So there I was (somewhere in the photo on the left), standing in a wetsuit in the water of Okanagan Lake with 2800 of my competitors, waiting for the starting gun.
Note: Click on any image thumbnail to obtain a larger version.
Another note: There's a long, rambling description of pre-race activities, followed by the race report. Click on race report to go immediately to that.
A third note: Ellyn, my wife, added some of her thoughts at the wife's perspective, below.
But doing those races, of course I met up with some really nice folks, and I decided that the following year, I'd do a half ironman. (A full ironman is 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of cycling, followed by a full 26.2 mile marathon. A half ironman is a race with all of those distances cut exactly in half.) But even before the new year started, my friend Alan talked me into signing up for the full thing: Ironman Canada on August 30, 2009.
So there I was (somewhere in the photo on the left), standing in a wetsuit in the water of Okanagan Lake with 2800 of my competitors, waiting for the starting gun.
I started training for the race in about December of the year before, with a very gradual ramping up which peaked about three or four weeks before the event, at which point I started to taper down so that all my muscles and other little aches and pains would be healed for the event. I used a coach (Lisa) and followed her advice fairly closely at the beginning and then more and more fanatically as the race got closer. There are lots of training plans to get you ready for an ironman, but the advantage of a human coach is that if something goes wrong (an injury or sickness or something) then the plan can be easily modified to account for it. I only had one major problem: I did "something funny" to my knee on an easy run and I basically skipped two months of running training while I let it get better. Of course we added more swimming and cycling to fill the gaps, and then started the running almost from scratch: the first test runs were only a mile or two, and I gradually increased them again. When I got hurt I had been running a 12-mile loop fairly solidly on a regular basis so that knee injury was quite a setback.
In addition to swimming, cycling and running, I worked on my core strength and balance (although I seem to be hopelessly handicapped in the balance department) via a Pilates class twice a week with Amy and a "Hard Core Training" class weekly during the winter (off season) with coach Lisa.
In total, I did about 500 hours of workouts from January 1 to race day, which comes out to about 15 hours per week, on average. So if you're thinking about doing an ironman, that's the commitment it took from me.
As my training peaked about a month before the event, I was doing over 20 hours of pretty hard exercise per week, and I sure wasn't having any troubles sleeping at night, either.
"Ironman is 90% mental and 10% mental" -- Jane
Since so much of a race like this is mental rather than physical, Lisa and I worked on some race mantras and mental strategies to help me get through the hard parts. I was most worried about cramping on the run, since I've had terrible problems with that before in marathons. My plan to avoid them was to concentrate on proper hydration and electrolytes on the bike, and for that reason, the main mantra I wound up using on the bike was, "I finish the bike fully fueled and ready for the run." and, secondarily, "I pay attention to my body's needs." Since I was also worried about going way too hard on the bicycle and "leaving the race behind on the bike course", the third most used and useful one was, "I apply my fitness evenly over the entire course of the race."
In past races I've had trouble with holding way too much tension in my body, so a number of the mantras were aimed at those, but for some reason, perhaps because the race was so long, I hardly ever felt tense. I was especially relaxed on the bike, and I sure would love to see that situation continue into future races.
Ironman Canada takes place in a little town called Penticton in British Columbia, just a bit north of the US border and about a four-hour drive from Vancouver. You've got to get a lot of stuff up there to race, since you need to have your complete setup for swimming, cycling and running. Since the race is relatively "local", the logistics weren't bad: there's a company that, for a very reasonable price, will truck your bike to the start from a nearby bike shop and deliver it back to the shop after the race. By "local" above, I mean close enough that there are sufficient athletes going from your area to that particular race. For some reason, this race is incredibly popular with my triathlon club and I and 18 others (and maybe even a couple of folks I don't know about) were going to do that race.
Here's a sculpture made completely of old bike parts in front of a store in downtown Penticton. On the left is the whole sculpture; on the right is a close-up of the head.
I've traveled with bicycles on airplanes and it is a hassle. Even the smallest bike boxes are large and unwieldy and you have to partially dismantle the bike to put it into the box. Then, of course, you're worried at the other end that you didn't get everything put together exactly right, and there's not a lot of time for test rides: you're trying to do almost minimal exercise to be really ready for the race, so you're not tempted to really hammer up steep hills on the bike to make absolutely certain that everything works.
It was great to have so many folks from the club going to the race. On any weekend, it was usually easy to find a group of people on the club ride who were training for it, and consequently, who wanted to ride about as long and hard as you did. Similarly for running, and as a result, I only did one really long ride and one long run alone. The lone run was due to my own scheduling conflict, and the ride was when I took off with the usual SVTC gang, but hit a bump so hard early in the ride that I flatted both tires at once and there was no hope of catching the group after that.
