IM Louisville August 31st, 2009- First IM!
Race Week:
Got into Louisville late Thursday afternoon. Got into the room and went through athlete check in pretty easy. I was staying at the Galt House Hotel which is the official race hotel, groud zero for the Ironman. There were fit people in spandex all over the place. Each was out for a run or wheeling there $5,000 bike around the lobby getting ready to ride from the hotel. Lots of egos, lots of testosterone, everyone eyeing each other trying to figure out who was fast.
Felt decent during the short workouts leading up to the race. During the downtime in between I felt like I was getting a cold: cough, congestion, drainage, and my asthma was acting up. Great! Just what I need before the race.
My whole family was there in attendance: Crystal, Reed, my mom and dad, sister Laura and her husband Justin, Crystal’s mom and dad. Family friend Ron Horton and his wife … were there also. Ron is a huge endurance racing fan. He has done 78 marathons and counting. Not to mention he takes great pictures. And of coarse my sister Katie was racing with me!
Race Morning:
Breakfast was down before 4:00. I had 4 bottles of ensure (250 calories each) half a bagel with peanut butter and some banana. I don’t like to eat too much solid stuff before the race, because I don’t want to be visiting the porta-potties.
Got into transition around 5:00. I knew my transition prep had to be fast because people were lining up down the road at the swim start, first come first serve. People were already walking toward that direction when I got into transition. I certainly didn’t want to be last in line. So I pumped my tires up fast and put my nutrition on my bike, gave it one more look over and I was off. Man a .75 mile walk to the start is not a great way to save energy right before an Ironman. Oh well, everyone else had to do it. I’m guessing my sister and I were in the first 200 or 250 people in line.
Swim:
Dove in and started swimming toward the rising sun. The swim was close to a mile up the river, then turning around and swimming the rest of the way down river toward downtown. It was a pretty swim, not too congested. Because I dove in my goggles began to fill with water. I had to stop and empty these 2 or 3 times before they sealed correctly. I felt decent, but was not swimming straight. Everytime I breathed over my left should I would go a little of coarse. This prevented me from being able to draft off of anyone for very long because I would lose their feet. Coming back into town was pretty. Swimming toward the skyline and swimming under bridges made the time go fast. I think I swam too close to the shore, supposedly swimming in toward the middle gave you a better current. I seemed to be getting an upset stomach toward the end of the swim. I think I drank too much of the Ohio River. Not something you really want to do.
Exited the water and ran toward the changing tent. Crystal yelled to me 1:10. I was happy with that! Come to find out later it was 1:14 officially. I guess there was 4 minutes before I got into the water and after I exited before I hit the timing mats.
T1:
Put on HR strap, bike shorts, Tri top, helmet, glasses, and a load of chamois cream! Time: 3:59
Bike:
The first 8 miles are flat. From there you begin to roll up the hills. The plan was to keep the heart rate under 140, and keep the HR especially low for the first couple miles to make sure the calories are getting into the system. My pace wasn’t as high as I wanted it to be, but I just stayed patient. Lots of people were hammering the early part, even standing up and cranking the hills. I knew they would come back to me. At about mile 20 or 25, on the out and back of the corse, there is a long winding downhill. It was fast and a little scary. I looked down at one point and was going 42 mph. It was narrow, had a rock ledge on the right and riders going the other way on the left. Little tight. Hills were not too bad, I took them easy knowing it would be a long day.
My stomach still had not settled from the big glass of Ohio River that I drank. I was sticking to my nutrition plan of 275 calories and hour on the bike, but was worried it was not being absorbed because of my stomach trouble. Around mile 45 I had to pee. If you don’t know about IM athletes there are two kinds; those that stop to pee and those that don’t stop. I am the later. I don’t want to waste minutes when I don’t have to. It wasn’t easy, but it did make my stomach feel better.
From that point on I was a little worried about my speed. I was on pace for a 6+ hour bike leg. I didn’t want a 6 hour bike leg. I knew that if I pushed my HR that my marathon would suffer. But I sure as heck didn’t want to see a 6 hour bike split. I had had enough of being conservative and started to pick it up. The last 30 miles of the coarse is a negative net gain. So I really tried to push down that section and easily averaged around 21 mph during that stretch.
Time: 5:50 averaged 19.16 mph
T2:
Wow it is hard to just run to the changing tent. Saw some guys in the changing tent that were pretty destroyed. They didn’t move and inch from the time I got in there to the time I got out. One guy was totally naked, except his HR strap, sitting down peeing on himself! Never even moved. Unfortunately that is an image I won’t soon forget.
Time 5:39
Run:
Stated running well the first mile at about and 8:30 pace. Wanted to go under 4 hours so I knew I needed to run under 9 minute splits. Unfortunately my heart race was way up. I knew I couldn’t hold that. Plus this was my first marathon! So I stopped and walked to get it under control. Started running again once it was in the low 140’s. Felt pretty good for about 5 or 6 miles. Then my HR got too high again. So I decided if my heart rate got into the 160’s I would walk the next aid station, if I didn’t I would run through. Well my heart rate wasn’t always in the 160’s but did walk the rest of the aid stations. I just kept plugging along. As long as I ran between aid stations I was doing better than 90% of the people. I was taking everything at the aid stations…water, Gatorade, cold sponges, Ice for down my shirt, coke starting at mile 10. I took a bite of a powerbar and spit it out. I couldn’t stomach anything solid at that point. Around mile 14, coming back into town, you come within 1 block of the finish line. That was a rough moment. I wanted to quit. I didn’t want to run all the way back out there to the turn around. I had been praying for motivation for a couple weeks and at that moment I asked God “Okay I need that motivation now.” It was a bit emotional turning around and heading back out the same direction I was going almost 2 hours ago. I did see my family and got an inhaler handoff from my sister (I think that may be illegal). Once I took my inhaler I did feel better. The cold/cough thing had been effecting my breathing and the inhaler gave me some more oxygen. I felt better running out the second time. Coming back I could see the miles getting closer 24…25…I ran through the last aid station. I was ready to finish. Started pushing about half a mile out. Maybe a little soon since I was about to hyperventilate coming across the finish line. Don’t remember hearing the “Jim Rhodes you are an Ironman” or anything else. But I finished, praise God! Run time 4:20 Overall 11:39.
Post race: Felt bad for about and hour. Then things started to get back to normal. Later that night I come to find out my little sister qualified for Kona, she was doing her first Ironman too. I got off the bike about 30 minutes ahead of her and she almost ran me down, finishing 5 minutes behind me. She is a great runner, qulifing for Boston in her first marathon too! I’m very jealous and very proud of her. Hopefully I will be able to accompany her to Hawaii and be on the support crew.