So here I
am, 8 days after the big event. It seems
like I was just standing in line to register and then posting, “LET IT
BEGIN! LET IT BEGIN!” That was on Monday, November 21st
2011. So much has happened between now
and then, but it all seems like a big blur.
Quite honestly, if I hadn’t chronicled my journey in this blog, I
wouldn’t really remember any of it.
There are so many people to thank that if I tried to list them all, I’d
definitely leave somebody out. The three
that I won’t leave out are my son, daughter, and Kristi, but more on that
later. I definitely threw everything I
had at this Ironman. Coaches (2 tri and
1 swim), a nutritionist, masseuses, a physical therapist, and a bike fitter
were all sought out in my bid to turn in the best possible time I could. You see, all along I knew that if I
accomplished my goal, this would be my last IM for some time. With that being said, let’s get into my race
report by looking back to this post Crystal Ball (from January 6th) where I divulge
my time goals. For those of you that
don’t want to take the time to reflect back, here is the Cliffs Notes version:
·
SWIM
= 1:00
·
T1
= 5min
·
BIKE
= 5:17
·
T2
= 5min
·
RUN
= 4:25
Calculating
everything out would give me a goal time of 10:52:00. So, for over 10 months now, anytime anybody
asked me what I wanted to finish in, I always said, “Sub 11 hours” Let’s take a look at how it actually went
down:
·
SWIM
= 58:41 (8/311 AG, 93/OA)
·
T1
= 5min 09sec
·
BIKE
= 5:06:44 (12/311 AG, 103/OA)
·
T2
= 3min 28sec
·
RUN
= 4:28:14 (46/311 AG, 291/OA)
·
OVERALL
= 10:42:16
Considering
that approximately 2600 athletes started this race, I’d say that that’s pretty
darn good! Since my run was nothing
spectacular (more on that later too) I didn’t bother breaking that down.
So, back
in January, I predicted a 10:52:00 time that was only 10 minutes off of my
actual result. Towards the end of my
training, I felt fairly confident that I could do a 4 hour marathon, so a
stretch goal I created was 10:15:00, but that fell apart after the first lap of
the marathon.
OK, so
with all of that being said, and without further ado, here is my much
anticipated race report:
The night
before a big race, a meal that has been historically good for me is pizza with
a glass (or two) of red wine. Dinner
started around 5:30PM and after putting back 5 or 6 slices of Barro’s sausage
pizza and a few glasses of vino, I retired to the couch and put my feet
up. Around 8PM, I headed upstairs and
hit the sack. I’d say that I slept fairly
well until about 2AM when I had to get up to go to the bathroom. My alarm was set to go off just 45 minutes
later, but I ended up heading downstairs to eat breakfast.
During the
course of my training, this summer, my typical breakfast before a race (or long
ride) was fairly consistent. It included
one, or all, of the items below:
·
Egg
whites (optional 1 whole egg added)
·
Toast
·
Oatmeal
with some type of fruit
·
Coffee
I finally
realized that the bigger the event, the less I could put down of the above
mentioned healthy items. I then
remembered that I have had great success with more non-traditional meals that
include cinnamon rolls, coffee cake, or even a cookie. Yes, you read that right, following a
pre-race dinner of pizza, a hearty breakfast of high sugar and fat seems to
work great for me. With this in mind, I crushed
a delicious, gooey, icing glazed cinnamon roll from our local grocery store within
minutes while drinking cup after cup of Hazelnut coffee. I was eyeballing another roll, but elected
not to as I was running out of time. I
was still packing up the car, filling up water bottles, and making a number of
trips to the bathroom before ultimately having to head over to James at 4AM.
Once at
James, we got his stuff ready, he put back the last bit of his breakfast, and
we headed to Tempe around 4:15AM. We
arrived at the parking garage around 5:00AM and started what I like to call, “The
Zombie Walk” The Zombie Walk is when hundreds and hundreds of athletes are
making the walk from their vehicle to transition. Everybody is quite, focused, staring straight
ahead, and following each other. The
only sounds are the humming of generators that are keeping lights on and the
occasional faint announcement from the race director in T1.
After
arriving in T1, I split up from James and headed over to my bike. I put my bottles in their cages and my GU/EFS
in their respective spots. After that, I
unracked my bike and headed over to the mechanics station to have them fill up
my tires. It was a good thing that I
made this a priority as the line became VERY long behind me. After getting the proper PSI, I headed back
to my spot and re-racked my bike before heading over to the bathrooms. I didn’t really need to go, but since I knew
the lines were going to be stupid long soon, I thought I’d give it a shot. No luck.
Dejected, I set out to drop off my special needs bags and then find the
ONE tent to relax. As I was dropping of
my bags, I ran into a friend of mine, Eric Miller, from Minnesota. He was volunteering so that he could get
priority sign-up status for IMAZ 2013!
