Ironman 70.3 Kansas - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Started at the back of the wave, since I wasn't sure how much bedlam there was going to be and I am pretty confident in my skills as a swimmer to get around people if I need to. Well, the chop in the water must have been the great equalizer, because I seemed to be around people for pretty much the whole swim. I breathed/swallowed water more times than I'd like to think about, and had a tough time sighting a few times because of some of the waves. I'm not sure if they were wind-blown waves or if they were from some of the boats that were out there. Whatever kind they were, they were not kind.

It was pretty uneventful up until I turned around to come back in. After a couple of buoys I looked over and saw what I thought looked like it could be Andy. It was! Out of all these people and multiple waves/swim caps here I am next to my pal who started four minutes behind me. I saw him heading straight for a yellow buoy (the ones we should have been heading for were orange) so I tapped him on the calf like you would if you were going to pass somebody in the pool. He popped up to sight and I said, "Andy--you're swimming off course!" He said, "I know, I'm trying to go to the inside." I decided I'd try to catch up to him and swim in his wake if I could, but he was too far ahead for me to close the gap. Dang, that would have been nice to have some feet to hold onto on the way back in! His pace would have been perfect for me to swim in a draft at my effort level for my pace. Oh well. Got to the boat ramp and the people on the ramp were telling us there was a hump we had to step over. Got over that and walk/jogged up the boat ramp. I wanted to walk to relax and cool down a little bit but with the crowd there it just felt too weird to walk.

Other swim notes: about every buoy I pulled my toes up to my knees to keep the calves from getting to complacent in their flexed swim position. Last time I did this race I had the mother of all calf cramps coming out of the swim and I knew it was because I had my feet flexed swimming the whole time.

Also about 3/4 of the way through I floated on my back and brought my knees up to my chest and did a modified elementary backstroke. That actually felt pretty good, as my muscles were a little tight before I did that and I didn't realize they were.

Keep up with Andy and use him to sight for me and draft off of! That would have been sweet, I could have shaved about 3 minutes off my time since he was about 7 minutes faster than I was in the water. Otherwise I feel like I did as well as the conditions allowed. I figured I could do a 36-38 minute swim but with the chop it just wasn't in the cards, and that's fine.

Took it easy up the boat ramp and to my transition spot because I wanted to give myself time to calm down after that messy swim and also I have a tendency to get a little lightheaded when I bend over after swimming to pick stuff up and put stuff on, so that allowed me time to get my balance. What cost me a good chunk of time (maybe a minute) was putting on my heart strap while wearing a tri suit. I wasn't sure how waterproof my Garmin HR strap was so I didn't want to wear it during the swim and end up not having HR data for the rest of the event, but putting it on while wearing my tri suit was probably entertaining for the spectators. Everything else in T1 went fine and I probably lost a little time just throwing some miscellaneous stuff into the bag to be shipped up to T2.

Ignore the yokels yelling at us to get out of the transition area before the previously stated transition area closing time and get everything put into my T2 bag except my goggles and swim cap so that would be all I'd need to stick in there.

Stop... Hammer time! - M.C. Hammer

With all the bike riding I did last year and the new bike I got this year I was pretty excited to be able to get out on the bike and go. I had been training with HR as well as fiddling around with my PowerTap, so I had both my Garmin and PT on the bike to give me information. When I first got on the bike the PT was really hard to read. I figured it was just foggy under the lens and it would clear up the longer I rode. Well, the display didn't clear up--it kept getting more and more faint until nothing was showing up. D'oh! Dead battery! I know I should have just put a new battery in it when I got it (got it used) but instead I just milked that battery for all it was worth and ended up with zero power data from this ride. Oh well, I had my Garmin as a backup and I was going to go primarily by HR anyway, so maybe it was a good thing I didn't have my power stuff giving more to think about. My plan was to basically keep it in Zone 2 the whole ride, which meant using the granny gear on ALL the hills. I also ran my disc cover on the PT wheel as I had been doing all my training rides with it the past 6 weeks or so (in some pretty gnarly winds, too) and felt comfortable riding it with the forecast what it was.

