Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Redman Iron Distance Triathlon

Race Recap:

I thought I’d throw together a race recap that I can blast off to you all to let you know how the race went last weekend. First of all, I’d like to thank all of you for your support, encouragement, and bewilderment I was able to use as motivation to get me to the start line, and beyond. I’d also like to thank my brother Todd for making the trip out for the weekend to serve as motivator, crutch, and chaperone to Ingrid, who as you all know is 37 weeks pregnant. I’d also like to thank Ingrid for being the most supportive wife any washed up athlete with a dream could ever hope for. It has been a long 8 months.

So where to start? I guess it really doesn’t get interesting until the night before the race. We checked in to our hotel around 4pm on Friday and went downstairs to the race check-in and packet pick up. From there, it was off to a nearby High School where the pre-race athlete’s meeting was held in the school’s auditorium. We learned that the race had 146 full Iron Distance athletes, 11 full relay teams, 170 half Iron Distance athletes, and 26 half relay teams. This total far exceeded the race organizer’s plans given this was the first year this race was being held.

From there, it was off to the transition area to rack my bike for the following day’s race. We rushed over to a Chili’s, grabbed some dinner to-go and headed back to the hotel room to eat, shave, and make sure my gear and plans were straight one last time.

Side bar: you would never guess how extremely complicated it is to plan for this race. What you will need and when you need it is half the challenge. The other half is what to eat and drink, how often to eat and drink, how you will get it to yourself on the course, and will you be able to keep it down all day long. If you could see my nutrition plan spread sheet, you would be amazed.

Race Morning:

I woke up at 4:00am on Saturday morning to begin consuming calories, carbs and protein. I drank 3 bottles of ensure, ate 1 banana, 1 protein bar, a bagel with peanut butter, and a bottle of gatorade, then climbed back in bed for another 30 minutes.

At 5:00am, I was up again to stretch, have some water and a gel pack, then it was off to the start line.

The race was being held on the NW side of OKC, which to my surprise was very nice. Lake Hefner was the lake we swam in, biked along the damn on, and ran around. It was a very scenic lake with parks, marinas, restaurants, running/biking trails, etc.

I had no problems getting my numbers marked on me, picking up my chip, and getting my transition area set up the way I wanted it. Outside of a trip to the port-o-pot that had no toilet paper in it, the morning was going as planned. Thank god they make the center of a toilet paper roll out of cardboard and not sandpaper. After getting set up, it was in to the lake for a quick 10-minute warm-up swim, and then another 5 minutes of floating before the gun went off.

The Swim:

The swim went ok, but was a bit hectic. I never really got a chance to look at where the buoys were located the day before, and by the time the race started, there was only a sliver of light creeping over the horizon, so I basically took off swimming toward where I thought the first buoy should be. Eventually there was enough light to make out the course, and I was ok.

The water temp was 77.6, just under the 78-degree cutoff for wetsuits. That’s good news and bad. Good in that I could wear my wetsuit and would be done with the swim sooner. Bad in that swimming in a wetsuit in warm water like that makes for one hot swim. I paused mid stroke briefly every 10 minutes or so to flush some cool water down into my suit to try and keep myself cool.

It turns out I was second out of the water and felt pretty good with the exception of a horrible rub under my arms from my inner arm and arm pit rubbing against my wetsuit. This rub would continue to be a big nuisance all day long.

T1:

The first transition was smooth. I had some race volunteers strip my wetsuit off of me, which I have always wanted to do since first seeing an Ironman on TV. I dried off as best I could, geared up, and was off.

Bike:

The bike course was much more challenging than the race organizers had advertised it to be. The course was four 28-mile laps which consisted of 3 miles along the Lake Hefner damn, then 11 miles due north to a turnaround point and back. The damn obviously was flat, but the 11 miles were constant rolling hills. My HR Monitor said the damn was about 200 feet above the turn around point, with about 6 climbs in between each ranging from 50 to 100 feet in elevation change. Certainly not “pancake flat” as the race advertised.

We also had a real strong easterly wind that made for tough riding in both directions.

I had a hard time settling in on the bike and could not get my HR to come down right away like I had hoped on account of the hills, but after about the first 25 miles, felt better. At about mile 50, I started to get stomach cramps that started off mild but got rather severe as the ride went on. By the 4th lap, my stomach was feeling better.

The feeding regiment I stuck to was to alternate drinking 10 sips of gatorade and water every 2 miles. For nutrition, I filled four 20 oz. cycling bottles with 1 serving of gatorade mix, 600 calories of a powder supplement called Carbo-pro, and a .25 tsp of salt. It actually doesn’t taste too bad when cold, but as you can imagine, it wasn’t cold by the time my swim was over. I also ate a few power gels and packs of salt along the way.

The ride itself was pretty uneventful. I got to see Todd and Ingrid at the end/start of each lap which was always a highlight. Other than that, the only other event worth mentioning were the 2 times when police officers (who by and large did an OUTSTANDING job controlling the race course) nearly sent traffic into my direction which caused me to have to slam on the brakes.

T2:

I’ll be honest when I say that by the time I got off the bike, I was really drained. My butt was extremely sore. I could tell some of the seams on my tri shorts had rubbed me raw. That coupled with the fact that it was 93 degrees when I started my marathon made for what I knew would be a very long 26.2 miles.

