Ironman 70.3 Syracuse - 12th OA (5th AG)

Holy crap that was hard!

Syracuse 70.3 officially takes top spot for hardest course I have ever done, and also one of my favourite 70.3's to date. In my prep for Whistler I wanted to find a 70.3 that would allow me to test out my gear and nutrition strategy on a similarly challenging course profile. Turns out I also managed to simulate Ironman suffering about as accurately as possible without actually doing an Ironman...so all in all it was mission accomplished!

I went down to Syracuse on Friday night with my parents to stay with our long time family friends who live about 20 minutes from the race site, and I was immediately kicking myself for not doing this race before. It's a beautiful area and with it only being about 4.5 hours away it's also one of the closest Ironman 70.3 events to home. Being able to stay with friends so close by made it that much more enjoyable.

I got my race prep done early on Saturday and got a feel for the terrain in the area. If the hills weren't enough the forecast also called for 104F humidity and 25mph winds on race day. I knew that I was in for some serious suffering, but that was kind of the whole point!

Possibly even more important to me than my performance or result was that it was going to be the first real test of my new IM nutrition strategy that includes a lot more sodium and tweaking my carb intake both on the bike and run. In a few of my recent long course races I have run into stomach issues that I had never experienced in training, so it has been difficult to replicate or predict. I figured "sh*t hitting the fan" conditions in a 70.3 would be a pretty good simulation for Ironman :)

Now for the race itself...

Swim:

Similar to Milton a couple weeks ago, my primary goal for the swim was just to get through it alive and without any shoulder pain getting onto the bike. After a quick warm-up and some of LPC Coach Alex's dynamic stretching and core activation exercises it was my turn to get rolling in wave 10.

I managed to find clean water fairly quickly...that is until we hit all the previous waves of swimmers. But that's par for the course in any Ironman event so I just did my best to get through the traffic without wasting too much energy or demolishing anybody.

About 4-500m in I noticed some pretty significant chop that was in our favour for the time being. You know when you see the waves rolling past you while you're swimming with them, it's gonna suck going the other way! I quickly realized this would mean a long and difficult 900m back to shore so I backed off the pace a bit to anticipate a negative split in effort on the way back. I already had the feeling that this race was going to be ridiculously hard in every way possible.

Sure enough as I made the turn the wind made for a challenging swim coming back. It was tough to sight and not get pushed off course but I was able to stay relaxed and focused on a good turnover and staying high in the water. I kept reminding myself of my mindset for the day: the process and execution is more important than times or results. When I got out of the water I didn't see anyone else from my wave around and not many bikes were gone on my rack, so I knew that regardless of the times I managed to swim reasonably well. I took some extra time to throw on my Castelli jersey that I'll be using for Whistler to give it a test.

Accurate depiction of the scenic venue...terrible depiction of the tough conditions 

Bike:

I knew that this was going to be a challenging bike course, that's why I chose this race. But man, it's a friggin challenging bike course!

There wasn't much time to settle in and find my legs before the first climb...which was 9 miles long. The first 40k of the course was almost entirely uphill and into that stiff headwind that was whipping up the lake earlier. My power numbers were on the low end but I knew this was the perfect simulation for Whistler so I focused on climbing efficiently and executing my nutrition strategy.

I can assure you that's a grimace and/or tears, not a smile

After what seemed like an eternity of riding uphill into the wind I laughed when I saw that I had averaged under 30km/h at ~240W through the first hour on the bike. After a few brief moments of feeling good from 30-45k I was starting to feel like I was 150k into an Ironman, not 50k through a half. My legs were empty, my butt was sore, it was already stupidly hot and I was getting frustrated seeing the low power numbers I was putting out. Let me tell you, this was a beast of a course to not be feeling strong or fresh for. And 90k of 30+km/h wind and 3500ft of climbing is a long time to question your life decisions when you still have a half marathon to run after.

