Ironman Canada 2010 – The Swim

2 am.  I roll over and peek at my watch to see the time.  I still have just over an hour until my alarm is supposed to go off.  All of a sudden my brain says, “I’m doing Ironman today!”  And that is it.  My brain starts whirring and there is no going back to sleep now.  Instead I lie in bed until the alarm goes, then I jump out and get in the shower.  I realize the shower is a bit of a moot point, but I like to start my races fresh and clean.  I put on the clothes I plan to wear for the first two segments of the day – my Zoot cycling shorts and my Team Tri Life top.  I throw on some warm clothes that will eventually go into my dry clothes bag, grab my stuff and go.  My friend Tara was staying with me at my parents’ place in Kelowna so we head off in the car together, with the Boyfriend driving us to the start.  My parents will arrive a bit later.  The roads are dark and quiet and the drive goes by quickly.  I manage to eat my peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich along the way and drink some coffee.  Boy the coffee tastes good!

We find a parking spot along a residential street, fairly close to transition but away from the road closures.  We arrived at Main Street pretty quickly and I had to say goodbye to the Boyfriend as we entered the athlete only area.  I expected it to be harder, but we just said goodbye and perhaps “I’ll see you soon.”  As I walked away I realized I could still see clearly and I had forgotten to give him my glasses!  Oops!  Luckily he wasn’t too far away and I passed them off to him.  I’d mostly need my prescription sunglasses during the day and I didn’t want to risk losing my regular glasses.  Luckily I can see well enough without them that I can make do.

We dropped off our special needs bike and run bags into the appropriate cardboard boxes, then made our way to transition.  I found my bike and started loading nutrition on it – one bottle of regular strength Infinit in my aero bottle, one four hour bottle of concentrate in a bottle cage.  Peanut butter wraps and pretzels in the bento box.  I gave the tires a squeeze and they felt fine so I didn’t bother taking them over to bike support to have them pumped.  Tara’s tires hadn’t lost any pressure overnight so I was sure that mine were fine too.  After that it was time to start the porta-potty dance!  I kept finding friends and teammates in transition.  I also ate a banana and sipped on a bit of Infinit to make sure I would be properly fuelled.  After all, it would be a long time between my peanut butter sandwich and when I’d first be able to eat on the bike.  Pretty soon it was 6:15 and it was time to get the wetsuit on.  My friend Kelly and I made our way onto the beach together and right away I spotted the Boyfriend, right up by the railing.  I ran over and gave him a hug and then I was almost ready to cry.  I got in the water, got wet, checked the goggles were working and then the pros were off at 6:45.  The final 15 minutes until the age groupers were to go flew by.  All of sudden it was 7 am and it was go time!!I walked through the water and underneath the flags signalling the start line.  A lot of people were still walking so I followed suit as I didn’t want to swim into a bunch of legs.  Finally more and more people ahead were swimming so I started swimming too.I quickly found a rhythm, bilateral breathing.  I kept repeating in my head, “slow is smooth, smooth is fast” over and over again.  I just needed to focus on swimming and nothing else.  I started around the middle of beach and I wound up swimming quite close to the buoys.  Inevitably folks would reach the buoys, pop their heads up and start breast stroking.  I had to be careful not to get kicked in the face.  A couple people were a bit aggressive out there, pulling arms and legs, but as we spaced out it got better.  The buoys were all numbered…13 out to the first house boat I think?  At the house boat there were all kinds of folks on board cheering and it was awesome!!  I turned the corner and swam to the second house boat with more people cheering.  It went by so quickly.  It looked like the folks on the house boat were having a BBQ?  I bet it was yummy.  As I turned the corner I spotted a diver below.  I tried to wave at him or her but I don’t think they saw me.  At this point I decided to take a peak at my watch.  I was floored, it was way earlier than I anticipated.  On the way back I was having trouble sighting and found myself veering of course a bit.  Luckily it wasn’t too bad, I’d just notice from time to time that there wasn’t anyone beside me.  Finally I was past the last few buoys and the water was getting shallow.  I could touch the bottom, but the bottom consisted of big huge rocks.  People around me were walking but I didn’t want to walk over big, uncomfortable rocks so I just kept swimming until the last possible moment.  I stood up, stumbled over the rocky bottom and made my way up the beach.  As I walked out of the water I unzipped my suit and had it down over my arms and at my waist to make things easier on the wetsuit strippers ahead.  The crowd was amazing!  People were standing in the water, cheering us on and it was so loud.  Steve King said my name as I crossed over the timing mat.  Ironman swim done – check!

