Let's try this - Here's the play by play timeline of the race day in script:
4am - Wake up. Feeling good, slept well. I am ready for this day.
5am - In transition area, check the bike over, top up pressure in tires, and load the bike with race fuel bottles.
5:30am - We're all set up. Beat the rush of people who are now tripping over each other to get to their bikes. Find a quiet spot inside the host hotel lobby that is warm (its cool outside and the sun isn't up yet). Find a spot on the floor against the wall, and chill with 90 minutes to go until the gun goes off. Spend some time chatting with my Uncle Lindsay and friend Kathy who are both racing. Kathy is sick. She doesn't look too hot, and has some doubts about how she will survive the day. We all support each other with a few good words, but for the most part, I am in my zone, with a hoodie over my head, and my mind focused.
Sidebar - In the days leading up to the race I was feeling very calm. This was my 5th Ironman and had prepared as best I could for the day. I am a huge believer in visualization and I had run this day over in my head more times than I can count. For me a good race sometimes feels as though I am just acting out what I have already rehearsed in my mind, and as the day goes along, I feel like I am reliving a vision that I have seen a million times and am watching from 'outside of my body' as I race. The day before, my uncle even noted how calm I was, and I can honestly say that my mental preparation was a big part of why I was like this.
6:30am - Put the wetsuit on. Head down to the beach. As I walk among some of the 2402 other people, it feels like marching into battle. I love it. Heart starts pounding as the dawn of the sun begins to break. We find a spot in the corral and share our last good words of support with each other. As much as you may like the company, this is a battle you fight on your own. One last handshake to my uncle and Kathy, and a kind word to/from our supporters, and we parted ways. I had to take my spot.
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| Me, Uncle Lindsay and Kathy about 15 minutes before the start. I think I'm saving my energy or giving my focused kinda happy face? Lindsay wants to get it going, and Kathy figures, heck she's sick, so all she can do is smile :) |
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| Not a great pic, but you can see the 2400 plus caps along the water getting ready to start! |
6:59am - I'm knee deep in the water. The pros have gone off ahead at 6:50am, and the mass of age groupers await the gun. I am standing 3-4 rows back in the pack, and am dead middle alined with the buoys. This is it. Time to go. Anything is Possible.
7:00am -
Finishing the first loop of the swim, I am eager to stand up and exit the water. Ah, relief...empty the right google of water, open the eye - feels good! Take a quick peak at my watch, it says 28 something. Sweet, I might go under an hour. Run acoss the beach, grab a quick cup of water to rinse the mouth out, and jump back into the water. Loop 2 is on.
The second loop was pretty uneventful. The swells and current were pretty strong, especially going out. This made sighting and alignment a bit more of a challenge, but I seemed to do handle it ok. I saw one or two little sting rays and jellyfish, but not much else to report.
Swim Time - 59:18 (1:33/100m) (145th OA, 19th AG).
Transition - Get the goggles and cap off, and then peel the wetsuit down to the waist as I exit the water. Find a 'peeler' on the way to transition, take a quick seat, and they do their job - peel the wetsuit off! (what were you thinking?! ;-)
I enter transition and locate my bag. As I do, I get a signal (2 actually), that my body had had enough of the salt water swim - 2 massive dry heaves - yuck. Thankfully nothing more came of it. I grabbed my bag, headed to the tent, got my gear on (helmet, glasses, arm warmers, shoes in hand), and was out.
T1 - 4:51 (68th OA, 6th AG)
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| Heading out on the bike for 180km. Don't worry I get to ride it, once I cross the 'mount line' just ahead of me. |
Moving along, and things are going well. I really worked hard on my bike this year, and was looking forward to racing and not just managing or enduring the 180km ride. I knew I was going well, but its hard to know how well, when your out there on the course. I just tried to focus on staying smooth, taking in my fuel, and keeping an even effort. Around 70 or so km's into the ride I had another not previously visualized experience, but this one was good. Joe Bonness passed me on the bike :-) How can someone passing you be a good thing? Goggle search Joe's name, and you'll get it. He is a legend in the sport of triathlon, amongst age-groupers. He has been one of the best all-time age groupers for many years, who even now in the age 55-59 category still finishes at the front end of races and in October won his age group at Kona (the world championships). I could go on, but trust me, he's a star... and I was ahead of him for quite some time, how cool! I cheered him on as he passed me, and took some encouragement from it as well.
