(This race report was actually written a few weeks ago for the benefit of my local tri club. I realize I’m a little tardy in posting it here … I just recently discovered the Slowtwitch forums. Yes, apparently I really HAVE been living in a cave.)
Vineman 2007 Race Report
First Iron Distance Race
Day Before:
My motel was located on the north side of Santa Rosa. I drove up from Morgan Hill Friday morning, leaving late enough to avoid the commute traffic but early enough to have time to scope out the bike course, check in at registration at Windsor High School, attend the pre-race meeting, and drop off my run gear at T2.
I had hoped to get in a 20 minute bike ride and a 10 minute run but ran out of daylight so settled for a short jog around the parking lot of the motel. Was in bed by 10:30 or so, then proceeded to toss, turn, and in general just stare at the ceiling for most of the night. Probably got two or three hours of actual sleep. Oh well, I figured that would happen so I didn’t let it bother me much.
Race Day:
Up at 4:30. Well, 4:40 actually. Now get this. I was concerned that a) the motel room would not have a functional alarm clock or clock radio and b) a request for an early morning wake-up call from the front desk might somehow go astray. So I brought my own (electric) alarm clock. Before going to bed I dutifully set the alarm for 4:30 AM. Because the clock had been unplugged for the drive up from home, I also dutifully set the time of day. To 10:30. To 10:30 AM, that is. Duh. Fortunately I had been staring at the clock pretty much all night, wondering why I couldn’t fall asleep. Maybe it was because I was staring at the clock.
Breakfast was my standard two bowls of Cheerios and a banana, brought from home. Left the motel around 5:15 and arrived in Guerneville at 5:45. I had checked out both the drive from the motel and T1 the day before so I knew exactly where I was going. But … the race instructions mentioned a large dirt parking lot in Guerneville. The guy giving the pre-race talk at registration mentioned the same large lot.
Don’t believe a word of it! I kind of expected to see orange-vested, flashlight-holding volunteers directing streams of cars containing nervous athletes to the “official” parking area. Nope. Just me following about 10 other cars with bicycles on the back, all of us wandering around the back streets of town. Finally, since I had seen dozens of other cars in the process of parking along the streets and disgorging bleary-eyed but fit-looking people in sweat shirts, I figured that was the thing to do. It actually worked out fine. Guerneville is not that big a town.
Walked down to the start area, got body marked at the entrance to T1, found my assigned bike rack, set out my bike gear, knew very well that I had already dropped off my run gear at T2 in Windsor but still had a brief moment of concern when I didn’t see my running shoes or race belt at their usual place on my towel, went for a brief jog to warm up a bit, returned to T1 and began putting on my wetsuit.
Then came the prelude to the first and only real problem for the entire day. I wear a tri-top under my wetsuit when I race. Sometimes the material bunches just enough between my shoulder blades to make it hard to get the zipper up, but there are always plenty of friendly people around with the same problem so it’s easy to find someone and say “You zip me and I’ll zip you.” Unfortunately the guy that zipped me up got the zipper caught in a fold of neoprene near the top of the travel. But he didn’t notice it. And neither did I, at least not then.
The Swim:
Got in the water to do some warm-up swimming. The Vineman does wave starts as opposed to a mass start like most Ironman races but I was still concerned that the start might be something like this …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3S0wu4Zbfk
… so I stayed near the back of the field. After a while the announcer said “30 seconds to go” and then, about 5 seconds later, we heard an air horn. So we all started swimming. I still don’t know if the starter jumped the gun, or maybe somebody in the crowd blew a horn, or what happened. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to start the timer on my watch, then I was off.
