IMLP 2007 – Race Report
July 22, 2007 marked my second Ironman event in Lake Placid in two years. Up until last Sunday, I had considered IMLP 2006 – which was my first venture into the iron distance triathlon – my most successful accomplishment in sport. Not just because of the size of the challenge but because I raced smart and steady and exceeded my expectations. I had set an “A” goal of 12 hours and came in at 11:44 soundly beating that goal. This year my expectations were much higher but much to my delight, I again exceeded my “A” goal with a time of 10:48 – a 56 minute PB over last year. I now have a new most successful accomplishment in sport.
Swim
Swimming is my weakest discipline so I can’t say I look forward to it but in setting my expectations for this year, I didn’t count on any improvement in my swim time over last year. My goal for the swim was to just stay calm and get the swim done without expending energy unnecessarily. I entered the water early, did a few warm up strokes and found a starting position. I was relative calm waiting for the cannon – all was in order.
The swim this year was even rougher than I remembered it from last year. It took me a while to get on the line this year – for those of you that have swam in Mirror Lake you know about the wonderful under water yellow line that marks the course – and I seemed to have to fight more to stay there. I had to do much more sighting than last year. At the turn buoys, some swimmers were being unnecessarily aggressive shoving and trying to swim over you. It took a lot of resolve to not get frustrated or retaliate against these people. But I remained calm, sometimes letting the super aggressive people get in front of me, and kept swimming forward. I just told myself that the 4 seconds they would gain on me out of the water wouldn’t help them at all when I got on the bike. It thinned out a little in the second loop but not much. As I exited the swim, I breathed a little sigh of relief. 1:10:42 – about a minute faster than last year, which I found surprising. I was sure I would be a little slower because I spent less time on the line and more time sighting. Guess that sighting practice in the pool and at Lake Wilcox paid dividends after all.
T1
The T1 at Lake Placid is long because it includes about a 500 meter run from the lake down to the Olympic Oval before you can even begin your transition. Last year I sprinted the run and through the whole transition and when I first got on my bike, my heart rate was through the roof. This year I just did a steady slow run down to the oval – stay calm, it’s a long day. I had to get my own bag and my own bike but I kept my transition activities to only the essentials and was out in 5:33. Assuming I could do a slightly faster T2, I would achieve my goal of taking no more than 10 minutes total in transition.
Bike
This was the part of the race I was looking forward to the most. I had trained my bike pretty hard over the past 8 months, using a Powertap to gauge my training efforts and responses. My strength on the bike had improved steadily throughout. I had done a lactate balance point testing during my taper that confirmed a marked improvement in my threshold wattage. I was ready! Now all I needed to do was control all of that zealousness and not go out too hard in the first loop. As I rolled out of town, I’m sure I was smiling – I love the bike!
It was definitely crowded early on the bike. I was trying very hard to watch my average watts and keep the effort level easy but I was still constantly passing people or being passed long into the first loop. It was next to impossible to avoid being in someone’s draft with the course as crowded as it was. I concentrated on making sure I wasn’t sitting right on someone’s wheel and I passed quickly when I came up on someone moving slower but I’m sure I was getting some draft benefit even trying not to. Things thinned out a little by the time we hit the out and back and I just concentrated on making sure I was getting in all of my nutrition. The biggest surprise of the first bike loop was passing Steve Wolters ¾ of the way in. Given that he was likely 10 minutes faster than I was out of the water, I didn’t expect to see him until the end of the bike or the beginning of the run. He was just as surprised. It got me to wondering if I was going too fast on the first loop. 2:37:50 – let’s see times 2 equals roughly 5:16 – OK maybe a little fast. But I took solace in the fact that I was following my power meter and I was only 3 watts over plan for the first loop.
On the second loop of the bike, it was obvious I was moving much slower. The wind had picked up significantly and the long climb up into town on the first loop had thinned out the bike crowds so there was no more unintentional draft to be had. I could also tell by the speed I hit going down the Keene descent. The first loop I well exceeded 80 kmph but on the second loop I couldn’t even hit 74 kmph with my nose pinned to the stem of the bike in full tuck. Again, I concentrated on the watts to make sure I wasn’t pushing too hard to keep my speed from the first loop. Watts, nutrition, smooth pedaling, staying aero. In no time it seemed I was cresting the last big hill up into Wilmington before the out and back. At this point I did a check – mentally, great – legs, felt surprisingly good – nutrition, I was on track. I was having the perfect race! Ooops! Shouldn’t have said that.
Somewhere on the out section of the out and back I must have followed up a gel with mostly Gatorade instead of water. As I hit the turn around, I was feeling bloated, my stomach was sloshing and I felt sick to my stomach. At first I started to panic – “What have I done?!” But then I calmed down and recalled the teachings of my coach, Fiona. OK. Problem: too high a concentration of carbs – solution: salt and water. So I dropped the intensity a little, downed a couple salt pills and took in only water for the next couple of nutrition breaks. I had been following another athlete roughly 40 meters ahead of me since the bottom of the Keene hill and it was very hard mentally to have to let him go but it was that or pull over and throw up.
After 15 or 20 minutes of this, my morale was fairly low. I thought my race had been ruined and my head was playing trick on me. “Low morale… that means not enough carbs, maybe I should take in another gel, right?” I tried to take inspiration from the guys that shouted at me as we whizzed past each other on the out and back. I stopped for a porta-potty at the end of the out and back – my second stop, both on the second loop. I still haven’t figured out how to pee on the bike! Oh well, it will give me something to work on for the next Ironman. If I figure that one out it will net me 4 easy minutes on the bike.
