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Hey there Newsletter supporters!
It has been a wild and crazy month, and somehow the Ironman Women’s World Championships in Kona, has come and gone. I will fill you in on all of that down below in the In-Depth Thoughts From The Girl. First order of business, I wanted to make sure we got the word out that the DCRainmaker Annual Open House registration is already open. We posted about the evening open house and morning fun run last week, and already we are at 75% capacity for the evening! Let’s be honest, we can never have too many runners, so no sweat there, you can always register for the run. If you’re new to this newsletter feed, welcome! If you have some extra reading time, you can always check out the Newsletter Archives and catch up on what stories have been told in the past! As well, I’m going to continue to shamelessly plug the Quarantine Corner (which is now actually called “The QC- Shed Talkin’”… people voted Quarantine off the island) where you get 1- 2 episodes a month of the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of the DCR world, Ray chatting openly about stuff that didn’t make the in-depth review, and of course the bloopers. To access all that goodness, go ahead and sign up to be a DCR Supporter! The Website Well you know it’s been busy when we got back from Hawaii last week, and Ray is already off again testing more units before the holiday rush of products and recommendation guides! For now, I’ll just chat about the last 3 review-esq posts in case you missed them. That way… you know you can skip down to some of the Kona Re-cap! First up is the Fitbit Charge 6 In-Depth Review. In general, it seems there was a notable upgrade from the Charge 5. But still lots of room for improvement. As with most devices, it really comes down to what each individual user wants from a smart device and what are their most valued functions. Keep scrollin’ and I see the Garmin Vivoactive 5: Complete Beginners Guide. And now, this is more of a post that brings you to the YouTube Beginner’s Guide video, BUT, there’s a method to my madness. Sorry Ray, but I’m taking this opportunity to show the world that, Ray too, is human, and also spills his coffee making the video… the spill didn’t quite make it to the keyboard, but hey, it was still a mess. Last but not least, is the Suunto Race Hands On: Everything You Need to Know. Now, when Ray gets back to Amsterdam tomorrow from his exploits (he's currently in the darkness of Mallorcan mountains, finishing up a nearly 60KM, 12-hour hike), I’ll have a detailed conversation with him about how such an incredibly long post dodged the “In-Depth Review” title. Until then I’ll leave it to you all to read it and make assumptions! And that’s it for today, I know there are many posts that I missed, but I thought these were the most interesting. YouTube The YouTube channel as always is a little gang-busters. Pretty much every review from above has a video or three. So without further fuss, I’ll just list them below and you click on what you like. Please remember that every “Like” and new Subscriber makes a big difference to content creators’ successes, so please don’t be shy, give a like to the videos and subscribe if you haven’t already! · Fitbit Charge 6: 12 Things to Know · Garmin ECG Expands to Fenix, Epix, and More · Suunto Race Hands-On: 26 New Features Explained · Polar Vantage V3 Hands-On: 16 Things to Know · Battle of the Smart Trainer Fans: Wahoo Headwind vs Elite Aria That’s just the latest 6 videos, if you want more go ahead and click here for the Channel! |
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In-Depth Thoughts from The Girl Hello hello! As I said at the start of the newsletter, it’s really hard to digest that the whole Ironman training block and race is done and dusted. I had an incredible experience in Kona, and it’s really hard to know where to start! I also don’t want to overwhelm you with so many details.
If you do want the full recap on video, you can always sign up to be a DCRainmaker Supporter and watch the latest episode of the QC. We discuss the last few days building up to race day, each leg of the race, and then dissected nutrition and heat acclimation. For you all, I’m sure you’re all wondering “Are you happy with your race?”. And that’s an overwhelming yes! I went out there and hammered the best I could for as long as I could, and didn’t leave a molecule of energy on the course. The follow-up question might be “Did it go as you planned??”. Well, that’s probably an overwhelming “No”, haha, and that’s okay too! If you're reading this newsletter, likely you, or a loved one, have competed in, some sort of endurance/ultra-endurance race. So you all know, anything can happen on race day, and at the end of the day when the plan goes to the gutter, your true character shines through. And I’m really happy with myself after 12+ hours of cranking it out on the Kona sun and heat-ridden course. So I’ll back it up to a few days prior, but I’m going to try to whiz through it for you all as well. Every morning we got up and went out for an ocean swim, sometimes easy, sometimes long, but always involving the Kona Coffee Boat!
It was fantastic to get out in the open water every morning and become super familiar with the course, the swell, and the slightly creepy cold spot on the way back in. It was also fantastic to get to hang with so many athletes casually in the morning, just hanging onto the side of a boat in the ocean, drinking coffee! Many photo shoots occurred, and not a drop of coffee spilled!
Wednesday afternoon, Ray and I packed our bikes (yes, Ray brought his too) into the car and headed to the infamous Hawi Section of the course. This section can be particularly brutal because of its gusty side winds while descending. The course is known for being so windy that disc wheels are not legal for the Kona Ironman course due to dangerous conditions. Well, a long story short, we picked the windiest day of the week, and somehow the peak winds of that day to be out there. And guys, I’m going to take my ego here and toss her out the window… I was terrified on that first descent. I was HARD white-knuckling the handlebars. We were descending on an active highway, on the shoulder of the road, aiming the front wheel between a crazy rumble strip and a guard rail. THEN add in high-speed descending with unpredictable, crazy side wind gusts. It was the worst case of all scenarios for my bike confidence. Poor ol’ Ray had to adorn his Teflon armor to survive some of the swearing I was throwing at him. Did you folks know that the LEAST helpful phrase for a man to yell to his wife while she is super stressed, super focused, and speeding down a gusty highway in aero position, is “RELAX!!”.
