i chose choo because swimming is my worst discipline and i knew the swim was current aided (yeah, so what about it). i had a feeling whatever i gained on the swim, i would give back d/t lack of wetsuit, poor sighting, the extra 4 miles on the bike, and the humbling run. but then again, everyone would be racing the same course, so as long as i negated as much of my weakness as possible i would have an outside shot at kona.
i had done immt 5 weeks prior. i know, not the best idea, but it was good to get the long swim under me, the bike was a great ride. i knew the courses were going to be similar so immt would help me judge where i was. the run was easier at immt, but i wanted to use it as a long training day (again, i know, stupid).
the weeks following up to imchoo were uneventful, i trained well with my teammates (holla DRINKmaple crew), and i "raced" reach the beach with the channel 4 news team (ASSEMBLE!!!!). i pushed a little harder than i should have, and drank a little more than i should have, but whatever, i love my teammates and it was a great time. needless to say, i felt fine after a few days and i don't think it affected me race day.
week of the race i felt good. i flew in thursday and just hung out. checked in, explored the city and just tried to relax. i looked at the athlete guide, was bored at my air bnb, so i decided to check out some of the times of the other AWA folks (didn't even realize i was AWA, aka i race a lot so i score points, i'm not actually fast). immediate i found 5 guys who had gone sub 9:35, and another 5 who have gone sub 10... i pretty much thought, well, my kona shot is GONE.
friday i moved into a larger airbnb with a few folks i met at st. croix 70.3 in 2015. we became friends and i was able to lure some of them into racing imchoo with me. the place we rented was great, it was around 2 mile from transition and was right down the street from a bike shop, an awesome organic juice/breakfast joint, a great coffee shop, and most importantly, an authentic mexian street food spot.
my sister flew in late thursday night. so friday we spent the day exploring the city, trying out as many coffee and juice shops as we could, and seeing as many sites as i felt was ok for me to walk. i decided to hold off on running all week and use walking as an alternative.
pretty cool rock gym they have here. "outdoor" climbing, ha ha.
the aquarium is pretty
it was pretty warm thursday night... i knew race day was going to be a scorcher
i know i'm going to get flamed for this.... but bluegrass grill just wasn't that good. i mean, it was good, but it was typical breakfast joint food. bacon, eggs, hash, sausage, grits and biscuits.. nothing "special", not worth the 25 minute wait. go across the street and have an acai bowl from the local juice.
our airbnb host left us a bottle of whiskey. i mean, heck yeah to southern hospitality.
impromptu marching band! remember when you were a "loser" if you were in band? damn, people are so mean in high school. i thought these kids were rad as hell.
legit mexican food. i ate here 3 times on monday before my flight....
i finally found a whole foods, so trish and i went and grabbed some healthy food to make for dinner (though i still nabbed 2 tacos, ha ha). roasted some sweet potatoes, made broccoli rabe with ginger and tumeric root, some brown rice, fresh caught grouper, guac, and some red wine.
and... the moment you've all been waiting for. the real race report.
to start, i made a few mistakes. i picked up a new pair of bike shoes, and new cleats. the shoes were a bit more aero (yeah, i was looking for all the marginal gains), but after talking to my friend brendan (who vouched for their comfort) and a pro from slowtwitch (thomas gerlach), i felt it was a good decision to give them a shot. well, on the test ride, i couldn't clip into my pedals. figured i just installed the cleats improperly. i took them to the bike shop and they said i was just too light for the walkable cleats d/t the newer springs being harder. darn, back to the old stanky shoes.
mistake #2. i forgot my aero bottle. i ended up buying a new bottle cage with a side entry. i knew it was going to cost me a few watts, but after learning so many fast guys were in my AG, i figured my shot was gone anyways. so whatever.
mistake #3. i bought a bottle cage that was a side entry, never used with a side entry.
anyways, the night before, i'm all prepped and finalized my nutrition. i knew it was going to be 95 at peak temps, so i opted for more liquid nutrition. i tend to be hungry often, so i knew i would want 350-500 calories per hour (yes, that's normal for me, i ate 500 per hour at immt), and upwards of 1200mg of sodium per hour (i took in 800 at immt and it pretty much rained and was cold for half of the bike.
the red bottle had another 400 calories are carbo pro and 2 roctane salt tabs in it
race morning:
we agreed on a 4am alarm. i woke up, ate 2 hard boiled eggs, drank 8 oz of fresh beet/apple/ginger juice from the local juice shop, had a gluten free bagel with fresh ground peanut butter on it, a bottle of green juice (kale, spinach, apple, kiwi, lemon, all kinds of grasses), 10oz of cold brew, and a kind bar. i also put half packet of skratch ultra hydration in 12oz of water and carried it with me.
we get to transition early, everything is setup and i meet with folks and we get on the bus to take us to race start.
