The trip to Lake Placid started last Wednesday. I took the latter part of the week off work so that I could give myself plenty of time to pack, get to Lake Placid, and figure out if I missed/forgot anything would need to be purchased or remedied once I got there. My anxiety level leading up to the event was actually rather calm. I've heard of people starting to get butterflies in the days and weeks leading up to the event - as the effect of the taper starts to kick it is easy to think 'just one more workout' will make all the difference, or you start to go bat-shit crazy sweating all the details like the exact number of electrolyte capsules to consume per hour based on how many degrees above the ideal 65F temperatures are expected. Hell, three months prior to the event, people on the beginnertriathlete.com Lake Placid race forum were concerned about water temperatures due to the relatively warm winter. I'm not kidding - one person had even been in contact with someone at Lake Placid to take weekly temperature readings 12" below the surface of the water. Apparently 'the masses' tend to believe that water temperature is some sort of magic heat retainer which only absorbs heat and doesn't fluctuate up and down based on air temperature.
Anyway, my mental attitude in the weeks leading up to the event was that I'd save all my worrying and check-list compiling until Wednesday. Part of the reason for that was that I was planning a simple-as-possibly strategy with as few moving parts as necessary, and I felt like if I started over-thinking things way ahead of time, I'd only be adding more moving parts. Another reason is that I was going to depend on nutrition available on-course as opposed to bringing my own. Many people bring their own for various reasons, but for my first time I wanted to prioritize simplicity in execution. I'd have enough to keep myself busy with - like, avoiding crashing into or being crashed into by any of the other 3000 participants while coasting downhill at 45 mph for 5 miles on a bumpy road. For those reading who haven't done the IMLP bike course - yes, that is a valid concern and that is a realistic speed to reach without pedaling.
Truthfully, though - the biggest reason I was going to use on-course nutrition is that during my own long training rides, I often found I would fall into a groove and forget or lose track of time and fall behind on caloric intake. Knowing the aid stations would be every 10 miles, this gave me a constant reminder to swig the provided sports drink on a regular basis. If I over-drank and had to stop to use the porta-potty quite a bit, I was OK with that. Better too much than not enough.
Actually, one of the biggest questions I had leading up to the race was whether or not to use my newly purchased (off eBay) wheel with a PowerTap. For those who are unaware, a PowerTap is a specialized hub in the rear wheel that measures torque forces applied, and can give you instantaneous readout of how much power you are delivering to the wheel. Whereas heart rate lags and is affected by a myriad of factors - power output never lies, and is the preferred metric for cycling that many of the other training statistics are based off of. My concern was two-fold: 1) it was a used wheel that I had only personally put 14 miles on at this point, and thus couldn't be fully sure it wouldn't blow out and self-destruct on me and 2) I wasn't sure what my power numbers should be. During the winter, I had been using a software program called TrainerRoad which uses the published power curve for various trainers to estimate power output, but once I got the PowerTap hooked up, I realized there was an offset between the PT and TR, and I didn't know if that offset was linear or not. So, in the end, I decided to bring both my standard rear wheel in addition to the PT wheel. Hooray for putting off another decision!
Also, this was in addition to the other new item - a set of short aero bars that I had just picked up the week before. I had avoided using aero bars for months because I was concerned that the different position could cause problems without a refit, and I was hesitant to use them for race day because there would be no acclimation period. However, upon the advice of Coach Rich, he suggested using them, as the position is not that different than being in the drops. Plus, I was really liking the idea of not having to bear my weight on my hands during such a long bike ride. On previous long rides, they tended to get real tired of helping to hold my upper body up.
I also got a huge boost of good luck on Wednesday. For months I had been fretting about one particular logistical challenge - the battery life of my Garmin 305. It is reported to be 10 hours, but I knew I'd need it for longer than that for both the bike and the run. And I'd need the HR feedback so that I could tell when I was overexerting, especially on the hills on the bike. My plan was to rig up some sort of recharging system - but the combination of using the cradle while on the bike, and running wires and what-not was really adding up to be a pain in the ass. I could keep the unit on the cradle and out of sight, but then it'd be pointless. If I kept it in sight, I'd have to figure out where to put it (especially since real estate got tight with the powertap computer and the addition of the aero bars). So it was really looking like a 'pick your poison' problem. But then on Wednesday afternoon I decided to give a shot to seeing whether the Powertap computer would pick up the HR signal. Woot! It did! This meant I'd have HR, speed, cadence, and power information all on one unit. I'd not have the GPS tracking from the Garmin, but I was ok with that in the grand scheme of things. As a result, I would just use the Garmin for the run. Perfect!
