Team Mango

Ironman Canada: Warning, long report ahead

At 11:30 am on Saturday morning in Penticton, BC I was attending the Ironman Canada pre-race briefing. I was surrounded by nearly two thousand of the most fit, confident people that I’ve ever seen in my life and I was thinking to myself “What am I doing here??” After hearing all about people’s 25 to 30 hour training weeks (my longest was 18, only because I went for two hours more than I was supposed to) my self-confidence was rapidly waning so I retreated to my motel room immediately after the briefing. My mind was too scattered for reading so I watched some Saturday afternoon tv—“Jaws,” was on TBS, just the thing to see prior to a 2.4 mile swim.

I was up at 3:30 am on Sunday and the next three and a half hours passed quickly. As the 7:00 am start rapidly approached I found myself in my wetsuit, watching the sun rise. I tested the water, swimming just enough to make sure that my goggles weren’t leaking and returned to the beach. I listened to the Canadian national anthem, and then with the shot of a cannon the race began. As most of you probably know, there are currently a number of serious forest fires near Penticton. Most of the medical volunteers at the Ironman are fire fighters or paramedics, many of whom were busy with their real jobs. As a result, the Ironman was short of medical volunteers and rescue personnel, so the swim course was altered to keep it from being too spread out. Instead of the usual broad triangle, the course consisted of a line of buouys. There was a boat approximately 400 yards from shore. We swam past the boat, along the buouys to a second boat, executed a 180-degree turn, returned to the first boat, made another turn, repeated the loop and headed for the beach. This led to a much more concentrated start and the three 180-degree turns were natural pinch points. And the swim was brutal. In my previous triathlons I’ve never experienced anything close to the level of violence of the first 400 yards of the swim. Every third or fourth breath was lost as an elbow or forearm came down on my head, pushing me under water. I was repeatedly kicked in the mouth, the side, the legs. Finally, as I passed the first boat things settled down. It was still crowded but the pushing and shoving was less frantic. At the first turn it bunched up once again but this time the crowd rapidly dispersed and I could finally concentrate on swimming. I made the second turn, the third turn and the next thing I knew was passing the inner boat for the final time and heading for the beach. Soon I could see the tops of seaweed, then the lake bottom, and finally I touched bottom with my left hand once, twice and I stood up. I glanced at my watch and was shocked to see that I had completed the swim in 1:12, absolutely crushing my goal of an hour and a half. One great thing about an Ironman compared to shorter triathlons is the tremendous level of help that you’re given during the transitions. As I moved across the timing mats two volunteers rapidly stripped off my wetsuit—far more rapidly than I could ever achieve on my own. Next, another volunteer came running up with a bag containing my swim-to-bike gear. I dumped it all on the ground, toweled myself off, guzzled a 24 oz bottle of gatorade, pulled a on real pair of bike shorts over my triathlete’s hot pants, put on my jersey, sun glasses, helmet, camelbak. Meanwhile, someone was packing up my towel, wetsuit and goggles and another volunteer was slathering me with sunscreen. Oh yeah, I put on socks and bike shoes, too. And then I was looking for my bike.

I left the transition, heading down Main Street of Penticton, taking it easy, letting my heart rate settle down. Cyclists were everywhere, passing me on the left and the right, hammering like mad. Ahead of me one rider went down and two more piled into him. I passed through the chaos, rode out of town and began to enjoy the beautiful (but smoky) morning. The beginning of the course was rolling to flat, with regular lake and mountain views. The pedals were light, there seemed to be more downhill than up and I rode the first 25 miles in an hour. The next part of the course was flat, passing vineyards and peach orchards. I was playing leapfrog with a cute 34-year old riding a midnight blue Cervelo with matching Zipp 404’s. We passed through a recently extinguished forest fire. It was still smoldering in places, and fire crews were working to take care of the remnants.

At about the 40-mile mark the nature of the course changed dramatically. After passing through the little town of Osoyoos we turned back to the north and attacked the first significant climb. Richter Pass was a climb of just over 1200’ in 6.8 miles. It was an incredible experience. At this point the highway was four lanes. Two left lanes were open for car traffic. The far right lane was reserved for cyclists, and the shoulder and other right lane were lined with spectators who had been bussed in from Penticton. Nearing the crest of the climb both sides of the road were lined two or three deep with fans. It was like the Tour (including, unfortunately, a rider who was knocked down by an overzealous spectator). As I came over the crest of the pass I felt like I could have ridden through a brick wall.

