Shawn Burke's Blog

Ironman Race Day Nutrition: Calories

2009-12-05T17:56:02Z

I really, really wish I’d gotten more focused on race-day nutrition earlier in my long-course career. It’s been a long road of trial and error for me, as it is for most people, and I’m still working at it. What most people don’t realize is that nutrition is by far the biggest factor to your race day success. I’m a slow learner and didn’t really understand this fully until about my 4th Ironman. Hopefully I can save you some of that trouble.

Ironman racing is a different ballgame than other distances because of two things.

First, it is nearly impossible to simulate Ironman racing conditions in training. You’re simply not going to be able to train continuously for 8+ hours without taking a huge recovery cost. This isn’t true for the Half Ironman distance, for example. A 5-6 hour training day isn’t that uncommon for many athletes.

Second, the duration of the event forces you to get a bunch of things “right” that you don’t have to get right at a shorter distance. In a Half, if you’re a little off on your calories, fluids, or salts, you can often soldier through. Or just have a few rough miles at the end of the run. Not so in Ironman. If you get it wrong, you may be in for a long, sad walk. Or worse.

In my case, getting the proper amount of calories down, particularly on the bike, has been a big challenge. In most cases, my stomach would start rejecting fuel about half way through the bike and I’d get pretty unhappy. It wasn’t until this year that I really drilled into it, and if you’re someone who has struggled with this, below is the framework that I used to address the problem.

There are four key components to Ironman nutrition. Basically these are the things that affect your gut’s ability to process.

Calories
Fluids
Sodium/Electrolytes
Pacing

I’ll focus on calories here and tackle the other two at some point down the road.

Race Morning

But first, let’s talk about what we’re eating before the race. In my case, the worst part of Ironman for my first few races was eating a big breakfast at 4:00 in the morning. I’d push down 1,000 calories of eggs, toast, peanut butter, and bananas, then lay on the couch in agony until it was time to go to transition. This always worked itself out, but the extra anxiety of feeling so full didn’t help. I always had visions of how terrible it would be if I laid down a “breakfast slick” at the swim start. I understand that kind of thing is frowned upon.

So, here a few hints here that have helped me a lot.

One thing I did was try to pre-make what I could so it was ready to go when I got up. This allowed me to start eating right away rather than burning 15 minutes getting stuff ready. It also allows you to spread the eating out a bit over a longer period of time, which helps avoid that bloaty feeling.

Another is to get up a few minutes earlier and take a quick warm shower. This seems to help get the blood flowing and let your body know it’s time to get to business.

But the real key for me was to move to a smoothie recipe. Basically it’s rice milk, carbo pro, honey, banana, and peanut butter all blended up. It tastes pretty good and comes out to about 1,000 calories. There are lots of ways to do this, but it’s nice because it clears the stomach pretty quickly with little effort. And in my case, I’ll start getting hungry again and take a gel on the way out to the swim start, about 10 or 15 minutes before the cannon.

Between breakfast and the start of the race, I’ve found that plain water or water with something like NUUN in it works best.

Fueling on the Bike

This is where I’ve had real problems. I tried everything. Gels, Maxx Endurance, CarboPro, Accelerade, Schlitz Malt Liquor, Cliff Bars, Hammer Bars, you name it. In every long race from Lake Stevens 2006 through IMC 2008, I had the same thing happen. Upset tummy, inability to get calories in. Prior to 2009, I don’t think I have ever succeeded in getting 1,000 calories down in an Ironman on the bike – or even close. And I see from people’s race reports that I’m not alone.

This year it was clear to me that I needed to get this problem fixed as it was my major limiter. I’ve been using CarboPro and trying to remember to work through it steadily. But I’d get a few hours into the race and…blech…I just couldn’t handle it any more. I thought maybe that was just how I worked and that I had something about my makeup that didn’t allow calorie processing at effort.

Earlier this year, I had a great conversation with Brian Grasky and Bill Daniell about this, and their advice was to start from scratch.

Here’s the protocol I used to get it figured out:

Stop worrying about how many calories you “should” be taking in, and get focused on what you “can” get in. Start with a small number and see if you can handle that. Say you’ve got a 4 hour ride. Build 2 300cal bottles, and try to get through them over the 4 hours. That’s 150 cals an hour, which is not typically enough (depending on our size and intensity level), but it’s a start. Along with your calories, take a bottle of plain water. So only take in water and your calories and see how that works.
Get an Aerodrink or a similar hydration system. More water will solve A LOT of your problems. You’ll drink more with a straw in your face. I recommend the new Aerodrink with the cap valve thing instead of the older ones with the yellow sponges that you see all over the roads at races.
Go to the store and get yourself a $30 Timex Ironman watch. Go to Timer mode and set it to repeat at some short interval. I’ve been doing 6 or 8 minutes. At 6 minutes, I’m fueling/drinking 10x an hour – do what seems right for you, and experiment with it. When it’s time to start your fueling, start that watch. When it beeps, push the button to stop the annoying noise and take a swig of water, a swig of fuel, and a swig of water. Find a way to attach it to your handlebars; I was able to put it between my stem and my aero bars. If your stomach starts feeling sour, just skip a feed interval and/or just take in some water. Since you’re bringing it slowly, usually by the next interval, you’ll be good to go.
Start gradually working up the number of calories in each bottle on training rides and see where you can get to.
If things are going well, experiment with adding some electrolytes to your fuel so you can get them in that way – NUUN, Endurolyte powder, Thermolytes, etc.

My results?

First, I now understand why I was having problems – it was just too much at a time. I’d get busy racing, get behind, try to catch up, and my stomach would rebel on me. In the meantime I was bonking and getting dehydrated in the process. Seems obvious now – yep, slow learner over here.

Second, it appears that I’ve now trained my stomach to perform better under stress. I used to feel like I had to be super careful to avoid having issues. In training, at least, I now no longer feel this way. Basically, I’m to the point where I build about a ~700 calorie bottle (haven’t tried more) and I’ll easily get through it in training in 1:45-2:00 without any problems. Then I’ll eat a snickers bar, then do another 700 cal bottle, then maybe throw down a gel or something. Yes, big, big difference. I’ll have little moments where my stomach lets me know it’s feeling overworked. Some water, a few minutes off, and all is OK again in Tummytown. It’s easy to feather it.

With better nutrition, you’ll also find that you can ride strong for your entire long rides, run better off the bike, and finish the day without feeling completely wrecked. It’s a big difference and improves the amount of volume you can absorb. That’s the goal, after all!

At Ironman Canada this year, I had no problem getting calories down. In fact, I overdid it and ended up taking in almost 2,000 calories on the bike. That, plus way too much fluid and not enough sodium caused me problems on the run. But less calories is an easy problem to solve so I’ve made good progress.

Note that for rides of 3 hours or less, I don’t really bother with this – I’ll bring a bottle of Gatorade and a gel or two. However, for Half IM, I do follow it. I got 800-900 calories in at the Troika Half Ironman, got off the bike feeling just wrecked because I'd ridden so hard (and because I’d come right off of several huge training weeks), but still ran better than the prior year on a much hotter day. And felt fine after the race. The calories made a big, big difference.

Obviously this is tailored for liquid calories, which I think are the way to go for most cases. But you could make it work with gel or solid food with some tweaks. But solids are tough at higher intensity levels, and you really need to get your fluids right. Most people really think that liquid calories should be your predominate fuel source on race day.

Fueling on the Run

My experience is that it’s tough to count calories on the run. The cups of Gatorade or Coke you get on the run are filled to randomly different levels, and most of it ends up not going in your mouth anyway. Gels are easier to monitor, but in many cases your stomach will not be able to handle much maltodextrin (or other longer chain carbs) out on the run. In addition, everyone’s tolerance for sweet decreases throughout the day so it becomes harder and harder to get things like gels down the pipe. This is where something like pretzels or the chicken broth can be a great respite, later in the run.

