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| Griskus Oly - Bike Out |
That evening I spoke with my good friend, Christian, who is in Med School and he helped talk me down from the ledge. He reminded me that sometimes rest is not the answer - you need to promote blood flow to the injured area. He told me to run for 15 minutes a day and to make sure I was using a foam roller 2-3 times per day to work out the knots in my calf. He said that based on where my pain/tightness was it was likely a less serious Achilles irritation that stemmed from super tight calf muscles. Additionally, I performed some eccentric calf exercises aimed at strengthening the tendons and ligaments (http://www.intelligent-triathlon-training.com/Achilles-tendinitis.html).
As the two weeks progressed, I had no issues during my 15 minute runs and I could feel the knots in my right calf begin to loosen up and go away. The rolling became slightly less painful each day. I was still skeptical that everything would hold up for a marathon, but I was excited to have some hope and was super psyched to see where my swim and bike training were.
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| Ocean Side on Long Beach Island, where I was staying with my buddy Ryan |
Swim: 55:31
The swim was a non-wetsuit swim, but I was fully prepared with my Aquasphere Speedsuit. It was low tide in the back bay and they said the water was 80-degrees. I lined up a little behind. I've been surprised by the speed of the start in most of the 70.3 races I've done and wanted to make a conscious effort to swim this more efficiently - it takes a whole lot less effort to sit on someone's feet for the first 200m than to try and swim next to them. I got jostled a bit, but overall swam very well and very relaxed to the first turn buoy, with the lead group. Here we navigated two left turns over the course of 50m. I got slammed, my heart rate went up and I was gapped. With my HR elevated I made the executive decision to not cover the gap and to swim with the second group. It quickly became apparent that this second group wasn't going to carry me to the swim I wanted, so from that point I swam the majority of the way by myself. I came out of the water roughly 1-1.5 minutes behind that lead group, and 2 minutes in front of the group behind - Hat's off to Dylan McNeice who gapped the second place by nearly six minutes! No idea how he motored to a 47:24 there?!
T1: 1:49
One of the big things I wanted to accomplish this year was focusing o my transitions. In the past they've been awful, mostly because I haven't focused on them at all. So bad, that after my first Ironman in 2011 my Mom - laughed at me at the awards brunch when she saw a shirt for sale that said 'lost in transition,' said, you need to have that, and ran off to buy it. Thanks, Mom (actually a really comfortable t-shirt). Today, I wasn't the fastest, but was highly competitive, and didn't crash at the mount line, utilizing clipped in shoes for the first time. Needs some work, but a step in the right direction.
Bike: 5:09:11
Couldn't be happier with this effort. Class Cycles in Southbury, CT had my Quintana Roo cd0.1 tuned perfectly. It's nice to see some returns on the bike training I've put in over the last couple months. Between May and June I had put in some serious bike volume and consistency. I had ridden between 55-70 miles 16 times during that span; what was missing were the longer rides - over distance rides and 5-6 hr rides with IM effort intervals near the end. In my season plan, it was a little early to get those rides in, so I wanted to see how I would respond. Every race has it's share of surprises - today that surprise was the bracket on my aero bottle snapping at mile 5. In the early going this was my only bottle set for hydration, so for the next 45 miles I held it in place so that it didn't slide out and bounce off my front wheel. That was a minor hiccup (though made some turns interesting) and for 83 miles I rode well - my Avg Watts gradually climbed from 220-222 and my HR remained where I wanted it. What I was most pleased with, was my ability to react when passed, to up my output and keep my competitors close. That all changed when we got back to the AC expressway and turned right into a headwind. My power dropped and I ended the ride with 210 average watts. Very excited to see the power and speed I had for the majority of the ride and looking forward to getting some more IM specific training rides leading up to Wisconsin and Tahoe, in September. As an aside - not something talked about frequently, but when you're racing for this amount of time, you're likely peeing yourself on the bike. At AC this rather routine exercise happened 4 times. What was less routine was, as I started for the last time at mile 105, the camera crew rolled right up next to me and filmed the entire 30-40 seconds approximately 2 feet away. Thanks guys - hope you enjoyed my out of the saddle technique.
T2: 1:44
This may be my proudest moment of the day. Fastest on the day - no joke. Some may question not taking a little extra time in transition to prepare for the run. I loaded up on my sodium at the end of the bike and grabbed a few gels in my gear bag and headed out - even put socks on.
Run: 3:30:01
Sometimes you don't deserve to break that barrier. At my last IM, eight months ago my run training had been spot on and I had some of the best speed of my life, but made a few nutritional mistakes and ended up blowing up in the middle for a couple miles. Considering my run training had been nearly non existent for 6 weeks leading into this race, and I had questions regarding my Achilles, I didn't have many expectations here. My biggest goal was to execute a decent nutrition plan, and to that end I think I did pretty well. It was a very hot day, and I did experience some cramping late as it wsa difficult to keep up with fluids and salt intake. I ran moderately well for the first 15.5 miles, fading slightly as I went (1:36 at the Half). At 15.5 I need to make a short stop in the toilet, and from then on I was in survival mode. I walked the aid stations and downed a salt tab, 2-3 cups of water and 2 cups of cola at each one. From here I held consistent at 8:45 pace, but from the final turn to the finish had to make a deal with myself to walk 26 steps every 5 minutes. Why 26? Because it's a marathon, of course.
Total Time: 9:38:16, 15th Pro, 18th Overall
Remaining schedule:
August 3rd - NYC Tri (Olympic)
August 17th - Timberman 70.3
September 7th - IM Wisconsin
September 21st - IM Lake Tahoe
