fivemonkeys

I drank a lot of water leading up to the start. Extra water plus nerves equals needing to pee badly. No bathrooms? No problem, I’ll take care of business when I get in the river. We line up and head down the ramp to the Savannah river. I ease myself in and immediately become thankful that I have a wetsuit on. The water is cold. Much colder than expected (likely due to all of the recent rain). Despite the full bladder, nerves, and now the cold water, I cannot pee. I suppose it’s because I’m surrounded by people. I’ll have better luck once I get out in the open. I positioned myself on the outside. Despite being a strong swimmer, I don’t feel compelled to take a foot in the face to save a few seconds. I’ll take my time and find my own pace. The gun goes off and the arms and legs start flailing. I take my time, still trying to get used to the cold water. I have no need to fight to stay in the front pack so I just enjoy a nice swim. Don’t get me wrong, I was working but I have a long day ahead of me; I’m not killing myself in the first 30 minutes. And I can’t, for the life of me, pee while I’m swimming. I tried. I really did. I figured at some point my body would give in and let it go but nope, no such luck.

I exited the water and looked at my watch. It read something like 27 minutes. I was shocked. They said there was a slight current but I felt like I hadn’t pushed much at all and I’m finishing 10 minutes faster than in Muncie. I will take it.

I take it easy on the long run to transition and bypass the wetsuit strippers. 1. Wetsuits are not that hard to take off 2. Laying wet on grass and dirt equals mud and grass plastered all over you for the rest of the day. I sit down to put my socks and shoes on, grab the rest of my gear and take off. T1 finished in 3:40.

I took the first couple miles of the bike pretty easy, trying to find an open spot and get my legs warmed up. It didn’t take long though. I got in a good rhythm and was flying. It felt really good. Wind seemed calm and the roads were flat. I wasn’t hammering but pushing to keep the good momentum going. I still have to pee. I know some people can pee while they are on the bike but I couldn’t even let it go in the water, there is no way I could even imagine trying to pee on the bike. I make it to the first of 3 aid stations and decide I have to use the porta potty. Luckily it was open so I was in and out. Ahhhh, so much better. Now that my bladder is empty, I can really fly. I have a great time and I’m making awesome time. I’m surely going to crush my time from Muncie. But then all of the sudden, we started heading back. Unfortunately this wasn’t an out and back course but a loop. And the second half of the loop had a LOT of hills. I didn’t spend the time driving the course but looked at some pictures and over heard some talk of a few hills, etc. but I had no idea. I suck at hills and every time we went up I got crushed more and more. And to top it off, the wind picked up just after the last aid station and the last 10 miles seemed to be uphill with an open head wind. I also didn’t bring my 3bar on the bike opting, instead, for more gels. The combination of everything really made those last few miles of the bike truly torturous. My bike time wasn’t going to be as awesome as I thought but I still had a good chance of reaching my goal time so long as I have a good run. I try spinning in an easy gear and make my way back to transition. T2 in and out in 1:30. I use the time to mentally put the bike behind me and focus on the run.

Starting the run, I try to take it easy and build up. The first mile went well and the second mile felt good despite being a little slower. But by the third mile I was really starting to hurt. My stomach had that “I feel so empty I want to puke” feeling but I knew I couldn’t eat too much or I would actually start puking. I had a little Gatorade (which never tastes good on an empty stomach).  The sun is out now and it is a lot warmer than expected. I try to drink plenty of water and use sponges in my jersey to keep cool. As I pass the turn in point for the finish, the realization that my run is only half over is little tough to handle. What’s worse is that I had really put in a lot of work hoping my run would be a lot better. Fortunately, Tani was right there after the turn in and seeing her definitely boosted my spirits. As I neared the aid station at the start of the second lap, my legs started cramping pretty bad. I decided I had to walk. Walking in a race, to me, is just one step from quitting so it really hurts to do it but there is no way I can continue running. Thank god for whoever thought it would be a good idea to have real food at an aid station!  There, right before my eyes were oranges and bananas! I’m surprised I didn’t give the volunteers hugs. The banana tasted so good. I grabbed a bunch of water and sponges and took off again. The second half was still very tough but there were tons of spectators out there cheering everyone on so I just kept pushing through it. The realization that there was no way I would meet my run or overall goal anymore was tough but I kept reminding myself that this isn’t an easy sport. If it was easy, it wouldn’t mean as much to do a race like this. I could quit if I wanted to but why? What would that accomplish? Nothing at all. I crossed the finish line with a final time of 5:42:01. It may not have been the time I wanted but it is still a good time and, more importantly, I learned something. I know that next time, when times are tough and maybe things aren’t going the way I want, I know that I can push through it and come out on top.

