(a.k.a. walk another mile)
(also on facebook)
Prologue
I usually reserve the summer for all my crazy stunts, but this one happened right about now – pre-memorial day weekend. WTC makes you go to events couple of days earlier to check-in and stuff, but this turned out to be less of a problem as our company has an office in Houston, and Julie was not going to miss anything important (according to her teacher at least… I have to wonder what they study!)
We flew into Houston on Wednesday night and settled into an establishment that had “Suites” in the name and full kitchen in the description, but ended up being a bad call on my side. Note to self – don’t book hotels under $60, no matter if they look “reasonable”. I spent the next couple of days working my regular day job, taking a copule of breaks to check myself in, and drop off my bike, both of which included 60+ miles roundtrip… But this is Houston, and one thing that moves faster than NYC there is the stuff on the highway. Julie spent most of Thursday on her very own TwoSigma desk, and the rest of it and Friday with Lauren & family in Galveston, TX.
Being the last minute person I am, I put off assembling the bike till Thursday night (which really means Friday morning – the day of drop-off). Everything looked just fine until our ride on the hotel parking lot, where I noticed that my poor Victoria had a fracture in the base of the left aerobar pad. This is the first injury in transit using my Pika Packworks carrying case, and I fully believe it was due to a rearrangement of the contents by knowledgeable and curious TSA personnel. Luckily for those kind of species transplants are the norm and the organs are readily available at local stores near you (in this case “Tri on the Run”).
[pictures of cracked stuff]
I promptly performed the surgery in the parking lot next to the drop-off location. As these things go in pairs, I noticed that she also had a minor fracture in the base of right pad, which she never complained about. Seems like she did not go through the fall last april (which broke my shoulder) as unharmed as I thought she did.
Friday and Saturday we stayed with Lauren’s aunt in the Woodlands, less than a mile from the event, which was a fun-filled experience. The jokes saw no end. Among other things, we ate, and then we ate some more, and then some more… but I am happy to declare that for a first time I did not pig out before a race. I treated myself with a Ritter Sport Alpine Milk bar (for those that think candy, shut up! This is a supreme form of chocolate), which I inhaled in less than 60 sec. It turned into a bigger thing as you will see later!
The Day Of
Everything was really smooth. Not that I am easy to disturb, but things were going like clockwork. Mandatory 5am wakeup, suit up, and in transition by 5:30. Topped off tires and dropped off a few last things into the transition bags. No Nutella and special needs bags this time (which was not the smartest decision). There was a mile walk from transition to swim start… Little did I know that this will be first of many miles I would walk that day.
Swim was declared sans-wetsuit since the water was 77F, and they even instructed me to remove my spiderman calf compression/warmers. That did not disturb me either, but I mentally prepared for a worse result due to the lack of buoyancy (Though I reminded myself that I am at 190lb+ which means that I have plenty of natural lipid-induced buoyancy). The swim course has a funny single out-and-back-and-then-some kind of shape, but I prefer this to going in circles. I ended up going through it quite uneventfully in the low 1h20m’s and somehow zigzagged at least an additional 0.2 miles according to my Garmin. I did swim as hard as I can and I am happy with this result (especially sans wetsuit).
I did not spend much time in transition (for my standards) – less than 10min, which was mostly spend moving as it is a big event. I was already dressed for the bike, and just grabbed helmet/shoes/glasses.
The bike course was very deceiving. It is a kind of a single large, badly shaped lollypop with a very short handle. From the elevation profile it looks like it is slightly net uphill in the first half and then going down in the second. My colleague Arthur did not think so, and his warning was right. It was so easy in the beginning cranking at 21mph that I thought for a second I will come in under 5hours. Unfortunately the second half had strong head winds and in fact did feel uphill which I will investigate in the Garmin data.
The worst thing of the day happened within the first 5 miles of the bike when my saltstick holder snapped out of the bike frame and I lost all my electrolyte pills before taking even one of them. With the Texas oven feeling hot already and still in 8:30m pre-heat mode, this had disaster written all over it. Regardless I kept on cranking and the speed dropped a little and the watts jumped a bit, but luckily I did not cramp and brought it home in just under 6h, which I am very happy with as well.
T2 was hard. I had developed some pain in the outside of my foot from the bike shoes pressing (need to look into this, since it has been a problem on all three full IronMan events so far). This time it was more severe and with the furnace in full blow, I was sitting there possibly electrolyte depleted and thinking to do the unthinkable – call it quits. My coach had instructed me to not run more than 10 miles anyway, plus I was barely walking. This deliberation took a good 15 minutes, but it was worth it. I swallowed 2 of the 3 electrolyte pills I had prepared for the run and I decided to go off on the run course and deliberate there, while possibly walking and having oranges at the aid stations.