The Vineman swim course has got to be one of the easiest I’ve ever done. A continuous line of buoys spaced maybe 50 yards apart on one side, the river bank on the other side, lifeguards on kayaks just about everywhere, only a very slight amount of jostling at the beginning of the swim, warm water … you get the idea. The only surprise was up near the turn-around point, 0.6 miles upstream, when I brought my arm back on the pull portion of the stroke and came up with a handful of gravel from the river bottom. I knew beforehand that the water was not very deep. In fact, I saw several people just stand up to adjust goggles or catch their breath. Nevertheless, it came as a bit of a shock to all of a sudden be pulling dirt rather than pulling water. But I was having such a good time that I literally just laughed out loud while my face was still in the water and kept on swimming.
The course is two loops. I arrived back at the start area for the end of the first loop feeling not at all tired, bilateral breathing the whole way. I remember thinking “Hot dogs, that was so relaxing I’m really looking forward to doing it again.” On the first loop I had played around with drafting other swimmers while being very careful not to touch their toes. Big fun. I had also passed at least a few white caps from the previous wave (men under 40) and, yes, had been passed by a few green caps from the wave behind me (all women and all relay teams).
One green-capped woman must have been a really fast swimmer. I caught a glimpse of her coming at me diagonally, on about a 45° angle, as I was taking a left-side breath. She swam right into me, gently touching my left ribs. I knew it wasn’t intentional and she barely touched me so I just smiled and kept swimming. Then on my next left-side breath I saw her swimming away from me, again diagonally on about a 45° angle. If I remember my high school trigonometry correctly I figure she must have swum at least 1.414 times the actual measured length of the course, yet she STILL passed me!
There had been a cloud cover (actually fog) in the morning and the weather forecast was for a cool day until late in the afternoon. There was also a thin layer of fog right at the water surface. Not enough to really impede sighting but it was kind of neat to look forward and see both the line of buoys and other swimmers disappearing into the mist. However, by the time I was coming back on the second loop the sky was completely blue. The sun was just starting to appear above the tops of the trees on the east side of the river and I could actually feel its warmth on the side of my face as I would turn to breathe. So much for a cool day until late in the afternoon.
T1:
Exited the water onto the carpeting that had been laid down by the race organizers (very nice) and that’s when the mini-disaster struck. I have a QR wetsuit with a breakaway zipper so normally I just give the zipper leash a little upward tug and the whole zipper comes apart. So I tugged. Nothing. So I tried pulling the leash down instead of up. Nothing. Up again. Down again. Still nothing. I usually have the top half of my suit off just a few steps onto the shore. Now I’m standing at my T1 spot, trapped in my wetsuit, looking forlornly at my bike shoes and helmet. I can almost hear them saying “Come on, come on, we’re READY, what’s the hold up?”
Finally I yanked so hard on one side of the collar that I tore the rubber away from the zipper. Got the top of the suit off but by that time all the extra water, which I had so carefully scooped down my neck after my last swim stoke, was gone. So the legs were even harder than usual to remove.
Eventually got my suit off, toweled my feet dry, applied some moleskin to a few spots that I knew would give me trouble later in the day, and put my socks on. As I was stuffing my feet into my shoes I swear I heard a muffled “Well it’s about time” coming from somewhere below my ankles. Jogged my bike (on more carpeting) over to the mount area, clipped in, and was off.
The Bike:
I won’t bore you with a turn-by-turn description of the bike course except to say that it’s a really scenic ride. The one hill that is named in the race description, Chalk Hill, is neither very long nor very steep. For those of you familiar with the San Jose International bike course, I think Chalk Hill is easier than Bailey Avenue.
A few other memories from the bike ride:
The first several miles out of Guerneville are flat with a nice shoulder. Then you make a hard right, a hard left, and do a steep but very short climb. After that the road is rolling for several miles with some nice downhill stretches but with patches of rough pavement. I must have seen half a dozen sponges from the tops of aerobar water bottles lying in the road. I remember thinking that those guys would be enjoying sticky Gatorade all over their kneecaps for the next 100 miles.
The aid stations are spaced every 15 miles or so. I always make it a point to say thank you to the volunteers. Good karma plus it helps me stay positive and relaxed. I also call out “Thank You Officer” to all the CHP folks at the controlled intersections. They usually look surprised when they hear that, which also puts a smile on my face!
