This is very short just to get something up about my first Iron distance race. My race report with pee stops, kittens, and a grown man crying will come later.
Swim (1:08:30): Rough seas so slower swim, but very fun for some reason.
T1 (9:32): Took forever because I dropped my spare tubular somewhere and I had to backtrack to find it. Way too crowded.
Bike (5:40:49): Slow bike due to wind. Lots of drafting. Couldn’t get in aero for long after Mile 70 due to toasted left hip flexor.
T2 (6:54): Walked through entire T2. Nothing special to note.
Run (4:37:58): Wow. This started off bad and got worse. They say the wall is at Mile 20. For me on Saturday, it was at Mile 5. Everything just hurt. It took everything to keep shuffling and not walking. At special needs, I was in bad shape. Ask Marisol (thanks a ton, BTW) since she talked to me then. I kept moving and wasn’t looking forward to the next 13.1 miles. I was trying to figure out how far I could push myself and at what point I would give up and walk the rest. But at Mile 15, I said to myself “If I’m hurting this bad, I might as well run faster.” and I picked up the pace and would not let myself walk. My initial plan was to get to Mile 18 and walk from there. At Mile 18, I decided that it would be more fun to negative split the marathon than to walk the last 8 miles.
First segment: 2:21:17
Second segment: 2:16:41
Difference: -4:36
Doing what I did on the run was one of the toughest things that I’ve done in my life and required more mental concentration and focus when I was falling apart at the seems than I knew that I had in me. I learned that Ironman is not about the physical challenge, but about the mental challenge.
Jeez Eric…can’t wait to read the kittens and crying men version! I wish I could bike 5:40 and call that a “slow bike”. I should have written TRIBODYBOARDER on my leg. I missed out on meeting alot of ST’ers that I probably encountered on the course (that didn’t show at the ST meeting Friday!).
I can see how you took my “slow bike” comment, but I meant that pretty much the entire field was slow due to the wind. I was quite happy with the bike and the only thing that I would’ve changed would be that I averaged over 20mph.
The long version of my race report will be quite a bit longer.
When I’m in a race like that, I’m so focused that I hear my name being called, but I guess I just don’t take the time to look up and look around to see who it is. Or I could’ve been delerious.
When I’m in a race like that, I’m so focused that I hear my name being called, but I guess I just don’t take the time to look up and look around to see who it is. Or I could’ve been delerious.
Eric,
I was just being a smartass, I don’t look around either during races who is calling my name. Except maybe late in an Ironman run/walk.
I can’t remember when I saw you but I think I saw you at least twice. The entire race is starting to blend together. It was a rollercoaster race and I was up and feeling really good at points and then I was down and feeling horrible at points. Ask your wife how I looked at around special needs on the run.
Nice seeing you at there as well. I see that you also neg split the run. Congratulations on your race as well.
Good mental determination on the run. Last year I was about the same on the run. It wasn’t pain for me so much, but I kept getting out of breath even with my HR down around 145. It didn’t matter how slow I ran, just running elevated my breathing. So I decided to run faster spurts until I couldn’t breathe and then walk until it was under control and repeat over and over.
Doing what I did on the run was one of the toughest things that I’ve done in my life and required more mental concentration and focus when I was falling apart at the seems than I knew that I had in me. I learned that Ironman is not about the physical challenge, but about the mental challenge.
So true… With two IM under my belt… never run a stand alone mary… I break down mentally…
I don’t really know what I did? I wanted to be done! The faster that I ran, the sooner that I would be done. I had a lot of pain on the run and I had to sort through to see what was injury pain and what was overuse pain. I figured out that most of it was overuse pain so I just pushed through it. I ran slowly, it hurt. I ran faster, I still hurt but it wasn’t that much worse. I would’ve beat myself up if I had walked so I just pushed myself to keep running. I also kept my form with hips forward, a straight torso, relaxed shoulders, and higher turnover even if I my stride length was really short.
“If I’m hurting this bad, I might as well run faster.”
Nice attitude
congrats on the finish. looking forward to the long version
OT, I’ve been water running due to injury, and get more impressed daily with your 3hr water run. I managed 80 minutes yesterday and was pretty proud of myself… can’t imagine doing more than double that. You ARE mentally tough!
I had to do something differently and I decided to do something that sounded crazy. Walking and running very slowly weren’t helping out so the only other 2 options were quitting the race (not an option) and running faster.
For some reason, I didn’t even think about aquajogging on the run. I had a plan to think no matter how badly I was hurting on the run, it was better than aquajogging for 3 hours. The pain on this run was worse. Keep up the aquajogging because I now believe that it does work to maintain cardio fitness. The pounding that you take from land running can’t be simulated though and that’s what I think my problem was on the IMFL run.
