Ironman Canada 2013 Race Report
Smooth Swimming, a Zero MPH Crash, the Port-a-Pottie Parade, the Kona Question and Doubling Down in 2014.
It’s Go Time! It
really does take a week to do an Ironman. After a late night trip to Whistler we
fell into bed at about 2 AM Thursday.
The next few days were spent checking in, doing tune up workouts, successfully
launching the boat and enjoying the village.
Yep, race day came quickly! For
the first time (ever, I think) Mark was out the door before me at 4:00 AM. He rode his bike in the dark (in the thick of
bear country!!!) to rendezvous with the CBC camera crew he would be
piloting at the swim start. Heidi and I
took the shuttle to the start, wished each other well with biiiiigggg hugs and
got down to it!
*** Mark at the raw launch in his underwear. Why not?
***
Swim
The
layout of the swim start was pretty unique with the start line perpendicular to
the shore followed by two loops in the small shallow lake. That meant that the
front of pack swimmers would venture out to start in deep water, but many folks
remained on the shore creating kind of a triangle of starters. I couldn’t bring myself to wait on the shore
and seeded myself up front as usual. My
plan was to swim conservatively for the entire outbound leg of the first loop
to hopefully avoid another SIPE incident.
It would be challenging with this arrangement!
*** Swim Start – Most of the swimmers lined up within the yellow circle. ***
And booooom!!!!! The race was on! It was tight quarters for sure but I didn’t
get hit in the head and occasionally even found a tiny bit of the lake for
myself. There was no panic or drama and
honestly holding back was harder than pushing hard. By the first turn buoy I knew my lungs were
fine and resumed my usual pace. Two
short laps later I was exiting the water in 1:07:xx. Sure it was well off my 1:04:xx PR but I was
pleased to have had no drama, was around the top 10% of the field and excited
to get onto the bike!
*** In this video you
can see the swim start and Mark piloting our boat in the background. ***
Bike
My
bike was almost over before it started.
I crossed the mount line and got clipped in. As I pushed off (straight!), a gal to my
right was also pushing off. She started
to teter (left!) towards me as I shouted increasingly louder “on your left, on
your LEFT, ON YOUR LEFT!!!!” to no avail. She did a 90-degree turn smack dab into
me and took me out. The crowd went from
a roar of cheering and clanging cowbells
(and you know I LOVE cowbells) to so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I get it, stuff happens, but then she just
pushed off without so much as an apology or checking to see if I was okay. Now that was just plain RUDE! My retribution would come much, much later….
I pulled myself together and assessed the damage. My bike was fine but my knee was scraped and
bleeding. I washed it off, gave myself a
slap in the butt, garnered all available moxie and pushed off for the second
time. The crowd redoubled it’s efforts - cheering and clanging their cowbells like I was Rudy or something. Well that was an exciting start to say the
least!
Once on the road I felt great and was looking forward to capitalizing
on my strength. Within the first few
miles I hit a hard bump and lost my nutrition. This would prove to be a pivotal
moment, as from thereon out I relied on nutrition available at aid
stations. I pushed along at the
prescribed watts, but didn't do math well on how many calories I should be
taking in and got behind.
*** Zoom, zoom zoom… ***
The course lived up to its tough reputation summed up nicely
by pro Matt Russel: “I think this was the
toughest bike course I've ever ridden. Trevor Wurtele thought the same. I think
Trevor had a little over 6000 ft of climbing. I rode the fastest time which was
4:42. If I was at Kona I felt like my effort would have been a 4:32 as I have
ridden mid 4:40's at Kona both years.”
Up and down, up and down, up and
down I went on the hilly course enjoying the views and pushing merrily along
save for being stung in the chest by one very tenacious bee.
My only frustration with the race itself was on
the very flat 30 miles of the course there were long tightly grouped pacelines that
went unregulated by the referees. I’d pass these groups of 5 – 15 men only for them to get
their knickers in a twist and pass me back. I knew I was riding steady watts,
so that jockeying was ALL ON THEM. This
led to me having an unnecessarily unsteady effort in that segment because to stick
to my plan so I’d have to pass them back as they invariably slowed few minutes later.
