So this was my first crack at the IM distance. As I've documented in various injury related threads around here, I had signed up last year but fate had other ideas involving a bike crash and a last minute stress fracture that kept me from getting to the start line. I was pretty crushed then, but signed up again this year to give it another go.
Last year I trained pretty hard for the race. I biked every hill I could find, I was running strong, doing easier races early in the season etc. This year, I really didn't do any of that. I cut a LOT of long rides short (mistake #1), I only did 2 OW swims all year, no early season races, only did one brick workout and I took my running easier due to the aforementioned stress fracture, but I felt like by race day I was running stronger this year then last due to improved consistency in running. In the end, I felt a little under trained going in, but all in all, I felt ready. I felt fit, hardened, and was chomping at the bit to get going.
Race Weekend:
Went up to whistler on Thursday afternoon. It was cold and drizzling, but the forecast showed it warming up by Sunday, which would be perfect. I had never been to Whistler before. I'm from Vancouver Island, which is packed full of west coast beauty, but Whistler was really something to see. I loved the village set up, and the Ironman village within all that was awesome. It was great having a place for people to congregate, check in, shoot the breeze etc. I met a lot of really cool people just walking around. My girlfriend and I took it easy, explored a little, ate at a few of the restaurants, but mainly cooked in. We managed to book a place right across from the expo with a full kitchen for $150/night 4 weeks before race day. Suck on that, Penticton! Before I knew it, it was Saturday night, I had my feet up and was ticking down the hours. I barely slept, last looking at the clock around 1:30am.
Race Day:
Woke up at 4, usual training day breakfast of coffee, cheerios, and an english muffin with peanut butter and a bit of honey. Got my gear, and took the short walk to T2, from where we took buses to the swim start. I took a dip in the lake on Friday and thought "meh, ok, it's just another clean, cold west coast lake", but getting there in the morning, with the sun just coming up over the snow capped peaks in front of you, and the mist rising over the lake, was nothing short of magical. I almost cried like a complete girly-man. Soon enough, it was time to head in. I was so pumped, the tunes were going and I was psyching myself up for what was going to be a very long day.
Swim:
The pro men went off, then the women, and I was expecting some really cheesy send off for the age groupers, like The Final Countdown to come on, or something, but before I knew it there was a canon, a few war cries from behind me, and we were off! I had seeded myself front and centre, and was waiting for the onslaught of arms and kicks to the face... but they never came. I've done more violent sprint swims with 200 participants in them! I was hoping for sub 1hr, but I was taking it really easy, and went off course a bit after the first turn due to the sun being right in your eyes and having no idea where the buoy was for around 30 strokes, so I came out in 1:02. Not bad, I felt woken up and not really tired at all. I looked back at my first triathlon back in 2002 on my 19th birthday, where I breast stroked the entire swim and came out second to last. The only bike left in transition other then mine was a beach cruiser. I'm not even joking. I've come a long way with my swim and am damn proud of it.
Transition: I forgot sunscreen (mistake #2). That is all.
Bike:
I'm a pretty slow biker, so I had no delusions of glory here. I was on a road bike, training wheels, no aero anything, and most of my training rides were in the 6-6:15 pace range. My plan was to take it really, really easy and just wait for the run to happen.
This bike course is nothing short of epic. I've ridden parts of the Penticton course, and it really is special, but I find the challenge of this course something else to behold. You never know what you're going to get on the wet, west coast. It could be freezing cold and rainy or insanely hot and windy. Combine that with a ton of climbing and this course has some teeth.
Coming out of the lake was an easy gradual climb, just perfect to wake up the legs before the rollers down to the callaghan. Being a far better swimmer then biker, I spent the first half the the course being passed by a lot of fast people and witnessed a lot of triathlete douchbaggery as shitty swimmers trying to make up time forced their way up the course. It was a shame, but assholes are everywhere, I know that, and what can you do. The crowd support leaving town was awesome. The roads were lined for quite some time, and at the bottom of one hill there was a cop with a speed gun clocking people and yelling out "alright! nice speed! push it harder!" etc, which gave me a really good laugh. Soon enough we turned to climb the Callaghan hill.