I finally rolled into Lake Placid around midnight on Wednesday because I left an hour later and got stuck in traffic for an hour. I slept in a bit on Thursday then went to the expo to see what was there. It didn't seem like it was in full swing quite yet - but there were still a good number of people there. I had been warned about the expo before - stay away from it. It is full of nervous energy and all kinds of stuff you can buy that you don't need. I had been to expo's in general before, and with a realistic hat of 'nothing I get now will make me faster on race day' attitude (plus it's all so damn expensive!), I just perused through casually. More just a way to kill some time, but I did end up getting a few IM cowbells to give family members who would be spectating the event. I also went to the grocery store to pick up a few staples I'd need over the next few days - mostly carb loaded things like pop tarts, orange juice, peanuts, raisins, m&m's, apples, etc.
Thursday evening was the Endurance Nation dinner. EN is an online long-course triathlon team that I joined about 4 weeks before the event. Being a late-comer to the group, I obviously didn't take part in their training programs, but based on my own experience and their philosophy, I was convinced that it was the place I wanted to be due to the wealth of good information about training and execution strategy they have available. One of the (numerous) benefits of EN is the showing at each IM event - and this was no exception with nearly 50 team members participating. It was really nice to meet some people in person beforehand, and one person was even nice enough to lend me a spare EN jersey for the race (thanks Steve!). Not ever having done a full IM, and having missed the deadline for ordering EN gear, I wanted some EN identification so I could take advantage of the support of other EN folks during the race, especially on the run.
Friday morning started with an EN group swim in Mirror lake, followed by Coach Patrick's 4-keys talk. Actually, before his talk I caught a bit of the Inifinit nutrition talk as well. At some point I'd like to try their product out - I've heard a lot of good things about it, and a lot of the EN folks use it as their primary nutrition during race day.
Later on Friday I did the official check-in thing - sign HIPPA and release weavers, get weighed-in (and feel like an MMA fighter or a pro boxer), get tagged with the blue bracelet that identifies you as a participant. At least I got a really cool IM backpack. I went back to the hotel and started packing up my transition and special needs bags - cycling helmet, shoes, socks, sunglasses, extra contacts (in case goggles got knocked off and I lost a contact in the swim) in T1 bag; couple small bags of potato chips, spare tube, spare CO2 inflator in bike special needs; running shoes, socks, hat and Garmin in T2 bag; couple small bags of potato chips, extra shoes, extra socks, extra contacts, massage stick, dental floss and mouthwash in run special needs bag (hey, at that point of having sugar-laden fluids in your mouth all day, something that simple can make you feel rejuvenated).
Saturday morning I woke up around 7am and did my carb-load routine - go run for about 5-10 minutes to warm up, followed by 3 minutes at an all out effort. Enough to cause the body to want to store carbs, but not enough to stress the body. Then, eat a butt-load of carbs for the next 24 hours. Seriously. Like 750g of them. So that basically meant a lot of orange juice, pop tarts and anything with sugar. After the run I took my second ever ride on the new PowerTap wheel - I wanted to see what it would do on hills and what it would be like holding a constant power output on a hill. So I rode the first 5 or so miles of the bike course and then turned back. Based on what my HR showed, it seemed like a power of about 150W would be a good number to stick to as it kept my HR in the low 130's. It may have been a tad low, but I'd rather be a touch low on the bike than too high and sacrifice the run. Plus, if it was obviously too low, I could fix it on the second loop. So with that information all in mind, I decided to definitely go ahead with the powertap wheel for the race. That afternoon I checked in my bike and transition bags, and hung out with my friend Dave for a bit.