Questioning life decisions

I had to catch myself a few times when the negative thoughts started flowing as I watched the miles tick by impossibly slowly and my power dropping. But I was able to stay focused enough not to get down on myself or pack it in mentally. I told myself that worst case, this would be a great IM simulation day even if I shuffle through the run. Best case, I know I'm still fairly fast and efficient on the bike at my IM power output, and my legs might come around for the run to still finish well.

I decided that I was going to ditch my Garmin at T2 and just run by feel. I wasn't sure how things were going to go but I wanted to give myself the opportunity to reset and just let things happen rather than tie myself to a goal time or pace. This turned out to be the best decision of my day.

Run:

I settled into what seemed like a reasonable pace through the first 5k of the run, but having never done a 70.3 run without a Garmin I wasn't totally sure how I was running. It was already total carnage on the run course with the heat and hills, and looked far more like an Ironman run course with a large percentage of athletes from the earlier waves walking.

I was feeling decent and I knew that as long as I kept moving forward I would pass a lot of athletes. My two goals for the run became: 1. Don't barf, and 2. Just. Keep. Running. My stomach was still a bit testy through the first lap of the run as I made sure I got enough carbs and fluids in to be in good shape for lap 2. I backed off the pace a couple times to let my stomach settle down, but was able to bring it back up shortly after each time. Despite what seemed like a slow pace I was passing literally hundreds of athletes from the waves ahead and there were very few on the run course who seemed to be moving as well as I was.

Where's the next aid station, I need my watery flat ice-coke

Heading back out for lap 2 was a bit of a mental struggle but I got myself fired up knowing that this is where I would make or break my race. I had my aid station menu dialed in as I grabbed one cup of ice to throw down my suit, then poured a cup of coke into another cup of ice and sipped on the delicious watery flat ice-coke until I finished it. As I got deeper into lap 2 I was motivated that I still wasn't slowing down as the run course continued to claim casualties around me. I still had no idea what pace I was running or what my placing was but simply based on how many people were walking and/or barfing I knew that I was moving up.

A post shared by Ryan Power (@ryan.power.5) on Jun 20, 2017 at 8:06am PDT

When I got near the finish my support crew was yelling at me that if I kept pushing I could break 5 hours, to which I thought "Are you f***ing kidding me?!" I had thought that 4:30 would be a strong but realistic goal on the challenging course. But it turned out that only 14 people broke 5 hours on the day, and my 4:57 put me 12th overall and 5th in a clearly competitive age group. To put it in perspective that's about 40 MINUTES off my PB when I finished in a nearly identical position (11th and 4th AG) on a similarly hot day in Muncie a couple years ago.

I have to say that despite being dealt incredibly tough conditions on an already difficult course, this was one of my favourite races I've ever done. It was an epic course and very well-run event, and I'm already looking forward to coming back sometime to really target it for another crack. Despite having a sub-par bike I felt like I executed to the best of my abilities on the day, and ultimately it served it's purpose as the perfect tune-up for Whistler.

Thanks again to everyone for the words of encouragement and support, my parents for coming along on the road trip, Dave and Linnea for the great company and accommodations, and of course Amanda for holding down the fort with two occasionally pain-in-the-ass fur children for the weekend :)

Milton Race Report

For the first time since my very first triathlon in 2007 (!!) I returned to Milton to get my tri season underway. It was also my first race in nearly a full year after missing most of last season with injuries.

With Ironman Canada now less than eight weeks out it's safe to say that I'm in the heart of my build. Part of me was hesitant to interrupt the regular training routine to throw in a race, but on the flip side Ironman training is so consuming that I wanted to take full advantage of the rare opportunity to mix things up and throw down a hard effort at a local race.

I had two primary goals for Milton:

1. Get a perfect tune-up in my legs for Syracuse 70.3 on a similarly challenging course
2. Practice the mindset that I will bring to both Syracuse and Whistler this year - to ignore any external distractions and be completely tuned into my own effort and executing my best race, regardless of the outcome.

