Way back in November of 2007, when I decided I would have to learn to swim in order to enter a local triathlon, who could have guessed that this would end up being such an addiction?
Fast forward to August of last year. I was cruising ST and came across a link to Ultra-Tri-Guy Nick's Blog about his journey to Ultraman Canada. I live near Penticton and the event looked cool, so I stepped up to be on his support crew. The allure of this event is obvious once you are there among these amazing athletes. It is a small, familial, fun event to be a part of, limited to 30 individuals and 5 relay teams.
Unfortunately Nick's weekend did not work out so well, as he could not continue after day two. Despite this, he still spent almost all of day three pacing Sheena, the women's winner in 2008.
I knew right away that I wanted to be part of this experience from an athlete's perspective, but I had no illusions about being ready to run a double marathon a month before IMC 2009. I quickly posted a note on ST looking for a relay partner or two, hoping that I would just do the bike and let other suckers swim and run. JenHS, as luck would have it, was just that sucker. She stepped up in minutes (literally). Eventually I decided that the idea of swimming 10km sounded like a fun challenge, so we ended up with a two-person relay team.
Day Minus One: Arrived in Penticton the day before and settled into the hotel, finally met Jen after corresponding via email for over a year. She was clearly disappointed, expecting to find an Adonis-style superathlete and ending up with a 42 year old wannabe athlete with a wonky knee and a bad attitude ;).
Registration was Friday morning, along with a longish athlete intro and course briefing. Ultraman is totally self supported, so crews are required to resupply you along the bike and run routes, as well as a paddler who accompanies the swimmer. My friend Josh (Cannonball) graciously volunteered to come down and do it. After the meeting we headed out to Skaha lake to get some practice swimming in, as we had yet to find time to figure out where he would position himself. It is the paddler's job to sight and keep us on the straightest possible line down the lake. We decided that it would best for him to be immediately on my right, that way I would breathe unilaterally and see him on every stroke. We did some quick drills in the water and packed up and headed back to the hotel to rest.
Dinner with Jen, Josh and Maria (our intrepid crew chief). Sorely tempted by a cold beer to go with the below average pasta, but I figured I would be better off without.
Day One: Saturday's race was a 10km swim down Skaha lake followed by a 145km bike along much of the IMC bike course.
Here is my pre-race swim time prediction:
After a nice opening ceremony focusing on friendship and camaraderie, we were in the water and off. I made sure to dive in the water and get an early lead for bragging rights and sure enough three strokes into the race I was leading. Five strokes in I was in third and so on
My previous long swims were <<ahem>> 4.2 km in a pool and a couple of ironman swims, so I had a few time goals, but I was under no illusion that I would be fast. I concentrated on using Total Immersion style swimming, with long glides, to save energy. My IM swim time is around 1:15, but when I swim that I get out of the water feeling barely warmed up. My nutrition in the boat was one bottle of perpetuem and one gatorade, and this was my big BIG mistake of the day. The water was warm and I was sweating within about a half hour. The plan was to stop every half hour or so and drink. That seemed to work fine. The swim goes almost the length of Skaha, with a sharp left turn at a buoy around 9.5 km in. We kept pretty straight (thanks, Josh) and steady. The only real challenge was staying focused. Keeping your arms turning over for almost four hours is BORING as hell. My spirits only flagged briefly when Ponderosa point appeared on the horizon and an hour and a half later did not appear any closer. After that I figured I would stop looking and just follow the paddler.
At one point my mind wandered a little and I started to question why I had not brought any more water. Somehow the logical side of my brain shut down briefly and I thought hey, I am surrounded by water. I actually took a couple of swallows before I even knew what I was doing. Mistake number two.
Arriving on shore was exciting. I swam right up to the water's edge and just sat there for a moment enjoying the finish. Everybody was yelling for me to get across the timing line without realizing that my legs were not working after being suspended in water horizontally for several hours. My crew came down and walked me across the line at just over 3:45. Not too far off my real 3:30 goal.