We made some small talk before I took off into the dark to find the team
tent.
I was the
first athlete to arrive at the tent and promptly found a chair and sat
down. I can remember that this was the
first time that I started to get cold.
The morning air was in the mid 50’s, but the adrenaline and scurrying
about was keeping me toasty. Slowly,
other athletes, and their support crews, started showing up. James showed up and shortly after, Ben did
too. Unfortunately, today was going to
be an aqua bike race, for Ben. He took a
spill on a training ride about 6 weeks ago and fractured his hip in two
places. I have to give him credit for
making it to the starting line though!
At this point, I thought that I would give the bathrooms another
try. Again, I didn’t really have to go,
but I set out in search of the shortest line anyway. I spied a bank of 4 or 5 port-a-potties, over
by the special needs drop off, that didn’t seem to have anybody waiting. As I got closer, every one of them said, “Do
Not Use” After scouting out a few more
places, and seeing their HUGE lines, I decided that I was good and headed back
to the tent. I kept looking for Kristi
and the kids as they were supposed to meet me there, but they weren’t showing
up. I would find out later that the path
they needed to use was ultimately blocked off so that athletes could get from
T1 into the water. Not knowing this, I
started to get ready by donning my wetsuit.
Once fully on, I turned to both Ben and James and said, “Just now, the
butterflies are gone. Let’s do this.” No sooner did I say that, I realized that I
had packed my pre-swim gel onto my bike.
Not that it was HUGE deal, but any little deviance from the plan seems
to throw me for a loop. Frantically, I
asked around if anybody had an extra gel.
Finally, fellow teammate Richard Swetonic (aka Swet) handed me a
tropical flavored Hammer Gel. It wasn’t
what I had been accustomed to, but it would do.
I slowly ate it as James, Ben, and I made the walk to T1 in our
wetsuits. I could see that there were
already hundreds of people in the water and I began to panic a little. I quickly left those two behind as I wormed
my way through a sea of neoprene to the waters edge. Once there, I had to go past several more
rows of people hesitant about getting in the water. As I was making the plunge, I quickly heard
somebody on a bullhorn say, “Let’s go!
This is what you paid a lot of money for!” The cool water enveloped my body and I went
into race mode. I swam around dozens of
people to get to the very front only to find out that I was on the outside when
I wanted to be close to the center. I
ended up swimming in front of the line to where I needed to be. After taking up my spot, I quickly felt like
everybody was creeping in on my with an attitude akin to me cutting in line at
Disneyland. After a while, one guy was
literally flailing his arms about wildly as he treaded water so that nobody
could get close to him or in front of him.
This mosh pit went on for about 10 more minutes before the gun went off.
Here was
my race plan for the swim:
·
Find
my way to the very front and center (or slightly towards the inside)
·
Explode
out of the start to create distance (1:04 per 100 pace for about 200 yards).
·
Bring
HR down
·
Find
rhythm (approximately 1:20 per 100 pace)
·
Sight
every 10 strokes
·
If
feeling good on way back, pick up kick and pace.
The first
two bullet points went off without a hitch.
The third, however, took longer than I expected. I don’t remember 2010 being like this, but it
was an absolute scrum for the first 800 – 1000 yards. I had some dude to my right that kept landing
on me with every stroke, I had some dude on the left that hit me in the head
and jostled my goggles (fortunately nothing came of it), and I kept clipping
the feet of that dude that was flailing his arms at the start. Finally, after what seemed to be 10 minutes
(I have no idea how long it actually was) we spaced out enough so that I could
find my rhythm. I quickly found some
dude, that had a maroon sleeved wetsuit, that was cruising along at a pretty
good pace, and started to draft off him.
Occasionally I would still clip some toes and would have my toes
clipped, but it was pretty smooth sailing the rest of the way. On the way back, I was feeling pretty good,
so I put in about 3 all out efforts to try and regain some ground that was lost
in the scrum. Those 3 efforts were the
only time that I was breathing heavy; otherwise, I was in a comfortable
cruise. I was pulled out by a volunteer,
stripped by another, and started the long trek to T1.
Oh yeah, I also made the switch from tinted goggles to clear back in October. One of the best decisions I've made:
I gotta
tell you, the path we have to run from the water’s edge to the tent seems like
the first of two marathons that I had to run as it is sooooo stinking
long. There are spectators lining the
entire way and as I headed towards my bag, I could hear my name being yelled
from the crowd. I gave a quick
acknowledgement, but had no idea who it was.
Later, I would find out that it was my support crew.
In 2010, I
went completely dry heading out onto the bike and netted a terrible T1
time. This time, all I had to do was put
my shoes on, helmet on, glasses on, Garmin on, top on, and belt on. That sounds like a lot, and maybe I could
have worn my top under my wetsuit too, but I was able to cut my T1 time in half
this year.