At one of the aid stations I was standing in line for a needed bathroom break. The girl in line in front of me was wearing one of those racer-back tops that girls wear, trying in vain to apply sunscreen to her shoulder blades. So I said I would do her back if she would do my back. Kind of like the zipper thing. She did the back of my shoulders and the back of my neck and then she said “And let’s not forget the tops of your ears.” So I told her she must be somebody’s Mom in order to remember little things like that. She smiled and said no, she didn’t have kids and in fact she wasn’t even married. Then she said “I’m still searching for a guy who can keep up with me.” I smiled back and said “Well, standing here at an outhouse in the middle of nowhere is probably exactly the place for you to meet your Mr Right.” And she laughed and agreed. (Nope, I didn’t get her phone number. Apparently I have much more to learn about this triathlon stuff than I thought I did. Duh again.)
About half way through the bike ride I checked my average speed and was pleasantly surprised to see a little over 17 mph. So then I started playing the usual mental games. You know how it is. When you should be thinking “Pedal in circles, pedal in circles” you instead start to think about Kona for next year.
Okay, maybe I wasn’t exactly THAT crazy. It was more along the lines of “Hmmm … swim was about 1:15, T1 and T2 will probably be another 15 minutes total, I’m on schedule to finish the bike in 6:30 so then all I have to do is run in 5:00 and I can be in around 13 hours.” Now SVTC’s very own Larry Moberly won his (and my) age group at last year’s Vineman with a time of just under 13:02. Larry always beats me by a comfortable margin in all the local races. The only way I could possibly finish ahead of him in any triathlon is to find a venue with a 5 mile swim, a 100 YARD bike, and a 50 FOOT run. Perhaps I was a little dehydrated and not thinking clearly, but I was pretty sure that Vineman had a slightly longer run at the end.
Nevertheless, at the halfway point of the bike a 13 hour finish seemed like a possibility and 14 hours seemed like it would be a piece of cake. True, I’d never actually DONE a marathon, not even a stand-alone one. My longest practice run was maybe 15 miles or so and my toughest brick was around a 4 hour bike and a 45 minute run. But heck, how hard could it be to run a marathon? There are grandmothers out there who run a marathon in the morning and then bake cookies in the afternoon and I’m certainly in better shape then some old grandmother. (Note to self: Hope mixed with inexperience is a deadly combination.)
T2:
Rolled into T2 still feeling good. I knew I wasn’t dehydrated since I had made several pee stops during the ride. Nevertheless I was concerned about getting a cramp when I bent my legs to put my running shoes on. So I carried my shoes a few steps away to a nice grassy area, sat down, looked at my legs, and said (fairly loudly) “Don’t cramp, don’t cramp, don’t cramp.” Got some funny looks from a few volunteers and other athletes but apparently it worked. Didn’t get any cramps in T2. The exit point of T2 has an aid station so I stopped for a few minutes to drink a bit of Coke and get hosed off.
Oh, did I forget to mention the heat? The weather service reported a high of 91° for Windsor but unofficial reports from out on the run course had it at 96 or 98. Whatever the exact temperature, it was getting hot by this point. So I took the opportunity to get hosed off several times in the next few (okay, more than few) hours.
The Run:
The run course is 3 laps out and back, each lap a little less than 8.8 miles, so it’s about 4.4 miles to the turn-around point. Aid stations roughly every mile. I did not check out the run course the day before. I mean, it’s not like I was going to get lost, and how hard could it be to run 4.4 miles 6 times in a row? (Note to self: See above.)
