Warning: The following post will tell you absolutely everything you could
ever want to know about J's race day...for better or for worse. :) I, myself, found it to be a rather interesting read- as I learned a lot about the little details of his 16 hours out on the course. With that being said, it's kinda long...like
really long, but I encourage you to read it anyway! You'll learn something, and I bet it will answer any question you might have had for J! :)
From the Ironman himself:
Pre-Race Routine
Sorry in advance for this being SOOOOO long….
There are three purposes to this race report. First, and most importantly to me (and one of
the reasons for the extreme length), I want to have as accurate as possible
recant of my day/weekend out there while it's still fresh in my mind since this
is my first (and possibly only) Ironman attempt. Second, I want others in the BT community to
hopefully benefit from my experience or minimally get some slight entertainment
from it (I know I have enjoyed reading all the other race reports from the last
couple of years in preparation for this race!)
Admittedly, from the benefit standpoint, I probably don't have any
groundbreaking revelations to provide that will allow you to have a successful
race whereas if you had not read this, you wouldn't have had a successful race,
but hopefully there's at least one helpful thing in here. And lastly, I wanted to have something that I
could provide all of my friends and family who supported me over the last 10
months either in person or from afar. So
keep in mind that this is written with these three purposes in mind….and, one
more time, sorry for the length!
I had the alarm set for 4am so that I could get up and eat
breakfast the requisite 3 hours before the swim start. I woke up feeling pretty good despite the
early start. Time to start packing on
the calories... This included my normal
pre-race breakfast of a honey whole wheat bagel with peanut butter,
clementines, and a few handfuls of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (I stumbled on this at
the beginning of training for this as something that tastes really good early
in the morning and settles in my stomach really well...I usually have a little before
morning workouts just to get something in my stomach). I also drank a bottle of water and a bottle
of Perform throughout the morning (trying to stay ahead of my hydration for the
day). All in all, it was about 1000
calorie breakfast and 40 oz of fluids.
Warm up
We left the hotel at 5:30 and headed off to the transition
area to check out my bike, inflate my tires, drop of my nutrition for the bike
portion, turn on my athletetracker GPS, and check out both of my gear bags to
remind myself where they were located as well as to make sure nothing crazy had
happened overnight with my stuff in the bags.
All was good. The previous day, I’d
luckily overheard the suggestion to let out a decent amount of air from your
tires to prevent them from expanding during the heat of the day and eventually
popping! That would have sure been a
bummer to come out to in the morning and I’m sure that this happened to more
than one person due to how hot it was out there on Friday.
L, who has been an excellent race sherpa for my half IM and
now the full IM, carried almost all of my gear that was needing to be dropped
off as well as my bike pump. TIP – While
I recognize not everyone is lucky enough to have someone who can carry stuff
for them, having my bike pump turned out to be really helpful. When I got to transition to check out my bike
gear, there was a LONG line waiting for the bike techs to get their tires
inflated. While I still would have had plenty of time, I’m sure, it was nice to
have one less stressor.
After the walk to transition from the hotel and then on to
the swim start (this was well over a mile...I think they need to call this one
a 141.6 distance!), I was as warm as necessary for the day ahead. L helped me put on sunscreen and I went and
dropped off my special needs bags for the bike and run. We'd been waiting for the rest of the support
crew (which, besides L, included my parents, my child, and brother- and
sister-in-law) to arrive at the swim start before I moved closer to the water
because I knew they were going to herd us in as early as possible and I knew
the closer I got, the more likely it was that I was going to feel obligated (as
the rule follower that I am) to get in the water and have to start treading
water. They arrived, including my
two-year old in the BOB (who probably wasn't terribly thrilled to be up and
about this early) and we were able to take some pictures before the day
began. I went and did a little light
stretching, dropped off my morning clothes bag and headed towards the water.
