. I jumped in, and quickly
distanced myself from the group of seven or so that you start with (you started
about 7 at a time). Within about 30 seconds I past the next group about 15
seconds before me, squirmed through them to the next group, and so on and so
fourth. Within about 5 minutes I was now passing the groups of green caps (the
wave that started 9 minutes before), weaving back and fourth through them,
getting a few kicks and whacks here or through, but just kept pounding along. I
got into a pretty good rhythm, but was definitely getting the worst of the
current. In order to pass all the people I had to swim well on the inside of
the clockwise loop, meaning that I was swimming closer into the middle of river
where the current is the strongest (which I found out the day before the race)
and using a lot of energy. Eventually we made the turn back to the swim exit,
so you would finally get a down current for about 400m. I swam that last 400 in
around 4 minutes and some change. Overall the swim was 27:25 which is probably
about a minute faster than I expected since I hadn’t swam in a while and hadn’t
had a hard swim in 8 days, and pretty good considering the bulk of the swim for
me was into the strongest part of the current, and having to weave around big
groups of swimmers non-stop.
Really I can’t wait until next season when
I compete in the pro wave, especially after my transition #1. For the pros,
they got out of the water, had a straight forward run right to their bikes, put
their helmets on and the mount line was essentially right beside them. For
myself, and the rest of the age-groupers, we got out of the water then went to
get our swim to bike bag, then over to the “changing” area to put on helmet and
put wetsuit, goggles, and caps into the swim bag, then a very long run over to
our bike area where the path to the bikes was so narrow it was almost
impossible to pass people, then find your bike out of the 2400 other bikes, and
try to run it over to the mount line far away winding through the crowds and in
between the rows of tightly packed bikes. Overall the run from the swim exit to
the run I measured at 1.2 kilometers. Considering it was a 1200 meter run and
you had to do all that stuff, the fact that my transition 1 was just over 5
minutes really is pretty decent. 1200 meter run in 5 minutes even if you didn’t
have to do all that stuff is averaging around 4:10/km, but then add all that
stuff on top, and trust me I was almost all out sprinting to my bike, my heart
rate** in transition 1 was actually 6 bpm higher than it was in the swim maxing
at 175 for T1. Compared to my 5 minutes, the pros transition all were about 1 minute or so.
**Penticton was the first race I ever wore
a heart rate monitor. I don’t look at it at all during any leg of the race (on
my bike screen all I have is 3s power, 30s power average lap power, lap time,
and cadence; on my run screen all I look at is lap distance, lap time, and lap
pace). Even though I never look at it during a race, I do find it interesting
to see afterwards when I’m analyzing all the data. I would never recommend
though racing to heart rate, since there are so many variables that affect it,
so it isn’t a reliable and all that informative source of data. Having said
that the new heart rate monitor I have is extremely comfortable so I don’t even
notice that it is there, and it is able to work under water so you can get
heart rate data for the swim too, which is pretty cool.
Out onto the bike. I was cruising along the
first 5 miles with speeds in the 50-km/hr ranges on the flats and the legs were
feeling awesome. I tried to go more by feel at this point versus power, and
tried to stay as efficient and as aero as possible to make sure I wasn’t
hitting the big climb
 |
| Going up the Climb. |
already “in the red.” Once I hit the base of the climb
switched smoothly, thanks to my etap, into the little ring and was super
excited to start getting to work. I think many people dreaded that climb - I
loved it. My body was tailor-made for it: a high VO2 max, and packing a high
power to weight ratio, a perfect combo for dismantling climbs. After I thought
that I was passing people quickly on the flat leading into the climb, it was
nothing compared to how I was going by on the climb. I actually think on the
climb I may have gone by a few hundred people in the 15 minutes it took to get
up to the top. In some cases it was dicey getting around people who were spread
across the road, and the frustration just fueled my power even more. In any
case, I set a new all-time 10 and 15-minute personal best power on the climb
well around 6.5 W/kg. Compared to my competitors who seemed to be grinding (some
walking) up the climb (even a couple of the favorites and the best guys in my
category were barely moving), I just spun the cranks effortlessly up it. It
doesn’t sound as beast as a 55-42 tooth chain ring sounds but this is where a
52-36 with 11-28 on the back really comes out to play. With it I can spin a
high cadence up the climb while still maintaining 360-370W, saving my legs, and
just making the effort feel so much easier. To quote the durianrider, “Spin to
win.” A cadence of 60 is not getting you anywhere, look at the best climbers of
all time: Chris Froome, Lance Armstrong, Marco Pantani, they all spun or spin
high cadences up climbs, it works. I especially respect guys like Chris Froome,
who unlike others doesn’t let his ego dictate his actions. On the mountain
stages of the Tour de France this year he rode an 11-32 in the back. If some
cyclist or triathletes saw that size cassette on the back, I bet many would
laugh and think the guy is that weak. But then I bet after the race, when they
see on a 45-minute climb the guy is holding over 400 W, they change would their
attitude. Sorry about the rant, but it was just funny how the day before the
race, in addition to many competitors coming up to me to ask me about my bike
complementing me on how awesome it looks, I had 2 people remark about the
relatively small chainring and big cassette on the back. Yes, some of you may
say its all about chain line, optimal chain line this and that, but my view is
that while being in 55-15 is 1 watt more efficient than 52-11 on downhill,
being able to spin up a climb at 95-100 RPM in 36-25 is exponentially more
efficient than grinding 42-25 at 55 RPM, saving both your legs, and valuable
time.