The climb itself was fine, never really steep in sections, and I pretty much spent the whole time slowly working my way up in my 28t. In retrospect, I probably could have pushed a bit harder on the climbs. The descent was nothing short of awesome. I had a smile glued to my face the whole way down. It really wasn't that technical either. I'm a squeamish descender and only used the breaks at the very bottom to make the sharp left back on the highway. There was one corner that you came around blindly and then the road transitioned to a bridge, and there was a bump at the transition, which was really dangerous as there was no warning at all. The road ahead was littered with bottles, CO2's etc.
The rollers back up to and over Whistler were great, with tons of crowd support again. On the way down to pemberton, I noticed it was starting to get hot. Like, really hot. I'm from nearby Victoria, and have trained in hot weather, but what I came to realize is that at home, even when it's hot, we have a nice cooling ocean breeze. Here there was just stifling hot wind, and I knew this was going to be a problem. Also, there was a damn head wind going DOWN to Pemberton, which sucked a lot of the free speed away, but at least I thought there would be a tailwind pushing us back up. I thought.
Special needs is where mistake #3, and probably the most costly, happened. My nutrition was to use two electrolyte bottles to start, feed off the course to SN, then grab two other bottles in SN, and feed off the course after those were done. I froze my bottles the night before thinking they would be thawed by then. They weren't at all. I had already ditched everything in my cages before special needs, and rode away with two new nutrition bottles that I wouldn't be able to use for a long time. Did I mention it was really fucking hot out?
The flats were otherwise completely uneventful. 25k of flat, straight roads out, and 25k back. I was really starting to feel the heat. I wasn't pushing it hard at all knowing that if I did I would be a mess in T2. Finally I got to an aide station and ditched my frozen bottles, but aid on the flats was few and far between unfortunately, and when I think back, this was probably the nail in my coffin for later on in the day. I went quite a while with very little hydration during the hottest part of the day, and with no sunscreen on, I was being cooked.
The climbs coming back to Pemberton were something else. It was HOT HOT HOT on that first climb. I remember the weather forecast saying something like 31-32*C that day, but I work outside, and I know what that temperature feels like, and it was not this. I was really glad to read someone else's report on ST saying they measured temperature around 36-37*C on that climb back. It was stifling, and the wind had completely died. Eventually, on the second climb, the wind came back in a mild headwind. I knew I was going to be a lot slower then I had planned here, but my main focus was on staying cool at this point. Bike time ended up being 6:45 (yikes!) but who's counting.
T2: I handed my bike to a volunteer and said "Here, it's yours. Take it, I never want to see that bike seat again!" and at the time, I meant it. That ride back was pretty hard in the heat. I saw one guy come in to T2, lay down in a corner, and not move for the whole 5 minutes I was in there. A LOT of shelled looking faces on the guys in the change tent. I came out feeling hot, a little upset in the stomach, but ready to go. I looked at my body and realized I was sunburnt to a crisp having forgotten sunscreen in T1 and hoped that wouldn't cost me too much.
The Walk.
I started running very easy, around 5:15-5:30/km just to bring the legs in and take stock of my body. I didn't feel too bad. I got ice at the first aid station, drank some perform, I was cooling down and feeling ready to make some time back. I knew I had paced the bike really slow so I wouldn't bomb my marathon, and I felt like I could run around 4 hours. However, just as I was finding my groove and having my stomach settle, I started to cramp. Just a little in the right calf... then the left, then both at once, then they were cramping so hard my legs were buckling. I had no choice but to stop and stretch for a bit. From there I walked a little, slow jogged, and tried to get it back, but then it would only happen again, and again, and again, for almost the entire run. It started in my calves, then my quads, then my inner groin muscles and hip flexors joined the parade. My lower body was on revolt. I felt emotionally crushed. I had energy, I felt motivated, my stomach was fine, I was clear headed, and I WANTED TO RUN! But my legs were having none of it. I would run for maybe 50m, have my legs give out from cramping, walk, rinse and repeat until run SN. There I took a long drag of chicken broth, ate some chips, and started to feel a bit better. I ran for a few km, but then the cramping started again and it was all I could do limp/jog/walk my way around the course one more time. It really was heartbreaking. For any other people considering doing their first IM, take this advice: You know how everyone says that IM racing is all about the bike? IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BIKE. My lack of hydration on the bike had come back to haunt me in a big, big way.