Swim
Background: I had had trouble with both shoulders leading up
to the race. The issue with my left
should was a couple months before with an overuse/bad technique issue and the right
shoulder was from an extremely minor bike accident that I happened to land entirely
on my shoulder three weeks before the race.
I solved the first issue with time, advil, and technique/swim form improvements
by having a swim lesson (best money I’ve ever spent in this sport). The right shoulder really didn’t seem to be
improving to the point where I was going to be able to swim even remotely well.
Fortunately, I have a friend who happens to be an orthopedic surgeon (shout out
– you know who you are!) and was willing to give me a cortisone shot which
ended up helping a lot even though I still didn’t have all of my strength back. The reason these things are important is that
I missed most of my longest swim workouts between these two issues and just
didn’t have the fitness for this event that I would have liked. Not that I was worried about finishing, but it
did present little bit of an unknown since I was not used to going that
distance only to then follow it with the rest of the race events.
As I approached the swim entrance, they announced the singer
of the National Anthem and she began.
What’s funny is that they said it was ok for athletes to keep entering
the water while this was going on, but very few moved despite their continued
prompting throughout the song. I normally
get very caught up in the National Anthem, but I think I was in a daze and the
nerves had kicked in and I can barely remember anything about it. All of the athletes knew that as soon as they
got in that they were going to have to tread water which of course no one was
excited about and so everyone was ignoring the announcements to keep moving
into the water. With about 5 minutes before
7am, I went ahead and got in. The water
felt good and I got myself into what I felt was a pretty good position mostly
in the back of the back and certainly not in the center. I found treading water to actually be relaxing,
but as more people entered the water, it became more crowded and treading water
was not as easy as before. I think without
realizing it at all, all of the people getting in after me were heading to the
spot I was occupying. I knew there were
more people around me, but I clearly, in hindsight, had no idea how many people
had gotten in near me and behind me in those last few minutes.
I will fully admit that I was excited about the mass swim
start. Maybe this makes me crazy (many
would argue that simply attempting the race itself is crazy), but I wanted the
FULL experience and this was definitely part of it even though no one relishes
the possibility of getting punched and kicked (all unintentionally) while
swimming. I could have worn a wetsuit which
would have required that I start in a wave 10 minutes later (and usually only 100-200
participants do that), and would have made for an easier and likely faster swim
and likely a more comfortable first-half of the swim (before I caught up to the
slower swimmers from the mass start), but the tradeoff would have been 1)
sweating more (which, as it would turn out, I really did not need) and 2) I
wouldn’t get the mass swim start experience that is so ubiquitous with Ironman. As Ironman seems to be moving towards
eliminating mass swim starts, this may have been my one shot at being a part of
this.
The cannon goes off. I
start my watch and began “swimming” …or maybe something more like treading
water with forward progress because no one can really get any space as we all
immediately are on top of each other. I
was a good 20 meters (if not further) behind the official start buoys and it
took probably a minute just to get to the start (as I write this, I’m starting
to understand how my swim was so slow compared to what I expected).
It was at least 500 meters before things settled down enough
for me to get into any kind of rhythm and I was able to find a little open
space. I gave up even attempting to draft
off of anyone because it kept causing me problems and significant amounts of
contact. Any calm I found didn’t last
terribly long either. None of the
contact hurt, but some was startling (like the time I got kicked right in the
eye and it caused my goggles to mash into my eye socket). I sighted well and felt like I was making
decent progress and found myself at the first turn it what didn’t seem like a
painfully long time. It was pretty open
again at the turn. The next turn 100
meters later to head back north towards the swim start was fine, too. However, things got congested again as we
swam back.
There was this poor girl starting at about the half-way
point who I think I ran into or hit with my arm a half dozen times. I don’t
know if it was her or me (or some combination of both) not being able to swim
in a straight line, but I would swim away from her every time this happened and
within a few minutes (or less) find myself making contact again. She probably wanted to kill me.