3800 m swim – 1:33:56 – a good 10 minutes faster than I figured it would take!

I had checked my prescription sunglasses in at the table right at the swim exit.  They had marked my left cheek with green zinc sunscreen and as soon as the volunteers saw me they had my glasses out and handed to me.  I pointed at two wetsuit strippers and they had my wetsuit off quickly.  They helped me up, handed me back my suit and I ran to find my bag.  Luckily I was very near the front of my row for bags so I grabbed it quickly and ran into the change tent.  A volunteer came over right away, told me where to sit and proceeded to go through all of the gear in my bag.  Helmet, socks, bike shoes, Garmin.  I had a wet washcloth in a Ziploc bag to rub my face with (and to make sure I could rub that green zinc off).  I had a small towel in there to dry my feet and get rid of any grass before I put my socks on.  I decided to forgo my arm warmers.  I sprayed my face and shoulders with a small bottle of sunscreen, then I was outta there!  Luckily my bike was super easy to find as it was at the very end of its rack (and well, let’s not kid, a lot of the bikes around mine were already gone).  I turned my Garmin on, grabbed the bike and walked out.  Overall a pretty efficient transition I think!

T1 – 5:37

Ironman Canada 2010 – The Short Story

I did it!  I raced and completed Ironman Canada in 16 hours, 7 minutes and 57 seconds on Sunday.  What an amazing day!!!!  Despite some tough parts I smiled pretty well the entire time and just had the most unbelievable experience.  It is going to be hard to put it into words but I will try.

I have the best family, friends, coach and teammates possible.  They were out there, cheering me on late at night.  They were tracking me online and posting updates on Facebook.  You all were fantastic and I was floored by all of the support.  Thank you so much!!!  Now let’s get to the story, shall we? :)

Race Report:

The Swim
The Bike
The Run
The Finish

Ironman Canada 2010 – The Prelude in Pictures

At the start and the finish!With Keith!  Food at the athlete banquet.  Dropping the bike off at transition on Saturday.The blue carpet, ready to get rolled out!   Nutrition prepped, with a ton of labelling.  Just to make sure I know what I’m doing on Sunday!  I have a one hour bottle of Infinit to sip on before the swim start, a one hour bottle to dump in my aero bottle and two four hour bottles of Infinit concentrate, with one hour volume increments marked off.  One goes on my bike, the other one goes in my bike special needs bag.

Ironman Canada 2010 – The Prelude In Words

Wow…it is Saturday, August 28, 2010.  Where has the time gone?  Tomorrow is the big day, the day I race Ironman Canada!  This year has flown by and it is hard to believe that something that seemed so intangible a short time ago is almost here. 

The week leading up to the race has been a great one.  The Boyfriend and I had an amazing couple of days in Vancouver where I successfully forgot about the big race.  I think this was a good thing.  I focused on having a fun time and not stressing out about the race.  The weather was beautiful, the food was terrific and I even managed a great run around Coal Harbour and into Stanley Park.