I was surprised to see that the bike racks were still pretty empty when I got off the bike. I haven’t seen the results yet, but Todd saw a list the race organizers posted during the race that said I was 60th off the bike.

Run:

The run consisted on two 13.1 mile laps on an out and back course.

I started off on the run with plan #1 to run as far as I could until I had to walk. To then switch to plan #2, a run/walk strategy and to try to keep the run portion of plan 2 longer than the walk portion. Plan #3 was to walk as fast as I could and run when I could muster enough strength.

So plan #1 lasted about 4-5 miles. Plan #2 lasted to about mile #14. Plan #3 was how I covered the last 12 miles. It was shear agony most of the way. My armpit rubbed against my jersey and made that chafe I mentioned out of the swim real bad. About half way through, my feet felt like they were on fire, and my hamstrings and calves had had enough.

I guess on the bright side, I didn’t feel sick, so I had that going for me.

I was amazed at how many people were forced to walk the run. I don’t know if it was because the heat had been so bad, or if it was because there were so many first timers in the race, but I felt like only about 25% of people were able to run most of it.

Side bar: I was first shocked during the run at how many guys I talked to who were doing the Iron distance for the first time. I later decided in my several hours I had to ponder this statistical anomaly that it wasn’t so shocking. I realized, all of the Ironman veterans were up ahead, and that I bet most people after doing this once don’t decide to do it again, making the race consist primarily of first timers.

I was able to see Todd and Ingrid at mile 0, 2, 6.5, 7, 13.1, and at the finish. Again the big highlight out on the run course.

Eventually, the sun began to set and the temperatures began to drop to a reasonable level. My HR monitor said it was 78 when I finished the race around 9:45 PM.

The Finish:

One of the hard parts about the run was that it rapped around the lake, so at all times thanks to the favorable easterly winds, you could faintly make out the announcer at the finish line making the noises you would expect as people finished. I started to hear this guy about two and half-hours before I knew I would be done.

But eventually, I was approaching the finish. I gave it my best effort to run as much as possible in the last 2 miles, and eventually made it back to the parking lot where we had parked that morning signaling just 300 yards to go. A race volunteer asked me for my number, radioed it in, and within seconds, the announcer was announcing my entry into the finish shoot.

I could see Ingrid on my left, and Todd kneeling on my right snapping a photo of me. I lifted my arms as high as I could lift them (not very high) for my photos, and gave Todd a strong high five as I ran past him and under the finish line banner.

Side bar: Todd nearly knocked me down with his overly aggressive high five. I don’t think you could tell, but I’m glad that didn’t end my race 10 yards from the finish.

Post Race:

This is sort of ironic, but I looked for the first place I could sit down after a short walk behind the finish line, and it happened to be an empty wheel chair. The three of us chatted for a bit, got up and posed for some photos the race photographer insisted we take. She seemed very excited about Ingrid being sooo pregnant, and forced us to take a picture with Ingrid standing sideways for effect. I can’t wait to get that one.

The race organizers, volunteers and the people of OKC were so happy to have been able to pull off such a huge organizational orchestra, and they should be proud. They did a great job. The volunteers were the best I’ve ever been around in any race, and you could tell they really wanted the race to go off well so they could build off of it for years to come, and I think they will.

Injury Report:

It has been about 36 hours since the race ended, and I am a bit surprised at how my body handled the race from both a good and bad perspective. The Good - I am surprised my muscles and joints are as good as they are. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sore, but I have been worse. The Bad – My skin is pretty messed up in a lot of places. I have 2 huge blisters on my heels, no feeling in my 2 index finger toes, a raw scab outlining where the seems were on my tri shorts, a butt that could use a good prison doctor, scabs on my sides from the things in the pockets of my jersey rubbing, two raw armpits, and a bit of sun burn despite wearing sunscreen.

I do feel very fatigued and will probably need a few more days of good 8+ hours of sleep to start to feel normal again, but that was to be expected.

Two Recurring Questions and Final Thoughts:

The two questions I got the most today at work after talking with friends have been 1. When will you start exercising again? And 2. Will you ever do another Ironman?

To answer #1, Not with any regularity for a while. I probably won’t do much of anything until after my daughter is born. I want to have a full tank of energy before she blesses us with sleepless nights. After I (Ingrid) have that under control, I’ll start with some occasional bike riding on the weekends. I’m thinking by December, it will be time to get back in the pool.

And #2, Not so sure. I know that I am not genetically built for this sort of thing. While I should gain endurance as I reach my mid to late 30s, I will never be a star in endurance events. No surprise considering I was a sprinter in the pool as a kid. As for if I will ever do another one, it would have to be with a group of friends I could train with, and at a time in my life when I could find the time to train more than I did for this one, which doesn’t seem to be any time soon.

I know a few of you who get this recap are interested in doing an Ironman at some point in your lives. The advice I will offer to you is that, yes, anyone can do it with the right amount of preparation, will power, and tolerance. It is a phenomenal feeling to accomplish the race, like your own personal Mount Everest. I hope those of you interested will find the time and support in your life so you can do it too.

Thanks to all.

Greg