long term race prep
I had signed up for this race way back in August when I was still completely out of shape from my 1.5 years of post-swimming retirement; mainly I signed up for it because I had gotten kinda fat and needed a new hobby. The full ironman would hopefully be the incentive I needed to make it stick; the only non-sold out races in the 2 months after graduation, though, were Houston, Idaho, and Germany. I signed up for Germany because I was afraid of the Houston heat and I wanted some awesome post race sight seeing. Over the next 9 months I was slowly getting back in shape, but having never run more than 3 miles or so per week in my life, every tendon, ligament, bone, and muscle in both of my feet, knees, shins, and hips were injured at some point during my training. I think I went a good 4 months straight with some injury of some form. I never really cut down on my training from them though because it was never the same injury, a new one just popped up as the previous one healed. So that was fun. After about six months, though, I had switched to Newtons which improved my run form, and was able to run 15-20 miles per week without any real problems. I never did get up to my long runs, though. The longest I ever did was 13 miles, but the longest I ever did in my Newtons (which put tons of stress on my achilles) was 9. I knew this would be a bad idea, but I figured it was better to overuse them during the race and have a miserable recovery than to overuse them in training and have to take time off before the race, or even miss the race entirely. I just planned on using the swim and bike workouts to give me a good enough cardio base to get through the run. For the bike, I trained fairly well. I had never really ridden a bike before so I was starting from absolute scratch. I got a trainer (turns your bike into a stationary bike) and just did work through the winter; by the time March rolled around, I was pretty much ready to go on that; I had done about 6-8 hours per week on the bike for the last few months. The one thing I never trained was massive hills. You can't do them in Houston, and the only real place in Atlanta is the gaps, but that's 90 minutes away so I only got around to it once. It definitely would've helped to do some more. But that's life. And for swimming, I got myself back down to training at about 1:10p scy, but I lost that during spring break and being sick. During May and June, though, I trained with my club team in Houston three-ish times per week at about 7000m per workout, and a main set of around 3000-4000 lcm at 1:20-1:25 intervals. I could never survive the whole set, but I wasn't too worried about it. Even at 1:20p I would be one of the first people out of the water. Another major help to my training over the last 9 months was joining the GT tri team. I got so much advise from them on everything about the sport, and the races we did were an awesome trial and error for me. Of the four races I did leading up to the ironman, only one went well; but that also meant that that's the only race I didn't learn anything from haha. There's alot of things I did right in this 12 hour race only because I learned the hard way by messing it up in a 1, 2, or 5 hour race. Much easier to suffer through. Plus it was awesome to not have to learn everything first hand by hearing things from other people on the team.
Germany race prep
With the race coming up, I got a bike box, figured out how to fit my bike into it, and flew to Munich. Me and my mom drove from Munich to Regensburg, about 90 minutes away, where the race would be three days later. The best part was that the GPS in the car was only in German (this was later confirmed by a German speaker when we asked him to switch it to English for us), that made for an interesting start. The first day though was fairly rough. I had jumped ahead 7 hours and lost my night because I can't sleep on a plane. For the entire day, all I wanted to do was sleep, but I knew if I acclimated slowly, I wouldn't be ready for the race. So I just stayed up until about 8pm and got the jet lag over with in one long day. During that day, though, I put my bike back together only to find out that TSA had 'randomly' selected my box for a search, opened it up, and then just closed it back up again however they felt like it. It's not like this is a $2000 piece of carbon fiber with tons of thin metal pieces that really on extreme precision. No, please, be as reckless as you want. By the time I got it back together, my back wheel wouldn't stop rubbing the break, my speed sensor (and therefore distance sensor) wouldn't turn on, my rear derailer was off by over a tenth of a gear, and my pedal creaked so bad I thought they were gonna break. I definitely just went to bed though because I did not want to deal with that.
Friday was packet pick up. It was the first time I got to see the Ironman village they had set up, and got to see a little of the finish area. They had all sorts of stores and retailers set up which was really cool, but when I saw all the barricades sitting in the parking lot it hit me how big this was going to be. Regensburg is a city of only 135,000 people, but the last two years they estimated well over 100,000 lining the run course. This is THE main event every year for this city. I was getting pretty excited. When I checked in I got my awesome swag bag and listened for an hr while some German guy tried to read us the info packet in English, so that was fun. But I was still pretty tired and feeling out of it, so I picked up some chain grease and the battery I needed for my sensor and just went to bed.