My only consolation was Heidi had
convinced me to buy a #YOUGOTCHICKED t-shirt at the expo and I figured at least
I had legitimately earned the right to wear it.
**** Yep. Get over it! ***
By the end of the bike I should have taken in about 1,800
calories and I estimate I took in only 700.
That I'm not sure is a clear indicator I don’t do math well
within a race. I should be able to say
precisely what I took in. This is arguably
the most critical point of executing an Ironman and a total rookie mistake on
my part. D’oh, d’oh, d’oh! In any
event, I finished the bike in 5:51:xx which was also near the top 10% of the
field. I didn't realize I was behind on
my nutrition at that point and hopped off ready to RUN!
Run
I hit the run ready to execute a 10:00 pace. The first mile
clicked off at 9:40. Good, I told myself… now slow down. The second was 10:03
and then I suddenly found myself struggling through a 10:30 and distinctly hit
the wall like never before. My legs felt
like concrete and my head spiraled as I tried to figure out what was
happening. I began thinking through the
bike leg, began realizing how behind I was and started trying to mindfully recoup
the caloric deficit. The girl who took me out at the mount line on
the bike passed me. I felt horrible for not being able to execute for Mark who
had escorted me on so many successful long runs. By mile five my pace was holding steady at
about 10:30 which I considered a minor victory at the moment but then the
port-a-pottie parade began. At first I
was in and out in a minute or two, but the stops became increasingly
unpredictable and, um, lengthy. Sigh.
*** Plod, plod, plod… ***
Without the lure of a PR or even what I would consider a
successful run, I did some serious mental gymnastics to keep plugging along. Everything hurt. My knee hurt.
My head hurt. The list of excuses
and pseudo-injuries that plague any Ironman athlete could go on and on. I’d knew I’d be seriously tempted to DNF at
the half-way point as the course conveniently takes you on two loops though the
village. Why not just call it a day at
13.1 and live to fight another day? Time to HTFU, I told myself.
Why finish? Pride?
Yes. A years’ worth of training to earn at least afinish? Absolutely. A trip to the finisher’s merchandise tent to see
if I could melt the mag strip on my credit card in the morning? YES! Mark’s hug at the finish line. Unequivocally.
Mark was waiting in the village at that tempting half-way
point. We had a quick conversation while
he ran alongside me for a few minutes. I
had a mini pity-party, let him know that my goals had been significantly
revised and tried to find some humor in the moment so he wouldn't worry. At that point, goal #1 (to survive) was
probably still on the table. Goal #2 (to
have fun) was a bit difficult at times but I promised to do my best. My new goal #3 was a stretch goal and that
was to keep running - no walking it in! Things were looking up. I felt better and better as the run
progressed and I re-passed the girl who took me out at the mount line of the bike. Sweet
(mini) victory.
*** Have I mentioned the scenery?!? ***
Finisher!
At mile 20 I had my most lengthy port-a-pottie stop on the
day. I actually started to feel woozy in
there had visions of passing out and not being found until the morning. That certainly wasn't the way I wanted to end
my race, so I peeked out and I asked a (saintly) volunteer to check on me in a
few minutes if I hadn't emerged. She stood duty like a Canadian Mountie and met me with
a bit of chicken broth to kick off that last 10K. Thank you AGAIN volunteers!
I was able to plod along steadily enough to the beautiful
Whistler finish. I missed the bear sighting and was in before dark though perhaps
that would have prompted a faster run?!?
Coming into the village the crowds lined the course and Mark popped up
at all the right moments. I crossed the
finish line for my fourth Ironman in 12:26, well off my 11:35 PR. Regardless, I can honestly say this was my proudest
finish because of the mental fortitude it took to just.keep.going.
“I'd rather attempt to do something great and
fail than to attempt to do nothing and succeed.” Robert H. Schuller
Thanks to Nicole for the image!
