In my previous post about How to be an Ultraman Finisher, we have touched a bit about how I got to Ultraman, in this post and the following posts will talk about Ultraman Florida, the stories, analysis, and experience I’ve got not only as an athlete but most importantly with my support crew team. It was a life changing experience for sure, and would definitely keep doing such races in the near future!
Ultraman Florida report series – 10km swim/92mi bike
The race starts at 7 am sharp, so the whole crew and myself have to be up early about 4:15 am. I start with preparing my breakfast and coffee, and consume breakfast as fast as I can to have enough time for my stomach to digest and use the restroom before we have to leave the home. The crew did an impressive job each night preparing the car with all supplies we need so we don’t waste time in the morning.
While we are in the car, I relax and drink as much water as I can, and once we arrive, I go visit restroom again and again and again 😀 to make sure I empty my bowel, and that’s mostly the nerves before the race! And to avoid stopping during the race, and even more worse the need to poop while being in the water for 4 hours with a wetsuit on! That’s a nightmare 🙂
The early mornings before sunrise were pretty cold, so I started to lose layers of clothes and even pull down the top of my trisuit to feel the cold on my body and acclimate, then I’ll warm up in no time when I start wearing layers again!
The Swim
Setup
All athletes were lining up for the swim a couple of mins before 7 am, and once it hit 7am we were in the water, where the kayakers were already 100ft in the water, each kayaker waiting for their athlete to start the 10km journey! It was announced that the water temperature on that day would be colder than normal (in the mid 50s F, ~12 Celisus) so race directors have allowed all athletes to wear swimming gloves.
For me, with my fantastic gear, I was not feeling any cold at all, especially with a 20% body fat, I was very warm during the swim, but I’d most definitely give the credit for the gear! Here is all what I had:
- Roka Men’s Gen II Elite Aero Short Sleeve Trisuit
- Roka Maverick MX wetsuit,
- My custom fit themagic5 goggles,
- blueseventy thermal swimming gloves,
- blueseventy Thermal swim socks, and
- Roka neoprene swim cap.
Action!
It was a bit chaotic in the start, at first I forgot to start my watch for the first 3-5 mins, then I spent about 10 mins until I met my crew chief on his kayak to guide me. After 1-2 mins I knew it would take some time for us to meet, so I didn’t panic, and just aimed to swim in the right direction by following other kayaks, and eventually we will meet. And that happened.
Once we met, the first thing I said to him was, “I’m in last place, right?” He said, “Actually no, you are doing pretty well, there are a lot of people behind you”, it seemed at that point I was in the first half of the pack, which is normal for me, I’m always in the middle of the pack!
The lake is big, visibility is very hard, during my 4 hour swim, I almost didn’t see anyone except for Ashraf, I didn’t see people ahead of me, nor behind me, I couldn’t see any buoys, I didn’t feel like I was moving at all!
It was a new skill to swim with a kayaker as a guide, even though we had tried it before the race for 1 hr, this was different, it took us a while to get to the right rhythm so I wouldn’t drift away!
Plan Analysis
Execution plan was every 28 minutes Ashraf (the kayaker) stop me for nutrition, and time my rest not to exceed 2 mins (it never ever came close to it). Each stop consume at least 250 Calories and some water sips. Then after 2.5 hours, make stops every 14 minutes instead.
Actual plan: every 28 minutes, 250 Calories Gatorade Endurance, and no water because bottles were soapy taste, and kept doing 28 minutes till the end, didn’t fall back to the 14 minutes intervals.
It was a long way, so I figured the best plan was not even to think about it or about time, just focus on the current stroke. Left, right, repeat.
Ashraf had some struggles while kayaking as the yellow buoys (between the orange turn-buoys) drifted far from the straight line mark, and in the last 2k, it was tailwind so he had to kayak backwards to keep up with my pace. These problems cost us not to have a perfect route, and swam about a 1000 yards more than the distance.
Unofficially I have done my target, which was sub-4h 10k swim, and since I swam more yards, the official time is 4h7m.
The Transition
Once I managed to stand up in the water, I instantly saw Oleg/Gaber, my land crew waiting for me on the beach, and cheered on me, some flying hi fives, then we were all running to the bike transition while I’m starting to strip my wetsuit and swim gear.
As you know my swim gear, all I had to do in transition is to get rid of my swim gear, then just put on my socks, shoes, helmet, and glasses and get on the bike to fly!
Gaber and Oleg did an incredible job in transition, everything was ready and helped me strip my swim gear so fast, I was on my way on the bike in about 6 mins.
The Bike
McQueen is a new bike that I had just received a week before the race, and had less than 100 miles on it. Of course, I had my bike fit report, but the bike wasn’t fitted well to my coordinates and I wasn’t used to the bike well. But it was the best I could get out of the situation. Another problem with the bike was the power meter never worked, and I had to go do the race just by my feel (which I love), but I was really sad about the power data I’ll be missing.
As in the swim, all I cared about was just focus on the next pedal and don’t get injured, nice form, powerful baby steps. And it will be done before you know it!
Action
I have discussed this with the crew and my coach on several occasions, how to save time and pee on the bike, I have never done it before, and I don’t know how messy it would be. I had no choice that day but to try it. If I had had to stop every time I would have wasted a ton of time, I peed 5 times on the bike that day, it could have been easily 20 mins of efficient bio breaks.
At mile 30, a lower back pain started to develop, it started to become worse and worse over time, that I was struggling and a significant portion slower than 14mph. I guess it was part because of the bike fit and lots of rough road conditions with cracks and bumps. I started to think about consuming pain killers, but it wasn’t an easy decision for me, it felt like I’m cheating and not pushing enough through the pain.
Finally at mile 43, I had my first Tylenol then by the end of the course, I had consumed 3 capsules.
Nutrition wise, it wasn’t so good, since all my new bottles were washed in a crappy dishwasher at the Airbnb and all bottles taste soapy and mess up my stomach, so I had consumed only gatorade as soap taste fades by the watermelon taste. At mile 45, I was really in need of clean water, and communicated that with the crew and they started throwing some plastic water bottles my way.
Analysis
On this ride, I have made up 7 places and closing day 1 at the 16th place. It was an epic day, the official time of day 1 was 9:14:14.
It was a great day, lots of great people on the course met them, several crews were cheering on me by name and I consistently met them. It was a perfect biking condition day, the weather was very nice and warm.
After this day, the crew mentioned that I looked like I was racing, not just aiming to finish the race. But to my point, I was racing the clock and trying to find my endurance potential.
Bike nutrition intake was 8 Gatorade bottles (500C, 22oz) in 5 hours = 4000C. And based on Garmin calories burned during the bike was 2500C, so it was pretty good to finish day 1 without any deficit!
Conclusion
At the end of the day it felt so good to be true, I had some tightness in my left triceps and thoracic back, but my legs felt great and fresh. I knew the swim would have a bit of a toll on my back, it was always that case during my training.
Everything was on a plan, get home, order food, shower, yoga, recovery boots, food, sleep. It was a great day, I would have never wished for anything better!