On Saturday my dad got into town, we found the swim start (the lake was 11 miles from the run start, so that was interesting), and then drove the bike course. Honestly, I didn't expect this course, nor was I ready for it. It looked so much easier on paper. After 6 miles of gently rolling hills (at this point I consider a 3% incline 'flat'), the mountain starts. On paper, it's said to be a 4% average climb. I later realized they factored in the downhill into that average. Basically you went up for a while, then down a bit, then up for a long time, then down a bit, then up for a long time, down a slight bit, then up for a lonnnnng time to the top. And I would have to do this on a bike. Twice. The view during that whole climb, though, was amazing. It was German farmland as far as you could see. The mountains weren't taller than the tree line, so everything was green, and there were tons of old villages you passed through which provided some good scenery as well.
Once you reach the top of the mountain, you have a pretty tricky decent. I was a little annoyed at the number of turns (the more turns, the more you brake, the more momentum you don't get to keep), including one extremely sharp turn at about a -12% gradient (during the race I smelled my breaks burning while I still couldn't slow down below 30 for the turn). Since I never climb, I obviously never descend either, so with this decent being so technical, I knew it wouldn't be in my favor either. But the next 30 miles just opened up. It was more or less flat (three more one mile climbs though, just for good measure), and the scenery was amazing. For alot of it, you left the main roads and rode through farm land. But it was German farm land, so it looked somehow more awesome. One of my favorite parts of this section were all the little ~15 house villages you went through. It felt like the race organizers went out of their way to include them in the route (the exact thing the Tour de France does), so I was expecting some warm receptions. It did slow down the course though because it got very technical through their one lane streets and 90 degree turns every other block, but it was pretty cool scenery.
But we made it back to the lake (mile 50.5) and decided that was it for the day. I checked my bike in, got the final tune up in, and went to bed.
race morning
I woke up at 4am (race starts at 7) to get some breakfast and head over to the lake. Sun up was around 4, so it already felt like it was 8 or 9 in the morning. Everything was fine with my bike, I taped on all my gels and loaded up my perpetuem bottle, and filled up my tires with the race's pumps (the organizers supplied T1 with over 200 tire pumps, which was convenient; they were measured in bars not psi; which was not convenient. It took me a minute to convert that to psi (it was 5am, not my fault)). There was one problem though. The only water they had was sparkling mineral water. Excuse me? I know this is Europe and y'all are crazy about your carbonation, but this is a freaking ironman. How do you not have uncarbonated water?! But don't worry, they had over 1000 bottles of mineral water. I figured it was better than nothing, so I filled up my last bottle with it and then drank the rest before the race. My bike placement was absolutely perfect though. There were five LONG rows, and I was 20 from the end of the second row (the third one was the opening to the bike course). When coming out of the water, I would get to run by 200 bikes on my row before getting to mine. But the absolute best part of my location: I was about 20 feet from Michael Raelert. The whole time I was setting up my station, he had at least three TV cameras on him and a long autograph line. I really like how he didn't shoo them away, he knowingly got there early enough to set up his stuff AND sign autographs so that he wouldn't have to turn people away to get ready in time (he's a two time world champion at 70.3 and was making his 140.6 debut). At about 6:30 I put on my wetsuit and walked down to the lake to do some warm up swim.
The lake was absolutely breath taking. Literally. It was so cold, I couldn't breath for about 5-6 seconds. They said it was 69, but it couldn't have be warmed than 66. I swam for about 10 minutes, felt good, and came back in to fight for a good starting spot. I felt that was more important than a few more minutes of warm up. Surprisingly, though, I just walked right up to the edge of the water, claimed an open spot, and that was that. I was a little off to the side, but still a fantastic starting point. With 1200 people starting on the same small beach I thought it would be crowded, but I guess about 1100 of them just stood back and let other people fight for the front.