When I finally got to the finish chute, the energy and crowd were just awesome. My legs were completely seizing up on me, and while I ran across the finish, I probably looked like I was running with wooden legs as they were cramped so badly. I was happy, relieved, and excited but also crossed the line feeling pretty disappointed. I really feel like my time was a reflection of my poor planning and execution rather then my fitness. I was glad to be done, it wasn't pretty but I had finished a goal that I put in motion 12 damn years ago at that first silly triathlon where I breast stroked my way through the swim. For that I am beyond grateful. I don't even know what my run time was. 5 hours and whatever minutes. Finish time was 13:13. I gave myself a window of 11:30 if I had a great day, to 13:30 if I had a shitty day, so I guess I was within that window, but I knew I was capable of a lot more.
Aftermath:
The days after really showed me how badly dehydrated I really was. I went home, hoping to clean up and go back to the finish line to cheer on others, but when I got home and showered, I started to get a pounding head ache. I was nauseous. Then I got chills. There was no doubt the heat had taken it's toll. When I look back on my training, almost all my long rides had happened on cold, drizzly days. I had done long runs in the heat, but being in the heat for 3 hours is a lot easier then 6, or 13 for that matter. My girlfriend gave me some water, covered me in frozen ice packs and towels, and I fell asleep almost instantly. I woke up the next day feeling worse. I got up, and almost instantly fell down, overcome with nausea. My pee was brown. I had zero appetite despite burning through God knows how many calories the day before. My tastebuds were so off and wouldn't be normal again until Wednesday. I really didn't realize it on race day when I was sulking through my run, but I was really, really doing a number on myself and most definitely need to rethink my hydration/nutrition plan. I realized you can fake it through a half iron, but for the full deal, you need a lot more preparation then I had given, and I was lucky to just get through the day.
The event as a whole was incredible. The volunteers and cheering sections were better then anything I expected, and the buzz in the village was great. You couldn't ask for a better event, in a better location. Why this race only had 1900 athletes is beyond me but hey, I'm not complaining! I'm not sure if I'll be doing this distance again any time soon, but there is nagging feeling in me that makes me feel like one day, I will want to come back to Whistler and do myself justice, and be able to finish the race a little stronger, and hold my head a little higher then this past Sunday.
Thanks for reading, and for answering all my questions along the way!
Long Chile was a silly place.
Last year I trained pretty hard for the race. I biked every hill I could find, I was running strong, doing easier races early in the season etc. This year, I really didn't do any of that. I cut a LOT of long rides short (mistake #1), I only did 2 OW swims all year, no early season races, only did one brick workout and I took my running easier due to the aforementioned stress fracture, but I felt like by race day I was running stronger this year then last due to improved consistency in running. In the end, I felt a little under trained going in, but all in all, I felt ready. I felt fit, hardened, and was chomping at the bit to get going.
Race Weekend:
Went up to whistler on Thursday afternoon. It was cold and drizzling, but the forecast showed it warming up by Sunday, which would be perfect. I had never been to Whistler before. I'm from Vancouver Island, which is packed full of west coast beauty, but Whistler was really something to see. I loved the village set up, and the Ironman village within all that was awesome. It was great having a place for people to congregate, check in, shoot the breeze etc. I met a lot of really cool people just walking around. My girlfriend and I took it easy, explored a little, ate at a few of the restaurants, but mainly cooked in. We managed to book a place right across from the expo with a full kitchen for $150/night 4 weeks before race day. Suck on that, Penticton! Before I knew it, it was Saturday night, I had my feet up and was ticking down the hours. I barely slept, last looking at the clock around 1:30am.
Race Day:
Woke up at 4, usual training day breakfast of coffee, cheerios, and an english muffin with peanut butter and a bit of honey. Got my gear, and took the short walk to T2, from where we took buses to the swim start. I took a dip in the lake on Friday and thought "meh, ok, it's just another clean, cold west coast lake", but getting there in the morning, with the sun just coming up over the snow capped peaks in front of you, and the mist rising over the lake, was nothing short of magical. I almost cried like a complete girly-man. Soon enough, it was time to head in. I was so pumped, the tunes were going and I was psyching myself up for what was going to be a very long day.