Hindsight is 20-20
Two weeks of reflection has brought me to some key points to implement
next year. Between now and then I will:
- Revisit my nutrition plan and be able to do math on the
fly if I need to move to plan B. Or C or
D…
- In addition to the
nutrition SNAFU on the bike, the variability of my ride was my worst to date. This
had been a strength of mine and I was surprised at my result. It means I wasn't as steady as I could have
been and wasted effort. Moving forward I
will analyze my bike file after race rehearsals break the bike into logical
segments. I’ll be able to identify where opportunities to smooth my effort lie
and further refine the details of my race plan.
- Figure out how to NOT poo up and down the course.
*** Would be glad to never see another port-a-pottie! ***
The Kona Question Yes, of course someday I’d like to race in
Kona. Fortunately, there are now three
ways to get there: talent, stubbornness and luck.
Talent will get
you to Kona if you place within the top few in your age group. At most races that means I’d need to be in
the top two or three of 100 – 150 finishers.
They offered double the usual slots at IMC 2013 as a carrot to encourage
people to come to the new venue. A
member of our Endurance Nation team summed up the result pretty succinctly: “Just
general observations, but now that all the results are in, it was extremely
competitive out there in the KQ hunt. It seems like the promise of double slots
drew a significant number of would-be potential qualifiers from other races.
Kind of ironic that looking at the times and how tight the groupings were,
looks like you'd have had a better chance to KQ at some of the less popular
50-slot races like IMLOU this year than you did at Whistler.” Truthfully
I’d have done IMC anyway. I like being
able to drive and that Mark can participate on the swim course. I suppose I'll continue to attempt to “outwork your talent”
as they say.
If you add up my typical 1:05 swim, and 5:45 bike to my *** yet unproven** 4:20 run, plus transitions, my overall “perfect day” race would be 11:15. Historically at IMC this would place me somewhere around 10th – 20th while at Ironman Couer d’Alene this would place me 4th or 5th. Add a little roll-down luck to my “perfect day” and yes, anything is possible.
Stubbornness will
now get you to Kona under the new “Legacy” program. This allows a person with
twelve Ironman finishes to race Kona. I
have four to date – just eight to go!
Luck can get you
to Kona as well! The race has a lottery where ANYONE can win one of 100 spots
to race. They simply have to validate their spot by completing one finish that
year.
I’m moving forward on all three fronts: trying to outwork my
talent, continuing to be stubborn by working towards those twelve finishes and
playing the lottery for a little luck.
I’ve asked myself and Mark the ultimate litmus test for our adventures: “If Kona sank into the ocean tomorrow (or the Legacy program was discontinued or I was unable to race for some reason), would we be glad to have put so much into the process?” The answer for both of us is an unequivocal YES! We love the sport, the people and to train. It really is about the journey, not the destination.
I’ve asked myself and Mark the ultimate litmus test for our adventures: “If Kona sank into the ocean tomorrow (or the Legacy program was discontinued or I was unable to race for some reason), would we be glad to have put so much into the process?” The answer for both of us is an unequivocal YES! We love the sport, the people and to train. It really is about the journey, not the destination.
*** Talent, Stubbornness or Luck!
***
Doubling Down
In 2014 we will be doubling down and I’ll be racing both
Ironman Couer d’Alene and Ironman Canada.
This will give me an opportunity to earn two finishes towards the twelve
for the Legacy program and also to race at a different venue which may play
more to my strengths – who knows!?! One
thing is for sure - the races are four weeks apart and managing them both will
be a new adventure!
*** Looks downright tame compared to the 6K + of IMC! ***
Diana Nyad’s quote rings particularly true this year. “I have
three messages. One is we should never, ever give up. Two is you never are too old
to chase your dreams. Three, it looks like a solitary sport, but it takes a
team.”. A sincere to everyone who
has been a part of the continued journey. The training partners, understanding and
interested friends and family, the bevvy of doctors and specialists and of course
Mark for making sure it’s always FUN!
*** A boat in T2 – Always a fun adventure with Mark ! ***