It also served as my first real test for my swim fitness and my shoulder coming off a rotator cuff tear. I spent most of my winter going to the pool twice a week for a 30 minute drill swim, and although at times it felt like a hopeless pursuit to maintain the possibility of being able to swim this year, Coach James reassured me that there was still time to get fit and all the core-focused drills would help me when I could actually swim freestyle again.

After months of frustration I got a different approach to my rehab from the one and only Joe Putos - the founder of the K-Town Tri, as well as a very experienced physiotherapist. In a crazy coincidence I have shared a lab with him at Western for the last year, and I guess eventually he got tired of me complaining about my shoulder and offered to treat me. With Joe's help things finally started to turn around in April and I was swimming pain-free for the first time in over six months.

I had only gotten 4-5 weeks of twice per week masters swims in before Milton and each one has been an absolute sufferfest, but I've surprised myself with how things have been coming back. I had absolutely no expectations for the swim in Milton but with Syracuse coming up in two weeks I had to at least make sure that I could get through a 750m swim without drowning shoulder pain.

After a nice drive down with Amanda's dad Kevin (aka legend of the 60-64 category) and a cold and rainy warmup with some of my Hurdle Project bros, we got things underway.

I lined up near the far end of the swim start since I didn't want to go too crazy at the start...basically I just wanted to swim a solid tempo and feel in control of my stroke throughout. At the gun I found Andrew Taylor's feet (who I had an epic battle with at the Mississauga 10k last year, and is also a very strong swimmer), and after quickly settling into a good pace I found myself in a large pack at the first turn.

All those hours of head-lead roll paid off as I had it drilled into my brain to keep my core on and stay efficient as I hung onto the group. It was probably the first time I've found myself in a decent sized group and take advantage of a good draft - I have often struggled in the past to draft efficiently with more of a pool swimmer's stroke. Based on my time gap to some of the strong elite swimmers I likely had one of my best swims in recent years. Mission accomplished!

(photo cred. James Loaring) thanks for the wheels Kevin!

Getting onto the bike with a pack of mostly juniors made for an interesting first 5k of the bike. I quickly rode through half a dozen athletes with a few trying to hang onto my wheel, then at the start of the Sixth Line climb they all went hammering past me as I held a steady output. But by the top of the climb I had re-passed the group and settled into a solid effort.

After that the bike was pretty uneventful as I went by a couple more guys and was passed by one strong rider. I was a little more cautious than usual on the corners and the descent down Sixth Line with some much bigger races coming up, but fortunately it wasn't too sketchy as the rain eased off just before the start of the race. I was feeling a little sluggish at times but I ended up riding fairly well finishing off at 280W NP.

The run course was one of the most challenging short course runs I have done and also one of my favourites. Having done a lot of my hard runs on the hills and trails around Western's campus I was right in my element with the hills and mud :) I focused on keeping a fast turnover on the rolling terrain and with three turn-arounds on the course I was motivated to try to bring time back on the athletes ahead.

Between 4-5k I could tell that I was inching closer to one athlete up ahead but I was running out of real estate to catch him. So I knew that I could either cruise in and maintain my place, or give it everything and see how close I could get. Ultimately I came up just short but I was able to finish very satisfied with my effort and with one of my best runs ever, averaging 3:32/km over the challenging course. But not before my Hurdle Project pals captured this epic pain face.

A post shared by Ryan Power (@ryan.power.5) on Jun 5, 2017 at 7:39am PDT

(vid cred. Bryan Cole)

I ended up in 7th, 1st AG and the 3rd best run split. I knew that my training has been going well the last couple months but it was a pleasant surprise to have good legs for a sprint race to kick off the season. I exceeded all of my goals for the race and I am really looking forward to Syracuse for a much bigger battle on one of the hardest 70.3 courses on the circuit. Thanks for the read and stay tuned for more updates!