Ironman Arizona Transition 1

To help prepare for Ironman Arizona in November 2017, I have put together some notes and diagrams to explain how the transition area in Tempe Beach Park works.

First, a picture of the transition areas in Tempe Beach Park

Overhead view of Tempe Beach Park, from Google Maps

Layout of the area

The Bleachers, Upper left corner, is where the swim starts and exits Tempe Town Lake.   It will be a rolling start, and we will line up in the area noted as "Swim Lineup Area".    More on that in another post.

In the upper right, you see "Special Needs Dropoff", this is where you will drop off your bags for Bike Special Needs and Run Special Needs before the race begins.

In the middle is the Bike Racks.  There is a central Pathway through the bike area, noted by the thin lines.

At the middle right, you will see The Women's Tent, and the Mens Tent, Change tents for both transitions.  In the open area to the right of the tents, there will be chairs set up outside.

In the bottom right corner is where the T1 and T2 bags will be setup, in several long rows running in the direction indicated.

How I did it in 2016

Now for a picture of how the transition actually worked during IMAZ 2016, green arrow to start, red box to finish.

I note that the satelite view is different, ignore all the tents in both pictures.

Swim Exit

After exiting from the Swim via the bleachers, there will be Wetsuit strippers.  You get to them quickly, so get started on getting upzipped, and getting your arms out of the wetsuit as soon as you get off the bleachers,   The green arrow is approximately at the end of the strippers.  From there, you proceed around back through the Swim Start area, going behind the change tents, and heading to the T1 bags.

T1 Bags

The T1 Bags will be laid out in rows, with signs at the end and through the row with the range of bags in that row.   You will get stickers to place on your bags.  It is also a good idea to write your bib number on the bag with a Sharpie, in order to catch it better.  You will need to memorize the row and approximate location of your bag, so that you don't spend too much time looking for it.  You will likely also be a bit punchy after coming out of the water, so the less thinking, the better.  In the picture above, you might note that I go back and forth in the T1 bag area.  In my rush, I grabbed the wrong bag, and had to go back and exchange.

Change Tent (or not)

After collecting your bag, you head to the change area.   Remember that there is no public nudity allowed, so if you are going to do a full outfit change, you must do that inside the change tent.  If you wear Tri-shorts, and top under your wetsuit, you can stay outside the tents, which gives some advantage.

First, you will be coming out of the water in the middle of the pack, and with the majority of the competitors.  Seats inside the tent are at a premium, and you may have to wait.  Always ask a volunteer for help in finding a seat.  The ground will be muddy by this time, as everyone will be putting away their wetsuit and getting water everywhere.   And it never smells good in the tent.

So if you can avoid it,  do your transition outside the tents in the open area.

Dump the contents of your T1 bag on the ground, and put your wetsuit, cap, goggle, earplugs in the bag.  If you get lucky, you can get a volunteer to do this for you, and they will take care of your bag after you have filled it.  Note that you are going to want to have a towel to clean your feet before putting socks on, and perhaps to dry off a bit.

You have to go through the tent to get to your bike.

There will be porta potties close to the exit of the change tents, so this is your last change to pit stop before starting the bike leg.

Bike Storage

Now you will head into the bike storage area.  It is important to memorize the row and location of your bike.  You are not allowed to hang flags, fly balloons, or any other such trick.  We typically count the rows (from the right hand side of the picture).  Once you have your bike, you can then head out the far side of the bike storage area, enter the mount zone, and get started on the bike leg.

Challenge Penticton ITU LD Canadian Championship 2016

Finish line, the time in the clock is for
the Pro mens start, 25 minutes ahead.

So I did Challenge Penticton ITU LD Canadian Championships a few weeks ago, with interesting results.  Let me say going into this race, I was sufficiently tapered, and felt fairly fit, although I was experimenting with a trimmed down training schedule.  For example, I only did one long ride of 120k before this race.  I did do sufficient long swims in open water, with training partner Bruce, so that felt fine.