Here was
my race plan for the bike:
·
Steady
start to find my legs and let system get used to being vertical after 1hr of
swimming horizontal.
·
Once
on B-line, steady pressure to the pedals and get comfortable, don’t blow
up. Steady lap 1.
·
Lap
2 will see me try to pick up the pace and hold it if possible.
·
Lap
3 will be a carbon copy of 2 with the exception of the last 20 minutes where I
will stop taking on fluids and start to prepare for the run. Maybe slip into an easier gear 10 minutes out
to flush the legs.
·
Try
to bring HR back down for the run.
Everything
went pretty much exactly as I intended.
The only thing that didn’t work out was the third bullet point. I was feeling so good on lap one; I was
already at my optimal speed. If I were
to pick it up any, I would have been pushing too hard. It was quite the experience being out there
with the elite age groupers and Kona potentials. It was very professional and very
technical. We all kept our distance, but
provided “pulls” when necessary. I was
at a very comfortable pace and was feeling good. The return trip had a tailwind (exact opposite
of 2010), so combined with the overall decrease in elevation, I was absolutely
FLYING! I was passing people left and
right and it felt good. Even with the
increase in speed and effort, my RPE stayed the same (oh yeah, I forgot to
mention that I went without my HR strap this time around). At the turnaround in Tempe, I quickly saw my
support crew and could hear their screaming.
That immediately made my already big smile much MUCH bigger. That is exactly what I need at that exact
point every time. It really helps me
prepare for lap two as I get out of the saddle to stretch the back and hammer
back up to speed:
Here are
my splits:
The
remaining two laps were almost carbon copies of the first. The only real “excitement” was when the
referee came up beside me and told me to watch my spacing on the guy in front
of me. The dude had just passed me and I
was in the process of backing off, so for the life of me, I can’t figure out
why I got the warning. Oh well, at least
it was only just that….a warning.
SIDE NOTE: Those new super cushy Cee Gee arm pads worked PERFECTLY! They were super comfy and definitely helped with comfort on the ride.
As I was
making the last right turn, onto Rio Salado, to head back to T2, I noticed that
my drive train was acting up. It seemed
to slip a bit and then completely lock up.
I tried to keep calm, but couldn’t help thinking of a backup plan in the
event it completely seized up just 2 miles out.
Would I run my bike back? Wait
for the on course mechanic? What? Fortunately, I didn’t have to exercise any of
those options as I was able to make it back safely. Even today, I still don’t know what’s wrong
with it as my bike has been sitting on its rack, untouched, this entire time.
I came
flying into T2 only to have the volunteers shouting at me to slow down. I quickly hopped off and ran over to my bike
to run bag. Again, I could hear the
cheers of my support crew which gave me another boost heading out to tackle my
worst discipline. Just like in 2010, I
didn’t have to go to the bathroom bad enough on the bike to actually, well, go
to the bathroom on the bike. I was able
to take care of this in T2. If I were
remotely in the hunt for a Kona spot, I probably would have thought more about
the “on bike” option, but for now, that’s just not in my strategy. After a very quick run through the
sunscreeners, I was off to tackle what was going to tie my longest run ever
(2010 being the other).
SIDE
NOTE: For nutrition on the bike, I was
planning on carrying 1700 calories (enough for a 5:30 bike even though I didn’t
plan on being out there that long) which corresponds to about 300 per
hour. After surveying what I had left, I
calculated that I only consumed approximately 1300 of the intended 1500 intake
and felt fine. The only aid that I took
off the course was a cold water bottle at the turnaround for the final lap.
Here was
my race plan for the run:
·
Get
comfortable at about a 9:00 pace for the entire 1st lap
·
Hit
every aid station during lap 1 for Perform, water, or GU
·
Lap
2 = Increase pace to 8:45 to see if it’s sustainable. If not, slip back to 9:00 and try again in a
few miles. Keep this song and dance
until it is determined where I am at.
·
Lap
3 = Hold on to best pace possible. If
necessary, walk through aid stations for nutrition, but pick up the pace to
next aid station.
First, let’s
take a look at my splits:
One lap is
approximately 8.6 miles around with the last lap being a longer run into the
finishing chute. Based on the splits
above, you can see that my plan was pretty much on target through the first 6-7
miles before I started to slow down.
That’s when my old nemesis, the “knee area” pain came back. That darn ligament, or tendon, or whatever
that knocked me out of the RNR marathon last year decided that the therapy I
gave it once a week (for the last 6 weeks) wasn’t good enough. So, for the remainder of the 19.2 mile run, I
was at the mercy of what it decided to do.
Felt fine? I could run at my goal
pace. Acted up? Stopped in my tracks and had to walk to
loosen it up. Oh well, this is Ironman,
and you have to play the cards you are dealt.
