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| Finisher Medal on IMMT chamois backdrop |
(the longer
the race, the longer the race report)
Leading up to the race I was feeling strong and
healthy. I had hit the pool regularly and had done a bunch of long open water swims, I rode six solid solo 100+ mile
rides and five 18+ mile runs averaging 7:30 pace. I was ready to knock this thing out of the park.
Ok, well - that's the rosy picture I was painting for myself and my supporters - the reality is that I was kind of freaking out a little - I hadn't done an Ironman in 9 years and I am turning 55, I wasn't getting enough sleep and while I had been pretty healthy for 4 months leading up to
the race, the week before the race I tweaked my shoulder swimming, my hip was
starting to bother me and the day before we left, I sliced my thumb trying to remove
a bite valve from a tube on my hydration system. Time to pull back and relax a little.
The idea was to drive up to Mont Tremblant (MT), spend a
couple relaxing days with the family in a beautiful condo overlooking the lake,
close to the race start.
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| View from the Condo |
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| Ironman Mont Tremblant Village |
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| Dinner with family and friends |
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| Goofing around Thursday night |
It was a nice 10 hour
drive up to MT and I actually got to take a little nap. Unpacking the car and
getting my bike set up took longer than expected, so I didn’t take the short
bike ride that I expected on Thursday. Instead, I spent time hanging out with the
family having a nice dinner and checking out the race venue which was extremely
well done and organized - larger than life M-dot stage settings and photo op
stuff everywhere with a backdrop of a beautiful little European, Disneyesque
ski village.
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| Poutine and Sausage Dinner Thursday night - Yum |
I got up early on Friday to ride the technical part of the
course about 11 miles nice and easy – oh boy, this was going to be fun to race.
After the ride, I walked down to the transition area with my daughter who was going to run part of the course – I declined joining her as I was trying to save my legs for the
race and headed over to registration - funny how they weigh you before the race.
We visited with friends who have a place in MT and I did a short, easy swim afterward and felt great.
It’s easy to overthink these races and I was falling into
that trap. They give you 5 bags to put your stuff in – race morning bag, bike
transition bag, run transition bag, bike special needs bag, run special needs
bag. Ugh. The week leading up to the race, I realized
my new tri suit had no pockets and I really had no room on the bike for bars,
gels, electrolytes and flat repair stuff – so I was still trying to figure out
what to do on that front. I ended up
using my rear bottle holder for my flat repair and to hold 1 nutrition bar (220
calories). I used my downtube bottle
holder to do water exchanges and I filled my aerobar water bottle holder with
powdered nutrition – Perpetuem + Heed (930 calories). I had an extra nutrition bar (220 calories)
in my bike special needs back and I would carry my electrolytes on the inside
pocket of my tri suit even though it was hard to get at. I wouldn’t mess around with gels on the
bike. See what I mean about over
thinking it?
On Saturday I watched the women’s Olympic triathlon on TV, then
dropped my bike off and dropped my swim-to-bike and bike-to-run transition bags
off and headed back to the condo to relax while the family took the gondola up
the mountain. My daughter ran one loop of the course and let me know how hilly it was. I ate a big pasta dinner
with the family early on Saturday night.
No workouts on Thursday or Saturday and an easy bike and swim on Friday
– I should feel fresh for the race.
Race day I woke up at 4am, but felt groggy and not at all
hungry, but forced half a bagel with peanut butter down along with a
banana. Got my nutrition bottles
together and headed down to the race with my daughter at about 5:30am. When I
got to transition, I realized I forgot my most important nutrition bottle and
my daughter ran back up to the condo to get it (Thank you Erika!). My front tire didn’t seem to be holding air,
but there wasn’t much I could do about it (in hindsight it was the pump and not
the tire, so all was good although I may have been a bit over inflated).
The swim start was packed with nervous athletes ready to hit
the water. It was a very cool experience
with fireworks kicking off each wave, and fighter jet from the Canadian royal
airforce doing high speed fly-bys. I
tend to stumble around the swim due to my nearsightedness, but managed to make
it to the starting line without incident.
I hadn’t really thought much about the swim – just line up in the middle
and go straight at the buoys markers. I
had a couple of guys in front of me on the beach, but not much I could do about
that. We were the 7
th wave of swimmers (all men over 50) and there
were over 1500 racers who had already started – my wave had to be a few
hundred.
The fireworks went off and so did we. The swim start of an
Ironman always gets you blood flowing – feels more like a wrestling match in
the water than a nice swim. I had a
decent start and was moving pretty well for a while until we caught the wave in
front of us – then everything started going bad. These are the least experienced swimmers from the
previous wave, so, they are going sideways – they are stopping dead in front of
you – they are pushing you if you bump into them. It was pretty ugly out there and there were a
lot of them to get through. I don’t
think I got clean water for more than 2 minutes the rest of the race. In
hindsight, I should have swum to the left or to the right of the buoys and
avoided the log jam. I would also say that prefer the mass start of Ironman rather than wave starts - it is just too hard to swim through the slower swimmers, but in a mass start, after the first 200 meters, everyone is more or less swimming with their peers.
When we got to the middle of the lake, there were swells and
chop – I kind of dig these conditions when swimming alone – easy to get into a
rhythm with the water. But when people
are banging into you left and right, it’s just annoying. Well, I lost my swim mojo a little over
halfway through the swim when someone hit my foot and my foot and calf
immediately cramped up and I had to stop and massage it for a couple of
seconds. The rest of the swim was just
about grinding it out until I got to shore.
