[WARNING: This Got REALLY Long. But, hey, it's got pictures!]
The Setup.
Prior to May 2004 I'd never actually swam a lap in a pool in my life. Triathlons sounded fun, and that July I signed up for and raced in the SeaFair Sprint Triathlon (see picture taken from plane on the way to Tempe below). I never thought I'd do an Ironman. In fact, there were several times when things like "no way", "hell no", and "never" came out of my mouth. Little did I know that the ProClub swim lessons and old bike from my former life as a bike racer would be the first steps in a journey that's made an impact on my life that's hard to overstate.
Last summer, I did the Lake Stevens 70.3 - my first half. It was a very, very tough day in the sun for me, and overall not a terribly pleasant experience. I clearly remember on mile 9 of the run thinking "there is no effing way I'm ever doing an Ironman". Of course, I signed up for IMAZ a few weeks later.
I did some asking around and talked to a few coaches, and ended up going with Scott Jones from Counterpart Coaching. We started my IMAZ ramp on Oct 1, which was about 400 training hours ago. It's nice having no family and a girlfriend who decides that she wants to do IMAZ as well, so since then it's been pretty much all training, eating, sleeping, and working.
The Pre Race.
My training had gone very well and I thought I had a shot at having a good race if things went well. But heck, it's a long day and anything can happen. And when people say "anything" they usually mean things like "barfing", "cramping", "flat tire", "lots o poo", etc.
In any case Scott had me very well prepared and I never felt very anxious about the race. The X-Factor for me was heat - at Lake Stevens it crushed me - so I'd even been doing Sauna Training leading up to the race to get acclimatized. I had my bases covered.
We got down to Tempe on Wednesday, got the bikes put together, etc. We had an amazing little place 5 blocks from the race. Didn't even rent a car. The weather was calling for low 80s on Sunday, which sounded just fine. Thursday, we were out on the bike when an insane wind/dust storm came through. I hacked and coughed like crazy from all the dust. We got registered for the race and got our morning swims in.
The only real injury I'd had in my training was a achilles/soleus junction problem in January. Took a few weeks at light running and it had pretty much come around. Until last week when it flared again. Fortunately athletes have access to folks doing Active Release, so I had a bunch of work done which really seemed to help. I also hit it hard with Ibuprofen Tues-Thurs trying to get it together. I was fairly worried about this. I've learned to do a small wrap on it that helps, and decided I'd do that in T2, just in case. The 30s it takes seemed worth it.
My only real nervous moment came when checking in the bikes and bags. I don't know why, but there was a finality to that that got to me. I had trouble eating lunch on Saturday because my stomach was in knots. That lunch was supposed to be a big one and I couldn't really get rolling on it. It worked itself out and we had a light pasta & chicken dinner and were in bed by 9 or so. I didn't sleep much, mostly from trying to go to sleep at 9.
The weather report was now calling for mid 70s, which is great. It also called for wind. At this point, I figured that it wasn't worth worrying about.
I had some ideas in my head of what I wanted to do but was very careful not to get focused on time goals. I wanted to have a good race and go from there. I had a broad goal of "sub-11" but really thought that was going to be a stretch for me, mostly because I've never run more than 17 miles before. I've got goals in the below, but I didn't get really attached to them, but I think they're instructive here.
Race Day.
Typical race day - up at 3:45. I managed to cram 1000 cals down my gullet, but we didn't really get eating until 4:30. Next time I'll have stuff pre-made so I can start eating immediately. We left for transition at about 4:55. I spent the whole time focusing on sipping water and trying to stay relaxed hoping my stomach would get to digesting. I was worried about this until about 30 mins before race start. Laying down a breakfast-slick in the water at the swim start is frowned upon, from what I can tell.
They herd us into the water right after the pro's go off. I'm still amazed at how calm I felt. I was far more nervous about my slow digestion than anything else. I kind of expected to have some real nerves upon jumping into the water, etc. But I didn't, it was wierd. I was just calm, quiet, and ready. I was 100x more nervous before my my first Sprint Tri than I was before this race.
