Disclaimer

NOTE: I cannot be held accountable for any syntax or grammatical errors present in below posts. I went to medical school and have subsequently forgotten 90% of how to correctly read/write in English. Thank you for your understanding :)

Monday, July 16, 2012

IM CDA race report

It was SOO nice to get out of New Mexico for a while, and the Spokane/CDA area was just beautiful.   Mountains covered in green spruce trees, green grass everywhere, a river and gorgeous lake.  And everything was just so green.  I mean, GREEN.  Living in the desert you kind of forget what that color is.  But anyway, on to the race!

Race morning arrives and the alarm goes off at 4:30.  Lucky for me, sunrise was at 4:48 so it was already light outside, which makes waking up that early SOO much easier.

 The gun goes off at 7AM start and 2600 crazy people make a mad dash into the water.  I thought the mass swim start at Arizona was bad!  In the swim at AZ I pretty much did my own thing; I swam WAAY outside so I could go at my own pace and not have to worry so much about everyone else in the water.  I knew coming into this race though, if I wanted to improve any on my time, I'd have to mix it up with everyone else.  I spent the first 15 minutes just trying to survive, and finally found a little bit of breathing room after the turnaround buoy.  I also had an A Ha! moment somewhere during this time.  Up to this point, I'd always shied away from any contact in the water, always felt like I was just in the way of all these faster people.  But then I started thinking, hey, I have just at much right to this water as anyone else!  Then I thought, just treat this like a basketball game.  Lord knows I never shied away from contact playing basketball, even though I was often the slimmest player out there!  After this occurred to me I became a lot more aggressive with my swim; I swam where I wanted to and didn't care who was in my way-just like everyone else seemed to be doing :-).  I wouldn't say I was LOOKING for the contact, but I definitely started dishing out more than I was taking :-).  I made it back to the start and jumped out of the water for my short beach run before starting lap 2.  Glanced down and smiled when I saw my first split, 32 minutes! 

The second lap started out well. The crowd had thinned out by this point, but I noticed the water was a LOT choppier than the first loop, despite having fewer people.  Guess the wind had picked up.  About 10 minutes into this lap, though, I started to notice a strange thing.  I couldn't seem to grip the water.  Apparently my hands had had enough and were calling it a day.  I couldn't force my fingers together!  And I couldn't even keep them stiff!  I had developed a case of what I call spaghetti hands.  I didn't feel all that cold in my wetsuit, but apparently my hands did.  My feet had gone numb within five minutes of the start, which was fine as I'm a horrible kicker on a good day when it comes to swimming.  I somehow managed to stay in a good draft though and came out of the water with a 1:07!  I slowed a bit during the second loop but felt it was a good time considering the chop and cold hands!

T1.  Nightmare.  I ran to the wetsuit strippers, and with my lifeless hands had not even managed to unzip the damn thing by the time I got there.

My enthusiastic helpers did not initially notice this and attempted to rip the thing from my shoulders down to my ankles in one fell swoop.  After several attempts I finally managed to yell "Hold it!" after which they slowed down, unzipped me, pulled it off my arms and then the rest of the way off.  I grabbed it, my T1 bag, and headed into the changing tent.  I definitely wasn't in shock, but I was a little out of it, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, I almost felt disconnected from my body.  Is that what hypothermia feels like?  Who knows.  I found a seat in the changing tent and couldn't grasp anything in my bag!  Come ON hands, we have a race here!  I finally just dumped it all out on the ground, managed to scoop up my towel, and held my cold lifeless hands inside it for a little bit to try and get some feeling back.  A quick rubdown got most of the water off, then I attempted to peel the speedos off and put the bike shorts on.  After much fumbling and bumbling, I finally had all my gear on--except my arm warmers.  I just looked at them dumbly for a second, realized I had no chance of putting them on, so stuffed them in my pocket and headed out.  T1 time 11:52, good grief!

On to the bike!