Each of us provided our predictions of best-possible times for each split, a description of what we'd be wearing on race day, a list of any super powers we had, and so on. Using all that data, he produced a list of times that we might arrive at various points on the course; not only at the obvious transition areas, but at the tops of Richter Pass and Yellow Lake, which are very popular spots for spectators. The guide also included all the important maps and profiles of each of the athletes and SVTC volunteers and spectators at the event, plus cell phone numbers so we could contact each other.
My super power was "Can blow a swim lead, no matter how large", and I certainly made use of that in the race.
That part of BC is a beautiful area: lots of wineries and fruit orchards. At least the people I know did put off the wine tasting until after the race, though. On the right is a photo of me and Alan in front of a nice public flower garden.
"You can never do too little." -- Norm
Starting at least two, and maybe as much as three weeks before an ironman, it's pointless to do any hard training, as the die is cast, and there's nothing you can do to improve your fitness on race day, but there's plenty you can do to hurt it. So for three weeks, you "taper", gaining a little weight, and repairing all those little injuries that you incurred during the heaviest training days. (For me, the heaviest days included a full 112 mile bike ride on the Vineman ironman course with some friends who were getting ready for that, plus a couple of 80 milers on more hilly routes. My longest run was 22 miles on a local course similar to what I'd run at IM Canada.)
By the time we arrived in Pentiction, the taper was near the point, so we were doing almost nothing and thoroughly enjoying it. I loved a comment made by Norm, a fellow SVTCer: "[Near the end of an ironman taper] you can never do too little!"
I followed Norm's advice, but it was amazing to see what some people (and not just a couple of them) were doing. On Friday before the race my wife Ellyn and I were driving the bike route and there were some idiots on fully-decked-out tri-bikes (so they were obviously there for the race) hammering their brains out 50 miles away from Penticton, so they were probably doing at least 100 miles. I took one 25-mile easy ride with Alan so I got a feel for the roads, and he arranged a loop route that took us on part of the bike course and we returned on the run course. The run is an out-and-back, so I saw the whole thing, but on a bike.
I was pretty worried about the weather. I'm "allergic" to heat, and the predictions weren't good: perhaps more than 90 degrees F. In the past, running marathons, I've almost always had a lot of cramping problems in the heat, and almost every marathon I've run has started pretty early in the day, and not after a 2.4 mile swim and 112 mile bike ride as a "warmup".
"Compared to how it looked last December, this ironman is starting to look a lot less theoretical." -- Me, two days before the race
Nobody knows exactly what causes cramping, and it certainly varies from individual to individual, but I suspect that my troubles come from hydration or electrolyte problems or a combination. For that reason, I was determined to try to stay ahead on both during the bicycle ride. A company called "SaltStick" sells a device that's sort of like a Pez dispenser that delivers one capsule of electrolytes at a time and holds six of them. I mounted two dispensers on my handlebars and loaded them both for a total of 12. Each capsule contains about 240 milligrams of sodium, and I set an alarm on my bike computer to buzz me every ten minutes. When the buzzer went off, I'd be sure to eat and/or drink something, and if the time was a multiple of 30 minutes, I'd also take an electrolyte capsule.
I'm not impressed with the SaltStick devices: one of mine works ok, but the other always jams when you try to reload it after it's empty. Alan uses them, too, and had one fail to work on his ride. They're not cheap, either, but at least they were able to deliver my 12 capsules during the race. A lot of people carry their electrolytes in a plastic baggie, but as Alan says, "The advantage of the SaltStick is that it only allows you to drop one at a time." I did see more than a few baggies full of capsules on the ground on the bike course.
On Wednesday when we arrived we didn't do much: checked into the hotel, and had dinner with the SVTC folks who were on the flights from San Jose with us: Alan, Alan's dad, JF, Norm, Tana and Dale.
On Thursday, three days before the race, I went for a 7:00 am swim to check out the lake. Just before we started swimming, a guy with a fancy-ass video camera told us he was filming for the event and wondered if we'd do some posed shots for him. Being glory hounds, of course we said yes, and we tried to look serious as we put on our goggles over and over, splashed ourselves with water, and finally, swam off into the sunrise. I was sure I'd wind up on the cutting room floor, but they showed the final video at the awards banquet at the end, and sure enough, I'm in there for a few seconds near the very beginning.
The water temperature was great! I don't care for cold water, and the water there was warm enough that I could have done it without a wetsuit if I'd had to. Of course you wear the suit for the added buoyancy (and consequently speed) if you're allowed to during a race. The water was brilliantly clear, too, so I wasn't too worried about coming down with Giardia or some other horrible affliction if I accidently swallowed any during the race. (That's certainly not the case at some local races where the water's so green you're a little nervous about even putting your foot in it.)