Deb and I found a spot on the edge of the canal where we could kind of perch so we didn't have to tread water, but I started shivering when I was out of the water, so I went back to puttering around in the lake, which was better. It's easy to do in a wetsuit. At about 6:55 I told her good luck and swam out to get a spot for the start; this may have been the most emotional moment of the day for me.
The Swim.
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The cannon goes off and we start swimming. It's very crowded. Not violent like you sometimes hear, just chaotic and, well irritating. Every time I'd reach out to get a hand full of water, I'd end up with a hand full of elbow, head, leg, or ass. What's worse is that the sun is coming up dead ahead. The glare makes it very difficult to see anything to sight on, including other swimmers. My goggles were half full of murky water too, so that's probably a factor. In any case, the way out was tough. I knew the swim turn around was just after the next bridge. I should have studied this more - after the Rural St. Bridge I thought we'd flip a quick U-ie and come on back. I was kind of confused when we kept swimming, and I couldn't see any buoys or where the pack was turning (it's hard to distinguish which direction all those arms are swinging in with 1/4 second peeks).
The good part was that I felt fine, the swim so far was pretty easy and when I could get rolling, I was comfortable. The plan was to swim solid on the way out and to swim as hard as I could manage on the way back. Scott swore I had the fitness for this, and he was right. The swim on the way back was great. I got into a solid rhythm and made good time. You know you're going well when you pick a buoy and then just a few sights later you're going by it. It was this way the whole way back. I actually enjoyed this part of the swim: "holy sheeat, I'm in a freakin' Ironman!". By the time I got back to the bridges, I was ready to get out of the water.
Swim Goal: < 1:10
What I thought I'd do: 1:07
Swim Time: 1:09:40
AHR: 138
Place out of the water: 632
What I learned: I've never been a great swimmer, but it's amazing what 200,000y in the pool will do for you. I'm capable of swimming with a faster group. I need to stage farther up so I can get out and into a solid rhythm and find better drafts. I'm happy with that time but feel that I've got the fitness to swim a 1:05. I also need a new wetsuit. Mine was riding up around my adam's apple for some reason, which was super irritating. The strap also kept getting tangled around my arm. Not helpful.
I was super-loopy getting out of the water though. Couldn't find my wetsuit pull-cord, needed help with that and needed a peeler. The run from the swim exit, to the bags, back to the changing tent was LOOOONG. I had a 6 minute transition, which I'm still astounded by.
The Bike.
The bike strategy was to sit on 190w for as long as I could. If my HR was running mid-140s, then back off the watts so I'd be 130s, then crank it up after mile 85. All of my long rides for the last 3 months have had APs in the high 180s-low 190s even with a lot of fatigue on board.
About a mile out of transition, I realized I didn't think to put suncreen on my shoulders, arms or legs (I'd done head and neck before the swim). Oh well. The bike was dialed perfect though, setup and mechanically. I went with a spare tire (tubular) and a can of the fast-fix stuff. That should quickly fix any small punctures and inflate your tire to around 80psi. It's worth a first shot before changing the full tire. Fortunately, I needed none of this stuff.
Scott had me set up with a great nutrition plan. I really don't think well during racing so simple is good. Here's what you do: put all your calories in one water bottle, and get through it between hours 1 - 4 on the bike; take 3-5 Endurolytes per hour; drink 1+ bottle of water an hour. Hey, I can manage that. The only mistake I made here was going through the stuff too fast. I used something called Max's, which is kind of a boutique stuff you can get at Triumph. Anyway, it's 700 cals/10 oz. Pour two of those in a bottle, fill the rest with water, presto. We'll come back to this.
The first lap on the bike is pretty good. I'm sitting around 190 with an HR in the high 130s. The bike is running perfectly and I'm moving well. But I'm not comfortable. The data shows I'm OK but my RPE is high. I was questioning my ability to do this for the full bike. My "planned" lap time (38ish miles) is 1:50. That gives me a 5:30 bike which, based on my training, seemed like it should be very comfortable. In any case, I reset my goal to 185w.
I head out on the 2nd lap and hit the turn around (1/2 way) at 2:37. Shazam. NP 175, AP 171. Still a ways below my goal, but it was hard to push watts with the tailwind.
