Race Report: IMC 1991 (20 years ago today)...found results book!

Triathlon Forum
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Guys,

Since some of the guys around here were at Ironman Canada in 1991, I’ll post my race report from 1991 that was up over on xtri.com. You guys can make commentary on the funny shades, non aero wheels, non aero helmet, bad glue job slow tubulars with high Crr, terrible training methods and horrible pacing, attacking Richter Pass like I was in a TdF stage finish. If I had all of ST’s advice, I’d have clocked a sub 8:45 that day :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

Fleck can probably share some blow by blow as he was right up there with the pro WOMENS: PNF, Erin Baker and Julieanne White. I got to watch from the back of the age group field as the pros came the other way. That’s back when IMC had a big pro field. It really was an exciting and amazing day and got me more hooked on this sport than I already was.

Dev

http://www.xtri.com/modules/imageresizer/385/1cb/9e584509c7/375x270pCENTERxTOP.jpg
I’m not sure where the time went. I sat on this race report for 20 years and let it simmer. Today is a good day to finally put it out there, 20 years since I was fretting about this 140.6 mile journey into the unknown.
Ironman Canada in 1991 was my first Ironman.

3.8K swim-180k bike-42.2 K run 10:30 (63/5:43/3:43)…smile for the rest of your life. Date Aug 25, 1991.

Back then no one wrote race reports and there was barely any internet. We sent our entries in via snail mail. My buddy and training partner, Phil Hunter, had done IMC 1990 and said I had to do it. Phil was my hero as the local tri stud who was also trading National 15K ITT speed marks with Gord Fraser who later went on to ride for team Motorola. Phil also essentially taught me how to skate ski in the winter of 1990/91, in between watching the New York Giants defeat the Buffalo Bills in the superbowl with a last second field goal :-). So thanks to Phil, I ended up on this crazy Ironman journey that changed my life in many positive ways.
Along the way I have done 20 Ironmans, including Ironman Hawaii twice (with the first being my second fastest Ironman time ever). I’ve seen more corners of the world on my bike and with my running shoes than I’d have ever imagined and frankly I don’t think I’d have gotten hooked without that first finish. It was truly magical. http://www.xtri.com/modules/imageresizer/fd8/7a9/2016d57d95/279x334.jpg
In 1991 I was a 25 year-old captain in the Canadian armed forces doing my MBA at night school and working on Aurora Radar systems during the day. In the midst of that and training for an Ironman, I also met my wife Roxanne. I don’t know if she knew what she was signing up for but after 20 Ironmans, a career change, and a 15 year-old teenager later, the craziness is still part of our household.

Top 5 Hilights from IMC 1991

  1. I finished the swim. I was so scared of the mass start with 1500 people. I felt if I could get through, I’d finish. To this day, I still feel the same way. I had never swam more than 3k in my life. Newbies, you’re not alone

  2. The finish line. It changed my life in ways I would have not expected. It taught me if I faced something difficult that I though insurmountable, that I could achieve it if I just believed. Believing is the first step to success. It has carried through into my life as a parent and in business. Whenever anything in life get’s hard, I hear Steve King’s voice urging me on. Thanks Steve for all the memories!!!

  3. We did it without Internet…IMC Class of 1991, we had no clue what we were doing…picked up a couple of articles out of triathlete mag about what some studs in California were doing. Their names were Dave Scott and Mark Allen. We tried to do a toned down version. We pretty well did a short course race every weekend and tried to ride till we dropped afterwards. In between races it was about doing as much training as you could. Swim with the local swimmer, bike with the bikers, run with the runners. We got pummeled in every workout but learned a lot about what made those guys great athletes. We just drove ourselves till we broke and were forced into rest and then got up and repeated…no coaches, no power meters, no designer software nor nutrition, no heart rate monitor…just hammer the crap out of your buddies, get up and do it again.

  4. In March 1991, Phil and I did a mega training day…XC skied 30K in the morning and did a transition run. Had lunch and hit the bike for 50-60K in the afternoon with snow all around us. The details are hazy but there may have been in a swim before dinner, or we may have hit the Ottawa market for food, beer and partying at Stoney’s (a local watering hole) with Bruce Ketchum another local tri stud whose dad happened to also own the local watering hole!.. I can’t remember all the stuff that went on but the story obviously gets better every decade. Probably best to spare the reading public the gory details from the partying! Anyway, there are always these prep days that stick out in your mind…this one was epic.

http://www.xtri.com/modules/imageresizer/8d8/29b/72daba3eba/257x316.jpg
5. The IMC pro field. Erin Baker, Paula Newby Fraser, a young Brazilian girl who blew by me on the bike named Fernanda Keller with a peloton of 50 following her rear to Richter Pass…yes, even in 1991 there was a peloton formed going to Richter (thanks somewhat to Fernanda)…things don’t change. Erin Baker ran sub 3 hours. In the men’s field one of my heroes Scott Tinley was doing battle with Ray Browning, Mike McCormack and a young Chilean named Christian Bustos who would go on to become the only South American ever to smack the Germans on their home soil at Ironman Germany 1993 (8:08)and went toe to toe with Mark Allen for 22 miles or so at Kona 1993 finishing second with a 8:16. I had read about many of these guys in magazines and seen them on TV, now they are heading home, absolutely flying heading north by Skaha Lake as I was running south towards Okanagan falls. Those memories are crystal clear. For those who say the pro field does not matter…well it does. They inspired a young guy into this sport. 20 years later, I can say, I have in my own way encouraged countless people to play in this sport.