everyone happy and goofing race morning
i get to race start and get in line for the pooper. i'm pretty proud of myself, 2 good poops before the race. we sit in line and wait. and wait and wait. i decided to check my goggles and realized i still had my di2 battery.. my heart sank. i took it off because i didn't want it sitting in the sun. when i moved my morning bottles to my run special needs bag, i forgot to move the battery. it was a pretty shitty feeling. luckily, jonathan was there and he was able to take the battery and get it to me at bike out. yes, i realize this is probably poor form in terms of the rules...
swim:
goal time: 1 hour (that would be a 20 min PR)
real time: 1:08
with about 20 minutes to go, i really had to pee, but figured, i would just wait till i entered the water. bad idea, i just couldn't swim/pee. i grabbed the first kayak i saw and tried to pee. i still couldn't pee, my tri suit is pretty tight (i sized down to be as aero as possible), so i had to pull myself out and use my hand to gap the suit in order to pee. it was the LONGEST piss of my life. i literally gave up 3 minutes peeing. ok, i'm done peeing and off i go. i was told that i should swim in the middle as the current was strongest there. well, i suck at sighting, so i aim for what i think is the middle. i'm just all over the place. sometimes i'm with a ton of people, other times i'm solo. the one thing i didn't realize was how poorly the sleeves would work in the swim on my kiwami suit. each stroke my arm was a parachute for water. apparently i needed to size down 2 sizes for my arms..... regardless, i don't think it cost me more than 2 minutes. the swim didn't feel fast, in fact, it felt long. mostly d/t the fact that i felt lost very often. the tennessee river is quite wide, thus there were swimmers far right, and far left of me. at times the water was choppy, but i figured that mean there was a current, so i tried to stay in that type of water. all of a sudden, it was gone. i just gave up and aimed for the buoys. about 40 mins into the swim i had to grab my 2nd kayak. my regular race goggles broke (at the nose) so i wore my backup pair, some ones, but i lent them to my roommate all season so i had to re-adjust the tension. it felt fine at first, but after swimming my left eye socket felt like it wanted to pop out. i stopped once more to fix it, but just gave up. all in all, the imchoo swim is a fast swim. minus my mishaps, with better open water training/sighting i'm very confident i could have gone sub 60 minutes on this swim course. this was with only 6700 cfu released race day, vs upwards of 14000 in past years. a guy in my ag said he did a 47 minute swim... that's gnarly. regardless, with a 68 min swim, i still felt i was in the mix for a podium since i tend to race well in the heat.
t1: i got out of the water thinking i swam a 1:30. i thought, kona chances are gone for sure... i still wanted to PR, so i moved my way into transition. i ran pretty hard, but took my time to make sure i grabbed all my nutrition, ate my cliff beet/bananna packet etc. i could have gone faster, but overall, i'm pleased. i wanted to go 3.5 minutes and ended up taking 4.5ish
bike: final time: 5:54 (garmin)
goal time: 5:10
i had one shoe (left) on the bike and i ran out with the right one in my hand. i snagged my bike and raced towards bike out where i saw jon and snagged my di2 battery. i plugged it in, put my shoe on and got on the bike and pretty much charged out of the gate. i knew i had some ground to make up, but with my generally slower than average swim, it meant a lot of cyclist in front of me (even though i was lined up pretty far up front in terms of the swim line), that means more slingshots. a few miles into the bike we crossed some train tracks. the course was still congested, so i was on my horns. as i hit the tracks, the left ziptie on my bta snapped and the bottle flew upwards. i quickly grabbed it. i didn't panic as this has happened in a race before (never with a new zip tie though). as long as i stayed in aero, i knew it would be fine as the right sided 2 zip ties were still on strong. i took it as a sign to stay in aero. 5 miles, 10 miles, 15, miles, 20 miles, 25 miles, 30 miles. i feel the temperature rising. no biggie though. i started with solid nutrition (i can't perform when my stomach is empty) so i ate two halves of a cliff bar, took in 3 salt tabs, and had a gu. by the time 35 miles came i snagged my first sip of my concentrated bottle in the down tube (red bottle from photo above). everything is feeling great. somewhere between mile 40-43 i had just taken a sip of said red bottle when i saw lump in the road. i was moving at a good clip, so i knew i had to get in aero to keep my bta from ejecting off. i quickly threw said red bottle in the age and got in aero. i hit the bump. no big deal.