Riding along the dam, as well as past the dam hill, I kept leap-frogging this one guy (number 902). After a while we just kinda rode side by side and chatted a little bit. He told me that Kansas was his second 70.3. His first was Switzerland! Haha, talk about two completely different races. Eventually he got out ahead of me and I never did catch up to him. I saw him after the race in the food tent and he and I chatted for a minute or so about our races, so that was nice.

About the time that I was on the South side of the lake heading West a guy rode by me and asked if I was getting blown all over the place with the disc. I told him that I was fat enough that it didn't affect me--and that was actually true! I've read through a few of the race reports for this race from my friends and it sounds like more than a couple people were really affected by the winds on the bike. Maybe it's the type of training I was doing or something, but I felt like it was the status quo for pretty much the whole ride, just another training day for me. That could also be because I had a secret weapon...

About two months before race day I was listening to the Zen & the Art of Triathlon podcast. The host was training for IMMoo '08 and mentioned that he was training with zero caffeine and was going to use caffeine on race day to help boost his performance. I'm a guy who likes to drink more than just one soda per day, so for me to give up caffeine was a little bit of a challenge (Mtn Dew, mainly) but I figured I'd take every advantage I could on race day. I bought three Tangerine Power Gels on my way out of town. I wanted to get Vanilla because that's my favorite kind and I had never had the Tangerine before, but the Vanilla didn't have caffeine and the Tangerine did, so there you go. I figured it was a pretty safe flavor (I know, nothing new on race day, yeah yeah). I'm not really a fan of savory flavors while working out, and I'm not a coffee drinker, so chocolatey espresso-y flavors were off the table. I was also planning on eating a Fig Newman at 10, 30, & 50 miles, but I left them at the hotel. But wait! At the BT meet 'n' greet on Saturday night BTer RockyMtnHigh (Steve) said I could have some Fig Newtons that he had brought (or at least I think they were his, I could be wrong--Underwoods said they don't eat them). They're not quite the same as Fig Newmans (which are all natural) but I figured I wasn't going to do much better and I learned never to look a gift horse in the mouth. With my stomach being kinda funky after the swim I didn't really feel like sticking to my nutrition plan, but I did anyway (just started everything about 2 miles later than scheduled). So at 12 miles I ate a Fig Newton, at 24 miles I ate a Power Gel, at 34-ish another FN, then another Power Gel around 43/45-ish miles.

I was expecting the caffeine to just hit me hard like Buddy the Elf and be some huge adrenaline rush, but it didn't happen that way. It was a subtle and about 4 miles after the first gel I figured out that I was being affected by it because I was going harder for the same perceived effort (as evidenced by my creeping into Z3 HR zone when I felt like I was in low Z2) as well as the fact that I was rapping "Now days everybody wanna talk like they got somethin' to say, but nothin' comes out when they move their lips, just a bunch of jibberish and [sigafligms] act like they forgot about Dre." really fast. Hey, it came up on my Beastie Boys Pandora Station the day before and it stuck with me. So I rode the caffeine wave for quite a while. Since it came on subtly I didn't really sense it wearing off either. I went ahead and took the second one as scheduled though because I didn't want to see what it felt like to come down off of it and thankfully I never did. Right before the first turn-around I saw Lisa and knew I was going to be able to catch her on the bike at some point. When I caught up to her I said, "Knock knock". Her response? "Heyyy". I said, "You're s'posed to say 'Who's there?'" She obliged and I told her the one about the interrupting cow. I used that one a lot on RAGBRAI when it seemed like everybody was down in the dumps after riding their bikes for several hundred miles in similar conditions that we had on race day, and it seemed to cheer people up, and I hope that it got her mind off the suffering a little bit too. I didn't stick around with her too long as that was about the time my caffeine was kicking in.

Going up the 5 miles of hills straight south into the direct headwind was taxing, I'm not gonna lie, but there was enough to keep me distracted that I didn't really feel like they were as bad as I remembered them from riding the course about 6 weeks out. First, as I turned South to get on that road an ambulance followed by a race official in a car drove by us. Then about every mile there was someone on a really nice bike with really nice race wheels pulled over on the side of the road for who knows what reason (not changing a flat from what I could tell). Then after about 3 miles a copper came down the road at us, followed by a course marshal, which kind of freaked me out because I didn't want to get a blocking or drafting penalty going 6mph uphill in a cluster of people, but at the same time I was hoping they would give us a little grace knowing that the hills and wind were causing us to bunch together. I took a page out of BryanCD's book about trying to make yourself as small as you can to the wind and I actually wound up passing some people going both up as well as down the hills, so hay, maybe there's something to that after all.

