Lets have a conversation

For those of you not on facebook, just wanted to share this here as well.  Funny stuff.

Heather and Trevor at the pool:

Conversation with an interesting senior citizen (whose daughter used to swim a 56 100m free, and who used to run a 4:01 mile) at the pool this morning:

Him: “You swim too much freestyle – you need to do more backstroke and fly to build endurance”
Heather: Well I swim 2.4 mile events so…
Him: Oh did you do the race in Kona?
Heather: Yes I did actually – the Ironman World Championships
Him: How did you do?
Heather: I was 8th
Him: What happened, did you die or something?
Trevor: Actually 8th is pretty good
Him: you need to do sit-ups and push-ups in the Sauna to really work your heart
Wurteles: *smile & nod*

Fun times on the trails around St. George

A little video from a couple days of Mountain biking.

Ironman Arizona 2011

–It certainly feels good to end the year on a high note and knock a couple monkeys off my back. The running sub 3 hr monkey was obliterated with a 2:51 run, faster than the absolute best case scenario I was planning for.

Back up a second here.  To start, I really need to thank Heather. Since her 2 IM wins this year and her great season ending race in Kona last month, she’s really done everything she could to help me get ready for Ironman Arizona. Supporting me on long runs, throwing food in front of my face when I’m too tired to eat properly, doing chores while I was out on a long day, setting up my transition workouts, and most importantly just fueling my positive approach to this race. Also, a big thanks to my great sponsors who keep me moving fast and reaching for my potential every day: AVIA, Blue Competition Cycles, First Endurance Nutrition, Rolf Prima Wheels, CycleOps power, Aqua Sphere Swim, UltrAspire Packs and Run Belts, Tifosi Optics, and Torhans Aero.

Also, I want to put a word in for Paulo Sousa, my coach. He came to our RV at IMAZ last year and did his best to convince Heather and I to join his newly formed squad. I had never met him before that time. It was quite simply, “stop wasting your time, I know what you need to do, let me show you how to do it.” It was a tough decision to join up with a new squad after starting with a new coach in 2010, but that decision has brought me to a new level this year thanks to his guidance and some great training partners. It’s a long term approach and this is truly just a start. Amazing what one full year of hard work can do. I can count the days I took off from training on one hand, and those took place in the days after Ironman Canada, or long travel days. Consistency at it’s best. Paulo pisses a lot of people off, me included, but he calls out bullshit when he sees it, regardless of how that affects him in the eyes of others. When it comes down to it, he’s a good guy to have on your side, even when you want to punch him in the face.

In the back group. Going the wrong direction.

On to the race.

This was one of the largest pro Ironman races I’ve ever seen. The start line felt rather chaotic, I really had no idea where to start, but somehow got slammed into the middle of the line -not a big fan of the middle. I really wanted to get myself out of the situation but with only about minute before the gun went off I didn’t want to risk getting caught behind a kayak or miss the gun altogether. One of the main reasons I prefer the side, ANY side, is that I can see what’s happening up ahead and where potential breaks are forming. The middle is just downright annoying, there really is nothing you can do except keep your head away from feet and flying arms, and hope a break doesn’t form just in front of you. For the first 1.2 miles out to the two far turn buoys it was all ok. I was swimming reasonably hard and happy to have rounded the far turns in a sizable group. With the final straight 1 mile swim back to the Mill Street bridge I was confident that this group would remain a group. Aaaaannnnnnd, not so much. Someone let a gap go a few swimmers in front of me and proceeded to swim all over the place. It really surprises me how some people simply do not know how to swim a straight line and site the most direct path. I mean, come on, why are you going left when the furthest buoy we have to round is clearly 50m to our right. Maybe I just have eagle eyesight, but it’s a 6 FOOT ORANGE TRIANGLE in the calmest water imaginable. Arrrrrgh!!! I won’t bother going in to further details on how needlessly far we swam. Maybe I’ll draw a diagram, words can’t explain the situation. I was torn between the draft, or cutting the most direct path. Ideally I wouldn’t have even been in that situation, but I messed up. No biggie, in the grand scheme of the day it’s maybe a minute or three at most so my best bet at that point was just to stay positive.

Ironman Arizona bike course is…how do you say this politely…far from enjoyable. It’s split into 3 out and back, 60 km laps, 2 of which are spent passing thousands of age group athletes. Early in lap 1 I ended up watching a couple guys ride away, simply because I was looking at power numbers that I wouldn’t be able to sustain. This put me in a group of 8 or so, riding in 25th or 30th on the road. Yikes. That first lap I was hoping to simply ride my planned power output and get rid of a few guys in the group. Hats off to Olly Piggin who wasn’t afraid to get upfront and put the work in as well. By lap two I could see my efforts, and Olly’s, were only serving those in back so I had to make the call to play the game and move back a bit.  It was maddening to see how much drafting was going on. I’d love just call out a few names here, but really it’s not going to do any good. It’s very frustrating to ride in a group, it goes from surges of up to 400 watts, then down to 150 watts in order to stay out of the draft zone. Up, down, up, down. Nearing the end of lap 2, with about 75 km to go in the ride, I had enough and decided to take a risk with my day to try and ditch the group. Rounding one of the corners and through an aid station I dropped the hammer and rode well above my power cap for a good 10 minutes. Definitely not in my pre race plan. Happily, it felt SOOOO good to do this. My legs opened up and I finally felt like I was racing. My mindset changed, the day was on! My last lap was great, nobody around me, picking off guys that had ridden too hard to start, weaving in and out of age groupers, dodging the ever present Orange Cone. Good stuff. Finally having some fun. I did indeed start to fade in the last 15 km, but not so badly that you could call it a crack. An honest fatigue from a good ride.