swim - 50:36 (1:19/100m)
The gun went off, and that was it. I ran a few steps and made probably my best dive ever followed by a ~32 second 50m. I didn't make contact with a single person, not even a bump. I looked up and realized that everyone on my half was way behind me, and about 50 people who were on the better starting side were still even with me. I could not have asked for a better start. About two minutes in though, it hit me. I'm going to be uncomfortable for the next half of a day before I can just stop and sit down. That was a terrible thing to think about. At the first buoy turn (~800m), I figured I was in the lead group of about 20. It was pretty much half amateurs and half pros (the pros started at the same time, but 20m ahead so they could avoid the melee and position jockeying). I stayed with them for the next couple hundred, dropping another person every so often until we were really thinned out, all drafting in a straight line. This worked well for another 500m or so, until the guy in front of me decided to turn straight left, stop, and turn straight back right. I was so confused, but the next thing I know I've just been kicked directly in the eye (I wear unpadded goggles) and my entire face hurts so bad (edit: three days later, it's still bruised). It took me a second to figure out where I was and what happened, and then I decided to not swim in the line again. I stopped racing for the swim win for two reasons: I didn't want to take a chance of something like that taking me out of the race, and when I was treading water for a moment I saw three people WAYYYY ahead of us. So that was out of the question. For the next 2000m or so, I just swam a slightly longer route so I could keep up with the group but not deal with them. I lost my draft, too, but I wasn't worried about that. I eventually made it back to the exit and hopped out in 12th place, 6th amateur. The lead trio was at 45:00-45:10 (WHAT?! that's 1:11/100m pace), and then my group came out at 50:10-50:40. It was pretty awesome being one of the first people out because everyone was there cheering at the barricades and the announcers were yelling for you in specific. I made the turn into T1 for the LONG run to my bike.
T1 - 4:35
As I got to my bike, there was almost no one in T1. The first three had already left, so it was just the nine of us and we were entirely spread out. I happened to be the only one on my half of the area. This meant that I had an entire TV camera crew filming me from a few feet away; what an epic moment. Even though it took me a good 2:30 to put on my compression arm sleeves, they had no one else to film so the camera stayed on me. I wonder if my horrendous T1 time, given my position, made it to a blooper reel haha. I also ended up ripping the sleeves in a few places, but I was wet so I couldn't really expect too much. Another cool part was my back was to the spectator fence, and once I put on my race number, all of them knew my first name. Again, I was the only one there and had been taking my sweet time, so I had about 50 people URGENTLY trying to remind me to hurry up because this is a race. I don't think they realized how average of a triathlete I am despite my swim time. I wasn't really in a hurry, but the cheering was like no other race I've been in. I finally got all my stuff on and headed out to the course. The first half mile was packed with people lining the barricades and it was only 8am at this point.. I still hadn't gotten over how many people came to watch this race.
bike - 6:05:32 (18.36mph)
For the bike course, I wanted to just stay at my 75% heart rate zone, which on a perfectly flat course in full aero gear is a fraction over 20mph for 100+ miles. So I got into my pace for the first few miles and just got ready to get passed. There were probably 100 people who beat me by an hour on the bike, and I came out of the water ahead of almost all of them. I knew they would make me feel the worst, so I just had to ignore them as they flew by me at 25+ mph on their $12000 bikes. I knew if I tried to stay with them, I would drop out of the race after about 10 miles, tops. I did get some more serious TV time though when the top pro girl passed me with her full motor brigade and TV crew. She took forever to actually pass me so I was behind her on the camera for about a minute. And that was the last time I was of any relevance to the broadcast haha. About 6 miles in I was feeling good and starting the mountain.
The climb started off fairly gentle, I was above 10mph for a while, and there were a few spectators scattered across so that was fun to see. But then the slope increased to about 6%. I dropped down to my lowest gear (too quickly, actually, and it popped off my crank gear and I had to stop, put it back on, spin the wheel a bit, then get back on and start on a steep incline...what a n00b mistake) because I was trying to save as much energy as possible for the rest of the race, and I got up fairly well. After a few miles was the first of the mini down hills. It dropped off pretty quickly and shot you from the top of one village to the base of the next, about 3/4 of a mile away. And then the climb started again. This one had more village scenery and spectators so it went by fairly quickly, but at the top I was definitely starting to feel my lack of true climbing training.