Swim 1:07:55

T1          6:06

Bike    4:06:39

T2           5:20

Run     3:20:40

Finish  8:46:40

Med Tent 2:00:00 ish

Comments on Swim:  Even splits, I was 33 minutes at the turn.  Swells made it a bit fun.  Don't breath while sighting.

Comments on Bike:  Scraped pedal on first turn onto highway.  Chill buddy, its a long race.  Averaged over 30kmh until second MacLean Creek climb.  Saying 'It Doesn't hurt' worked for as long I needed it to.

Comments on Run.  Was not uncomfortable with heat, needed to focus on the ground ahead, otherwise I spent too much time looking for friends going the other way.

The biggest part of the discussion will be about the Med Tent aftermath.

It was a warm day, temp peaked at about 30 degrees.  Fueling and hydration went well, but I took no where near enough electrolytes (only about 8 salt caps, the rest got wet and broke).  For the last few K, I had this weird feeling like I was running on someone elses legs.

After the race, my arms, shoulder to fingertips started tingling, and my tongue tingled and felt like it was swelling, and I was talking with a distinct lisp.  Ally Johnson got me over to the med tent, and first measure had my heart rate at 35, and BP something like 96/56 ( a wee bit low).  So I spent 2 hours wrapped in blankets, drinking as much chicken broth as I could stomach.   Eventually the tingling went away, I started talking somewhat normal.  The lisp kept coming back and going away, and it took until midnight before I was anywhere close to being properly hydrated.

From what I understand now, this is signs of hyponatremia.  The exact definition is as follows:  Normal serum sodium levels are 135 - 145 mEq/liter (135 - 145 mmol/L), mine was 146 the last time my doctor checked it. Hyponatremia is generally defined as a serum sodium level of less than 135 mEq/L and is considered severe when the level is below 120 mEq/L.

Most interesting is that I found paresthesia of the arms and tongue to be symptoms of low electrolytes or low sodium, but paresthesia is not listed as a sign of hyponatremia.  This could be because they really only list the severe symptoms, coma and death being among them.  I have had this happen before, but not combined.  After the Berlin Marathon, in which I ran the last 10k for the first time, only my arms tingled for around 30 minutes after the race.  After all my marathons in the past few years, I have had the tongue tingle/lisp thing going on.   I had always assumed that this was simply dehydration.

It makes sense in this race, in that I trained for heat, and did heat acclimatization in the steam room, building up to 15 minutes at a time, twice a week.  I sweat more quickly and with more volume, which I wanted to stay cool in the heat.   I have always lost a lot of salt in my sweat.  So not taking any salt or electrolytes for the majority of the run would get me low on electrolytes.  I also continued with the same hydration plan after my salt caps broke.  The proper thing to do would have been to drink much less, use the Ph.D drink they were serving, and allow myself to get dehydrated.

Haddon Hustle KOM, or The Last ride of Jake The Snake

https://www.strava.com/activities/645705501

I finally grabbed the KOM for Haddon Hustle, on my trusty steed, Jake the Snake.  I hurt a lot to do this, but really only for the last minute.   It was awesome!

After this ride, Jake the Snake got stolen, reported to the police and insurance, appraised and paid out by adjuster, found and recovered by police 2 days later, and cheque returned in the week.

Need to replace Garmin Sensor, and the front brakes, for some odd reason.

Glad its back, I love riding this bike.

Swimming Lake Bonavista - with Bruce and Nathalie Hagel

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1246055849

Good and weird swim tonight.  We swam 3800m, so we have now done an Ironman distance swim.  The rest of the swim training to the race is gravy, We know we can do the distance, now just to make it wreck us less before going for a bike ride.

Bruce was much faster than I was tonight.  It made me wonder what I was doing wrong, but the garmin indicates that my swim time was not outside of normal.  I think the moving time on the garmin is wrong, and our actual moving time (swimming time) was more like 1:25.  That is a fast ironman swim for us, probably because of the rest breaks, where you get no rest in the actual race.