Now to the run, where I really went outside myself and got well sub-3 with a 2:51. It’s hard to tell you how happy I am to have run well here. Every Ironman I’ve started in the past few years I’ve had this looming fear of walking the end of the marathon. To nail it is a huge boost and one I won’t forget how to do in future races. My pre race plan was to run nothing slower than 7:00 min/mile and nothing faster than 6:40/mile. Just be conservative and have something left in the tank to push the final lap and make my goal time of under 3 hrs. Well, I pretty much threw that plan out the window by mile 3. I’m very certain that the mile markers for miles 1, 2, and 3 were in slightly the wrong spot. I was lapping my watch at the markers, looking at it now they say: 6:04, 7:04, 5:33. I know my pace didn’t change that much so figured the 3 mile avg of 6:15 was an accurate guesstimate. WAY faster than I thought I should be running. Then and there I just said to myself, ‘screw it, bank as many sub 6:30′s as you can, this isn’t hurting too badly’. Crazy enough, they were almost ALL sub 6:30. I just never slowed down, going through the half way point in 1:22:10. Only in the last 4 miles, when I stopped taking splits and just ran my best for the finish were they more than likely edging closer to 7min/mile. It really is a different experience to run that hard in an Ironman. Nothing is ever on cruise control, it’s always trying to accelerate out of the 4 U-turns per lap, letting it fly downhill, leaping up and down curbs (lots of sidewalk action on this course), constantly pushing. Damn it felt good. It hurt physically, but mentally it felt so good to be ABLE to run like that and have confidence I could sustain it. Into the finish with an 8:22 and a 9th place. 9th place on a day like that kinda hurts, but I was inside the top ten in a field of great athletes so I do have to be happy.

 

UltrAspire Run Belt. Magnetic bottle and magnetic water proof pouch in back. 2nd water proof pouch up front with gel flask holder.

A large part of the day was indeed great training. My best ironman run prior to this was a 3:04, and I can honestly say a years worth of running as much as I’ve been running, can indeed knock 13 minutes off my run time. I also had the most ideal 3 months since that disaster run at Ironman Canada, and was very confident the fitness was even better than it was at that time. But when it comes down to it, shaving 30 minutes off off a run time (3:20 at IMC) is not just good training or being in the right place mentally. I made some changes to my nutrition plan that left me energized and mentally ‘with it’ enough to run well. Below is what I did…

Morning Breakfast:

-Gluten free, blueberry pancakes with cinnamon honey, almond butter, maple syrup (ya, my wife got up at 4:15 and made me pancakes in our RV
-Bottle of Ultragen
-Coffee
-I had some major pre-race nerves for this one so was happy to put down 3 pancakes.

Pre Swim:

-150 calories of liquid shot and water 20min before start.

On the bike:

-Plan of 400 calories per hour, at least. That’s one 400 calorie bottle per hour minimum.
-Started the day with 3 x 24 oz bottles with 400 calories (200 EFS drink and 200 CarboPro to keep the sweetness down)
-2 x Liquid Shot flasks of 400 calories in my back pockets. Consumed 700 calories of these.
-1 x single serve gel in the last 5 minutes. Probably got in about 75 cal from that.
-4 or 5 on course waters (~750ml each)…was not a hot day, and I peed 4 times as it was.

On the run:

-Water in my UltrApsire run belt that I refilled at aid stations. Sometimes I would put a bit of on course energy drink in there just for a bit of flavor change.
-2 x liquid shot flasks of 400 calories each. Went through the first 400 calories by mile 11. Picked up my second flask at special needs and finished that by mile 22. Drank water at the aid stations when I wasn’t filling my belt flask.
-Took a salt pill every few miles. Again, wasn’t a hot day so didn’t feel the need to overdo these. Though, some people said it was hot out there. I didn’t feel it.
-Had a TUMS at mile 11 and mile 19. Those taste GOOD!!
-Coke in the last 3 miles. This stuff is evil in an ironman. If you’re having gut issues and wondering why…try staying off of coke. Works really well for me in an half, but it really messes me up on a long day. 3 minutes after my first sip of coke I was having some stomach gurgles.

Props to Michael Lovato and Robert Kunz for a couple suggestions with my nutrition plan. On the First Endurance panel in Kona, Michael talked about how he needs to have an easy way to keep track of calories going down. This lit a bit of a bulb in my thick skull and realized that I am indeed not ‘with it’ enough during a race to keep track of one 1200 calorie bottle.

