Ironman Louisville

October 11, 2015

The players; myself, David Norton, Brian Kiscoe, and the guy that convinced me Ironman racing was a good idea.  Location, Louisvile, KY...why?  Because, I spent a year in 1998-1999 living in the 'Ville and having a great time.  I don't think I actually ran more than 5 times and bought a Mt Bike towards the end of my time there.  To be honest, I worked a lot, ate a lot, and drank a lot more, it was a good year.  I've had my eye on this race since I started training but knew I'd never want to do it in August.  After doing it under ideal conditions (day started at 51 degrees and got up to 80 for a bit but very manageable), I felt justified in jumping on the chance to do it in October.  Lousiville did not disappoint, great people, tremendous hospitality, and a gorgeous venue.  Matt and I got in late Wednesday and started getting settled. We met up with David and crew on Thursday and got a preview ride of the course in on friday and drove the entire course.  We left the drive feeling very comfortable with the bike and later that day we got the final green light that the swim would, in fact, be on!  Toxic Green Algae had threatened to cancel the course but thanks to MotherNature, we were all clear and ready to rock!

Race Day

Wake up call at 4:30 to get up, take a shower, get some food and start the pre-race routine.  All good, no headaches, feeling great about the day so far.  No major anxiety or nerves other than the length of the day.  Was I really prepared to go 140.6?   We had planned to leave before 5:45 and be at the race start line at 6:30, a full hour before start time due to a "first come- first serve" line up policy to the race start. 

SWIM 

We were less than 800 racers from the back, we absolutely failed our first part of the race.  Race gun went off at 7:30 and our timer for getting in the water while walking nearly half a mile to the docks started.  We all jumped in together at 8:02.

Matt and I took the far dock, while Brian and Dave took the closer dock.   Within 200 yards I see Dave swimming and swam alongside, he's as blind as a bat and doesn't see me, so I took off and left him to find his own way. The channel was easy and fun to swim despite all of the people in my way.  I have only one complaint about this race and it's partially my fault for not getting in line earlier but a first come first serve queue-up is not the way to run the start of the race.  Sure my time didn't start until I crossed the timing mat, but several factors that favor stronger swimmers were taken away due to this type of start.  I had no feet to find and draft off of, I had hundreds of people to swim through, over, and very rarely around.   Sighting was easy as the channel kept us moving along and then once we turned at the buoy upriver and headed downstream, I used a trick anyone who has swam Alcatraz knows, Key on the roofline of a building you'd like to hit and head that way.  However, the straight line path was too far away from the buoys and I got sent back in by a kayaker, minor inconvenience.  My Roka Maverick Wetsuit made this swim so easy, smooth, and fun!  Halfway through the swim, I said to myself "I'm having a great swim and I feel great"  I didn't need to push any harder than I was and I knew I'd come out with a PB.  The year of training with Ritch, MBK, Erik, Ricardo, Sandrine, and Arianne had paid off!  Came out of the water and nearly forgot to use the wetsuit strippers to get me out of my suit, I was so excited and full of energy.  Checked my watch and saw 1:02 as I ran into the T1 tent, in my head, I had just gone sub hour as I was sure I'd been out of the water for a bit.  Regardless, best swim at this distance by over 5 minutes. T1, I just kept telling myself, ingest your fluids, get out quick!  8:34 in T1, not great, but not my worst and man did we have to run laps around the transition area on both ends to get anywhere.  I was 30th of 388 out of the water in my age group.  I'll take that all day, and the best part was, I still felt fantastic.

BIKE

I mounted the bike and took off on River Road with a Tailwind and only Matt Rodgers in front of me.  I spent the first 5 miles taking advantage of being amped up and full of energy but didn't push too hard.  My HR was at 153 max and I made sure I did not push above that but maintain my effort through the first 20 miles of the bike.  My goal was to see Matt on the Out and back and then know how much time I needed to gain on him through the rest of the day.  Rolling out through the first loop I felt great.  The course ended up being hillier than I thought but I still managed my effort well.  I was on my nutrition plan of 2 bottles of EFS-Pro per hour, then supplementing with Gatorade Endurance.  I also ate a PickyBar every 90 minutes for calories, BASE salt every hour and 2 Tums at the half way point and 2 more Tums at 90 miles.  Second loop around stopped at Special needs for 2 more of my pre-made bottles.  (Later found out, this is where Kiscoe overtook me!!!)  However, I had these bottles ready for me in my fight to keep the cramps at bay and I was stopping regardless.  On the Second lap, I found myself struggling to keep the same speed I had on the first but wasn't getting fatigued or tired, I had effectively managed my HR down to the high 130's and felt like I could ride like that all day long.  After we left LaGrange, I was struggling with power and started getting passed more than I was passing.  I pushed a little harder and caught back up with some of the packs I had been riding around all day and then started getting burning in my quads and hips.  I had been in Aero most of the day so at first I thought, it's just being in Aero for 3+ hours that's causing it, then my first twinge of cramping in my quads appeared and I started to go dark for a bit; replaying Cozumel all over again, I had overdone it...I was sure I may have ruined my race.  Then it went away.  For some reason around mile 85, I looked down at my seatpost and saw that the sticker I had positioned so well was completely crumpled up and my seat post had sunk over an inch into my seat tube stem.  Pictures below show that the seat sunk almost 3 inches into the stem.  I’m not sure when this happened and I have never had this issue before, but I had my normal pre-race tune up and had not touched the bike myself until our test ride of the out and back.   I had the bike shipped out to Louisville by TBT and   It’s another learning experience for me , check every nut. Bolt, connection, mechanical area of your bike before the race.

I’m extremely disappointed, probably more so now that I’ve had time to digest the day and wonder where my day went wrong.    However, as anyone who’s done long distance events knows, “Shit happens, deal with it” So, at mile 90, I pulled over at the top of one of the false rollers to see if I could fix it.  After a few attempts of trying to pull the seat up and out and banging it with my fist, I realized I needed my multi-tool, which was conveniently packed in my suitcase, back at the house.  I got back on the bike and hovered my way home against the wind.  Not more than 2 minutes down the road, the SAG scooter passes me.  Timing is everything, I didn’t flag them down and in hindsight, WHY DIDN’T I?!?  Anyway, back to the race and riding into the wind all the way home.  It seemed like every turn we made, turned us right into the wind!  Not an overly difficult wind to pedal against, more of a nuisance.  Half way through, I had really thought sub 5:30 was possible, and now I was doing my best to stay in the 5:30’s however, my compressed position on the bike cost me some time on the last 22 mile segment, my MPH avg was down to mid 18.5 as opposed to the 20mph avg I held for the first 90 miles.  Normally I would say it was fatigue and lack of fitness, but I had held managed my fluids and fuel very well all day and managed my Heart Rate down to a sub 140 without the usual spikes to over 150 and in some cases in the past over 160 bpm.  Anything over 155 for me, is burning matches too fast for me to catch up and looking at my Garmin file, nothing over 150bpm for the last section, so I’m going to say I lost power and efficiency due to the seat dropping over 3 inches.