My strategy on the run is to take in as many calories as I can manage to keep down. I purposely keep my stomach just on this side of “unhappy” and then will tactically skip something here or there if it needs a break. In an Ironman, this means Coke and Water at every aid station, and then a Gel every three miles or so. With the gels, I grab them at the station and stick them in my pocket, then pull them out about 2/3 into the next mile and nip of them with the goal of finishing as I arrive at the next aid station so I can chase with water. Unfortunately in my last two Ironman’s, I’ve gone over the edge, so this isn’t bullet proof.

But the key on the run is to keep the calories coming in smoothly. Your stomach is generally not going to feel great on the run of an Ironman. That’s part of the gig. But those calories are critical.

I typically do something like the following:

Water at every aid station.
Every third aid station, I grab a gel and put it in my pocket. About 2/3 that mile, I take it out, open it, and start nipping at it. As I approach the next aid station, I finish it right before I get to the water, then wash that down.
Coke at every aid station where I’m not finishing a gel.
Every other mile, I take two Endurolytes or a Thermolyte or whatever.
If it is mid-80s or higher, I’ll walk the aid stations to make sure I get my fluids in and to put ice in my hat and/or down my shorts, etc.

But this can be a tough one – it’s highly dependant on many other factors and it has a dash of luck tossed in. In my last two Ironman’s, I’ve had my stomach go sideways on the run. At Ironman Arizona this year, I think that I had picked up a stomach bug earlier, so I don’t how much my protocol had to do with my difficulty keeping things down later in the run. The fact that I had trouble keeping food down until the following morning points to something else going on.

In any case, in my next race, I’m considering holding off on the coke until the last half of the run and just going on gels and water for the first half, then switching to coke and dropping the gels in the second half.

The above is a general framework that may or may not work for others, but it’s served me well as a basis that I’ve continued to tweak on. Trial and error, trial and error, trial and error.

Fueling After the Race

After the race, there will be food available, but it’s usually pizza and fries and stuff, which may not be all that appealing. I typically have my family bring me some chocolate milk for right after the race, which is a great way to get some protein and carbs in. I’ll do that and drink water and have some chicken broth.

That usually gets me over the hump and then I can move on to proper post-race nutrition: a burger, a beer, a milkshake, and whatever else I can manage to get down. My tummy usually doesn’t really start liking food until the next day.

2009 Race Season Recap

2009-11-27T22:43:39Z

I’m back.

This has been quite a year on the triathlon front. After some good gains last year, I really started to see some big changes this year in my ability to train at higher intensities, my ability to recover, and my ability to execute on race day. I’ve had a pretty-much injury free year and my main target for the year was Ironman Canada in August.

I had an early season running focus where some faster running was introduced into my running with the race target being a hilly half marathon on Mercer Island in March, with a goal of sub-1:30. About half way through the run, a girl came by me and I decided to match her pace even though it seemed a little fast for me. It turned out great and we ran shoulder-to-shoulder and footstrike-for-footstrike for the second half of the race without ever saying a word. I ended up coming in at 1:29 and after the race, it turned out both of us were running at a pace above what we thought was doable. It was an important lesson that you can often go harder than you may think.

Issaquah Sprint Triathlon – 22/979 Overall, 3/112 AG

First race of the year. Especially fun because it was also my dad’s first tri. I’m not a huge fan of the sprint distance – it’s frantic and it hurts like hell. As I got out to the run, I spotted Bryan (a training partner) of mine about a minute up the road in a 3 mile run. I ran as hard as I could and managed to catch him with less than a mile to go. Unfortunately I made the mistake of passing him slowly (I was fading) which allowed him to latch onto me. When I realized my mistake, I drilled it as hard as I could with about 400m to go hoping to drop him, but I couldn’t do it. He’s a great competitor and jumped me in the chute for 2nd in our AG. Lesson learned.

Oliver Half Ironman – 43/907 Overall, 9/94 AG, 4:50:10

This half is up in Canada on part of the IMC bike course. It’s a beautiful venue and a very competitive race, attracting some really fast people. Swim was uneventful, but I had a lot of trouble getting going on the bike, and it took almost 30 miles before I felt like I had any punch. I finally came around and rode hard on the back half of the bike and felt good coming into the run. I had a lot of friends doing this race and the double-out-and-back run course meant you saw people at multiple points in the run. Being in Canada, all the markers were in km and I loved how fast the kilometers clicked off. For June I had a solid run a good effort over all.

ChelanMan Olympic – 14/390 Overall, 3/35 AG, 2:15:50

This was another new race for me and getting away to Chelan for a weekend was a good excuse. My dad was also at this race, and it had been almost 4 years since I’d done the Olympic distance (1.5k swim, 40k bike, 10k run). This race has a really great course lay out. The swim is in a gorgeous, crystal clear lake and has a line along the bottom that connects the buoys – you don’t even need to sight! The bike course is rolling and along the lake, and the run is predominately flat. I like the Oly distance because it’s not as frantic as a sprint, but it really is painful as you need to go all out the whole time. Once out on the run, I decided to hit the run like it was only 5 miles and then hang on for the rest. I was sure there were guys that were running me down, but was happy to catch quite a few and only get caught by two. This was another learning opportunity that you can usually go a little harder than you think you can hold.

Troika Half Ironman – 11/197 Overall, 1/15 AG, 4:41:02

Troika is one of my favorite races. It’s in my home town of Spokane and it’s a few weeks before IMC so it’s part last “big” workout and part dress-rehearsal. The course is just a blast and has a point-to-point bike and a mostly flat run along the Spokane River, starting and finishing in Riverfront Park where I spent much of my childhood summers. I had done huge training volume in July, taking the last two weeks of the month off for an extra punch of training and a trip to train in Boulder with my coach Scott and some fellow crazy people. It was all part of the plan to come to the race tired. I had a decent swim, but once I was out on the bike I could really feel the work I’d been doing. I wanted a good go so rode as hard as I could manage and got in just under 2:30, but thought I’d be licked for the run. Once out on the run, the temperature was high-80s and I settled into a 7:15 pace, including walking the aid stations to make sure I got enough fluids and cooling done. The run hurt, and about half way through I was pretty sure I was going to blow up at some point. I had a bit of an epiphany in this race because I decided I didn’t care – I was going to keep running as hard as I could and if I popped, I popped. But, it never happened and I managed to run down a couple of guys in the last mile and actually pick up my pace through to the finish. This was a big race for me because it felt automatic – I felt in control and focused the whole time, and I was able to override the discomfort a bit and push harder than I thought I could and make it stick. Oh, and I won my age group, which was nice.

