Ironman Louisville - TriathlonFull Ironman

I freaked out on the way to the water. So much so that the lady on the dock told me to breathe and Jay tried to pat my back from behind. It was really scary, but I jumped right in and started swimming so they didn't have to shove me.

Wow, I thought the time trial was supposed to make the swim easier, but alas no. There was no self-seeding by time, so I was being run over from behind with nowhere to go because the people in front were slower. I've never panicked in a swim before (except in the sprint where I thought I started with the wrong wave), but I freaked out when I couldn't get anywhere and couldn't breathe and then some guy hit me in the forehead with his elbow. It was a bad feeling and I said a lot of bad words. I swam out to the left closer to the island and that gave me a bit of a reprieve. I knew that it would suck once we got to the turn, but I couldn't face going through the scrum to get to the outside. Sure enough, going around the buoy was horrible, but it was better after that because the river was wider. Swam on the outside for a while and enjoyed watching the hot air balloons - very nice touch. : ) Then, inexplicably I was on the inside and the kayaks were motioning me back towards the pack. Whatever, it was OK and I made it under both bridges (scary) and to the finish. Learned to pee while swimming, which was awesome. That guy that tried to swim on top of me at the turn buoy got more than he bargained for.

Swim on the outside instead of trying to fight through a school of crazy slower swimmers.

It took me four tries to get my shirt on. With both Lisa and Courtney helping me. WTF. I didn't forget anything, though, so that was nice. It was truly awesome to have Lisa and Courtney in there and to see Karen in T1. Just made me feel better about the day. Karen, I am very sorry for deciding to wave and say Hi before I actually got my shirt on.

Not change clothes. Waste of time. Putting the cotton ball/band-aid on my toe took some time, but I needed to do that to avoid the bunion pain so I'm not worrying about that.

Well. I screwed this up badly.

In T1, Courtney asked if I wanted my Garmin on HR and I said "No, just elapsed time". Then, as I was going out River Road, I realized that I was going too fast, so HR was a better plan and left it on that screen. My goal was to go out slow and keep it under 130 bpm.

I did well on 42 and the out-n-back. I tried to look for folks but you had to pay attention to the road on the out-n-back because of the turns and hills and bad pavement so I only saw Kevin come by and I passed Katie but thought it was odd that the girl with the disc looked so much like Katie. Ha! She looked great. : )

Out to LaGrange, I realized that I was getting ahead on my nutrition and tried to drink more water. I didn't need to pee yet, which seemed odd but I attributed it to peeing during the swim. LaGrange was a blur and I learned yesterday that Bill and Lisa were out there and so was Tom, but I saw no one on either loop. I felt lonely on the bike. With all of the group rides this year, riding solo made me sad. I made friends with a couple of folks (the dude in yellow and Claudia) on the second loop, so that made it better. Learned to pee on my bike after LaGrange. It was not hard at all! Score! I got water and Perform at each aid stop and dumped water on myself regularly so that I stayed reasonably cool. The hills were not too hard (no need to stand up except for the narrow road) but I think the sheer number of hills sapped my energy. I was very pleased to see the signs ahead of water stop #4 and they were really nice. Unfortunately, I launched the Perform in the intersection with the bump and a water at a pothole on down 42. Crap. Finished the 1st loop feeling good, though, but tired of the bike.

Second loop went OK through LaGrange. I got water at stop #4, and had to come to a complete stop to ask for water with a lid. No dice, they only had open ones. This turned out not to be a big deal. I just dumped the rest of my Perform and let the nice volunteer guy fill that bottle up for me and used the open one from my front cage. However, when we got to stop #5, it was the same deal with the open bottles. I got them anyway. Better open water than nothing. Then I gave one of the girls my open bottle to refill and saw how they were refilling. They were dunking the bottles in the wading pool they had used to chill the waters!!! They had run out of waters and were recycling the bottles folks had thrown down by filling them with the ice water. I refilled my own bottle while a nice volunteer held my bike and someone else's and got back on my way.

Holy shit. I filled every bottle I had and ignored the huge gross factor. Water is water and I needed it. My tummy started to hurt on this loop before Doug passed me but I tried to ignore it. Sometimes Perform gives me gas, so I thought it would go away. Alas, no. I sucked it up for the rest of the bike, riding on RPE after Garmin auto-paused me. Remembered the Nuun in my run bottle and was glad about it and thought it would help me. I counted down the miles from the 80 mile aid station. The 100 mile aid station had fresh cold waters and I praised them greatly.

Nutrition:
Hour 1 - 1 bottle Gu2O (140 calories); 1 granola bar (1/2 of 2 pack - 90 calories)
Hour 2 - 1 bottle Gu2O (140 calories); rest of the granola bar pack (90 calories)
Hour 3 - 1 bottle Perform (175 calories); 1 Gu (100 calories)
Hour 4 - 1 bottle Perform (175 calories); 1 granola bar pack (180 calories)
Hour 5 - 1 bottle Perform (175 calories)
Hour 6 - 1/2 bottle or less Perform (89 calories); 1 Gu (100 calories)
Hour 7 - sips of Perform (no idea); 4 Gu Chomps (90 calories)

Not go too hard on the bike.

Remember to drink some freaking water.

Do a race that doesn't run out of water. WTF

Another complete wardrobe change. My volunteer helped me with pulling my shirt down. She had a hard time finding stuff in my bag, but was able to find me a wipe from their stash, so I didn't get to wipe down as much as I wanted after the bike. Oh well. Got all of my gear situated and remembered the vasaline on the way out. Thankfully, there was a tub right by the door. Score! Hit the potties before heading out on the run.

Only change my shorts.

