IMC Race Report

Sorry for the slacking. Got back from BC on Wednesday, caught up on household chores on Thursday and I'm only now getting around to my race report.

Pre Race
My wife and parents were my race crew for IMC. We arrived in Naramata (about 15 min from Penticton) on the Thursday before the race, I took care of registering and the rest of the day was dedicated to un-packing, bike setup, eating and a short workout. Friday and Saturday consisted of short workouts, carbo loading, chilling in Penticton and the athlete expo. The highpoint was after the pro athlete Q & A, I went over to talk to Gordo Bryn. Basically I just went over to thank him on behalf of myself and many other triathletes. Gordo is a down to earth guy, who freely gives advice and shares his philosophies on training and expects nothing in return - a great ambassador to triathlon.

Physically, going into this race I was in great shape. I forumulated a 'master plan' back in January and stuck to it. So on that side of the equation I held up my end of the bargain. My mental state could be summed up as: "this is no big deal." This is a little game I play with myself by making a big task seem not so bad. I'm not sure if it's a good thing but I was going into the race with what felt like a certain amount of low-keyed laziness. I sort of wanted this approach, as this tempers my excitement, but it was also concerning because there was a lack of an 'edge'.

Race Day
Eight months of training - done. Just like that. And now it's race day. Time sure does fly. With 2350 people racing, a zillion spectators and a small army of volunteers, there is a decided buzz in the air. I'm still not caught up in the excitement, which I'm hoping is a good thing. I've gone into races like this before and pulled off a PB, so I'm hoping I'll do the same this time around.

The Swim (3.84k) Goal time: 56m. Actual: 55:55. Overall placing: 52/2352 Age group placing: 7/357.
BOOM. The cannon goes off and just like that we're underway. I'm a front of the pack swimmer, so luckily I get to avoid much of the middle area, which is just basically a giant washing machine. So after about 500m, I've left the 'mosh pit' and have already settled into a nice easy pace. Pacing and nutrition. My mantras. I was with the lead pack for the first 1.6k and somehow lost them. So for the remainder of the swim I was leading the 2nd group of swimmers. This made me chuckle, if they only knew how little actual triathlon experience I had, they probably wouldn't be following me. However, I was navigating pretty good and no one else wanted to take lead, so I let them draft and held my comfortable pace. A group of 6 of us exit the water and I'm actually walking to the transition zone going over my checklist: breathing is good - check, heart rate is good - check, feeling good and relaxed- check. OK, we are good to go. I'm through transition 1 and on the bike in less then 1 hour. Perfect.

Bike 180k Goal time: 5:22 Actual time: 5:31:07 Overall placing: 290/2352 Age group placing: 65/357.
Mental note - pacing and nutrition, start bike computer. Go. Wow. I heard about how the whole town gets into the race, but to experience it - all I can say is wow. Upon starting the bike and going through town, people are lined up 6+ deep and cheering like crazy. Hehehe makes you feel like a star.
10 minutes into the bike is gut check, heart rate and effort check. All systems nominal. Repeat pacing and nutrition mantra and carry on. I do this every 10 minutes while taking in liquid nutrition for duration of the ride. Supplement with additional water as necessary. For the first 60k (1/3 of the bike already done!), all is going according to plan. The first real test is coming up (Richter's Pass), I'm biking with alot of smart guys, almost no one hammers the climb, we are all in easy gears and spinning up the hill. I'm about 11 minutes into the climb, with less than 1 minute to the top - tire blow out. The good news is that due to climbing, I was going slow. The bad news is the tire casing is shredded and is useless. This is more than a simple tube fix, I need a whole new tire. Bummer. Hmmm.. what to do, what to do... I did put some duct tape in my repair kit, I suppose I could duct tape the inside of the tire and hope it holds. I'm in a bind and this is the best solution I could come with it. I could see it now, "Thanks to Duct Tape, Man Finishes Ironman." It was a little demoralizing having to watch a hundred or so people pass by while I tried to fix my bike with a hunk of duct tape. Halfway through my homemade repair, a tech van came to my rescue with a spare tire and got me up and rolling. Phew. The duct tape probably wouldn't have worked anyway. Total downtime was 12+ minutes.
Back up and rolling. I must resist the urge to 'catch up to myself' and stick to the plan. If I go too hard now, the reprucussions would be disasterous. So I stick my plan and tell myself "12 minutes is nothing in a race this long, I'll get it back."
The 120k mark. I'm at the special needs station and they can't find my bag. Hmm.. this could a long day if I don't get my nutrition needs. I stop, go for a pee and luckily they found it.
The 130k mark. A bee flies in my helmet and stings me. Ok, THIS might get interesting. I had a bad reaction to a sting earlier in the summer- fortunately there was an ambulance about 5k back, if things get bad, help is close. I monitor the situation - all seems OK, I carry on.
The 150k mark. The biggest test of the bike - Yellow Lake climb. I've heard one or two horror stories about this puppy. I expected the worst and what I got wasn't so bad. People made it sound worse than it is. I was starting to fight some minor nausea issues at this point and the heat of day was really starting to kick in. Luckily the last 30k is primarily down hill, so lots of coasting back into town. Time to settle the tummy and mentally gear up for the run.

The Run (42.2k): Goal: 3:42 - 3:50. Actual: 4:27. Overall placing: 440/2352 Age Group placing: 85/357.
My run can be summed up in three words: hot, hilly and windy. This is the real test as I've already been racing for 6.5 hours and now I've got to run a marathon. Mentally, I break this into 10k sections, with the primary goal trying to conserve as much as possible to the halfway mark. Walk the aid stations, walk the hills, conserve, conserve, conserve.
I set my Garmin to a 5:15 m/km pace and settled right in. After 180k on the bike, most people are just so damned grateful to be off the bike, they start their run too fast. I did not want to make this mistake. So I started out on what I thought would be a very conservative pace. It felt pretty good for the first 15k, but the heat was wearing me down and the hills seemed much too large. Legs were starting to get heavy.
They say in an Ironman the race doesn't start until you've finished half the marathon. Well, I was pretty much toast at the halfway mark and prospect of shuffling through another half marathon wasn't really too appealing. Halfway time check: 2 hrs. Not too bad, only 10 minutes off pace, but the suffering was starting to kick in. This next half was going to be tough.
Sigh. More walking. Battling nausea. It's toasty. (33C) I'm losing too much salt and I'm down on myself for walking too much. I start playing 'run to that tree game', or 'try to run (I mean shuffle), to the next mile marker. My steps seems so small.
I remember seeing the 23 mile marker and I was walking at the time, I thought "jeez, 3 miles to go - man that's FAR. If I walk the rest at 15 min/mile, I'll be done in 45 minutes. The HELL with that, I'm not going to be out here for 45 more @#$! minutes." So I try to 'run' the rest of race. Finish line finally in sight. Bam, done. Just like that. No great epiphany, I'm just happy I'm done, I'm happy to see my wife and I'm happy my parents were there to see everything an Ironman offers.
Time: 11:03. Overall placing: 265/2352 Age Group placing: 63/357.

Post Race
Well I guess I got more long winded than I intended too, but I'm down to the last final thoughts. They say it takes a good 5++ years to fully train your endurance system. I'm in year 2, so all things considered I'm pretty happy with where I am on that level. I really enjoy racing, however, the journey to the race is equally as awesome or even more so. Maybe you train, maybe you are a couch potato, maybe you think "I could do that", maybe you want to run 5k, whatever the case may be, take a step in that direction. Then another. You only live once, go out with no regrets.
Cheers!