Very late, yes. But better late than never, here is my race report from the inaugural  Ironman Augusta 70.3. It’s a little long so I’ve broken it up into two sections, pre-race and the race itself.

I’ve heard that Augusta is a beautiful city so T and I were excited to visit. There may be some nice parts of Augusta but they are definitely in the downtown area. Downtown Augusta was pathetic. Downtown C-bus would look like NYC next to this place. Enough of the bad talking though; Augusta is a turd but the people are all super nice and the race was great. I would definitely return; I just wouldn’t stay any longer than we needed to.

We drove down but stopped to visit friends in NC for a few days prior. We made the 4 hour trip from Greensboro to Augusta Saturday morning. When we arrived in Augusta, I wanted to go straight for the convention center to get the mandatory pre-race meeting out of the way. This is an Ironman branded race with many more competitors than my previous Muncie experience. This first became apparent when there was virtually zero parking. There were cars and people and bikes (lots of really nice bikes) EVERYWHERE. We finally found a spot and made our way to the meeting and then to packet pick-up. Poor T had to sit through all of that nonsense including a 30 minute wait to get into the pre-race meeting, 45 minutes of pre-race meeting followed by another 30 minutes or so of check-in and packet pick-up. Good thing she is addicted to her Kindle and knitting.

There was a mandatory bike check-in on Saturday so after packet pickup, we checked into the hotel, did a double-check on the bike and headed over to drop it off. I lucked out again and got the end of a section so I had a couple extra inches of space which is always nice.

With my gear triple-checked and certainly ready, all that was left was to find some dinner and relax until morning. We walked up and down the “main drag” looking for something to eat with not much luck. This place was seriously a ghost town; Nobody around and nothing open. We finally ended up finding Blue Sky Kitchen where I had an awesome Cuban chicken and pasta dish with tons of veggies; Perfect pre-race meal. T didn’t care as much for hers but to their credit she did order the only Korean dish from a mostly Cuban menu.

With dinner out of the way, all that’s left was to relax so we headed up to the room to rest up before the super early wake-up call. It ended up pouring down rain all night long. That ended up being a good thing as it helped to drown out the sound from the train that was one street over from out hotel. Seriously, what city has a train that runs regularly down the middle of a downtown street? Augusta, that’s who. The tracks are seriously in the middle of an otherwise normal street. You hear the train whistle, get out the way! Oh, and don’t worry… you WILL hear the whistle.

Here is a picture of the train tracks in use the day after the race. The light colored building in the background, that is our hotel.

The rain was seriously coming down hard and there was plenty of heavy winds and lightning . It was expected to rain so I had covered my seat and bars with bags when I dropped off my bike but it was really coming down. I had visions of 4000 bikes all blown over on top of one another. All of the forecasts said the rain would pass by morning so I crossed my fingers and hit the hay.

Morning came (more like pre-morning) and sure enough, no more rain. The weather was looking pretty good. We drove down to transition and found a parking spot. The swim was a point to point which is nice because we had a little current. The problem though is that you (and more importantly, your dear sweet wife) have to walk 1.2 miles from transition to start. They did have shuttles but they were crowded and were for athlete’s only; no dsw’s.

In transition, I dumped the puddles of water off of the bags that kept my seat and bar dry and laid out the rest of my equipment in its designated spot and did a mental run-through so I could relax and not worry on the way to the start.