Swim:
The pro men went off, then the women, and I was expecting some really cheesy send off for the age groupers, like The Final Countdown to come on, or something, but before I knew it there was a canon, a few war cries from behind me, and we were off! I had seeded myself front and centre, and was waiting for the onslaught of arms and kicks to the face... but they never came. I've done more violent sprint swims with 200 participants in them! I was hoping for sub 1hr, but I was taking it really easy, and went off course a bit after the first turn due to the sun being right in your eyes and having no idea where the buoy was for around 30 strokes, so I came out in 1:02. Not bad, I felt woken up and not really tired at all. I looked back at my first triathlon back in 2002 on my 19th birthday, where I breast stroked the entire swim and came out second to last. The only bike left in transition other then mine was a beach cruiser. I'm not even joking. I've come a long way with my swim and am damn proud of it.
Transition: I forgot sunscreen (mistake #2). That is all.
Bike:
I'm a pretty slow biker, so I had no delusions of glory here. I was on a road bike, training wheels, no aero anything, and most of my training rides were in the 6-6:15 pace range. My plan was to take it really, really easy and just wait for the run to happen.
This bike course is nothing short of epic. I've ridden parts of the Penticton course, and it really is special, but I find the challenge of this course something else to behold. You never know what you're going to get on the wet, west coast. It could be freezing cold and rainy or insanely hot and windy. Combine that with a ton of climbing and this course has some teeth.
Coming out of the lake was an easy gradual climb, just perfect to wake up the legs before the rollers down to the callaghan. Being a far better swimmer then biker, I spent the first half the the course being passed by a lot of fast people and witnessed a lot of triathlete douchbaggery as shitty swimmers trying to make up time forced their way up the course. It was a shame, but assholes are everywhere, I know that, and what can you do. The crowd support leaving town was awesome. The roads were lined for quite some time, and at the bottom of one hill there was a cop with a speed gun clocking people and yelling out "alright! nice speed! push it harder!" etc, which gave me a really good laugh. Soon enough we turned to climb the Callaghan hill.
The climb itself was fine, never really steep in sections, and I pretty much spent the whole time slowly working my way up in my 28t. In retrospect, I probably could have pushed a bit harder on the climbs. The descent was nothing short of awesome. I had a smile glued to my face the whole way down. It really wasn't that technical either. I'm a squeamish descender and only used the breaks at the very bottom to make the sharp left back on the highway. There was one corner that you came around blindly and then the road transitioned to a bridge, and there was a bump at the transition, which was really dangerous as there was no warning at all. The road ahead was littered with bottles, CO2's etc.
The rollers back up to and over Whistler were great, with tons of crowd support again. On the way down to pemberton, I noticed it was starting to get hot. Like, really hot. I'm from nearby Victoria, and have trained in hot weather, but what I came to realize is that at home, even when it's hot, we have a nice cooling ocean breeze. Here there was just stifling hot wind, and I knew this was going to be a problem. Also, there was a damn head wind going DOWN to Pemberton, which sucked a lot of the free speed away, but at least I thought there would be a tailwind pushing us back up. I thought.
Special needs is where mistake #3, and probably the most costly, happened. My nutrition was to use two electrolyte bottles to start, feed off the course to SN, then grab two other bottles in SN, and feed off the course after those were done. I froze my bottles the night before thinking they would be thawed by then. They weren't at all. I had already ditched everything in my cages before special needs, and rode away with two new nutrition bottles that I wouldn't be able to use for a long time. Did I mention it was really fucking hot out?
The flats were otherwise completely uneventful. 25k of flat, straight roads out, and 25k back. I was really starting to feel the heat. I wasn't pushing it hard at all knowing that if I did I would be a mess in T2. Finally I got to an aide station and ditched my frozen bottles, but aid on the flats was few and far between unfortunately, and when I think back, this was probably the nail in my coffin for later on in the day. I went quite a while with very little hydration during the hottest part of the day, and with no sunscreen on, I was being cooked.
The climbs coming back to Pemberton were something else. It was HOT HOT HOT on that first climb. I remember the weather forecast saying something like 31-32*C that day, but I work outside, and I know what that temperature feels like, and it was not this. I was really glad to read someone else's report on ST saying they measured temperature around 36-37*C on that climb back. It was stifling, and the wind had completely died. Eventually, on the second climb, the wind came back in a mild headwind. I knew I was going to be a lot slower then I had planned here, but my main focus was on staying cool at this point. Bike time ended up being 6:45 (yikes!) but who's counting.
