Ironman Arizona Race Report

Five years ago I promised myself I would never, ever ride on the Bee Line Highway ever again.  Especially not in a race.  I really should've kept that promise. 

My return to IMAZ didn't go so well.  I arrived without incident with my mom  and had a pretty restful few days pre-race.  I did a few short workouts, rode the run course with Pat Wheeler in prep for his perfectly executed race and tried to get plenty of sleep and spend plenty of time with my feet up.  Saturday morning was the carb load breakfast at The Good Egg which also happens to be one of the few restaurants in the country I've been to where I can only eat two of their pancakes.  Way better than Denny's or IHOP.  I ate with Pat and Courtney and then Kim Schwabenbauer who ended her rookie pro season on a major high note. 

After that I packed up my things pretty quickly to get the bike drop off over with.  I've never waited in line for this, but this time there was a huge one that wound all through the park.  For some reason they decided to take pictures of every single bike before it got brought into transition.  I'm amazed that they keep finding new ways to overcomplicate these processes.  But eventually the stuff was dropped off and I was basically done for the day.  Nothing left but to drink and eat and keep my feet up.  And TBS did me a favor by showing some good, funny movies for me to be half asleep while sort of watching. 

I think I slept fairly well.  I'm not even sure anymore.  Breakfast went down fine and then I went back to bed for a bit before getting up just before 5.  My mom was actually already awake and ready to head down to the race.  She was a little paranoid and left before I did.  The hotel, which was only about a mile from the start, was running a shuttle and I had no issue getting down there at about 5:30.  Checked everything out, used the bathroom and before I knew it, it was time to get in the water. 

I remember Tempe Town Lake being disgusting.  So I was not excited about getting in.  I was also not expecting it to be quite so cold.  I was a little shocked, actually, with how cold it felt when I first got in.  I've certainly experienced worse, but the last time I did this it was in April and the water was a lot warmer.  The good thing I suppose is that in the darkness it was less obvious how gross the water was, and if it's colder, presumably less gross stuff stays alive in there.  I swam my way up toward the front and found myself a good spot probably two thirds of the way over from the inside buoy line and with only one guy in front of me.  I didn't really fight to be in front, there just happened to be space and nobody else seemed to be moving up so I decided to stay there.  And then the cannon fired for my 15th Ironman start.

I started swimming hard, and my immediate thought was, "How am I not getting the crap kicked out of me right now?"  Somehow I had managed to find the magically perfect spot for my swimming ability.  The people behind me were not swimming over me, I was not catching anyone in front of me, and I was not getting squeezed out on all sides.  Seriously, for probably at least the first 200 yards, it was just me, swimming in the lake instead of fighting for my life.  Given that swimming has been going very well for me late in the season, I immediately felt a nice confidence boost from this.  Sure, things got tight here and there, but I never had to do that thing I'd found myself doing in some races where I'd just sort of slow up and let people go around me rather than fighting for my position.  So I was quite happy that at no point during the first leg of this race did I think I might drown. 

The sun started coming up and it got tougher to see, but with a few hundred sets of arms flailing around in front of me I was generally confident that I was heading in the right direction, and the occasional buoy sighting confirmed this.  The water still felt chilly but not uncomfortably so.  I tried to hold a strong and steady effort, reminding myself several times that once I got out of that water I was done with swimming for the 2012 tri season.  Not bad.  I felt like I was doing quite well, and given the small amount of people around me I thought maybe for once I would have a really good swim.  My fastest Ironman swim to date was in that lake in 2007 at 1:05 and I was thinking I'd get myself a PR.  So imagine my surprise when I got out of the water to see 1:09?  What?  Rather than dwelling on it, I moved on.  And actually, I think percentage wise, compared to the rest of the field, I was right where I usually am, the overall time was just a bit slow.  Still, it would be nice to finally have a good swim!

Anyway, out of the water for the last time, and on the long run through transition to change gear.  For a fleeting moment I thought maybe they just hadn't changed the clock from the pro time and I swam 59, but the fact that there were so many people in T1 immediately killed that delusion.  The volunteers are still amazing and they even put my million gels in my jersey pockets before I headed out for my bike. 

I had my instructions on my heart rate zone to follow on the bike and I did my best to stick to it.  This was especially difficult early on in the ride.  There seemed to be a bit of a head wind and it took me a while to settle in, to the point I was even in the small ring.  I got fairly frustrated early as I got passed by a few packs of people, quite deliberately drafting off of each other.  I'd take each of these as opportunities to sit up a bit and drink a bunch to get ahead on fluid consumption.  Seriously, some of these packs were huge.  About fifteen miles in I had let another one go and sat up to drink and I could hear a motorcycle to my left, kind of hovering there.  He pulled up, said my number and told me I got a red card for drafting and had to go to the next penalty tent.  The pack had passed one other guy who was in front of me who I was too close to.  I didn't think I was that close but I've played enough sports in my lifetime to know that you don't get anywhere by arguing with the refs, so I just nodded and sat up to fall back a bit more.

So now I was paranoid for the next 97 miles of riding.  Especially between that and the next penalty tent.  Even worse was that I got passed by several more LARGE groups which I'd then have to sit up and let get very far ahead of me before proceeding on.  I'll admit I was a bit taken out of things at that point.  That was the first penalty I've ever received in any triathlon.  Add to that we were going uphill and into a bit of a headwind and suddenly I was worried I was going to be riding six hours or something ridiculously unlike me. 

Things sped up after I hit the first turnaround eighteen or so miles in when I got to go back downhill and with the wind and finally found my very crowded penalty tent.  At least the marshals had been paying attention.  I had my timer and they marked me down and I felt more of my race slipping away.  But I did at least take a moment to drink and take a gel. 