After the swim, we had breakfast and headed to the race headquarters to register and spend a fortune on random race-related crap. I got in the registration line first and it was a little bizarre. As we approached the line, a volunteer would say stuff like, "I'm taking 10 people with numbers between 1000 and 1250." It was like I imagine the bouncers in trendy clubs who want to admit the beautiful people and keep out riff-raff like me. Anyway, when I was finally admitted, it wasn't bad: we had to sign various waivers, get weighed (so that if you got into trouble on the course they could check your weight to see how much you'd lost, and presumably use that information to see just how dehydrated you were), collect race numbers, chips, random schwag, et cetera.
I decided to purchase a Canada Ironman "kit" (bike shorts and jersey) and a backpack built specially for triathlon. I waited in a long line, and when I finally got to the front, was told that they couldn't take Mastercard since their computer connection wasn't working. I was pretty pissed that they hadn't bothered to announce it to the line before spending 20 minutes waiting. But one thing that's good about this ironman at least: you get a lot of practice waiting in lines.
One other thing that ticked me off was that they gave us a bare racing chip with no way to attach it to your ankle. Then they said there was a free strap made of plastic with sharp edges that would undoubtedly cut into your legs after 140.6 miles of swimming, cycling and running, OR, for a "mere" five dollars, you could get a reasonable padded velcro strap that's standard issue at every other event I've raced. Bastards!
There was other nickel-and-dimeing going on as well: At least the racers got free admission to the two dinners (one for pre-race discussion and the other the awards banquet), but even the volunteers had to pay to get in. The dinners were very inexpensive to prepare: basically pasta and salad for the first, and that plus a little piece of chicken for the second. The cost of tickets were $25 and $30, respectively.
The bikes which were transported by truck from Cupertino arrived on Thursday afternoon after checking in. It's been years since I went cycling without cycling shorts and pedals with cleats, so I had a bit of trouble getting the bike back to the hotel dressed in slacks and street shoes. The "trouble" involved getting my pants against the greasy chain for a nice black imprint of the big chain ring on the khaki pants. (If you get that imprint on your bare leg, it's sometimes called a "cat 5 tattoo", since category 5 racers are the total beginners and it means that they're such bad riders that they slapped their leg against the ring.) At least my pants were hanging about two or three inches closer to the chain ring than my ankle was. But it did remind me of the "old days" when I always used rubber bands around my pant leg to keep it clean.
At about 3:00 in the afternoon on Thursday Alan and I went for the 25 mile ride described earlier to check out the bikes themselves and to get a look at the run course. The run is pretty flat with just a couple of minor hills. Who knew, of course, how "minor" they'd look when I'd face them after eight or nine hours of continuous racing? Alan and I appear in the image on the left, just as we're starting out.
On Friday Ellyn and I decided that we'd do a little bird watching, so got up at the crack of dawn and headed south to a spot Ellyn had discovered on the internet on Lake Vaseux, perhaps 40 km south of Penticton. It's right on the bike course, so we drove there, looked for birds for an hour or so, then continued on the bike course to take a look at the whole thing (or at least most of it) from the car.
We saw a fair number of birds, but nothing we didn't recognize. The only surprise was an unusual gray bird with a dark cap which I said looked a heck of a lot like the Gray Catbird we'd seen only in Florida. Well, sure enough, it was a Gray Catbird, which winters in the south-eastern US and summers in BC (and other places). We saw lots and lots of mallards and coots and got a look an Osprey. (I thought at the time it might have been a Peregrine Falcon, but after seeing more Ospreys later in the trip, I'm now convinced that's what it was. The falcon could be there, but given the time of year, it would have been pretty unlikely.) There was another hawk we saw, but only for a few seconds and we didn't get a good enough look for a positive identification. We got one life bird (a bird we'd never seen before) however, and that was great! It was a Bohemian Waxwing.
The bike course is pretty flat, with only two major climbs (Richter Pass at about 40 miles, and Yellow Lake, about 15 miles from the end.) After Richter, there are about 7 rollers and a great final descent after Yellow Lake to T2, the second transition from bike to run. There's something very misleading about the Yellow Lake climb: a lot of it looks flat, both from the car and from the bike, but Alan (and others) warned me about it. They said that I'd be riding "on the level" and suddenly I'd find myself pushing hard on the pedals but instead of going 20 mph, I'd be going 10 and have no idea why.
On Friday I took the day off and didn't get a lick of exercise, except that I probably walked six or seven miles on various errands, including returning to the race expo to purchase the bike kit and backpack, since they finally did get the Mastercard computer line working. I was supposed to do a 20-20-20 (20 minutes each of swimming, cycling and running, all at a pretty easy pace), but I did nothing (and after all, according to Norm, you can never do too little!)
On Friday night I attended the pre-race dinner and meeting. I didn't learn too much there, but it didn't seem like a waste of time, either, so I wasn't unhappy to have attended. I was glad I didn't pay the $25 for Ellyn to attend, though: if you weren't racing, I imagine it would have been terribly boring. I did eat dinner with a bunch of nice Canadians whom I met in the line going in.