The next part of the course was up and down, with 0.5-1.0 mile long climbs coming one after the other. The temperature was climbing and the pedals were no longer weightless but I was able to maintain a good pace. At one point a woman riding in front of me lifted her ass off the saddle and pissed all over herself. I’d heard that people do that in order to save time but I was surprised to see it in the middle of the pack where I was riding. Do you throw away your saddle after the race? Finally, the last big climb began. Leaving the town of Keremos and riding to Yellow Lake was a climb of about 1400’ in 7.5 miles, with a significantly steeper grade for the final two miles. At this point the day was quite warm and I was beginning to feel fatigued but once again the road was lined with cheering fans. I thought about the ride to Sunrise and let the goodwill from the spectators pull me over the top. I couldn’t believe it—all of the bike work was done. A descent of 1.8 miles at an 8% grade cooled me off and brought my heartrate down. I passed the 100-mile mark and the last 12 miles were mostly downhill with a flat two mile finish through the town of Penticton. I finished the bike leg in 6:15:11, for an average speed of 17.9 mph. If only I hadn’t stopped to use a Honey Bucket I would have been over 18 mph….

Once again volunteers were everywhere as I came into the transition. One took my bike and another handed me my bike-to-run bag. I changed shoes, dropped my shorts and nearly forgot to take off my helmet. I spent a couple of minutes stretching, guzzled down a juice box of Extran and began my run. The run course had been changed at the last minute, again due to the fires. They wanted to keep the athletes close to town in case of a flare-up or some other emergency. The revised run course was an “L”-shaped route, with two out-and-back sections and we ran the whole thing three times.

I felt ok for the first few miles, maintaining a slow but steady pace of about 9:30 per mile. Then, coming out of the aid station at mile six I thought my race was over. After taking in one too many energy gels I was nearly overcome by an extreme need to vomit. Wave after wave of nausea passed over me and I was waiting for the one that would have me spewing Clif Bars and sports drink all over the pavement. At that moment Alan Igawa, a casual acquaintance from the Seattle Triathlon Club came up behind me, patted me on the back and gave me a cheerful “Hey dude, how are you feeling?” One look at me answered that question. Alan walked with me for the next five minutes or so. At that point I wasn’t feeling great but the combination of a few minutes of walking and a friendly face had me back from the edge. I walked to the next aid station where I took Alan’s advice and discovered the miraculous restorative power of salty chicken broth. Five minutes after gagging down a cup of broth my stomach had settled. Five minutes after that my energy level shot up as the liquids pooled in my stomach were rapidly absorbed and the next thing I knew I was running again.

I soldiered on through the middle portion of the race. By this time the medical tents were starting to fill—each time I passed by there were more people on stretchers, more i.v. bags going, more people covered with bags of ice. On the course more and more people were walking, some were sitting or lying down. I saw one man violently puking. After refusing medical attention (getting medical attention meant withdrawing from the race) he continued his run with a pair of paramedics on mountain bikes following closely behind. Another runner seated on the curb pulled off his shoe to reveal a blood-soaked sock. One good thing about the course layout was that you would see the same people twice on each loop. Regularly seeing Alan, Reed from Speedy Reedy, an acquaintance from my gym, some new acquaintances who were staying at the same motel, as well as some total strangers helped to keep my spirits up and keep me moving. And again, the spectators were awesome. My favorite was a crew of eight or ten with a quarter barrel of beer and a lot of AC-DC coming from their stereo. I think they deteriorated more seriously than I did over the course of four or five hours. I had another bad moment around mile 16 but once again a cup of chicken broth revived me (I’m not sure what vegetarians do). At this point the zen-like feeling of confidence finally settled over me and I knew that I was going to get it done and I wasn’t going to do any more walking. I completed the last loop, actually building my pace to a blazing 9:00 mile, heard some final words of encouragement as I passed Reed and Alan for the final time (I had passed Alan around mile 12) and entered the finish chute, a quarter-mile long lined with bleachers and filled with cheering fans. Then my name was being announced and 12 hours, thirty-eight minutes and twenty-seven seconds after hitting the water I was done.

I have to say, the Ironman was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I have to give a lot of people credit for helping me to make it happen. My swim coaches, Mary, Ed, Teresa and Janelle are in danger of turning me into a real swimmer. I may have to give up the standard triathlete’s reply of, “Well, I’m not much of a swimmer….” My coach Karen, who I know only through phone and email conversations did a great job of devising a training plan that worked within my schedule and limitations. The Saturday morning RAMROD crew of John, Jason, Scott and Greg turned those mountain centuries into something to look forward to rather than dread. Those rides really were one of the highlights of my summer. And finally, all of my other friends for being understanding as I fell of the face of the earth for six months. Hopefully I’ll see a lot more of you this fall.

In case anyone is curious, over the course of 12.5 hours on Sunday I consumed four juice boxes of Extran, four Clif Bars, two and a half 20 oz bottles of Endurox, six Clif Shots and approximately eight liters of water, Gatorade, and Pepsi. Since January 1 I’ve spent more than 306 hours training. That’s broken down into 147000 yards of swimming, just under 2000 miles of cycling, 608 miles of running and about 50 hours of weight training. God, I need to sit down!

Posted by john at August 26, 2003 1:30 PM