Anyway, I intended to make this report short and to the point, but it is hard to encapsulate what happened 20 years ago and its ensuing impact on one’s life into much less.
To those heading to IMC for this weekend, good luck…and hopefully it is the start of 20 absolutely amazing years for you. To all my buddies from IMC class of 1991 and who are heading back…Tony O’Keeffe, Ed Rechnitzer and crew, it’s all good times that we can still do this sport. You guys better beat your IMC 1991 times or put the tri gear on ebay!!!
-Dev

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First!!

Love it. Great stuff Dev- thanks for sharing.

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Nice report Dev. On another note you have not aged a day have you!!

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Brings back memories as I was there racing that year as well on my 1989 Pinarello Montello (my god a STEEL bike?) with Profile bars and the neon Oakleys. Thanks for the report.

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Awesome, gives me goose bumps.

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Good stuff! Thanks for sharing!

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A RR worth reading…thanks for sharing Dev!

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Shit, that’d still be a pretty damn good time for us 40-somethings (almost 40 mins better than mine), especially considering it was back in the Stone Age of aero tech for that bike split. Wish I could run that fast.

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Yeah, definitely good times. Pretty well everyone was on steel. I was one of the idiots already on carbon as I was one of those stupid triathletes that jumped on anything that was new and in the market that I’d see Mark Allen or Dave Scott using in Triathlete…(turns out, Carbon was not all that stupid)

Looking back what is most interesting to me is doing all of this in a void of real information. Most places had one or 2 local studs. There were no tri clubs or coaches, so you just trained with the single sport studs and got a beating constantly. We raced short course every weekend and then got on our bikes to get some extra riding in. Got up on Monday and tried to repeat the cycle all over again, some weeks with success, some weeks, completely caving by Wednesday and forced into some light bike commuting and lunch swims as the legs would be too cripple to run. I’ll try to find the race results in the basement and scan it in, but it’s amazing how competitive things were. 10:30 did not even get me in the top 300 if I recall correctly, and pretty well most guys were just exploring this stuff and did not have training optimized as we do today.

By the way, I still have the Oakley factory pilots. Even the mushroom helmet might be in a bin in the basement. That Kestrel 200 was replaced by Kestrel 9 years later for FREE on account of developing a crack. I have the replacement Kestrel 200 on my trainer (its now 11 years old).

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You beat me by 75 minutes you bastard!!!

It is twenty years ago this week that I did my first Ironman and it was with you ( and the lovely Fernanda) in Penticton.Since then I have rolled up to this town for eight Ironmans,seven Ultramans and countless drunken nights with friends.Waaaaay to much fun and it will continue…

This week I’m not racing but am busy doing stuff with various industry people and made the papers today as the Calvin Klein fashion model for the Underpant Run…

Race day I’ll be hosting the Ironman Canada Swim Course Breakfast Cruise on the Casabella Princess and then setting the Iron Hash for the local Hash group…

Monday night will be a drunken affair with my old mate Rhodesy at the after party…

I’ll need a rest by the time this week is done…

On!On!

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Well, let’s say my run prep was sub optimal, but I’d say, at least around here there was much more of a short course culture so it was more about showing up every weekend to the local race and trying to hammer your buddies or get hammered!

I did a 2:57 marathon in the sping of 1991 off a long run of 20K. Then I did not do another run longer than 15K until the Tupper Lake Half Ironman which was in the 3rd week of July, and then I had zero long runs after that…just raced all the local sprint and short course race. But I was younger and just ran 40 min 10K most days at lunch (my story might be getting better because I am older…perhaps some of those 10’s were not at 4 min pace, but they were all pretty quick).

In hindsight, aside from adding in more rest, I don’t think the approach of doing short racing and lots of intensity with single sport guys was really that bad. It’s just what we fell into locally via default, because everyone raced short course and almost no one did Ironmans. Probably a few longer runs and rides would have been helpful though.

FYI…the run course in 1991 was short. I believe people said ~ 1 mile (or more) …so at my blowup pace, you can technically add 10-13 minutes to that run.

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Hey Nick…I heard that Fernanda is on the pro start list at IMC at age 48…is this true??? Yeah, I figured that there were enough of us that were around back then…go figure!

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I miss the Bud sponsored tris!

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My first ironman-distance triathlon was in 1991, Cambridge, MD: Continental United State Ultra Triathlon, October 20, 1991. Half of the competitors quit after the swim. Bike - Trek 2100, Carbon composite.