Saturday (the day before race day) I was supposed to take off, but I did a "0-10-10" instead, sticking with Norm's advice. I'm a good swimmer, but basically dislike doing it, but I liked working the legs a little on the very short bike and run.
I decided to cut the caffeine "cold turkey" rather than tapering off. I figured if I got a headache, I'd have a little and taper rapidly. As it happened, there was no headache at all and I figured there'd be no effect, period. But the next morning, after doing my usual early-morning ride with friends, I found that by 9:00 am I needed a little nap. I woke up at noon, so it's pretty obvious that the caffeine was doing something for me. By race day I was back to what seemed like normal, so I hoped the caffeine might be able to give me a little push later in the race.
"If you're feeling really good 80 miles into the bike leg, you're probably going too fast."
You hear various things, like "the real race begins 80 miles into the cycling stage," or, "the real race begins at mile 13 of the marathon." I decided that the second was most likely to be true for me, so I decided not to ingest any caffeine until the midpoint of the marathon, and then I'd have a couple of blockbuster doses. Clif makes gels with 100 milligrams of caffeine each which I put in my running "special-needs" bag (more on that later).
That was my caffeine strategy. Some fellow racers also had an alcohol strategy and I did too, but mine was different from theirs: I continued having a couple of glasses of wine (or beer) right up until the night before the race. After all, "they" say that you should never do anything on race day that you don't normally do, so if you've done every workout with a roaring hangover, it would be nuts to race without one. I did not do all my workouts with a roaring hangover, so I figured I could go either way on race day. And I decided not to go the hangover route.
For hydration and electrolytes (my biggest worry) I decided to take lots of salt capsules (that include sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium and vitamin D) during the race. I figured 12 capsules on the bike and 10 on the run would do the job. In addition, I ate gels with extra electrolytes during the run, and at all the aid stations salty pretzels and warm chicken broth were available, and I planned to eat those and drink the broth as well. I also "salt loaded" for a couple of days before the race, eating some pretzels and salting my dinners a bit more than usual.
For fluids, my plan was to take on only water at the bike aid stations and to try to drink two bottles between each pair of stations. There were 11 aid stations on the bike, so if I stuck to my plan that would be 24 bottles of water, including the two full bottles I had on-board at the beginning of the bike leg.
Rather than taking on Gatorade at the stations, I carried one other bottle of Perpetuem by Hammer Nutrition which I mixed at about 4 times the normal concentration. I'd take a sip of that and wash it down with a lot of water. I planned to go with two bottles like that on race day: one at the start, and one at "special needs". That worked out really well during the race.
Other than that, I just ate and drank what I felt like on the days before the race, which was pretty much the same sorts of things I'd been consuming at home for the past few months.
I decided that I didn't want to mess with pumping up my tires on race morning, so I inflated them the evening before to 120 pounds, figuring that they'd be down to about 110 on race day, which is what I wanted. In fact they were at 105, but I rode them that way, not wanting to take a chance of breaking off a valve stem on race morning.
On the left is an image of the bags on our hotel bed as I was trying to organize everything the day before they were to be checked in.
Two of the bags were for the swim-to-bike and for the bike-to-run transitions. They're labeled with your race number and placed in numeric order in lines on the ground. On race day there are volunteers to make sure you can find yours in a hurry, no matter how fogged your brain is. Putting the stuff in bags like this makes you think very carefully about exactly what you may want in transition, and allows you to put in extra stuff that you can decide on at the last moment. For example, I had two hats in the bike-to-run bag, one with "Lawrence of Arabia" flaps on it in case it was really hot. I also added some compression bands for my calves that I might decide to use if cramping seemed imminent at the time. I also put a couple of energy gels in each, not knowing how hungry I'd be when I arrived in the respective transitions.
Since most of the guys (and almost all the gals) had their legs shaved for the race, I decided to do mine, too. I think that shaving (for guys) is mostly to make it easier for the doctors to treat road-rash after a bicycle crash, since it's certainly not going to help with swimming speed with your legs in a wetsuit. But since everybody was doing it, so did I. There I am on the right. If you look at the enlarged image, you can see a purple strap on my right wrist. Those straps were worn for the entire week by all the athletes, and it allowed us to get into all the athlete-only areas. Another nice thing that was arranged is that every one of us got a parking pass for the week to park in any legal spot, but without feeding the meters. That sure made life easier!
On the right is a group of us at our final supper before race day. From left to right we have Ellyn, Alan's father John, Tana, Dale, JF, Erica, Alan, and yours truly.