Prior to starting the run, I made the executive decision to slow down
during EVERY aid station so that I could consume my calories instead of
splashing them half in my mouth and half on me.
Problem was that every time I slowed down, it would take me a while of
hobbling before the knee area would loosen up enough to start running.
SIDE
NOTE: Nutrition for the run was supposed
to be sports drink and water at every aid station with a Gu every 3 miles. Aid station #1 didn’t have Gu gels, only Gu Chomps. I didn’t know this, so when I
went to open a gel that I grabbed, I was kind of set back a bit. The only thing I could do was plop one in
my mouth and let it dissolve while I ran.
Much to my dismay, aid station #2 didn’t have gels either. It wasn’t until aid station #3 that I found
my sweet elixir. The wild thing about
the run, however, is that you don’t know what your body will want from one mile
to the next. After only 2 gels, I was
done with them and had to go to a liquid diet only. At every aid station, I took in a combination
of sports drink, water, and/or cola. The
cola always seemed to give me a nice little burst of energy, which was much
appreciated.
OK, back
to the run….So, the “injury” kicks in just before the first lap is done, but
this is right around where my crew was positioned to cheer me on. I kept looking for the squiggly pipe cleaners
attached to the top of each sign until they finally appeared. This year, as opposed to 2010, I didn’t stop
for hugs. I didn’t want them to see me
hobbled by the knee pain, so I ran right by slapping high fives. I really looked forward to this part of each
lap since they were the boost that I needed.
There they are, with the signs on the right. My daughter has her hand stretched out too:
Throughout
the run, I kept looking at my watch and doing some math. I would run through where I was at based on
my bike and approximately a 1 hour swim.
After that, I remembered that I finished in 11:44:54 in 2010 and that
would correspond to finishing around 6:45PM.
When I saw what time it was, and considering may seemingly plummeting
pace, I thought that sub 11 was going to be close. That being said, I skipped the last 2 aid
stations (one being the ONE aid station ~ huge thanks to ONE, my teammates,
Laura, and Cari for picking up my spirits 3x through). I was now on the final path home. The dirt path along the water front is
somewhat magical. You can hear the faint
rumble of the crowd lining the finish chute.
You can hear Mike Reilly in the distance announcing different people as “Ironman” People ask you, “Lap 3?” and when you say “Yes”,
you exchange high fives or knuckles.
With the crowd getting louder and the names of new and repeat Ironman
becoming clear, the pain seems to subside.
It was at this point that a gentleman ran up next to me and said, “Hey,
I’m just starting the run, is this course easy to follow?” “Sure is, I said…can’t get lost” Wow. I’ve
been in motion for over 10 ½ hours and this guy is just starting a
marathon. Ironman can be truly
inspiring. I’m rounding the corner now
and my buddy Tyler Brilinski jumps out from the crowd to give me a high five
and say, “Good job Ironman!” There it
is. The holy grail of Ironman….the
finish line with the elapsed time on it.
I really misjudged where I was at in the race because the clock was
showing 10:41 something. I couldn’t hold
back my excitement as I raised my arms and played to the crowd. I was able to high five Kyle and his son
Grady, but couldn’t find the rest of my support crew in the stands. Didn’t matter, as I knew they were there
anyway. I cross the line, get wrapped in
a space blanket, and am greeted by James and Ben. What I did next was unexpected. I completely broke down. “I’m in so much pain” I said quietly. They helped me over to a grassy area where I
could barely sit down. So much of what
happened during this time escapes me, but I do remember seeing Kristi and completely
breaking down in tears when we hugged.
My mom was there too. That was
special as well. Another embrace created
more tears.
Me and 4x IMAZ finisher (with a new PR of 10:25:02) James. In 2010, he caught me on lap# 3 of the bike. This year, he didn't catch me until about mile 10 of the marathon:
Eventually,
one of my support crew, John, had to help me walk back to the transition area
to retrieve my bike and gear. After a
long walk back to the car, he drove me home.
A quick shower and change, and we were off to celebrate with Mike,
Laura, and Kristi. I can’t believe that
was actually able to go out to eat after finishing an Ironman with a PR, but I
tell you what, that 32oz beer they served when I got there certainly helped a
lot.
Earlier I
said that I can’t possibly list everybody that supported me along this journey,
and that’s a fact. I must however, give
a special thank you to Kristi and my kiddos.
They had to put up with me being gone many mornings, had to pick up the
slack around the house, they had to put up with me being grumpy and tired, they
had to work schedules around what I needed to do, they had to put plans on
hold, they had to wait for me to get back from running while on vacation. In short, they put up with a lot and not once,
did any of them complain. So, it goes
without saying that every bit of my PR was because of their efforts as
well. So for that, I say thank you and
daddy loves you very much.
