So I just finished up at IM Lou and I was really stoked for awhile then I went online and checked results.
I got into the water after 36 minutes or so and had an absolutely horrible swim. It was fine once I got going out to the end of the island and then I started swimming into the “wall” of people doing side stroke, floating on their backs etc. The water is so murky that you look and see a clear path and then start swimming toward it only to have someone cut over and block your way… frustrating.
The bike went much better and I was right around 5:18 which hit my projected time of 5:15 +/- 5 minutes.
My run was going amazingly well for the first 20 miles. I was 1:27 and change through the halfway. With 2 miles to go my right hamstring completely seized and I had to walk for 3-4 minutes trying to get it to loosen up. I finally was able to start running on it. As I got close to the finish line I really wanted to break 3:10. I was sprinting down the final straightaway (not a real sprint but what my legs could manage) and I stopped my watch as I crossed the mats. I have done races for 20 years and I know when to start and stop my watch for splits. My watch says 3:09:22 and the ironman live time says 3:10:23 (how the hell can there be a minute difference?). I also had 9:48:59 on my watch from the time I crossed the mat on the dock to the finish and they have me a 9:49:53 … wtf? Has anyone ever had anything like this happen to them? How can it be off by a minute? Is it possible that the mat didn’t pick up the chip as I ran across the mat?
Nope - I have never gone sub 10 hrs in an Ironman, capping it off with a 3:10’ish (or below) marathon, and then been upset that my official reported time was perhaps 1 minute different from what I personally recorded for myself. Has not happened to me.
Congrats on an awesome race. That’s an incredible time, regardless of which one is right. I hope you do get the “official” finishing time sorted out correctly, but if not, please be happy with your incredible accomplishment for what it is.
Sorry, I wasn’t intending to brag about my race. Those that know me would hopefully vouch for me that it is not my style
Dev has been on my case for years to break 3:10 in the maraton. I had it easily until my leg went wonky and then I heard his “smack talk” voice chiding me for not break 3:10 so I dug really deep to break 3:10 (I ended up in the medical room for quite some time but was able to avoid the IV!) so it kind of pisses me off At age 43, my days of cranking out the sub-3:10 marathon in an IM are numbered!
I did a olympic tri earlier in the year where my race time showed up 3 minutes slower than my “watch” time. At first I couldn’t figure out what went wrong. After the swim I hit the lap button on my watch. When I reviewed everything I was 3 min faster by my watch on the swim split, the run and bike splits were the same. I suspected my timing chip was activated too soon. I then contacted the RD and he were able to determine that my chip was activated 3 minutes early. I guess they could “see” that I went past the starting mat after the initial activation and they changed my time.
Same story. Much more pedestrian results. Watch says 11:59 and change. Stripes say 12:01. Great event. Well supported. If this is their biggest screw up, I can live with. Perfect day for a first timer like me.
Yep, same thing here. 9:54 official but watch was 9:53. I’m with you.
Wow, what a horrible swim. I started about 25 minutes after the first ones jump in. Major conjestion until I got around the island. Bike was ugly with the traffic, plenty of flats out there including me. Run was well support, nice and straight.
I ended up losing a whole slew of spots in the line. I left my bag on the sidewalk that seemed to be about 2k down the line and ran across te road to go to the bathroom. Just then, the line finally started moving and by the time I ran back to my clothing bag I had lost 50 or 60 places … there were still plenty behing me tough and I went in around 35 or 36 minutes after the first swimmers.
I found it tough getting in the water too since 3 or 4 people that went ahead of me jumped in, came to the surface and took their time before they started swimming and I didn’t want to land on them!
I saw very little drafting on the bike. The first couple of climbs were crazy crowded but drafting wouldn’t help on those hills. The scary part was the out and back when people were hugging the yellow line or drifitng across it coming at you full speed in a tuck. I’m surprised no one got hurt.
Other than the swim start, I found the race pretty awesome. We lucked out on the weather and I finally made it down to the finish line at midnight after 5 failed attempts in previous IM races. The finish area on 4th street is amazing.
Congrats, Allan. I did IMLOO today and wondered about the run times. I noticed it early on: my Garmin told me I was running ~7:50 miles, yet I crossed the third mile mark in ~20:50. But now that I think about it, your problem was the opposite: your official time was slower than your watch time. I don’t know, but it seemed weird to me, too. I ended up sucking badly enough not to care too much, but I’ll be curious if there’s an explanation.
At a race earlier this year, I stop my watch for about a minute going into T1 while I was taking my wetsuit off…caused my swim time to be “fast” and my overall time to be faster by almost one minute on the head.
My watch wasn’t stopped at all on the day until I crossed the finish line. I still have all of the splits on the watch and unlike the old style Timex watches where the start/stop was on the face and could get hit to accidentally stop it you have to press the button at the side of te watch to stop the time.
Same thing on my watch. Either the AG splits are all off by a minute, of it took a lot longer than I thought to get in the water after crossing the timing mat.
I was curious how many people finished. Check out the last line from this link, it will make you feel good about the timing. Note that this is in the official results.