At about the 80-mile mark on the bike course and halfway through the marathon we could optionally leave special-needs bags which we could pick up at that point. We knew exactly what would be available at the aid stations, so if there was something else we wanted, we could get it in those bags. For my run bag all I had were a couple of high-caffeine Clif gels, but for the bike I allowed myself some more options. My friend Chris who had done IM Canada a few years previously told me she'd included a can of Pringles, giving her the option of a huge salt load which she used. I had previously done an aqua-bike race and at about the 80-mile mark they'd had peanut-butter sandwiches which really hit the spot for me. So I had both Pringles and a sandwich in the bag. I also knew I'd need more of the Perpetuem so I had another ultra-concentrated bottle of that which I froze solid on Saturday night, hoping it would still be cool when I finally got to it on Sunday (and it was). The special-needs bags were delivered on Sunday morning, so it was likely to work.
Although we had to turn in the two transition bags the day before, I knew I'd have access to them on race morning (and to the bike itself), for any final adjustments. That was lucky, since after turning everything in, I thought of about 8 things to change on race morning.
Everything was well-organized inside: we immediately turned in the special-needs bags. Next in line was "body marking", where your race number is written on your arms and legs and your age is written on the back of your calf. On the right is a photo (from left to right) of me, Alan and JF, just before body marking, taken by Suzi.
I think body marking has become an anachronistic tradition: in the early days of triathlon, it was your unique identifier, but in IM Canada, for example, you were already required to have your number on your swim cap and since everybody that I saw wore a wetsuit for the swim, all their body marking was hidden until the bike leg. But on the bike leg we were required to have a number on the front of the helmet, on the frame or seat post of the bike, and on our backs, either pinned to the jersey or on a race belt. On the run, the race number was required to be visible on the front of the jersey, or on a race belt. Also, many people wear compression socks to help with circulation, and that covers the leg and calf numbers, perhaps for the entire race. Finally, everyone was wearing a timing chip so the fact that we'd passed various checkpoints was recorded by computer as the race went on.
On the other hand, the marking is traditional, and it's fun to show off your numbers to your friends for the next few days until they finally fade away. I've heard that some folks "touch them up" with black markers so they'll last a few days longer. But whatever, we all got body-marked.
On the right is the official photo of me two seconds after my brilliant, smiling, hands in victory mode finish.
This is a well-known phenomenon, of course, and again, it's the wonderful volunteers to the rescue. One of the last jobs is the "catchers": the folks who catch the athletes at the end of the race. I'm sorry that I was so out of it that I don't even remember the names of mine, but they were wonderful. I put my arms over their shoulders and they slowly walked me to get my finisher's medal and bag, to get my timing chip removed, and then whatever else I wanted. I thought at first that a massage might be nice, so they walked me to the massage tent and helped me sit down in line, where there was about a 10-minute wait.
I think because of all the electrolytes and water I took in (19 capsules, lots of pretzels, electrolyte-enhanced gels and chicken broth) I did not have any serious cramps during the run, but as I sat there waiting for my massage, the muscles started to warn me that they were about to cramp. I was also really tired and wanted to close my eyes, and a nurse asked me if I thought the medical tent might be better. I decided it was, since I was really worried about getting massive cramps on the massage table, and those, for me, can be completely debilitating.
I got walked to the medical tent and sat down where a doc did a quick exam. The results surprised me a little. He said my eyes were dilated, but that might simply have been since I'd just removed the dark glasses, and night had already fallen outside. My blood pressure was something like 90 over 60, which is pretty good, considering what I'd just done, but the surprising thing was my pulse: 57. When I do hard exercise, I may get my heart rate up to 160 or so, and the minute I stop, it rapidly drops to about 90 or 100, but then it very slowly, over a period of an hour or two, gets down to normal, which for me is about 55. This was way too soon for a normal heart rate for me.
Anyway, since I seemed just to be tired (and on the verge of cramping) I just sat in the medical tent for 20 minutes or so, gently massaging my legs and keeping plenty warm with one of those mylar reflecting blankets. I got to see some stuff, however, that made me pretty thankful to see how little trouble I was in, relatively. One volunteer went out and collected my transition bags plus the dry-clothes bag and brought them to me so I wouldn't have to risk cramps trying to bend over and pick them up. Then, when I felt ok, a volunteer helped me up and walked out with me to make sure everything was ok.
I had no idea where to find Ellyn, since the plan had been that she'd keep an eye on me inside the finish area and meet me where I came out, but once I went into the tents, she lost me. There's a meeting booth where you can try to hook up with your friends, but as we were heading there I saw Alan and his father John, and they knew exactly where Ellyn was.
Alan volunteered to get my bike from the rack, and take it back to the bike transport area so I never had to deal with it again. While he was doing that, Ellyn and I started the very slow shuffle back to our hotel, which was near the far end of the final out and back. I took a hot bath (which has been very helpful in the past at combatting cramps) and after that I felt, relatively, pretty good. Alan wanted to go back to the finish and cheer in the final athletes, but since it was on TV, Ellyn and I just watched a bit of it on the tube.
