A's Ironman Canada race report

I have been fighting with myself over whether I should write more of a factual race report or one based on my thoughts and feelings throughout the day as the race unfolded. I think the latter will be more useful to me in the future, so that is what I’ll strive for. I already wrote a fairly factual report for coach, and may borrow some of that here, but really, what I care about, were my thoughts and feelings and how they influenced my real-time decisions during the race. So, here goes nothing!

It was a calm, beautiful morning for a race. We took care of business quickly: breakfast, dressing, sunscreen, walking to the race, dropping off special needs bags, body marking, avoiding the drunk guys trying to shake every athlete’s hand across the fence as we entered transition, final check on tire pressures, addition of food and drink to the bike, addition of food and drink to the run bag, addition of watch to the bike bag, etc., etc.

Readying the bike

Before I knew it I was in the toilet line for a second time and then body-gliding up and applying the wetsuit. I had ample time to get everything how it needed to be and was now ready to race.

Where we got into our wetsuits, see E’s post for more details.

On Friday, we did a longer swim in the lake and I noticed it took me 5 min or more to warm up, so I wanted a long warmup on race day. Shortly after the cannon fired for the pro’s race, E and I were wading into the water, discussing exit strategy as we avoided the rocks and headed to the sandy section right in the middle of the starting area. A good hard effort straight out towards the fist buoy, and another push back towards the start line, and I was ready to find my position. I settled in right in the middle, where the water line was just at my armpits if I stood on my tippy-toes, straight shot at the first buoys, and with a bunch of fast looking men. And then we waited. And waited. I got chilly. Then chillier. They sang the national anthem (much prettier than ours, and I am picking up some of the words after multiple years, but not the French verse they swapped in this year) and FINALLY the cannon fired.

The start, we are probably at the right side in this picture where it starts to get deep, but that was actually the middle of the field.

Swimming out toward the western bluffs right after the start. The buoys in the back are the return course.

It was, by far, my best starting spot yet at Ironman Canada as I was around some faster folks but the crowd was thinner than last year when we went way to the left. The swim was pretty physical, but nothing scary. People were bumping my legs and feet and hips, but my arms and head were pretty much untouched. After the first start (maybe 50 m in) it got a little congested and people were swimming over people, but much less so than at IM AZ in April. I found feet pretty easily and was able to move through packs as needed to get away from any excessive congestion.

At the first house-boat turn I saw my first scuba diver. They always say that there will be safety support from below for these bigger races, but I have never seen one of them before. At this point, though, you have almost swum up to the shore, and with the lake water being so clear, even in 20 feet of water or so, it was like looking that diver straight in the face. There are two turns in this swim, it is like a big triangle, and the distance between the two turns is the shortest leg, only 400 m or so. After the second turn, it got much rougher for me in terms of contact. And the strangest thing started to happen, the taps to my feet from drafters and nearby swimmers started to make my right hip flexor really sore. I was using a lot of my core musculature to get my feet back up to the surface of the water and renew my optimal body position each time they got tapped. I soon swung away from the buoys (I was nearly in line with them most of the swim to this point) and swam more by myself. I also think I may have slowed down a little bit here as I started to get scared that my day might be done if the hip seized up. Long and steady, I continued my progress toward the beach, trying to reach with each pull to get the hip stretched out. Before I knew it I saw the small, sharp, painful rocks come into view and I knew I needed to keep swimming right over these until I saw sand, then stand and run up from the water to the wetsuit strippers (as an aside, my mom wants to volunteer next year and her dream volunteer job would be as a stripper…..). Official swim time was 1:03:35. If I am able to knock off another 5 minutes, I think I will be in a much better position to draft and relax, less full-contact swimming. Something to shoot for!

In and out through the tent at T1 (nearly forgot my chamois butter, and was adding that on the way to the exit). I also stopped briefly at the bike since I forgot to turn the Garmin on before this and I wanted it to find its satellites, so I stood there and put on my watch and helmet, then ran to the exit with my fast, new bike (Luci, since some of you have asked what the name would be). Total was 4:15.

The bike started well and before I knew it 30 min were gone and we were passing the first aid station at the top of the McClain Creek Road hill. I had been sipping on my front bottle of Gookinade (now they are calling it vitalyte) but decided it was time to take some gel from my gel flask since my goal was to use the beeper on my watch to take in fluids every 15 min (or more frequently) and food every 30 minutes. Nothing came out of the gel flask. I started to suck on the thing, still no luck. I took the top off, took a swig of gel, added some drink to try and thin it out a bit, put the top back on, still no luck. There were 5 gels in this thing, it was most of my calories until special needs…. Eeek! Over the course of the next 3-4 hours, I got most of the gel out of there, (and some on my bike and arm) but I was forced to resort to a “milking” action and lots of patience. Who knew that fuel belt makes bottle tops with the same sized screw-top but different sized tip openings for gel or for drink?