 I spent the first ten minutes shivering uncontrollably.  I mean COME ON!!!  I decided there was no way I could continue to go on like this, so I stopped and spent over three painful minutes trying to pull my damn arm warmers on.  I ended up using my teeth.  But it was definitely three minutes well spent, as I quickly stopped shivering.  I rode for about 1:15 before my bladder reached  its bursting point.  I was almost to the top of the biggest climb of the day and knew I had a big descent coming up.  Perfect timing.  At least 4-5 minutes of coasting would be a great time to go!  Of course I've never yet been able to pee while on the bike, but I knew I wouldn't have a better chance.  Plus, you would think screaming down the road at 40+ mph would literally scare the piss out of you, right?  Well guess who still hasn't managed to pee while riding.  Yeah, this guy.  I managed to make it back to the top of the next climb but had to pull off and spent over two minutes parked on the side of the road--grr I hate losing time like that!  I had one other bathroom break on the bike that also lasted about 2:30, but otherwise had a pretty spectacular bike!    I finished the first loop right at three hours, and still felt really strong.  The second loop was fairly uneventful as well, I felt great right up to the dismount.  Final bike time 6:11:xx, 18.1mph avg.  I was super pumped; I felt coming in to the race that at best I’d do about 6:00 to 6:10, and I almost hit that even with my stupid three pit stops.  I felt even better than night when I looked at my garmin

 and realized that I’d climbed over 6000 feet!  That’s 25% more than the 4660 advertised on the website!  BAM!  I crushed this thing!  :-)

T2.  Much better than than T1!  I ran immediately to the port-o-potties, and spent the next 2:11 on what would be my final pee break of the day.  Yes I timed it; I am that Type A.  I finished up, grabbed my transition bag for a quick change of clothes and shoes, got lathered up with sunscreen by a group of gray haired ladies (come on where were the young hot women??), and headed out!  Final T2 time 5:04.  MUCH BETTER.

RUN.  After only about 45 seconds out of T2, I saw my sexy wife and beautiful baby boy cheering me on!  Of course I had to stop and give them both a quick smooch, then off I went.  The first 6.5 miles went very smoothly, I settled into a very comfortable 8:45ish pace and just enjoyed the experience. 

Most of the course is an out and back along the shore of Lake CDA, and it is beautiful!  I hit the turnaround feeling great and started back in.  The next 6.5 miles went fairly well, I continued to feel great until around mile 11.  I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what was wrong, but I just started feeling blah.  My legs were good, my lungs were good, no stomach  issues up to this point, so what gives?  I kept my same pace and finished the first loop in just under two hours.  I passed Joy and Hunter twice in town, and told Joy I was really hurting as I went by.  I don’t remember what exactly she said, but I think the gist of it was along the lines of HTFU J.  I didn’t know what exactly was going on, but at the aid station at mile 14 it was time for another gel, I reached for it then realized I didn’t want the f’ing thing.  I was suddenly, desperately, craving salt!  I decided instead to go with some salty Lay's potato chips.  That seemed to hit the spot!  I was still running a bit slower than the first loop, but I wasn’t walking dang it!  I did this for the next 5 aid stations as well, and could feel myself coming out of the hole.  I did walk up the hill on the way out on this second loop :-/.  However I was feeling pretty good at the turnaround, only 6.5 miles to go!  I managed to run jog up the backside of the hill on my way back in to town, and picked up the pace once at the top.  I think I kept it at about 9:00 miles for the last quarter of the race.  I was super proud of myself for coming back and finishing strong!  Final run time 4:16:xx.  I had hoped to do a little better, but still a 36 minute improvement over my first IM run!

Final finishing time 11:52:30, a whopping 30 minute PR on a much tougher course than Arizona!

 I couldn’t be happier with my race!  I drastically cut my weekly training hours after Hunter was born, so I was really uncertain how that would affect race day.  However I did increase the intensity of most of my workouts, which really seems to have paid off!  My coach is pretty smart :-).

I do think this will mark my retirement from the full Ironman distance, even though I know this will be disappointing to my wife.  I really just want to spend more time with my family now.  I still love triathlon and racing, but it’s definitely a much less important part of my life.  Until next time friends!