Success, Snatched From The Jaws Of Disaster
Posted by admin on August 25, 2008Ironman Canada is in the books.
The Swim…
I nailed the swim. 1:40, which is 10 minutes faster than the 1:50 I was expecting. I’m pleased with that, for not having trained for the swim.
The bike…
The bike was another story. The two major hills were non-events. They were slow, steady grinds. What *WAS* an event were the rollers, and the wind… The wind was brutal. The bike took me about two hours longer than I expected it to. The big story was my gut.
One of the problems with ultra endurance athletics is processing food. You have to eat in order to go for 18 hours straight, and when your stomach shuts down for one reason or another you CAN’T go for 18 hours straight. Thus, we have a problem that wouldn’t be solved till the mid point on the run.
The second problem was hydration. Mid way through the bike I realized that the water bottle of water, with endurance tabs taken as well, wasn’t enough fluids. I went to the bathroom and my urine was dark yellow. A very, very bad sign. There is a saying at Ironman: “If you get dehydrated on the bike you will NOT be able to make up for that, hydrating on the run”. So I started to consume twice as many salt tabs, and twice as much fluids. I think by the end I was up to tripple the salt tabs, but once in the run my urine was clear, and that means I was fully hydrated. I had avoided a potentially very dangerous, and certainly race ending, condition.
The run…
Wow. Just… Wow. The only thing that we didn’t have on the run was snow. Well, we didn’t have any serious wind, either. The wind dies down here at night. It was a long, rainy, grind. The run is a one loop out-and-back, which psychologically works for me. The way out my Garmin 305 was working ok, even though it was filling with water from the rain, but at about the 9 mile mark it simply said “Low batteries” and quit. This was a huge blow to my race psychology.
There are two things I use the Garmin for. The first is tracking the distance. Even the distance between mile markers has me guessing, and the Garmin eases this anxiety. I also have it programmed so it beeps in a 4min:1min pattern, so I run for four minutes and walk for one. This allows me to run faster (and farther) on the 4, and allows my heart rate to recover during the walk. So now I didn’t have either of these tools. It’s raining, getting dark, and my feet have huge blisters on the bottom. Kind of demoralizing.
I got to the turnaround, 13.1 miles, got my “half way through the run” bag of supplies, and really dumped everything. I just didn’t feel like eating. Not to get too detailed, but my intestines didn’t start working again, after processing nothing on the bike, until just about the time my GPS shut down. But they DID start working again, and I did feel a lot better, but much more importantly, I was very hydrated through the entire run. Chicken soup (yes, they serve chicken soup in small cups), water, gatoraid… I got my Ironman hydration down. Now I just have to work on solid food!
The second half the run was a long walk punctuated by fartlich running. The bulk of it was done in near total darkness. I could see runners ahead of me because of their light sticks, and I never looked behind me. Actually, the light sticks were kind of funny- At one point an official truck pulls up beside the group of runners (walkers) I was with, and says “Ok, everyone gets one!” and started handing out these light tubes- They are light sticks but long and thin so you can bend them in a circle. The guy in the truck bend all of them into a circle, connected at the ends, and hands each of us a circle of light. I went to pull my “circle” over my head around my neck, but it wouldn’t fit, but it did sit nicely on my head! I thought “Hey, I’ve got a halo! This means I’m good, right!? And I look cool and different with my new, fancy, halo!” Then I realized everyone else had done the same thing, and that I only looked like everyone else- Ragged, sloppy, wet, and dorky.
“I’ll run to that light pole.” I said. I started running to one light pole, then walking to the next. This is called “fartlich” (I think that’s how it’s spelled) and it’s actually a pretty good technique for getting to the line. I was doing pretty good, feeling ok, and generally getting happy with myself and my pace when the guy in the truck showed up again (I had dropped the walkers I was with).
“Hey buddy, how ya feelin, eh?”
“Fine.” I replied.
“Ok, well, uh, so, you need to pick it up a little.”
“What? I should have plenty of time, and I’m going at a good pace…”
“Well, yea, you should make it with a few minutes to spare, but you can’t slow down, eh? You’ll make it, but don’t slow down. You’ve got seven miles to go and two hours. If you keep this pace you’ll make it, but if you slow down you are going to be in trouble.”
“I won’t slow down.”
“Excellent, eh!” (Did I mention everyone here is Canadain?)
At the finish, one of my oldest friends, Trenton Slade, crossed the line with me. We haven’t talked in maybe twenty years, after going to high school together, but I now remember how much our friendship meant, and he was amazing, waiting up until midnight with me in the pouring rain. A true friend.
Ironman Canada is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Harder than Death Ride, in California. But I finished, I snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, and I have to tell you I’m going to frame this finisher’s medal…