I’m a land lover and once on shore I got my wetsuit peeled
off and I started running past people – lots of people – I had to push through
a few of them because they were moving so slow and blocking the way – come on
people, this is a race!
In the changing tent, I threw my ear plugs into my
transition bag, put on my helmet and sunglasses and spent WAY TOO LONG trying
to put on the top of my tri suit because it was wet and tight fitting – in
hindsight, I should have just kept in on during the swim. I also struggled with putting my electrolytes
in the inside pocket. I would say I lost
a full minute messing around in the changing tent. Then I got to my bike and went to put my
first shoe on and I felt something in the shoe – it was my ear plug, so I took
the shoe off, removed the ear plug and put the shoe back on again –
Unfortunately, when I went to put the other shoe on, the exact same thing
happened – what are the odds?! Another 30 seconds lost in T1.
I got out of T1 (Transition 1) and I was moving on the bike
– ahh finally. Felt so easy and so
strong. I started drinking water with a
goal of having completed 22 oz bladder and refilled the bladder with my water
bottle before the first water stop. I
passed a load of people climbing some nice hills and flying down descents. The
rain kicked in about 10 miles into the bike and it rained pretty much the rest
of the race.
I waited until I was getting a little hungry before I
started taking in nutrition – I’ve learned never to force the calories. About 45 minutes into the bike I was hungry
and started drinking my Perpetuem/Heed mix – it was heavily concentrated, so I
was taking in a little at a time. I felt
like I was flying and was surprised how easy it was. I should have realized I had a tail wind. The hills were long and rolling in the first
part of the course and my max speed got up to almost 50mph at one point, but a
lot of riding in the high 30s and low 40s.
Coming back was a different story and it was time to focus on getting
small and aero. I continued passing –
there was a pack that kept riding my wheel and repassing me, but after a few
hills, they petered out - none of the young guys likes a skinny old dude with
“54” on his calf to pass them.
I was hydrating well (trust me) and enjoying the ride.
We went through the village of Mont Tremblant, back through the resort,
then up to the more technical and steep part of the course that I had ridden a
couple of days before. I felt good and
was just flying up the hills and down the hills. There was a lot of bike traffic on this first
loop and it was raining hard, so I had to be careful coming down and around the
blind turns, but I got through it and don’t think I lost too much time. At the halfway point, my cheering section was out there in the rain routing me on.
Halfway through the bike, I hadn’t taken any electrolytes
yet and didn’t want to deal with digging them out of the inside pocket of my
tri suit – this was probably a mistake that I would pay for later.
I got to the bike special needs bag and I called for my bag
and no one came, so I just kept going.
This may have also been a mistake not getting my nutrition bar and
banana, but I figured they had nutrition along the way and I would just take it
as necessary.
I fumbled around with the one nutrition bar that I had in my
rear bottle – first I had to open the bottle, then open the packaging on the
bar – let’s just say that is a period I was being passed by other riders.
But I got the bar down and was feeling pretty good having
already ridden 60 miles. I still had
some nutrition in my bottle as well. I
grabbed a 1/3 of a banana at a stop at one point and a bite sized Cliff bar
about 80 miles in, so I felt like I was getting just enough calories.
The headwind and hills coming back were tough and everyone
was slowing down having already gone 80+ miles.
I was still passing people, but wasn’t feeling great – just getting
through it - pretty much as expected.
Through the town and up the hills again – my brain was
getting a little fuzzy and I was pretty tired and now it was time to run a
marathon!
(apparently my Garmin was not recording elevation properly - the course was about 5500 feet of climbing)
T2 was interesting because you get to ride your bike right
into transition up to a red carpet running path and hand your bike to a race
volunteer. I got through T2 pretty
quick, slathering my toes with Vaseline knowing that I would be soaking wet
most of the run.
My legs felt ok at the start of the run, but my energy
levels were low. I stopped by a porta
john 1.5 miles into the run and then started climbing the hills. I was running slow, but my HR was higher than
it should be at that pace, even when I got to the flat section. I decided to take in as much water and
Gatorade as I could, walking through the rest stops to make sure I absorbed the
nutrition, but nothing was working. By
mile 6, I was completely drained and my left quad started failing (this usually
doesn’t happen until mile 20) - how could I be bonking this early in the race - this is bad, really bad.
By mile
10, both quads were going and over the next 16 miles, I was in survival mode
doing whatever I could to get to the finish line. At the halfway mark, I ran through the resort
and my family was there to cheer me on which felt good. Near the end, I would jog .2 miles and walk
.05 miles – I did this for the last 6 miles of the race. This was totally unexpected given my training
and I wasn’t sure how to handle it, so I just muscled through the run watching
people pass me left and right. I was
really out of it at that point and couldn’t think straight – I just wanted to
finish this damn race. I hit a lot of
dark spots during the run – vowing that I would never do this again – wondering
why I was out here in the first place, but I just kept going. I had to play a lot of mind games with myself
to keep going. At one point I was forcing myself to run for 100 breaths before
taking a walk break and as soon as my heart rate got below 120, I would start
again. Not a great way to run a race.
Not sure how, but I made it to the finish line – a beautiful
spot to finish – downhill – right through the middle of the resort area. My family was there to cheer me on and it
felt pretty good to have that last boost.
I was still out of it, apparently looking at my watch as I went through
the finishing chute when they take all the pictures – dope!
I’m glad it’s over.
In hindsight, I should have waited a year before doing another Ironman –
I was far too distracted with work to have a good race. A week later, as I write this, I am feeling
the post race withdrawal blues – at the same time, I am feeling extremely
fit and healthy. I feel like I want to
jump into another race and see how I do – but not another Ironman just yet!