Ironman Canada – 176/2602 Overall, 34/359 AG, 10:32:30

The big one and my third go at Canada. I had worked very hard all year on my nutrition plan and felt very fit and ready for the race. A few days before heading to Penticton, I ripped a big hole in my aging wetsuit, so I ended up buying a brand new Blue Seventy Helix up at the race site, only swimming in it twice before the race. I was amazed at how fast the suit helped and while having a goal of 1:02-1:03 in the swim, I was shocked when I stood up out of the water and saw 1:00:35 on my watch. I could not believe it, and I was out on the bike a full two minutes before I’d gotten out of the water the year prior. The forecast was for a pretty hot day in Canada and after two good races in heat at Chelan and Troika, I felt good about my ability to handle it. On the bike I felt just awesome and I finally understood how valuable it was to get out of the water earlier, and it allowed me to really take it easy and get into the bike without dealing with traffic. The entire ride was great and I executed right on my plan and got into T2 feeling great. The first half of the run went very well, but I started it out a bit fast. The IMC run is mostly flat for 10 miles, then is hilly for 3 miles to the turn around, then back through the hills and mostly flat back into town. I made it through the hills OK but when I hit the turn around, I started feeling terrible. I drank a RedBull that I’d put in special needs and ran back out of the hills pretty well. Then things got ugly and my case steadily decayed. At mile 21 I took some chicken broth thinking maybe I needed more salt, but it didn’t sit well and I ended up losing everything I’d taken in for the prior two hours or so, and realized my stomach had shut down. Unfortunately my goose was cooked and it was a struggle back into town. Still, I came in just over 10:30 on a day when many people had really rough races, and I was only 17 minutes from a Kona slot. But a 4 hour marathon wasn’t what I was looking for. Some friends wanted to take a mulligan and do Ironman Arizona, so they signed up a few days later, and I followed suit.

Ironman Arizona – 119/2597 OA, 26/386 AG, 9:55:34

My goal for IMAZ was to go have a complete race and run well off of the bike. Qualifying for Kona at fast, early season race is very difficult so that wasn’t really on my radar. I just wanted to put a full day together. Training into the fall was tough as the days shortened to nothing and the weather got cold and rainy. But my coach moved me to a lower-volume protocol with more intensity and strength work and it seemed to be just what the doctor ordered as my bike fitness improved dramatically. I had hoped to maintain fitness but was confident going into the race as I felt like I was fitter than before IMC. I wondered if the swim result at IMC was a fluke, but I knew getting out early was key to my strategy so I swam aggressively. The swim was crowded and rough, but I felt great for the last 1/3 of it and was pleased to get across the map in under 1:02. Out on the bike, I stayed conservative and did as much legal drafting as I could and slowly worked my way up through the field. One of the things I learned from IMC was that I needed to take in less fluids and more sodium on the bike, so I made those changes. My stomach felt great at the 60 mile mark and I was steadily working through my calories and fluids. But soon, I started to feel bloaty and it was clear my stomach was no longer playing along. I decided to cut my calories and focus on getting in water to try to get things working again. At about mile 80, the bike started feeling soft and I discovered that I had a flat front tire. Better front than back, and my PitStop worked perfectly and I was moving again within 2 minutes. When I had started the third lap on the bike course, I had made a tactical decision to drop 5 minutes on the last lap to make sure I was ready to run well, and it worked nicely as my HR stayed very low for the entire bike. I ended up coming off the bike at 5:08 which was very close to what I thought I’d do but it took even less energy than I’d thought. The other thing I wanted to avoid was running too fast off the bike and I worked really hard to run my first 13 miles at 8:00 or a little slower. Even still, I did a bunch of 7:45 miles, but it felt easy and my HR stayed low, and it’s just amazing how hard (yes, hard) it is to keep to a reasonable pace off the bike. If I didn’t pay close attention, I’d be running 7:15 all of a sudden, which is way too fast. My goal was to hold steady until 16, then run by feel for the rest of the way. Around mile 14, I could feel my stomach backing up and I started skipping aid stations to give it a chance to process. At 16 I tried a gel and things got ugly as I got about 10 steps from the aid station and unloaded all over the grass. But this time was much worse and I couldn’t get moving again as I heaved and heaved. All that went through my head was “after all the cold, dark mornings and all the training hours, I’m not going to be stopped now”, and so I just started running again. And it worked. Even with a queasy stomach, I got back down to my goal pace and was able to focus for the rest of the run and stay close to 8 minute miles. It was great to turn the corner and see a 9 as the first digit on the board. My symptoms got worse after the race and it looks like I’d picked up some kind of stomach bug along the way, along with a black eye from the swim, and a very angry Achilles. An eventful day and a good result – like Troika I felt automatic and under control all day.

So that’s 2009, a solid year for me and a nice way to roll into the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Winter Fun 'n Fundamentals

2008-10-27T06:13:41Z

Another season draws to a close and it's time to once again evaluate how things have gone this season and consider what my goals and reasons are for the time I spend in athletics.

It's become very clear to me that training is a very core part of my life. Before I got back into this stuff, I dabbled in this and that but I always felt restless and unfocused. It's not that hard to figure out looking at my history, but I now know that I don't do "balance" well. I'm much happier doing a few things at 110% than a bunch of things at 30%. It's not for everyone, but that's how I'm wired.

On the Thursday after Ironman Canada, I was back at the pool for an easy swim. I love those easy workouts after an Ironman. It feels good to get the blood flowing a bit, and even better to be able to go easy and quit whenever I damn well please. But I walked into the pool area and see Rhae Shaw, who was just getting into the meat of her Kona prep (note Rhae had *the fastest* female age-grouper bike split at Kona...sick). Anyway, Rhae says to me "WTF are you doing here? Dude, you suck at not training." Guilty as charged.

So, what to do with this Off-Season thing? If I look at my season, I made some great improvement this year. But I see some things are still holding me back. My swimming has improved massively, but if I want to be competitive, I need to notch it up a bit. My power on the bike is much better, and if I have an improvement on par with what I had this year, I'll be in good shape. But that's going to take some work. And running - well, I just need to run more!

With that in mind, my focus is "Fundamentals".

I've started swimming with Ben's group. He's heavily technique focused, and as an essentially self-taught swimmer, there's some things I need to correct. Once I get some technique issues sorted, hopefully I'll be able to add more volume and really pull it together.

My plan is to hit another Jan/Feb marathon and try to qualify for Boston. If I can a few months of 40-50 mile weeks under my belt, I think that'll really continue the gains I've seen on the run.

And then there's the bike. Once thing I've been doing is some Cyclocross racing (pictured above). This is mostly about fun - and it is a hell of a lot of fun. I suck at it. It's liberating not to really care how I do.

Finally, I decided to give PowerCranks a try. These bad-boys are pretty controversial, but I'm just looking for a little different stimulus to force some new adaptations. PowerCranks are clutched on both sides, so you have to operate each crank independently - see how they hang down in the pic. That's right, single leg drills, with both legs, the whole time. I call them the HumbleCranks because they are effing hard for the first month or so. I'm just getting to the point where I can ride them for any amount of time. We'll see what happens, but I'm starting to see some interesting power numbers off my 3 hour ride this weekend, particularly climbing. The jury is still out but I'm optimistic so far.

Six weeks ago, I could ride them for 15-20 minutes at a time on the trainer. So you start from scratch. I think I'm on the regular progression which is:

To begin with, you can go short periods of time, only in very big gears. And you get tired very fast.
After a week or two, your cadence comes up
After another week or two, you can ride for longer
After another week or two, you can get out of the saddle for a few strokes at a time
After a few more weeks, you start to get really comfortable on them and start to see power increases at lower heart rates
According to the marketing - after 3-4 months, it "clicks" and you're a whole new person, with higher power numbers, a brighter outlook, and more attractive to the opposite sex, more popular with animals and children, and disease free forever.

Stay tuned for details.

Oh, and get out and Vote, people. Seriously.

Iron Horse Trail Ride

2008-09-15T05:57:34Z

AKA "John Wayne Pioneer Trail", the Iron Horse State Park is something I've only been vaguely aware of during the 15 years I've lived in the Seattle area. It just happens to have the word "Iron" in it too. Nice!

