LP race report

[tim_sleepless]

I’d better rattle this off before it gets too late, and i get in trouble with Ben and Lesley….


RACE WEEK

Relax. Did a 2 hour final race simulaion round all the tricky bits of the course on the Monday which was pretty much perfect in terms of power levels. Did most of my short easy bike rides down and back up the Wilmington hill, so that I was used to just spinning up it, and “owned it” mentally. My folks arrive from the UK on Wednesday which was great, to be indoctrinated into the Ironman mystique by watching the Kona 2006 DVD, and have a number of attempts to go walking thwarted by rain. Lady Sleepless and her family arrived on Saturday evening, by which time everything was pretty relaxed, with just time enough to try and explain the course, and ideal spectator spots, before a final layout of the equipment and bedtime.


RACE MORNING

Sleep soundly (ZMA is a wonderful, wonderful supplement). Up at 4.30. I think NRG’s official guidance had me getting up at 4.00, or maybe 3.30, so definitely saved some time here.

Had my first caffeine all week. Heaven. Two bowls of muesli, bagel and jam. Coffee. Cliff bar. More coffee. Twiddle fingers. More coffee. Get bored, so head off with Lady Sleepless towards transition.

Worry that there may have been a natural disaster nearby as come across long line of skinny apparent refugees struggling to carry huge plastic bags of belongings. Realise that they are in fact triathletes with their special needs bags -- very special needs. Drop off own pitiful bundle containing in total: one inner tube; 2 CO2 catridges, some duct tape; painkillers (non NSAID); and some salt tablets. Add a couple of pebbles to bag to make so that it doesn’t feel too intimidated by all the bigger bags.

Reach transition. Leave Lady Sleepless with JohnVanN. Drop off final very important things into run transition bags: water bottles and cooling vest and hat.. Say hi and good luck to a few people I bump into – Jenn, Ian, Nick etc… Think how stress free today is so far. Walk over to bike, noticing many bikes without power meters, and think how tricky it must be to pace effectively without one.

Sprint out of transition to Lady Sleepless, who is given very very important job of recovering my powermeter’s display unit from our house, where it is still plugged into the charger.

Go back to transition. Pump up tires, put opened cliffbars and tictac box containing salt tablets into bento box.

Go back to Lady Sleepless who is not managing to get anyone in house to answer phone.

Hang around. Bump into Andrew H, who wishes me luck.

Put on new rental super-duper wetsuit. Am careful not to pull as hard as I did on my own suit the day before to avoid any further embarrassing ripping sounds.

Say goodbye to Lady Sleepless. Arrange secret meeting point for handover after swim of powermeter head unit on way to transition area.

Go across timing mat. Have gel. Get in water. Hang around. Not feeling very nervous, which is good.

Barf up mouthful of muesli and coffee into water. Have gel, and swim around for a bit. Stroke and new wetsuit feels good.

Remember YouTube video of chaos of start next to cable. Use Pythagoras’s theorem to calculate that if I start 100m to the right of the cable and swim directly to the turnaround point it will only be 5.2487m longer. Go 100m to right of cable. Manager of Placid Pub and Brewery suggests that I’d probably find it quicker to start in the water.

Find new spot on edge of lake, about 3 or 4 rows from back. Relax floating on back. Friendly chap asks me how long I think I’m going to take. “somewhere around 11 hours, I guess” I say, being sensible. “Wow! that seems like a long time for the swim, but good luck.. I guess I should start nearer the front” he says before swimming off…

Look suitably respectful for national anthem.

Mike O Reilly and helicopters whirl around bringing crowd to state of feverish excitement.


SWIM

Gun goes off. Focus on swimming smoothly, drafting, and not getting drawn towards cable. Make good progress, with just the odd bump. Think that swim isn’t all that bad. Get kicked in face.

Turnaround is a little tricky, but manageable. Swimming still going well… a bit of bilateral breathing going on… focus on lengthening stroke, with a nice smooooth rotation. Kicked in face again.

A bit chaotic as hit shore, as we all swim into the back of whoever’s in front of us. Not kicked in face which is nice.

Check watch to see how I’m doing against 37-40min target. 32mins says watch. Back in water, get over-excited doing revised calculations resulting in a certain Kona spot. Kicked in face again.

Finally reach cable, put head down and focus on early vertical forearm. Swim into buoy.

Rest of swim goes well… manage to draft most of the way off various people… Out of water in 1.07ish….. Way, way better than planned. Notice that it’s started to rain.