Anyways back to the race. After the climb, stormed
across the rolling plateau section. Continued having to weave around many
people, and then it was onto the descent. While I’m proud of how I climbed
Lookout Mountain, I think I am actually happier with my descent. After now
having watched
the descent enough on youtube to practically memorize the turns,
I was able to storm down the mountain not touching the brakes (except once when
someone ahead of me pulled out from the shoulder to the centre of the road
abruptly and for no apparent reason – that was a little frightening moment) and
pedaling across the gaps from one turn to the next. After getting down the
descent I think this was the section where I lost too much time. It was a
relatively flat section, and now the road was getting very crowded that it was
getting quite difficult to navigate around people. Legs still felt full of
energy though, and even though I couldn’t get any fluids at any aid stations
because they were too crowded, my Custom Infinit Nutrition carried me through.
Very different hydration than Penticton where I had around 2 L per hour, in
this race I had a grand total of about 600 ml/hour on the bike. Once we made
the turn to start coming back towards Chattanooga and Tennessee (the bulk of
the course is actually in Georgia), things started to get very frustrating.
Four guys caught up to me and past me in a single file group. If they were
actually 12m apart I obviously have no concept of distance – I’d say they were
maybe 2 m apart. I got pissed. Here I’ve been so careful not to draft,
literally braking behind people if I feel I’m getting anywhere near 12m, and
these 4 guys are so blatantly drafting and cheating. We got up to a big hill
and I hammered hard – about 30 seconds at 550 W, stomping on the big chainring
out of the saddle past all four guys, angry and giving them a look basically
saying “WTF?” On another straight the four went past me and I didn’t see them
again. A close second for frustrating moments during the race was on the
straight flat highway into Chattanooga. Finally a stretch where I had lots of space
could put my head down, stare at my watts and hammer (with the very crowded
course there were very few moments where I was able to actually look at my
power). Going about 45 km/hr down the highway, I start hearing gears changing.
I think to myself, what is going on I didn’t press a gear change did I? Looking
down at my gears to see what is gong on, I then look behind me, and I swear
there is a guy sitting on my back wheel maybe less than half a foot away from
my back wheel. I got really pissed sat up, yelled, and had some words with him
while motioning him to either go around or back the F&%$ off. Throughout
the entire course of my 2:21 90km bike leg I saw one single blue card come out
for drafting. ONE PENALTY!!! This won’t be too much of a problem next year I
hope when there will be a greater density of officials for the pro race, but
for now it is so frustrating. Its just not proper racing etiquette, and so
slimy. A message to the cheats out there who think drafting is harmless, it’s
not. Getting a drafting penalty tells the world you are a cheater, yes
sometimes there are cases when you get in a bad situation where it is almost
impossible to make a clean pass. Also while maybe just maybe because you are
drafting your able to qualify for your pro card with your fast time, the thing
is good luck trying that in the pro ranks. Really there is no point “turning
pro” if once you get there you get slaughtered in every race because in reality
your biking ability really wasn’t as strong as your time indicated.
 |
| Approaching 1st big hill about 1 mile in. |
Anyways again sorry about rant, that was
just a very frustrating back half of the bike, with the way the race played out
and its dynamics. So finished the bike pretty well, able to get the average
speed back up a bit after the hit it took with the hilly first half of the race
and the monster climb. My power was pretty much right on what I wanted, the
average power was lower than I wanted, the normalized was about where I wanted
it to be, and really that was just unavoidable with how the race played out
with constant surges to get around people for clean passes, and the big
downhill where my average power was probably under 100W for a solid 5 minutes.
My hydration on the bike was poor, but I really didn’t feel in too rough off
shape coming off the bike, and just took a hot shot nearing the end of the bike
and one at the start of the run to keep any cramp at bay. Got off the bike, and
started my run to transition. Some crazy person come off behind me, and impaled
me in the butt as I was running with their aerobars. I was fine, just
frustrating again. I let some frustration go though on the run. Started out
pretty fast with a 3:36 km and that included the steepest hill of the course
that was a couple hundred meters long. Kept that pace honest, my legs felt the
usual brick feeling the first 5 minutes or so, and the Achilles was already
hurting but I didn’t really think on it. Just shut out everything, focused on
staying relaxed, and continued to imagine Ryan Hall’s** running stride in my
head from the start – sometimes I think it’s amazing how I don’t run into
people considering from start to finish of any race I’m in my own little world
just replaying videos of him running over and over.