Saturday afternoon the family showed up. So we spent some time walking around town and driving the course so they could see what was in store, and scoping out some spectating venues. When I got back to the hotel, I did the final review of what was in the special needs bags to make sure everything was all set.
Even up until this point, I wasn't really feeling nervous. It was just a long training day ahead of me. I tried to go to sleep around 9PM, but, of course, had a hard time. I still didn't feel nervous (I was far more nervous for my first ever triathlon a few years ago), but all the carbs were keeping me awake. Perhaps it was nerves, but next time I might try front loading the carb intake in the morning and early afternoon instead of consuming so many in the evening. I spent from about 9:30 until 1:30 drifting in and out of sleep, but I did manage a couple solid hours between 1:30 and 4:30, when my alarm went off.
Race day is here!
I woke up, gathered my things and headed over to the oval. Gave my bike tires a quick dose of air (I deflated them the day before to about 80 PSI to keep them from popping in the hot sun the previous afternoon) and finished final bike and transition bag preparations. I brought my special needs bags up to the drop-off location, grabbed my wetsuit and dropped clothes into the morning clothes bag and headed over to the swim start around 6:30. After a few minutes of milling around, people started funneling through the swim start gate and into the water.
I made my way over to the far beach, about 5-6 people back from the start line. I wanted to seed myself out of the scrum that would be following the buoy line, but I knew my expected swim time of about 1:15 would be pretty decent, so I didn't want to be way in the back either, because that would cost me at least 5 minutes of waiting, nevermind the fighting through people. The pro's went off at 6:50, followed by a singing of the national anthem and Mike Reilly promising all us first timers (900 some-odd) that we'd all be ironmen by the end of the day. Then, suddenly.. BOOM.
Here I was. It had begun - I was in the middle of doing an ironman! Holy crap! The swim started off as expected - lots of people around, arms bumping into legs and incidental contact. Definitely more than I've noticed on other tri's, but not bad. I tried to find a pair of feet when I could that I could draft behind, but mostly it was just concentrating on form and making sure to keep my arms extended to minimize the chance that an errant foot would come bop me in the face without any sort of warning. I figured that was my best defense. When things started to get more congested, I suspected we were probably near the first buoy, and sure enough, that was the case. I swam wide to avoid the scrum again and continued on.
For the most part, the swim was actually rather uneventful and about as good as I could have hoped. I swam wide for the most part to avoid contact and allow me to concentrate on keeping form, knowing that I'd be missing potential effects of the draft. Before too long, the bottom of the lake rose and I was climbing myself out of the water - already halfway done with the swim! I didn't see the clock on the first loop, but I did see a number of people in front of me going through the gate - it seemed like there were probably 3-5 people going through per second - so if I was ahead of the main pack of people, it certainly wasn't by much. The second loop was a bit more spread out, and much of the same. I did have a moment in the first couple hundred yards where I got a bit of a kick in the left goggle, but it just pushed the goggle tighter and wasn't more than a slight annoyance for a few minutes.
At the end of the swim, I got out of the water, saw the clock flip over to 1:14 as I ran under it, and located the wetsuit peelers. There was one person in line in front of me, so I figured I was in a good spot - assuming that once the bulk of people arrived, some people may not even have a chance to take advantage of the peelers. I took Coach Patrick's advice and kept my goggles and cap on to keep my hands free for wetsuit handling, then I plopped by ass on the ground and the peeler grabbed the wetsuit, yanked it off and handed it back to me. 'Thanks!' I yelled as I rolled it up, tucked it under my arm, and headed to T1.
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| Why do I always have my eyes closed!? (Picture taken by Scott Dinhofer) |
I ran over to where my bike was, and someone helped me get it unracked and before I knew it, I was at the bike mount line. The clock read 1:22 - I had spent 8 minutes in T1 - not bad at all!. After having seen the cluster that was the bike mount line last year, my plan this year was to minimize time at the line - and that meant throwing one leg over and clipping in, and coasting down the hill with one leg clipped in and deal with clipping in the other leg afterwards. As I was clipping in, I heard Coach Patrick yell 'Nice job, Endurance Nation!' and I yelled back 'Thanks!' I dunno, makes no sense in retrospect, but it was all I got out on short notice.
