.....I was concerned about my cramped hamstring but it really was more of just a small twitch. I have cramped during other ultra events but still recovered and had a good race so I wasn't too panicked at this point.
My T1 times are generally slow and this one was no different. I received help from a volunteer who dumped out my bag. I slipped on a pair of padded bike shorts over my tri shorts. I had vasaline that I was going to use to totally cover my feet (Kristin told me that Patty S. gave her that advice) but I decided not to since I was using SOS brand socks which give me no blister problems at all. I usually don't blister during road marathons anyway. I decided not to put arm warmers in my bag since I thought it would be a warm day, even though the start of the bike might be chilly. I got sunscreen on my arms but not my legs and briskly walked to my bike. It wasn't all by itself but I was able to find it anyway. : ) I mounted the bike and started out slowly.
Starting slow in a tri, especially an IM, is tough because the crowd is always cheering you on telling you to go faster. That's great for them since they don't have to cover 138 miles of ground but spinning my legs too fast after a cold water swim can lead to cramps. Did I mention I was nervous about cramping? The bike to run transition gets all the glory, but the swim to bike is tough too. Fortunately my legs were not too cold (no goose bumps) and the weather looked great.
I started thinking about my nutrition and a great e-mail that Dr Spencer sent out to RTB IM athletes a couple weeks ago:
*start out slow and race in a bubble, not being concerned if other athletes are passing you in the early miles and not being concerned where your friends are. Ride your own ride.
*Don't eat gels or sports drink for 30 minutes after the swim, water only. Then stick to your nutrition plan.
Ah yes, pacing and the nutrition plan. The bike sets up the run so I knew that if I failed on pacing or nutrition during the bike I would have a painful 26.2 mile walk ahead of me. The out and back to Higgins Point is so crowded that I was riding slow whether I wanted to or not. That is a mixed blessing. I had to hold back, but I didn't want to draft and the insane number of bikes made the ride dangerous. As I was getting close to a slower rider in front of me I started to wonder how slow I could ride the first loop, or entire 112 miles and still achieve my target time for the day. That is the burning question in long distance triathlon. How much do you hold back on the bike? If I hold back and then have a great run, then I will have a great day. If I hold back but then still blow up during the run, then I'll be angry that I didn't ride faster. I had more immediate concerns however: the draft marshal was now next to me "Three bike lengths!" the lady shouted. I waved my hand and nodded. She caught me fair but there were so many of us I felt like it was impossible to get much room. Five miles into my bike ride and I already have a drafting warning. Oops. The only thing more crowded than the first five miles of an IM bike leg is the first 1.2 miles of an IM swim. Perhaps I shouldn't admit this but this would not be the only infraction that I, or people around me, committed throughout the day.
This year I was using more liquid nutrition, with almost no water, just sports drink, and taking a concentrated salt tablet every hour. I did have half a PB and J sandwich and some Fig Newtons (thank you Fig Newtons, they are perfect cycling food!) this year but it was much less than in the past and I ate nearly all of my solid food in the first half of the ride then switched to sports drink and gel. In 2005 I ate PB and J sandwichs and water almost exclusively and that was too much solids. The stomach pain during the run was horrible. I later found out about a medical condition known as "intestinal angina" which is just as unpleasant as it sounds. Basically solid food can't be digested easily when you are bent at the waist on your bike, so it just sits in your stomach. My lack of salt intake might have also contributed to digestive problems. At the time this confused me because solid food worked well during training rides and half IM events. I learned the lesson that the IM triathlon is a whole new beast and what works during training and shorter events does not always work during IM.
I was wearing two watches this year and no HR monitor. One was a countdown timer set at 20 minutes and the other was just showing the time of day. I wanted to eat or drink something every 20 minutes. Since the race started at 7am I could figure my approximate race time from the time of day. At least during the bike I could. It was likely that during the run I would become too dazed and confused to do any math but I would deal with that later.
Once back into town I really enjoyed the crowds. They always make IM special and this year RTB had a huge cheering section spread out in different areas. They really are a boost when you need it.
When I reached the hills in Hyden I thanked myself, and Benny, for selecting a compact front crankset. I was spinning up the hills and even on the flats my cadence was much quicker than it would have been with my old gears. The effort was feeling easy yet I was sure that I was moving at a good pace. I didn't know exactly what my speed was since I was riding with no odometer or speedometer. Just me, my bike, and my two 20 dollar Timex watches. Yes, one was an ironman watch and the other was an expedition complete with a compass for navigation (which thankfully I didn't need!).