I've always wanted to ride from Seattle up to Snoqualmie Pass, but could never find a way to do it. Unfortunately, there really isn't a route (that I know of) that isn't on I-90. A few weeks ago, I picked up a Fuji Cross Comp Cyclocross bike at Performance. Owen happened to pick one up the following day. Since then I've been taking advantage of the last bits of summer and riding it to work almost every day. If I had any idea how much fun I would have with a bike like this, I would have bought one years ago. It is literally the most fun I've had on a bike since I was a kid. My commute to work has been different almost every day as I concoct new routes that allow me to hit a little bit of trail on the way in.

Cyclocross (CX) is a flavor of bike racing that is basically a cross between mountain bike racing and road racing, though CX predates mountain bikes by many decades. Anyway, a CX bike looks like a road bike but it's got knobby tires, a beefier frame, and cantilevered brakes. So they work pretty well on the road, and just as well off of it.

Soon after getting the bikes, I realize that we could use them to ride the Iron Horse Trail. It's something I've always wanted to do, but had completely forgotten about. The trail is a converted railway line that runs over 100 miles from North Bend, WA, through the Cascade Mountains, all the way to the Columbia River. Owen and I hatched this plan a few weeks ago and I have been SO excited about it since. We were considering a ride later in September, but the weather has been perfect for the last few weeks so we moved some things around to make it happen when it was sunny. I'm happy to report it was everything I'd hoped.

We got up to the trail head around 11 am and got our stuff ready and rolled out up the trail into the sunshine, setting a sensible pace up the steady railway grade up to Snoqualmie.

Before long, we come to the first bridge and it's just gorgeous. The pictures say far more than I could ever write. Click 'em for larger versions.

We continue on up the climb. The road surface is pretty good - just a few spots of loose gravel. Some parts are completely under the forest canopy and cool in the shade, some are out in the sun. It made for good variety.

Finally we get to the main attraction, which is a two mile tunnel that goes right under the Snoqualmie Pass ski resort. The tunnel is completely dark - no internal lighting - and pretty chilly to boot. Both Owen and I have lights (though his does the heavy lifting) so we can see well within the tunnel. There are quite a few people out there. In the first picture, the lights you see in the tunnel are people on foot and on bikes deep in the darkness.

It's creepy in there and very odd riding along at 15-20 mph with only a few feet of visibility. The road surface was very smooth but there were quite a few places where the tunnel leaks and water is coming in. Finally we reach the end and emerge back into the sunlight.

That puts us out at Hyak and we stop for some water at the parking lot. At this point, we're about 20 miles and 2 hours (including stops) into the ride.

There's lots of people out at Hyak. One thing that surprised me was the number of people walking that tunnel. Even on a bike, I was ready to be out of there. A long walk in the cold and the dark seems like the kind of thing that's a good idea for just a few minutes.

If you've been to the Summit ski resort there, the tunnel comes out just below the Hyak runs at the far East end of the ski resort. I suspect it's pretty well covered with snow in winter time.

We continue on Eastward. On the top of the Pass, the road is pretty flat for quite a while before you start to descend down, but even then it's not as far. The West side of the state starts at sea level, while the east side sits about 1000-1500 feet up. The pass is only at about 2500 feet.

The tunnel was the most novel part of the ride but there was still plenty to see. Not long after Hyak, we come to Lake Keechlus, which is the lake you drive by as you go along I-90. Our plan is to ride to the far end of the lake, then stop and eat our sandwiches.

The lake is a natural lake, but a dam raises it's level significantly, leaving al the exposed stumps during the summer low season. The landscape is really surreal.

We scrambled down a bank off the trail and make our way across the plain (middle picture) above to the water along a dried creek bed. As we make our way down towards the water, the creek's reveene gets deeper and deeper. We're seeing lots of animal tracks, and as we get close to the water, I see one that's different than the others. I point it out to Owen and he wisely suggests that we get out and walk along the top so we don't scare something at the water's edge.

So we eat lunch by the lake. The water is incredibly clear and not nearly as cold as I'd suspected. A quick swim is tempting, but not quite tempting enough.

We finish lunch, get back to our bikes and head back down. The way back is naturally much faster - not just because of the downhill. We moved with a bit more purpose on the way home.. After being on bumpy dirt roads for the better part of 5 hours, I was more than ready to be done.

But what a great day.

The Highlight Reel

2008-09-11T05:12:25Z

There are things that happen in your life that you immediately know will be remembered forever. Things that you will look back upon with fondness for the rest of your days. We all have them, and they're special and unique to who we are.

I was fortunate to have experienced one of those this past Sunday.

My first Ironman was Ironman Arizona in April of 2007. My dad came down to Tempe to see Deb and I race, and it was great to have him there. The day after the race, sitting by the pool at his hotel, he had some interesting thoughts about the day. He basically said that he didn't "get it" until he saw it happen. Only then did he see that it wasn't so much a race as a celebration of life and an opportunity for people to prove to themselves that they are capable of something extraordinary. I think what really impacted him was seeing so many people in their 50s, 60s, and some 70s, finish the race. That seemed to shift his perspective in a fundamental way in respect to what's achievable.

Motivated by this, he got a bit more active through 2007 but it never really stuck - he had some knee problems and never really got going.

If you've read my running post, I am a firm believer that distance running is something that most people are well capable of. Assuming you don't have a specific injury that prevents you from doing it, of course. But most people just plain do it wrong and don't give themselves the right amount of time to do it. Most of the how-to out there - books, magazine articles, personal trainers - is just flat wrong and leads to injuries and other poor outcomes. People have unrealistic expectations of how fast they'll improve and they just run too damn fast before they're ready, it's that simple.

Anyway, we started him on a program of running. All easy running, starting very small and building up slowly and consistently over months. He took to it well and in April, he completed Bloomsday, a challenging 12K race in Spokane. We were off to a good start, and with that done, we looked for a half marathon as the next goal.

At this point, most of his training was in the high 10-to-low-11-minute-per-mile pace. I found a few race options, and the best one seemed to be the Skagit Half Marathon. It was a good option because it was flat and about an hour from where I live. The problem is that it was only two weeks after Ironman Canada. Being pretty familiar with my recovery curve, that's cutting it very close, but I figured I could manage 10:30 miles at that point (my IM race pace is usually around 8:30) without much trouble.

Dad took to the training very well and made just amazing progress. He fell in love with it and before long was getting up and over 20 miles/week. What was especially good to see was how much he was enjoying the training. It's been great to watch. He started asking for more miles at a faster pace even. Nope, sorry, we're sticking to the protocol.

In early August, I started to become concerned. But not for him - for me! See, as his mileage increased, so did his pace. All of as sudden he was running miles in well under 10 minutes on a regular basis. Oh shit! I knew that if he got much faster, it was going to be a challenge for me to run with him.

Well, he got even faster and stronger. I scheduled his longest training run - 1 hour and 45 minutes - for race day at IMC. He went out and ran the IMC run course while I was on the bike. Afterwards he told me it was no problem. He was ready.

Finally his race day came. We were treated with a just perfect, glorious fall day in the Northwest. We drove up to Burlington for the race, got our stuff ready, and headed to the start line. The gun went off and we started cranking out miles. It's normal for the first few miles to be a little to fast, and this was no different. I had an idea of how fast I thought we could go without getting into trouble and so we did most of our miles at 9:45 pace. He was comfortable at this pace, and so was I. Barely. By mile 9 he was talking about how great he felt, and we even picked it up a bit in the last mile or so, clocking an sub-9 final mile. He finished so strong. I was worked. :)

At 58 years old, less than 6 months from starting running, he comfortably finished a Half Marathon in 2:05, a time that was well faster than his goal. Now we're talking about "what's next." Amazing.

So the title for this post. The whole day was an absolute highlight for me in so many ways. I was so happy for him to have such a great experience out there and to share it with him and to have helped get him to the starting line. Something I won't soon forget...

