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 Swim
Comments: The course was in Lake Monona and was a rectangle that we had to swim twice before heading in to transition. Unlike Lake Placid, there is no getting out of the water before starting the second lap, just make the turn and go. This was what I refer to as a Skittles swim- the men were in white swim caps, the women in navy blue and the collegiates in red. Women consisted of 24% of the field so there were a lot more white caps floating around than anything else. I lined up fairly close to the inside and not too far back from the front. I’m not a great swimmer so I didn’t want to get beat up too much by faster people if I was too far forward. Ending up being just about right- got beat up but no worse than any other open water swim I’ve done this year. The difference was that it never really thinned out to clear water and it got particularly tight on some of the turns. It was very windy and there were significant waves for being a lake swim just like Timberman had been 3 weeks prior. All in all, I had the best swim I could for the conditions even though it was almost 10 minutes slower than I had been hoping. What would you do differently?: Swim more  Transition 1
Comments: Exited the water and headed to the wetsuit strippers. Had a brief moment of trouble with finding the leash for wetsuit to unzip it(remember that it was a brand new to me wetsuit) before I realized that it was upside down. It zips from the top down so the leash was at the bottom rather than bottom up with the leash at the top like my old wetsuit. Also discovered that the Heart Rate Monitor was been hit into/turned off 49 seconds into the race. For some reason, I decided not to restart it…still don’t have a clue on the ‘reasoning’ behind that one. Ran up the Helix(parking garage ramp) to the transition ballrooms on the 4th floor, got long sleeve shirt, helmet, sunglasses w/ low light lenses, WISH socks, and bike shoes on and off I went to collect my bike. A volunteer rolled it to the center aisle of the bike parking for me and I ran it the rest of the way to the mount line.  Bike
Comments: What went right: set the watch to beep every 15 minutes for nutrition and took in adequate fluids with drinking Gatorade Endurance every time and eating a Gu gel every 45 minutes. For those interested in doing this race, one note on the aid station placement: the first is about mile 10 and then the second isn’t until Mount Horab around mile 30 on the first loop. It came just in time as I was racing minimalist with just one bottle cage, the Profile Design aero front bottle that I actually drank from, and 1-2 gels at a time in my trisuit pockets. There was a water only station at mile 18 but… I also ended up with mostly Espresso Love flavor, one of two(along w/ chocolate) that I prefer not to have. Ate them though. Wasn’t repeating Timberman’s booboo. Second thing that went right was the effort level, bike set up. Love, love, love the Zipp 404 tubular wheels is point one for the set up, the second is that I comfortable enough with my aero position to spend considerable time there right up until the end(Thanks to Ian at Fitwerx), and the third was that compact cranks were absolutely the right call for this course on this day. Effort was to always pedal one gear easier than it felt like I could be pushing. May have went a little too easy but… In general I felt pretty darn good for having ridden a hilly 112 miles under windy conditions. I ride enough in the rain and I’m a decent bike handler so the wetness of the roads didn’t bug me much. OMG- the crowd support on the steepest climbs and coming through Verona were awesome. It was just like being in the Tour w/ people crowding into the road from either side leaving just a couple bike widths wide for the racers. It was still cold, raining, and windy and these people were there for hours just to cheer us on. I have been doing endurance events since I had my Mom(longest running, best jockstrap) sign me up for a 10 K in Missoula as a 13 yo 20 years ago and have never experienced anything like that before in a race. What when wrong- the nausea and side pain never went away and the nose was running like a freight train. Don’t think in hindsight that I had enough clothes on- should have had leg warmers/tights on my legs and a waterproof layer on top. Got chilled, slowed down maybe(no bike computer and no HRM so no real idea), and it followed me onto the run. Ended up 1 hour slower than I wanted to be and probably ½ hour slower than I should have been with out being chilled to the bone. Coming back in along the bike path, saw Mom and stopped to chat briefly. Whined about how badly I thought I had done on the swim and bike and how badly I was feeling. Mentioned dropping out at T2… What would you do differently?: wear more clothes Transition 2
Comments: Rode back up the Helix and told the volunteer that collected my bike that he could keep it although I wasn’t as seriously upset at it as I have been at other races so it must not have been that bad of ride. I do desperately need a new bike saddle with a narrower nose. Inner upper thigh chafing/open sores is no fun. Went into the T2 ballroom and looked around and there were still TONS of transition bags in there. WTH- was I having a better day than I thought? The transition rooms resembled MASH tents w/ people getting bundled up and tended to. Changed from the black Sugoi long sleeve shirt to the West Kennebunk Fire Tri long sleeve, peeled off the totally trashed WISH socks, put on dry-temporarily- running socks and shoes, grabbed the hat and off I went. What would you do differently?: Have even more clothes to put on  Run