We arrived back in Kelowna on Wednesday evening.  I never thought about staying in Penticton for the race, not when I could relax at my parents’ place in Kelowna.  Sure, it is 40 minutes from Penticton but it is a bit more of a comfortable place to be and I’m happy to be away from some of the buzz to tell you the truth.  Not to mention it is a bit more budget friendly…

I made my way into Penticton early on Thursday morning for a 7:30 am swim with my team.  As I drove that morning I really felt the butterflies for the first time.  This was real, Ironman was almost here.  The lake felt great and I felt calm in the water.  On Thursday afternoon I had a great meeting with Angie to go over my race plan and talk about my thoughts and feelings concerning the race.  I never had a chance to write up a race plan before I left Calgary and I think Angie was a bit shocked that I was winging it on such a big race.  I’m pretty firm on my goals for this one though and what I want to do so my race plan was almost easy.  Angie mostly gave me tips for dealing with nutrition on the bike and run and we talked about thoughts to get me through the day.  Later in the day a few of us got a ride up to Yellow Lake and we rode the descent down into Penticton.  It was great to get a reminder on this final part of the route and it gave me a lot of confidence going down the big hill.

Other than that I’ve been back and forth, going for swims, registering at Ironman Village, buying swag, and going back and buying more swag, then checking the bike into transition.  I’ve run into Sister Madonna Buder a few times and said hello – what a wonderful lady!  Plus I’ve also seen Keith!

And with that, tomorrow is the big day.  My goal for the day is PATIENCE.  I plan to take it super easy on the bike, as easy as possible, so that I can have a successful run.  I haven’t done any math at all to compute a finish time.  I just hope to be crossing the line before midnight.  Check ironman.com for a link to athlete tracking.  I’m bib number 2307.  Thanks to all of you for your great comments over the past year and for all of the encouragement.  I’ve been overwhelmed with all of the e-mails of well wishes and the posts on Facebook.  As my friend Tea reminded me, tomorrow whenever I cross a timing mat, remember that I have a crowd of fans cheering me on.  I will definitely be remembering that!  Thanks everyone!

On the road!

On Sunday I packed all of my gear up for a week off and the big race and hit the road to Kelowna.  Traffic was pretty light and smooth on Highway 1 heading west until about 10 km outside of Golden.  All of a sudden things ground to a halt and folks started getting out of their cars.  There was a good Samaritan who looked like he’d just come off the set of a cheesy sci-fi movie (teal and purple jumpsuit tucked into black boots over a beige turtleneck sweater) that was spreading the news that there was a three car accident up ahead.  No serious injuries but two of the cars would need a tow truck.  It would be awhile before traffic could get moving.

In my rush to get on the road I had missed my 30 minute run in the morning so I got up and started walking on the side of the road, up and down the mountain.  There were a bunch of folks – I’m guessing – that were on the road to Ironman.  Plenty of tri bikes on the back of cars.  I saw a few folks running up and down the mountain as we were stopped.  I decided to walk toward the accident and some guy in a Jetta pulled his car over to the opposite shoulder and he pulled out his bike and trainer for a workout.

I walked up the mountain towards the accident and ran back down.  It felt good to have the legs moving.  On my way down I ran into my family who was stuck a bit further behind me on the road.  After about an hour and a half later traffic started to move and we were on our way.  I’m now in Kelowna at my parents’ place, but not for long!  The Boyfriend and I are heading to Vancouver this morning for a couple of days of fun before all of this Ironman craziness starts.

2307…

Yup, I’ve been pretty quiet lately.  My ride on Saturday was only 120K (did I really just say that it was ONLY 120K???) and it did not go well.  I was pretty demoralized and upset after it was over and I didn’t even upload my workout data off of my Garmin until just now.  Friday morning.  I had a good chat with Angie and my friends about it and the ride is done.  Moving on!

I am a mixed bag of emotions.  I am excited, nervous, ready to barf/cry at the drop of a hat, and somewhat wishing it was August 30th already.  I still have to write up a race plan but I’ve been swamped trying to finish things up at work before I leave on Sunday.  I have a lot of good ideas in my head though.  The most important part is that I want to be smiling and happy.  I have no thoughts on time at all.  I have not done any math in my head on how long things may or may not take and that is how I want to keep it.

It is hard to believe that the race is so close.  Next weekend!  Thanks for all of your great comments along this crazy journey.  It means a lot to me!  I’ll be wearing number 2307 on race day.  Sounds like a good number to me!

