thanimal wrote:
This past Sunday was my first Ironman. After 40 weeks of structured training following Don Fink's Be IronFit book and training plan I felt calm and ready to go on race morning. I did a sprint race in Clemson, SC back in May, the Chattanooga Waterfront Olympic in June, and the ToughMan Alabama 70.3 (my first 70.3) in August getting better, stronger, and learning more about my nutrition needs along the way. I had a plan for IMChoo and felt prepared and ready to execute. I decided to wear my Garmin for my last swim workout the Thursday before the race because I suspected the pace clock at the Y was off (unfortunately I was correct, and my 100 yd times hadn't improved by 20 seconds over the previous two weeks...) and jumped in the hot tub after the workout. I didn't realize it until I was already in Chattanooga Friday afternoon, but the hot tub had killed my Garmin. No shop in town stocked anything between $70 Timex lap watches and $300+ Garmins and Suuntos. Since I just had the lowly Garmin FR70 I couldn't justify a $70 glorified stopwatch or spending $300+ -- to myself or my wife -- and decided I'd race on feel and ask volunteers for the time.
I killed the swim (for me) and the first half of the bike course. When I stopped for a pit stop halfway on the bike and got the time from a volunteer I figured I had ridden the first half of the bike course 2 mph faster than I meant to, so I slowed it down for the second half to save it for the run. When I got to T2 I realized that even if I had to walk a bit on the run I could finish near 13 hours, and if things went well I could finish sub-13, which was even better than I had hoped for. Then 2.5 miles into the run I started to feel a tweak on the outside of my knee. Just after mile 3 I was walking, absolutely unable to run. That walk turned into a hobble, then into a limp. When I got back to Veteran's Bridge on the second loop, just after mile 20, my paced had slowed to the point that I had no chance to limp to the finish line in time. I know I overcooked the bike (though HR and RPE felt fine) so I'm guessing that aggravated my IT band or the peroneal tendon. I'm hoping to get to the PT today to figure it out.
I can't walk away from the last year of training with a DNF. IMFL and IMAZ only have charity slots and Los Cabos and Cozumel would be more expensive than the charity slots after airfare and lodging, so I'm thinking of putting together my own course around Atlanta and just knocking it out solo. How should I structure my training to accomplish this? Once my knee/IT band/PT band is healed, should I just put in a couple of weeks at my taper level and give it another go, or should I put in another "mini-build" period for a few weeks? Who has experience doing two IMs relatively close together?
I suggest you book it to Kona and bandit the race next week, if it starts getting rough, just pull out at the airport, get on the next flight and do the same thing the next morning in Louisville <----pink