Race Report: Ironman 70.3 Boise 2010

Ironman 70.3 Boise

6.12.10

Swim 1.2 Miles
Bike 56 Miles
Run 13.1 Miles

The real story of this race starts on April 18, 2010 at 1am. This is the morning of Ironman 70.3 New Orleans. I was supposed to be sound asleep. My alarm was to sound in 3.5 hours. Instead, I was barfing my guts out. Food poisoning. Salmonella. Crab cakes in the French Quarter two days before. It was bad, very, very bad. I crawled back in bed, and Dacia said, "Get hydrated, you'll still be able to race." She loves me. Then every hour, for the next 6 hours I ran to the toilet to expel the contents of my stomach. The venom wasn't finally purged for 4 more days, leaving my body weak and my fragile ego cracked.

After a week or two of licking my mental wounds, and getting back in a training rhythm, I knew it was time to seek some redemption. The place for this would be Boise. I knew, over the next few weeks, if I wanted a good result, I would have to bear down. I've probably never worked harder, smarter or was more consistent. Every training session had purpose. The guidance I received from my coach was invaluable.

That leads us to the Thursday before the race. Dacia and I packed up the car and drove to Boise. There was a little rain, but the forecast in Boise for race day looked good. The one thing I neglected to think about checking, was the wind report. The past two years of this race was marked with either cold temperatures or cold temperatures and rain. I didn't consider Boise was also capable of summoning the trade winds across the Treasure Valley. Those winds would be the story of race day.

Friday was marked with the usual preparations: racking my bike, making my nutrition bottles, stretching, drinking water, trying not to dwell on the impending event. We've all been there, thinking about what is going to happen the next day. Visualizing the chaos of the swim, the pedal strokes, each footstep. Preparing for the pain.

Saturday was like no other race morning. I slept in. However, the 2pm start provided some challenges. I was worried about what and when to eat. The ramifications from a wrong move could prove disastrous. Pancakes for Breakfast and some soup for lunch proved to be a smart move. Dacia and I went up to the base of the Lucky Peak Reservoir Dam around noon. The parking lot was filled with the normal business usually associated with the dawn pre-race ritual of checking tire pressures and ensuring proper body glide application. At about 12:30 we walked up the trail to the top of the damn and I began my preparation. I quickly found my Ironhead teammates who had conveniently located one of the few plots of shade in the transition area. The sun was already overhead. Preparation went quick, soon it was time for to get queued for the swim.


The water temps had been brisk and there had been a lot of talk about the previous years and their unbelievable cold temps. But on this day, after baking only a couple minutes in my wetsuit, the water temperature was a quick relief. The gun sounded and we were off.


I went out pretty hard. Usually I try to be conservative at the beginning and press toward the end, but I knew it was going to be choppy coming back in and if I was going to make any time it was going to be in the beginning, not at the end. This proved to be a pretty good strategy. I kept a good line entire time and after rounding the last turn the chop definitely picked up. I thought to myself this can't be good. I was hoping to swim under 30 minutes.  I had trained to do so, but this was my first lesson in revising my time expectations for the day. It would prove useful from this point forward. It was a good swim for me, but not great, and not what I expected.


Swim: 32:00


I got out of the water, looked at my watch, shook off the disappointment, took the top of my wetsuit off and proceeded to the strippers. First leg came off, no problem. Second leg, stuck. The guy was yelling at the chick tugging on the stuck leg, "Get it off!" I reached up to give a quick tug at my heel. "Pop!" Off it went. On to the bike. There was a small complication as my transition bag momentarily blew away. I saved it, stuffed it full of wetsuit, off I went.


T1: 3:05


Away on the bike I knew things weren't right almost immediately. I remembered on the decent from Lucky Peak two years ago hitting 50 mph. This year I was descending at 38 mph and a hot head wind was hitting me in face. Crap. This is a theme. Wind. The expletives in my head were bright and colorful. I just didn't want wind, but I overcame.  Fortunately I spent more than my fare share training on Sauvie Island, wind was something I could at least cope with.


It wasn't hot-hot yet, but I could tell it was going to get hotter. Two years ago, the course included a small climb up to the World Center for Birds of Prey. The course had changed since then and now included what amounted to a long out and back before eventually coming back to town. The course was essentially set up to where the majority was either direct headwind or severe crosswind. Although I had been pretty consistent, holding my pre race power strategy was out the window. I was being blown all over the place in the cross wind. One time the gust was so hard it slammed my knee into the top tube of my bike and I almost fell into the rocks. I saved it, but the next day Dacia asked, "Where did you get the bruise?"


It was getting hotter and by the turn around I knew I would only have about a 6 mile section where I would get a tailwind. I thought a lot of people would use this to rest and prepare to face the wind again. I knew I would have to make a move after the turn. I did, and passed at least three guys in my age group I didn't see again. When we lost the tailwind I just tried to be as conservative as I could without loosing any age group places. I knew a lot of people were going to blow up their legs in the wind and if I could manage to save some strength I could catch many of them on the run. Plus, I was starting to loose my mind. The wind was getting to me.

It was a windy, hot ride and hope never to have to replicate it again.


Bike: 2:42:07



When I finally got back to transition Dacia yelled, "You're only a minute back from the next guy." I put on my socks and shoes. Off I went. It was hot.