- mind you, i'm also wearing a brand new aero helmet (the POC helmet), which has no vents.
i reach again for the red bottle at 45ish for a quick sip and boom. it's empty. that's when i realized that i probably didn't get it in all the way at the bump and lost it. by this time the temps were climbing. i had 2 salt tabs left and i had the blue bottle. i still had 4 gels left (two were powerbars with 200mg na2+), but still not enough salt for what my body demanded. i decided that i needed to save the blue bottle for the last 25 miles of the race, so i left it where it was.
by the time 55 miles came around i was starting to feel off. my power was down, my effort was down. a female athlete that was yo yoing with me asked if i was taking enough salt because my back was covered in salt (that has never happened before in a race). i thanked her and took another gel. looking back, i really should have reached for my blue bottle. the 2nd lap was pretty much the hardest 58 miles i had ever ridden. i know non ventilated helmets don't change core temp as long as you stay properly hydrated, but god damn. perceived temperature is a mental hootannani. i had to take the POC off and pour water on my head at one of the stops. all in all, i came to a complete stop 2 more times because 2 bottles of gatorade i got still had the safety seal on them. no biggie, kona was out for me and the volunteers were champs for even being out there.
every water stop for me was dump bottle on my back/body, refil water, grab gatorade.
by the time i hit mile 102-104, i saw a friend that i had just met the day before. he was pulled over with a flat. i asked if he needed anything and he mumbled some words. i decided that i wanted to help him. again, by this time my bike was just shot. 5:54 ride was just garbage. i gave him my pit stop, i had no idea how to use it, i explained the best i could (picked it up at expo since i flew in) and just rode off, hoping i wouldn't flat the last 10-12 miles. those were some haaard miles. i was really feeling the affects of the heat, it was about 2pm, at the peak of the sun and i was just roasting. i was out of salt, out of gatorade, out of gu, and just had some warm water. i just wanted to get off the bike. to give an example of how hot the ride was... i rode THROUGH the sonara desert in AUGUST with an 80lbs bike when i cycled across country (going through new mexico, arizona, and southern california), this was easily wayyyyy hotter.
in case you wanted to figure out how hot it was. temps peaked at 97 w/ humidity at 87. this chart shows the heat index in shade. in direct sun, it says to add 15 degrees. it felt like an oven out there, i don't know if it was 170 deg, but it sure felt worse than 118 (when i rode through sonora desert).
t2: i got off the bike and was surprised to feel so good running. i ran into the tent and when i sat down to grab my shoes it just hit me. i was sooooooo hot. the guy next to me was just staring into the roof of the tent, volunteers were just dumping ice and water onto him. i got all my shit ready and started to head out. until i saw pretzels. i stopped, grabbed a cup, sat there and ate it. grabbed ice water. put a punch of ice down my shirt and then covered myself with sunblock. for those who know me, that'll give you an idea of how hot it was.... i NEVER wear sunblock. for me to put it on, that means i was actually scared of the sun.
expected time: sub 3
real time: 6:xx
run: this was my 7th ironman, NEVER have i seen people WALK out of t2. people are always running, excited because of the crowd. i saw people walking.. i thought, oh man, there is going to be some serious carnage out there. i tend to run very well off the bike, so i was going out fine. i had to remind myself to slow down. walk the hills and water stops. i talked to thomas gerlach briefly before the race and he reminded me how horrible racing in that type of weather could be for your body. the first 4-5 miles of the run were some of the hottest miles of my life. the course started off on the freeway and i felt the pavement just reflected even more heat. each water station i dumped 4-5 cups of ice in my suit, dumped 4-5 cups of water on my head, took in water, gatorade, and coke. i supplemented salt with base salt, mixed with roctane salt and salt tab salts. when i was running, i was doing 8-8:25 pace pretty comfortably, it was just hard to get motivated to run knowing that my goal of kona and/or pr were pretty much gone. oh, it was also really hot. miles 12-22 were the darkest miles of my life. i wanted to cry. i gave up my whole entire year to qualify. my body didn't hurt, i just didn't want to run. i literally didn't care. i wanted to just quit at lap 1, but saw my sister who encouraged me. a little kid ran up and asked for double high 5's, that kinda just helped me move on. he was sooooo stoked to get those high 5's. at mile 14, i regretted carrying on. like a lot. my water stop walks were getting longer and longer. at around 16 i totally just gave up and committed to walking. i stopped on the grass to stretch a little from time to time. i tried power walking, but i just suck at it. i was more fatigued power walking at 15min pace than i was running 10 min pace.
- i've done my fair share of "hot" ironman races and "hot" marathons, i have never seen the carnage i saw on sunday on the run course (i was told the bike course was bad too), at least 15 people were carted away in golf carts/ambulances. i saw 10-15 laying on the ground with medics etc... i know it was epic in terms of heat/etc, but i'm confident that a lot of people could have saved themselves a lot of misery had they trained more in the heat, and actually understood proper sodium intake.