Covering the road to Osoyoos went well. There was a headwind, but that helped keep the speed in check (it is easy to take this part too hard and blow the rest of the race). I did not see too much drafting or packs, and rode much of this by myself intermixed by small sections where I found someone whom I was able to legally use for pacing and mental stimulation. Richter Pass went smoothly (more rolling and less of a straight climb than I remembered), the descent went smoothly, and then on to the rollers. Through this section, I got caught up with a few other racers, mostly men, who were slower than me down the hills but stronger climbing, so we yo-yoed back and forth a bit. As we approached Kereemos, our friend Jim, from Wisconsin, passed me. This surprised me since he usually passes me much earlier and I figured I missed him somewhere when I hadn’t seen him yet. We ended up being back and forth on both the out and backs before I lost him after the special needs pick up. I also saw E in here for the first time. Last year he passed me going up Richter Pass, so this was at least 20 miles later…..I was having a good day!

Then we turned away from Kereemos and started the climb up to Yellow Lake. This is my favorite part of the bike course, and it did not disappoint. I stayed aero as much as possible and kept strong and steady, spinning along at the effort I wanted, and I started to steadily pass people. I saw Jim again and hit the lake feeling good and strong. The hill doesn’t end there, despite what it feels like based on the crowd support right before the lake appears. The last bit of the climb was also smooth, but I cooled it a bit to eat a little. The descent was a bit sketchy this year. I know part of it was the strong crosswinds through the curves, but part was also the new bikes and new wheels, we still need more hours on these fast machines to be fully comfortable with how they handle at higher speeds. All this really means is that I sat up on my hoods a bit through some of the turns, and was mad at myself for “chickening out.”

The drop down into town on the hiway went well. It was fast and felt good. I stretched my legs out a bit and got in a few more calories. My stomach was already feeling a bit gassy. Finished in a strong 5:46:59, which is my best bike split yet (albeit some of my Ironman bike splits have been hindered by a flat and leg cramps). In retrospect, this year’s race has helped shape my goals going forward and I now think a 5:20-5:35 for this course is something to aim for or aim past for me.

End of the bike

T2 was fast and flawless in 2:37. I actually sat on the grass in the tent, dumped my bag, grabbed my number, visor, bottle with powdered gookinade, swapped shoes, and was out of there. All of my “maybe” items were inside another bag that I never opened, since I knew I didn’t need them.

Same corner, start of the run.

The run started out slow and sloshy. My stomach and GI tract were not happy campers, but I found a steady rhythm and started ticking off the miles. At times I felt more like I was plodding than I was running. I heard my parents on this first corner, where they took the picture, then saw Sunny right before mile 2. She wanted a picture but was too busy spectating and almost missed me. She ended up sprinting ~ ½ a block in sandals to get a shot of me hobbling along. I made 2 stops at the porta potties (mile 3 and mile 6 in case you care, then things got a bit better).

This is what running with an upset stomach looks like.

Once through town, you run along the shore of Skaha Lake. There was a fierce wind blowing up from the South off of the lake, so it was tough going (headwind). Finally, near the turnaround, things started to feel better and I was able to run more. I saw E in here, and he passed me a bit later. I kept him in sight for a while before he kicked it up with 6 miles to go. I still had a few small bouts of upset stomach that had me plodding again throughout that section by the lake (these seemed to coincide with any food I took in, but I was still taking gels every 30-45 minutes, which I think was a good thing, in the end), but I was able to pick it up overall (I think a big help was the two nuun tablets I used in my drink bottle. I drank it kinda fizzy still and that got the stomach settled, similar to alka seltzer). With ~4 miles to go, you hit town again, and we also hit rain. It was raining lightly at the runaround, but had then stopped. As had the wind (i.e. we had a headwind out but no tailwind back). My lower legs and feet had started to hurt and I was looking forward to ending my day.

I was also a little sad since the run was too much shuffle for what I had been targeting, I really wanted to run 8:00-8:30 minute miles, but that was not what the body was able to do on this day. The legs were ready, the heart and lungs were ready, the stomach, not so ready.

E (top) and me (bottom) near the finish.

After seeing my parents near the finish area turnaround, I kicked it in and passed a few more racers for a good finish. Run time was 4:00:25, and I ran a negative split at 2:04:53 on the way out and 1:55:32 on the way back. Afterwards I decided should be able to target running under 3:50 here, and that 3:40 or better would be ideal.

Afterwards I headed straight for massage. The back of my left knee had started to tighten during the bike, the right hip flexor was still a tad sore from the swim, and overall leg soreness was present. The next day, my core was so sore. Hurt to laugh, cough, etc, all through the ribs and abs. A walk in the lake, water at mid chest, helped. The lake was still cold.

Us. Afterwards.

This year I met a long-standing goal of mine to break 11 hours. I am happy….. but not satisfied. The bar has been raised and I am ready to go even faster. Unfortunately, I did not sit down and reflect on my race goals from a time-based perspective before the race, so I ended up a little disappointed, unexpectedly. To save time in the future, I think I should state some time-based goals now to at least have as a starting point next year, when we are doing this all over again.

A big “Thanks” to Sunny and my parents for awesome spectating, eating of mini donuts, being agreeable with swapping Theo’s (greek food) for Japanese, standing in the rain, and getting up for breakfast. Based on the photos on my camera, it looks like mom and dad enjoyed their own bike ride up to the vineyards towards Naramantha while we were out there setting the Penticton roads on fire. In the end, good times were had by all!

Official A&E supporter.

The day after.

My parents the day before the race, getting out of the chilly lake.