Ironman Canada 2008 Race Report

2008-09-04T23:12:14Z

Executive Summary: Welcome to the suffer.

Pre Race

I was really excited to get back to Penticton this year. We carpooled up with Owen and Polita which not only saved a bunch of gas but made the trip a lot more fun. The weather was sketchy the first two days as some storms blew through, but got nicer as the weekend approached. My last few workouts were good and, just like last year, I was amazed at how great the swimming is in Lake Okanogan. The water is warm and very clear, and the way the beach is set up gives swimmers a protected 2/3 of a mile lane, about 100y offshore. You just can't beat it. The days leading up to the race were very relaxing and filled with lounging and spending time with friends. It was great to run into someone I knew, almost everywhere we went.

The Race

For breakfast I had a smoothie (2 bananas, 2 scoops carbo pro, 2 cups rice milk 2 tbsp honey, bit of peanut butter) and a half a bagel. Compared to prior IM breakfasts, this was great. Went down pretty easy and I never felt bloated or sick.

We got to transition a bit earlier than usual. The long lines for body marking last year taught us this lesson and it was nice to have lots of time to chat with friends and get things situated. We’ll make this extra time a habit from now on.

Headed out to the swim start, my stomach felt great so I took a gel and a little bit more water. The pre-start of an Ironman is a special thing that’s worth savoring a bit. Everything seems to move in slow motion but there is electricity in the air. It's hard to describe.

This race was especially fun with so many friends racing. Owen and Polita were doing their first Ironman, Mark and Ann were both ready for break through races. I said goodbye to Deb on the beach and went up front with Owen and Polita for the start.

For the swim, my plan was to swim comfortably from start to finish, skipping the stress and lactic acid surge at the beginning. I wanted to make this as much like my training swims as possible.

The cannon went off and the first few minutes were typically crowded and I worked my way to the inside of the buoy line - all the time focusing just on breathing and being relaxed until I got into open water. This worked just awesome as I was able to easily move from the draft into open water when I felt like it. My navigation was pretty good, I swam right at each buoy, actually going under several of them. That made the swim kind of a fun game. Really, the whole swim went by quickly and I felt solid the whole time. In the last 1000 yards or so, I spent more time drafting and just following feet as I started to tire a bit. But I never really had to push or struggle at all - after all of that, I ended up a full three minutes faster than last year, on much less effort. A great start to the day.

One thing that was cool was that I found Polita about ¼ of the way into the swim. See, for some reason they didn't hand out nice neoprene chip straps, like they have at the other three races I've done. They were trying to get you to buy them, which I thought was lame, given everyone has a drawer full of these at home but reasonably expected them to be provided. Anyway, Polita was using her Road ID as a chip strap. It was blue and I noticed it during the swim, looked up and saw that I recognized her wetsuit as well. I swam at her feet for a bit before losing track of her. Talking with her after the race, it turns out she'd spotted me as well! The swim is, for the most part, a mass of anonymous goggled competitors all wearing matching wetsuits so finding someone in the mix was cool.

I will note, though, was that I found people to be more violent than other races. During the swim, I thought maybe it was because I was up with faster and more aggressive swimmers, but I don’t know if that's the reason. For whatever reason, people were reacting very strongly to being touched or nudged in any way and I got pretty well beat up. In one case, early in the swim, someone from behind pushed my feet, sending me into another swimmer. His response was to give me a donkey-kick to the gut. Fortunately wetsuits are very slippery and cushioney so no real harm done.

Out on the bike, I gave myself 30 minutes easy to get warmed up. By the time we got to OK Falls, I was in my groove and moving along well at the high end of my wattage targets. I was moving through the group well and was focused on getting up and out of the traffic. Most of the first 40 miles was spent hop-scotching from group to another and going on up the road - I really don't like riding with that many people around me, it's just asking for trouble.

Near Osoyoos, I came past Owen, asked him how his swim was and gave him a grin. My legs were feeling great and my stomach felt good but before long, I was already starting to reject my calories. I pushed them in as best as could, and it was clear that sitting up helped my digestion so I took it a bit easy on the climbs. Overall the rest of the bike was solid as I continued to move up through the group. At the out-and-back, I was pleased to see that I was only 6 or so minutes down on guys like Chris Whyte and Bryan Urakawa, given they were probably out of the water about 5 minutes ahead of me. On the approach to Yellow Lake (about mile 80), I started to fade a bit, but I still felt pretty good. The IMC bike is basically done at mile 95, with the rest being downhill into town.

But two things were concerning me a bit. First was that I was getting some twinges of cramping in my quads and calves, and that my heart rate was running pretty high while my watts were falling. I tried to increase my fluid and salt intake. Since I felt far better than any of my other IM bike rides at this point, I didn’t worry about it too much. It’s supposed to hurt, right? I thought I had a shot at a sub-5:20 bike and felt great about my effort on the day, and started to think about the run.

I came into town well and I got into T2 at 5:21 and felt good. At this point, really thought I was on my way to a home-run of a day. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.

Out on the run, I saw my family and gave a high-five and turned out onto Lakeshore. The first thing I noticed was how hot it was in the sun. The second thing I noticed was my climbing heart rate.

I ran the first mile in about 8:07, which is about right for me. Sometimes things get better after you run a bit, so I stayed positive hoping I’d settle in like last year. But my heart rate was steadily climbing (that’s bad) and I could feel cramping coming on in my calves (also bad). The slight uphill out of town was brutal and when I got the aid station at mile 2, I stopped to walk and get some fluids in, hoping that would get my HR under control and I could find a rhythm.

The mile into the mile 4 aid station is downhill, and by then I had switched to full-on damage control. I stopped to go to the bathroom (first time since before the swim) at Mile 4 and tried to get myself together. I decided that I was just going to do everything I could to avoid a major meltdown. I felt at that point like I did at mile 22 or so in Coeur d’Alene – another 22.2 miles of this was a crushing thought. So it meant walking the aid stations and steep hills, getting as many calories in as I could at each aid station, and just running it as close to the edge as I could muster.

At mile 6, the flats along the lake, there was a brutal, steady ~20mph wind headed right at us. This really hurt me.

At mile 9 my cramping was getting worse and I stopped to stretch. At this point I had no idea how I was going to make it. I didn’t want to DNF but didn’t want to be out there for 6 hours. I remember thinking that each mile felt like an Ironman by itself. I was trying like hell to stick to a "no walking outside the aid stations" plan.

I made it through the hills and back out of the turn around to mile 14. Here I saw Owen and Polita and was pleased with where they were as it seemed they were having a good day. Running wasn't getting any easier, and I was getting more and more light-headed as well. So passing out was one more thing to worry about. I really did think that I'd eventually collapse or seize up with cramps and that would be that. There's only one way to find out, right?

At mile 16 I had my lowest point and started to mentally fold a bit. After muscling through 2 and a half hours of this, another 10 miles seemed impossible. I walked and chatted for a few minutes with another guy along the lake. He was in worse shape for me and that helped me get running again. About here Mark went by me looking just awesome – was very happy to see him killing it out there.

Not long after, I saw Deb coming the other way. I went over to her to say hi – it gave me an excuse to walk – and told her I wasn’t enjoying myself very much. At least she was running well!

At mile 18, Shaun Callaghan came by on a bike and gave me some motivational words that helped a ton. From here on out, I actually started to pull it together a bit, get refocused, and I ran pretty steady when I realized I was still shooting at sub-10:50 on the day.

The next 8 miles, it was just more of the same aid-station-to-aid-station battle. I kept saying "okay, 7 more aid stations...just 7 more", and I was pleased to still be under 10 minute miles for the most part. Given I’d done 20 miles I wasn’t as worried about my cramping getting any worse since the Gatorade and chicken broth seemed to be helping. There is a long, shallow grade back into town on which I saw Bethany and Stephen which helped keep me motivated at one of the toughest points on the course. Perfect timing.