Three Things Thursday

1. Today was my final long run into work.  2.5 hours with 3 min accelerations every 30 min.  I was out the door at 5 am again.  Luckily this time there was no unfortunate incident with a curb!  The run went really well and I ran 4:1 intervals again.  I also took two gels in addition to drinking Infinit along the way, something I haven’t done on my long runs before.  The extra gels gave me that extra oomph and I didn’t feel nearly as depleted after today’s run as I have in the past.  It only took me until August 12th to figure out that maybe I’ve been needing a few more calories.  Better late than never!
2. I totally was coveting Cat Deeley’s dress from the SYTYCD finale this evening.  It was gorgeous.  Wish I could find a picture of it!
3. Wow, IM emotions are a funny thing.  I get choked up at the most random things.  Just reading the notes from my coach on my final training block to IM made me all misty eyed.  Yesterday just listening to Angels & Airwaves – The Adventure was enough for the ol’ tear ducts to activate.  No clue why!

Hope everyone has had a great week so far!

Taper Time!?

Well, after a major case of the “I don’t wanna’s” last week…I survived. 

After my trip and fall on Thursday I felt like I’d been hit by a truck on Friday.  My entire upper body was stiff and sore.  Discomfort in my ribs (from where my heart rate monitor strap likely pushed into my body on impact) made it painful to cough and I was unable to sneeze.  A sharp intake of air was uncomfortable enough that it would stop a sneeze in its tracks.  Given all of that I opted not to swim that day as things just hurt too much.

I did survive our final 180K ride though!  The ride started out as a bit of a gong show.  We were planning on riding Highwood Pass, however more than one person told us we were crazy for attempting that route – with so much climbing – on an already hard day.  On Friday night we made the call to ride closer to Calgary instead.  We didn’t have a specific route in mind, just places to go.  We broke the ride up into chunks – a 50 km out and back to Springbank Airport, 30K out to Bragg Creek, another 10K out to Elbow Falls, return to Calgary and ride the 50 km out and back again.  This helped me to not focus on the entire distance and just think of the ride in smaller pieces.  It is the strongest mentally I have felt on a long ride so far this summer.

On Sunday I finally got that 4000 m swim in.  It actually went pretty well.  It was boring…but I survived.

And now we taper!!!!!  (If you can consider that a 14 hour training week versus a 16 hour training week is tapering….)

Skin Meets Pavement

The alarm went off this morning at 4:30 am.  I jumped out of bed, washed my face, threw on my running clothes.  I had some water and some Honey Stinger chews.  It was sadly a little too early for my digestive tract to get things moving…  I was out the door and running at 5:05 am.  It was dark and cool out and it felt great.  I wore my GPS for distance on my left wrist and my Road ID and my Timex on my right.  I set the Timex up to beep 4:1 run/walk intervals.  I figured that if I want to run them at IMC I better set my watch to beep them.

There is some road construction happening outside of my neighbourhood.  New bike paths and intersections have been built.  I was crossing the road, 20 minutes into my run.  I’ve ridden over this sidewalk and curb recently and have thought, wow, that was poorly constructed!  The curb is pretty high.  I must have been a little tired and not picking my feet up properly.  I must have caught a toe on the curb.  All I knew was that all of a sudden I was falling.

I’m falling…why am I falling?  I don’t want to fall!

Thud.

I sat there for a second or two, feeling thankful that it was so early in the morning and there were no people driving by to witness my humiliation.  I surveyed the damage.

Road rash on my right forearm.  More road rash on my right hip (but the squishy part, not the boney part), bruising on my right arm where my watch must have been pushed into the skin on impact.  I got up and there was no pain.

Alrighty then, run on!

Things went well for the next 10 minutes.  But then the activity had gotten my digestive system moving…  I ran past a Husky gas station, but at that time in the morning the lights were off and no one was home.  OK, 10 minutes away is an Esso station and a Mac’s in a shopping complex.  Hopefully one of those would be open.  I wanted to cry tears of joy as the Esso came into sight and the lights were blazing!  I think the guy working this morning was a little surprised to see me come in that early, but after a quick stop and the purchase of a bottle of water I was on my way.

