Maybe they’ll name a street after me….
New Orleans Duathlon 67.1 Race Report
April 22, 2012
Steve Prefontaine was the most prolific American distance runner. Growing up in Coos Bay, Oregon, and later running for Bill Bowerman (founder of Nike) at the University of Oregon, Pre (as he was affectionately known) raced with a passion and zeal that continues to inspire athletes today. In the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany, Pre raced in the 5k. The champion was Lasse Viren from Finland who was doubling in the games racing the 5k and 10k. When there was a terrorist attack at the Olympic Village, the games were suspended for a day and it gave the guys doubling in the 10k and 5k an extra day of rest. Pre was outraged at the idea of giving his competitors an advantage, but came to terms and decided to race his heart out and “go for the gold”. Pre took the race by the horns at the 9:20 mark and led until the last few laps before fading in the final 100m to finish 4th. Fourth place; the first one off the podium, no medal, no media, no respect. Pre was famous for quoting, “great when I return home they’ll probably name a street after me, call it Fourth Street.” This quote shows just how much 4th place sucks.
I relived my own Prefontaine story this weekend at New Orleans where I was scheduled to compete in an Ironman 70.3 which consists of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and a 13.1 mile run. The day before the race, the race was changed to a duathlon with a 2 mile run, 52 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run. This is a far cry from a triathlon, and far cry from a 70.3.
I have a few complaints about the decision to make the race a duathlon. First, a duathlon is a different sport than a triathlon. The race director needs to make every attempt to hold a triathlon and in this case, I’ve swum in much worse conditions than those on race morning. They were calling for a wind advisory, but the weather man was wrong and the wind advisory was gone on race morning. Bad call to change the race the day before. It also affected the participation. The inaugural New Orleans 70.3 had over 3,000 participants. This weekend there were 1600 participants registered and only 1200 started. The race management is killing this race. It is not supposed to be easy; people expect a fair amount of adversity when they sign up for an Ironman event, if it were easy they would call it a charity walk. Second, having a mass start 2 mile run before the bike creates a totally different race dynamic. Note, there was only a mass start for the Pros; the Age Group athletes did a time trial start leaving individually every few seconds to prevent drafting. Now why they think Age Groupers need separation so they don’t draft, but pros should be allowed to mass start blows my mind. There would be more separation in the Age Group two mile run than the Pro. Starting the entire men’s Pro field on the bike at the same time is a mistake and makes for an unfair race. Even a Time Trial start duathlon would be more just. Lastly, you cannot change the distances of the event. Shortening the bike and lengthening the run just doesn’t make sense. Now my strength is cycling so naturally I would want a full bike leg, but I don’t want a longer anything, I want to race all 70.3 miles that I signed up, all 70.3 miles that I trained for, and I don’t want to do it in a different order or a different manner. Imagine a decathlon competition cancelling the javelin throw and replacing it with the 3000m steeple chase. What happens to the athletes who are the best at the javelin? They lose to those athletes who are better at a 3000m steeple chase, even though neither athlete trained for such event. What if they even just modified the last event the 1500m run and shortened the event 10% to a 1350? The runners excelling at the 1500 would lose out. The outcome of the competition would be entirely changed, and that only involves one event out of ten. Changing 2 events out of 3, is ridiculous, and has an even greater impact on the outcome of the competition. So my best event, cycling was shortened by almost 10%. I have a GPS measurement of the bike being 51.2 miles so it was roughly 8.5% short of the advertised 56 miles. Now that doesn’t translate into a huge time savings, but still it is a lot of change. Now on the flip side of the coin, adding a 2 mile run to the equation makes the total run distance 15.1 miles, but the first run was actually 2.1 miles to the total run volume of the race was 15.2 miles or 16% longer than the advertised distance. I knew going into the race that I trained for a 13.1 mile run, and a 16% increase in running for the race with 8.5% less cycling, and 0% swimming (my second best of the three sports), was not exactly playing to my strengths. If they were going to increase the run by 16%, why not the bike? That is the equivalent of a 65 mile bike. Instead the bike was cut short 8.5% while the run was lengthened 16%.