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Wow…I was literally 4 days old on that day. Keep on keeping on, Dev!

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Awesome stuff.

Indeed - How did we do it?

Three memories from '91 for me.

  1. Like you, my first time to Penticton and the Okanagan - A love and an affection for the race and the area was started!

  2. Many don’t know this, and certainly many who were there to do the race, but the race almost did not happen that year, as they had run out of money, and they had to pass the cap around in the last couple of weeks before the race to many local businesses in Penticton, to raise both the license money for the WTC and the prize purse for the pros( which had to be in place for the license). How short were they with the money that year - the banquets were held in a big tent in Gyro park! They could not afford the Convention center! It poured rain for one of the banquets, and the roof on the tent leaked!!

  3. I recall crossing the finish line, looking at the clock and despite my bleary state, was trying to come to grips with the fact that I just ran a 2:49 split for the marathon! Of course that was short-lived, as a re-measure of the course revealed it to be about 1.5km short. Not a big deal, but in retrospect, it might have been a legit sub-3 run split for me.

How did we do it?

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i did my first race in 1991 also, with bars like this (except in the early 90’s NEON yellow) bolted to a (GASP!) steel miele road bike with box rims and 7-speed downtube shifters. great race report! where’d the last two decades go?

speaking of cristian bustos, i have a buddy who lives in chile and is in cristian’s triathlon club. he says cristian is still looking fit as ever as he dominates the 45-49 AG.

http://www.bikepro.com/products/handlebars/hndlbars_jpg/i1i_profile_aero_ii_bars.jpg

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Those are the same profile bars on my bike.

I also used 7 speed Ultegra, but since my rear wheel was a box rim Mavic GP4 with Campy Super Record wide flange track hubs, I actually had a thread on Shimano Freewheel. Saddle was one of those big fat Selle Italia Turbomatic.

Also in 1991, T1+T2 was included in the bike split…this was before sportstats and chip timing. I can’t remember how they timed it, but I believe it was old school clipboard timing…there was a reason for body marking and the zillion numbers we wore back then (so that the officials could time us)…now it’s just there for ASI Photo

Fleck, I remember seeing you flying back at 2:49 speed. I think you had the same run split as Eric Baker…she would have probably done a 2:55 split that day if the was marked right. I think in 1990, she ran a 2:37 marathon at the New Zealand Commonwealth Games trials too. Not sure how we did it, but I think the bottom line is the principles to excel in the individual sports (swim, bike and run) was well known by 1991. By training with single sport athletes, we got all of that, but the main problem was that we were doing all of their workouts but not getting enough rest. But you can do that and get away with it a bit better at 20-29 than 40-49!

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Hi guys,

I did find the results book so here is some more precise data vs going off memory

My splits were actually 64, 5:44, 3:41. I was 1 min slower on the swim and bike than memory and 2 min quicker on the bikeI had Erin Baker’s run split confused with Fleck. She ran 2:56, Fleck did 2:49Fleck was 15th overall one spot ahead of Erin Baker 16th overall, 9:10 vs 9:16…if only Fleck had all the ST aero gear, fast rubber and training knowledge of today he’d have been sub 9…56/5:23/2:49Mike McCormack who won put down a 4:43 bike split…that’s crazy fast considering the day was quite windy (I’ve done IMC 6 times) and how hard the course is and considering this was done in the stone age of aero gear…Tinley biked 4:44The lead swim pack were all high 50, low 51, with stone age wetsuit rubber, save Ray Browning who was already in a Quintana Roo wetsuitJullieanne White ran the fastests women’s run split at 2:56. What people forget is that the weekend before she won a half Ironman north of Toronto in Orillia. I remember this clearly because a bunch of my buddies were going to race in Orillia and told me I was a wimp for not showing up given that Julieanne was doing the Orillia+Penticton double. She finished second. Fernanada Keller ran a 3:11 to move herself up to 4th. PNF was not in the race…my memory was mixed up. Maybe she was there in 1992…not sure, but I remember her at IMC one of those yearsMen’s podium Mike McCormack, Tinley, Bustos, Browning, Glah, Huddle, Moats, Joh Knight, ChuckyV in that orderOK, I was also confused. The field had just over 1000 finishers, not 1500. I was 175th, not over 300th, but was over 300th out of the water…maybe that is what stuck in my memory. 56.57 swim got Fleck out of the water in 45th. As a point of reference a 1:10 swim got you out of the water just under 500th place, so halfway through the field.

The two biggest age groups were M25-29 and M30-34 with around 215 athletes each. Basically these 2 age groups made up 40% of the field. Even M18-24 had almost 100. So basically half the field were made up of M34 or less. Today, I’d guess that half the field is M35-49…it’s almost like the same group of people who got so hooked on the sport, kept doing it, or influencing peers to take it up and that has not stopped for 20 years or so. Back then M40-44 was only 130, so not much more than M18-24. It was more of a young man’s sport.

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Very cool. Thanks for sharing!

Do you remember what you did for nutrition?