2km swim, 94km bike, 21km run… that’s all I have to do today. The only thing on my mind…
My alarm went off at 6:15am, but let’s face it, I’d been awake since 5:30am (probably earlier). It was a restless night as you can imagine and I was eager to get on with it. I find the build-up to a race the worst, but once the gun goes off everything fades away and I am fully concentrating on the moment.
I got into my warm-up gear, grabbed my transition bags and breakfast (shake, banana, granola bar) and was out of the hotel room within 5 minutes of getting up – hoping to give Chantelle and Maya an extra hour sleep (being a supporter at these events is hard work too, and makes for a long day!). It really helped to be organized the night before so I could just get up and go.
I checked into transition and began to unload. Based on my experience the previous week at Guelph, the first thing I did was to make sure my bike computer was working and my tires were pumped up. After that I got all my gear laid out in order to make my T1 and T2 easier. I wasn’t planning to rush in transition, but it’s still nice to know where your things are and what order to do them in. T1 can tend to be a bit busy, as there is a ton to prepare, and as a result I like to write a list out and put it in my helmet so I can refer to it after I get out of the swim. Here is the list I had for T1 Muskoka, which should give you an idea of all the things to remember! This list will be even longer for Florida!
T1 Strategy
I went back to the room and had a few minutes with Chantelle and Maya. I was so happy they were there with me, as it helped me to keep calm and remember that whatever happened – I still have my awesome family who would support me no matter what! We all walked down to the swim start line around 7:40am, with the race due to start at 8am and my wave starting at 8:18am. Here are a few pre-race shots!
Ready to cheer me on!
Last-minute goodbye's
They played Oh Canada and had a moments silence for the victims of September 11, which I thought was a classy touch given the number of Americans competing. We watched the start of the race from up above, and my nervousness turned to excitement. There is such a great community of people in triathlon, and I love being surrounded by like-minded, motivated athletes. It’s nice to chat with people once in a while who don’t think you are crazy for attempting Ironman races!
At 8:12am my wave entered the water for a quick warm-up. I immediately went to the front of the group, as was the plan, so I could get a good jump on the swim. It’s not that I wanted to rush or expend too much energy, but in my experience, spending a little bit of extra energy/effort getting out early in the swim can save you a lot of time and stress of being caught in a pack of ~200 people all trying to swim around the same buoys in the water. My philosophy is that it’s easier and less dangerous to get passed a few times, than it is to try and pass others (risking boots to the face, dislodged goggles, etc.).
8:18am came, the gun went off, and my race had officially begun. I went hard and fast for the first 200m, then settled into nice easy strokes. It was definitely a lot choppier and crowded than I’d imagined, I guess a lot of people try and execute the same strategy as myself (start fast). Still, I stayed out of trouble and was feeling pretty good at the 750m buoy. By 1.5km I was feeling great and was starting to go through T1 in my head. I was also starting to pass a number of swimmers who had started 6 minutes earlier, so I knew I was having a decent swim. The visibility was greatly reduced at 1.8km due to plant life and dirt stirred up by previous waves of swimmers in the shallower water. At the finish there were volunteers who essentially picked you up out of the water and placed you on a set of stairs (thanks!), and I jogged over to two nice ladies who were serving as wetsuit strippers (yes that’s right, strippers at a triathlon!). They quickly removed my wetsuit and helped me back up, and I was off on a 400m run to T1, up a fairly large hill I might add.
And we're off!
I really took my time in T1, even turning around once or twice to chat with Chantelle. I didn’t want this to be stressful; as it is such a long race there is no reason to save 1 extra minute in transition only to discover you have forgotten to do something important. Once geared up, I grabbed my bike and jogged to the start of the bike course. I can’t stress enough how awesome the atmosphere was at this race. There were hundreds of volunteers and thousands of supporters lining the road leading into/ out of the resort. It was like being a professional athlete, I loved it! I hopped on my bike and was off on the longest leg of the race.
What a bike it was! To say it was hilly is an understatement, and I now understand why this race is voted by athletes as one of the most difficult Ironman 70.3 races out there (as is evident by the avg. finishing times compared to other races). It’s not that there were massive hills to climb, that stretched on for kilometers at a time. It was just a constant up and down, again and again, and the winding roads made it very difficult to tell what lay ahead. At 15km there was a large crash about 150m in front of me on a descent involving 3 riders (2 went down hard). Thankfully I had enough room to swerve around them, but it rattled my nerves a bit as that sort of thing can happen to anyone at any time and end your day.
