Executive Summary: Welcome to the suffer.
Pre Race
I was really excited to get back to Penticton this year. We carpooled up with Owen and Polita which not only saved a bunch of gas but made the trip a lot more fun. The weather was sketchy the first two days as some storms blew through, but got nicer as the weekend approached. My last few workouts were good and, just like last year, I was amazed at how great the swimming is in Lake Okanogan. The water is warm and very clear, and the way the beach is set up gives swimmers a protected 2/3 of a mile lane, about 100y offshore. You just can't beat it. The days leading up to the race were very relaxing and filled with lounging and spending time with friends. It was great to run into someone I knew, almost everywhere we went.
The Race
For breakfast I had a smoothie (2 bananas, 2 scoops carbo pro, 2 cups rice milk 2 tbsp honey, bit of peanut butter) and a half a bagel. Compared to prior IM breakfasts, this was great. Went down pretty easy and I never felt bloated or sick.
We got to transition a bit earlier than usual. The long lines for body marking last year taught us this lesson and it was nice to have lots of time to chat with friends and get things situated. We’ll make this extra time a habit from now on.
Headed out to the swim start, my stomach felt great so I took a gel and a little bit more water. The pre-start of an Ironman is a special thing that’s worth savoring a bit. Everything seems to move in slow motion but there is electricity in the air. It's hard to describe.
This race was especially fun with so many friends racing. Owen and Polita were doing their first Ironman, Mark and Ann were both ready for break through races. I said goodbye to Deb on the beach and went up front with Owen and Polita for the start.
For the swim, my plan was to swim comfortably from start to finish, skipping the stress and lactic acid surge at the beginning. I wanted to make this as much like my training swims as possible.
The cannon went off and the first few minutes were typically crowded and I worked my way to the inside of the buoy line - all the time focusing just on breathing and being relaxed until I got into open water. This worked just awesome as I was able to easily move from the draft into open water when I felt like it. My navigation was pretty good, I swam right at each buoy, actually going under several of them. That made the swim kind of a fun game. Really, the whole swim went by quickly and I felt solid the whole time. In the last 1000 yards or so, I spent more time drafting and just following feet as I started to tire a bit. But I never really had to push or struggle at all - after all of that, I ended up a full three minutes faster than last year, on much less effort. A great start to the day.
One thing that was cool was that I found Polita about ¼ of the way into the swim. See, for some reason they didn't hand out nice neoprene chip straps, like they have at the other three races I've done. They were trying to get you to buy them, which I thought was lame, given everyone has a drawer full of these at home but reasonably expected them to be provided. Anyway, Polita was using her Road ID as a chip strap. It was blue and I noticed it during the swim, looked up and saw that I recognized her wetsuit as well. I swam at her feet for a bit before losing track of her. Talking with her after the race, it turns out she'd spotted me as well! The swim is, for the most part, a mass of anonymous goggled competitors all wearing matching wetsuits so finding someone in the mix was cool.
I will note, though, was that I found people to be more violent than other races. During the swim, I thought maybe it was because I was up with faster and more aggressive swimmers, but I don’t know if that's the reason. For whatever reason, people were reacting very strongly to being touched or nudged in any way and I got pretty well beat up. In one case, early in the swim, someone from behind pushed my feet, sending me into another swimmer. His response was to give me a donkey-kick to the gut. Fortunately wetsuits are very slippery and cushioney so no real harm done.
Out on the bike, I gave myself 30 minutes easy to get warmed up. By the time we got to OK Falls, I was in my groove and moving along well at the high end of my wattage targets. I was moving through the group well and was focused on getting up and out of the traffic. Most of the first 40 miles was spent hop-scotching from group to another and going on up the road - I really don't like riding with that many people around me, it's just asking for trouble.
Near Osoyoos, I came past Owen, asked him how his swim was and gave him a grin. My legs were feeling great and my stomach felt good but before long, I was already starting to reject my calories. I pushed them in as best as could, and it was clear that sitting up helped my digestion so I took it a bit easy on the climbs. Overall the rest of the bike was solid as I continued to move up through the group. At the out-and-back, I was pleased to see that I was only 6 or so minutes down on guys like Chris Whyte and Bryan Urakawa, given they were probably out of the water about 5 minutes ahead of me. On the approach to Yellow Lake (about mile 80), I started to fade a bit, but I still felt pretty good. The IMC bike is basically done at mile 95, with the rest being downhill into town.
But two things were concerning me a bit. First was that I was getting some twinges of cramping in my quads and calves, and that my heart rate was running pretty high while my watts were falling. I tried to increase my fluid and salt intake. Since I felt far better than any of my other IM bike rides at this point, I didn’t worry about it too much. It’s supposed to hurt, right? I thought I had a shot at a sub-5:20 bike and felt great about my effort on the day, and started to think about the run.
I came into town well and I got into T2 at 5:21 and felt good. At this point, really thought I was on my way to a home-run of a day. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.
Out on the run, I saw my family and gave a high-five and turned out onto Lakeshore. The first thing I noticed was how hot it was in the sun. The second thing I noticed was my climbing heart rate.
I ran the first mile in about 8:07, which is about right for me. Sometimes things get better after you run a bit, so I stayed positive hoping I’d settle in like last year. But my heart rate was steadily climbing (that’s bad) and I could feel cramping coming on in my calves (also bad). The slight uphill out of town was brutal and when I got the aid station at mile 2, I stopped to walk and get some fluids in, hoping that would get my HR under control and I could find a rhythm.