Finally, I got to mile 24, I could see the hotel at the end of Main, and got the downhill through town and turned onto Lakeshore into the din of the crowds and the finishing area. This was a boost and helped me relax and just run as well as I could. I didn’t care how fast I was running, but I wanted to run "pretty" all the way in.

Ironically, this was my best Ironman finish. Because I didn’t care about my exact time and because I’d overcome 4 hours in hell, I really relaxed and enjoyed the last ¼ mile of the run. I’ve always been so focused on finishing in prior races, it’s gone by in a blur. This time, I looked around, high-fived some friends and soaked it in a bit. I even considered walking the final few yards to make the most of it, but didn’t.

I was shocked to have still managed to put together a 4:16 marathon after all of that. It's 30 minutes slower than I ran at CdA but much faster than what I was imagining when I was out on the course...even now it seems impossible that things didn't turn out worse. And overall I ended up with a 10:52 - two minutes faster than last year. Crazy.

Every Ironman finish is a good Ironman finish, and I was proud to smile and raise my arms across the line, even if I didn’t finish as well as I started.

The Obsessing

Immediately following the race, I just assumed that I'd ridden too hard. I'm a firm believer in "there is no such thing as a good bike followed by a poor run" and by that bar, I figured that was that. But after looking at the data - and knowing that was the best I've felt for an IM bike - it's not obvious that's the main issue.

From the data, I rode quite a bit stronger than I had at any of my prior Ironman's. But the fade in our 4-5 was fairly significant. After talking with some people, it looks like I might have gone out a touch hard in the first 2 hours, and that coupled with some hydration issues and (again) not getting enough calories in on the bike finally caught up with me. I think that the difference is that this time I finally rode hard enough to expose that clearly on the run. One of these days I'll get it all right on the same day.

My body wasn't very happy with me either. Post-race, I felt far worse than I have after any of my other races. The night's sleep after an IM is usually pretty bad, but this was terrible. I had chills and sweats all night long. Fortunately, most of this started to lift by the next day.

Net-net, I feel very good about finishing with a solid time with some adversity. It could have been worse, a lot worse, and there’s some good things to learn. A friend (thanks Rhae) pointed out that having things go wrong and still coming in well (I was, after all, 2 minutes faster than last year), is something to notice. Even if you don’t nail your fast time in the end, it still shows how far you’ve come. It’s a good point. It’s easy to get caught up in what ‘could’ have been. In the grand scheme, it doesn’t matter that much.

Now it’s time to take a little bit of down time and focus on some things in my life that need a little more attention right now.

All things considered, I had a great day out there and was so pleased to see great races by so many of my dear friends. Owen and Polita had GREAT first Ironmans, Deb cut an HOUR off her race from last year, I’m proud of Ann her race, and Mark qualified for Kona, which was freaking cool. I got to see my family and have a nice relaxing week in Penticton.

I love me some Ironman. Can’t wait for next year.

Rinse and Repeat

2008-08-13T06:32:12Z

Ironman Canada 2008

Well here we are again. Ironman number four is 10 days away. Wow, that was quick.

Since I last wrote, I've gotten a few weeks of solid training in as things have continued to come around. It's pretty clear to me, at least in this case, that an Ironman full recovery for me is between 5 and 6 weeks. It wasn't until the last week or so that I really felt like I was going well. The geek in me really wants to understand what the physiology behind this is. How is it possible that it takes that long and what's the mechanism?

Anyway, things have come around and that's what matters. Just this week everything has started to really click and I'm finally swimming and running reasonably again. Yeah, whatever.

Life in general has been crazy. Work is very busy and taking a lot of my time and attention. I had to make an emergency trip back to Illinois for a family matter. Not much down time this summer.

Race Execution and Pacing

Two weekends ago, we went over to Spokane for the Troika Half Ironman. This race is three weeks before Ironman Canada, which makes it a perfect dress rehearsal and capstone "workout" for the last training block. Having the race in home-town Spokane is fun for me, easy for the family to see, and logistically easy with a place to stay ready to go. Last year, however, this race was a disaster of small errors that led up to one very unhappy, and not very fast, day. I really wanted to atone for that meltdown and prove I could race the Half distance effectively.

I've turned a corner in my approach to racing over the past few months. The change for me basically happened on the run at Ironman Coeur d'Alene, where I went out with a different strategy than prior IMs, and one that led to dramatically better results. My approach has been to race a more balanced, patient, and well-paced event. In some sense I'm racing "easier" but I think that mind set actually allows me to go faster. By being more relaxed, I'm able to focus on form and execution, which is a much better place to be then constantly battling the pain.

The idea is simple: try to maintain steady pacing across the entire distance. This is especially true on the run where running 15 or 30 seconds per mile faster in the first third of the run can cost you 1-2 minutes per mile in the last third of the run when the wheels some of. So the idea is postponing that meltdown (or avoiding it) as long as possible. The same can be said for the other legs. Basically, a pace that seems easy at the beginning of the leg is likely to seem very hard by the end. And maintaining that "easy" pace, for me at least, will deliver a very solid result. If you can stay disciplined and avoid the fade.

Here's what's happened.

At the Seafair Sprint Triathlon, I decided I was just going to swim solid, starting out well easier than I thought I "should", and I wasn't going to bother with drafting or worry about what other people were doing. The result was I swam over two minutes faster, on an 800m course, than last time I did the race. I was coming off two big training weeks and had a sub-par bike and OK run, but still ended up only about 80 seconds off the podium in my age group. I'm not exactly training for sprints. Quick shout out to Scott Greene for winning his very-tough 35-39 age group. Stud. Given the situation, I felt good about this result.

So back to Troika. Last year I swam too hard and really struggled in the last 500m of the swim in absolute agony. This upset my stomach badly and I never really recovered. Bad tummy means too few calories going in, and that's just not going to work. This year I just went out and swam steady and as close to the buoys as I could. I swam a minute faster than last year on much less effort. On the bike, I started out easy for the first 20 minutes then built into the ride and was strong all the way through; 8 minutes faster than last year. On the run, I set a solid but maintainable pace and held it until it about mile 12, which is close enough to gut it in. I was 20 minutes faster on the run than last year. So, yeah, I'm fitter and last year's result was a bad example, but this was a much better way for me to race and snagged me a 2nd place in my age group. I actually had fun out there and look forward to next year.

So I've got that going for me. I was also surprised how quickly I bounced back from this race and how little soreness I had over the following day or two.

Completing the Double Header

On to Canada. So that's the groove I'm going with. Race more relaxed and just count on my fitness to do the work, especially when it starts to hurt.

But it's just a race. If anything else, I'm looking forward to getting back up to Penticton and seeing some friends and family and getting some rest. We've got two friends doing their first IM, so it'll be fun to observe the "first race" experience through their eyes again. And many of us in the group have the potential for a breakthrough day up there.

Ironman Recovery

2008-07-16T00:41:58Z

I really need to find a good resource to explain why recovery from an Ironman is so dramatic and takes as long as it does. I'm still struggling to wrap my head around how it can be that different from long training days where you're doing 2/3 of the volume (with much less running, of course).

Here's what I'm talking about.

