Ironman Race Report Preface

My report is going to be super long so I've broken it up into sections. Here's the first section which I also posted to Slowtwitch as a mini-summary. You can read this and skip all the gory details ones over the next days.

I finished...I wanted to give thanks to the entire Slowtwitch community for being a great resource. Super awesome thanks go out to Jeff P. and Don O. for basically teaching me how to swim. You guys rock!! Special thanks go to BarryP, jonnyo, desert_dude, devashish_paul, and the brick workout discussion threads. Also a great shoutout to the IMC bike aid stations where I got pass-ups like the volunteers were soigners for TdF teams. I never touch my brakes and just went through coasting with no problem.

The stats: 68 swim, 5:39 bike, 3:25 run for a total w/ transition of 10:20.
My goals were 75 swim, 5:45 bike, and 3:15 run.

Key factoids:
- No caffeine outside of training for a year
- No alcohol and no Doritos, Lays, Pringles, fast food for a year
- Never swam before August 14, 2007
- Swimming extra yards doesn't hurt even if you're slow
- Never raced in my wetsuit, only 5 open water swims
- Only completed one triathlon(Florida 70.3) prior to IMC(Yes Fleck, I'm not a triathlon role model. I'm a one and done guy who just wants to say I've completed an Ironman.)
- With Beijing just finishing, I'd say the Ironman wall holds it own against the Great Wall
- If you can barely walk and it hurts too much to sleep, does that mean you pushed hard and should be happy or you didn't train hard enough
- Mother Nature is Kathy Bates from Misery where she's all nice at the beginning and the next minute you're tied to the bed with a 4x4 between your ankles and she's holding a sledgehammer
- all hickies aren't romantic nor are all strawberries sweet

Coming up you'll read the best advice about T1. You'll also learn how Ironman and Alzheimer's are linked. You'll read musings about the condition, Ironman mouth. You'll see that one place can matter. You'll also find out how far might be too far to go for those precious minutes in the hopes of Kona. My thoughts on should you or shouldn't you buy ungodly amounts of finisher great then wear it all through the offseason. Also the top 10 list of why Ironman athletes are eerily similar to mental hospital patients.

Ironman...10:20

Just a short report.  I finished and didn't walk during the marathon although the "marathon wall" started at mile 14 for me.  Here's the simple breakdown. I killed the swim in 68 minutes. Mid 70s for the day with favorable tail wind on the bike which broke down to a 5:39 for me.   Started off the run strong for the first 4 miles and then a 15mph steady headwind hit for the next 8 miles which stunk.  Of course the weather was in the process of changing and at mile 12 of the out and back marathon course the wind had died.  So no fricking tailwind on the way back.  I hit the wall and my legs were in complete fatigue.  Every step from that point on was pain.  I knew Kona was out but I just kept trying to get to the next mile.  I finished in rain with a 3:25 marathon.

I can barely walk today and all my toenails have blisters under them.  I'm a wreck.

The conditions were so good for fast times(I wanted heat so I could go fast and everyone else slow) that the top 15 finishers in my age group were all under 10 hours.  If you look at past results for the race that's never happened.  Crazy fast!  No Kona for me so now I can get fat!!

Access

So I just checked into my hotel and have access to the internet.  We got here on Tuesday and time seems to be flying by.  I can't believe it's Thursday already.  My legs felt great on Tuesday's run but like crap today.  It was because of too much walking yesterday from the hotel.  I'm cutting all that out until race day.

Joe, Amber and Elena arrive tomorrow afternoon with a rental car so that will help.

The swims in the morning have been interesting as I've suffered from going in a crooked line.  On top of that I apply crap loads of bodyglide to my neck and the suit still irritates it.  I'm gonna have a big wetsuit abrasion after I come out of the water on race day.  I also might end up falling over when I finish the swim because each time after only 30 minutes I've been majorly disorientated standing up to exit.

I got a flat on my training ride with the race wheels on Wednesday.  I'm hoping that gets it out of the way and I don't flat on race day.  I got to use my CO2 for the first time and it went pretty well.  I also had to move the valve extender to my spare tube as well.  It was just a simple thumbtack on my front wheel.

Tomorrow is a complete day off with registation and the athlete dinner/meeting for activities.  I'll try to give an update.

3 days...

Access

So I just checked into my hotel and have access to the internet.  We got here on Tuesday and time seems to be flying by.  I can't believe it's Thursday already.  My legs felt great on Tuesday's run but like crap today.  It was because of too much walking yesterday from the hotel.  I'm cutting all that out until race day.

Joe, Amber and Elena arrive tomorrow afternoon with a rental car so that will help.

The swims in the morning have been interesting as I've suffered from going in a crooked line.  On top of that I apply crap loads of bodyglide to my neck and the suit still irritates it.  I'm gonna have a big wetsuit abrasion after I come out of the water on race day.  I also might end up falling over when I finish the swim because each time after only 30 minutes I've been majorly disorientated standing up to exit.