The mile into the mile 4 aid station is downhill, and by then I had switched to full-on damage control. I stopped to go to the bathroom (first time since before the swim) at Mile 4 and tried to get myself together. I decided that I was just going to do everything I could to avoid a major meltdown. I felt at that point like I did at mile 22 or so in Coeur d’Alene – another 22.2 miles of this was a crushing thought. So it meant walking the aid stations and steep hills, getting as many calories in as I could at each aid station, and just running it as close to the edge as I could muster.
At mile 6, the flats along the lake, there was a brutal, steady ~20mph wind headed right at us. This really hurt me.
At mile 9 my cramping was getting worse and I stopped to stretch. At this point I had no idea how I was going to make it. I didn’t want to DNF but didn’t want to be out there for 6 hours. I remember thinking that each mile felt like an Ironman by itself. I was trying like hell to stick to a "no walking outside the aid stations" plan.
I made it through the hills and back out of the turn around to mile 14. Here I saw Owen and Polita and was pleased with where they were as it seemed they were having a good day. Running wasn't getting any easier, and I was getting more and more light-headed as well. So passing out was one more thing to worry about. I really did think that I'd eventually collapse or seize up with cramps and that would be that. There's only one way to find out, right?
At mile 16 I had my lowest point and started to mentally fold a bit. After muscling through 2 and a half hours of this, another 10 miles seemed impossible. I walked and chatted for a few minutes with another guy along the lake. He was in worse shape for me and that helped me get running again. About here Mark went by me looking just awesome – was very happy to see him killing it out there.
Not long after, I saw Deb coming the other way. I went over to her to say hi – it gave me an excuse to walk – and told her I wasn’t enjoying myself very much. At least she was running well!
At mile 18, Shaun Callaghan came by on a bike and gave me some motivational words that helped a ton. From here on out, I actually started to pull it together a bit, get refocused, and I ran pretty steady when I realized I was still shooting at sub-10:50 on the day.
The next 8 miles, it was just more of the same aid-station-to-aid-station battle. I kept saying "okay, 7 more aid stations...just 7 more", and I was pleased to still be under 10 minute miles for the most part. Given I’d done 20 miles I wasn’t as worried about my cramping getting any worse since the Gatorade and chicken broth seemed to be helping. There is a long, shallow grade back into town on which I saw Bethany and Stephen which helped keep me motivated at one of the toughest points on the course. Perfect timing.
Finally, I got to mile 24, I could see the hotel at the end of Main, and got the downhill through town and turned onto Lakeshore into the din of the crowds and the finishing area. This was a boost and helped me relax and just run as well as I could. I didn’t care how fast I was running, but I wanted to run "pretty" all the way in.
Ironically, this was my best Ironman finish. Because I didn’t care about my exact time and because I’d overcome 4 hours in hell, I really relaxed and enjoyed the last ¼ mile of the run. I’ve always been so focused on finishing in prior races, it’s gone by in a blur. This time, I looked around, high-fived some friends and soaked it in a bit. I even considered walking the final few yards to make the most of it, but didn’t.
I was shocked to have still managed to put together a 4:16 marathon after all of that. It's 30 minutes slower than I ran at CdA but much faster than what I was imagining when I was out on the course...even now it seems impossible that things didn't turn out worse. And overall I ended up with a 10:52 - two minutes faster than last year. Crazy.
Every Ironman finish is a good Ironman finish, and I was proud to smile and raise my arms across the line, even if I didn’t finish as well as I started.
The Obsessing
Immediately following the race, I just assumed that I'd ridden too hard. I'm a firm believer in "there is no such thing as a good bike followed by a poor run" and by that bar, I figured that was that. But after looking at the data - and knowing that was the best I've felt for an IM bike - it's not obvious that's the main issue.
From the data, I rode quite a bit stronger than I had at any of my prior Ironman's. But the fade in our 4-5 was fairly significant. After talking with some people, it looks like I might have gone out a touch hard in the first 2 hours, and that coupled with some hydration issues and (again) not getting enough calories in on the bike finally caught up with me. I think that the difference is that this time I finally rode hard enough to expose that clearly on the run. One of these days I'll get it all right on the same day.
My body wasn't very happy with me either. Post-race, I felt far worse than I have after any of my other races. The night's sleep after an IM is usually pretty bad, but this was terrible. I had chills and sweats all night long. Fortunately, most of this started to lift by the next day.
Net-net, I feel very good about finishing with a solid time with some adversity. It could have been worse, a lot worse, and there’s some good things to learn. A friend (thanks Rhae) pointed out that having things go wrong and still coming in well (I was, after all, 2 minutes faster than last year), is something to notice. Even if you don’t nail your fast time in the end, it still shows how far you’ve come. It’s a good point. It’s easy to get caught up in what ‘could’ have been. In the grand scheme, it doesn’t matter that much.
Now it’s time to take a little bit of down time and focus on some things in my life that need a little more attention right now.
All things considered, I had a great day out there and was so pleased to see great races by so many of my dear friends. Owen and Polita had GREAT first Ironmans, Deb cut an HOUR off her race from last year, I’m proud of Ann her race, and Mark qualified for Kona, which was freaking cool. I got to see my family and have a nice relaxing week in Penticton.
I love me some Ironman. Can’t wait for next year.