The next downhill was really straight so I was actually able to do the first half mile of the third climb at over 30 mph (and get passed, don't worry). But then there was a turn, a cliff (up), and no more village. The road shot up to about 8% gradient for a quarter mile or so, and this was the steepest part. It was also the most fun, though, because there were about 100 people with tents, loud speakers, etc. They were throwing a huge party to get you up the climb. There was a timing mat at the "bottom" of the party, too, so the dj announced your name, and everyone was screaming it for the next minute while you rode through them. They also were acting like the fans you see in the Tour de France mountain stages where they stand in the middle of the road until you get right in front of them, then they part just enough to give you a few inches to pass by them. The whole time they're yelling at you, blowing their vuvuzelas at your face (not sure if I entirely liked that), waving their flags onto you (some were waving the flags like matadors and you just rode blind right through it). The only thing missing was the guy who runs with the cyclists in the devil costume. But once you get to the top of that climb, your adrenaline settles down because that just happened, and you assume that's the top. FALSE. You get a short, flat section, and then a 2.5 mile climb. This absolutely broke me. I forgot it existed and I was just ready to descend. I was still going slow enough to stay out of the red zone and have a good run, but mentally I was destroyed for a few miserable minutes of climbing. There weren't many spectators on this climb, but one stretch did have a 24 person drum line with everyone dressed in lederhosen, so that was awesome. But that was it for 15 minutes. Then you were done.
The first part of the descent was a NASTY -12-15% gradient with a 90 degree turn halfway down. I remembered it from the drive, so I was slamming on my breaks to not die. I took the turn at over 30mph and could smell my breaks, they were working so hard. From there on, it was smooth enough that a fully confident, capable, and experienced descender could reach about 60mph safely (lance could probably hit 70), but I'm none of those things. So the fastest I ever got was 46.1mph (in aero, meaning I didn't have my hands on the breaks and the mere act of moving to grab them would probably send me crashing), but that was definitely fast enough for me. The next 30 miles or so were pretty flat, and I quickly recovered from the climbing and cranked out these miles at about 20.5mph average without getting tired. I was feeling really good, and all the little villages you went out of your way to pass through did not disappoint. These little areas had about 10-15 homes and were about 6-8 miles apart each time, but on the race course they somehow each supplied well over 100 people to cheer you on, a lot of them with huge sound systems; it was awesome. It's exactly like what you see on TV for the Tour de France. It was incredible to see how many people were excited to watch this race, even though it meant not having a driveway for 8 hours.
At the end of the first lap, I was getting pretty tired. I had done a couple 100+ mile rides, but at 50 miles, this was still already around my 8th or 9th longest ride ever. There were also two problems I was facing. My front tire was VERY slowly going flat. I had run something over about 15 miles back and had heard a squeak ever since. I decided to just wait until I absolutely had to stop to change it because I'm not too quick at that kind of stuff; luckily I made it the rest of the way without riding on the rim. It stopped losing pressure at what I think was about 60psi. That's way lower than I would ever consider riding at, but still enough air to finish the course. The second was that my left achilles tendon was getting hard. This was something I was expecting at about mile 15-20 on the run. It was freaking me out this was happening on the bike, let alone so early. I figured there was nothing I could at that point though, and when it hit me that I had an entire lap left, the only thing getting me going again was knowing that I couldn't stop until I was done with the race. The more I think about that, the longer it's going to feel. I can't make time go by faster, so I'll just resign myself to my fate, and it'll be done when it's done. Then I just enjoyed the scenery. Strawberry farms, hops farms, cabbage farms. And then the mountain. Again. About halfway up, my legs were done. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't stay out of the red zone. I was in my lowest gear going about 3-5mph on the hardest parts, but after the first lap taking its toll, I couldn't keep my legs from getting destroyed. I just didn't train enough mountains and I completely underestimated this course. Oh well. I figured I would just run as well as I could and deal with it when I got there.
The rest of the lap kind of blurred by. I was already pretty deep in that state of mind where nothing really exists because if it did, you would be too miserable to keep going (6 hours on a bike with a marathon lying in front of you does that...), so it seemed to go by relatively quickly. The one final mental hit I took on the bike course was that my computer had been calibrated for the wrong wheel size for the past year so it was 2% off. I was expecting to finish the course at mile 110, but it wasn't until my computer hit 112 that I remembered I changed that when I changed the battery the day before the race. That was possibly the longest 6 minutes of my life.