I still felt like I
was sighting well and felt that I was consistently the same distance to the
right of the buoys. What I didn’t
account for is the land coming out to meet me because all of a sudden I felt my
feet touch ground. This was somewhat
unsettling because I didn’t realize I was far enough over for that to
happen. I promptly swam back closer to
the buoyies and soon found myself entering the canal. It’s pretty wide at the beginning and there weren’t
so many people that it was overcrowded. When
it got narrow, though, I was swimming near the south side wall which I thought
was ok, but I ended being pushed by the current/waves (I assume created by
other participants?) into the wall repeatedly and we were beginning to get
pretty crowded again. At this point, you
could touch the ground and more than a few around me were either standing or
walking a few steps before beginning to swim again. My feet touched ground a number of times when
I was pushed into the wall and admittedly used it to create some momentum to
start back up.
Finally I could hear the end of the swim and could see the
final turn buoy that was just meters away from the exit. I got out of the water (apparently with my
name being announced by Mike Reilly, but I didn’t hear it) and headed for
T1. I looked down at my watch and was
pretty disappointed with my time. I knew
things were tough in the water, but felt like I was going at a decent pace for
long enough to get a good time for me (pre-injury, I was shooting for 1:15-1:20,
but would have been happy with something sub 1:30).
Transition 1
I was so thrilled to be done with the swim when I got into
the tent, but I already had a feeling I was in for a long day. I took my time in T1 and reapplied sunscreen
after drying off, changed clothes, loaded up my gear and headed off.
Bike
When I headed out on the bike, I was feeling pretty good after
collecting myself in T1. The road was
pretty congested and riders were pretty close together. I was in a bit of a predicament because I
wanted to go faster than those in front of me, but there were so many people, I
was going to have to exert more energy than I was comfortable with in order to
abide by the passing/no-drafting rules.
I wanted to take it easy for the first 30-40 miles and I think I did a
pretty good job of that looking back.
The road conditions were great and I was feeling pretty fast and, at
this point in the day, it was still pretty pleasant weather being about 9am. There was also a tail wind for most of the
first half of the ride. I immediately
started my nutrition plan which included 2 bottles an hour (1 Perform, 1 water…I
did a sweat test on myself last summer to discover that I needed about 40 oz an
hour to avoid losing water weight on hot bike rides), 1 salt stick cap an hour
(electrolyte salt tab), and then alternating bonk breakers (which I would get
from the course) and Honey Stinger Waffles (which I had on me) each hour. This
would make for about 350 calories an hour (2280 total) and just under 800mg of
sodium an hour (just under 5000 total).
This is what I did in training for all of my long rides and felt good
afterwards. However, I think that I
underestimated just how thirsty I would be after the swim because I almost
immediately drank my first bottle. This
should have been a clue that I was already behind on my fluid intake, but I
didn’t realize it since I felt I had my nutrition so dialed in from training
rides.
I don’t remember the exact location or mileage (around mile
20), but I made one horrible mistake on one of my turns. I took it too fast, hit the brakes, my back
wheel started slipping, so I straightened, let go of the brake and went
straight into a ditch on the side of the road.
Man, after going 3+ years of riding without an incident, I have two in
the span of a month? I was briefly
shaken up. A spectator ran over to see
if I was ok and checked out my bike and me to make sure I was ok. I knew I’d hit my head (and turned into a
pretty sweet burn/bruise that my family was very impressed with after the fact),
but it didn’t even really hurt to the touch other than the skin just stinging a
little bit. I was ridiculously fortunate
that this was not worse. The prayers for
safety definitely came into play on this one because God was watching out for
me. In fact, upon inspection after the
race, it turns out that my helmet was cracked which meant it did its job and
gets to go to bike helmet heaven now (just add one more cost to this race!).
All in all, this stopped me for two minutes.