Okay, but why am I telling you this? Well, we were at it out there for over an hour, and every mile that went by honestly made it worse for me. I thought we had trained well for the winds, coming from the Netherlands and all, but this really sucked the confidence out of me. I just couldn’t get past thinking about how hard I’d worked on my cycling power and fitness this fall, all the heat training, and now it was all for nothing. The folklore about Hawi was real. We went out for dinner that evening with my coach, and he nor Ray were having any part of this sad-Bobbie routine. So they devised a plan to get me back out on the road the next day, non-Hawi roads, but quiet, descending roads, and just make me descend over and over again without car traffic. Believe it or not, we did find a few roads that fit that description. Ray just stayed in the car, chased me down the hill, and drove me back to the top of the mile+ long descent. I cannot tell you what that did for my confidence. Keep in mind, that the last time I descended a hill on my bike was back in August for the Newfoundland Triathlon. And before that was June for Austria. You get the point. I can do a 100-mile ride here in the Netherlands and have a total ascent of less than 60ft.
After what was arguably the most important workout I did in the last month, we packed my bike back into the rental, and Ray took me out for celebratory lunch. I felt like I got my groove back on the bike, and we both needed a little celebration. If any of you reading only have the opportunity to get to a Costco every couple of years, then you know how satisfying our lunch date really was. If you have never had the opportunity to dine on a Costco hotdog… my sympathies.
So, with all that done, there were a few other items to check off the list. We had the “Parade of Nations” parade to attend. I clearly didn’t use my brain while packing in Amsterdam, and didn’t bring a Canadian or Newfoundland flag; not even a red shirt? I was also there to give my best cheering for (cough, gawking at) near-naked bodies of the customary Underwear Run. There is no better event to attend than an Ironman World Championships, to spectate an underwear run and develop major body envy!
Alright, enough gab. Let’s get to the race. The swim was the perfect start to the day! The deep water start was hectic and aggressive, but that settled down after 500-800 meters. I nailed exactly my swim goal time of one hour and fifteen minutes!
The bike was epic. I wanted to go at the bike aggressively to see what I really had in the tank. Mentally I knew I had to power through Hawi and not let the jitters get to me. I cannot tell you how happy I was with my biking. I peeled off almost an hour and twenty minutes from my bike time back in June. It was super-hot out there, but I thought I had executed my hydration and nutrition perfectly – 90g carb/hour plus 550ml electrolyte hydration per hour. I was also grabbing ice-cold water bottles from every aid station and giving myself cold showers wherever possible. I kept an eye on my Core temperature sensor as well, and that was getting concerning. I had been at 102.2*C + for over 5 hours of the ride. Though I was still feeling great, and my heart rate hadn’t decoupled from my power output, so I thought I was handling the heat well. In the end, my bike time was 5:47:31 (~19.5mph avg) with some of my max speeds hitting 37mph! I was super thrilled with that, especially keeping in mind that was my second time ever riding over 100 miles!
Then came the run. And well, here’s where we can get off track and blame the Costco hotdog, or the speedy bike times, or even the heat. But I’m not looking for excuses. Do I know that I came into the race with more fitness than I showed in that marathon? Absolutely! Does that matter if I couldn’t pull it out on race day? Not one single bit. And that’s okay. When I dismounted the bike and waddled into T2, I had a feeling the legs might have already had their best performance of the day. Given that I had marathon pace times on my arm for a 3:30 and 4:00 marathon, I think you can imagine a 5:18 wasn’t exactly the goal. But I kept it moving, sometimes slower than others. I was definitely starting to see things around the 75-minute mark. My heat strain score was well above what we wanted and my HR was into the 180s, and that’s when I really knew it would be more about finishing the race, and more importantly finishing the race healthy. I had already seen several women sitting on the side of the road with medical help, and I didn’t want to be writing that kind of race report for you guys here.
Finally, when the sun started to go down, I started to get a bit more pep in my step, and in the last 2 miles of the race, total adrenalin kicked in when an official Ironman cameraman decided to keep pace with me. You guys all know well enough that I would see that as a challenge, I decided to pick it up and finished those last two miles with a 7:41 min/mile (4:45min/km – ish) and the last .2 of those being at 6:41min/miles (4:10min/km – ish). All while smiling, so how can I complain? Total finish time of 12:39:54.
Anyways, that ended up being a bit more words than I expected. But I couldn’t leave out details like the Costco hotdog (most affordable thing we had on the island…).
Other than that, Ray took my phone for the day and live Instagram storied the race, you can find it all saved there in IG stories archive bubble (just below my Instagram profile). I think that won the award for most interesting race coverage. Definitely better for my family and friends who would have otherwise just been watching the blue dot bumble around the IM Live Track app.
On that note, you were hero material again in this race and race-build Mr. Ray. My biggest thank you goes out to you. Thanks for believing, accommodating, supporting, tech-supporting, and giving the tough love when needed. Next time just not while flying down a highspeed highway, okay? Can’t wait to see what heights your support methods can get us to next season. As for the rest of you readers, thank you for the many emails and DM’s of support! It meant so much to hear from you. And as always, thanks for reading this newsletter and supporting DCRainmaker. … and don’t forget to sign up for the DCRainmaker Annual Open House and Fun Run if you will be in the Amsterdam area on December 2nd! Bobbie |
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