Not go so hard on the bike that I'm stupid in T2.

Well. This sucked. I felt OK leaving transition, but made it about 1/3 of a mile before I had a choice between walking or puking. I went with walking. Ate my Tums and hoped that those plus my Nuun would help me burp and then I would feel better. Then, as I walked and thought I might die, I thought that maybe my GI had just shut down because I went too fast on the bike. OK. Doug had told me what to do for that - slow down. So I did. People were passing me while I walked. I met a radiologist who had been shooting for 11 hrs. His GI shut down too, so he was considering quitting. He had to go on ahead of me at one of my many unproductive potty stops which was OK. He wasn't feeling my "forward progress is good" vibe despite being very pleasant and good conversation anyway, so it was all right. Then I met another guy who had been shooting for 11 hrs. His GI was shut down also but he was very positive. He really liked IM Arizona but I had to let him go at another potty break. We saw that guy at the Waffle House on Monday, which was neat. Then I met my pal Ron. He is retired from the Dept of Defense (IT) and we talked forever. I yelled for my peeps and folks I knew from the course (Susan, who passed me on the bike and already did CdA this year; the blue shirt with orange writing run 100 steps/walk 100 steps guy; the dude in yellow; the Brooks ID guys and girl; the GT Jackets guy; the Go Dawgs guys; and the guy in the jersey that looked like prisoners stripes - Jailbait). All of the peeps looked good and Doug gave me some encouragement. I figured that I'd just walk until my GI started digesting again so on we walked. Ron apologized for talking so much, but I had a blast talking to him and as the sun set we both felt better. I did the math and figured out that we could finish before midnight if we kept up 20 min/mile pace so we just kept moving. Ron wasn't having GI, he was cramping. We had Coke and I had some pretzels and refilled my water bottle a lot and dropped in the Nuuns occasionally. It looks like we picked up the pace in mile 8 when the sun started to set and it got cooler and there was shade. I talked Ron into running with me in mile 12, which was AWESOME! Whoo! My GI started working again, which was embarrassing when the Perform gas showed up. I apologized profusely, but Ron didn't care. He lasted about 1-2 miles before he cramped up again and told me to go on (I had said we were going too fast, but he was more comfy at that speed). It was so great to run. I really loved this part of the run. I danced and sang (out loud) to the music and cheered for everyone. It was fun to go near the finish where everyone was cheering and feel the energy. I didn't even mind turning around to go back out. It was great. Apparently, I ran about 6-7 miles. Then, my GI got going TOO well and I had to walk and start touring the potties. Total meltdown at this point and I just limped from potty to potty. Whatever, we knew this might happen for me. It just was not very pleasant after all of the greatness of the running. I joked with a guy that I was on plan Z and he said he was already on AA. Ha! When I thought I wouldn't chuck it, I ate my immodium in mile 19 or 20 and tried to keep a fast walk. It was close on the chucking and same deal with the pretzels I tried at the next aid station. Thank goodness that immodium was one of the quick-dissolve kind or I wouldn't have been able to swallow it. I just had coke and water for the rest of the "run". At the turn-around, it was 8:54pm, so I did the math and figured out that I would finish under the cut-off, so that was good but wow those last 6 miles sucked. I thought about barfing or pooping the whole time and it was dark and the potties ran out of TP. Dammit. I had already visited them all, so at least I knew which ones had sanitizer. I counted down every step in the last few miles and was really hacked that Garmin had me .25 miles long. I just told myself to keep going and that someone would take care of me at the finish. My hives really hurt and my shins were sore (they are not used to the walking, apparently) and I wanted to die.

Then, there was the light and the tunnel and all of the cheering and I finished. The finish chute was just crazy with the lights and the noise - just completely surreal to come in from the quiet dark to that. Seriously, it was just the rest of the plodders, me and the crickets. Ok, and some friendly drunk guys, but it was so long and dark that the light felt like a mirage. I tried really hard and mananged to trot (don't know if it really counts as a run) through the chute and threw my arms up to finish. Whoo!

Not overdo the bike.

Run/walk. Clearly this was a more effective plan and maybe if I had started that instead of straight running in mile 11, I might have been able to keep it together enough to keep some running happening.

Not drink the coke so early. I should have stuck with the Nuun until the GI started working again.

Sat down with the volunteer until Doug came. Becky and Katie waited in the chute for me which was so awesome. I was so glad to see all of them. Then, we went to the food building where Doug tried to get me to eat something. No dice. My hives hurt really bad so we went to the med tent. They decided to do nothing about the hives but gave me an IV, which made me feel a lot better. I think that my electrolytes were all out of whack from the sweating and the lack of eating and big "D" on the run.

Doug made me go to the med tent and moved heaven and earth to get my bike and transition bags and pick my dumb ass up at the med tent. God bless him. I don't know how I would have managed to do all of that. I feel bad that Doug worked so hard to do my plan and make sure I was able to execute it and get my workouts in and then I just messed it up. That is the thing about the IM, though, you don't get another chance until next year. I'll just have to do a better job next time.


Going too fast on the bike, not drinking enough water on the bike, and the heat.


Overall, I really enjoyed Louisville and the race. I would race here again, but not in the heat. On a less-hot day, the problems listed below would not be as big a deal and Louisville was a fun town with good food.

Here are my issues: (1) You don't get special needs bags back, (2) They ran out of water less than 6 hrs into the bike on a 96 degree day - really WTF!?!, (3) The last 2 aid stations were 20 miles apart, (4) There were no maps of the aid stations or the transition area, (5) Time-trial start encourages slow or nervous people to be first in line, causing ridiculous pile-ups on the swim.