I was kind of dreading turning around only by virtue of the fact that I knew I was going to go even with the wind and start to get hot and my HR was going to creep up. It did feel pretty cool though going uphill at 15mph at an easy effort. After we turned on that diagonal road I started playing leap-frog with a lady in a pink jersey. I'd pass her on the flats and downhills and she'd pass me on the inclines. It was kind of silly at the time. She passed me one last time going into the campground, and after about halfway on the run she recognized me and gave me a high five going the opposite direction.

As we were rolling past the entrance to the park I saw my wife and our kids for the first time. I was really surprised to see them where I did, I wasn't expecting to see them until the transition area or maybe out on the run. As soon as I saw them I started fist pumping and grinning ear to ear. They were hooting and hollering for me so that was fun :) I didn't envy Brynn for having to haul everybody all the way into the campground to finish watching the race. What am I saying--I would take a two mile hike over a half marathon in those conditions any day!

One other little trick I pulled was that at about 46 or so miles I figured I was about 30-40 minutes out, so I emptied all the un-drunk Gatorade out of my two rear-mounted water bottles before I got to the dam hill so that I would have less weight to haul up. I still had enough water in my Speedfil to last me, so I was good to go there, and I think it was a pretty smart move.

Not had an extra bottle to lug around for 56 miles completely un-used (Yeah, the one I forgot earlier in the potty--didn't end up touching what was inside of it the entire ride). It's only a couple pounds, but every ounce matters when you're fat and going up hills. Also pump my tires up race morning. I was so frazzled that I didn't take the time to scout out a pump to borrow to top them off. I can't guarantee it would have made a difference, but you never know. The last time I pumped them up was Friday when I got to the campsite to do a quickie bike/run brick workout. Otherwise everything went pretty much according to plan. Bike split was faster than I did the course on Memorial Day Weekend and I had way more gas left in the tank on race day than I did that day, so that's an indication that my training did pay off and the disc cover was a good decision. I never did feel like the bike was getting out of my control and I spent the whole ride in aero except a few times going with the wind (especially uphill) trying to use my wide back as a sail to give me a boost. Also to keep my neck from getting too stiff. I'll have to double-check my Garmin, but I believe I was about 2-3 beats below the top of my Z2 HR for my average for the ride, which is way cool.

Darn, no more twelve second T2 for me :) I used to ride without clipless pedals and would have these insanely fast T2 times because I'd take my helmet off while running my bike to the rack and then running out of there as fast as possible. My friends were all amazed and jealous at my T2 prowess. Can't do that anymore with the equipment I'm using. That's fine, I'll take the T2 time penalty putting on running shoes for the bike split benefit I get with actual bike shoes. While I was putting the running shoes on I overheard a conversation and wasn't really paying attention until I heard the word "KYBO". I said, "KYBO, there's a RAGBRAI guy if I've ever heard one." And he went on to talk about how he was from Iowa as if that was supposed to excuse his mental state ;)

Also I made sure to hit up the sunscreeners for some protection before heading out on the run. I was surprised at how quickly I went from looking like the Abominable Sunscreen Man to looking normal.

I bought some Yankz laces probably two years ago and still haven't ever put them on any shoes I've owned. Just haven't taken the time. I'm sure with those I might have improved my time another 30-40 seconds, but I wasn't concerned with that kind of time loss in an event this long. I also had to put socks on because I'm one of those people who chafes just looking at something that might cause chafing, so if I could get some running shoes that don't require socks (and run in them without chafing) that could have saved me time as well. All in all still pretty satisfied with my T2 time.

