SWIM BIKE RUN OVERALL POSITION
1:33:10 7:23:28 5:26:59 14:47:09 1226
IMAZ was my A race this year. I’ve been working with Jill Fry for almost a year (I highly recommend her), so I was pretty comfortable with my training level going into the race (except for some freaking out about the swim)…I wasn’t as consistent as I’d wanted, but I’d nailed enough of the important workouts to know that if I came out of the water strong, I would finish…it was just a matter of how much I suffered (or not). Since this was my first iron-distance race (in fact, my first tri longer than a sprint :- ), my primary goal was just to finish, with my time goal being sub-15…sub-14 was my stretch goal.
Pre-raceFlew down to Phoenix on Wednesday evening to get ready (my parents live there, so I had a nice built-in support system)…coach & two other JFT2 teammates were already there, so we got together each morning to swim. 30min run on Thursday, 1hr bike & 15min run on Friday, and 15min each on Saturday before the race. Read the email from Hurricane Bob that Wes forwarded out last summer before bed every night, which really helped with the mental preparation & dealing with the Taper Blues. :-) I also managed to smash my right hand in a door on Thursday morning on my way out to swim, so my index finger swelled up nice & big, and the doctor worried that it was fractured…oh well. Drilled a hole in the nail to drain the excess blood (much better) and buddy taped it before the swim, and ignored it from there on out…there was plenty of other pain to focus on. :-)
A bunch of friends from college & MSFT flew in for the race, so we made some shuttle runs to the airport…I can’t say I was a good host J, but it was fantastic having them all there. Checked in the bike & transition bags on Sunday, ran some last minute errands, and ate an early dinner. My race plan called for being in bed by 8pm…I made it by 8:30 (which for those who know me is remarkable).
Race day
Up at 3:45, start with the fluids. 6 eggs + oatmeal + banana + Thermolytes for breakfast about 2.5 hrs before the race, and a long drive down to the race course. Crank up the tunes (Cake’s The Distance was on repeat most of the morning, with a little JayZ, Run-DMC, and Daft Punk for good measure)… At the race course by 5:15, load up my bike with water bottles & gel, dropped off the SN bags, and before I knew it people were jumping in the water to hang out (deep water start). Pulled on my wetsuit, hugged my family, and followed everyone into the water.
SwimSwimming is my weakest sport, so I was somewhat worried about it in the days before the race, particularly with my hand messed up…the IMAZ swim course is a single loop of Tempe Town Lake, which I’ve best heard described as “iced tea” (I believe it was Char’s lovely analogy :-)…it was hard to see your hand 8” in front of your goggles in the water.
(photos are from Katie Kollitz, a friend from college, and my little sister Laura, a fellow Softie & soon-to-be triathlete)
The pros started at 6:45, the rest of us hung around until 7am and then took off. I started towards the back (intentionally)…Jill had told me to count to 15 before I took off, to let the madness pass and just find my own pace—on the theory that it’s more fun to pass than to be passed/swum over. I found another guy in the water who had the same plan, and so we counted together until about 5—then got impatient and just took off anyway. Quickly found a couple pairs of feet to follow, and steadily moved forward (but not that far)…only got kicked in the head once during the swim, and just occasionally in the hands/legs. Hit a rhythm pretty quickly, and a lot of my worries evaporated—finishing wasn’t going to be a problem, it was all about time & pain. My sighting was better than it ever has been in training swims, and I was happy to see my watch at 43min at the turn (not quite halfway)…swam under the last bridge and happened to see my mom & sister looking down over the rail, so I spun onto my back and waved. Scariest part of the day—my calf cramped as I rolled back into my stroke, but luckily just for a second or two and it went away. Came out of the water at 1:33:10, up the stairs, through the wetsuit strippers and into T1.
T1
T1 was amazingly crowded, given that I finished towards the back of the pack in the swim (1745 of ~2000)…no worries, dumped my bag, stuffed in my wetsuit, and got ready for the bike. Didn’t close my eyes & relax like Jill recommended, I was just happy to be out of the water & ready to ride. Got some sunscreen on the way out, found my bike, and got stuck in traffic at the mount point (I swear I heard my dad yelling “get out of his way!” :-).
BikeWind. Wind. More Wind. The bike course is three loops from Tempe out to Fountain Hills along the Beeline Highway (false flats on the way out to a little hill—maybe 500’—and a nice little “descent” on the way back), and notoriously windy. My nutrition plan was all liquid (CarboPro + water), 150Cal in the first hour and 400Cal every hour after that, and a Thermolyte every 15min based on the extra hot weather. I also took 2 Clif Bars + 2 Gu in case I needed something solid—ended up not using them. I’ve trained on the course a number of times, including a full 3 loops about 5 weeks before the race, and was comfortably doing 2:05 loops, so I was thinking about a 6:15 or 6:30 bike, maybe 6:45 with a “bad” wind. Oops.