The rest of the ride was great. I never felt tired and stayed on task with my fueling and pacing. On the return in, I had a few other cool moments as I passed some of the pro women, and a few pro men. With 20 or so km to go I was riding along with pro, Kim Loeffler. She was the 3rd place female pro, and she had a motorcycle follwoing her with a camera. It was cool to be mixing it up with the likes of her, and I actually pulled away from her, and beat beat her into transition.
As I approached the transition, I was taking a nutritional inventory of the ride (as I had been doing throughout the ride!). My range is 500-400 calories per hour, and I had ended up doing 400/hr. It wasn't a hot day, and I had an extra Boost to consume if I wanted it, but didn't feel I needed it, as I was never hungry, grumpy, or feeling flat.
Bike Time - 4:51:30 (37.1 km/hr) (63rd OA, 8th AG)
Transition
Usually nothing to write about the second transition. You get off your bike, get your running shoes on, and go! That's pretty much what I did and it went well, but I had a fun side bet with my Uncle that we had made the night before that made this transition, extra fun. This was the bet: whoever had the faster T2 time, would get a free rib dinner at Baton Rouge from the 'slower guy'. I felt good about my T2, and more importantly my legs were working nicely right from the first step off the bike. I wouldn't know if I was buying the ribs or not, until after the race, so I'll keep you in suspense for now... read on :-)
T2 - 2:22 (30th OA, 4th AG)
Run
Heading out onto the course and my 'support crew' spotted me right away. They were telling me I was 3rd or 4th place in my age group! I thought they had to be wrong, but it turns out they were right - I was running in 4th place. I knew a lot could happen over the next 42.2km's, so I just put one foot in front of the other, and kept going. I was feeling pretty good right from the start. I was telling myself to stay smooth, stay calm, and don't push. I hit the first mile marker and all I remember was seeing 6 minutes and something. Hmmm, thats kinda fast for me, maybe the marker was off (it wasn't)... but, I feel like this is easy. I keep the effort level the same, and concentrate on taking in some nutrition over the first few aid stations, to be sure I am 'topped up' for the run. I take a peak at the next couple of mile markers and my splits are still ahead of where I thought I'd be running - not a bad thing, but I'm trying hard to hold back, so I have something left for the second loop. Around mile 3 or so Kim Loeffler passes me back on the run. I don't mind at all. She's the 3rd place pro women, and she started 10 minutes before me. This is fun stuff. I love it.
On the way out, I did have a tail wind pushing me along, so that helped make the running feel easy and aided in the quick pace. I was in a good rhythm and coming back into town, I knew I was having a good run. My legs felt strong and my mind was ready to push and suffer on that second loop. I made the turn after the first loop and looked at my watch - 1:36:28. Whoa, thats great! My spotters are telling me I'm around 5 or 6 now in my age group. I knew I got passed by a few people, but it doesn't concern me at this point. I am putting it all on the line and doing the best I can, and I'm having fun doing it. In my mind, I am ready to get this second loop going. I am hopeful that with a decent effort, I can manage a 1:40 or so lap , which would maybe give me a run time of around 3:20... I'd be pumped with that.
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| Just finished the first loop of the run. I am feeling strong and focused, but little did I know what was soon to come. |
As I make way onto that second loop, and head away from town, I start feeling some cramps in my stomach. They are not aerobic ones like you may be familiar with, but more 'digestional' or gassy feeling. They are sharp and quite painful. I back off the nutrition a bit, and try taking in some more water as I go. Maybe things aren't being absorbed anymore, give it time, maybe it will pass. The miles roll by, but the pain doesn't. In fact, it increases as I go. Man this hurts. With the pain increasing, my pace decreases.. this is not only painful, but very frustrating. My legs feel fine, and my mind is wanting to keep racing. With each impact from every stride the pain sharpens. I am starting to make grunting noises every now and again. I walk some aid stations and I finally make the tough choice to stop and use a port - o - pottie (relax... I'm not gonna get graphic). I manage to pee, but that's it, never felt the urge to do more and worse still the pain doe not ease. Over the next several miles I am brought to an eventual walk. Even in doing that, I am having to stop and hunch over as the cramps intensify. I think I catch a break when a fellow racer offers me 2 Tums. I inhaled them like gold, hoping they would save my race, but they had no affect (I would have taken 10 if I could have).