I got a flat on my training ride with the race wheels on Wednesday.  I'm hoping that gets it out of the way and I don't flat on race day.  I got to use my CO2 for the first time and it went pretty well.  I also had to move the valve extender to my spare tube as well.  It was just a simple thumbtack on my front wheel.

Tomorrow is a complete day off with registation and the athlete dinner/meeting for activities.  I'll try to give an update.

3 days...

Last Pool Workout

I got back from the pool today and realized this will be my last pool workout in I don't know like a month.  I probably even wouldn't head back to the pool til December if I could get away with it but I'm sure I'll be back in 4 weeks or so.

Even though I'm not working today and have time before I leave I didn't sleep in.  I figured since I started over a year ago getting up practically every day at 4:30 to go to the pool that the last pool workout before the Ironman I should get up at 4:30.  It was good I got the race week workout prescribed in and I felt okay.  Not super fast but not slow.

I'm going to take quite a few pictures during the trip.  I mean this could be my first and last Ironman so it would be good to look back on during my mid-life crisis.  I'm sure I'm going to have a miserable mid-life.  I'm suffering right now and I'm not even 40.  I just can't go as fast in my runs and I'm definitely not recovering from workouts like I used to.  I can't just go full blast on 5 hours of sleep.  I can't hang with the young pups in the drinking department either.  Although maybe not sleeping and drinking too much isn't something I should aspire to.

My hair is turning gray although its been like that for a few years.  I keep meeting 80s babies that's the most depressing.  Talking to people who were born when I was in high school.  Ouch!!  Another thing is the friends will start turning 40 next year...which begins my slow 3 year countdown as well.

I need to race young on Sunday.

6 more days...

Home Stretch

I'm entering the home stretch for the Ironman.  Every so often I'll get nervous thinking about the upcoming race.  It was hard to watch the women's Olympic Marathon last night knowing I'll be doing that after being on the bike for almost 6 hours.   It was also hard to watch certain parts in the race where people would just pull up or amount of suffering.

I'm sure by now everyone know's the 100m Men's track and field final.  That was amazing.  I finally saw it this morning with the winner just relaxing in the last 15 meters to a world record time.  I've never ever seen that race where such a thing happened.  Never!!  I've watched every olympic 100m final since 1984.  It was just crazy.  See it here.

I packed up all my stuff.  God being gone for 10 days requires a few clothes.  It's going to be a chore to haul my luggage bag, bike case and backpack to the Metro this time.  It wasn't too bad for Florida but this time I have more stuff so it's heavier.  Oh well, I'm in no hurry tomorrow so I'll just take my time.

Again, in case ya missed it my bib number is #639 and you can track the race live on Ironman.com.  If you can't find it just look for the Ironman Canada link somewhere on the main ironman.com website.  I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be doing from Penticton but I hope to get in at least one last blog before the event.

One week to go!

Taper Weight Loss

Okay, I'm officially worried.  I can only hope that the scale at the gym is wrong but after the last two swims now I've lost 4lbs since I started the taper.  I have been eating less but I have been working out less too.  I hope it's not muscle as I can't afford to lose any of that.  I'm almost down to my old running race weight which I haven't seen since 2001.  I'm worried how this is going to affect my cycling power.  I'll see how the legs feel today on my 60 minute ride.  I also decided to eat a decent sized breakfast after my swim.

I can't believe the race is only 9 days away.  It's mind boggling to think about it.  Everything for the last year has been focused on what's going to happen 9 days from now.  This is pretty wild.  I mean I've built on training for 2 successive marathons which was 15 months of training.  Of course, this totally burnt me out on running and sent me screaming like a little girl to cycling.  This started me down the road to being able to do at least two disciplines and now I've added swimming and I'm almost there.  If I finish the Ironman, there is only one other childhood athletic event that I've always wanted to do.  It's probably because it just happened to go through my hometown each summer, (dun-dun-duuun!!) STP. The one day 200 mile ride would be awesome although sitting in the saddle for over 10 hours would be brutal.

As well I'm only 10 days away from the release of the obese shut-in couch potato laying dormant inside of me.

Yep that will be me by December.  Instead of the typical "How to lose 10 lbs in 2 days" inspirational books, I'll be writing, "How to gain 10lbs in 2 days!".  I went from a size 30 waist to 70 in just 3 months eating nothing but Frito-lay products.  I'm sure you'll see a rise in the Frito-lay stock so don't sell it short right now, buy while it's still cheap.

There is a big thing that would kill all my eating dreams which I have just a "glint" of hope in doing is making it to the big dance in Hawaii. The Ironman World Championships in Kona!  You have to qualify.  Each age group gets a certain number of qualifiers but I'd have to do something special on the 24th to get close enough to the top of my age group for a shot.  It will come all down to the run.  If I will be able to go fast enough to pull back enough competitors in my age group who swim and bike faster than me but suffering the during the marathon.  We'll see...

9 days...