Headed out on the first one and immediately hit a strong headwind on Rio Salado…looked down at my power meter and I was way over my goal wattage (175W avg, capped at 210W on the “hills”, and I was at 250W), so I settled down and tried not to feel bad I was only making 13mph into the wind on a relatively flat road. The road makes a couple of 90* turns getting out of Tempe, so you alternate crosswind & upwind sections on the outbound leg. I was almost 10min slower than my usual pace making it to the turn onto the Beeline, which was my first clue this wasn’t going to be a fast ride. Got into my aid station drill—throw away bottles, first water bottle into the downtube cage, second bottle behind my seat, third dumped over my head and thrown away again. The first pros started to pass me about 1:20 into the ride, already on to their second loop…nice. Out to the turnaround at 1:30 (usually 1:10), back in at 2:25 for the first loop. Saw my family & friends twice each time I came through the turnaround near transition (inbound & outbound), which was fantastic.
2nd loop was a little faster as I got my stomach settled down, but my feet starting hurting like crazy…still not sure why. Oh well, it couldn’t all be easy. Skipped special needs to save time, and I didn’t need anything that was there (solid food, tubes & CO2, extra Thermolytes), and came back around for the third loop. The first & second aid stations ran out of water (oops) so I dropped my nutrition plan and picked up Gatorade Endurance (which they still had)…it’s got too few calories (150) and too much sodium (600mg), and it threw off my stomach again, but at least it was better than nothing and really, close enough. Puked at the third aid station and started to feel better, but began to worry a lot about dehydration…luckily they had water again (different bottles, so clearly the volunteers had radioed ahead and they’d gone out to buy more), so I loaded up on it for the “descent” and tried to get rehydrated. Felt great on the return trip (it helps that it was both downhill & downwind), which provided a nice chance to pick up time & places, and still get ready for the run. Saw the results of another crash on the course—another tight turn taken too fast, and an ambulance on the way—but the guy looked reasonably ok and there were a bunch of volunteers with him. Cruised back through the crowds in downtown Tempe and into transition…total time on the bike was 7:23:28, including both transitions…that wind really sucked.
According to an article from the AZ paper my mom sent me, 159 people abandoned the race on the bike, and 44 more abandoned during T2…the DNF rate for IMAZ this year was more than double last years’ (I assume due to conditions), at somewhere north of 15%.
T2
Another crowded transition/change tent, but not quite as bad…quick change into running clothes (I love tri shorts for shorter races, but I figured the extra minute or two each transition to switch into real sport-specific clothes was worth it over the course of 15 hours J ), plenty of BodyGlide & sunscreen, and out onto the run course. This time I did close my eyes and relax for a couple seconds…that helped.
RunMy strategy for the run was just to get through it, loop by loop. Run as much as I could, walk the aid stations. Remarkably, my legs weren’t totally fried from the bike, so the running wasn’t actually that bad until my stomach started acting up again. My nutrition plan was simple and again, all liquid—2 half-cups of Coke + 1 half-cup of water per aid station—but I hadn’t trained enough with the Coke to be totally comfortable with it (a mistake on my part). The second aid station on the run had a volunteer with a hose spraying down runners, which was fantastic given the heat… When my stomach starting complaining again around mile 4, I started backing off on the Coke and switched to Gatorade + water, which I knew I could handle, and I made the walks longer after the aid station to drain everything and settle a bit. This dropped my pace some, but kept me moving forward and continuing to rehydrate, or at least not get worse (I had minor headaches on & off that were also concerning me re: hydration…I decided that I’d rather finish the race a little slower than risk DNFing because I collapsed at mile 20 J ). Saw (coach) Jill around mile 7 and ran with her for a bit—got some advice & encouragement, and headed off to finish the first loop…two more to go. The second loop was pretty much a blur—one foot in front of the other, Gatorade/water/Gatorade, keep running. The sun started to go down on the third loop and things began to cool off a bit, just in time for me to get the hiccups at mile 18, which lasted (painfully) until mile 22, where I threw up again and got rid of them. My legs were still doing ok, though, so around mile 24 I started to accelerate (by which I mean 10min/mi, up from 12min/mi J ), skipped the last 2 aid stations, and looked for the finish line. Made the final turn into the finish chute with more energy than I ever knew I had. :-)
FinishCrossed the finish line at 14:47:09 (although I couldn’t have told you that when I crossed…I just knew I was sub-15 and tired)…was caught by a volunteer and asked if I was OK at least 10-15 times in between getting my finisher’s medal, tshirt, getting rid of my chip, getting water + space blanket, etc. (The 4000+ volunteers for the whole race were fantastic—aside from running out of water (briefly) on the ride, the race was very, very well organized). Found my family at the exit to the finish chute, hugged everyone (I’m sure they really enjoyed that J ), and collapsed against a fence to rest for a while.
Got home, got a couple hours of sleep (amazingly, woke up at 6am without an alarm), and headed back down to buy lots of gear that said “Finisher” in big print. :-) My stomach’s finally settled down and almost back to normal, and remarkably, I’m not super sore. I *am* really tired, and it’s amazing how many muscles just aren’t functioning well…typing literally tires my hands out…walking up stairs just feels like I’ve been running hill repeats for hours. Overall I’m quite happy with my race—I left something out on the course as a result of being overly cautious about pushing myself into a DNF, but that fit with my goals…and it makes it easier to PR next time. ;)
Thanks!
-Steve