After a few turns to get out of town, I could settle into the bike ride. Not even a mile out, another EN person passed me, saying 'good job EN, watch those watts!' I replied with 'yup - thats why I'm going slow!'. The first portion of the bike out of town is a little bit of flat ground, followed by a few miles of climbing. I was being passed left, right, up, down, forward, back and center. Every which way people were passing me. Granted, many of these people are stronger cyclists than I, but I stuck to my watts and it would just take as long as it would take. I started refueling with a bottle of gatorade I put on my bike that morning - I wanted to make sure I had plenty of calories in my system, because once the descent into Keene came, I wouldn't be able to drink anything for about 30 minutes as I'd be busy enough with negotiating a hill with patchy pavement, with hundreds of other people, that was steep enough to go 40 mph while coasting.
I finished probably half the bottle before coming up to the first aid station, where I switched out for a bottle of Perform and a bottle of water, which would last me to the next aid station. After that, the descent came.
I'm not a terribly great handling cyclist, in comparison to some others. And being a triathlete, I'm already behind the 8-ball in that regard as compared to cyclists. My main paranoia of the day was crashing on the bike during the descent, and specifically being part of a pileup where someone ahead of my crashes and I can't avoid crashing as well, or being clipped going 35 by someone going 50. I was more than willing to lose a few minutes of overall time to ensure that I didn't need an airlift. So, following Coach Patrick's advice - if not comfortable on the downhill, I stayed to the right and signaled via body language that I was not looking to cook down the hill. This mean sitting up (there was no way I'd get into aero position on those bumpy roads anyway), not pedaling, and feathering the brakes as necessary.
Fortunately, while the descent was crowded, it wasn't as bad as I had feared. My concern was that there would be loads of people all going different speeds - but as it turned it, so many people had passed me by that point that it wasn't a big deal. Also, I still had the rear-view mirror on my bike helmet, so I kept an eye out for people who were behind me and bombing down the hill.
Once on the flats, one of the first things I noticed was that my speed was much higher than I anticipated for the power output. I stayed right around my 150W, but I was cruising at nearly 20 mph. Before too long, I found that when I went to go pass someone, the wattage would go up 15-20W as soon as I was not behind them anymore. It's not like I was drafting aggressively - it was more incidental as I was still 15-20 feet behind them. Not that you could really space out even more - there were just too many people. The end result is that it was like a 20 mile long peloton - there's definitely a drafting effect even though you're trying to be aware of the drafting rules. The rest of the flats were much the same - I ended up stopping at just about every aid station to use the porta-potty and get a new bottle of Perform. It sucked having to stop so much and lose time for bio breaks, but for the first one, I had no problem overdoing hydration and electrolytes - better too much than not enough.
Once at the turn around in AuSable Forks, I realized another factor that contributed to the speed - wind. We had a nice tail wind all the way out, but as soon as we turned around, the speed dropped. But I stuck to the 150W, stayed in aero as much as possible and pressed on. It was going to be a long day - no reason to be aggressive now.
The turn to Wilmington starts the climbing, and much of the rest of the loop was going to consist of climbing. Once again, stick to the watts, find the easiest gear and go at whatever cadence is necessary to either keep the watts in target, or keep the HR in check. Some of the inclines were steep enough that even with a compact chainring up front and a 12/27 cassette in back, I still had to drop to a cadence of 60, and the wattage would go up into the 170's. But they were relatively short, and I paid attention to keep the HR from spiking into the 140's for too long - a HR of 130-135 for the first loop was my goal and I had been doing pretty good keeping to that. At this point, I was still being passed a decent amount, even on the downhills, although not as much in those cases. But once again - it was a long day.
The last 20 miles back into town was rather uneventful. Stop when necessary, get more Perform at every aid station (on the last one, I got the Orange Mango flavor, and decided immediately I wasn't a fan), sit on watts, monitor HR, grabbed half a banana and ate a GU for a change of pace in nutrition, and just press on. I did find myself passing a few people during some of the flat sections in between the major climbs back into town, though. Once we got in sight of the last major hill (papa bear), it was pretty cool seeing the huge crowd there. One thing I can say for sure - I was much more exhausted doing those hills in training last year than this year. This year they were just slow, but they weren't hard. Last year I was completely beat after climbing them, even though both years it took about 3.5 hours per loop.