The biggest surprise of the second loop (though it shouldn’t have been) was when Steve passed me back heading up into town. He seemed to blow past me because I was moving much slower – my legs urged me to go after him but my stomach still wasn’t playing along. “Are you OK? – he asked.” I blurted out something about nutrition as he pulled away from me. Luckily, I stuck to the salt and water diet because shortly after Steve went by me, it was like someone pulled the chain and flushed my stomach. Suddenly things were flowing again. I was frustrated with the 25-30 minutes of down time but ecstatic about sorting out a nutrition issue that could have ruined my race! By the time I hit Papa Bear, I was stomping on the pedals again and feeling all optimism. 3:01:55 on the second loop and 5:39:45 total bike. Even with the temporary nutrition problem and 2 porta-potty breaks (4 minutes!), I posted a bike time plenty fast enough to reach my overall goal.
T2
Feeling a little tired but happy about my bike time and ecstatic about solving the potentially serious nutrition issues, I was actually looking forward to the run. I grabbed my T2 bag, entered the tent and quickly swapped my helmet for a running hat. The biggest difference I noticed this year was that the transition tent was relatively empty! I layered my feet with vaseline, socks and running shoes and took off – 3:36. Goal number 3 achieved – total transition time about 9 minutes.
Run
Exiting transition, I looked at my watch. A huge smile materialized on my face as I realize that all I needed to do was run the marathon in 4 hours to achieve my “A” goal of 11 hours. Now that wasn’t going to be a walk in the park but I drew strength from that fact and started down the main street headed out of town with a steady stride. As I passed Art Devlin’s and the NRGPT gang, Nigel had a look of concern on his face. I didn’t know it at the time but Steve had passed on that I was having some nutrition issues on the bike. I waved off the concern saying matter-of-factly that I had that all sorted out. It crossed my mind that I might have sounded cocky but it felt good to be feeling confident at the start of the marathon. I refrained from asking Nigel how far ahead Steve was, though I was determined that I would see him shortly. My girlfriend was waiting for me at the top of the degree of difficulty and shouted something like, “You’re doing great!!” More inspiration – more reasons to keep going. Diane was undoubtedly my biggest supporter through 8 months of training in chasing this goal.
The first half of the run actually seemed to go by quickly. Because the course is just one big out and back, you always have something to focus on – watching other athletes. I kept my eyes out for Paul, Todd, Michael, Will, Paula, Steve, Kevin, Cam and others – there was a very large group down from Toronto, the Triathlon Club and NRGPT athletes. It was almost a game for me to see them before they saw me and cheer them on. I traded nods, thumbs up, “woo hoos” and even high fives with people as they passed. The first half was 1:50:47 – that meant I could run a 2:10 second half and still hit my goal! One thing about realizing that you’re ahead of schedule and have a good shot at making your goal is that it doesn’t slow you down. Instead it makes you want to see just how much you can crush your goal by. So I told myself I was going to run as close to 1:50 as I could for the second loop too.
I did catch Steve but it took a while. He was having the race of his life and that inspired me. He was without doubt the most steady of all of us – with very even splits on each loop of the swim bike and run. I told him he was running really strong and he might catch me before the end of the run too. He smiled. Maybe my words had helped to motivate him a little and I let that carry me for a while. I guess it started getting really tough as I turned for home at the end of the river road. Fatigue was starting to manifest itself in weird ways in my legs. Not exactly cramps, just an inability to drive them forward as easily and I didn’t feel quite as fluid.
I had run the marathon in my first Ironman very conservatively and so my goal for the run this year was to challenge myself a little more. I definitely went deeper than I’ve ever gone before. Heading up the degree of difficulty on my second loop Glen Takeda jumped out and snapped a picture of me. I can’t wait to see it – but I’m sure I looked like death because he later remarked that I had that “100-yard stare” on and barely acknowledged his presence. The truth was that at that point I was fighting to keep my legs turning over. I was NOT going to walk – I was NOT going to stop running until I crossed the finish line. I pushed through the out and back on the run in an almost surreal state. I was watching the lake, past the spectators cheering at the side of the road. It had just a little ripple in it from the wind. As I came down the slope and into the Olympic oval I swear I was in a trance. The cheers from the spectators were deafening but I was only conscious of them on the very edge of awareness. Then it was over. What? It’s over? I’m done? Ouch! My legs are sore – I’m exhausted – some nice people are holding me up – sudden realizations as the here and now flooding back in. 10:48:09 – more than 10 minutes faster than I had dared to dream of. That turned out to be good enough for a 146th placing overall, 31st in my AG – 93rd percentile?!
Overall an unbelievable success and so many people to thank for their contributions to it. Diane was waiting for me – jumping up and down and cheering loudly – so we shared an emotional moment and I got my reward hug. Then I saw the Nigel, Sylvie and Cam and had a quick celebration with them before heading for the massage tent. I follow my rub down with 5 slices of pizza, a bunch of cookies, Gatorade, a banana, water and anything else I could shovel into me. Shortly after that I started to feel normal again – tired, sore, but normal.
I definitely won’t trying to schedule a third consecutive Ironman in 2008 but after seeing the huge difference that some excellent coaching and focused training could make (56 minutes!) I must admit I’m tempted to see if I can shave another 30 minutes to have a shot at qualifying for Hawaii. Keep your eyes out for me when you’re out training – I may not be targeting my next Ironman in 2008 but I don’t plan on being idle either.