T2: 1:29

I started out on my two mile preliminary pace. I knew I had lost a lot of fluid, it was hot. Toward the end of the bike I took in a little more water than I normally would have, but in transition my stomach was already starting to cramp. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to push the pace very much harder, but I would probably be able to hold pretty close to this pace. The first four and half miles were an exercise in complete mental focus. My stomach hurt, I was overheating, but I knew there were people in my age group I could still catch.

Finally it dawned on me to dump a cup of ice down my shorts. For whatever reason, the cramps in my stomach subsided, so did this at ever aid station from this point forward. It definitely cooled my core temp. I should have done it earlier. I finally caught my friend Jake at about mile five, he told me to keep it up and that is all the motivation I needed. I knew I wasn't going to be able to go much harder, but if I kept this pace I was going to have a good result. It was damn painful at this point but I dug deep. The last stretch down to the finish was a blur.

Run: 1:31:06

This was my first podium finish in a big race like this. I am really proud of the result, especially on such a tough day. I can't think of a tougher day. I told a friend of mine, I would rather raced an Ironman on a normal day than go through that again. I also, proved to myself I can dig deep, that I have more to give. There is a deeper reservoir.

The awards ceremony was at 10pm. Late. I was tired and had already forced down a beer, but man was it sweet standing up there. Congrats to all the Ironheads on fighting through a tremendously tough day and congrats to Bill and Kaytee on their podium finishes. Afterward, Kaytee said it was hard to reconcile her time with her age group place. I agree.

Total: 4:49:48
 
Thanks to Dave C., my coach. My success is a direct result of his advice. Period.

Finally, as always, thank you to Dacia for supporting me in this crazy sport. I couldn't achieve any of it without you.

training.

I ran across this passage today while rereading a book I, until recently, had not given very much consideration, A Separate Peace by John Knowles. In fact, it wasn't until about 50 pages in did I realize I had read previously. In any case, this specific passage stood out, especially after my run today.

every trace of energy as usual completely used up, and as I drove myself on all my scattered aches found their usual way to a profound seat of pain in my side. My lungs as usual were fed up with all this work, and from now on would only go rackingly through the motions. My knees were boneless again, ready any moment to let my lower legs telescope up into the thighs. My head felt as though different sections of the cranium were grinding into each other.

Then, for no reason at all, I felt magnificent. It was as though my body until that instant had simply been lazy, as though the aches and exhaustion were all imagined, created from nothing in order to keep me from truly exerting myself. Now my body seemed at last to say, "Well, if you must have it, here!" and an accession of strength came flooding through me. Buoyed up, I forgot my usual feeling of routine self-pity when working out, I lost myself, oppressed mind along with aching body; all entanglements were shed, I broke into the clear.

listen.

If you are not listening to this, you should be.

carl sandburg.

The first two years of my formal education were spent at Carl Sandburg Elementary School in West Valley City, UT. I think, even in Kindergarten and First Grade, I was vaguely aware that Sandburg was a writer of some kind. Now 26 years removed from those opaque days of youth, I just finished reading Sandburg's Chicago Poems. Several things struck me upside the head while reading this book.

I wonder how on earth an elementary school in the Salt Lake Valley was named after an outspoken socialist. There seems to be some incongruity in a school located in the heart of our nation's most conservative state being named after a man that was integral in the American socialist movement of the early 20th century. I mean, he was the private secretary of Eugene V. Debs! I wonder if the school board knew he was the man that wrote

Voices of dollars
And drops of blood

Could they have known?

I wonder if there was a teacher in the entire school who knew who Sandburg was and what he stood for? I am not saying definitively no one knew, but given my basic knowledge of teachers today I am pretty doubtful. I know many elementary school teachers, I doubt they have read "Chicago". I doubt they had read "Fog"

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

Finally, I wonder if, in some way, I was meant to find Sandburg more than 25 years later. I don't particularly love him as a poet, or agree with his politics. However, in some small manner, I feel connected to his words. I did go to a school named after him, although I can't believe that in any way that school embodied the name above the door. There is always some lesson in the words of poets concerned with the topics of their day. As The Great War raged on he wrote:

JAWS

SEVEN nations stood with their hands on the jaws of death.
It was the first week in August, Nineteen Hundred Fourteen.
I was listening, you were listening, the whole world was listening,
And all of us heard a Voice murmuring:
“I am the way and the light,	5
He that believeth on me
Shall not perish
But shall have everlasting life.”
Seven nations listening heard the Voice and answered:
“O Hell!”	10
The jaws of death began clicking and they go on clicking.
“O Hell!”

until something goes wrong.

a few words of inspiration.

One Hour to Madness and Joy
by Walt Whitman

One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not!
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)
O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!
O savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you my children,
I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)

O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me
in defiance of the world!
O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!
O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips of
a determin'd man.

O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all
untied and illumin'd!
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!
To be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and
you from yours!
To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature!
To have the gag remov'd from one's mouth!
To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am.

O something unprov'd! something in a trance!
To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!
To court destruction with taunts, with invitations!
To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!
To rise thither with my inebriate soul!
To be lost if it must be so!
To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!
With one brief hour of madness and joy.

music.

Sometimes you have to wade through mountains of crap to find music that doesn't suck. As it has been a couple of years and in case you have forgotten....