At this point, I am at the furthest point on the run course, that is away from town and the finish line. All I can do is manage a walk. I have about 6 miles to go. Every so often I try and run again, but the pain shoots like a knife into my stomach and brings me to a grunting halt. I walk some more, and then try and run. The pain tears like a knife, and the groaning halt coms again. This is the cycle I am now stuck in. Dozens and dozens of racers are passing me. Most of them are on their first loop of the run, but I know others are on their second loop, and pushing me further down in the race.
I can't describe how frustrating of an experience this was. My legs were good. My mind was ready. In some ways I had been waiting all day (and training all year) so that I could get to the last 6 miles of the race to run strong and finish fast. Up to this point I had executed my race as best as I had ever envisioned. But I was no longer executing my race dreams, rather my race nightmares. There is nothing to do, but press on and keep walking. I tried to walk quick, but that is no consolation at this stage of the game. I saw Lindsay and Kathy as I was walking back towards town. Lindsay asked how it was going, and I could only shake my head and manage a grunt of 'not so good' as the pain pressed constantly.
As a quick side note, Lindsay had spotted Kathy on the bike course, and given her sick physical state, he choose to legally race in sight of her the rest of the day. A solid move for sure, and one I know Kathy appreciated. She was soldering on as well, unable to run any of the race, but her spirits seemed much better than mine... she knew she was in for a long day from the start. Nevertheless the two toughed it out and finished the race! For Lindsay his 5th IM, and for Kathy her 2nd.
I am now within 150 meter of the finish. As I approached the finish chute a young guy passes me on the right and offers a word of encouragement. I look over, and see a 'P' on his leg. Its a male pro, that I actually recognized from the Picton half marathon I raced in the fall. I couldn't help but smile at this point. He must have had a bad day too, but there was some brief consolation knowing that I was that far up on him, to have him just pass me, after walking all that time. In fact, I realized afterwards that though he passed me, I finished ahead of him in the standings, as I had forgotten he started the day 10 minutes before the age group race.
My second lap ended up taking me a very painful 2:37:15 (my unofficial split). Needless to say this is a far cry from the first loop, but thats all I could do on the day. As the finish line approached, the crowd must have sensed my suffering. They offered great support and managed to spur me into a slow jog to get across the finish. As my feet picked up, the tears began to flow. Thankfully I still had my sunglasses on (so hopefully I didn't appear that messed), but the wave of emotion was too much to bear. I took a peak at the the clock and I finished in a personal best time of 10:11:42. At the time, this was no consolation, as I knew was prepared for a far faster day.
Run Time - 4:13:43 (572 OA, 76AG)
Final Time - 10:11:42 (173OA, 24AG)
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| Frustration, pain, and disappointment.. I'm just being real. |
I've decided to do another (forthcoming) post with Race Reflections. I doubt many will read it or care too, but if not for them, it will be for me. It will have my post race thoughts about the day, and what I've taken from it and I will work on from here. I have tried to leave out stuff like that in this post, just to keep it semi-readable and not ridiculously long (oops).
Oh, I forgot the cliffhanger.... the free Rib bet! My T2 time ended up being 2 seconds faster than Lindsays! We couldn't believe how close they were when we looked at the results. He told me after, that he sprinted as hard as he could out of transition and then once he was out, he stopped to recover, before Kathy joined him for the run :-)
I want to take a quick moment to thank all of the people who continually support me in my training and racing. You know who you are, it and it means a lot to have that kind of support. Special thanks to my wife, who helps me make all this doable by being so flexible and encouraging. We didn't get to Kona this time, but we will get there :) Also, a big thanks to Sandy, my coach. You always do a great job of listening and pushing me, and have helped give me the tools I need to reach levels I used to only dream of. Thanks for your friendship.
Thanks for reading along... but trust me, its much more fun racing along - you should tri it! :-)
Gotta Strive,
Jon