There's a 79-year-old nun, Sister Madonna Buder, who has raced Ironman Canada for years, and holds lots of course records for her age group. Last year she failed to make the midnight cutoff, so everyone was hoping she'd come in on time this year. This year she finished in 16:54:30, with five and a half minutes to spare, and the crowd went wild. She's now got the record for the oldest woman ever to finish any ironman.
On the left is a photo of Alan (on the left), then me, then John (Alan's father) after the race. Alan and I are wearing the finisher's T-shirts. On the right is a photo of a bunch of us at the awards banquet. From left to right, we have: Erica, JF, Alan, Tom, Norm (in front) and Craig.
This turned out to be a major event for both of us, and I am very happy to say that the event was successful. Here are some random thoughts from me:
The decision to do the Canada Ironman was a wise one for many reasons. First, there were many wonderful people from the Silicon Valley Triathlon Club who were able to help us, advise us, support us, and without them, I think the event would have been way less fun, and possibly not as successful. Second, the location is absolutely beautiful. Lake Okanagan is fantastic- thanks to Alan, we had a motel room right on the lake, which also happened to be at the turn-around on the running course. The lake is crystal clear and by my estimate, was relatively warm, in the low 70s. It was shallow for a long way out, and made for a good swimming opportunity for family members. During the 6 days we were there, I swam four days- two with my wetsuit for practice, and two in just a bathing suit. I am fairly cold-averse, and it was wonderfully comfortable. Once you were about 25 yards out, there was some plant life and some large fish to see under water. The lake was surrounded by the Canadian Rockies- wonderful scenery.
It was also a great place for a first Ironman. For the spectator, there were plenty of chances to see the racers. Fortunately, I accompanied Alan's 81-year-old father, John, throughout most of the day. This was his third Ironman Canada watching Alan, so he knew all the right places to stand at various times of day to get the best views and pictures of the participants. That helped to make the actual race fun for me.
With our motel right on the race course, I could go back to our room while Tom was out for 6+ hours on the bike course, etc. The local TV channel had complete coverage of the race including all the finishers, and while I was there, I saw the leaders all finish, as well as several of the hot SVTCers who finished early on.
The location of the event (Penticton, British Columbia) couldn't have been better. Nice to have a race in the same time zone (Tom doesn't do well with time changes), and it was a prominent fruit-growing area, with peaches and cherries in season. On Saturday, the day before race day, there was a Farmer's Market in town, and there was a wonderful selection of produce and crafts for sale. I sent Tom back to the motel to rest, and continued to comb the streets until noon myself.
The restaurants and bars were all very friendly and well-stocked, and clearly enjoyed all the business at the end of the tourist season. It was unusual for us to go into a restaurant and ask for separate checks for eight people, and have the server not bat an eye. One evening, I was not charged for the wine I had ordered, and the waitress explained that she had inadvertently brought me the wrong one, so she didn't charge me. All the race participants got special notes from the mayor to place on the car dashboard to indicate they were not to get parking tickets during the week. I can't imagine a US city being so accommodating!
The race itself was incredibly well organized, except for a few minor details. At the end of the race/run, they monitored the participants closely for worrisome signs, made sure they were hydrated and fed and thinking clearly, able to walk, etc. Then they were sent out to pick up their bicycles and race bags. Unfortunately, there was one small gate through which they were to enter the bike area as well as leave, and there were race officials checking the IDs of the entrants and those exiting with bags and bikes.
I decided to stand there to wait for Tom. At one point, one of the participants passed out at the gate. Calls rang out for "Medic!", etc. and fortunately the guy came to very quickly. He was clearly dehydrated and exhausted, but they eventually loaded him into a wheelchair and carted him off. Of course, this halted all ingress and egress traffic from the area, but most were understanding. I had to decide whether I would respond to the call, but when I saw him coming around quickly, I decided to watch and wait.
Tom and I had not set up an official meeting place at the end of the race. Alan and his dad had. John (Alan's dad) and I were aware that both Alan and Tom had finished, but we couldn't find either of them at the end. We waited and waited and waited amongst the crowds, and John finally went to the massage tent and ultimately the medical tent, and was able to receive no information about who was in there and if his son was there.
Finally, Alan emerged and was fine, and we had word that Tom was in the massage tent and OK.
When Tom came out, it was quite awhile after he had finished. He was trembling and felt as if he was about to cramp, but fortunately he didn't. I was a bit nervous about how we were going to walk the half mile back to our motel. Alan kindly dealt with Tom's bike, and we managed to walk back slowly, having to announce to him each curb where he would have to step up or down, and have him find a pole or something to hang on to. Tom had no idea which direction to go, though seemed otherwise cognitively relatively intact. When we got back to the motel, he plopped into a chair, and we were joined by JF, Alan, his dad, Erica (who had done an incredible job as a volunteer helping SVTC folks, racking bikes and nursing a fellow racer injured in a bike crash), and I sat outside noshing until midnight, when we watched Sister Madonna cross the finish line on TV.