Comments: Not much positive to say here- ran every other mile for the first 10 and then switched entirely to walking. Wasn’t physical in that the legs couldn’t do it because the miles I did run were ‘comfortable’ and in the 9-10 mpm range. Mentally, I still felt nauseous, I was cold(yes, it was still raining and windy), my side hurt…I just couldn’t force myself to start running again. Hindsight, I was having exceptionally poor decision making at that point probably due to the cold. From the distance of a couple days later, if I could have forced myself to string a couple miles in a row together at the start of the run, I might have been able to warm the body up enough to dig myself out of the hole I was in after the bike. Now, I’ll never know. I wanted to quit at many points but I just kept moving forward. I KNOW this ‘run’ was at least 1 hour slower that it should have been and I think the biggest reason was poor decision making tied into being cold. Got to talk with some really neat people though. What would you do differently?: Run more Figure out some way to get warmer Post race
Warm down: Warm down???? I was more interested in trying to warm up. What limited your ability to perform faster: Got cold, had a cold- mentally my game went right out the window. My decision making abilities took a vacation to a warmer climate for most of the day although ultimately the lethal decision had occured before the race. I needed more and warmer clothes- it's that simple. Event comments: Positives- The city of Madison The volunteers The spectators Negatives- Underestimating the weather Would I do another? Hell yeah. It’s a challenge at the most personal level. Will I do WI again next year? Nope, but will probably come back to it at some point as it was announced that the contract was renewed for another 5 years. Last updated: 2006-02-03 12:00 AM
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United States
IMNA
55F / 13C
Precipitation
Overall Rank = 1560/2475
Age Group = w30-34
Age Group Rank = 69/130
Headed out from Midway and was in Madison around noon. Illinois sticks it to you on tolls if you are a visitor and don’t have one of their iPass systems- very tourism unfriendly. Checked in at the Sheraton and strolled down to Monona Terrace for race packet pick up. The Gremlin measured it at a little over 2 miles. Beautiful day, upper 70s and sunny. Madison has an incredible network of recreation trails for biking, running, in line skating, etc. Long line for packet pick up, chatted with 1st year and 3rd year med students from Iowa and met someone else staying in the same hotel too. Made a quick trip back to the hotel to change for the Welcome Dinner and then met up with some of the BT crowd at dinner, got a BT tat from Possum, and made plans with Mike/BadgerIronman to meet up for a course tour on Saturday. Afterwards went to State St and used the Ben and Jerry’s Buy one, get one coupon, the only useful sponsor item in the race packet.
Saturday dawned much cooler, windy and a little damp. I woke up at 4 am but didn’t go to the Club Lounge until after 5 when another racer/insomniac showed up too. This was her second go at IM WI having also done it in 2004. Saw her group again off and on all weekend. Put the bike together after Mom got up, got some breakfast, and went to the race site to do the Gatorade swim. I wanted to see the course from the water for sighting purposes and to demo one of the BlueSeventy Helix(500 bones full price) wetsuits. I’ve been having major neck chafing issues with my older wetsuit all summer even on the sprint distance I had done the previous weekend so I was wondering if a different suit would help. After talking with Ben from BlueSeventy, I tried a women’s small when I had been swimming in a women’s medium-small. It felt great, better buoyancy, and didn’t rip my neck at all during a 20 minute swim. I jokingly commented to Ben that I wanted to buy that particular suit that was being used for demos as it had already been stretched out to ease putting it on- he then offered it to me at a price I thought was an absolute steal so I broke one of the cardinal rules of racing(never try anything new race day) and bought the suit and raced in it the next day. Mom thinks it’s lighter, I think it’s more buoyant and fits better.
Rode the bike a little bit more and then went back to Monona Terrace check the equipment in and to meet up w/ the boys(BadgerIronman-local course expert and driver, MUL98, and ladavidson) for the bike course tour. Since I had no opportunity to pre-ride it, it was great to see it from the car and definitely helped on Sunday with race strategy. Basically it boiled down to being hilly and it was obviously a course that would be unforgiving for going too hard, too early. Little did we know that the weather conditions would make that especially true the next day.
Got dinner at a local mall and then off to bed by 10. Woke up at 1 am, dozed til 3 and then was awake until it was time to get up at 5 am. Took the shuttle from the Alliant Energy Center to the race site rather than walking the 2 miles pre-140.6 miles. Dropped off my special needs run bag w/ socks and another long sleeve shirt in it, got body marked, took the garbage bags off the bike and checked it out and then went inside Monona Terrace. Choked down the Stonyfield Farms Mixed Berry Smoothie but couldn’t stomach the roll as it just increased my nausea. At that point, I was chalking feeling like ick up to nerves.(ominous foreshadowing music here…) Put the wetsuit on while still inside and then we headed down to lake level. It was windy and cool but only mostly sprinkling to this point. Got in the water and hung out with 2475, the largest field ever to do an Ironman mass swim start, of my fellow wackos waiting for the cannon at exactly 0700 CST. It was actually raining by this time…
Ummm, a 2.4 mile swim?