the sum up (ironman canada)

At the end of No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain always does a sum up of the trip, the people, the food, the experience, providing the final thoughts of the episode. I wonder how I would sum up my Ironman Canada experience -- maybe in a similar way.

Check out the IMC athlete's video.  Yours truly is in it at about 25 seconds in.  You will need the flash player installed.



The Journey

For many (and me), the journey is about training to discover and understand, to have fun and relax, and to improve fitness and health. No doubt to train for an Ironman, you have to sacrifice—be careful about eating that 12th donut for breakfast, giving up going to your 4th cousin’s wedding (who you don’t know), sitting in a car daily for a commute, and absolutely no 4-plus hours a day of TV watching (like the average American family). Yes, true sacrifices. Of course, people with children and other life obligation may not find it as easy as I did, but I would trade a few hours of TV watching to experience the Ironman.

I never found myself connected to electrodes and face bounded by a mask running and biking so hard it would make you want to puke to measure VO2. I never tried active release or massage therapy. I never even got my bike fitted with a magical technique to improve my bike power. Heck I never even had a coach. There’s an argument that maybe I should have done some of these, but I went pretty much old school. Listen to your body, make adjustments, and put in the hours.

Do you have to put in a crazy number of hours training to do an ironman? Almost all my training is done during my commute time. My official ironman training was less than 10 weeks, where I started mixing in more running and swimming. For example before this, I barely did any swimming. It’s good to note I had a good base of endurance, mainly from biking. However, my average monthly training is 45 hours until July and August, where it went up to 70 hours. In the final months my training comprised of many 2-3 hour weekday brick workouts, 3 times a week of swimming, and long weekends of 8-10 hours with long bike and runs. I just adapt based on how I felt, any injuries, or work or personal obligations. The point was always to keep it fun and continue to make progress.

A friend posted on Facebook said to get fast your training has to hurt and I commented that would explain why I’m slow. Maybe next year, I’ll find out if I can improve by sprinkling in a little more hurt into my training.

The Big Day

It was going to be an early morning and I wanted to go to bed early. I was in bed by 8:30 pm, but then found myself up at 10:30. Oops. Fortunately, I was able to fall back to sleep and only woke once more before I decided to get up at 3:30 am. I made my yummy morning shake (blueberries, bananas, protein powder, orange juice, and honey). Isabella tells me it is around 800-1000 calories. More than I thought it would be. Oh yeah, she’s up too.

Somehow in the morning I felt a little like a lemming marching to the start (or my end).  I got my body marked, dropped off my special needs bags, stretched, then got my wetsuit on and headed to the swim start. I planned on launching my day from the far left and pretty much in the back of the swim. The hope was to avoid the scrum (the washing machine effect - see video). After seeing Isabella on Lakeshore Drive and giving her a big smile and wave, I was ready to start. I pretty much swam in clear open water as I swam probably further to the left than I should. It wasn’t until the first major turn around the first houseboat before I had to really deal with folks. On the way back, since I was now on the buoy line I also picked up the pace. I dropped those I was swimming with and caught almost everyone I could see. That felt good, but finishing over 20 minutes slower than the average time and being the last couple of hundred people out of the water of nearly three thousand -- it wasn’t fast.

The bike out to Osoyoos was fast and probably over 21 mph and indeed the first bike split time on the first Richter climb was near 21 mph average.  At Richter, the weather was not going to cooperate as the (head) wind started to pick up just as we enter the big climbs and fast descents (speeds upwards of 50+ mph).  I had to fight to keep my Zipp 808 tracking forward without being blown into traffic or competitors, but the rollers and the out and back were fast. At the base of the Yellow Lake climb the rain came with even more blustery winds, which made it challenging and slow. Once you crest Yellow Lake, it’s a pretty long fast descent back to Penticton. It’s an opportunity to get ready for the run, but making sure to maximize for as much speed as possible.

In T1, I was a little slow because the change tent was packed with no place to change. In T2, when I took off my biking shoes my left foot hurt. I couldn’t walk. I only had this once at the Wenatchee Omnium a couple of years ago, but that time I didn’t have to run a marathon and that time I also couldn’t walk on that foot for probably an hour. I quickly massage my foot and tried to walk. It hurt.  As I limped through transition, I can see people’s expression of concern. After crossing the timing mat I was going to see how painful it was going to be.