I started by walking the first mile and eating most of the grapes on the table at the first aid station. I felt a little better but the heat was not gonna let go. I hobbled a bit on the second mile and walked the third. It started to feel like it is going to be a really long day if I continue this way, but I decided to give it a little more time (and distance). With the running shoes on, the pain from the bike shoes subsided and I felt like I can run a little. I thought I would try do to a 10 min mile and see how that feels… it ended up being a 9 min mile!
I just started walking the fifth when a plan emerged - if I can keep this up, I can walk a mile / run a mile and still finish this thing. Then I hit the cheering station with Julie, Lauren & family, and it became even more obvious that I am finishing this. If for nothing else, then for great poster (second only to the Nutella poster from IronMan past), which Julie and Lauren made:
[picture of poster]
On a more serious note, keeping up with this mile walk / mile run was going to put me into running 12 miles for the day (true, 2 more than Erik wanted me to, but at least I did not blow him off completely). Second, I’ve been able to go ridiculous distances in the past sans training by walking a minute every mile (Jeff Galloway style), and I do believe that this reduces the chance of getting injured. In the same spirit, beefing up the walking can only help reduce that chance further. Finally, having the miles bundled in pairs like this suddenly reduced the things I needed to do to finish from 24 to 12!
Lauren joined me for the next loop (of this 3-loop course), which was the the hardest part of the run as the bake was on full-blast. It must have been 100F/100% humidity! My running miles went like 9:00, 8:40, 8:20, 8:00!!!, and then 11:00, 11:00… I was starting to feel the electrolytes missing again. Then I suddenly realized that the course is full of pills that people have dropped! I looked for one that did not look nasty and saw a neat ziplock bag with 3 of them (and 3 other red and blue pills which I had no clue as to what they are so I did not touch). Yup, I got drugs on the street, literally! Those pills, and the approaching 5pm relative cool-down did wonders.
I decided to do the next loop on my own, and ordered watermelon at the cheering station for the last pass-through which I estimated to be about 2h and 4 miles away from the finish. Things went well from this point on. I felt much better and started doing 9:something miles again. To play with my brain I also tried setting records on the walking miles… one of them I did in 14:02 (and no, I did not go as fast as I could because I don’t like the sight of professional speed-walking). By the time I reached the meeting point (15min ahead of the 2h projection) I felt I had this race in the bag. The more ridiculous part is that I was still on track to set a PR for the distance… My first two IronMan races from last year were 15h30m and 14h30m respectively. Moving at my current speed it looked like I will shave yet another hour off (which of course goes to say how serious my PRs are if they can be broken by hiking half of the marathon and still improve on the final result!)
At the last checkpoint at cheering central (mile 22) I rolled the chocolate poster in my hand, ate the watermelon, and was joined by Julie and Lauren to the finish line. Well, they cut them off shortly before, so I had to finish on my own. I forgot to click the Garmin but it was 13h:30-something which I still find unbelievable.
As if I had not walked enough miles for the day, I had to do one more to collect my bike and gear bags from transition. That one was probably the slowest. With a minor difficulty of locating the car which I had parked randomly in the morning, we got back and did what we were expected to do – eat, and then some. Grilled chicken and at least 8lb of watermelon… And I was under endorphine influence to remember the rest.
Epilogue
We spend sunday sitting on the couch and joking around… There is plenty of that going on in that house. That and the usual bike disassembly (which was iPhone-videotaped as a 20 min trilogy this time), packing, and flying.
In retrospect, there were some hard calls that needed to be made during that race, but I am very happy with how stuff turned out.
I’ve done a lot of races. I’ve even been told (by the victims themselves), that I’ve inspired couple of folks to become more active… but in the end, I do these races for myself. And the more I do, the less of a big deal it seems when I finish another one.
That said, I had never before carefully considered what DNF feels like in its entirety, or at least not like I did during those 15min in the tent during T2. Despite that it will probably send the wrong message to my daughter, and disappoint a bunch of very supportive people, the truth is that it would have been a tough pill to swallow and live with, knowing I could have done it if I tried. I am not a professional, I do these things for some perverse form of fun. And finishing them is an important part of the whole experience. After this I am even more settled on the position that, unless it is likely to get injured and deter future progress, never give up.