We made the 1.2 mile trek to the swim start where I got my chip and put on my wet suit. Thanks to T, I didn’t have to worry about my extra gear (another problem of a point to point swim). After the national anthem and some announcements, we watched the pro’s start. With one last good luck kiss from T, I headed over to line up with the rest of my age group.

To be continued…

I’ll warn in advance that this is a really long post. If you don’t care to read the full report, here is the summary: My first half ironman is now officially in the record books. And it felt great.

Now for the full details…

We got off to a good start on Friday and made it to the hotel by 3:30. I had just barely enough time to get the bags unpacked and head over to the convention center to make it in time to sit in on the 4:00 pre-race meeting. They had meetings at 6:00 and 8:00 as well but I wanted to get it out of the way and relax for the rest of the evening. The meeting was surprisingly informative and entertaining; I would never really expect a pre-race meeting to be either. After the meeting we headed over to registration / expo area. Registration was super quick and easy. This was the 30th anniversary of the event so I suppose they’ve had plenty of time to get the system down. After the expo we grabbed some dinner and headed back to the hotel to relax until morning.

4:00am came awfully early but I super-quadruple checked everything and was confident that I had everything ready to go so no worries. Nutrition is something I have really spent enough time researching so I went with something fairly safe for me: Bagel & cream cheese, banana, and a redbull.

We arrived at the race site at 5:30am (exactly when I wanted to be there). Got the gear out of the car and headed to transition; Lesson #1: Bring a flashlight as it is very dark at 5:30am. Rack space was assigned. I lucked out and got an end spot but it didn’t matter much as they allowed for plenty of space for everyone. I laid all of my gear out only to later hide it all back in my bag. There was a 50% chance of rain for most of the day. I knew this going in and expected to be wet but I didn’t consider what it would be like to put on running shoes that had been in the rain for several hours. Luckily I overheard someone talking about this so I took the advice and packed everything up. I had already decided that I wasn’t going to rush myself in the transition. An extra 30 seconds or so in transition doesn’t mean anything to me over the course of 6 hours.

The entire course was completely closed which is awesome for the athletes but really bad for spectators. My wife and daughter were there with me so we looked to see if we could get the car in a lot that would allow them to leave if they wanted to but we decided it would be too risky so they chose to tough it out. 6 hours of racing is a lot but 6 hours of waiting for someone to race is something else. They should get finisher medals too!

I apparently I missed the announcement of the start. There were still plenty of people in transition when I headed down to the water but I got to the beach to realize that my wave was in the water almost ready to go. I rushed down to the water while trying to get my wetsuit pulled up. Luckily I made it to the water with a couple minutes to spare.

The horn sounded and we were off. The swim start was pretty gentle. There were 52 in my group so we could spread out pretty well. The water was a little choppy but it didn’t really bother me at all. Overall I felt strong and comfortable for the whole swim. I was even thinking towards the end of the swim that I wished this was a full ironman because I was enjoying the it so much. That’s how it works when you grew up swimming.

There was a pretty long run up to transition. I decided that I would take my time in transition and not rush myself so I sat down and took the time to brush the sand off of my feet and get my socks on (neither of which I would do in a shorter distance). I get out to the mount point and notice my computer didn’t wake up. I press the button and the time comes on but it is still not displaying any stats as if the sensor isn’t recognizing the magnet on the wheel. Then it occurs to me that I had taken the skewers off of my race wheels in order to pack them better. When I put the skewers back in at 5:30am in the dark, it didn’t occur to me that I needed to put the front wheel on a certain direction. So lesson #2 learned: make sure you put your bike together correctly and test the computer when you do your final check in transition. I could have easily stopped and fixed it but I thought that not knowing my speed would allow me to focus more on how I feel anyway so I left it.

The bike course was completely closed to traffic and ran on flat roads with a few gentle rollers; A paradise really. I felt pretty good going out despite being passed almost constantly. My new flashpoint FP60’s worked flawlessly and I could really feel the difference in the cross winds. As good as I felt going out, I felt even better after the turn around. I felt like I was flying. I was passing people and it all felt effortless. And just about the time I thought everything was perfect was right about the time that the torrential downpour started. Heavy rain lasted a good 20 minutes or so, let up for a while and then poured again for the last 10 – 15 minutes. My bike shoes were completely filled with water and at times it was difficult to even see. By some awesome luck, Tani made it out to the road to look for me just as I was coming into transition. It was a nice surprise to see her cheering me on; I thought for sure she would miss me due to the rain.