I would like to understand more what is going on physiologically with these athletes at various points in the race. There is a general consensus that people need to hydrate and eat salt tablets throughout the race to replace losses. Clearly, with hydration, you can tell if you've had enough or too much by the need to pee. However, the salt issue is a little trickier to judge. We've assumed that low sodium was the reason for some of the serious cramping late in the race or after the race which Tom has experienced in the past. It would be very interesting to do some actual measurements sometime rather than all this guess work. The companies which made these electrolyte supplements are making a fortune.
Along those lines, the gear people had and investment in equipment is enormous. The people who are into this tend to be gear-heads anyway, so part of the sport is clearly the techno-aspect. Nearly everybody had a tri-bike, and there is equipment required for each of the three sports, all with the latest bells, whistles and technology. Not only is this a sport which requires a huge time investment, but a cash outlay (from fancy bikes, outfits, wetsuits, trainers, GPS/timing watches/heart-rate monitors, coaches, practice events, salt dispensers, special running packs, etc. etc. etc.)
However, a positive aspect was that the athletes I met at this event seemed much less "puffed up" about themselves. At other events where I've accompanied Tom, we have met people who can only talk about other events they've done and how wonderful they are, and are not at all helpful to newcomers, and only want to show that theirs is bigger than yours. This was certainly not the case at Ironman Canada with our experience. Perhaps the level of athlete required to get there is so much higher, that finally nobody cares about such things. It was a joy to be around such positive people. Very inspiring.
(well, to a limit- I haven't signed up for a triathlon yet...)
At the awards ceremony, at least all the amateur winners got up on stage for a quick handshake and photo, but the pros got the red-carpet treatment. I guess this time Sister Madonna did pretty well in the adulation department, and I was really happy to see that.
Heck, they don't even start with the rest of us: no chaotic swim for them, and no crowding on the bike.
I've seen questionnaires wondering how important it is to me when I choose a race to know that there will be high-powered pros in it, and my response is "not at all".
I did not like the system provided for signing up for Ironman Canada 2010. In the past you could sign up, but then you'd have a couple of weeks to make up your mind and commit with an actual check for the entry fee. This year, you had to commit to doing it the following year before even doing the race. For someone like me, who had never raced an ironman before and had no idea how really unpleasant it might be, there was no way I'd commit the $550 at that point.
Most important is Alan, who talked me into doing the race in the first place, but also provided all sorts of advice, secured the motel rooms, was a great training partner both on the bike and on the road, and who was a great buddy in Penticton, before, during, and after the race.
The person who put up with the most, my wife Ellyn, was willing to come to the race and help scrape up the pieces at the end of it. She also put up with hundreds and hundreds of hours of training, and with a partner who sometimes couldn't stay awake past 8:00 o'clock.
My coach Lisa got me ready for it (training schedules, phone conversations, mental preparation, race mantras and hard-core training), and thanks to her, I never had any real question about whether I'd finish.
It was great not only to have Erica at the race as a volunteer, but to hang out with the gang before and after. I also did a fair amount of riding with her, but not much running, since I can't keep up.
My main running partner, Kristen, did almost all the long runs with me, both in Ranch San Antonio, and around the reservoir in Los Gatos.
I did a heck of a lot of my shorter training rides with our early-morning group which we call "Safety Third": Debra, Chris, Connie, Tammy, Denise, Laura, Rob, and sometimes David and Siamak. We also did a fair number of long rides together on weekends. In addition, Connie was the gal who got me started on triathlon, and Chris had tons of ironman advice, and did a lot of long runs with me, too.
Thanks to Amy, my Pilates teacher, and to the SVTC swimming and track coaches: Laura and Sherry, respectively.
Thanks to Katherine, with whom I did a number of long, hilly rides.
It was great to spend so much time with all the SVTC folks in Penticton. Other than those mentioned above, I include JF, Craig, Norm, Dale, Tana, Tammy, Suzi, and Debbie. There were other SVTC folks with whom I trained a lot but who weren't in Penticton, since they had done other ironmans already. The main ones are Warren, George and Bob.
I also need to thank Jane, a gal I met on an internet social site in a triathlon discussion group who talked me into doing the long-course aqua-bike last year that made it clear that I might be able to handle the real thing. I actually met her at the aqua-bike race, although at that point she was completing her first full ironman, so didn't get to stop when I did.
Thanks to Derek for producing the race guide.
Finally, thanks to Randy, Eric and Nick: three ironmen with whom I spent a wonderful weekend up near Healdsburg helping them to preview their Vineman long-course triathlon. They've told me there's a secret Ironman handshake and password, so they'd better show them to me now.
Hi Lisa,
I hope you are having/had a great time at Burning Man. It's now Saturday afternoon, and I'm sorry that I won't be there for the burn tonight. I imagine that you're starting to get revved up for it as I type this.
Earlier, I sent you (and lots of others) a web pointer to my complete race report which is pretty long but just the thing for friends who have not done an ironman.