T2 - 6:54
T2 was very interesting, unlike anything I had ever done. The bike racks were first come first serve. They had the five long rows again, and as you came in you ran your bike to the first empty slot. It made me feel good, though, that after being passed by hundreds of people for six hours, only 2 rows of bikes were filled. I was still well above average. After dropping off your bike, you ran a long straight to the T2 bags, which you had to put all your running stuff in. Mine had my shoes, socks, IT band wrap, body glide, visor, etc. Everything was in the bag. As you grab it, you walk into this tent, dump it onto the ground, and that's now your T2 spot. The benches were long enough that everyone had room because at 7 hours in, everyone was spread out enough, and each person had their own escort. Mine was just kinda standing there after realizing I was gonna take forever haha. I was in no real hurry because I was honestly terrified of the run, and at least in this tent I was safe. No need to hurry. But eventually I got everything on and my escort took my T2 bag which now had my helmet in it, and I left the tent to start the run. A marathon. Double my longest run ever, and triple my longest run in these achilles killing shoes (which made my knee pain disappear, I'll add. These shoes are one of the main reasons I was even able to show up to the starting line; you win some, you lose some. The achilles pain sucks, but I'll take it over debilitating knee pain). But when you leave the tent and are greeted by about 5000 spectators in the first quarter mile, you (stupidly) completely forget you were just on a bike for 6 hours.
run - 4:51:41 (11:07/mile)
The run course was four laps, 10.5km (6.5 miles) each, with a 200m finishing shute, totally 42.195km. For the first lap, I wanted to see what I could do. I allowed myself to walk through the aid stations, but that was it. I tried to keep my pace really slow so I could hold it for a long time, so I was only going about 8:30 miles. This is pretty much the pace I wanted to hold for 18-20 miles had the course been perfectly flat and I was able to keep my legs from bricking. The first couple miles are pretty easy, actually, because you wound through the medieval town center. There were cobblestone roads (sucked to run on, btw), an OLD cathedral, the typical European architecture of one continuous building that changed from green to pink to blue to yellow to white every three windows, etc. Plus this was the part where there was two miles of uninterrupted barricades and a continuous crowd. As you were running, you were required to put your number in the front (most races just require you to finish with it in the front, but you can run with it anywhere you want), which meant everyone cheering for you knew your name. With this being such an international race, the spectators were cheering for everyone in so many different languages, it was awesome. I got cheered for in German, English, Flemish, Spanish, Danish, Russian, even Japanese by this one family. And they almost all took the time to read my card and cheer for me by name. You just completely forget you're in a race. And then you hit the park. And a wall.
The next 3+ miles were through a park. It seems like a great place to go for a run, but the spectators were gone, the barricades were gone, the ground was packed gravel so I kept feeling myself slipping back every once in a while, all my adrenaline was gone, and every time you broke through the line of trees, there was just more path going in the opposite direction of the finish line. It was one of the hardest things ever to not start walking. Then you made the turn at the end of the park and ran in a straight line along the river for over a mile. It just kept going on and on. Once you make it through this part, though, you're good to go. The barricades and spectators pick back up at the base of the bridge and they carry you for the last km to the end of the loop. When I crossed the timing mat at the end of the first lap I noticed I was at 58:02. That's 3:53:00 marathon pace, and that would be really fast. But it was not to be; at no point for the rest of the run did I run a continuous mile.
After the first aid station of the second lap, I was done. I picked it back up to a jog, but I knew I wasn't gonna make it another mile. A combination of too much leg pain and, surprisingly, contentment with making it through a lap in under an hour, was too much and after about a quarter mile I started to walk. I had mentally cracked. I say mentally because unlike my 70.3 I did, my legs weren't technically cramping. I just didn't have it in me. At that point, all I could think of though was how long my second lap of my 70.3 was, and how this is the same length lap, only three more instead of one. Sure it was an improvement to make it 121 miles before reaching this point, as opposed to 58, but I still had 19 miles left, and that could literally take all day at this pace.
The next section of the course picked it up for me though. There was a crowd section that was a little more into it than the rest, and I had kinda played them up on the first lap. So I played them up again to see how much I could get out of it, but it wasn't much. As soon I had turned the corner, I couldn't stop myself from walking. It was just going to be a miserable lap. Even though I had done a good job (IMO) of nutrition to that point, I just decided to go overboard. It was hot (supposed to be only about 75, but it was in the upper 80s) and I was sore, so I ate a salt packet and gel at every aid station for the rest of the lap. It took a little while to kick in, but it was enough to get me going a little bit better. I finished that lap in 1:22, which would put me at over 5 hours for the marathon if I kept this pace. I just didn't want to do that. That's too long to be running.
