TriStar Athlete Tim Walton shares his Eagleman race report;

Swim - 35:34 (333/907)
 
This was about as good as I thought I could do and is faster than any ‘proper’ 1500m swim that I’ve had. As far as I am aware, this is the only time in a swim I’ve managed to keep cranking it out without doing breast-stroke around the buoys / when I get run over by someone else. As I said, I know that I messed up the 2nd side of the triangle: that seemed to be into the current and I didn’t realize how many buoys there were (= I didn’t just stick my head down and grind it out). On several occasions I was able to pick the pace up without suffering. I’m fairly sure I can go faster than this: my hands were not always going in at the right angle (=I couldn’t see them!) and so I wasn’t as efficient with the stroke as I’ve been before. Still it was an enjoyable swim and as I was coming down the back straight, I was contemplating how I would be able to handle a second lap.

Bike – 2:28:31 (113 / 907)
 
Compared to the field, I think that this was my worst bike since my first race! I don’t think that I have ever been outside the top 10% of bike times. Usually I’m inside 5%. However, it was a very controlled piece of riding. I kept my eyes glued on my HR. I split the race into 30min blocks, for each section the AHR were 150/151/151/152/151. Each time it ticked up to 155, I slowed down until it went to <150 (Z3 = 140-157). My cadence was really low. I spent most of the race on the 12 or 13 (70-75 cadence). I took it really easy for the first 15 mins (think I rode 5 miles) until my avg HR for that section was down to 155. At the various points that I needed to get past people, it was easy for me to wind it up to 25/26mph. I felt that I had plenty of gas in the tank and didn’t overheat. Again, I felt that the interval work really helped.
During the ride I took enduralite every 20 mins (10,30,50…), a GU every 40 mins (40, 80, 120). I drank 3 bottles of diluted accelerate / Gatorade, and for the last 30mins, substituted a GU with a bottle of full strength (= 2cups) accelerate.

Run – 2:06:26 (285 / 907)

This went exactly as I thought! I knew that mile 1 would be easy, miles 2/3 would hurt my feet / shins, mile 4 I would get going, mile 7/8 would suck. I had a wet towel around my neck which I filled with ice / water at each station. This was key to keeping me cool. There was a big difference running back when we were running into the sun and I could feel myself overheating. After the first 4 miles I had to walk through each station, chug down some Pepsi and get going again. I was feeling pretty good, and with the Enduralites, had no sign of cramp. At the turn, the sun really started to kick in. I could feel myself running out of gas too: and the small GU that I had at mile 7ish when they only had diet pepsi(why?) caused all sorts of problems. From then on it was a bit of a slog, but each time I got moving, I was actually feeling OK. At the end of the day, I didn’t have any expectation on the run, other than to get around. There’s definitely some work to do here!!!
Given the success of the enduralite, the gatorate that I had at the first 4 stations was probably useless – I should have had Pepsi.

Transitions Swim/Bike (3:44 – 333/907) Bike/Run (4:54  - 686/907)
Yes these were unbelievably slow, but I’m not fussed. I took time to douse myself in sunscreen and on the bike/run properly stretch off my hamstrings / ankles / got to the bathroom / have a chat to the officials. I thought that it was good to get my heart rate right down so I didn’t start overheating as soon as I got moving..

Overall
At the previous day’s expo, the pros were doing a q+a. One of them said that on these long races, it never goes according to plan. I’ll actually disagree with that: it pretty much did.

TW


congratulations Tim on a great race.  Solid performance on a tough TOUGH day.  Great swim, strong bike and run!  ~Coach Cliff