We have arrived home safe and sound from being out West. What a great trip! I can't believe it's been a whole week since race day!! I have lasting, great memories of it, such a great experience!! I wrote a poem in my last post about the night before and morning of. It really was as magical as Christmas Day and so I chose to write it based on "Twas the Night Before Christmas." Being able to train and complete an ironman is truly a gift... a reward for such hard training. The training is a lot harder than the actual race is, for sure. But, you do have to do the training to get to the finish line as so many people that didn't do the training, found out. Sometimes you do all the training, and you don't see the end result because something happens out of your control (like last year) and always, something unexpected can pop up to put an extra level of difficulty, as did this year... but you know in your heart that you have done the training; it carries you to the finish.
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| before the canon goes off! |
Race morning was cold and drizzling. It didn't phase me one bit. Many athletes were complaining, some hadn't been in the water and were fretting about it. Not me, I was prepared. I had done cold water swims; I had done cold, Atlantic Ocean swims and the weather just didn't even nudge me. The water was rough; wind, rain and white caps. It was very challenging for some people. Athletes that had just done IM St. George with a beastly swim were looking for a reprieve--- they weren't going to get it. Between the 59 degree temperature and the conditions added an element of difficulty. Standing on the beach with 2500 other athletes waiting for the cannon to go off was surreal. The sand was cold, the water did look a little scary, but at the start the water was fairly calm. By this point of the morning, I was calm and ready to go. I was all the way to the outside right of the course. My plan was to take my time unless I got cold...it was going to be a zen, serene swim, like last year. I entered the water and was already swimming in a short time, but within minutes I found my self in the middle of chaos. The wind picked up and was pushing everyone to the right! Everyone was way out where I was:
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| the swim! |
splashing, hitting, kicking. i was getting yanked under water. There was no way I could move inside to near the buoys where hardly anyone was swimming. Darn it! I wished I had started in the middle so that I could plan to move to one side or the other depending on where the swimmers were. It was a battle field for sure. It was ugly and uncomfortable. For a few moments, I had doubts enter my mind. This was the only time during the whole day that i had doubts of not finishing. I quickly regrouped myself and did head above water free style, it wasn't fast, but i had to find the path of least resistance. The water was choppy and it was hard to see where to go. i wasn't going to be able to swim rightward across 25 yards of hundreds of bodies just flailing in the water. I stuck with my plan. Stay as far right as possible. After the first loop I would readjust if needed or possible. So to the far right I stayed, swimming over some people myself as gently as possible. Sometimes in cood down laps at the pool I would swim 3 strokes freestyle and then turn onto my back and do three strokes on my back. I realized that I could maneuver this way without plowing over people to get where I wanted because I turn on my back on someone's legs and they wouldn't know I was there....Phew! I was able to move forward and move laterally to clearer water. So I went left to just outside of the buoy's on the counter clockwise swim. I never would have expected it to be clearer on the inside of the hoards of people... but it was. That took time to do and I completed that task by the first turn buoy (which was about 900 yrds in the rectangular swim) The second turn buoy to head back to shore was 200 yrds away. I could see up ahead there was congestion around that buoy. When I got about 100 yrds away from it, I did my little back stroke maneuver over bodies to get outside again so I wouldn't be stopped at the buoy like hundreds of other swimmers. My maneuver worked yet again because as I rounded the buoy about 25 yrds away from it, I was passing a lot of people that were stuck at the buoy. There was a race official at the inside of that buoy too watching for cutting...some were cutting out of necessity because they couldn't maneuver themselves to get outside the buoy. I was starting to feel badly because I knew some were getting DQ'd. I was on the straight away soon to finish the first loop. When I got up on the beach over the timing mat, my time was 42 mins and some odd seconds... I was happy for everything I had to do to get there. Really it was a terrible time, but considering what was going out there in the water, it was a great time. We were warned that no one has a best time in CDA and really the race tactic for the swim here is to just get through it the best way you know how. And that's how I was managing it. I had a huge smile on my face. I re-entered the water. The numbers had thinned somewhat, but the conditions became worse. The wind picked up, it was raining, and harder to see. I was able to maintain position on the swim and just stay where I wanted to be. On the second loop though, I got picked up in the current of the Spokane River (which empties into Lake CdA, carrying lots of fast moving and cold water) and carried pretty far rightward from the second turn buoy. The choppiness of the water was worse and the wind was terrible. The press helicopters were too low making the water even more churned up, too. It was hard to get out of the current. I was one of many athletes that got swept into it. We all made it out fine. As I finished the second loop, I glanced back and saw that there were many swimmers behind me... I was so relieved to get out of the water and was feeling a little sea sick from all the up and down motion. I was dizzy. Rumors were already passing around that they had removed many swimmers from the water and one was unconcious being flown to the nearest medical center. I hope he is okay....unbeknownst to me, I would learn more about the swim later on along the bike and run course later throughout the day....