** At the
expo Ryan Hall happened to be there doing some stuff for a company Second Skin,
and I got to meet him and chat with him for a short little bit. Ryan Hall was a
huge inspiration to me when I first started running seriously (doing marathon)
in 2011. At the time I really knew nothing about training, let along training
for a marathon. The idea of running one (I signed up for two in my first year)
just kind of came out of nowhere for a challenge. I had never run a road race
before of any distance, just cross country and track in elementary and high
school. When building to that first marathon at Mississauga in 2011, I stumbled
across a series of instructional running videos by a runner training at the
time in Mammoth Lakes, California, and Ryan Hall. He had just ran 2:04:58 in
the Boston Marathon that year, which still stands as the American Record. By
instructional I mean explaining things like how a long run should be done and
stuff like what distance is recommended to get to before the marathon, what
hill repetitions are, tempo runs, speed workouts, etc. I watched those videos so
many times, and every one of his own workout videos, and that really guided me
through my training, training that led to my first marathon, the race that
really completely changed me and put me on this path. Suffice to say, to get to
meet Ryan was amazing. It wasn’t a long conversation or anything, he was busy
with sponsor stuff, but it didn’t matter, for me just meeting him introducing
myself and telling him how much he inspired me made my trip.
 |
| About 14km in still keeping solid pace. |
Was
galloping past people especially so on the hills, and I really appreciated all
the crowd support on the course. The city of Chattanooga was really amazing
embracing this race, and so many spectators were shouting way to go Frank the
Tank. I thought do these people actually know me, or is Frank the Tank just
that common of a saying lol. Also wearing the Canada jersey felt great (even
though it chafes me all over, and feels like it’s strangling me cause it’s so
tight in the shoulders), because many spectators would shout Go Canada, looking
great Canada, all of which really helps fuel me. In some sections of town and
on the hills there were literally spectator rows 4-5 deep on either side, it
was great, and made the run go by quite fast. I was really able to get in a good
rhythm for the first 8km, but on a long downhill on the other side of the
bridge my hamstring (which really doesn’t like being extended that far with
that long of strides) started feeling like it was going to pull completely on
me. I kept it together, and then another competitor came up behind me and kept
running immediately behind me for a while breathing down my neck. It bugged me
a little, but at same time thought well this will be fun this guy thinking he
will just sit there and pace off me, but unfortunately for him there was the
biggest longest uphill of the course right after the downhill, and this guy
obviously doesn’t know what my name is, and that I was intending on keeping
this same 3:45/km pace on the uphill. As soon as we got to the base of the
climb, I dropped him like a stone and by the end of the climb you would’ve need
binoculars to see far enough back to him. Kept it going and started churning my
legs quicker and quicker on the second loop. The Achilles was really hurting
and giving that familiar stabbing pain with every step, but just ignored it,
and powered through. Hydration was again pitiful on the run, having maybe just
2 cups of water, but didn’t matter, no way I was slowing down to weave through
people at aid stations to grab stuff. Ripped over the last bridge, and then a
couple spectators screamed loud to me that I was 20 seconds back of fifth, and
that I had to push it now and hard.
Then I crossed the last timing mat that was
just about 300 meters to the finish. I could hear them still screaming to me that
now I was 1 second back, I sprinted as hard as I could with the Achilles just
shredded, hit my peak heart rate on the entire race in the last 200, and was
running about 3:00/km pace. I got fifth in the world in the 25-29 category
(about 4 hours post race it changed to 6th for some reason), and
oddly my time was 1 minute slower than I had timed on my watch which doesn’t
make any sense to me but it doesn’t really matter. I had a great race given the
course and how the race played out with the wave start. I finished in 4:18 with
a beauty of a 1:21 half marathon (3:50/km). I was also the number one ranked
Canadian in the entire Age group field, 14th overall Age grouper as
well as beating some pros. It was an incredibly challenging course between the
up current swim, the difficult bike, and the run course but it was an amazing
experience and even with a lot of frustrating moments on the bike, an
experience I will never forget and am very proud of. (couple more pics approaching the finish line at bottom)
So what’s next? Not entirely sure yet. I
will likely race another 70.3 this year in October or November, but this time
on a flat course so I can put together a real fast time. The Chattanooga
course, plus the set up with the wave start just did not lend itself to a super
quick 3:5x time which I know based on this race I am more than capable of. I’ll
update you all soon whenever I figure out what is next up on the schedule. Also
keep an eye out once the November issue of Triathlon Magazine Canada comes out,
where there will be a athlete profile featuring me, should be pretty cool.