Now it’s time to relax and not think about what I have to do tomorrow. Ahhhhhhhhh.

Zip Ties Make The World Go Around

Had a few questions after yesterday’s blog post so figured I’d post the answers here as well.

#1.
Q: How did you mount the Joule in front of the Torhans bottle?
A: Zip Ties

A pretty simple and solid solution.  The only problem I ran into was having the thing slide back and forth on the aero bars.  To solve that I used a thin roll of electrical tape to form a bump on either side of the zip ties.    The only downside is that it’s a bit difficult to pull off the Joule in between training sessions.  Torhans does make a specially designed tray that attaches to their aero bottle, but it mounts in behind the bottle and I prefer to have the monitor out front so I don’t have to look down.  This zip tie solution also keeps the Joule tucked in behind my wrists for optimal aerodynamics.

#2.
Q: How did you mount the rear bottle cage?
A: Zip Ties

 Somehow I came across these incredibly old school cages.  They’re made out of a product called plastic.  Weird.  If you refuse to mount a plastic cage to your bike you can stop reading now.  Personally, I think the plastic is great cause it absorbs road bumps and shocks, pretty much eliminating bottle launches.  I’ve never lost a bottle.  Another great thing with this cage is it also has some mount-holes going sideways through the cage, as you can see.  This makes it super easy to attach it to the saddle rails (one zip tie for each side), and then one on the main seat post to keep it solid.  I’ve made it work on 3 different styles of Blue Competition Cycles seat posts over the last 3 years.

#3.
Q: How did you keep your  bike standing on its own?
A: I zip tied Heather to the ground in behind the disc wheel.

 I forget where I saw someone do this.  It may have been slowtwitch, or LAVA mag, or Triathlete Mag.  Actually, nobody asked this question I just wanted to post it.  She also did this voluntarily, no zip ties required.

Feelin Mo’ Bettah

Like they say in Hawaii; It’s good to feel good, but bettah to feel mo’ bettah! I’m (Trevor) Currently sitting at 4 days out from Ironman Arizona 2011 and starting to get a little antsy, but absolutely feeling mo betta than evah’. Taper has settled in big time, these short workouts leave so much time in the day to just sit around and think about race day. Gets a little annoying, honestly. I’m definitely doing my best to just watch some TV at our friends house – Apple TV with Netflix rules, by the way. Regardless, hard to keep the mind from looking back over the last few months of training and scrutinizing the details. One plus is the training has indeed been awesome, so 99% of the scrutinizing is positive. Not much has changed in the actual training itself, just a lot more running that I wasn’t able to do in the lead up to Ironman Canada because of some silly shin issues.

Outside of training I’ve made a few important equipment and nutrition modifications that I’m excited to pull out on Sunday. I really feel like I can run sub 3 hrs at this race. It’s a big goal of mine here and one I know I can accomplish if I quit being a dumbass with my calorie intake. ‘Cause really, if I can consistently run 1:15-1:16 in most half ironmans like I’ve been doing this year, sub 3 should really not be out of the picture. Straight up, I really am freaking stupid when it comes to nutrition in an Ironman. I have a great plan laid out, but I just fail to make adjustments when they’re needed, or fail to realize when I’m straying from my original plan. Perhaps I just get so caught up in the riding part that I forget to take care of the eating part before it’s too late. Anyway, time to make it simple…r!!!

Here it is, nutrition for the bike: starting with 3 bottles on my bike, 400 calories of EFS drink in each + 2 EFS liquid shot flasks with 400 calories each. Add 5 or 6 on course waters and that’s it. Finish 1 caloric bottle every hour. Done. It’ll be a 4:30′ish ride so that’s more than enough, but will aim to finish all 2000 calories. Prior to this plan I always had 1 bottle with 1200 calories of liquid shot, plus 4 bottles with 200 calories EFS drink (2 of which I picked up at special needs half way). Quite simply, I can’t keep track of what’s going down the hatch with that plan. Stoked about the change and I’ve had some eye opening training rides with it. Oh yes, I also load in some Pre Race in there. Vrooom.

On top of the nutrition consumed on the bike I have had problems taking in calories while running. Nothing to do with gut issues, just plain stupid laziness. It really becomes a chore to reach into your back pocket for a Liquid Shot flask 6.5hrs into a race. Why? Simple, I’m an idiot when I lack calories.  Solution? Having my EFS liquid shot flask easily accessible on the front part of my race belt. I’m pretty confident this will keep my need to keep shoving calories down the hatch in the forefront of my mind.  Here’s a cool video the UltrAspire folks shot of Heather with a similar belt. We’ve been so fortunate to test these belts for them, they’ll be out for sale next year with plenty of carbon (orange cages will be carbon) and personalization options for the tech loving triathlete!

