Arrived in PCB on Wed morning to beautiful sunny skies, warm temps and almost no wind. Silly me, I thought it would be like that on race day too. The day was spent getting registered, catching up with my friend Lauren (Austin79) at the TriggerPoint tent, getting checked into my home for the week (Colonial Shores - right by Aid station #1 on the run, Absolutely great!), grocery shopping and putting in a short swim with my coach (Rich Nixion - www.fit2tri.com - can’t say enough good things about him).
The next days were all about trying to relax, getting in some VERY light workouts, watching the weather reports get worse and running around trying to find things to combat the elements on race day.
It was actually kind of fun thinking up little ideas to try and beat the cold I knew would be out there race morning (thanks to checking the weather about every 5 minutes and hoping the 40deg forecast was some sort of sick joke). Things I picked up during race week that worked for me in the cold that future IMFL racers might find handy:
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$1 flip flops from Wall Mart to wear down to the swim so my feet would stay a bit warmer while waiting to start. Gave them to a little kid right before the start. He thought it was great.
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Leather palm garden gloves (also from Walmart). Wound up wearing them for the whole bike. They were perfect for sheilding my hands from the wind and were awesome when grabbing bottles at aid stations.
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Toe warmers. Great pickup since I train and race sockless and wasn’t about to change for race day of my first IM.
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Arm warmers & knee warmers. Allowed me to race in a sleeveless jersey which I prefer, and I think helped my legs warm up a bit faster than they might have on the bike.
I also went to the ART tent every day and got an hour massage Thursday night in an effort to loosen up my ITB. Anyone who knows me also knows all about the ITB problems I’ve had over the years, so it definitely had me worried. I drove the bike course on Thursday, which I’m very glad I did given the conditions on race day. My girlfriend got in Friday night to find me passed out at about 8:30, which is crazy since I’ve always had a hard time sleeping before races.
Race morning came early, and I was up a bit before 4 for a hot shower and some light stretching to loosen up. I managed to choke down a bowl of cold oatmeal w/ rice milk, a banana, and a peanut butter sandwich. Trying to eat that morning was one of the tougher parts of the day considering how nervous I was. The bottle of Infinit and the powerbar gel in transition before the race went down much smoother than solid foods.
I think by now everyone has heard about the particular challenges race day threw at all the athletes (it was cold, it was windy, and the swim had an unfriendly current and steady chop), so I don’t need to rehash all that in detail. After taking care of pumping up my tires and filling my bottles I pretty much hung out in the change tent trying to stay warm until it was time to head to the beach. One small crisis on race morning was forgetting to put my contacts in. Luckily my girlfriend was right by the tent and was able to make it to the hotel and back just before they were closing up transition. Managed not to poke my eye out putting them in, and headed down to the beach.
http://i13.tinypic.com/2qvcc8w.jpg (my coach and I in our flip flops before the swim courtesy of KJGrog)
I’ll admit that even though I’m an ok swimmer I was nervous about the swim after all the horror stories I’d read here on Slowtwitch. Also, I had wanted to get in a decent warm-up, but got down to the beach after the pro’s started so that didn’t exactly work out. I managed to get in a few strokes before the National Anthem and then listened to it while standing waist deep in the water (yeah, that guy was me). When I looked back at the 2200+ athletes on the beach, it really hit me just how big this race was. I was freaking out a bit as I lined up right in front on the inside, but forgot all about it when the cannon sounded. After watching the pros and seeing how many people were going to be in the water, I decided it was best to take the inside of the buoys to the first turn. It worked pretty well as I had a lot of clean water after the first buoy and was able to settle into a nice steady pace. Had one guy swim across my back, not over in the direction of the course, but across on his way out to sea or wherever he wound up, and another lady use my head to propel herself forward after stopping to sight. Other than that the swim was pretty uneventful but I was a bit disappointed at the time (1:00:33), because I really had wanted to go under an hour. I didn’t realize until later how slow the swim was relative to past years. I do wish I had found a pack to swim with instead of doing most all of the work on my own. Good lesson learned for next time.
T-1 was basically a comedy of errors and the 6 minutes I was in there shows it. I had too much stuff in my bag to choose from, and the indecision definitely cost me time. I did get to have a quick chat with Joe Boness who sat down next to me in the tent, so that was pretty cool. Just a super nice guy.
