Two years and one week ago, on this blog I wrote an entry about my first experience with triathlon at the 2004 Seafair Tri in Seattle. I remember all the anxiety and anticipation of that race, how I felt when I finished, and now huge the whole thing seemed. Little did I know that experience would change my life at a fairly fundemental level. After that race I kept training, kept racing, and started accumulating bikes like crazy. I started racing bikes again, and training, racing, and lycra have again taken a central role in my life.
When the alarm went off this morning at 4:20 am, I'd been awake for almost an hour. I felt nervous like I rarely do for races any more as I thought ahead to what I was going to do today, which was the Ironman 70.3 race up at Lake Stevens. I signed up early this year and it's been a major focus ever since. Last weekend I did the 06 Seafair Tri and it felt like a speed bump. In 2 years I cut almost 15 minutes off my original time.
Getting here was a bit of a rough road. I did a lot of time on the bike this winter but things got rough in Februrary. I got very sick for a week. In April I managed to thrash my achilles so bad I could barely walk, but luckily after it calmed down I could still go hard on the bike, and in May my back went freako (again).
But I went into today's race as injury free as I've been in a long time. I've been training well for about 2 months, including running, but I knew I was light on that part of it. Anyway, more on that later.
Setup
We get parked in Lake Stevens just before 6. There are all ready a lot of people there. We get our stuff to tranistion, get it set up. I'm surprised how nervous I am. I go to the bathroom, and the nice thing about these long-course races is you don't really need to warm up. I probably could have stood to get into the water for a bit, but whatever. They announce that the water is 77 degress. Yikes, that's warm. The swim start is very close the transition area, and the bike is two 28 mile loops that start about a block away on one side, and the run is a 6.5 mile figure-8-ish loop on the other side. Deb and I had ridden/run the course a few weeks ago so I knew what to expect. It's a hilly, but managable bike loop with a relatively difficult run loop. But the problem was clearly going to be the weather. The weekend we were up there it was very hot, I got behind on my hydration, and had a rough day of it. Surprise! Today was considerably hotter than that. Great. The day before a race like this you're supposed to relax and conserve energy. I spent the day sweating my arse off at home. I took two Endurolytes before bed last night. Jeebus.
Swim
This is the first race I've done a deep-water start in. Basically you get into the water off the end of a dock, putter around for a bit while people get into the water, then they start you off. I really prefered this versus a beach start. Seemed much more natural, I think because the people in the water kind of naturally space as they get in, rather than being all jammed together on a beach. The swim course is basically straight out (.6 miles) then around a set of buoys, and straight back in. The swim is more-or-less uneventful. Not much thrashing and not too much contact with other swimmers in the water. My biggest issue with swimming (other than the fact I'm not that good at it) is that I can lose focus a bit. I'd be a lot faster if I could keep my form better but sometimes I'll run into someone or have trouble sighting a buoy and I'll kind of breast-stroke for a second. I need to knock that shit off.
My goal was 35 mins for the swim, I did it in a little over 36. Okay, fine.
Bike
I knew my challenge would be to hold off on the bike. I love being on the bike, and I love going fast on the bike. So I set my heart rate target low for the first lap and off I went. I haven't been real confident in my aero setup before but today was great. I had no problems staying aero and was just flying by people on the descents, so I think I'm good. The course basically slowly goes up for about 12 miles, then has rollers back down, then has 2 short but steep climbs in the last few miles. For all of the climbs I'd get into my easiest gear, keep my HR below 150 and usually catch 5 or 6 people ahead of me. It pays to be a smaller dude. I really felt good, and came through my first lap at 1:18, well ahead of my goal time wise, but my HR was well under control so I felt good about this lap. They had bottle exchange at the end of the lap so I got a water and a Gatorade. As I got onto the second lasp, I did feel some fatigue setting in. My plan was to take the first lap easy, so given my time I decided to stick with that pace for the second lap.
For most of the first lap I was with a group of about 6 guys that kept passing each other. One of them had a power meter and we'd chatted on one of the climbs, so I wanted to stick close to him to help with consistant pacing. In any case, this was a good group and I liked the pace we were doing.
On the second lap, as I started the first climb I stood up and felt something weird. I sat back down and started to hear the hollow, whirring sound of carbon. Oh no - my front tire has flatted.
So I find a drive way and pull over. I get the front wheel off, and lay the bike down. I'm trying to do all of this with my glasses still on, but they're covered with sweat now that I'm looking down. Okay, glasses off. The upside here is that I was prepared and this was easily the fastest tire change I've ever performed in my life. My Zipps are tubulars so they're a little easier to change. My spare was a used tire so it had some glue on it. I read a tip to bring a razor blade so you can slice the old tire and peel it straight off rather than trying to roll it off, which is a major bitch. The other tip I learned is that your skewer is the worlds best tire-removal-tool. After I slit the old tire, I stuck my finger in it, separated it a bit from the rim, and jammed the skewer through. Then you can hold the wheel between your knees and roll the skewer along the rim, separating the tire. After I got the skewer in there, the old tire was off in about 30 seconds. From there it's easy, put the new one on, get your C02 and let 'er rip.