On to some changes I made on the bike. First off body position. Huge thank you to coach Paulo, again. When I first started working with Paulo in January he immediately dropped my aero bars by 3.5cm. A big change that proved to be a huge benefit to my bike speed for all races this year. Post Ironman Canada a few months ago – another big drop – 1.5cm’s. That’s 5cm off my front end from last year. Without a joke, putting out more power now and cutting through the wind so much easier.The only discomfort I had to get over was a bit more craning of my neck after this last adjustment, but helped eliminate that with an aero helmet with visor in the Louis Garneu Vorttice. Have to admit I’ve done many hard training rides with that helmet on – freaking love it. Top that off with a Rolf Prima TT58 with disc cover and PowerTap, aero bottle to hold my spare and aero hydration bottle upfront (thanks Torhans), bigger chain ring, more training…excited to ride the same watts I did at IMC and crush this IMAZ course.

AVIA Lite Guide 6 in this picture

I’m also running in a thicker, more supportive shoe from AVIA called the AVIA-Lite Guide 4.  I’ve raced in the AVIA Bolt for every race the past couple years, and I do like them for when I’m running anything under 6:00/mile pace.  They’re light and fast, but once I start getting into anything slower than 6:30/mile I find the landing is just too hard.  The switch to a slightly heavier, and way more cushy, shoe has been a big positive.  While we were in Kona I was putting in some big run weeks, most of those miles on the Queen-K.  No way I could have ran that much on pavement in a racing flat.  I can feel the weight difference when doing intervals or longer steady fast runs, but it’s going to pay off huge at the end of Ironman Arizona, a primarily concrete run.

So yeah, it’s safe to say my confidence is high.  Looks to be over over 70 male athletes at this race with some, as always, big names in attendance. I know I can swim in the 52-53′ range, I know I can ride close to 4:30 on this course if the wind isn’t ridonculous (another marker, don’t lose more than 8min to Jordan Rapp on the bike!), then knock off a sub 3hr run and I’ll be very happy with my day.  Them’s the goals and you heard it here first!!

Ironman World Championships

It’s a few days after the race, my spectacularly swollen cankles are finally starting to subside (hooray for visible ankle bones!) and I finally have enough brain energy to get some thoughts down.

I was 8th at the Ironman World Championships on Saturday, October 8th, and I am happy to say that I’ve been able to tell my analytical self – who is much better at focusing on all the little things that need improvement than patting me on the back- to shut up for once!

Well, it took awhile after the race, to be honest. It was such a hard effort and I suffered so badly on the run from the exit to the Energy Lab, I was dissapointed not to have the strong marathon performace I trained for. All my friends and family were like “whoo hoo!!! 8th in the World!!! You’re amazing!!!” And I was like, meh, I missed the pack I needed to be with in the swim, I executed my ride well, but I was falling apart at the end of the run… what can I do to fix that?

At the awards ceremony, though, there was a super cool montage of all the Ironman finishes since the first race in 1978. Seeing the champs cross the line – especially my Canadian heros Lori Bowden, Peter Reid, and Heather Fuhr – really made it sink in. I am competing, and competitive on the world stage; the same stage as those guys were on! That’s freaking awesome! I got all teary and was able to just let it go and feel satisfied with all that I’ve accomplished.

To recap the year:

4th at the Oceanside 70.3

1st at Ironman St. George – beating my course record from last year

2nd at Ironman 70.3 Boise

1st Ironman Lake Placid – new course record

7th Ironman 70.3 World Championships – Las Vegas

8th Ironman World Championships – Kona

Not too shabby. Exciting platform for improvement, and I’ve got the “she’s too big to race well at Kona” monkey off my back.

It was also a great learning experience in terms of dealing with all the pre-race hype, managing sponsor commitments, and coping with the crazy energy of Kona. I am usually pretty even-keel before races, but I had some serious wigging out moments here and I learned a lot about the importance of finding inner peace.

I also had a great time getting to know other pro athletes. Our  RV lifestyle can be isolating at times, so it was super fun to mingle with our peers, and had a blast with all the champs at the after party. It is fun for everyone to be able to let their guards down and just celebrate!

Here is how it unfolded on race day:

Swim – I felt like I had a good start but just missed closing the gap to the 2nd main group and ended up on the feet of Sam Warnier. She was holding a good pace and I decided to be smart and conserve energy. I was frustrated by a poor line on the way back in but everytime I tried to go around to pull us closer to the paddle board and buoys she’d angle back the right way and so I’d just get back on her feet. Definitely swam some extra meters, but it was what it was.

Good transition, and out on the bike. I was super happy with my ride and executed my plan well. I chilled thru town and the stretch up Kuakini and Palani. People look at you like “ride harder” when you are not standing up and givin’er up the steep hill out of town – but spiking the watts like crazy in the first 20mi of the race is probably one of the stupidest things you can do. I was happy knowing that I was in control and that girls would come back to me by Hawi.

It was surprising to see Chrissie behind me out of the water and when she went by me out by Kawaihai I was able to ride with her in my sights for the rest of the day (I still just pushed my own watts and followed my plan). I passed her, she re-passed me… we all have our ups and downs, but I felt like the ride was solid and it was cool to come into transition together. Apparently though, despite being with her for most of the ride, I got no mentions on IM Live, much to the dismay of all my supporters! It’s okay guys, I’ll get some love from the media one of these days!