Feeling quite fortunate that I could continue racing, I
eased back into things and from then on took every turn with a lot more
caution. Nutrition wise, I didn’t
realize until a little later that the top of my bottle of Perform had broken off
during the crash and I was losing calories and fluids as it sloshed out the top. For some reason, while I drank the rest of
the bottle quickly to not lose any more, it didn’t occur to me to get another
bottle sooner to try to replace what I’d lost, so now I was 100 calories and
10oz of fluid short from my plan (at the time, didn’t seem like a big deal). Also in the crash, my bike computer sensor got
slightly dislodged and was no longer giving me proper readings on my speed and
distance. While this was not a terribly
big deal because I was less concerned with speed and more concerned with how
much effort I was putting in since speed can be very deceiving, I made the
decision to not correct this and so from then on didn’t have much of an idea of
how far I’d gone or what speed I was going other than every 10 miles having a
mile marker. I’m still not sure if this
was smart by allowing me to not focus on what speed I was going (particularly
while in a headwind) or a big mistake.
Around mile 60 was the special needs bag. This was where I planned to reapply sunscreen
and I also had tortilla chips waiting for me.
I opened the bag only to find it full of ants (including inside the bag
of chips), so I got my sunscreen, applied it and went on my merry way.
Overall, the first half of the bike course was nice. Smooth, shade covered (for at least a decent
portion) roads, spectators at many of the turns and some on the side of the road
(even one group of guys in speedos with funny signs that showed up at least
three times on the course), and at least a slight tail wind. The second half, as everyone who has done
this course in training or in a race knows, is a challenge. It’s more exposed, in my opinion it was
hillier (not sure if that’s real or perceived…according to the elevation map,
we actually are losing elevation for the second half), a long stretch of
decently rough road, obviously much hotter between the hours of 12 and 3, and
of course the headwind for most of the ride back to The Woodlands. Now, I would have to say, the headwind wasn’t
AS bad as I had it in my mind it was going to be, but I know it took energy out
of me.
Around mile 70 (aid
station 7) is where I started noticing carnage on the race course. It was at this point that most riders were
stopping at the aid stations (rather than riding through them and grabbing what
they needed on the fly) and taking multiple bottles of water to pour on
themselves while others were stopping and getting off their bikes to sit down
in the shade. This made the aid stations
a little dicey from this point forward.
I don’t know if I was distracted by this or what, but somehow I didn’t
realize I needed to make a bottle switch with an empty I had on my down tube, and
it wasn’t time to remove the water bottle from between my aero bars. Maybe 10 minutes later, I finished my water
bottle and went to make the switch only to find that I had an empty bottle down
there. I was already thirsty…uh oh. I started getting nervous that I was going to
pay for this since the next aid station wouldn’t be for another 30 minutes at
least.
I made the decision that I was going to stop at the next aid
station and take a breather and drink a bottle to try to replace the deficiency
my mistake had created while getting some rest and cooling down. There were five or six other guys who looked
in way worse shape than I felt already there sitting or lying down. I stepped off my bike at Aid Station 8 and my
hamstring immediately cramped up, but it went away quickly and I kind of
laughed it off.
I have to give a special shoutout to Aid Station 8. They were awesome! Those kids (I don’t know how old, but they
looked like they were teenagers) were running around doing everything they
could for everybody they could all while being so encouraging. They embodied the spirit of this race and
they certainly made my day. All of the
volunteers deserve huge kudos, but this one stood out to me because of a need
they filled for me at that moment.
I got back on my bike and began praying thankful prayers for
what I’d already been through this day and how I still felt good and had the
mind to stop and take care of myself. Immediately
after this aid station was pretty significant downhill for what felt like at
least half a mile…it was a gift and I was even more thankful!
Nothing significant happened thereafter other than just
wanting badly to be off the bike and my legs began to incessantly cramp (in
weird muscles I’d never had cramp before).
As I stopped briefly at each aid station, I noticed that more and more
people were stopped and off their bikes taking in whatever shade there was
available. The course was getting more
thinned out – partly from being stopping and partly from time gaps being created
between participants. There was even a
mile or two where we were going through a neighborhood with a number of turns that,
if it weren’t for the few spectators and orange arrows guiding me, I would have
thought I’d gone off course because I saw no one in front of me…it was weird. I can’t say that I finished strong, but I
finished and didn’t feel terrible!