T2: I handed my bike to a volunteer and said "Here, it's yours. Take it, I never want to see that bike seat again!" and at the time, I meant it. That ride back was pretty hard in the heat. I saw one guy come in to T2, lay down in a corner, and not move for the whole 5 minutes I was in there. A LOT of shelled looking faces on the guys in the change tent. I came out feeling hot, a little upset in the stomach, but ready to go. I looked at my body and realized I was sunburnt to a crisp having forgotten sunscreen in T1 and hoped that wouldn't cost me too much.
The Walk.
I started running very easy, around 5:15-5:30/km just to bring the legs in and take stock of my body. I didn't feel too bad. I got ice at the first aid station, drank some perform, I was cooling down and feeling ready to make some time back. I knew I had paced the bike really slow so I wouldn't bomb my marathon, and I felt like I could run around 4 hours. However, just as I was finding my groove and having my stomach settle, I started to cramp. Just a little in the right calf... then the left, then both at once, then they were cramping so hard my legs were buckling. I had no choice but to stop and stretch for a bit. From there I walked a little, slow jogged, and tried to get it back, but then it would only happen again, and again, and again, for almost the entire run. It started in my calves, then my quads, then my inner groin muscles and hip flexors joined the parade. My lower body was on revolt. I felt emotionally crushed. I had energy, I felt motivated, my stomach was fine, I was clear headed, and I WANTED TO RUN! But my legs were having none of it. I would run for maybe 50m, have my legs give out from cramping, walk, rinse and repeat until run SN. There I took a long drag of chicken broth, ate some chips, and started to feel a bit better. I ran for a few km, but then the cramping started again and it was all I could do limp/jog/walk my way around the course one more time. It really was heartbreaking. For any other people considering doing their first IM, take this advice: You know how everyone says that IM racing is all about the bike? IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BIKE. My lack of hydration on the bike had come back to haunt me in a big, big way.
When I finally got to the finish chute, the energy and crowd were just awesome. My legs were completely seizing up on me, and while I ran across the finish, I probably looked like I was running with wooden legs as they were cramped so badly. I was happy, relieved, and excited but also crossed the line feeling pretty disappointed. I really feel like my time was a reflection of my poor planning and execution rather then my fitness. I was glad to be done, it wasn't pretty but I had finished a goal that I put in motion 12 damn years ago at that first silly triathlon where I breast stroked my way through the swim. For that I am beyond grateful. I don't even know what my run time was. 5 hours and whatever minutes. Finish time was 13:13. I gave myself a window of 11:30 if I had a great day, to 13:30 if I had a shitty day, so I guess I was within that window, but I knew I was capable of a lot more.
Aftermath:
The days after really showed me how badly dehydrated I really was. I went home, hoping to clean up and go back to the finish line to cheer on others, but when I got home and showered, I started to get a pounding head ache. I was nauseous. Then I got chills. There was no doubt the heat had taken it's toll. When I look back on my training, almost all my long rides had happened on cold, drizzly days. I had done long runs in the heat, but being in the heat for 3 hours is a lot easier then 6, or 13 for that matter. My girlfriend gave me some water, covered me in frozen ice packs and towels, and I fell asleep almost instantly. I woke up the next day feeling worse. I got up, and almost instantly fell down, overcome with nausea. My pee was brown. I had zero appetite despite burning through God knows how many calories the day before. My tastebuds were so off and wouldn't be normal again until Wednesday. I really didn't realize it on race day when I was sulking through my run, but I was really, really doing a number on myself and most definitely need to rethink my hydration/nutrition plan. I realized you can fake it through a half iron, but for the full deal, you need a lot more preparation then I had given, and I was lucky to just get through the day.
The event as a whole was incredible. The volunteers and cheering sections were better then anything I expected, and the buzz in the village was great. You couldn't ask for a better event, in a better location. Why this race only had 1900 athletes is beyond me but hey, I'm not complaining! I'm not sure if I'll be doing this distance again any time soon, but there is nagging feeling in me that makes me feel like one day, I will want to come back to Whistler and do myself justice, and be able to finish the race a little stronger, and hold my head a little higher then this past Sunday.
Thanks for reading, and for answering all my questions along the way!
Long Chile was a silly place.