I knew I was no match for Chrissie’s run speed, but my plan was just to get in a good rhythm and focus on hydration and cooling. I really loved the dorky over the shoulder arm coolers that I wore because I could put ice down the sleeves. This really helped me manage the heat load and prevented a sun burn from nuking my skin’s ability to sweat and cool properly. On the 10 mi stretch out Alii I caught Karin Thurig (who set a phenominal bike course record of 4:44) and saw Julie walking so was stoked to be 6th. This lasted briefly until Mirinda Carfrae caught me, and half way to the energy lab Karin found her stride and re-passed.

On the way back into town I really struggled with the heat and a few missed water cups at aid stations (they volunteers were pre-occupied with masses of age groupers going the other way) left me suffering because my awesome UltrAspire run belt was empty by then. Sonja Tajsich was digging super deep to catch me and she went by with a few miles to go. I was hurting and demoralized, but Trevor yelled at me to keep fighting and I really gave it all I had. I tried to just go with gravity and let it fly down Palani. The legs were screaming but I was determined not to get caught. I gave a few high fives, but thought that Virginia was breathing down my neck so didn’t even get to enjoy my finish chute experience. It was a good thing too, because about 15 seconds behind Cait Snow came screaming in with a 2:53 marathon split!

8th. In the world. BAM!

I have to give a huge shout out to all my sponsors AVIA, Blue Competition Cycles, Rolf Prima Wheels, First Endurance Nutrition, Aqua Sphere, CycleOps Power, TorHans, UltrAspire, Tifosi Optics, and Manitoba Harvest. I am so fortunate to work with such wonderful people that are passionate about making the best products out there!

Also have to thank my coach Paulo Sousa for getting me to every start line this year, fit and ready to compete and my manager Holly Bennet from Human Interest Group for all her support on so many levels.

Family and friends, you know who you are, and you know how much I love and cherish you! Thanks for being such a key element in enabiling me to achieve my dreams.

A little video

Posted this on twitter and facebook already, but if you’re not part of that scene – here she is on the blog.

Ironman Canada 2011 – Trevor

It’s amazing the number of individual thoughts that swarm around in my head the couple days after an Ironman.  It’s been a full year since I’ve started and finished a full Ironman.  The break was really to focus on my racing through the year and build into a great Ironman Canada 2011.  Everything this season has been awesome, but on the day that mattered to me the most I didn’t pull it off.  Disappointing for sure, but definitely looking forward to fixing it in a few months.

Here’s a few things I would do differently if I could have an “IMC Makeover, with Ryan Seacrest.”

The swim – was perfect.  I couldn’t have asked for anything better, other than hoping someone wanted to push the pace a bit more near the end.  I sure wasn’t going to do it.  I kept waiting for the point of the swim where I would have to dig really deep to stay on feet and get in with the pack I wanted.  It never came, I was quite comfortable the entire 3.8km.  Prior to the start, I took note of who was wearing what cap color.  I wanted to be with at least 1 or 2 of those caps when rounding the far turn.  Well, everyone that I wanted to be with was in the group, and they all seemed content to just cruise it in.  When someone’s pushing the pace it’s usually a long thinline, but this particular group had about 3 people on the front with a good 10 of us behind.  I wasn’t complaining, though I did worry a little bit about how much time we may be giving up to the lead swimmers.  In the end it wasn’t much – our large group came in at 53minutes to the 50 minute time of the leaders.  I’d take that scenario over again, for sure. No Ryan Seacrest makeover needed.

My ride was again pretty close to as perfect as I could have made it.  The last 30km were WAY harder than I was expecting, but, that’s to be expected with Ironman!!  The wind was nasty and it did not make the lengthy downhill into town an easy place to take a bit of the edge off and put back some extra calories and fluid.  The plan as a whole was to ride my goal watts all day, not even care what was going on around me.  Just stare at the little yellow CycleOps Joule computer and hit my target average watts of 280.  That, I did.  It did fall off a bit over the final drop into penticton, and I was unable to keep the power high through the final little rise in town, ending the day with Avg power of 274.  All said, though, a good ride.  I was tired by the end, but not shelled where I would doubt my ability to run.  My time of 4hrs 47min for the 180km was good for that day. All the guys I was watching were around that time -Jordan Rapp aside – who came in at 4:38.

I did, however, lose some focus during the ride when one blatant, cheating, drafter from France(Guy in Yellow, above), decided to tack onto my wheel in those last 45km.  He had ridden past me about 60km earlier mashing his big ring over the rollers, it was no wonder he was fried.  Once I caught up to him again there was litterally no shame coming from him and he just sucked my wheel, even a couple middle fingers and harsh words didn’t phase him.  Perhaps it threw me off a bit. If I could have a “ReDo with Ryan Seacrest” moment, I’d go back and just laugh.  He was done, no way he was going to have a good run and I should have just stayed in my zone.