In transition I couldn't feel my fingers. They had wetsuit strippers outside of the tent and the wetsuit was off in a flash! I remembered the same from last year. My bike bag was tied so tightly I couldn't get into it because of the lack of dexterity. There was a wonderful helper in the tent and she was able to undo and open the bag for me. She put my bike socks on for me, too, latched my race helmet and sent me off to my bike. I actually walked to my bike. I wanted to run, but my hip had been hurting and "catching" over the past couple days. I didn't want to put undue stress on any part of my body to save a couple minutes. My motto for the day was safe and controlled, watchful vigilance on every part of the bike course. I was extremely nervous getting on the bike. I was super conservative on the first loop. In fact, I kept my watt average at the way bottom end of where my coach wanted me to be. I just didn't want to take any chances. I wanted to be watchful of all the going on's. I didn't want to be anaerobic ever, which I wouldn't be in that wattage zone anyway; however, I wanted to conserve as much as possible for the climbs. As soon as I started pedaling, my heart rate was way above where it should be for the effort and I attributed that to the adrenaline and anxiety. For the first 20 minutes I rode very casually. I wanted to settle my body so that it would accept food and be in control. Those hills were ahead. Through town and down along the lake to the first turnaround point and back into town were uneventful. I felt great! My smile returned and I was having good feelings.
I entered the I-95 overpass and was greeted by Kevin, James and Emily, cheering me on. I had a huge grin on my face. The next 40 miles were going to be all climbing, but I was ready for it. I was fueling well at this point hydrated and feeling super! No sooner than I left the family did the first climb in a series start. There are no hills in southern Maine that even compare with what I had to climb. I attribute my strength with climbing to strength training early in the training season with Scott Fleurant and awesome coaching (THANKS ANGELA BANCROFT!) and doing local hills in a harder gear than necessary. I knew in training I wasn't being an efficient rider a lot of the time, but I knew I wasn't working on big long hills like I needed to be on. I just didn't have the time to travel to Northern ME or NH and I wasn't exactly sure where the hills were. I knew a few people that were doing hills out by Sebago and north of there, but it just never seemed to fit in my schedule to do those group rides. I put faith in what I had done; I stuck to local roads that I knew and increased the difficutly by pushing a harder gear and did them into the wind as much as possible. The hills in the Berwicks, Lebanon, Limington and most of York County was what I had to work with and of course the hills on and around Mount Hope in Sanford. I can't afford a computrainer either, so I couldn't even attempt to assimilate the hills on an indoor trainer. Not once on the bike course did I feel under trained or under prepared. I was climbing those steep, long grades as comfortably as possible. Eating and drinking well. It was cloudy, cold and windy... If anything, I was underdressed for the first loop. The first loop went great! I was happy and coming down off the I-95 overpass on to local roads and seeing my family, again, I was still very happy. Onto flats for a few miles and gentler grades. I poured in more nutrition, fluids and went out along the lake to special needs at the halfway point. To be Continued.....
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| First set of hills complete! Big Smile that never left! Also note: guy just coming on bridge with "King of the Mountain shirt", NOT! |
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| James and Emily on the rock outside our hotel. |
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