T2
I was so glad to be off the bike and get my bike shoes off
that I yanked them off as soon as I got on to the grass in the transition
area. A volunteer took my bike, which I
was so thankful for, and I walked through the transition area to pick up my
running bag to head into the changing tent.
There was just one small problem.
As I walked somewhat slowly (with my socks on, mind you) on the cement
and brick sidewalk to grab my bag, I noticed the bottoms of my feet were
unusually hot. I continued on into the
tent and realized that they were really hurting. I had literally burned my freaking feet on
the sidewalk through my socks! Needless
to say, this was not a good start to my marathon. The good news, I thought, was that I was
still sweating in the tent (and having a hard time drying off to put on
sunscreen) and therefore couldn’t be too dehydrated. I changed shorts and heading out on my run. This was a long transition, I know, but at
this point in time, my goals had changed simply to survive and finish, so I was
ok with simply taking my time and regaining my composure before starting on the
final leg of the journey.
Run
Starting on the run at about 4pm meant it was probably in
the low 90s and feeling like it was about 100, but this is what everyone
expected. Every step hurt because of the
burns, but not so much that I couldn’t run.
You immediately run on the canal portion for a little bit which was
everything that I expected. One of the
early groups you pass is under a bridge and guys and girls are on both sides,
all scantily clad, in a dance party with music blaring asking everyone that’s
passing to dance. Believe it or not, I
think I partook each time I passed. :)
After running a bit, I approached a little off-road section
with uneven ground. This turns into my
least favorite part even though it was probably all of one-eighth of a
mile. The ground was uneven and I couldn’t
predict where my foot would fall and this seemed to hurt even more. I decided it was time to walk. Maybe another quarter mile in, I realized
that I was just simply exhausted. This
surprised me because I had proven to myself in past races and in training that
I run pretty well (compared to how I normally run which isn’t super fast) off
the back. I quickly realized that
something was very wrong and I had to be careful. My body wouldn’t let me run when I was in
direct sun. I tried starting to eat at
the aid stations, drinking what I could (including beginning to drink de-fizzed
coke), taking a salt tab, and using cold sponges and pouring both in the front
and back down my shirt. I knew I was
still sweating, but some aspect was off.
I think it was a combo of light dehydration and salt loss and that
turned out to be more than my body could handle. I couldn’t cool down.
I thought at first I could fight through it, but realized I
was doing nothing more than risking finishing the race which was the most
important task. I started running for
whatever portions were shaded (which were minimal for the first lap and a half)
and walking portions in the sun. I also
started doing some math and began setting time goals for myself for each
mile. I realize the shade/sun run/walk
method I’d devised would allow me about a 15 minute mile which also happened to
be easy to keep track of on my watch and something that I could easily monitor
and something to work for. At this point
I approached the swim start area which had tons of porta-potties lined up on
the side of the course. Amazingly, I
felt like I had to pee for the first time all day, which, for someone who feels
like they’re dehydrated is actually a bit of a relief. That is, until I saw the color of said pee
(sorry to the friends and family reading this!) which clearly showed I was very
dehyrdrated...hmmmmm…
I was already a few
minutes ahead of the 15 minute schedule I’d set at about mile four which is
when I was approaching the aid station I’d volunteered at the year before. This
was important because I knew there was a medical tent there (side note: I think
there was a medical tent at all of the aid stations? But I swear I never saw a
single one of them). I decided that I would just sit down in the shade of their
tent for a couple minutes especially since no one else was in there. Personnel came up to me and made sure I was
ok (to which I told them “yes, but just needed to sit”) and asked if I wanted a
cold towel. I said “sure”, but what I
didn’t realize is that this was a full towel that they draped over my shoulders
and back. If felt AWESOME!