So, finally it was time to leave the penalty tent for hopefully the last time in my triathlon career.  It took me ten years to get a penalty, for someone who really does try and ride legal, so let's hope that is the end of that.  And then it was downhill with the wind to pick up some speed.  That was much better.  And it seemed like that couple of minutes had given things a chance to spread out and I was mostly just passing people so there weren't really any more fears I might be drafting.  I suppose the three times out and back at least breaks things up a bit, but this is such a boring ride.  And crowded. 

It seemed on the second loop that the wind had shifted directions.  It wasn't blowing that hard in either direction, but this time it seemed to be more with us on the way out and against on the way back.  It wasn't long into the second loop that I was already lapping some people.  I saw a surprising amount of crashes and flats, which is not fun.  Oh, and did I mention the stench of the landfill you get to ride by constantly?  Yeah, tons of fun.  The miles ticked by and thankfully I was getting faster and still keeping the steady effort where it needed to be.  Although I still wasn't going as fast as I was hoping to.  There's really not a lot to say about the ride.  I was mostly passing people, especially by the third lap, although many were quite possibly only on their second.  I drank, I ate, I pedaled, and eventually it was finally time to get off after 5:29.  I rode about 5:20 there in 2007 under horrifically windy conditions, so this wasn't such a good ride for me.

Immediately upon getting off the bike my hip flexors were practically screaming at me.  They hadn't hurt on the ride so I don't know where that came from, but it made for a very gingerly run through T2 to grab my stuff and hit the tent, where I had a nice team of volunteers waiting for me.  One even fed me my banana.  By the time I got up, the weird hip flexor thing was gone, and there was nothing left to do but run.  Well, after a brief stop for a slathering of sunscreen. 

I had my instructions on where to keep the heart rate and tried to maintain a nice, steady pace.  For me at this point, steady is still pretty darn slow.  I ran 3:47 here I think the last time, and at the time it was a crash and burn.  Now it seems blazing fast.  My heart rate monitor seemed to be giving me some funny readings, as in, incorrect, so I mostly went by feel at that point.  I felt decent enough, just tried to keep moving forward.  Sometime before mile 3 I stopped in a porta potty just to pee.  Honestly, I already didn't have a good feeling about things, so I didn't think I'd have anything to gain by saving 30 seconds but having to spend the rest of the run in urine-soaked shoes. 

After that brief pit stop, off I went.  It was warm and sunny but it didn't feel hot, which was nice.  I still made sure to douse myself with water and ice when available.  The first loop wasn't too bad, but somewhere around halfway through the race my legs started to feel trashed as though I had already run 24-25 miles rather than only 14-15.  It just felt.... bad.  And it didn't take long before I was walking a whole lot more than I was running, and eventually running just about ceased completely.  Everyone passed me.  The sun went down.  Even walking hurt, though I was pretty sure I'd finish.  Epic failure.

It took a long time to finish that run, although I did barely eke out a run split faster than my bike split.  The only redeeming thing happened at the end of the race.  I had been walking with a guy starting at about mile 24 for me, although he still had another lap to go.  He was still in college, doing his first Ironman with his father and his sister.  It was nice to have someone to talk to for the last couple of miles.  But the better part was with maybe half a mile to go we came upon more of the crowds, including a guy with a microphone cheering people on who looked at us and said, "What are you guys, like fifteen?"  So that at least made me feel a bit better.

At the final split he went off to do another loop and I mustered up a sort of run-ish motion toward the finish line where I crossed in 12:10.  Last time I was there I won my age group by an hour.  That did not happen this time.  My mom miraculously was actually still there.  I got my finisher stuff and then grabbed a piece of pizza and some chips to go sit at a picnic table.  I wasn't that hungry but I do know I need to eat in order to function post-race.  Eventually Mom found me and I got my food down and then took a while to go and get my bike and stuff.  It all took way too long, but even worse was the roughly mile-and-a-half walk back to the hotel.  Ouch. 

So that was that anti-climactic end of my season.  I wasn't really upset, I was kind of indifferent at that point.  I mean, you do have to have some sense of accomplishment just finishing these things, even if you are sort of past that point.  By the time we got back to the room I was too tired to care about going out and eating.  I think it took me an hour to muster the energy to stand in the shower to get cleaned up.  And eventually I just went to sleep.  And I actually slept for the first time I think ever in the history of my doing Ironman races. 

And the next morning involved the hotel breakfast buffet where I still wasn't that hungry, and then we basically just packed up and hit the road.  After a quick trip to In-N-Out Burger, that is.  And finally flying home where I plan to stay for a good, long time.  Tired of plane rides!

So that's it.  The end of my season that involved one good Ironman and one crappy one.  I still just can't seem to break through this wall I've found myself behind.  I'll be the first to admit that much of it is quite possibly still in my head.  But for now, it was time to get some rest and then enjoy a Thanksgiving minus the pre-dinner workouts.  I also haven't yet eaten enough to make myself feel sick which is also quite different from the norm post-race.  In fact, it was Wednesday night before I realized I hadn't even eaten a real dinner since the race.  And it's Saturday and that's actually still the only night I've eaten dinner.  Ordered a pizza, by the way. 

So I've tried to remain positive because it's always hard to figure out how you should react.  Yes, I'm unhappy and it's embarrassing.  And you'd be amazed at how much less people want to talk to you after a crappy Ironman compared to a good one.  But there's not much I can do about it for now aside from take a little break and then get ready for next season.  See you later, 2012.