Unfortunately, I'd had a bit of a yard-sale while this was going on. My crap was everywhere. Most of my endurolytes fell out of my bento box into the gravel. My GU flask was dripping syrup on to my frame. And my grand plan to just have the endurolytes loose in my bento box didn't work wither. I now had this nice enduro-gu mush all over the place in there. I'll have to rethink that one next time (did I just say 'next time'? wow, what is wrong with me?). They should make endurolyte pez-dispensers. And I need to re fold and stow the old tire. I think the whole think probably took 6-8 minutes. I never paniced or got pissed just got it taken care of and back under way. Fortunately it held up and had a good inflate so it didn't slow me down. Much that is. See, tubulars are glued to the rim. Usually. Mine, of course was not. Remember those screaming decsents that worked so well in the first lap? Well if you "roll a tire" e.g. your tubular comes off the rim, you usually go to the hospital. So I took it a little easy on the descents and corners. Probably not as much as I should have but I'm typing this so, there you go.
The rest of the lap is fine. I dumped my water bottles as I reach the 1/2 loop water station to find they are handing out cups of water. WTF am I going to do with 4oz of water in a paper cup?
I actually start feeling a lot stronger in the last 1/2 of the loop and kind of hammered it home while staying in my HR zones. I passed a lot of people.
All in all, the bike portion goes by in a flash. My official time was 2:50 for the bike, which includes the slow ride up the transition chute, dismount (I kind of managed to do a mini-crash while dismounting. I'm such a tool.), etc. So I think had I not had that flat, I would have been low 2:40s, given the flat, slower descents, and losing my "pace group". The guys behind seemed much slower.
Run
Now it's time for the run. By this time, it's about 10:30 and it's ha-ha-ha-hot outside, and no wind.
I'd gotten plenty of fluids (~60oz) on the bike and a solid amount of calories (~500-600). I lost track because I'm not sure how much GU ended up in my mouth and how much ended up on my frame or in that driveway. I had a water bottle of coke that I"d put in the freezer the night before to start the run with, so it was nice and cold. And I'd put 5 endurolytes into a baggie as well. I stuck the baggie up the leg of my shorts by my thigh for easy access, which worked perfect. My plan was one endurolyte every 2 water stops - which would be one each 17-20 minutes, perfect. I should have mixed the coke half-and-half with water, it was too strong and my stomach started getting a little goofy.
In any case, I started out at my 150 HR, running an 8:06 mile or so. I knew that was way to fast so I thought I'd be conservative and back it down to 8:30. Sure, that worked. For about 2 miles. Even by mile 4 I was starting to struggle, and I was slowing by about 15 seconds per mile. My HR was climbing, and oh, did I mention it was hot? By mile 5 (a long hill going away from the lake), the race is starting to cause carnage. I'm basically shuffling and there are a lot of very-fit looking people walking. A lot. I get to the turn around at mile 5 or so and take a GU which made me feel a lot better, and decide it's OK to walk through the water station. I keep trudging on and I"m fighting to keep my HR below 163 or so. It stabilizes for a while so I decided to see if I can run a bit faster and stabilize it at higher rate, say 166. Survey says........no. If I pushed any harder, my HR would go through the roof. So that made everything simple.
Coming back through town to start my second lap of the run, a policeman jumps across the road in front of me and I almost run right into him. In pulling up to avoid him, I get a stomach cramp that's getting worse. My family is stationed near down town so I get out of sight of them and then realize I need to walk a bit. This was really telling of things to come: the rest of the run was really a struggle for me. Remember that 8:30/mile goal? Yeah, ha, funny. At this point I'd decided 10 minute miles were perfectly acceptable. I never run 10 minute miles even on recovery days. I was hurting. Here's the data. You can see where I walked (the down spikes), and see my HR just creep up over time.
The next few miles go by pretty quick but are equally miserable. I felt like if I could make it through town back to the lake, I was home free. On the way up the climb, Iain, who's a fellow Zoka (my bike racing team) that was going around cheering folks on via bike pulls up along side me and we chat a bit, which was very well timed. It really helped take my mind of, um, me. That was mile 11, which was the start of the longest two miles of my life. When I came around over the hill again, I knew there was a "Mile 12" sign just after the crest. I thought maybe I could pick it up and do a decent mile home to finish strong. Which I did, but not really for a mile. More like a third of a mile before my vision started to narrow and I had to slow down again. It was a slog from there into the finish. As I come through downtown, I hear my dad go "great job, sprint it in!" which I found almost comical. At that point I'm looking down the finishing chute and could swear it's a mile long.
17 Shawn Burke 32 Kirkland WA 23 36:12 1:06 16 2:50:58 1:32 17 122:58 17 5:32:44
Age Group 17/42, not sure about overall since they don't have the fancy results. I really wanted to run a 1:50, oh well. I'm damn sure that I ran about as fast as my body was willing. The good news is all my random injuries stayed asleep for the day. I'm smoked but the body feels pretty good really.
When you come through, the guys give you your medal and ask if you need medical assistance. I think I said "um, give me a sec". They had folding chairs in there, and I sat and drank a water and a gatorade. I had taken in a lot of fluids on the run - to the point my stomach was sloshy - but was still visibly gaunt after the race. My dad said I looked like "a chicken" I was so thin. My legs were noticibly thinner than when I started.
So the run was miserable, and I remember thinking "Ironman, no way" several times. But, you know, it doesn't take long before you decide it wasn't so bad and start thinking ahead to what's next. Which for me, is bed.
Big thanks to my family, Kevin, and Deb's family for being there. Big thanks for some other folks that cheered me on, either by name or as "Zoka guy". Big thanks, as always to all the volunteers.