IMAZ 2012 Race Report

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 21^st 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 1^st 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.