It's been over three weeks from the event. Since then:

The first 7 days after the race were pretty much completely off from training. Towards the end of this week a wave of delayed fatigue tends to hit you.
The next 7 days were light, with a little bit of running towards the end of the week.
The third 7 days was a 12-hour training week with just a little "real" work sprinkled in, it was good to get moving again.
My Heart Rate has been through the roof every time I've trained - 10-15 beats higher than I'd expect for a given pace/exertion. My HR is typically very predictable. I can't figure this one out, though a buddy who did the race is also experiencing this.
My running is 45-60 seconds per mile slower than normal, even more if I was to run at my normal HR.
My swimming has gone completely to crap. I'm a mess in the pool; any worse and the old ladies with hair nets and kick boards will be out pacing me.

So there you have it. The only bright spot is that I'm coming back into form on the bike pretty well.

In the pool, I just can't seem to find the technique that I was swimming with before the race. I'm about 5s slower per 100y than I was easily swimming before the race (that's a lot). I think all that swimming with a wetsuit makes you a lazy swimmer. I've got 15K in the pool this week, so I'm hoping that will whip me back around and I'll rediscover how I was swimming at camp. But its frustrating as all hell.

The run progression is fairly similar to what other post-Ironman periods has been. It takes about a month for me to run "normally" again, which in my case is any longer run at a low HR (< AeT) at pretty close to 8:00 miles. Before the race I was comfortably doing 2+ hour runs at that pace/effort. I'm about 20s/mile slow right now.

I'll know that I'll get there over the next few weeks, so I'm not whining about it. It just takes time. But it's just amazing what an impact the race seems to make on your body. It's easy to think that this stuff is mental but there seems to be some pretty hard data to it. And most of the soreness from the race, for me at least, works itself out within 72 hours. Three weeks seems like such a long time.

The lesson here is to be careful with your recovery and let it happen. I don't think you can force it, and you're very injury prone in the process.

Ironman Coeur d'Alene 2008 Race Report

2008-06-28T01:20:15Z

"Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to witness one of the greatest spectacles in all of sport!"

These are the muddled words I hear over the loudspeaker while standing on the beach with 2100 other athletes minutes before the start of Ironman Coeur d'Alene (IMCDA) 2008. And I kind of seize on that word "spectacle", because spectacles are great for the person watching. They're not always so great for the people in said spectacle. Oh well, let's get on with this thing.

Just like at Ironman Canada last year, there was no real warning for the athletes. At some point the announcer is talking and the cannon goes off rather suddenly. Start the watch, here we go.

I was a little concerned about the beach start. So many athletes packed into such a small space and rushing into the water can be...unfriendly. But honestly the start wasn't bad. People made their way into the water in a fairly orderly fashion. What happened over the next 61 one minutes was anything but. I had prepared myself for a rough 5-10 minutes as the swim got going, but there was just no open water to be found at any point. I'd get a good swim stroke going, then I'd run into somebody or get clocked in the head or the arm or have someone up on my legs. Deep breaths, long strokes, stay relaxed.

The swim course is a 2-lap rectangular swim. Between the laps you have to get out, go over a timing mat, then get back in. It was very slow on the way out and faster on the way back in, due to a current and some wind that was picking up. The scrum never really broke...

IMCDA was my third Ironman in 16 months, with the prior one being in Canada in August 2007. After IMC, I took some down time and then worked out a plan with my coach for the 10 month training cycle. Run a lot over the winter, targeting a January marathon. Race the bike a bit in the spring, targeting a month of racing. Continue to focus on improving my swim. All of these things did their jobs and I've gotten much better across all disciplines. Looking back at my training logs from last year, the differences are pretty dramatic. I was really looking forward to IMCDA and what an Ironman would be like as a fitter, more experienced athlete.

We arrived in Coeur d'Alene, ID the Thursday before the race. Having grown up in nearby Spokane, this was almost a home town race for me. The weather obliged and we were treated to sunny, mid-70s weather as we kicked around the town and got ready for the race. Deb found an amazing house to rent about 3 blocks from transition. A five minute walk. And that's if you got stopped at the light. Two other couples joined us (not racing) and it was all Ironman, all the time. My last few workouts went well, but I wasn't as focused on this race mentally as prior races. It wasn't over confidence as much as some kind of "it'll work out" attitude. Unfortunately, I couldn't find my checklists from prior races so we kind of had to re-invent everything. It seemed like it was under control. I was ready to just get out and race, but it never seemed real that the race was just days away.

...about half way through the first lap of the swim, I felt my timing strap working its way off my ankle. I swam inside the buoys, flipped over and tried to pull it off. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but it wouldn't come off anyway. So I flexed my ankle to hold it, and swam the rest of the lap with it the way it was. This was awkward and didn't help my pace but it worked, and I fixed it on the way into the next lap. This was a good taste of how the rest of the day would go. Small, irritating issues that were fortunately manageable.

I got out of the water a 1:11, my slowest Ironman swim by two minutes. After hoping to swim 1:02-1:04, I was not so thrilled with this number, but it was clear to me that it was slow for everyone so I didn't worry about it and went on my way. I was just happy it was over with, and was looking forward to the non-contact portion of the race.

It took about 15 minutes to get my legs moving on the bike and the first two hours were great. I was riding my target power and it was like I was shot out of a cannon. I was passing hundreds of people and riding comfortably. I hit the first turn around - 34 miles - with an average speed of 20.7 miles per hour, even after all of the hills in the prior 15 miles. This was going very well - I felt like I was holding back, big time. Right on plan. The CdA course is hilly headed up north, then flat to slightly downhill south back into town. I was looking forward to doing 22 or 23 miles an hour all the way back into town...

Saturday night before the race, we had a nice light pasta and chicken dinner and were in bed by 9:30. Everything was done and we weren't rushed or doing last minute things. We slept well, but were woken by pouring rain a few times during night. June 22 is the longest day of the year. That's good when you're waking up at 3:45am. It was almost light by 4, and the skies had cleared. Perfect weather. I couldn't manage to get my planned 1,000 calories down and gave up at around 600. I felt miserable for the next hour. Breakfast is the worst part of Ironman.

Deb and I went down to transition and had some confusion about where we were supposed to put our special needs bags, and we couldn't find a body-marker. Fortunately, the long lines at IMC taught us a lesson and we brought a magic marker and marked each other after seeing how other people were done. This was kind of fun and made for a good back up plan. We got our stuff situated then went to stand on the beach and wait for the start. No real hurry and we had plenty of time.

...my great progress on the bike wasn't to last. The wind that had caused the Rumble in the Lake was blowing directly north. And we're riding south. Doing 20 miles per hour into it was hard work. Before long I started to feel it a bit on the bike. At mile 40 I realized that I hadn't taken any electrolyte tablets - had totally forgotten about them. Not a disaster, I just got them back into my plan. But my stomach was getting unhappy again and I was again getting behind on calories.

I bumped my wattage goals down a bit and tried to get into a rhythm. My heart rate was still very low, much lower than my exertion would have predicted. I was starting to suffer. I just kept at it, and things continued this way for the rest of the bike. Low HR. Bad stomach. At about mile 70, my left aero bar pad and bracket broke off almost completely so I had no where to rest my elbow (when I told people this, it seems everyone saw it in the road "oh, that was yours!"). Through the hills on the 2nd lap I was really dragging ass and some people I'd dropped got back up to me. At about mile 80, my back started getting tight and sore. I kept trying to force feed myself my calories, it was ugly. As we headed back into town, I picked up the pace again. I figured the damage was done and that I should just get it over with...

If there's one thing that I'd really worked on, it was my running. I had run very close to a 4 hour marathon at my other races but really lost a lot of time in the last few miles when I'd run out of gas. I wanted to avoid that and have a good run without a 6-8 mile death march at the end. From talking to other people, it seemed the key was being very conservative early on and then building into a pace. Most people are used to going fast on the bike and then they run too fast. This catches up with you quickly. I did a couple of runs after my long rides where I would run as easy as I could. I was surprised to see that these runs would end up at somewhere near an 8:15 pace, which works jusssst fiiiiine, so that's what I was shooting for.