My third lap was better. Apparently I do better when I eat 7x the amount of gel you're supposed to, because I was actually recovering a little from the slow lap. I still couldn't run a whole mile, but after the mile 2 aid station, I was next to this kinda hot girl who had a UK flag on her race number, so I started talking to her knowing she spoke English. Turns out her boyfriend lived in Houston for two years so she was pretty familiar with the existence of Sugar Land. How random is that?! Someone from South London knew of Sugar Land. The conversation kept going for a while (it was the only time all race I actually talked to someone), but then at one point we made a turn in the park and I realized we weren't at the far lake yet like I thought, we were still another lake away. And then I quit. My legs were too far gone to withstand that kind of mental error, and then she was gone. Oh well, at least my third lap dropped down to 1:15 because of it. That meant I was fairly safe at breaking 5hr, but I still had to be careful.
For the last lap, everything improved mentally. I knew I would never have to see that tree again, that bench again, that pole again. Sure I still have 1000 more trees, but I needed some smaller victories at this point. Right before entering the park for the last time, I hit the color band line. On lap one you get a pink band, lap two you get a green one, then yellow, then white. It fully hit me when I saw all four colors on my arms that I'm done. All I have is a park left. Then I'm done with this marathon. I'm done with this Ironman. I checked my watch to make sure I was under 5hr pace still, and saw I was actually right between 5hr pace and 4:52 pace (which would put my total time at exactly 12hrs). I had to make a decision to go for it, or not. So I went for it. 20 steps later, I changed my mind. Then I started remembering all the land marks I said 'Ill run until that tree' or cone or bench, and then on the fourth lap, I made sure I started the jog at the same point, but ran to something farther. This was alot easier said than done, though, because at this point my achilles is literally made of concrete, my quads are cramping from too little salt, my stomach is cramping from too much salt, and I just want to sit down. But I kept seeing those landmarks go by and realizing I hadn't ruled out 12 hrs yet. At the last aid station (mile 5), I decided to go for it. I would jog to the bridge, walk under it, then jog back around and over, walk until the barricade, then run to the finish. After coming down from the bridge I checked my watch again, I had completely forgotten I was close to breaking 12 hours. I realized it would take just over 8:00 pace for the final half mile (which at that point seemed like the most impossible of feats) to go 11:59:59, so I just started running instead of jogging. I figured no matter what happened, short of death, I would be glad I broke 12hr. The next thing I know I'm starting the finishing chute at 11:59:00 and I realized I just made it. The chute is lined with bleachers that, even at 12 hours, were completely packed. And all I remember is just running across the line, realizing I'm not required to use my legs any more, collapsing, and then being carried to the medical tent. 15 minutes later I was out of the tent and picked up my finishers shirt.
DONE. 11:59:16
post race
The finisher party was kind of dull. I had finished too late to catch the big names that had already left, and there was nothing really going on. I also couldn't find a water, gatorade, anything. Again, in Europe, they only drink carbonated drinks. It's absurd. So I walked around for a while with my stomach in a knot from all the salt just trying to find something to drink. Finally I just got a sparkling apple juice (why would you carbonate that?!) and headed out. I could barely walk, my achilles tendon still could barely bend, I had no control of my legs, and I was starving but at the same time incapable of eating. I just wanted to sleep. At first I was excited about Germany playing a Euro 2012 game while I was in Germany so I could go to bar and watch it with fans, but the course was still set up so I didn't think too many people were gonna be celebrating the game that much, and seriously I just wanted to sleep. So we went home and I PTFO'd. I didn't even eat dinner. It took like two days for my stomach to settle (probably because I didn't eat anything for 12 hours after my race haha), but it's good now. And the Czech Rep has a game while we're in Budweis so that works out after all.
But now for some sight seeing, one of the main reason for doing this race in Germany. We've already done the Pilsner Urquell brewery tour in Pilsner and then made our way to Prague, but we still have Budweis, Salzburg and Munich before coming home. Should be fun, if only I could walk again...