I went into the race believing that top 5 was possible, that top 10 was assured barring disaster, and top 3 would be my best possible outcome.  Starting the run in 6th, then running up to 5th place was a great situation to be in.  Things were feeling solid, obviously not easy, but I was in control and in an awesome place mentally.  It was roasting hot on the way out, running with a pretty strong tailwind and not getting that cooling sensation on your face really makes it heat up quick.  Though I felt warm I wasn’t feeling it in my core or head, a good thing.  Ice down the shorts, sponges on the head, plenty of EFS Liquid shot and lots of water with SaltStick caps were the ticket.  Game on.  The previous night I froze a bottle of very dilute EFS drink so that I could have it at the mile 13 special needs station.  I did the same thing last year but because the day was so cold in 2010 it hadn’t even thawed out.  This year I was so looking forward to that frozen drink.  Once I grabbed it I took a big swig and instantly had the worst gut cramp I’ve ever had.  It was not just a little ‘jog it off and rub it away’ thing.  More like a ‘what the hell was that’ issue.  Coach keeps telling me I’m mentally weak for walking a minute or two right then.  Not so sure about that. In my opinion, at that point in time, it was better to just take a minute and get rid of it than to limp/run through it and drag it on for a kilometer.  The most of it went away pretty quickly, and running through a slight stitch was no issue.  It did shake me a bit, giving me a quick flashback to a previous year, but I did my best to put it behind me and move on.  ”Ryan Seacrest Makeover” #2 – don’t ingest that much ice water at one time, 7hrs into a very hard day.

“IMC Makeover, with Ryan Seacrest” number 3 is a tricky one.  I think I would make it asking Heather not to be out on the run course.  The unfortunate reaction to seeing a loved one out on the course 7 hrs into the race is to explain what is going on and how you’re feeling.  When really it would be better to simply internalize any problems and deal with it yourself.  When I told her I had a major cramp a bit eariler, she and coach told me to stick with Coke.  Once I heard that I really thought it would be a great idea to just throw out my EFS liquid shot and run the last 9 miles with coke.  My final “Ryan Seacrest Makeover” is to just put that damn flask in my jersey pocket.  A stupid panic reaction on my behalf.  Maybe the end was coming anyway, but coke was just not cutting it for me.  I was pounding back 2 cups at every aid station to try and get something to my muscles.  Surely they didn’t put diet coke out there, did they? Hehe, jokes.

I did hold on to 8th.  I can’t say I’m happy with 8th because I wanted so much more.  Looking at the positives here, though, it is my best Ironman Canada placing in the 7 times I’ve raced here:

2004 – maybe 350th or something
2006- 29th
2007- 18th
2008- 14th (first year pro)
2009- 20th
2010- 12th
2011- 8th

Not my best Ironman placing ever in an Ironman, but even if I have to keep chipping away at small improvements in this freaking deal I’ll get it nailed.

Thanks to my cheering squad from the 13th floor.  And of course my dad and Lynne who missed out on this picture. Linda who’s taking the picture.  Also to Seaera, Danny, and Michele for coming out from Calgary to help cheer.  You guys are all great.

WTC points system

Trev here.

I’ve got an idea that I think could be so much better for WTC points rankings.  Maybe I’m missing a reason why this won’t work, but at the moment it seems like it would be a viable option for ranking professional long course athletes.

We should look to the FIS – Federation International de Ski.  Particularly the downhill skiing points ranking system.  In that system you can rank every single ski racer IN THE WORLD and they don’t even have to compete against each other all the time.

How do they do it? —Keep in mind ZERO points is the best in the world.  I took this from WikiAnswers:

FIS points are calculated based on 2 things. The first part is based on how far off the leader a competitor is (the winner gets 0 points for this part), in Giant Slalom approximately 7 points are added for every second off the leader one is, this number is slightly different in each event (Downhill, Slalom, Super GS). The second part is an average of the current points of the top 5 competitors in the top 10. This is called the “penalty” and it is added to the “race points” mentioned in the first time. However there is no “penalty” in world cup races so the winner of a world cup event gets 0 points (less points is better). On the official FIS list a competitors points are their top 2 points finishes averaged out.

This would absolutely work for Ironman and Ironman 70.3 events.  Heck, it would even work for any triathlon in the world.  You’d have to change the FIS’s number of points we assess for ‘time behind the leader’.  Perhaps we do 1 point for every 3 minutes you are behind the winner.  6 minutes behind is 2 points.

To start the 2012 season, we use the current 2011 rankings to base who the best in the world are.  Here’s an attempt at an example for two races this past season (IM Texas and IM Lake Placid – women’s races).  I’ll use current WTC KPR to assess current points.  So, if Carolyn Steffen had been at one of these races, she’d have 0 points coming in.  My wife, Heather, currently ranked 15th, would have 14 points, and so on down the entire current KPR list.

