Joel Maley: 2018 Superfrog 70.3 - Race Report

So I flew from Ottawa to San Diego on Thursday the 13 of Sep. John & Chantal, Helene and I flew from Ottawa and met up with Benoit, Vincent, and Fred in Toronto. We traveled from Toronto to San Diego together and arrived in San Diego shortly before lunch. John and I picked up the rental vans, headed back to the airport to pick up the team and then drove to Imperial Beach. I did a couple more trips to the airport in the afternoon - one to pick up Eric and a second to pick up Ben. This year we had eight athletes representing the Canadian Armed Forces at Superfrog 70.3: John, Eric, Ben, Fred, Benoit, Vincent, Helene, and myself. Everyone put their bikes together on Thursday and a couple of the athletes did a bike/run brick while Helene and Fred did a practice swim in the ocean.

L to R: Vincent, me, Eric, Ben, Fred, John, Benoit, and Helene

On Friday morning I woke up early and did an easy 30min run. At 0700hrs, we did a group practice swim in the ocean. The waves weren’t too bad, but I was reminded how much I didn’t particular enjoy swimming in the waves. After the swim, we did a quick photo shoot and then headed out for a group ride on the course. I did an easy first out and on the back section put in a hard effort to fire up the legs. I opted to do a second loop of just easy riding. After the bike, Fred, Ben and I went to Starbucks for a coffee. Some folks preferred to do their race activation on Friday and then take Saturday completely off. I much prefer taking Friday as an easier day and then doing race activation the day prior to the race.

On Saturday morning, Ben and I did a practice swim of about 20 minutes and then headed out for a short ride (one loop). Following the ride, we did a quick 5km brick run. I was feeling pretty confident and comfortable going into the race - the only thing I was concerned about was the swim. We all did bike check-in early and then it was back to the house for a relaxing afternoon with my legs in the Rapid Reboot while watching Netflix.

Bike is racked ad ready to fly!

Going into the race I didn’t really have any goals. I was just looking to have a follow-on performance similar to Maine 70.3. I was secretly hoping for a sub 4:20 finish and a sub 2:15 bike. Based on my bike at Maine 70.3, I was expecting a bike split of less than 2:15. I had planned to use a similar race strategy to Maine 70.3: survive the swim, hammer the bike, and then be prepared to suffer on the run.

Sunday morning I was up at shortly before 0400hrs. I had my usual race morning breakfast of a coffee (with cream), an orange juice, a bagel with jam, a banana, and a couple eggs. At shortly before 0500hrs we headed down the street to transition to inflate tires, set up our gear, and drop off our nutrition. Then it was back to the house. At about 0615hrs we headed down the beach to await race start. The waves were certainly bigger than both Friday and Saturday and they appeared very unpredictable.

At 0650hrs the race started. It was a rolling start and this year they allowed a couple athletes in the water every 5 seconds. I started in the 30-33min corral and it took about 10 minutes before I was off. I was extremely thankful that I entered the water when a smaller series of waves was coming in and I was quickly out and through the break. The first loop of the swim was quite uneventful and before I knew it, I was back through the break and heading out of the water for my second loop. Getting out of the water however was quite the challenge as there was a very strong current. As I entered the water for my second loop the waves were certainly bigger. I had to dive to the bottom and hold on as a double wave passed over me and then I quickly swam further out and managed to get through the next couple waves before they crashed. Out around the two red buoys and then it was back to shore. I was super excited to be exiting the water and ready for the “race” to start. I find the swim at Superfrog 70.3 is more about survival than swimming. It was a rough swim this year, but not as bad as 2016. Swim time 34:02. (we all felt the swim was 150-200m long)

And then it was onto the bike. As I ran down the transition shoot, I could see Fred up ahead so I figured we would end up out on the bike together. Once I was on the bike, I knew that I needed to start hammering so that is what I tried to do. I passed Fred on the first loop and then we kind of played cat and mouse on the next couple loops. He would pass me on the headwind section and then I would pass him on the small hill or the tailwind section. We both made sure that when we passed the other, we completely exited the draft zone and rode well behind the other. I pushed the first loop really hard and as I finished it, my normalized power was 247W. I figured I’d be hard pressed to hold that for the entire bike, but reminded myself to ride like Gary…ie. just keep pushing and ride hard. The third and fourth lap were a bit of a struggle, but I just mentally told myself to keep it together and to push as hard as a I could. Final time was 2:12:08 (Fastest bike split in the age group and second fastest in the race). Bike course was about 1km long. Power 230W Average, 234W NP. Nutrition: 2 x 400 Calorie bottles of F2C GlycoDurance (Strawberry-Kiwi + Unflavoured) + 8 scoops of electroDurance and another quarter to half a bottle of water.

Quickly through transition and onto the run. Running on the sand sucks…thankfully most of the beach running you can run down near the water where the sand is firmer. I completely ignored my watch and went by feel. I could tell that Matt Davis was putting about 50-100m into me on each loop of the course, but I didn’t know how far ahead of me he had started. I was pretty sure that he was well ahead of me, but as I found out later, he was actually behind me and making up ground quickly. I just ran as fast as I could muster. Final time 1:28:03. 2^nd fastest run in the age group (Matt had the fastest) and second fastest run in the race. I was the fifth person to cross the finish line, but due to the rolling start I actually finished 2^nd Overall. Nutrition: 2 x Rekarb Gels, lots of water, a little on course electrolytes and a couple cups of coke.

Final time 4:18:19 and a new PB on this course!