my friend darryl (flat tire dude) caught up to me at around mile 21ish? right past the bridge, at the start of the barton ave climb. he thanked me, we shared a few words and he scurried along. i thought, well, i'm going down hill, i should at least run. i caught up to him, passed him, then jogged up the hixon pike before taking a bathroom stop. darryl passed me again while i was peeing, when i came out he was about 100 yards ahead of me. i was feeling ok, so i decided to jog up to him. we jog/walked and at around 24 i had enough. i was pissed, i just wanted to go home and shower. i regret not sharing a few words with him. idk what happened, i just snapped and took off. i jogged hixon and barton, ran over walnut bridge and con't to run hard to the finish line. about 20 yards to finish, i stopped fully in my tracks and acknowledged the crowd. it was an epic day for everyone, not just the racers.
goal time: 3:30
final time: 5:05
post race photo
i snagged 2 slices of pizza and a coke, just to get some calories in. i raced home showered, got a 15 minute cat nap in and headed back out to cheer on the rest of the gang. i didn't actually see anyone cross, but it was good to get post race photos. my friends were asking me how i had so much energy, as i was dancing to the finisher shoot songs and goofing around.. well, i was supposed to run 26.2 miles, i only ran about 10 of it at race pace, and the rest was walk/jog, lol.
i didn't even care to check my final results. but the next day, i was surprised to find that i came in sub 12:30. final time of 12:23:xx.... it was over an hour slower than mont tremblant, which i did at 80% im effort as a training day. so many lessons learned....
the next morning we all woke up, cleaned up the house, returned to the local juice for some good stuff. and made our way to lookout mountain and ruby falls. PSA: do not wear shorts and a tanktop to ruby falls. it gets cold when you are over 1000 feet underground. if you go to ruby falls, try going when the tours are the smallest. it's really hard to enjoy mother nature when 50 people pull out their cameras and are flashing the shit out of everything.
it's not really purple, they use colored lights
i'm like a mini buddha, except i can eat organic and vegetarian (most of the time) and not be a fatty like buddha.
chattanooga, you were a hoot. loved the city, loved the course. you put me in a pretty dark place, you made my rethink my desire to race again, you made my rethink my desire to do another ironman, you made me walk in a marathon (that i didn't plan to walk) for the first time in almost 4 years. but thanks for showing me what hell is like, no more bad words (after this blog, that is).
good news though, i'm feeling pretty good. that means i went to the rock gym today to boulder a bit, and i'll start running again this week. time to set an open marathon PR and crush rock climbing season.
special thanks to the DRINKmaple crew for training with me all season long. never would have the fitness i have without all of you. good luck to folks racing maryland and kona in the upcoming weeks.
thanks to my sister for coming and supporting me. it was really good spending quality time, very happy you were able to get a closer glimpse of what makes me tick. i greatly enjoyed the talks, cooking together, being my personal sherpa, and you putting up with all my crap.
big ups to acosta for being an ultimate sherpa, for making some dynamite coffee every morning. believe it or not, i was much less stressed race week, simply knowing you were around.
stacey: IM #6! i'm not sure how much longer i can stay ahead of you. keep up the positive attitude, your energy is infectious.
daniel: it was great meeting you brotha. sorry you had such a rough day on the bike and run. knowing you, i don't think you would change it for anything. it's races like this that define your character. super proud that you stuck it through and never gave up. i still remember bumping into you at mile 18 and the words you said. it kept me from dropping out.
tj: YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!!!! congrats on popping the cherry. friggang A man. i know you said you'll never do another one. but i swear, they are usually not this hard... plus, don't you want to know what it's like to have proper nutrition and do the whole race without throwing up? ;-)
jen: YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!!!! ditto what i said above (minus the throw up). perhaps next time, you won't PR a half marathon the weekend before, or run 5 miles the day before in 90 degree heat.... perhaps is the key word.
edwin: it was great seeing you on the course, congrats on the PR. to do it on a day like that.... that's all character man.
darryl: too bad about the flats man. glad you were able to get them worked out. it was great running side by side for the hardes 4 miles of the course. maybe we can do it again sometime, minus the heat.
john/jeff: congrats on finishing, i'm sad i didn't get to see you guys on the course, we were all probably zombies as we walked by each other. next time?
lastly: thanks to TOPO for sporting me with a pair of magnifly's for the race. 95% of my milage this year has been in TOPO's and i could not be happier. i know it's cheesy to thank a brand/company that gives you free shoes. but this is one of the rare companies that gives me free stuff that i would gladly pay for at full price (and those who know me know how rare it is for me to actually pay full price for anything). as a seasoned triathlete, as a physical therapist that has a special spot for gait analysis, i cannot recommend a better pair of shoes.
lastly: thanks to TOPO for sporting me with a pair of magnifly's for the race. 95% of my milage this year has been in TOPO's and i could not be happier. i know it's cheesy to thank a brand/company that gives you free shoes. but this is one of the rare companies that gives me free stuff that i would gladly pay for at full price (and those who know me know how rare it is for me to actually pay full price for anything). as a seasoned triathlete, as a physical therapist that has a special spot for gait analysis, i cannot recommend a better pair of shoes.