So, knowing this going into the race, I was still going to play my cards and maybe with a bit of luck it would be enough to walk away a winner. In the end, I came up exactly 60s short of the win, but the win was not the important part to me. The effort I put out on the race course was important. I didn’t want to try to race a tactical race. I didn’t want to conserve on the bike and try to run my fastest half marathon. I went in with the game plan of keeping the first 2 mile slow and steady about 10k race effort. I didn’t want to run any faster than 5:20 pace because I do my 10K pace work on the track in 5:20. This strategy was important in being able to ride as fast as possible. Smashing the first 2 mile and building large amounts of lactic acid would only cause me pain and a higher heart rate on the bike and final run. I paced the first run near perfect (just a little slow since the headwind was on the second half) in 5:24 pace. Since 5:20 was my max I was willing to run, 5:24 was probably perfect. I was able to get on the bike and start hammering right away. I took the lead at mile 10 and didn’t look back. I came into transition with a little over a 2 minute lead, which I thought would be enough to win the race. I was pretty confident in my ability to run 1:15 off a hard bike. I held very close to a 1:16 pace until the last 3 miles of the run. My legs started cramping pretty severely and I was on the verge of needing to stop because of the cramps. I was overtaken by Trevor Wurtele around mile 11 and tried to hang as close as I could but ultimately I didn’t have enough left in the tank. Mile 12 I was passed by Tom Lowe, and mile 13 I was passed by Richie Cunningham. There was some confusion about the finish line entrance by the top finishers and Richie and I started a mad finish line sprint 600m before the line and I totally blew up nearly having to walk into the finish line. Once I sprint, it is all done, enough lactic acid build up to kill a small child and then I am completely wasted for a few minutes while I try to recover. I was pretty upset with 4th place on a day when I felt I should have been able to win, but when it was all said and done, I didn’t have enough on the day to win. I want to thank Trevor, Tom, and Richie for pushing to the limit on the day. I was 60 seconds short of the win; miles 10, 11, and 12 of the race were 6:11, 6:07, and 6:12, which averages to 6:10 pace. I averaged 5:49 for the other 10 miles of the run; those 3 miles of pain are where I need to find improvement. As Coach Cliff English bumps my run volume up over the next 6 week block before Eagleman on June 10, I should be ready to throw down a fast run in Maryland.
My bike power was solid with 323 average watts and 328 normalized watts. My power tailed off a bit at the end of the ride for a couple of reasons, one being there was a nice tailwind and the extra power is not necessary to maintain speed, and the other being, I start to prepare for the run by backing off, and getting in extra nutrition. My power graph is available at the bottom of the page.
I wasn’t happy about the change to a duathlon in New Orleans, but it was a race and I was going to do everything in my ability to try and win the race. I was off the front and racing hard, I was playing my cards the only way I could on the day. I came up a bit short on the final scoreboard, but if I measure success by the effort of the day, the race was a success.
Work Hard,
TJ
1 Wurtele, Trevor 10:50 1:57:49 1:13:36 3:23:51
2 Cunningham, Richie 10:50 1:58:40 1:13:02 3:24:04
3 Lowe, Tom 10:53 1:57:05 1:14:30 3:24:05
4 Tollakson, Tj 11:25 1:54:14 1:17:32 3:24:51
5 Evoe, Patrick 11:06 1:57:44 1:15:24 3:25:43
6 Kemp, Christian 10:48 1:59:31 1:14:13 3:25:57
7 Amorelli, Igor 10:43 1:59:29 1:15:18 3:27:02
8 Lovato, Michael 10:49 1:59:02 1:16:01 3:27:36
9 McDonald, Chris 10:47 1:57:56 1:17:50 3:28:11
10 Ruble, Zach 10:51 1:59:21 1:20:41 3:32:26
Check out the Pre Video Here: http://youtu.be/laYn7SV2__U