...T2 was a great set up at this race. My buddy Owen was volunteering as a bike catcher and was there to take my bike. He asked me how I was and I gave him a 5 word executive summary of my experience over the last 5 and a half hours. It's a direct line from the bike drop off, through the bike-to-run bags, to the tent, to the run start, so its a very efficient process. I had my fastest Ironman transition ever at 2:15, and this included walking from the bags to the tent (bike cleats plus basketball court, not so good for running). I think I got between 1100-1200 calories in on the bike, maybe less. I assumed I was going to get crushed on the run when this ticking time-bomb of calorie deficit caught up with me. Hey, what the heck. Let's go find out!

What's funny is that I hadn't really recon'd the run course at all. I knew it was pretty well flat, I'd run the main part of it, but was kind of foggy about how you got from transition to that main part of the course. Most of the course follows the lake (incidentally, it goes along the same route as the bike course) and it's on a nice asphalt trail that's flat (no road crown) and smooth. For two sections of the course -- about 4 miles total of a 13 mile lap -- I was basically exploring. This made it a little more interesting. Immediately out of transition, I see my buddy Scott Greene coming the other direction. He'd passed me on the bike (expected) and I was glad to see he was 10-or-so minutes up the road on me. We made eye contact and gave each other a nod on the way by.

The transition was so quick, I actually had transition legs, which was new for an IM. No problem. I hit my first mile in 7:46, then two miles at around 8:05, then settled in for 6 or 7 miles at 8:15, literally holding back as much as I could muster. I was frantic about my calorie situation, and was taking in as much as I possibly could. Water, coke, and gels. My HR was still oddly low. After about 10 miles I'd forgotten about my experience on the bike. I was running pretty comfortably. It was mostly a mental game more than a physical one - "okay, that wasn't so bad, let's run one more 8:15 mile". I needed to go to the bathroom but kept putting it off, trying to run one more good mile. At mile 11 I stopped (coincidentally the aid station we worked last year), used the bathroom, then stretched my quads and groin. This helped immensely, and I decided I'd do it again at mile 20. As the miles clicked off, I started to slow a bit to 8:30 miles. This seemed OK as my HR was stable and I was keeping good pace and passing a LOT of people, many of whom were in my age group, which mattered. I kept seeing friends on the course and off. Teresa Rider and Ben & Cindy Bigglestone were down on Lakeshore Avenue (not together but near each other) and were giving me an earful each time I went by. It was awesome.

Before I knew it, I was to mile 20 and I stopped and stretched again for 20 seconds or so. Deb passed me going the other way on her first laps and I thought maybe I could catch her (one of these days...). Mile 21 has a nasty uphill that I walked the steepest part of. It was the right thing. I was running low on gas, and on the downhill I immediately caught and passed the people that ran the whole thing. At mile 22 I wanted to stay with a guy in my age group and ran a harder mile, which really turned the screws on how I felt.

At mile 23 it's just a 5K to go - so close - and I could see the top of the Coeur d'Alene hotel by the finish off in the distance. I knew that all I had to do was run 9:30 miles or better to get in under 10:45. Easy squeezy, right? Not so much, it was getting ugly. At mile 25 I saw Ben, Cindy, and Teresa again. One of them yelled "just two miles to go!" Wha...? I thought about it for a second and knew they were wrong but ran down the road muttering "no...not true...one..mile...just ONE mile..." like Rain Man. It's here where I really started to hurt. It's amazing that after all that ground covered, 26.2 miles is just a little too far. Each little uptick in the road seemed like Mt. Everest.

IMCDA has an amazing finishing stretch, Sherman Ave, slightly downhill with thousands of people along the road and in the bars and restaurants. I trudged up the last little hill and turned onto Sherman. My coach, Scott was there and gave me a high five. At IMC, I kind of trudged to the finish line and I didn't want that to happen again so I sucked it up and ran as well as I could to the finish with my head and shoulders high. My biggest regret from the day is not slowing down just a touch to take it in a bit more. But I was worried about someone from my AG catching me. At the time, I was busy trying to figure out how far it was from the Ironman banner to the finish line. It's like 100ft, but that's what I was worried about. It's all a blur now.

The marathon made my day. I only really suffered for a few miles and I cut 15 minutes off my last IM marathon and finished the day 1:11/5:39/3:47 for a 10:44 total time, 10 minutes faster than IMC 07 on a much, much harder course. I was 330/2588 overall at IMC and was 168/2066 at this race. Likewise I improved to 21st in my AG, versus 63rd at IMC and 37th at IMAZ. Time aside, this was a much better race.

As mentioned in my prior post, this race took me a few days to chew on. At some level, my training had been going so well that I had an idea in my head that I'd be able to cruise the swim and the bike and then go let it rip on the run. Obviously, that's a stupid thing to think. We're all incredibly good at fooling ourselves, aren't we? Racing, almost by definition, hurts. And it should hurt.

Sunday in totality was really, really hard. My coach pointed out to me that "you don't need to feel good to go fast", which is a hard but important lesson to internalize.

Even just 5 days out from the race, I'm already itching to train again after I rest and recover. An easy swim in the pool this morning felt really, really good.

As always, I'm incredibly blessed to share this experience with my lovely and talented Ironpartner Deb who just tore it up out there on Sunday, knocking another 35 minutes off of her time. And the support that I get from my friends and family - Mom, Dad, Paul, Susan, Casey, Owen, Polita, Mark, Ann, Steven, Courtney, Joyia, Wayne, the whole CpC gang, Ben & Cindy, Teresa, and SJ, is truly amazing.

Monday morning we walked around Coeur d'Alene, looked at pictures, loaded up the car, and said goodbye to another Ironman. I headed back into work Tuesday morning, careful to avoid any stairs. And I had tater tots for lunch. Mmmmm, tater tots.

Post-Ironman Haze

2008-06-25T05:16:58Z

I'll write more later when I've got more time and energy. I figure most of you reading this saw the results from Sunday, I'm 10 minutes closer and that's nothing to sneeze at. But just a quick thought that came across when I was writing to another friend about the race...

This race seemed much harder than my first two. I think part of it is because the "Wow!" factor wears off and you're out there trying to compete for minutes and seconds against very capable competition. Because you're actually racing - against yourself and your limits and your fellow athletes - it's a bit more stressful. For some reason, the full enormity of the difficulty of an Ironman struck me in a way it hadn't in races prior. I crossed the finish line and said "I'm not sure I want to do that again."

But all relationships have their ups and downs, right? Ironman is much more than race day. It's just race day that holds the whole thing together.

I realized the best part of Ironman is the day after. Yesterday morning, a group of us had breakfast at a local Coeur d'Alene greasy spoon and told war stories as we limped back and forth to the car. Regardless of how each person's day turns out, there's a special bond that's formed between the folks that just went through the experience. It takes a few days for most people to get their head around their race and their perspective on it, and sharing it with friends is an important part of that process. Everyone fights their own private battles out there.

Then we went back to the house and cleaned up a bit - I had to go up and down the stairs on all fours - then took a slow walk to the expo hall to look at Kona qualifiers and race pictures. We had a nice snack in Coeur d'Alene and joined all the other stiff-legged Iron-geeks in their finisher hats and T-Shirts. Then we went to A & W on the way out of town and got a root beer float, a large fries, and some burgers. All of which I ate in about 5 minutes. That served as a good reminder of how my stomach felt all day on Sunday, but that's another story. The day after is this time warp when nothing else really matters - the exact opposite of the race day time warp where nothing else matters.

It all balances out in the end.