Coming back through town, I stopped at special needs, and sat there for a few minutes and ate my bag of chips and reapplied sunscreen. Right after special needs I saw my family on the side and pulled over to chat with them for a few minutes. Turns out they were concerned about me because I was 'late' (based on positional text updates they were receiving) - even though they knew the first half was fast and the second half of the loop was slow and uphill. Oh well. I headed out and continued on for the second loop.
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| End of the first bike loop (Picture taken by Scott Dinhofer) |
The descent was a bit better the second time around because the field was less crowded, so I was able to coast a little more aggressively - if that makes sense. Basically I didn't sit up as much. I still didn't get into aero position because then I'd not have the ability to brake immediately because the brake levers would be out of reach, but I was in the drops and got down as low as I could (which was effectively aero position) and let it fly. There was no point in pedaling because even in the highest gear, it would spin out at around 30 MPH, and I was kissing 40 MPH easy.
Once in the flats again, I noticed it was definitely warmer. Not only that, but the draft effect from the first time around was gone, as there were fewer people. However I did continue to notice the trend of passing people at a slow, but steady, pace. I also noticed that I wasn't needing bio breaks, so I needed to start upping my hydration intake. Unfortunately, virtually every aid station I stopped at was handing out the orange-mango flavor Perform instead of the Lemon Lime for whatever reason. Considering I didn't really like the flavor of Orange Mango to begin with, needing to drink it out of necessity wasn't very fun. I eventually got to the point where my stomach really didn't want to ingest more of it, so I switched off the Perform for a bit, taking a banana and a GU with water instead, and let my stomach ride it out for about 15-20 minutes. It seemed to help, and the final climb back into town was fine from that perspective.
That last climb was obviously tough for a bunch of people. There was some out of the saddle pumping even on the flats, some huffing and puffing, and mashing of gears. Once again, I sat on my comfortable wattage of 150-170W, but my HR stayed in the desired range. In fact, it was around this time that I was thinking that perhaps I actually held back a bit on the bike, because during these elongated climbs, keeping the HR at or under 140 for a power output of 170W was not too difficult. In the end, though - I was ok with that, because I'd have a chance to make up any lost time on the run by being fueled and ready to go. The graph below shows my HR during the bike ride (disregard the 80 mile distance - I think that is off due to the long descent where no power was being recorded) - and it is incredibly consistent in that 130-140 bpm range. Power is awesome - when you start doing something stupid, the feedback it provides to allow you to stop being stupid is phenomenal.
Getting off the bike, I handed it to a volunteer who took care of racking it, and I went to the transition area and grabbed by T2 bag. I ran into the tent, took the helmet and shoes off, put on my compression pants and donned the hat I got from the Patriot Half last month. I mostly used it to keep sun out of my face and to soak up sweat, but it turned out to be a very good choice for another reason (which I'll get to).
As I left T1, I saw two other fellow EN members - Paul and Cary. After a brief chat, we decided that we were all aiming for similar paces in the first 6 miles, around 10 to 10:30, so we ran together. It was difficult at first because of the downhill, but we managed to get pretty close, and once it flattened out, it was easier to go at that pace as opposed to something more like 9:30. It felt pretty comfortable as we headed out of town, and as we passed the ski jumps and turned onto River Road (around mile 4 or so, I think), I gradually started to find my running legs, and my HR settled to around 145 - just about perfect. During those miles we saw a lot of folks in EN kits - everytime one would pass us, we'd see another on the horizon. I couldn't have swung a dead cat without hitting another EN member. At what was probably the 5th aid station, I grabbed a cup of ice, took off my hat, dumped the ice into the hat, and put it back on - and it was absolutely magical. Whoever thought of that idea is friggin brilliant. It's a bit cold at first, but it is... wow. It's just really, really nice having a trickle of cold water to cool you off. Around mile 5.5, I was feeling pretty good and picked up the pace a bit - between 9:30 and 10 min/miles. The HR stayed in check and everything was feeling solid.