Guess what? Party's over. We'd been moving fast on the way out and I knew there was a tailwind. The climb to the turnaround isn't huge but it's a climb. So we flip around and boom, it takes work to go downhill. The way back is kind of a slog, but I actually negative split the second lap. This is surpising because right around special needs (which is impossible because the wind is so bad, I couldn't really hold the bag and not have it blow me off the road, I pulled out my endurolytes and tossed the rest) my stomach started having issues. It wasn't serious, but it was building. I'd gone through over half my calories. I switched to just water and salt for a while and stayed steady. It had taken me 45 mins to get out to the turn around and an hour to get back. I had a lot of trouble pushing decent watts into the head wind - something to figure out.
The third lap was even tougher. The way out wasn't so bad - I did 30-32 mph for a lot of it - and I could maintain decent watts here. Other guys didn't seem to want to take advantage of this and I passed a lot of people.
After the turn around was just brutal and I wanted off the bike like you can't imagine. Most of the way back was at 13-15 miles per hour and I was steadily catching and bridging from one group to the next (lots of drafting going on out there...). There was a close call at about mile 90. I was going around one of these groups when something happened - someone touched wheels maybe. With the 30-40mph wind gusts, tired guys in the aero, and triathletes legendary handling skills, something was bound to happen. Anyway, three guys go down hard in front of me and one of their heads was coming across the pavement. This is where all the years of bike racing come in handy - somehow I've got a spider-sense for this stuff (ahem, usually) and seem to see it coming a second or two before it does. In this case I'd just started to drift to the left and was able to swing out and get around this guy. I didn't even look back - hopefully the low speeds due to the winds prevented anyone from getting hurt too badly.
My HR was fine but I was hurting pretty bad. Fortuantely my stomach had come around and I'd finished my cals and gotten a half a banana as well. Not sure why I did that - it just kind of ended up in my hand...
I thought maybe I could still make 5:30 but I decided I didn't want to sacrifice for it. I already felt wrecked and there was some running to be done. I was concerned but tried staying focused on the present and just getting it done. There were lots of people riding on their base bars into the wind, which perplexed me. I was out of aero for probably less than 5-7 minutes total out of the whole bike, and really tried to make sure I kept my head steady so that fancy helmet wasn't just a big air-brake.
Coming into town with the cheering crowds was a nice lift. I saw my friends Kevin & Melisa at the out-and-back across the Mill St bridge just before the end, then it was downhill through the main intersection and around the block into transition. I got my Basso on through town (if you don't know who Basso is, let's talk in the third week of July).
Bike Goal: 5:30
What I Thought I'd do: 5:25
Bike Time: 5:37 (19.91 mph)
AHR: 138
AP/NP: 166/160
Position after the bike: 286 (yes, somehow I passed 350 people on the bike. Nutty.)
Lessons: My cadence steadily dropped throughout the day. I should have done more little-ring into the wind, I think that's what was causing me much of my issues. Need to be steadier with the fueling. Still not sure why power was so low - that number is < 65% of my FTP. Good area for improvement.
The Run.
I really had no idea how my legs were going to be for the run. I got through T2 pretty well, and wrapped the calf with the help of a volunteer.
I took Chris Whyte's advice of wearing a hat, and I found this great hat that REI sells - it's like a normal running hat but the sides are just open netting, it's like a visor and a hat, all in one! The idea is that you want to be able to stick ice/sponges in there for cooling.
Again, my nutrition plan was totally dialed for simplicity. I used the Oomph Vigor shorts that Todd gave me - they have pockets stitched into the legs and they are awesome. On the run my nutrition plan was the following: at the run up to each aid station, I'd take a little nip of gel from a flask, then get water, then coke. Rinse and repeat for every aid station, and do 2 endurolytes every other mile. That's it, nothing else.
Oh, and no walking. Scott put it to me gently as follows: "Stumble forward if you must, no walking. That is for the special people you see on the touching stories in kona not you". This was repeated in several different flavors and was good for me to internalize; it was exactly what I needed to hear. At the aid stations, I'd walk a few steps to get the water in, then run to the coke, repeat, then run a little harder for a bit out of the aid station. I'd also get sponges and alternate between putting them in my had, my jersey, and down the front of my shorts. It worked well but really heat wasn't an issue.