Results at IM Lake Placid:

    1   40 FPRO   Heather Wurtele          9:19:03 - 14 points (on current KPR)
    2   52 FPRO   Tine Deckers             9:34:41 - 17 points (on current KPR)
    3   42 FPRO   Tyler Stewart            9:38:09 - 4 points (on current KPR)
    4   48 FPRO   Jackie Arendt            9:56:21
    5   47 FPRO   Jacqui Gordon            10:07:22
    6   51 FPRO   Suzanne Zelazo           10:21:08
    7   45 FPRO   Amber Ferreira           10:30:39
    8   53 FPRO   Miranda Alldritt         10:46:46
    9   50 FPRO   Marie Danais             10:48:26

Heather, Tine, and Tyler are best ranked on the KPR so I didn’t need to find the other gals’ rankings.  (14+17+4) = 35 points which you / 3 (to get avg) = 11.6 is the penalty for this race. – lets just say 12 for this example to make it easier.

Heather won, so she gets 12 points(everyone who finishes gets these points).  No time penalty assessed because of the win.  Averaged with her current 14 points (from the KPR list – or another result from the year) she would then end up with 13 points on the rankings.

Tine was second so she gets 12 points + (time points of 14 minutes).  Calculating time points for Tine = 14 divided by 3 = 4.6.  (Remember 1 point for every 3 minutes back). So, Tine comes out of this race with 16.6 points.  Then you average that with her existing 17 points from the KPR (or 2nd best result of the year).  Keep in mind you take the TWO BEST races of the year to make the final number.  I’m just using 1 race and the current KPR.

Tyler was third – 12 points (Race penalty that everyone gets) + 6.3 (Time gap points) = 18.3 points.  Average that with her other ‘result’ of 4 points and she’d come out that race with 11.1 points on the KPR.

Now to Ironman Texas.

    1   49 FPRO   Catriona Morrison        8:57:51 - 12 points
    2   47 FPRO   Kelly Williamson         9:07:54 - 8 points
    3   48 FPRO   Sofie Goos               9:12:53
    4   51 FPRO   Tyler Stewart            9:13:13 - 4 points
    5   58 FPRO   Tine Deckers             9:19:27
    6   53 FPRO   Kim Loeffler             9:20:04
    7   60 FPRO   Desiree Ficker           9:24:09
    8   63 FPRO   Jacqui Gordon            9:27:20
    9   52 FPRO   Joanna Lawn              9:32:19
   10   64 FPRO   Lauren Harrison          9:46:22
   11   62 FPRO   Michaela Giger           9:58:43
.... there are others, just cut it off

So, start by calculating the race penalty based off of the 3 best ranked athletes: (12 + 8 + 4) / 3 = 8 points.

Catriona Morrison wins so she gets an even 8 points on the day.  Average with her other race (KPR in this case) points of 12 and she drops a couple points in the rankings to 10 points.  A good thing.

Kelly Williamson: 8 points (Race Penalty) + 3.3 (Time penalty (10min / 3)) = 11.3 points on the day.  Averaged with her current 8 points and she’d come out with 9.65.

Sofie Goos: 8 ( Race Penalty)  + 5 (time penalty) = 13 points for the day.  She had 19 points coming in to the race, average the two and now she has 16 points.

Tyler: 8 + 5.3 = 12.3 points on the day.  Averaged with her 4 points and she comes out with 8.15 points.

—-

The FIS takes the points system down to 3 decimal places I think.  They really do include every single FIS athlete in the world – even amateurs.

I think this system of points would work.  Of course you’d have to assess some penalties for NOT racing as well.  As an example, if Tyler Stewart had 4 points and she wanted to keep the 4 points, she can’t just stay away from all the races.

As in the FIS points system – WTC could designate a couple races around the world to have a race penalty of ZERO, or ONE, or THREE.  Regardless of who’s there.  That way the winner would end up with whatever the penalty is even if the calculation of the race penalty equalled something higher.

Perhaps your current points could be based on your best two results over the last two years for Ironman events, averaged with your best 4 results from 70.3 events from the last two years.

KONA would obviously have 0 points no matter what.  Maybe they assess 2 or 3 points to their championship races.  Meaning, winner of Kona would have 0 points.  Winner of a championship race would get a scoring of 2 points.  Then average those numbers against their 2nd best result.  If you won Kona and a championship race, you’d have 1 point on the ranking system.  If you won Kona two years in a row…then you’d have 0 points.

We’d also have to include 70.3 races in there.  Going back to the FIS example, 70.3 events would have a different set of criteria for the ‘Time Penalty’ assessment.  Instead of 3 points for every minute, maybe it’s 6 points for every minute.

What this system would also do is keep the rankings more even over numerous years.  Prime example is Chrissie Wellington right now.  Ranked 29th on the KPR.  Really???  That’s only because she missed out on Kona 2010.  With the FIS style of points ranking she wouldn’t have taken such a massive hit to her standing.

Please feel free to comment and tell me why or why this wouldn’t work.  It’s bloody confusing if you’ve never seen it in action.  It really is a great way to reward people who do well at races that have high caliber athletes in attendance.  It’s not a random “oh, we should give less points to this race” type thing.  It decides itself based on who’s AT the race.

70.3 Calgary and creepy clouds

I’ve been trying to write a Calgary 70.3 race report for the last week, but have been rather short on mental energy. Plus, this laptop is so hot I can’t keep it on my lap long enough to put together a full paragraph. Sit a table you say – haha, yeah right. Horizontal or bust.

