Ironman Mont Tremblant Race Report

It didn't take me long after a slightly disappointing race at Ironman Santa Rosa to sign up for another Ironman. After a few days of considering almost every Ironman in the US or Europe that still accepted registrations, I decided I'd give Kona qualification another shot at Ironman Mont Tremblant. It turned out to be a good decision! With over 3 months to go after Ironman Santa Rosa, I had plenty of time to do some more solid training and and test my fitness at a few local races as well.

As I mentioned in my race report from Santa Rosa, I did make a few changes to how I carried my bike and run nutrition for future races. First, I replaced my frame mounted, relatively small aero bottle with a rear X-lab hydration system that can hold two regular water bottles. This almost doubled my liquid-carrying capacity to what should normally be sufficient for a half Ironman distance bike ride. Second, I decided to carry my spare run drink powder in solid-walled containers, so that it's easier to pour the powder into my bottle while running. Mary Beth suggested mini M&M tubes for this purpose and even though I was skeptical about whether they would fit into my run bottle holder pouch at first, it turns out that they are the perfect size. I can comfortably carry 2 of them (a one-bottle serving) and up to 3 if needed. Third, Mary Beth suggested using special needs for the nutrition for the 2nd half of both my bike and run, which I was also slightly worried about since I've never used special needs before but it ended up working out great :-)

In terms of training, it was similar to my training for Santa Rosa but probably better since I didn't get sick at any point and I also knew my way around SF better, so I could ride and run more freely without having to check for directions or not knowing if a road will be suitable for intervals. (Though let's be honest - I do most of my cycling intervals on the trainer anyway :-p) I also tried to do some open water swimming in addition to lots of pool swimming since my OWS has been quite a bit slower than my pool swimming. I also practiced some drafting of Justin in the pool and in open water, which I'm still not very good at but I think I did improve a bit. I did not do any super-long bike rides or runs. My longest training ride this year was 85mi with 6,000ft of climbing in a bit under 6h. My longest training run was 18.5mi but since Santa Rosa I haven't done more than 16.5mi in one run (or even in one day). In the past, this would have had me worried about how could I possibly ride 112mi in a race when I haven't done at least 100mi rides in training or how can I run 26mi in a race when I haven't done at least a few 20-milers in training but I decided to just trust my coach and do what she thinks is best. The training was plenty challenging even without uber-long runs or rides - trust me :-) It was also more fun than most of Ironman training I've done in the past. And in the end I did put in a decent amount of hours too - they were just more evenly distributed across the week on most weeks and had much more intensity than what I used to do in previous years.

My tune-up races went pretty well too and I think I learned something useful at each of them. Most importantly, I tested my equipment and nutrition setup. At California Olympic Distance Triathlon on 6/24 I learned that my swim still needs work (and I need to draft more!) but also that I should make sure my bike shifts into all its gears earlier than the day before the race and that my wheels are true enough to not make my whole bike wobble when going more than 30mph. I'm glad the bike course was relatively flat or else these "little" things might have been a bigger problem. At Donner Lake Triathlon on 7/22 I learned that bottles can jump out of rear bottle cages and also that one should know the course 100% since there might not be volunteers or clean signage at every turn :-( Also, because of the elevation profile of the bike course (2500ft across 24mi with 1200ft up in the first 3 miles and the same amount down in the last 3 miles), I decided to use one of Justin's front race wheels with aluminum braking surface. This was a good idea (as well as pre-riding the initial climb and descent). I quickly dismissed losing a rear mounted bottle at Donner Lake since the course was quite bumpy and I lost the bottle while descending at 30-40mph. However, when the same thing happened a week later and I lost both of my rear mounted bottles not even 10 miles into the bike at Santa Rosa 70.3, I got quite concerned. Turns out it's not an uncommon problem on bumpy roads, even with X-Lab Gorilla cages. Several of my friends recommended I use elastic bands to secure my bottles (thank you, Cari and Jim!), which is what I did and so far it has worked 100%! BTW, Santa Rosa 70.3 still went pretty well. Since I lost 2/3 of my bike nutrition, I grabbed Gatorade Endurance at almost every aid station. It worked OK, though I would definitely not want to do that in a full Ironman (not having my tried and trusted nutrition, slowing down at every aid station and pouring a bunch of Gatorade all over my bike). My run was also solid, though slightly slower than at Texas 70.3. The highlight of it was getting passed by Rinny in the first few miles (she was already on the 2nd out of 2 loops since she started quite a bit earlier than I did and, well, she is also still a little faster than I am :-D)

Mont Tremblant Trip:
We arrived at Montreal airport on Thursday morning after a late night red eye flight. I was actually able to sleep through most of the flight, so I didn't feel too bad upon arrival. Justin's parents were already waiting for us (they woke up extra early to drive from Ottawa to Montreal by 7:15am, which we were very grateful for!). The 3 days before the race went by pretty quickly. On Thursday evening we went for dinner with fellow Trisutto athletes, which was organized by Coach Ed Rechnitzer and it was a great way to meet some new people. I also ran into quite a few friends from NEMS during the long weekend :-)

Race morning:
We got to the transition almost as soon as it opened (5am) since I didn't want to be rushed or stressed, especially with the extra task of dropping off special needs bags. Everything went smoothly and I was at the swim start ready to warm up around 6am. After a 10min swim warmup, I learned that the start was going to be delayed by 30min because of the fog. Oh well, could have been worse (like a cancelled swim at Santa Rosa 70.3). The fog wasn't nearly as bad as at Santa Rosa and it seemed to have improved by the time the original (6:45am) start rolled around. But I guess the race director wanted to be extra safe, so the start was pushed back another 30min. Unfortunately, by then (7:45am) the fog got even worse than what it was at 6am but off we went anyway.