It hurt, but it slowly subsided. The first three miles was around 8:40, but I was feeling low on energy and needed to consume a lot of calories at the different aid stations, which meant I had to start walking parts of them. My biggest concern was my right knee. It wasn’t until mile 10 when I was climbing the first real hill that my knee started hurting. I plan to be conservative until I was confident the run was well in hand. Eventually, even the downhill running part started hurting so I ended up walking those as well. It’s a pretty slow hill section of between 6 to 7 miles. Back on the flat I ran more regularly to make sure I finish less than 5 hours for the marathon.

Surprising, I felt really good at the finish with a faster last couple of miles. Maybe I was too conservative, maybe it’s the optimal temperature (I can’t imagine a hot day), maybe I took on liquids and nutrition at the best rate I’ve ever done without issues, or maybe it was the great (commute) training, but in any case I finish strong and was happy.

The Sum Up

10 months of training for the (bike, run, and triathlon) racing season.

10 weeks of Ironman specific training.

10 to 18 hours a week of training, most around 11 hours and 5 weeks around 18 hours.

12:28:07 finishing time (S - 1:33:49, T1 - 6:04, B – 5:43:12, T2 – 8:03, R – 4:56:59)

Spending time with my Isabella throughout the season -- priceless.

contemplating (ironman-eve)

Fourth day here in Penticton and I’m finally taking a bit of a rest. Probably a mistake to do so much training while I was up here, but just sitting around relaxing made me anxious. Well tomorrow that will be remedied. Up by 4am, racing at 7am, and trying to finish the race before the various cut-offs throughout the day with the final one being at midnight in Penticton. Frankly, my goal tomorrow is to enjoy the race and finish. I’m pretty excited.

The atmosphere here is amazing. Just being around all these folks makes you believe that anything is possible (world peace, cure for cancer, my first ironman). What adds fuel to this fire is the amazing support from the town and community. It’s truly a four day festival of food, art, and competition. Be prepared if you ever show up to one of these events that you may have to do one the following year.

So as I was walking down Lake Shore Drive, I was contemplating what the circumstance might be like tomorrow. First the weather is predicted to be amazing, although being a day away I find it surprising that the crazy winds we have been having will go away by then. Assuming low-70s and a minimal wind day, what are my possibilities? Likely I will finish in something less than 14hr or not at all is my guess. My three biggest concerns are completing the swim, keeping up with nutrition, and knee pain during the run. After my last post I was able to complete two decent long runs, 17 and 21 miles, without much pain; although, I’ve never done a marathon after a long bike ride. So we will see. Here are my targets for sub-14hrs:

Swim – 1:45

Bike – 6:30
Run – 5:30

I wonder how it all will work out. I guess I will know tomorrow.

why (ironman training so far)

Why (are you doing an ironman)? With true interest or questioning my sanity, I always find myself a bit dumbfounded by the question. Images from my childhood rush through my mind, the many times that I stood in front of my parents after doing something (bad) posed with the same question -- why. Oh I just wanted to see how electricity works. It’s just a small fire. It’s so amazing that the radio can pull music from the air. Don’t you want to see what’s inside? With an ironman, isn’t it obvious? It’s for the sexy body of course. I don’t get why everyone wouldn’t do it.

Although with only three weeks left I question my own sanity trying to attempt it. If you've been following, I’ve crashed a couple of times right at the beginning of the year, which put my bike racing season in the rough (Senior Open was just here in Sahalee). I pushed through it and made my basic race goals. Though, it wasn’t a stellar year. With roughly 10 weeks after bike racing, I switched over to triathlon training. Well I felt like a fish out of water, a three legged cheetah, a featherless peacock -- you get the idea. I felt awkward ramping up in the run and especially the swim (where I wanted to be a fish in water). Then I got sick for a week and a half. I restarted again. Two and half weeks of solid training and threw down my best half-iron distance race at 5:09 and podium at the same time. It was a practice race so I can work out the kinks. Well I had a lot of kinks to work out. By the end of the race both of my feet were raw and bloody and severe chafing in other places. It took me at least a week to heal enough to train again in any of the events. That puts me at the here and now and why I still question my chances of finishing. I can’t run.

I’ve always had problems with my knees and any down time from running resets me to step one. I start off with three, then seven, then eleven miles (yes, I only run Fibonacci numbers), which takes a week or more to ramp up for each of these stages. Usually after a short hiatus from training I can still ramp-up quickly, but this time my knees are failing me. So with only two weeks of training and three before the race, I still am struggling with the run with a lot of knee pain. Can I get through this in the next couple of weeks? Sadly, beyond the risk of not being able to complete my first ironman, I know for a fact that a three-legged cheetah would still be faster than me.

So with only a few weeks left to go, I ask myself why? The answer is because I can (and I want a sexy body).