I felt pretty good after a quick change of clothes and a half sandwich with a iced soy mocha. Hopped on the bike and headed towards Osoyoos. About 10km in I knew I was in for a long long day. My nutrition strategies have never been great, but this one was bad. I met the crew vehicle at 20km and got off the bike to lay down. My stomach was swollen and I felt nauseous. Jen and I had long ago discussed our goal for this event was to finish, si I took the time I needed to get my stomach in order before continuing. A few minutes on my back in the shade and a few vomits and I was back on the bike and away. I started popping endurolytes every hour after that, which apparently was about one quarter the dosage I needed.
For the rest of the day I struggled with nausea and cramps. It was hot, as in frickin hot, even for an Okanagan boy like myself. It was around 40C at times (104F) with no let up. Over Richter was okay and the rollers felt pretty good, but by the time I hit Keremeos I was fading badly. I had not been able to eat anything and my salt consumption was way too low. I tried to at least suck on a few GU chomps, which went down ok, and gatorade, which was not sitting in my stomach at all. I pushed through most of the cramps up to Yellow lake and started the descent trying real hard not to vomit at high speed. When I arrived at the junction to Hwy 97 my crew vehicle was waiting at the bottom of the short climb up to the highway. I glanced at them and blew by, as I needed a little privacy for five minutes of dry heaving by the side of the road before the final descent into OK falls.
Crossed the finish line in 7plus hours, 10:48 on the day (best time on the day 7:46 Josef Ajram). This was way off my hoped for time goal, but my nutrition was a massive failure. I should have consumed 5-6 litres of fluids in the water as well as 3-4 endurolytes and hour, plus 3-4 more endurolytes and hour for the bike ride. I spent the next hour lying in the grass trying to get rid of massive leg cramps. Once the cramps subsided and I felt good enough to walk again I took a quick soak in the lake and got a massage. I felt like crap, but was steadily improving, popping salt tabs like candy.
Showered, cleaned the bike, plugged in the garmin, split a pizza with Jen and Maria in the hotel room and off for a quick 5 hour sleep. Finally peed for the first time since I got out of the water in the AM. Tried to get much more liquid in me every time I woke up, which was very frequently.
Day Two: After much discussion, I turned my nutrition over to Jen and Maria, both experienced Ultra runners and crew (Badwater, etc). We decided on one endurolyte every 20 minutes with water all day. I decided to stay away from gatorade, as that was upsetting my stomach the day before. If I was feeling full at all we would increase the endurolyte consumption.
Day two is a 273 bike from Penticton to Osoyoos, back to OK falls, up the to Yellow lake past the observatory, out to Princeton, with a 60km out and back to Allison Lake to add insult to injury.
I felt a little tired but refreshed after a decent 5 hour sleep and much slow sipping of water, salt tabs and bad television to take away my trepidation about getting back on the bike for a second day. When I was convulsing on the ground in agony I am sure I said that if tomorrow's ride unfolded the same way, there was no way I was going to make the cutoff.
At the start line everyone looked pretty excited and I was feeling pretty damn good. My legs were a little tired, mostly from the cramping, but overall I was ready to roll. When the start went off I found myself in eighth place and decided that I would hammer for a little while, just to feel out the muscles in my legs and give them a good warm-up. I steadily gained positions and reeled people in until the final few km's into OK Falls I found myself in first place. I knew that I would likely end up BOP, but I figured that I should revel in what little victories I could find.
Brian Schroeder, the super stud cyclist from one of the other relay teams quickly passed me again just before OK Falls and throughout the day I steadily fell back in the rankings, which was OK with me. There were many stud athletes out there and I have zero shame at being passed by them. I kept a steady pace from OK falls to Osooyos, and back to OK Falls. My plan was to gain a little time in the bank along this relatively flat 100km, as the hills and wind would make the last 180km pretty difficult. After passing through OK Falls we turn up into the hills behind Yellow lake and make a climb up the wall. For those of you that have not had the pleasure, you just have to look at the faces in some of the pics of the cyclist climbing it. It is a relatively short climb, but damn it is killer steep. I climbed it beside Giorgio, a jovial Sicilian dude asked him if he had an extra gear I could borrow. On the next turn he edged over beside me and gave me a playful shove uphill saying There is your extra gear. Pretty cool dude.