It's not so much the heat, it's the stupidity - RAGBRAI proverb

Ah yes, the run. The big question mark for me, as I was telling Lisa before we started the swim. After battling through injury after injury and feeling like I was never ever going to get healthy enough to train consistently, I was able to finish out the last few months of my training with no pain. Unfortunately since I started with zero base (I ran literally 70 miles in all of 2010 and 2011 combined). I had to start out slow and short and work my way up. Three weeks out I did a 7-mile long run the day after an epic brick workout and I did amazingly well. If the race had been on that weekend I would have gone sub-6:30, I was The Boy on Fire! The next weekend (so 2 weeks out) I bonked on my long ride and still did the long run the next day (8 miles). I was definitely not in enough shape to do an open half marathon, much less a 70.3 half marathon! My plan going into it was to run 4:00 walk 1:00 as I had been doing on all my long runs for the previous 6-8 weeks and had been really successful with. Well given the layout of the aid stations and the heat, I modified (and rationalized) quite a bit. On my way out to the first turn-around on the Highway to Hell (right before the first aid station) I got passed by Patrick (Jayhox) and chatted with him a little bit. He said he had a good bike but didn't quite have the run fitness to hang tough in these last few miles. I saw him a time or two again--the last was when he was at about 11.5 miles and walking, I told him, "No bonks allowed!" :) Also saw Jon Bohnsack, he was looking good and I figured he'd eventually catch me on the run, as he is a running machine and I'm not. I'm actually surprised that he didn't catch me on the bike, seeing as how he dominated me during the training ride several weeks prior. Saw Lisa coming in off the bike and then several times during the run, as she was only about a mile or less behind me, I think.

Sometime on the initial run out on the Highway to Hell (hereinafter known as H2H) I started to get a cramp in my left quad. I stopped and grabbed a road cone to support myself while I stretched it, and in the process my hamstring started to cramp up, so I got out of that position and just kept running. This was the onset of the cramps that would plague me for the rest of the run and make my day not very much fun. I think I lasted another mile and a half or so before the next one came on, but once it did they just kept coming in waves, about every half mile or so. The calves started cramping too, so I'd stop to stretch my quad, and then a few steps down the road I'd need to do my calves too. I ended up just stretching all of it every time I needed to stop.

I saw Brynn and the little boys again finally at the campground turn-around (Mile 5/11 area) and they cheered for me again. It was at that point I decided to take that third Power Gel I had for some final caffeine punch. As I was going through the aid station I heard, "water...ice...coke..." I said, "COKE?!" and then proceeded to down a glass of it (maybe two?) I started drinking coke at every aid station, and after the third one I decided not to get too much in my belly and drank only water at the next one, then water & coke at the one after that. Again, no super high energy rush that made me into some super human runner, but it did seem to make everything more tolerable.

One of my race day strategies that I had never done before was using my hat as an ice holder to cool my head (and by extension, my body). I read about Lance doing that in Florida when he got his first 70.3 win and decided I was going to do that if the weather was super hot. It worked very well, and I'm surprised more people don't do that. Yeah a visor gets your head some air-time, but the cap with the ice in it is a free air conditioner. Even though I was cramping like crazy throughout the run my HR was always in check and the only time I got up into Z3 was on the H2H at the very beginning of the run. I think the ice hat coupled with all the sprinklers and just dominating the aid stations all helped me to keep a cool core during the run portion in which Lawrence set a record high right as I was about 8-10 miles in.

Coming back in on the H2H the second time, heading toward Boat Ramp Hill I ended up acquiring a running buddy. His name is Kevin and I remember he was from Mississippi and he and his buddy were planning on doing several 70.3s each year along with one full IM to try and hit all the IMNA events over the next few years. They're also trying to go to every state, so when I was walking forever during and after the Asphalt Beach aid station he said, "Come on home of Arbor Day". That got me grinning, as that's what Nebraska's claim to fame is--all about Arbor Day. He and I ran together for probably 5 miles. He was waiting for his pal to catch up to him so they could have the most epic finish line photo ever, but his guy was nowhere in sight. I guess I was run/walking the right pace for him to be able to slow down and wait and I made good enough company for him to want to be around. Strangely enough, he was number 901 and I remember him passing me and #902 when we were leap-frogging one another during the early part of the bike.