T2 was a little tricky since I had left everything in my bag. I am so glad that I did though! I had an extra pair of socks in there so I was able to change the completely soaked socks for a pair that were only damp. I opted to leave the sun glasses and hat in transition since it didn’t look like the rain would let up any time soon.

Coming out of T2 I felt pretty good. My goal was to run around 9′30 /mi. and at the first mile marker it appeared I was about 9′15. I say “appeared” because I will later find out that the first aid station was at .9 mi. Lesson #3: Pay attention to the actual mile markers.

Because of the rain it was nice and cool for the entire run. At the aid stations I alternated between gatorade and water and also had a hammer gel at about mile 6 and mile 9.

I continued to feel good through mile 5 or so. 6 and 7 were a little tough; My body wanted to walk but I didn’t let it. One of my goals was to not walk at all. Around mile 8 or so I started realizing how close I was. This is also about the time that I realized why my original idea of my pace was so off from where I actually was.

I had been trading spots with a guy for a while on the bike. He passed me at the beginning of the run and I was able to see him off and on throughout. I made it a little mini goal to catch him by the end. Around mile 8 or so I saw that he was walking all of the hills so I pushed up the hills to get myself closer. I finally caught up with him between mile 9 and 10 and ran side by side for a while. Without saying anything we took turns pushing each other slightly until just before mile 12 when he lost it and had to back off.

I pushed through the last mile knowing that I was almost there. As I approached the last hill I saw someone in my age group ahead of me so I fought my way up the hill and past him just at the top. With 50 meters or so left I saw Tani and Kate cheering me on. I ran over to them and high-five’d them as I made my way into the finish chute.

Final time 5:39.31. My goals were:

1. Total time under 6 hours… check
2. Don’t walk… check
3. Run time 2 hours… no check

So 2 out of 3 isn’t too bad I suppose. If I would’ve met my run goal I would have been under five and a half hours which would’ve been perfect for me. But I have my reference point  now and will have a better idea for setting goals for Augusta at the end of September with a big focus on running a much better pace.

Overall I am stoked. I felt a lot better than I expected and I am excited to better my efforts in Augusta and am already looking forward to an Ironman in 2010.

A special thanks to my wonderful wife and amazing daughter for supporting me throughout the entire race (rain and all) as well as the entire weekend, making sure that everything was perfect for my first half ironman. You two rock! (k)

Things to work on for next time:

• Running… I suck at running right now.

Things to add to the packing list:

• Flashlight to see in the dark
• Plastic bags to protect shoes and other items from the rain
• Clear tape to affix number to bike
• Scissors to trim bike number to fit on small frame
• Spare socks

Things to add to the pre-race check list:

• Check that the computer magnet is on the correct side

So maybe the last post was a little pre-mature. Looks like Kansas isn’t going to happen. Augusta is still on so far (although I still haven’t registered yet). I’m looking at a few others too. The Muncie, Indiana Endurathon in July and the Beach to Battleship at Wilmington Beach, NC in November. I’ll post a real schedule when I actually fill out some registration forms.

Mark your calendar. I will be focusing on half-ironman distance in 2009.

Sunday, June 14th, 2009 will be my first half-ironman experience at the Ironman 70.3 in Lawrence, Kansas. Last year was the first year for the event and the reports indicate it was a great event despite severe weather shutting down the event early. We’ll be using this, and most of my major events, as an excuse to vacation. Kansas isn’t necessarily my first pick for vacationing but Lawrence looks to be a fun town and I think we are going to make a  stop in St. Louis for a few days on the way.

Sunday, September 27th, 2009 will be my second primary event; Another Ironman 70.3. This one will be in Augusta, Georgia.  This is the inaugural event so it should be fun.  And hopefully it will be an opportunity to best my time from Kansas.