I honestly spent the first 70 miles or so on the bike feeling like the slow kid in gym class as people went flying by me. Joe was the first to go by about 2 miles into the bike and I didn’t have a prayer of trying to go with him. I can only hope to ride that strong someday. I had done quite a few long rides leading up to the race, but I had never run a marathon after any of them so I stuck to the numbers on my powertap, concentrated on my nutrition and let guys ride away from me. For those of you who haven’t tried Infint nutrition yet, you guys are missing out. I had a couple concentrated bottles on the bike and then used water from the course to dilute it in my aerobottle. It made things very simple and I was able to get in a little over 1700 cal on the bike without a problem (5’10, 153lbs). Didn’t see a whole lot of drafting on the bike until about mile 95 when a good sized group rolled up. I stayed near the front of it though and most of the people I saw were working to ride legal. The only real worry I had on the bike was my rear tire, which started to feel like it was losing pressure at about mile 35 or so. I couldn’t tell for sure because we were in a headwind, but I decided to just ride until it became a real problem. It was almost flat by the end of the ride, but by then I was done and on to the run so disaster was averted. The tire may have slowed me down a bit, but I was happy with my bike time and especially how I felt getting off the bike. (5:29:53)
Here’s my wattage data for the ride (right on my target of 170avg):
Total Ride: 170 Avg Pwr/177 NP, 85 Cad Avg, 20.37 avg mph, 0.71 Intensity Factor
Mile 0 – 25: 172AP/179 NP, 88 Cad, 20.4 mph
Mile 25 – 50: 179AP/185 NP, 82 Cad, 18.4 mph
Mile 50 – 75: 168AP/174 NP, 85 Cad, 21.4mph
Mile 75 – 100: 163AP/169 NP, 88 Cad, 23.3mph
Mile 100 – 112: 170AP/178NP, 81 Cad, 21.9mph
T-2 was easy in and easy out. Was amazed at how good my legs felt once I stood up from the chair to start running, but was very nervous about how long my ITB problems would hold out and made a deal with myself that I would run through any other pain as long as it wasn’t my ITB.
The run started off great. Legs felt good and I saw my girlfriend and my coaches wife right out of transition…I couldn’t have missed them if I tried they were yelling so loud J I hit the porta potty at mile 1 for a quick pee stop, and then settled into a pace that felt comfortable. Realized at mile 2 that it was a bit too quick when my split was a little over 16:00 for 2 miles with a bathroom break and slowed way down. Again I watched as people went by me and managed to resist the urge to run faster. All the volunteers were awesome and the people along the course cheering were great. Was very happy I used my number with my first name on it because it actually felt like people were cheering for me when they would yell ‘looking good Mark’, or ‘try not fall on your face mark’ …that was after I almost tripped over a cone when I was blowing my GF a kiss after the first loop. Yeah, she’s got that on video. On the run I used 2 gel flasks of powerbar 4x sodium gel (plain) and tried to grab at least a little water at every aid station. Because of the ITB problems my run training was not exactly ideal leading into the race as I averaged a little over 14 miles a week for the last 15 weeks leading up to the race. I did get 1 18 mile run in training and 1 14 miler but as I got further into the second loop I was really in the realm of the unknown for me. My quads started to get sore around mile 14 and my pace slowed to a little over 9 min miles. After I hit 18 miles I just decided to take it 1 at a time and know that I had done plenty of 8 mile runs before. When I hit mile 20 I sort of kept waiting for ‘the wall’ to hit me in the face, but mentally I told myself that it didn’t have to happen…and it didn’t. I just kept running because I knew if I stopped I might not get started again. With 5 miles to go I realized I had a chance to go under 10:30 if I just ran under 9’s the rest of the way. As I came around the turn with a bit over a ½ mile to go I knew I was definitely going to make my goal time of 10:40 and for some reason I almost started crying (I know I’m a wuss), but I kept it in check put the hammer down and realized that my legs didn’t hurt anymore. When I finally saw the finish line, the clock said 10:29:25 and I almost jumped out of my shoes. I had made it and I couldn’t have been happier. I crossed the line in 10:29:33 with a 3:51 marathon (1:52, 1:59).
My coach was waiting there for me (after a 9:37 finish and another ticket to Kona) with his wife and kids, gave me a big hug and told me how proud he was of me. He’s really more of a friend and mentor than just my coach, so it meant a lot to me to have him there. The only thing missing was my GF, who was no where in sight. Apparently my finish time had surprised her too, and she was on her way up to the line after seeing me go by on Thomas Dr. She finally found me in the massage tent and was hopping up and down she was so excited for me. She was so supportive of me through all of my training, putting up with early nights and mornings, helping me stick to my diet, and pushing me out the door whenever I felt like sitting on the couch even though it all meant time away from hanging out with her. I consider myself a pretty lucky guy.
Post race I hobbled back to my condo, and thankfully there was a pizza place along the way J I grabbed a nap til about 10 and then went down to watch some of the later finishers and get my bike. It was so cool to see all the athletes back at the finish cheering on the people who were still coming in after toughing out a 16+ hour day. That takes some serious determination and I only hope that if and when I ever have a bad day out there I can show the kind of guts the later finishers displayed.
All in all a great experience and I’m looking forward to the next one…may be back to IMFL in 2007 for a shot at the 10hr mark J …which still puts me over ½ hr behind the guys qualifying in my AG for Kona. As my friend said, if I had only managed to swim 2 minutes I would have made it this time!
Thanks for reading!
Mark