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| Whose too cool for school? (Picture taken by Steve West) |
Everything was smooth as could be - walk the aid station, grab some nutrition (coke, GU chomps, water, whatever), ice under the cap when they had it available, body scan to make sure form felt good, etc. There was just one little thing wrong - I had stopped with the Perform when I got off the bike. All that was available on the run was Orange Mango - and it wasn't that it was warm that bothered me - it was the flavor. So that is why I switched to alternatives. However, those alternatives don't have much for electrolytes. This occurred to me, and a few times, I stopped to have some pretzels. The problem was that pretzels were very dry. I did the best I could by drinking water at the same time, but I wasn't convinced it was enough salt. This was somewhat concerning, and every aid station I hoped they'd have the chicken broth out, but no luck. I hit the run special needs, had some potato chips, did a quick roll of my hamstrings and quads with the massage stick, and put my sunglasses in the spare shoes I had in the bag - no need for them anymore, and I didn't want them in the finisher picture.
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| Around mile 13 of the marathon (Picture taken by Scott Dinhofer) |
Eventually, the aid stations started having chicken broth, which I happily took. However, by this time I had already had combinations of coke, water, Perform, pretzels, half a banana, etc. So I'm not convinced that the combination of different foods, plus possibly having too many calories, was not a contributing factor.
Around mile 23 I started running with someone - at this point the little motivation of having a temporary buddy was helpful. Also - at this point I gave up on the aid stations - there wasn't much to go, and I was tired of screwing around with my stomach to try and appease it. We ran to the bottom of the last big hill and walked up it. At the crest of that hill, the course takes a left turn and goes up just a little bit more. He decided to run up that last little bit, but I continued walking. In my walk, someone else started to walk with me, and at the top of the hill we started jogging together. As we passed special needs, I took off my fuel belt and handed it to someone to put back in my bag - I didn't want it in the finisher photo. My running buddy and I stayed together until the turnaround (around mile 25) when he dropped back. By this time I was feeling good enough to pick up the pace a bit - with so little distance to go, there was no point in conserving heartbeats or making sure I had enough calories. Right around this time I also passed my first buddy who kept running up the hill.
After that last turn around, it's pretty much all a slight downhill to the finish line, and it is awesome. The crowd lines the streets, you can hear the music and the cheering of the crowd at the finish line, and I was just thinking to myself 'Holy shit, I am about to finish an Ironman!'. Of course, at that point, endorphins kick in and you feel no pain. I ran into the chute just about in a full-on sprint and went nuts - I ran along the outer edge of the oval giving high fives to spectators, screaming and hollering, hands in the air during the last 100 ft to the finish. Hearing the crowd and how loud it was.. it was just.. awesome. I don't think you can help but to feel like a rock-star.
Once I crossed the finish line, I got my medal, finisher hat and t-shirt. It felt odd. Was I really done? Did I really just finish a flippin Ironman? I then realized that I never heard the magic saying - I never heard Mike Reilly say 'Ryan Miller, you are an Ironman!' What the hell?! Then it dawned on me - in my excitement and desire to get the crowd cheering, I couldn't hear anything over the PA. I thought ahead about the fuel belt and the sunglasses and anything that would ruin the finisher pic, but I didn't think about the crowd noise and trying to hear those words. I was a little bummed about that, but decided I still liked my finish. Maybe they would have cheered just as loud if I didn't make a scene - but in my mind I whipped the crowd into a frenzy, and I'm a fan of that kind of finish. Besides, I signed up for next year - so I can listen for it then :)
Here are the unofficial results:
RYAN MILLER
Rank: 197
Overall Rank: 1264
| BIB: | 1538 |
| Division: | M35-39 |
| Age: | 36 |
| State: | FRAMINGHAM MA |
| Country: | USA |
| Profession: | Consultant |
| Swim: | 1:14:08 |
| Bike: | 7:24:04 |
| Run: | 4:49:19 |
| Overall: | 13:44:56 |
CONGRATULATIONS, RYAN, ON YOUR FINISH!