But the wind was. The course has one long stretch running along the lake for about 3.5 miles. Half of it is flat back to the race center, then half of it is a gradual climb. As you'd run across the bridge to start this section, the wind is blowing so hard you literally had to hold onto your hat. When we'd hit the run into the wind, I'd find a guy who was bigger than me running a similar pace and I'd run as close to him as I could. This made a huge difference even if he was going a bit slower than I was running, it was worth the energy savings.
I found my running legs within 1/2 mile out of T2. The problem I had is that it was Easy Like (Ironman) Sunday morning. My main goal was to run a sub-2 hour half-marathon and then go from there. That's 9-minute miles, and that's where I wanted to be. It was all I could do to run slower than 8:30. In races where I've come undone, my HR has gotten out of control and I've popped on the run. Even at these paces, my HR was dead-steady from 148-152 and I could modulate it comfortably. According to my Polar, I didn't run an over-9 minute mile until mile 12, then the next one wasn't until mile 16 (I think the aid station walks probably cost me about 15s/mile, so that's the difference). Yes, the first 15 miles of my Ironman run were, basically, easy. I hit the the Half Marathon mark at about 1:54. I could feel that my fuse was burning at this point, and took my first look at the overall clock. It was 3:56 PM, meaning I had 2:04 to run the last half in order to break 11 hours overall. Usually I can't do math during races but I knew that this was going to be difficult, and meant that I'd need to skip my special needs bag, which was fine. It was great to run by family and friends and be able to give them a smile and a thumbs-up at mile 14.
I made it through the infamous "mile 16" without too much trouble, but at this point I was doing 9:10ish miles. At mile 17 I noticed my HR starting to drop and had to focus a bit more on keeping my momentum. I knew I was slowing down, but didn't know how bad that was going to get.
Right after the mile 18 marker came the defining moment of my Ironman. I was starting to suffer a bit at this point but was close enough that I could see the speck of light at the end of the tunnel. There were a lot of people walking by this point - very fit looking people - and I was trying to keep that as my primary focus. They were walking and I was gutting this thing out.
I ran by a guy who was walking and a few steps later, my left hamstring goes twinge, twinge, sieze. I stopped and stepped off the path. My brain was switched off at this point and I had no idea what to do. The guy I'd passed put his hand on my back and said "you OK, man?" Some how that moment gave me a shot of adrenaline. I nodded and walked a few steps, the cramp was getting worse. Do I stretch it? Do I walk? I had some tums in a baggie in my pocket, mostly in case of indigestion, but Scott mentioned that they can help with cramping. I got to them and put two under my tongue. I wasn't confident - I didn't know what 2 Tums would do that 50-something Endurlytes wouldn't. I put the baggie back into my pocket and a voice in my head said "just fucking run." So I did. About 200 yards later, I was running and I could feel the hammy letting go. I just ran it out and got back to the normal kind of suffering. I saw my dad at around mile 20 and he jogged by me for a while. I couldn't muster much here other than something unintelligable about my HR but that I'd make it.
The course then swung back through down at mile 22 and I saw my friends jumping around and yelling "see you at the finish!". Lots of kids were putting their hands out for high-fives and I hit every single one I could. I found it tremendously motivating and wished they could have been all the way around the course. I got to the mile 23 sign, which I'd been daydreaming about for a while - just a 5K to go! I was still holding a run pace of about 9:45, which I felt pretty good about. Most everyone else was walking. I knew that I just had to make it to the top of the hill - about a mile - and I could coast back in from there. Deb and I had dinner earlier in the week with a couple that was on our trip to the Tour de France, and I saw them right on the climb out to Priest Road which was good. I had kind of hoped I'd get that "no pain" feeling when I hit the downhill but it didn't really happen. My legs just felt so dead and I was still afraid of something bad happening.
I skipped the last aid station with less than a mile to go, and did my best to keep momentum up the short hill to the Mill Ave Bridge. I really did my best here to soak this in - I knew I was minutes away from finishing my first Ironman. I had the wind at my back and the sun was starting to set. I'd had such great support from my friends and family, and executed a solid race. I'm glad I managed to think about all of this to soak it in a bit. But I can tell you that happy thoughts can happily cohabitate with suffering.
