Thirteen weeks ago today, I made the decision with encouragement from my wife that I would attempt my first Ironman.
The place: Taupo, New Zealand Mar 7, 2009.
I’d been toying with the idea for nearly 10 years after seeing it on TV for the first time and watching fellow Canadians Peter Reid and Lori Bowden stomp their aerobic superiority over the rest of the world.
First, a little about myself:
I’m 37 years old, 152 lbs, and 5’11”. Most call me “skinny” …but I prefer lean. I’ve been competitively cycling (predominantly mountain biking) throughout most of my adult life. I would not call myself “fast”, but not slow either. In road cycling terminology, I would be called “peloton fodder”. My regular training consists of about 7 to 10 hours a week. This is consistent regardless of the time of year.
My typical summer involves about 20 races (a dozen MTB races, a few road, some cyclo-cross, and if feeling cheeky (or geeky) a triathlon or two). In general, I finish in the top quarter of the races I enter.
I am NOT a runner or a swimmer.
Based on my research and experience I determined that 13 weeks would be my required training time. This balanced factors such as time away from my family, how long I could stay at maximum motivation, and how long it would take to build the vehicle that could comfortably cover the distances in each discipline in a reasonable amount of time. This “reasonable amount of time” for me was 12 hours total.
All of the training and the race-day was guided by the following three high level objectives:
1 – Get to the start line healthy. Sounds easy? …the difficulty for me was building from 0kms of running to 42.2kms in 13 weeks without breaking, spraining, stressing, etc… Patience and listening to my legs with extreme care was critical.
2 – Get to the finish line. Because it was my first time, I did not take any unnecessary risks…most importantly, keeping my pace very steady. The motto I followed, “it’s not about the time”
3 – Enjoy it. This was the motivating factor toward the training. Basically, the more I trained the more fun the day would be. I did not want to worry about splits, speed, intervals, fartleks, etc… These performance concepts seemed asinine for me to try and apply in a discipline I had never done before. I like the saying “speed work is the icing on the cake, but you need a cake first” …(or something along those lines)
Training was not hard, but certainly was long (for me anyways).
My training weeks were:
**2 swims: **1 hour each. Just length after length finding a tempo and head space I could maintain for 4 km. I used youtube as my coach. Literally, there are thousands of videos up there regarding swim technique.
3 bike rides: 2 x 2 hour rides during the week, and a difficult (4+ hour) ride on the weekend. This would involve a few mountain passes.
3 runs: 2 x 1.5 hours during the week and gradually building up a long run on the weekend. I went as far as 30km in just over 3 hours 4 weeks before the race. Most importantly, this was pain-free.
…all together this would add up to around 15 hours a week (give or take).
I did not stick to a strict schedule. I was constantly assessing (or obsessing) on how I was feeling. If my body was telling me not to train, I would drop the workout. On the other hand, if I was feeling great I would keep going or add in a workout that day.
Training went according to plan; albeit, a few workouts missed due to a nasty cold and what I thought was the beginning of an injury to my Achilles tendon. Fortunately, it never materialized…at the first sign of trouble, I walked the rest of the way home and took a full 7 days off running. (This aligned with objective 1 - Get to the start line healthy)
Race Day:
I was successful on Objective 1. I felt great, I had no injuries and I even had a decent night’s sleep. Unfortunately, I don’t really have an appetite in the morning so breakfast consisted of a couple slices of French-toast and a few swigs of Powerade. I did not obsessively guzzle water as I felt I was sufficiently hydrated and didn’t feel like having to pee every 15 minutes before the start. The HUGE line ups at the “porta-loos” made me glad about this decision.
The Swim:
Getting into the lake and waiting for the start was probably my favourite part of the day. The sun was just starting to rise, there were 1500 of us in the water in perfect silence, thousands of supporters on shore cheering for us, boats all around us, and helicopters a few hundred meters above us. It was electric.
The gun went off and all mayhem broke out. Flapping arms and legs, people swimming over me…I’ll be honest…not too much fun. There was however SCUBA divers waving at us from the bottom of the lake which I found surreal, but quite cool. My plan on the swim was to relax, and get through the 3.8km without getting bruised and more importantly, feeling no inkling of attrition. After 1h15m I was out of the water and successful in my plan. The swim was a breeze, and after about 2km became enjoyable.
Transition 1:
Unlike most everyone else, I decided to change into dry cycling specific clothes. Although it was called the “men’s changing tent”, plenty of the volunteers in the tent were females (from teenager and up)…time to swallow my shyness. I peeled off my wet-suit (I was nude underneath), and slapped on copious amounts of anti-chaffing cream in all of my private nooks and crannies. I kept telling myself I will never see these people again.
Bike:
I love biking; however I can honestly say that a 180km time trial makes you want to throw your bike into a dumpster. My ride went reasonably well though…naturally; I paced myself too high for the first 130km and suffered in the last 50km because of this. As for lessons learned, doing this again, I would make my training rides much more “steady-state” as opposed to hilly rides, and undoubtedly, I would get a full on time-trial bike. Clipping on aero-bars works fine for a couple hours, but the position is just not dialed in enough to make a ride this long comfortable (actually, it becomes excruciating). In addition, I would ride with a power meter. My bike computer was not working (because I went with a disc wheel at the back), so pacing was all by feel. (I don’t use an HRM either for various reasons). I managed the 180km in 5h45m …I believe with proper equipment and better pacing, I could have dropped at least 20minutes off of this on the day). Oh well.
Transition 2:
Coming into T2 was heaven. I would not have minded at all if the volunteer who grabbed my bike from me had decided to keep it forever. Then, of course the reality hit that I had 42km to run. I changed again, munched down a banana and slugged a cup of water and was off.
Run:
From everything I had read about the first time Ironman, and especially being a non-runner, my chances of actually “running” the entire 42km were very slim. So instead of thinking of this as a marathon, I instead called it “42km on foot”. My goal, was to run more than 80% of it (i.e. honour roll)…and, instead of running until I could run no more and limping home, I accepted and embraced the 80% and broke up the run with 8 minutes of running followed by 2 minutes of walking…over and over and over. Then, if I was feeling good at 32km, to run it home. (I had employed 8x2 in my training as well)
This took a great deal of self-discipline. There were supporters throughout the length of the marathon and they felt the need to encourage running if they saw me walking (this of course is understandable). I blocked them out during my 2 minutes per 10 minutes and stuck to the plan. The first 21km of the journey was exceptionally slow…more than 2.5 hours; however, I could feel the effects of the bike ride leaving my legs and I was starting to feel pretty good. I had a slight bonk before the support station at 23km and out of fear pounded back three cups of coke and stuffed my face with a few mouthfuls of salt & vinegar chips. (I had been avoiding coke throughout the rest of the day as to avoid the temporary sugar-high and inevitable crash). The effect was instantaneous! I felt great, and noticeably picked up my pace and had switched to 9 minutes run/ 1 minute walk. I got to the 32km mark at just over 11 hours determined to finish less than 12 hours for the day. I ran that last 10km of the day with no walking in well under an hour and got to the line at 11h57m (marathon 4h35m). Mission, and objectives 2 and 3 accomplished…and feeling good…more accurately, feeling elated!
Would I do another one? …oh yes for sure. It’s been two day since the event and I feel good, albeit a few sore muscles. I’ll be back on my bike on Wednesday…and thankfully, without the aero-bars.
Thanks for reading!