The 4:1 intervals were great.  On every walk break I would take a sip of Infinit from my Camelbak or water from my newly purchased bottle.  And it just happened to be recycling day in the neighbourhoods I was running through so once the bottle was done I was able to put it in someone’s recycle bin.  2-1/2 hours in my legs started to feel a little creaky and I was losing steam but I think that was a combination of feeling like I should really be getting to work soon and the fact that I was running out of nutrition and it was heating up.  But there we go, 3 hour run done!  Now here’s hoping my road rash doesn’t sting in the pool too much tomorrow!

Are we there yet?

Coming off of camp I had a bit of a cut back week last week.  Training still totalled almost 11 hours though!  A couple of swims, a couple of longish runs and a couple of bikes including a 100K ride.  I was falling asleep every night before 10 pm (including before 9 pm on Saturday night).  Wow…just so tired…  In fact, if I’ve been a little silent on commenting on blogs lately now you know why.  I’ve been reading, but I’m way behind at 244 unread posts.  My apologies, I promise to catch up in September!

Things started off this week with a glorious rest day coupled with a day off of work for Heritage Day on Monday.  No work and no training?  It was awesome!  The day was spent running errands (including plenty of time spent at IKEA) and completing home projects.  The pantry was completely reorganized, organization was started in the basement (including additional shelving in the basement for pantry items), the fridge was cleaned out and the bar was cleaned up.  So much was accomplished!

Then back to work on Tuesday, both at the office and on the training front.  This will be the biggest week of training:

• Tuesday: 2 hour ride with hill repeats up Cochrane hill
• Wednesday: 3000 m swim
• Thursday: 3 hour run
• Friday: 4000 m swim
• Saturday: 180 km ride and a 30 min brick
• Sunday: 40 min hilly run and a 2000 m swim

But seriously, are we there yet?  Can it just be September already?  I don’t want to run for 3 hours tomorrow, I don’t want to do a 4000 m swim, and I really don’t want to ride 180 km on Saturday. 

I don’t want to arrive to work late tomorrow only to feel like my brain can’t comprehend work.  And I’m not so keen to take a half day off on Friday so I can fit in my long swim but not leave my dog at home too long during the day.  And I really don’t feel like spending 8 hours riding only to come home and feel like a zombie for the rest of the evening. 

Can I just have my life back?

But really, I just have to suck it up for this week because this is the final push to the big dance on August 29th.  I think people have said that the toughest part of Ironman is the journey to the start line.  And it is so darn close!  At times I catch myself imagining things that I see happening on the day – seeing my coach Angie, my family, my incredible teammates who we’ve all trained so hard together – and I start tearing up.  How will I feel as I come down the blue carpet?  I know it will be worth it – the long hours, the sacrifices, the highs and the lows.

August 29th.

It will be here before I know it!

Lessons Learned From Training Camp

1. I can swim over 3800 m in open water!
2. 180 km is a really long bike ride.
3. The cycling shorts I was planning on wearing race day are…ahem…not quite as opaque as I thought.  I realized I was in trouble when Nola asked me if I had had my bike shorts for a long time or not.
4. I have to wear gloves on the bike or else it is ridiculously uncomfortable. 
5. I need to make sure I am on top of my nutrition on the bike.  Luckily pretzels and peanut butter wraps combined with Infinit seem to be working well for me.
6. The time to eat solids is well before Osoyoos and after climbing Richter.  I don’t want to be attempting to digest solids while my heart rate starts increasing over a climb.
7. If your feet get hot on the bike, step off.  Pouring cold water on them too can help on race day.
8. I will need to carry chamois butter in my bento box!
9. Start off slow on the run!  Focus on getting to the next aid station, don’t attempt to contemplate the marathon as a whole!
10. Running 4:1 intervals will probably work really well for me on race day.

It is really hard to believe that the race is less than a month out.  Wow, time flies!