Many athletes claim that this bike course is tougher than the old one. Nonsense. Upriver Dr. and Riverview Dr. (I think I have those names correct), both of which were 8% grade and more than a half mile long, are gone from the course. Yes, the current course has lots of rollers but so did the old course. On Memorial Day weekend Heather said that this course is like riding out to Enumclaw from Kent Easthill. I agree. It's a mixed course and that makes it really fun.
Half way through the first loop I approached a corner that was really crowded with bike traffic. All the riders sat up, slowed way down, and took the corner wide. I'm not sure why but I got on the drops of my road bike and instead of following the crowd, I turned sharply near the cones and accelerated out of the turn passing the entire group. Oh how much fun that was! From that point on, the corners, and uphills to a lesser extent, was when I would make a pass. You always have a advantage over the other athletes near you, you just need to figure out what that advantage is. Maybe you train on the course everyday. Maybe you ride longer, steeper hills than what is on this course. Or maybe you ride a road racing bike that corners better than a time trial bike. The corners would be my advantage. Thank you race orgainizers for sweeping gravel from the road as turns and gravel are not a good combination.... I also saw people up out of their aero bars on English Point RD and other twisty technical sections. I decided that if the road was slightly downhill and technical, why not get on the drops and ride aggressive to make up time on the other riders?
I generally pass people on the uphills and his race was no different. Many of them passed me going back down the hills but I clearly was moving up in the field. The people that I rode the first loop with were nowhere to be found on the second loop. I know a few of the them were ahead but most had dropped back. I suspect that I rode the second loop the same pace as my first loop (perhaps even faster). I really was feeling good although I did have to increase my effort near mile 90.
The crowded bike course gave the event more of a road race feel to it, and that has it's positives and negatives. While I enjoyed passing large number of cyclists on the turns and technical roads, I also saw a lot of rule violations. Passing on the right side because a rider was in the middle of the lane blocking. Passing on the yellow line because two riders were riding in the middle of the lane blocking. I passed in between two riders at one point since I didn't want to go over the yellow line. Another time I had one rider blocking the middle of the lane and then another rider in front of him that was riding properly on the right side. I should have just gone around both at once or yelled at the guy blocking to get out of the way but...I decided to pass the first rider on the right, then squeeze in between both of them passing the next rider on the left. That's a good way to get road rash but it worked this time. I remember two years ago when I was riding in the non timed Mt Shasta Summit Century ride, a woman on a road bike passed me on the right on the shoulder of the road in the gravel. And she did it very well, I might add. Thankfully I didn't see any of that at IM.
And speaking of people doing things well, the volunteers did a great job. I only missed a gel once and that was my fault. I also sprayed a kid with Gatoraide. One of the stations had a soccer net set up with a target taped to the top crossbar. So I flung my half full yet still open bottle of Gatoraide at it. I missed the target but drenched the young volunteer with sticky sports drink.
'Where is Bill Swedberg?', I started wondering. I was hoping to catch up to him but he rides a bike quite well and makes it a habit to zip past me on the downhills and then maintain that led on the flats. I vividly remember him putting the hammer down on Government Way during our Memorial Day ride. All I could do was turn to the rider next to me and moan about how "he said he was going to take it easy going back into town!" Still I didn't see him at the start of the race, but I did see Patty. Certainly she would have said something if he wasn’t racing.
The last ten miles I decided to allow some people to pass me and start stretching some muscles. I had only gotten out of the saddle two or three times all ride. I knew that I had achieved my goal time for the bike ride. Actually I was quite sure that I rode faster than planned, but I looked at my watch and was unable to do the math to figure out exactly what my time was. : )
I pulled into T2 feeling very fresh. I grabbed a cup of water from Kelvin, who was volunteering. Another volunteer helped me with my bag. He looked at the orange hand cleaner that I had packed. "I dropped my chain out there and that works great to clean hands with," I explained. As I headed out of the tent I stopped to get sunscreen put on my legs. I chatted with the volunteers as my family started jeering me to get going. I heard Isaiah yell "quit talking and start running". Yes, I love my family and when they get older the kids will understand the importance of a fast transition.
I took a few shuffling steps across the timing mat and already I knew that this marathon would be much different than two years ago.
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