TRANSITION

Wetsuit off quickly, run towards transition looking for Lady Sleepless with powermeter. See her next to race official, so decide to take powermeter under subterfuge of kiss. Grab powermeter and go to give kiss. Miss in excitement and bang her nose with my forehead.

Grab transition bag, and quickly change into cycling gear, fill pockets with food etc, sprint out of transition tent, put powermeter on bike and calibrate and am on my way in about 3.30mins. At some point pass through space time vortex which robs me of remaining 5 minutes of official transition time.


BIKE

Start steadily.. 170W out of town, keep it under 240W on the steep hill, and 210-220W on the steadier ascents. Passed by heaps of people seemingly on target for sub-5 hour bike legs -- who'll see later. Barf up my Cytomax. Whatever.

Take it steady on descent to Keene, although am passing lots of folks.

Make good time on flat section to Jay… well over 40kph at about 200W, then take it easy up the steep hill towards Wilmington, as a host of people overtake me, out of the saddle, legs pumping furiously. Strange behaviour.

Power back past them all into Wilmington, before turning into the out and back. Coming the other way are firstly the pros, then larger and larger packs of cyclists…. Huge huge packs of 20 at a time. Ah well. Careful not to overcook it along here, as I’ve suffered on the way back a few times on the way back on my training rides. See Paula…wasn’t expecting to see her until the run. Wave furiously. On the way back on the out and back, it’s a bit of a draftfest. Passed by a few groups, but focus on keeping going at my own pace.

Careful not to push it too hard on the long way back to LP… again about 210-220W on the steadier ascents and 240W on the steeper ones, and really relax on the final steep hills… hills are for eating and drinking on. See my support crew at various points on the road into town, looking soggy. Get a bit teary.

First lap complete in 2.47….average wattage of 187W… well under the 195W lap 1 target…. Mind starts to again whirr through wildly optimistic calculations of potential finishing times, and Kona trips.

It’s really bucketing it down now. Taking down the salt tabs is becoming a bit of a challenge as they’re beginning to stick together in the tictac box, and some kind of cliffbar porridge is beginning to slosh about in my bento box. Try to push it about 10W harder on lap 2, and am a bit more adventurous on the descent to Keene. Most of the way to Jay this time is also spent quandrying over wether or not to pee on the bike. Wimp out, and eventually stop for the best, but probably longest pee of my life.

The out and back is a bit more exciting this time… there’s 2” deep puddles to be avoided, combined with mad convoys of ATVs coming flying down the middle of the road… apparently they were bike repair people, but I can’t believe they didn’t hit a couple of people. On the way back I find myself catching up with a big pack, riding 2-3 abreast, helpfully passing down group ride signals to each other. After carefully considering whether I fancy fighting my way past them, I instead position myself the legal distance off the back of this group, and take it easy, and save myself a good 60-70W on the way back to Wilmington.

From Wilmington I’m feeling great…. And am churning through the field… the thought of another pee in Lake Placid is really driving me on. I allow myself a celebratory 260W over the last couple of hills, wave to my folks, a big thumbs up to Debbie NRG, and I’m in transition for my new best pee ever.

Second lap: 2.54.. total bike.. 5.41.. power about the same overall as lap.


RUN - LAP 1

Put on running shorts and fuel belt… decide that I can probably do with out my cooling vest. Dash out of transition. Stop to reactivate polar footpod. Notice that shorts are on inside out. Start to worry about looking silly in finishing photo, but fortunately realize that my clothes are way too wet and bedraggled for it to be noticeable, so decide not to worry about it.

Feel great, and have trouble settling at a steady pace and its up and down so the footpod is hard to gauge steady pace off. Go through first miles in 7.05, 7.07, 7.20, and 7.20 as opposed to the target of 8.00. Opps. Still, am nice and comfortable at top of z2, so feel fine, and although I’m passing people, I’m not exactly going that much faster than everyone else. A passed runner tells me that my shorts are inside out.

Start seeing pros coming the other way. Many of them not looking great. New fashion appears to be some kind of fluorescent tape vertically from the shin to thigh. Mens leader is looking strong. Hillary Biscay is not looking good.

Get a wave from Jody of NRG, and give a friendly wave to the friendly Cameron fellow I’d met on Friday night. He ignores me. Give Fiona a cheer too. Jokingly ask for beer and sunscreen at the next aid station. Even take a sponge off a small child who’d got the short straw of giving out sponges on a day when no one wanted sponges. See Paula and Nick coming the other way… cheers and high fives. Life was good.