About half way across the bridge there were more spectators and I didn't really start floating until I saw the "Lap 2/3 RIGHT, Finish STRAIGHT" sign. About 100ft past that sign, there was a 90 degree right and you were under the IRONMAN banner and at the start of the bleachers, less than 100y from the finish. I finally was able to kick it at this point and spotted my posse going nuts on the left side of the chute.
The run was definitely the hardest part of the race, but it never got totally miserable. I think it was a mixture of better fitness (mostly this) and much better mental focus. The miles never seemed too far apart I that's what I focused on when it got tough. At a lot of points I'd take a couple of deep breaths and think to myself "this isn't *that* bad, you can keep doing this, you're fine". Fortunately I only had to do this for 10 miles, not 20. Even though I just missed 4:00, I'm very proud of this run. I'm not a runner...
Run Goal: 4:00
What I thought I'd do: 4:00+
Run Time: 4:05
AHR: 149
Lessons: I don't think there was much else I could have done on the run, honestly. I'm not sure if I should have held back more early or let it roll a bit more and gone with it. The nutrition was perfect and I was able to stay 100% focused, and looking at the pictures it appears I held decent running form the whole time (which probably explains why my knees & tendons aren't too pissed). I'd like to learn how to get through the aid stations faster - to be able to take in calories and fluids on the run. I think walking through the aid stations is worth it on balance - the cals/fluids are more important, but I think there's probably 5-10minutes lost in doing so over the course of the run.
Overall Finish: 11:03:46
Overall Position: 218/2066
Age Division Place: 37/264
My age group (M30-34) is the most competative age group, so I'm very happy with top 15% there. In my heart-of-hearts I had a goal of breaking 11 hours. So I'm totally happy with where I ended up. I'm not going to get upset about a few minutes after 11 hours of racing, as far as I'm concerned, that goal is as good as met.
Post Race
Man are the volunteers great. I stopped and put my hands on my knees. Two catchers came and grabbed my by each arm and asked me how I was - I told them I just needed some water. They asked me a few times, especially after I almost fell over when they let go of me. Finally I caught my breath a bit and they let me go into the athlete's area with my little space blanket. They had pizza and fries back there. I tried some fries but chewing them was too much work and I gave up. I sat down in a chair for a few minutes, and quickly realized that my quads didn't work. At all. To get out of the chair I had to turn myself around and to a push up. They had massage available and that helped a little, but I had to have the girl help me get my shoes off and then back on again. This persisted for about 24 hours and going down stairs is still pretty tough.
Deb had a tough day out there. The winds on the bike really took it out of her. After about 45 minutes I made it down to transition and got changed into my dry clothes and found the rest of my family (they'd been on the far side of the finish area from the exit and there's almost no way to get around there). We called her sister and there was some confusion for a while that she hadn't made the bike cut-off, but she had and was working her way around the run loop with her brother-in-law Stephen. She stuck to it and made it in just under 16 hours, which is amazing. On one hand, I know she's capable of a faster race, on the other hand, sticking to it for 16 hours is quite a feat. Good thing we've got IMC.
On one hand, I'm in good shape. It's been a day-and-a-half and it appears I did the race without any "real" injuries. Knees are fine, achilles is fine, back is fine. Muscles are sore in a way I can't even describe, and I've got lots of little chafe marks all over me from wherever salt built up and rubbed. The worst thing is the sunburn I've got on my left hand and outsides of my shoulders. Ouch.
I didn't really feel like eating until yesterday afternoon, when I had a mushroom-swiss burger by the pool at my dad's hotel. And half of Deb's. Oh man did that taste good.
My number one goal - above time - was to execute a solid race with no drama and let my fitness do the rest, and I think I did that. Now for some down time and then I'll get refocused on IMC. I'm looking forward to Canada more now than I was before IMAZ...
This wa a great experience for my first Ironman. I was well prepared and had just awesome support all down the line from family and friends (who came all the way to AZ for a very short trip just to support me), to the race staff and volunteers (they really do treat you like royalty...very nice), to where we stayed. The support and guidance that I've gotten from Scott Jones has been invaluable. The investment in a coach as been by far the best decision I've ever made, competition-wise. I feel very fortunate.