Swim (1:06:24): 

The swim felt pretty crowded, probably because the rolling start was executed a bit quicker than usual - 5 people every 2 seconds. I started around 1:05-1:07 predicted time, which was pretty close to the very front of the age group start since the fastest predicted swim time corral was 1:05 and under. I didn't feel like I was swimming particularly hard - just steady, trying to draft when I could but staying away from people who seemed to have been swimming all over the place. I think I actually got a pretty decent draft for most of the swim. I couldn't see the buoys from more than 50-70m distance (I think they were 200m apart?), so I just followed the general direction of everyone else. I had no idea if I was swimming well or not until after the swim was over and I saw my time (which made me quite happy - a PR by over a minute!). I feel like I could have swam harder but I didn't want to burn too many matches on the swim. Plus it was not like there were many people passing me (if someone passed me at a slightly faster speed, I tried to draft them, but I think in general people around me swam at about the same speed as I did).

Bike (5:20:46): 

When I got on the bike, my heart rate was kind of high, even though I didn't feel too bad. But since I had overcooked it in the first half of the bike way too many times, I tried to keep it controlled. I think it's generally good for me to not go much over 160bpm heart rate on an Ironman bike but I just couldn't get it down for most of the bike (maybe also because it was getting kind of warm?). So I just kept going by feel, trying to not overdo it on the hills. This was the first race I used my new Suunto 9 watch at (thanks to Justin for getting it for me!), mostly because it seems to have more reliable power readings. It worked great, except for not having a normalized power field (looks like Suunto doesn't support it (yet?)). But maybe that's for the best - it seemed like going by feel / heart rate / checking the current power from time to time worked pretty well. As for nutrition, I went through my bottles a bit quicker than expected (one every 45-50min instead of one every hour). So 3 bottles were just enough to get me through the first lap and up to the special needs. I got 3 more bottles at special needs and suspected that I might have to get some extra water on the course towards the end of the bike. Special needs pickup went very smoothly. I was slightly worried about losing too much time stopping and replacing bottles but I think I was only stopped 30-60s and caught up with the people who were just behind me before I stopped within a few minutes of getting moving again. 

I felt pretty good on the second lap - maybe even better than on the first one, even though my time for the second lap ended up being 5min slower than the first lap. Still, I was passing pretty much everyone on the second lap (even though the course was much less crowded at that point, so there were not that many people to pass). I ran out of almost all of my sports drink with about 20 miles to go, so I started taking water from the aid stations. Maybe in the future I should start this water supplementation earlier on the bike. 

I suspected I was doing pretty well coming into T2 since I passed a lot of people on the bike, including a few pro women (which baffled me since they started more than 10min ahead of me, though they were not allowed wetsuits and I suspect maybe some of them went a bit more off the course on the swim since they didn't have a big crowd of people guiding them through the fog).

Run (3:40:56): 

I realized half way through the bike that I forgot to put on sunscreen in the morning... So I was glad that they had some in T2 (they made it sound a bit like we should have brought our own). I did not feel the greatest at the beginning of the run. I did not feel terrible, just not super-energetic, which was probably for the best because it prevented me from starting too fast. (I remember 4 years ago I ran the first mile at 7min pace, followed by a few 7:30s, which was definitely a bit of an overkill, especially with the hills). This time I did the first few miles around 8min pace, which I think was appropriate. Once I got over the hill and onto the bike path, I was running 7:45-7:55/mile and felt pretty good until my stomach started protesting. I stopped for a portapotty at mile 10 and then again at mile 17. My legs didn't feel too bad (though not as springy as for the first 10 miles) but my stomach kept feeling weird, so I couldn't really push it too much without accelerating the need to go to the portapotty again. I was also getting slightly tired/nauseated of my sports drink around 2.5h in. I've drank almost 3 bottles by that point and since my stomach was giving me trouble anyway, I switched to just water and ice for about 40min. Then I got another 1/2 bottle of sports drink in the last 30min because I was afraid I'd fade too much if I continued drink just water. My legs hurt a lot on the last 5K, especially the last 2K but I knew I was leading my AG and that the girls behind me might have been running at a slightly faster pace, so I tried to not let up (much). (Justin told me that I had 9min lead after the first lap, which was pretty good, but might not have been enough if I started walking or shuffling too slowly). 

I was very glad / relieved when I crossed the finish line still in first place in my age group (with a time of 10:15:47) and super happy that I finally qualified for Kona! :-) 

Big thanks to Justin, Nancy and Dono for doing an excellent job cheering me on during the race. Every time I passed within a mile of transition, they were there (usually at a slightly different spot each time) cheering and waving the Slovak flag that Justin bought for me :-) They even made a cheer video that was played on a big screen when I passed 20K and then again at 41K: 

Thank you to my friends and family who supported me in preparation for this race. Special thanks to my coach Mary Beth for providing me with a challenging yet fun training plan and answering all my questions along the way. And of course thank you to my husband Justin for accompanying me on many of my long rides, taking care of our bikes and doing most of the chores when I'm too tired / lazy :-p

Next stop: Kona!