Being slower than Bruce today really made me focus on my technique, stroke to stroke, trying to keep it perfect (heh) or getting closer to it.  I was tired by the last leg, and glad to be done.

Tomorrow is a long bike ride, which will really test my recover.

Haddon Hustle - yeah, I am not recovered

https://www.strava.com/activities/632744326/segments/15454646308

I was 32 seconds slower than my PR.  I help fairly good speed on the first half, although slightly slower than the record.  Then just died after about a minute, and had a hard time even keeping 30kmh.

So I am still fatigued.  I took it a bit easier during weights, and on the ride home, and an easy evening social run to keep from stiffening up.

Swim tomorrow, we are doing the distance.

Longest swim this training cycle, 3.2k with Bruce Hagel

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1243270184

We have been having Tornado warnings and thunderstorm for several days now, and today looked like it was going to cancel our swim.  Bruce texted to say that he was going to run instead, because the weather was still ugly in the afternoon.  at 5pm, he  He texted to invite for a swim RFN, so I got repacked (equipment still spread out from GWN), and got to the lake in 20 minutes.

Nathalie Hagel accompanied us in a kayak, nice to have the backup.

Our plan was for a 3k swim, and its now 2 days after GWN.  The first leg to the island felt comfortably hard.  leg north didn't feel as good, couldn't decide what, if anything was wrong.  After recovering, we headed out on the first 1k leg,  It started to feel relaxed and comfortable about half way through this lap.  Bruce was still way faster.

On the last leg, Nathalie headed in to get on with the evening, and Bruce and I headed out.  At the beginning, this felt very easy and strong, and I really wanted to know what I was doing right. we ended up at the next three checkpoints (north, island, shore) at about the same time.

I did start to feel some fatigue at the last leg of the swim, but it was not significant.

It appears that I needed to swim just over 1000m, with breaks, in order to shake off the fatigue of the weekend.  What it really did was take that long to get everything properly firing, and getting my technique back sort of in order.  My brain was being hard on me, doubting my swimming ability and question whether I really had maintained or improved my technique in the off-season.

In trying to measure my recovery, I would say that I am comfortably tired, as after a good days training, but not feeling any deeper fatigue.  The bike ride in the morning will be the real test, with the Strava segment "Haddon Hustle", a 2 minute time trial after about 5-10 minutes of warmup.  2 minutes of effort is not enough to hamper recovery if I am still fatigued.

My progression for open water swims this year has been

1 - 800m
2 - 1600m
3 - 1900m  (GWN)
4 - 3200m

and 5 will be 4200m.   We will try to get 4 swims of at least this distance in before I go to Calgary 70.3 and Bruce goes to Ironman Canada - Whistler.

New workout schedule, monday workout - Apr 11

Lots of rolling, work with softball, work with laCross ball.
Worlds Greatest stretch
Angels, which Ian converted to 10lb dumbell single leg deadlifts, with the roller on your toe.  This forced you to move your hips backwards, and put the weight on your heal.
Grace Jones
Core activation, Bear Crawl, back and forth.  Ian wanted roller on hips, but I steadied it out
Down to Gym
Skipping, forward arms across, backward arms on the way back.
Single Leg Explosive Jumping, soft deep landing
Fast Feet, CNS activation.  One foot up, second up, first back, second back fast as you can

Single Leg Hamstring Curl on TRX, 2 seconds in, 1 hold, 4 out
Decline pushups, 4 seconds down, hold 1, 2 up

TRX 'X', Holding palms up, lean away holding TRX, shoulder blades down ,pull up with hands wide-ish, at hip level.
Single Leg step up, with 2x25lb kettlebells

Planks, 10 each arm extensions, 120 seconds
planks, 10 each leg raises, 120 seconds
Planks, 5 x opposites

Stretch and hot tub