For the first 50km of the bike I was either out of the saddle climbing, or clutching onto my handlebars for dear life, descending at speeds in excess of 70km/hr. The constant up and down made it very difficult to stick to my nutrition plan (it’s not easy to eat in the hills as it requires a spare arm), and I can count at least 3 times that I got a banana out of my jersey started to eat it, and had to quickly put it back because of a technical section that required all my attention. Still, I think I did a better job than most people of eating on the bike.
Even more distressing about the bike was my HR. I’d hoped to stick to something similar to my long training rides, and keep my HR below my aerobic threshold of 150 BPM as much as possible. I have done some longer training rides this year never straying outside of the 140-155BPM range over 100km. Unfortunately this was pretty much impossible for me to do, for 2 reasons:
1) The hills made it hard to control my HR because I was working harder on the up’s and recovering on the downs (increasing the range of HR). My average HR was probably still about 150BPM, but it was wildly fluctuating between 130BPM and 170BPM due to the hills – which is not good news for later in the race.
2) The course was much better suited to a road bike, than a tri bike. Tri-bike aero-bars are much more effective on straight, flat terrain. In addition, having only 14 gears instead of 21 made the hills very difficult to manage. If I ever do this race again it will be using a road bike.
There were 3 hills in particular, one at 40km and 2 in the final 15km of the ride that I was in my lowest gear, out of the saddle pushing, and only 1/3 of the way up the hill! Still, I managed to push through it, believing at the time that I would probably be having a very slow run as a result of this extra effort on the bike. Again, there were people stretched all over the bike course (strategically positioned at the top of difficult climbs) cheering you on, which was really uplifting when things looked dire.
The last 10km of the bike were punishing, and I began to realize that although I had worked harder than planned, I had done a much better job of conserving myself than others. I would estimate in the first 80km of the bike I had passed about 30 riders and I had been passed by more than 100. In the last 10km I did not get passed, and I began to catch up to many of the speed demons who had tried to be hero’s too early on.
I arrived back to T2 to a huge crowd of people, all cheering wildly. I knew my time was around 3 hours 10 minutes, which put me right about 30km/hr for the ride. Couple that with a good swim, and I was definitely on pace to achieve my goal of 6 hours 8 minutes. I was especially excited to see Chantelle and Maya waiting for me, near my transition spot. It’s not easy to predict when I would be back, but luckily she had been following along using the athlete tracker online – so she had a good sense of when I might be coming back into transition. Once again I took my time in T2 and prepared for the run. I told Chantelle I was feeling pretty good, but to expect a longer run than originally planned due to the difficulty of the bike course and the fact that I did not eat as much as planned. Also, it was starting to get pretty hot out which never helps.
Heading out on the half marathon
Luckily for me, the run turned out to be my proudest moment as a triathlete. All my training and hard work during the summer really paid off big time. I kept a nice even pace for the first 10km, trying to save myself as much as possible. I knew that things can go downhill quickly on the run, especially if you start to cramp up. Mentally I was in a zone. I was passing people left and right. I was keeping count in my head, and on the run I passed 73 people and was only passed 28 times! I did not walk at all, with the exception of the aid stations where it is a necessity in order to eat a gel and drink without spilling it everywhere. I must have eaten at least 6 gels in the first 15km, then stuck to plain water after that.
At 19km there was a 1km hill leading up to the entrance of the resort. As soon as I started at the bottom of the hill I felt my left groin and my right hamstring start to cramp up, then soon after my right quad. They weren’t fully cramping, but I could feel them tightening up and I knew I was getting close to the end of my limit physically. I was determined not to walk though, so I slowed my pace a bit and eased my way up the hill. The crowd again were almost deafening, and when I reached the top with 1km to go I started to smile. I really enjoyed the run into the finish line. I knew my half marathon pace was well under 2 hours, meaning I would arrive much faster than my original goal. I wasn’t emotional, as I thought I might be, but I was just soaking it all in, clapping hands with people along the side railings and enjoying the moment.
I saw Chantelle with about 200m left to go, and she was so excited for me! She couldn’t believe how fast I was back because the split time for my run had not registered online and she thought I was out on the course walking somewhere! I crossed the finish line in 5:53:07, almost 15 minutes faster than my goal!
The face of satisfaction
My biggest fan
I have spent so much time on my own this year. I may come across as excited and energetic all the time on my blog and facebook, but there is another side to training. An extremely difficult, often painful, tiring, mental battle to stay motivated for an entire year (or more) to train for an Ironman. Although completing Muskoka did not represent the fulfillment of my ultimate goal – it was a very important milestone for me mentally as well as physically. I now know I am doing the right things, and I know that I have 6 weeks left of hard training before tapering for Ironman Florida!
Bring it on!
