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?
You paced poorly, but don’t kick yourself too hard about it.
Take it as a lesson learned and concentrate on the positives. You have an excellent base of fitness to begin the off season, have a few weeks off and try not to think about it too much.
I know that you have mentally built towards an IM, but your consolation race doesn’t have to be one.
Look for a local Century ride or Half Marathon, put in a sold time on one of those.
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?
Definitely your ITB. I typically get flare-ups after every long course race, especially if I over-do it. See your PT. Get a good strengthening/stretching/foam roller/ART regimen. Do this religiously, and do it prophylactically when you are training for your next race. Honestly, I would bag another race this year. You may have biomechanical inefficiencies that are amplified over the long distances of an IM. If you give it another go so soon after the DNF, you could irritate your ITB a lot worse (even if it feels fine when you do the race). Take it from somebody who once had to take around 6 months off of heavy training due to ITB. I recommend two weeks of absolutely no swim/bike/run, and a heck of a lot of PT. Then re-introduce everything slowly and build back to where you were. Longevity and consistency trump.
Despite what you see on Slowtwitch, Strava, and/or Facebook, not every race is a PR. I’ve had something similar take place with my Garmin (filled with water on swim) so I went by feel. Not a great race at all. Honestly, when I read what you said it had more to do with a knee/IT issue than pacing. I’m not sure I would jump right back into another very physically demanding IM race (or even your own made up one) until you are 100% healed. You could be just digging yourself into a deeper hole and potentially impact next year (which is only 90 days away).
For the record, I know how you feel. I had a really good year last year, finished 70.3 worlds in Canada, grabbed a last minute slot to IMAZ to put one more cherry on the year, trained really hard for 6 more weeks, was a in great shape, got sick day before race (probably self inflicted as hard I trained) and had the worst race of my life at IMAZ and DNF’d like a mofo at mile 13 of run. First one for me. Threw $3k out the window. Such is life.
I did consider B2B, but I know my knee/ITB won’t be ready to go by then. Plus I don’t have a wetsuit, and the B2B swim is wetsuit mandatory according to their website.
Beach to Battleship still has slots open, that could be a good option.
This - B2B is a nice race.
I don’t know anything about the training plan you followed but even if you were a bit aggressive with your bike pacing it still should have been considerable easier than most of your training rides. That makes it kind of unlikely that the bike caused your knee issue on the run. Have you ever had any discomfort in that knee during training?
I fully plan to kill it in some sprints and Olympics next year. Maybe a 70.3 if I can get my wife’s blessing for a few weeks of increased training load. But I don’t have my wife’s blessing for another Ironman next year; she hasn’t explicitly said it, but she really came to resent my time away training this year. I don’t want to do that to her or to our marriage again next year, so that’s why I was hoping to capitalize on the training base I have now to complete an IM before I lose it.
The last (and first) time this issue came up was a year and a half ago. I did a long trail run with a buddy who is in much better shape and in hindsight upped my distance too much that day. By the end of the run I had some pain on that knee but I figured long runs should be uncomfortable. Two weeks later I did a 10K race to get a seeded time for the Peachtree Road Race and at the 4.5 mile mark my knee just shut down and I had to stroll the last 1.7 miles to the finish. I took it easy for a few weeks after that and never had a problem afterward. My IT bands would always be tight, but I stretched, rolled, got massages and chiropractic with ART. During my entire training plan I never missed a workout due to ITB issues or any other injury. I think the only blister I got was from the Peachtree RR, and that was from the constant rain during the race. But as soon as it started during the IM I knew what it was and how my race would end.
I had serious ITB issue earlier this year i went and saw Al at PhysioEdge for dry needling, he is in Marietta. I was running again in less than a week. I also did PT with him to strengthen. I do not work for their company, just saw you mention Atlanta so i am assuming you are local.
Out of 12 Ironman attempts, I’ve finished 9, DNF’d 1 and DNS’d 2. Unfortunately, the IM thing is a delicate balance of sufficient training load and injury-avoidance. It sounds to me like you’re injured, not that you over-biked. If that’s the case, I’d take the time off that you had planned and regroup for next year rather than force something this year.
I don’t think it was a lack of a powermeter that did this to him. If anything he didn’t do enough long runs or simply had bad luck and got an injury during the run. Sometimes injuries just happen, regardless of preparation.
Oh yeah…I don’t know what caused the OP’s problems…but pacing on the bike should not necessarily have cause an ITB issue. Just pointing out that the logic in LL’s post may not be the greatest, especially for those who don’t have a lot of experience racing.
Sorry to hear. You said you might do a solo 140.6 — do you belong to Lifetime? You can create a fun 140.6 out of Lifetime Alpharetta: pool swim, several 112 bike options heading north, and 26.2 on the Greenway (roughly 7 miles from Webb Bridge to the Roswell loop turn, repeat as needed). Then hot tub, shower, and home for dinner
Endurance Sports Travel was advertising IMFL “entry only” packages recently (meaning you don’t have to buy a travel/lodging package). You may want to look into that.
How do you justify not spending $300 to have a Garmin you claim would have been the key finish but will spend 4x that on a charity slot? How do you "justify that yourself or your wife’?
How much do you make an hour? Multiply that rate by the number of hours you spent training in those 40 weeks. That total is what you spend of your valuable time to waste on not having that Garmin.
Bag a race for this year - the injury you have will be there whether you overcooked the bike or not, fix that before you spend any more money.