Well, let’s see. First of all, the run is totally, and I mean totally, on asphalt. Black asphalt. Hard, hot, crowned, black asphalt. No dirt shoulder to run on. Without much shade. With hills. Hills that morph into mountains by the third lap. And on top of that …
But I digress. Running is my least favorite part of triathlons. And the training book that I bought to get ready for this race specifically said that novice ironman folks should NOT do a couple of marathons as part of their training. Of course, I used that particular book exactly for that reason. And the paragraph about not doing any marathons has been red-pen-underlined and yellow-marker-highlighted. Several times. So I must admit that my training was a little heavy on long swims and long bikes and a little light on long runs. And I paid the price for that. Lesson learned.
However, there is one neat part about being out on the run course well after dark with all the other slow folks. Except for the first mile or so right around the finish area there were no streetlights. It was dark. I mean pitch-black dark. And no matter where you happened to be when it got dark, the volunteers would give you one of those green glow necklaces. I got mine at the turn-around point on my third lap. It’s hard to believe but there were runners behind me, so when I turned around I could now see them coming towards me headed for the turn-around. Remember, it’s totally black out on the road so all you can see are these bouncing green circles of light slowly approaching you, spaced out every 50 yards or so. And then you pass like two ships in the night, exchanging a brief greeting if you can remember how to make your mouth work.
Okay, it wasn’t quite that bad. But I was pretty dang tired at the end of the run. Well, I should say at the end of the run/walk. No, make that the shuffle/walk. My pre-race plan had been to walk for exactly one minute at each aid station and run at a very moderate pace between stations. By the third station (on the first lap, mind you) that hopeful plan had become the reality of: Stand around drinking water, Gatorade, Coke, munching a cookie or a few salty pretzels or a packet of gel, thank the volunteers, get hosed down, thank the volunteers again, realize that I would never finish if I didn’t get going, thank the volunteers, and then (and only then) say to myself “Don’t forget, you planned to walk for a minute at each aid station. Starting now.” Of course, after it got dark I couldn’t exactly see my watch to tell when one minute was up. Need I say more?
But somehow, somehow, I managed to get back to the streetlights near town on the final lap. I felt like I was having one of those near-death experiences. You know, total tunnel vision, running towards the light, seeing the faces of long-lost relatives, and shouting “I’m coming, I’m coming, wait for me!”
As soon as you cross the finish line there are a few volunteers who will catch you if it appears you are about to fall down. Fortunately I didn’t need them. A few steps later a nice young lady puts a medal around your neck. Then a few steps beyond that another volunteer hands you a bottle of water. Finally, if it’s after dark and has started to get cold, a guy wraps a foil space blanket around your shoulders. It was kind of neat wandering around the finish area seeing other folks wrapped up in space blankets with a dazed look in their eyes. Even if we didn’t speak to each other we always exchanged knowing glances.
There was a large computer screen near the finish line displaying split times for the most recent finishers. It showed me as being fifth in my age group. I knew there were 9 guys registered in the M55-59 group and I thought “Wow, 5 out of 9, right in the middle for my very first ironman. Not bad, not bad at all.” Remember, it was pitch black for the last part of my run. After the turn-around point I could see that there were still runners behind me because they were now coming towards me, but I was too tired to try to count how many there were and it was hard to determine even the sex of whatever was keeping the glow necklace moving, let alone its age.
Postscript:
Well, indeed I did place fifth in my age group but it turns out that 4 of the 9 guys in my group never showed up at the starting line. You can do the math but don’t tell me the answer. I don’t want to know. I’m still smiling at having finished my first 140.6 mile race. Who knows, maybe next time I can finish in the daylight and avoid the space blanket. I hear it stays light for a long time up in Coeur d’Alene. And then for my third one … Yeah baby, a Kona slot is in the bag!
Splits:
Swim: 1:11:35
T1: 8:36
Bike: 6:58:31
T2: 9:15
Run: Best measured in units of days. Or fortnights. Or decades.
Total: Not quite Kona-quality, but close. Real close.
Toenails lost: Two
Experience gained: Priceless
Photos:
Here are just a few pictures. Click on the “i” symbol on the first photo to show titles and captions.
Now I’m heading out for a long run. Not.
Dan
Morgan Hill, CA