| Split Name | Distance | Split Time | Race Time | Pace | Div. Rank | Overall Rank | Gender Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.2 mi | 1.2 mi | 35:04 | 35:04 | 1:48/100m | |||
| 2.4 mi | 1.2 mi | 39:04 | 1:14:08 | 2:01/100m | |||
| Total | 2.4 mi | 1:14:08 | 1:14:08 | 3:50/100m | 162 | 1016 | 817 |
| Split Name | Distance | Split Time | Race Time | Pace | Div. Rank | Overall Rank | Gender Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 mi | 30 mi | 1:36:07 | 2:58:37 | 18.73 mi/h | |||
| 56 mi | 26 mi | 2:09:17 | 5:07:54 | 12.07 mi/h | |||
| 86 mi | 30 mi | 1:38:13 | 6:46:07 | 18.33 mi/h | |||
| 112 mi | 26 mi | 2:00:27 | 8:46:34 | 12.95 mi/h | |||
| Total | 112 mi | 7:24:04 | 8:46:34 | 15.13 mi/h | 251 | 1703 | 1375 |
| Split Name | Distance | Split Time | Race Time | Pace | Div. Rank | Overall Rank | Gender Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 mi | 3 mi | 31:47 | 9:27:24 | 10:35/mi | |||
| 8.2 mi | 5.2 mi | 55:56 | 10:23:20 | 10:45/mi | |||
| 12 mi | 3.8 mi | 42:36 | 11:05:56 | 11:12/mi | |||
| 16.1 mi | 4.1 mi | 37:22 | 11:43:18 | 9:06/mi | |||
| 21.3 mi | 5.2 mi | 1:04:08 | 12:47:26 | 12:20/mi | |||
| 25.1 mi | 3.8 mi | 47:46 | 13:35:12 | 12:34/mi | |||
| 26.2 mi | 1.1 mi | 9:44 | 13:44:56 | 8:50/mi | |||
| Total | 26.2 mi | 4:49:19 | 13:44:56 | 11:02/mi | 197 | 1264 | 1016 |
| T1: SWIM-TO-BIKE | 8:22 |
| T2: BIKE-TO-RUN | 9:03 |
So, clearly, the bike needs the most work. The swim I'm just about content to almost ignore improvement, aside from maybe trying to figure out what in my form tends to go south after about 1.25 miles. There's a solid 15 minutes of bike time that was spent in and out of porta-potties, special needs, and stopping to chat with the family, but I'd still be over 7 hours. I think with a full season of a lot of the right bike workouts, I can get closer to the 6:15 mark on the bike.
The run can improve a bit, but I'm not too worried about that. If I can tweak things a bit to keep the stomach under control, that would likely be worth about 25 minutes alone (3 minutes x ~8 miles at 9 min/mile pace vs 12:30). And then with additional speed workouts over the next year, I think it's conceivable to get pretty close to the 4 hour mark.
But next year is next year.
For right now, it's still settling in that I actually finished this. Even though I've done it, the idea of running a marathon after a 112 mile bike ride still seems looney, nuts, and impossible. I just think of the grind a long run of 2.5 hours is - and to think that repeating that, PLUS however long it takes to finish the 26.2 miles after a 112 mile bike ride. It still seems inconceivable. But it's not. I've decided it's more mentally challenging to grasp than physically. From a physical stand point, you just keep going until your done. Everyone out there at miles 15, 20, 24 - they're all in the same boat. Some are hurting more, some are hurting less. But for me, knowing that I've been out there for 13 hours and everyone around me has been as well - it definitely helped keep me going. That is something you can't replicate in training.
I'm still not done celebrating this internally. I want to put something together with the medal, with the bracelet, with a finisher photo (once those are available), and hang it on the wall. Supposedly you can get video of yourself crossing the finish line - I want that. I set out with the goal of beating 14 hours, and I did that. I knew it was somewhat conservative, but I was ok with that - I wanted it to be an experience I would enjoy and be smiling at the end of because you never know what might happen in the future. Actually racing an Ironman? That'd be for another day.