I finished (and actually there was no point during the race where I wasn't convinced that I would) but I sure fell apart in the run. I was hoping for about a 4:45, but I walked a lot of it and managed a dyslexic 5:44 :^)
Everything else went almost exactly according to plan:
First out of the water, at 1:03 (my target was 1:00).
Good first transition: about 5 minutes.
I held back for the whole bike course, never pushed hard, ate like a glutton, drank like a fish, and loaded myself with salt tablets up until about mile 90. I was aiming for 6:15 and got a 6:18. I was sure I was keeping up on water since I had to pee on the ride, and again in T2.
With the pee, putting on compression socks and carefully greasing my feet, T2 took about 8 minutes.
I did the "run between aid stations, walk the stations" strategy for 10 miles and was on-track for a 4:45 or maybe 4:50, but then the wheels fell off, and I felt I had to walk the big hill at about mile 10. I found it harder and harder to get running after walking the aid stations from then on up to my low point at about mile 18, where I think I walked from 18 to 19. At that point I perked up a little, and did more and more running until the end, where I ran the entire final mile.
I starting taking on caffeine at mile 13, according to plan, and it didn't seem to help, but didn't seem to hurt, either.
The good news is that there was no cramping and it was pretty hot, so maybe electrolytes and fluids are the answer. I had a HUGE salt load: salted HB eggs plus a salt capsule for breakfast, 21 capsules of 240 mg Na during the bike and run, a half-can of Pringles at special needs on the bike, lots and lots of pretzels, and perhaps 6 cups of chicken broth on the run. We had dinner with an ER doc last night and it blew her mind to hear how much salt I took on during the day. I didn't ever feel like I was overdoing it, and I'll bet I sweated out most of it, since there was no edema in my feet the next day and friends who loaded on a lot of salt like I did couldn't even see the blood vessels in their feet the next day.
On the bike I drank about 20 24-ounce bottles of water, and of course had water at every run aid station, so there was plenty of water to wash out all that salt. At the Vineman aqua-bike last year I "only" had 13 bottles of liquid, and was clearly dehydrated and cramping at the end, with similar race temperatures, but a higher speed (about 6:04 instead of 6:18).
I'm not sure I could have done better on the run: although when I walked past the ends of the aid stations and finally talked myself into starting to run, I could always do it, and I always could start the instant I finally decided to. On the other hand, when I did finish the race, within seconds my legs were starting to get those pre-massive-cramp feelings, and in fact they started in the medical tent at the end. If I'd gotten the massive cramps at, say, mile 20 my total time would have been far worse. I did run the whole last mile, and that could easily have been the thing that pushed my legs to the verge of cramping.
My final time was 13:20, and I was aiming for 13, so it's not a catastrophe, and even with the missed time, I was sure happy and pleased with myself to finish!
About the only thing I thought about on the bike was the mantras about "finishing the bike fully fueled and ready for the run", and "applying my fitness evenly over the entire course of the race". I sort of invented another mantra on the bike as people passed me, and I absolutely wanted to ride at my own pace: "Keep a lid on it!"
Some really good news: almost never during the race did I feel tense. The only times I noticed tension was during some of the high-speed bike descents, and I didn't need a mantra; I just said, "Relax!" and that worked fine. I never felt tense during the run; just completely exhausted. I tried a couple of the mantras during the run, like, "I draw strength from the energy around me," but it was like I didn't really believe it, so it didn't seem to help. Maybe, in spite of the disbelief, I should have tried tapping it in, hoping to fool myself into believing it?
I felt like total crap all evening after the race, but couldn't go to sleep until after midnight. The next morning, however, all systems seemed to be "go" and we ate like pigs and went wine-tasting during the day to get ready for the awards banquet in the evening. When I hit the finish line, I told myself, "Never again!", but by the flight home Tuesday, I was already telling myself "That wasn't so bad!"
There is no way I could stay off the bike for the whole week as you prescribed. (I have, however, had NO problems staying out of the pool, away from Pilates and away from any running :^) I rode the loop slowly on Thursday and enjoyed the ride a lot. Today I rode the loop and a little more with two other IM Canada guys and felt pretty good after 40 flat miles that were not fast, but certainly not slow, either (i.e. nobody passed us).
I haven't signed up for anything (other than the Santa Cruz triathlon in a couple of weeks), and I certainly do want to try out a bit of running before I do it, but psychologically, I'm already up enough that the CIM marathon in December sounds good. Maybe the post-IM depression will set in soon, but now I feel fine.
I'm also seriously thinking about signing up for IM-Regensburg (Germany) next year. It's a new event for that venue, but it looks good. It's on August 1, so I wouldn't miss Burning Man, it's got a hilly bike ride and a dead-flat run. Also, I think I can talk at least one other SVTCer into doing it.
Let me know when you get back; I'd love to talk to you!
-- Tom