I’ve slowed, but it’s to a sensible pace…7.40s… pretty much my everyday easy run pace. I’m having a little bit of trouble getting my carbs down, but nothing too bad. Back into town… see the folks again, round the turnaround, to see Cindy from Absolute Endurance not far behind. First lap 1.40. Nice… More calculations of improbable finishing times.




RUN - LAP 2

In all honesty I don’t remember much of the second lap. Recreating things from the black box footpod recorder (I appeared to stop taking laptimes) shows me slowing pretty steadily down to 6 minute ks… I remember another cheery wave from Paula, passing a shivering Desree Flicker being offered spare clothing by a variety of middle aged men (her, not me), being passed by a few people I remembered from the first lap, and another great pee stop that also gave me an opportunity to put my shorts on the right way. Somehow I managed to convince myself that each milestone was a huge step along the road to the finish, and somehow I managed not to walk up the first steep hill on the way back into town. On the second hill, I did walk once I realized that it was just as quick as running and a lot less painful, but Kevin caught me and gave me an appropriate kick up the backside, as did Deb NRG a little bit further up the hill. And once you’re at the top of that hill it’s down all the way…. For a second lap of 2.02…

... to finish in 10.44… pretty much bang on target... although at that point I’d kind of lost track of where I was timewise… still, it’s always nice to have a surprise at the finish line.


POST RACE

I had some pizza and soup and sort of managed to warm-up, then it was time to hug the very wet family, before they ran off back indoors. I was way too knackered to make the trip just yet, so headed for the American Legion to warm-up with coffee under Ben’s watchful eye, while Lady Sleepless ran off to get warm clothes.

And that my friends was that. The end of a long journey, and a wonderful day. Lots to improve on for the next time, whenever that maybe.


Thanks are due to many...

To my Dad and his wife for making the long trip over from the UK, to see me in some crazy triathlon-thingy
To all of Lady Sleepless' family who took the week off to cheer me on
To all of you who made the trip down there and were cheering us on
To Nigel for getting me in great shape, and putting up with countless geeky debates about TSS and the like.
To Murray for getting my swimming half way decent
To Mark and all the rest of my colleagues for putting up with me spaced out on Monday mornings after hard training weekends, or sneeking off on a winter afternoon when the temperature was above zero.
To Homey and Maverick on Attackpoint.org for all the positive comments on my training and racing


But mostly to Lady Sleepless, my wonderful wife Jillian, who put up with this incredibly self-centred endeavour, who picked me up uncomplaining from a many an aborted ride due to weather or exhaustion or mechanical mishap, and basically made it all possible..! I Thank you.

[Quads]

Super report, very inspirational for next year. Gulp.

Great race!
Cheers,
Elly

[LesleyT]

Well done, Tim! What a great race and a very entertaining report! Congrats!

[trosen]

Impressive racing! Great report! Very useful info re: bike power (explains what I need to do to be faster) and putting on shorts the right way.

Ted

[pvannostrand]

Brilliantly written Tim! I feel like I was right there...wait a minute I was there
I do remember seeing Gillian as I was heading to the beach...she was very anxious that she had your power meter and wondered how she was going to get it to you....we have to love our spouses, better halfs, family and friends for all the running around, being at our beckon call, generally put up with our anal retentiveness and obsessiveness....they all deserve a medal.
Awesome race Tim! you looked incredibly strong and fast every time I spotted you. Congrats again!
p.s I still owe you for the relay..when are you racing next? Are you doing Orillia?
p

[tim_sleepless]

Impressive racing! Great report! Very useful info re: bike power (explains what I need to do to be faster) and putting on shorts the right way.

Ted

If you really want to get into it (the power bit that is)... I've built a very geeky spreadsheet model that calculates the optimum power profile for any given rider on the LP course..

If you fancy a play, PM me with your email address and i'll send it over. Be warned though.. it's very very geeky.

[tim_sleepless]

Brilliantly written Tim! I feel like I was right there...wait a minute I was there
I do remember seeing Gillian as I was heading to the beach...she was very anxious that she had your power meter and wondered how she was going to get it to you....we have to love our spouses, better halfs, family and friends for all the running around, being at our beckon call, generally put up with our anal retentiveness and obsessiveness....they all deserve a medal.
Awesome race Tim! you looked incredibly strong and fast every time I spotted you. Congrats again!
p.s I still owe you for the relay..when are you racing next? Are you doing Orillia?
p

Cheers Paula... and thanks for all the encouraging shouts during the race..

I'm not sure race-wise... it depends a little on whatever Jillian wants to do.. I think I'll be at Toronto Island dog-holding, and probably racing at Guelph. No rush... just buy me many beers sometime.