It was a very last minute call to take part in the Calgary 70.3, but I’m more than glad I did. Not only did it serve as a great way to break up this crazy Ironman training, it also gave me my best result to date in a 70.3 event.

*Not actual cloud. But it may as well have been.

Two days prior to the race I was getting my training done on the roads around the Calgary suburb of Tuscany Village and the smaller city of Cochrane. Avoiding the scariest thunder clouds I’ve ever seen in my life. It really felt like i was going to get crushed by a big black cloud. Hard to explain how creepy that was.

My fear of clouds aside, I was really having a hard time finding any desire to race on Sunday. I really didn’t think I’d have any energy to race hard, the thought of slogging it out in another half ironman didn’t seem very appealing. Thankfully, very thankfully, I put those thoughts aside the day before the race. Instead of worrying about who or who wasn’t going to beat me on race day I really just worried about myself. I was going to swim hard, get on some feet and hold on. I was going to stare at my power meter and hold on to my goal watts. I was going to run a solid first half of the race. That’s all I cared about. Once I accomplished that, I could make the decision to either race the remaining 10.5km, or just keep it at a steady pace and call it a training day for Ironman Canada.

My swim was OK. Bloody cold. My fingers were actually cramping by the end of it. All the times were generally a bit slower than normal so it’s hard to say for sure. Gauging myself off of guys that I race against quite often I can say I didn’t screw it up too badly. Losing almost 4 minutes to the leaders out of the water is still just ridiculous if I want to win one of these things. I’ve been as close as 3 this year, but really, I need it to be at two minutes in order to be in with a shot at the win.

On to the bike, coach Paulo told me to simply let it rip and take a couple risks with a slightly higher power output. Right away I knew my legs were going to be alright. Sometimes it’s a horrible feeling, and you can work your way through it. Other times it’s an amazing feeling and you’re looking at the power meter thinking ‘REALLY? It feels so much easier.’ The later was me on the day. Phew. My optimistic power avg for the 94km ride was 310 watts. Through the first hour I was bang on that number. Working my way up through the field a bit. Trying to stay positive when i was getting splits from spectators. People were giving me splits that I was 6 minutes behind the leader. I was getting a little frustrated at that. I really just wanted to know what place i was in.  I also didn’t realize it was 6 minutes to Tim O’Donnell who was crushing EVERYONE else. Note to spectators: If there’s a guy that’s 6 minutes infront of me, but he’s also 3 minutes infront of 2nd place, and 4 minutes infront of 3rd place…I’d appreciate the ’2minutes to 3rd place’ split WAAAAYYYY more. Granted, I know how hard it can be to keep track of splits. The easy way to do it is just fire off the time to the leader….but in this case that was really misleading.

Anyway, I got off the bike with a great bike time. My power avg really fell off by the end, perhaps due to the net downhill course as well as that hard first hour. I find it really difficult to keep the power up on downhills when I’m tired. In the end, 2nd fastest ride of the day, but still a crazy 4min behind Tim….plus the 4 he took out of me in the water.

Even heading out onto the run I had no idea where I was in the field. I guess I could have counted bikes hanging on the transition rack, but that’s a detail I always forget while trying to put shoes on. All i wanted was a placing, but nobody was saying anything. Even the announcer, “and here’s Trevor Wurtele, about 8 minutes behind the leader. His wife Heather having won IM Lake Placid just last week”.  Seriously? Finally, at kilometer 3 someone gave me another; “You’re 8 minutes back of the leader”, I rather aggessively asked “WHAT PLACE AM I IN”.  I was getting so angry I really couldn’t believe it. I’ve never had the desire to punch someone while racing like I did just then. I’ve never been that far into a race and had absolutely no idea what was going on around me. Oh wait, I did know I was 8 minutes back of the leader. Awesome.

I guess I should say, my pre race plan of just doing my thing was pretty much out the window by this point. I kinda had the feeling I was doing OK and should probably race it.

"8 minutes back, Trevor. If you were me, you could do it."

FINALLY, ‘you’re in 6th place’ came at me. I could also see the guy infront of me that would give me a top 5. Done, top 5 I can do if I just ran like I’ve been running all year. What surprised me the most was getting to the far end of the course and seeing Graham Ogrady, then Brian Fleischman, then Jordan Rapp sitting in 4th coming back the other direction, really not that far away from the turnaround. Once I got to the turn I realized I was only about 1minute behind Jordan. The course is twisty and treed-in enough that I hadn’t seen him up ahead of me at all. At that point i started thinking that it could be possible to grab 4th place. Well, after about 5 more kilometers of giving it my all I started to fade pretty badly. Nobody in sight on even the longer straight stretches. Hats off to Jordan who ran his way into 2nd. He crushed the last half of that run course. I was really in rough shape the last 20minutes of the race and wasn’t even thinking about trying to get another notch higher in the placing. I was totally satisfied with 5th right then. Really, I’m still satisfied with that placing right now. All 4 guys ahead of me are class acts on the long distance tri scene and it was a great personal confidence boost for Ironman Canada. Feeling good.