I saw Andy when he was at about mile 11 and we said hello to one another. Jon B passed me somewhere before the halfway point as I expected him to. He ended up beating me in the run by a half an hour which was fantastic. As I set out on my second lap I stopped by the sunscreen crew and got a second lather. I figured it couldn't hurt, and it probably contributed to my low HR & core temp along with the ice hat, sprinklers and aid stations.

Honestly, I should have hydrated better the days leading up to the event. My stomach wasn't quite feeling it for the whole week since I was sick, so I was also eating a little less during that time, and I should have just made myself choke down water and Gatorade to keep everything topped off where it should be. You shouldn't be rolling your calf muscles out on a water bottle in your tent on race morning--that is just not good juju. Also all the walking around for the Iron Kid the day before, plus registration and bike check-in resulted in quite a bit of walking on Saturday when I should have been kicking back relaxing and hydrating. I'm really curious to know how I would have done had I been smarter in the days leading up to the event and taken care of the cramps before they even became a problem.

It's also a run fitness issue too--long run of 8 miles for a half marathon? That's a definite roll of the dice, and this time I came up snake eyes. That was out of my control with all the nagging injuries I've been dealing with, which is why I'm so excited to be 100% healthy now so that I CAN commit more time and effort to run training and get myself back into respectable running shape.

In the finishing chute I kissed our two little boys, then I crossed the finish line with a fist pump, got a bottle of water, a medal, and my 13 y/o was there so I gave him a hug too. After that we found Brynn and the boys and then I set off in search of food. We found the free chocolate milk, and then eventually found the food. Unfortunately for me, food just didn't sound so good at that time. We walked back to the tent and hung out there relaxing and hydrating (apparently Brynn and the boys went 3 hours in that heat without anything to drink!!) After probably an hour or more it seemed like people were getting out of the park okay so Brynn took the little boys to the bathroom while the big boy and I went to get my bike and my T2 bag. The boys and I hung out at camp while Brynn ran the 2 miles back to get the van to take everybody home. I stuck around and broke down camp. Well, I tried to--it was so windy that there was no way I was going to get the tent folded up properly to put back in the bag, so I just stuff it and the rain fly into the trunk of the Saturn and then drove over to Andy's campsite. He and I chatted for about 20 minutes about the day and training and life. It was a good conversation and I felt a lot better about how things had gone once I talked to him. He even let me nosh on some BBQ ribs that they had sitting around. Double bonus! After we were done chatting I high-tailed it out of there and headed for home.


Race week hydration and run fitness.


The pulled pork sandwich after the race was not the best thing I've ever had in my life. Also the way to get to the food area for the athletes was set up bass ackwards. You exit the finishing chute, they hand you a water bottle, cap, and medal, and then there's nothing. So you turn around, walk through the mock amphitheater all the way down to T2 where they're handing out free chocolate milk, and THEN you see food. But it's not free food--they're charging for it. What the heck?! Oh, I guess that's not the athlete's food, that entrance is in some obscure location over here. Apparently they're not used to dealing with confused and energy depleted triathletes after a long race in the heat..?? So that rubbed me the wrong way a little bit. Just caught me at the wrong time of day I suppose.

Also it would have been cool if there were more timing mats--say one at halfway-ish on the bike course and another one somewhere on the run. That way the folks spectating at home (as well as athletes picking apart the data afterward) could get a better feel for how the athlete was doing on a particular section of the course.

My biggest gripe, though, is Transition 1. Why in the world don't they invest some of the $375,000 they grossed on this thing and buy some freaking mats to put down in T1 like they do in ITU. Yes, their T1 is infinitesimally smaller than this one, but my goodness folks my feet hurt so bad just after T1 I wasn't sure how they were going to hold up the rest of the day! And I know I wasn't the only one feeling the pain. The boat ramp parking lot may be suitable for cars and trailers, but not for people's feet. You wouldn't even have to carpet the whole area--just get some runners that go in the middle of the aisles so people aren't chewing up their feet getting to their bikes. I don't feel like that's asking too much.

Otherwise WTC put on a fine event. Things were on time and well marked (minus the post-race nosh) and information was very available and accessible. I'd do this race again.