The rest of the day is a blur of salt pills water, water, cookies, sponges, more water and more salt pills. I think I took three breaks off the bike to cool down and stretch a little, and ate a sandwich somewhere in there. The headwind going out to Princeton was absolutely brutal. The last 25 km was a nice little semi downhill with a little tailwind, so that was fun. My ass was incredibly badly chafed 18 hours is a long time to be on a bike over two days, especially since my longest previous ride was 7 and a half hours and I have never ridden 18 hours in a week, let alone two days. My crew kept me going, making sure I was indeed consuming the salt and water and dousing me with water at every opportunity. About 15km from the finish my front tire flatted and they changed out my front wheel and got me back on the road in minutes while I had a pee.
Crossed the day two finish line in 10:52. (best time on the day 8:49 Brian Schroeder).
Felt much better at the finish line this time, my sub 11 time was my goal and other than some deep bleeding chafing on my ass I felt pretty good. I got in line for a massage and sipped a ginger ale and awaited the rest of the finishers. Four people DNFed (missed the time cut-off) on day two after one DNF on day one. The great thing about Ultraman is you can continue to torture your body on day tw and three, even if you DNF on day one ;)
Fortunately, I got to hand the baton off to the lovely JenHS for day three's 52.4 mile (84km) slogfest of a run.
Day three: After a horrible night of sleep with nasty fever chills alternating with hot flashes I got up and packed my stuff, and headed out for breakfast with Jen and Maria. Jen was in full race mode, quiet and kind of zoned out. I was feeling pretty sick, so I was secretly hoping I would not have to pace her, even though I was prepared to do so.
After a quick breakfast we headed out to the start. Pretty chilly morning, nice change after two days of sweltering heat. After a quick good morning welcome, the runners headed out, with Benat Zubillaga, the eventual winner, heading out like a rabbit. Within a half mile he was already fading out of sight. Jen started at the BOP along with 6 or 7 others, all keeping their pacing nice and even and under control.
As crew, we decided to stop every half mile, get ready with water, Accelerade, Coke, gels and salt tabs. The plan was one salt tab per hour, and approximately 100-150 calories per hour. For the most part we kept on top of it, although Jen had some digestion issues early on. I drifted in and out of consciousness in a fevered state for the first couple of hours and left most of the crewing to Maria. I popped couple of tylenol and bought a coffee and a bag of chips at a passing General Store. Some combination of this caused my fever to magically go away and raise me from the dead. I am thankful that it was not me running that morning or I can promise you I would have DNFed.
Jen held up very well on a challenging, hilly course. As I recall, she knocked off the first half-mary in around 2:45, the second in 3 hours, the third in around 2:50 and the fourth in just over 3 hours for a total of 11:42. (best time on the day, an amazing 6:44 from Benat) Despite some early stomach issues, her nutrition was spot on for most of the day and she kept a great attitude for the most part. She did 95% of the run on her own, with Maria walking up a couple of the longer hills with her. She can add her own two cents to this and speak to her state of mind, but I can say with no trepidation that she kicked ass. She PRed at 50km and at 50 miles and looked like she could go another 50 when she crossed the finish line.
Overall a very successful weekend. Our goal as a team was to complete the course within the cutoffs. We were not there to win, but we still placed third in the relay division (hehe out of three).
This event is quite inspiring to be a part of. It was amazing and awe inspiring to watch the efforts of some of the competitors and I was humbled to be a small part of this event. Watching John Callos run the last half of the double marathon with a fractured foot. Seeing Anu Vaidyanathan shuffle through run in a dehydrated haze. Seeing Jason Sissel pass out at the finish line after crossing 3 minutes before cutoff. Watching the amazing Jason Lester do the entire event with one arm and kick my ass along the way. Being in awe of the women in this race that were in a heated battle for victory. When a world class ultra-endurance athlete like Shanna Armstrong finished fourth, you know you have a stacked field.
My plan is to go away and improve my running to the point where I can make an honest solo attempt in 2011.
Cheers and thanks for reading.
Team Dog-Tired 2009 Ultraman Canada
Swim 10km 3:45
Bike 144.8 km 7:02
Bike 273.5 km 10:52
Run 84.3 km 11:42
Total 33:23
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Proud member of the MSF (Maple Syrup Mafia)