I managed to continue on basically covering a mile every 15
minutes to finish lap 1 while taking in fluids and food at every station. My stomach was handling everything to which I
was extremely grateful. Lap two began
including a new beverage – chicken broth!...an endurance race staple. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything so good
(and I had already been popping salt stick caps and eating everything salty I
could get my hands on). It wasn’t an
instant pick-me-up or anything, but I knew if anything could help, that would
probably be it. I began having that at
every aid station in addition to my water and perform.
Lap 2 was pretty uneventful…in a good way. I decided not to get my special needs bag at
that time because I wanted to leave my fresh shoes and socks to the last
lap. I stopped again at the same medical
tent as lap 1 and just hung out a little while.
This time on the back side of the canal trail L walked with me for an
eighth to a quarter mile checking my status and I filled her in on some of the
day so far (I did NOT include comments about my crash at that time) as well as
my strategy for completing the run so they could know what’s going on. By the end of lap two it was starting to get
dark.
Starting lap 3, they were handing out glow sticks and I
still had over 8 miles to go….not somewhat in the dark. However, I was starting to feel energized…partly
by it consistently being cooler outside (rather than just in the shade) and
also because I think I’d somewhat caught up on my nutrition. I got to the special needs bag and changed my
shoes and socks which was pretty difficult because any time I pulled my leg
closer to put on the shoe, my leg starting cramping, but I managed to get both
on and it was nice to have something fresh and dry on again. I had already begun to run consistently
longer than I had the first two laps and this made it even easier. It felt so good to be running at a pace I was
accustomed to for even a minute straight.
Don’t think that I was about to start busting out even any 10 minute
miles, but I was definitely going faster and it was a good morale booster…until
mile 22.
Remember those burns?
Turns out that I had a pretty sizeable, the size I found out about after
the fact, blister on one foot from said burns…and it popped. I actually FELT it pop when my foot landed
while I was running during this stretch and thought, “that couldn’t be good”. At first I thought that it didn’t hurt any more
than it had previously, but unfortunately, as I tried to run on it, it just
hurt too much. I succumbed the fact that
I would be walking the last 4 miles.
Given the fact that I was walking at about a 16-18/mile pace, that made
for a LONG last four miles. But I knew at least I had more than enough time to
finish.
It was a slog-fest and disappointing to have to walk those last
four miles, but at least there weren’t many people out on the course anymore….they’d
all moved on to the finish line or headed home because it was dark out.
Finally I approached the finish line and I knew that I had
to run at least the last portion. I
summoned the necessary energy and started running after getting into the narrow
chute area. I immediately wondered if I’d
be able to run the whole way not completely thinking about how far that was
from where I’d started. I got to the turn
around that led you to the finish line and fortunately felt energized enough
(and it was uphill which was better on my blister) to “strongly” finish while
giving people high-fives along the way.
I was so in the moment that I didn’t even remember Mike Reilly saying my
name (fortunately, I have video recording of this!). I can’t believe I’m an Ironman! (or how long
this race report is!)
Special Thanks
It was incredible all the support I got from friends,
family, friends of friends, co-workers, etc both before and after the race
through email, texts, and even L’s facebook.
I think there were some people even more excited about this than I was! My race ninjas (originally my parents and L,
but now includes K, B, and ninja-in-training P) were in full force and
surprising other racers with how often they were at different places on the course
with L’s funny/witty signs and their custom-made burnt orange shirts for Team E. They were such a pick-me-up each time I saw
them even if it didn’t seem like it when I was passing. It was so great to have these special people in
my life share this moment with me. And
one last shout-out to our family friend and baby-sitter who gave up her day and
night to be with my 2-year-old son that my family could properly enjoy the
marathon and all that included. Finally,
to all of my family and friends who helped me or my family out during my
training time either putting up with my while I was exhausted, helping out with
P while I go on a training ride/run, or for their understanding when I couldn’t
do something because of training….thank you!
And thanks for reading!
