Beat your heat
Not unlike life, in racing, there are things you can control
and things you can influence. The longer
the duration of the race the more important this simple fact becomes. To continue the metaphor, there are many
opportunities to recognize the circumstances that surround you and make a
choice, keeping in mind that not choosing a specific action is a choice in and
of itself. It’s these choices along the
way that are the difference between a successful race, an unsuccessful race, or
an extremely difficult day.
On May 18th I competed in Ironman Texas. Prior to registering for the race I was aware
of the fact that race day would be hot (duh), maybe not by Texas standards but
very much by Wisconsin standards. Most
of my training would be indoors or in cold to cool climate outside. True to the bi-polar nature of Wisconsin
spring, it was and still is, a delayed spring that was nice enough to offer
lots of rain and colder temperatures.
All of my longest rides were done on the trainer which did offer a
couple big positives; Ironman Texas bike course is relatively flat, yes there
are some longer gradual hills, but time in the aero position was to be expected
– so the trainer afforded me this opportunity as much as I could handle. The heat expected on the bike was an obvious
other expectation, so my bike rides indoors included me wearing a couple long
sleeve shirts, my plastic rain jacket and on one cold Saturday’s 4 hour ride,
spinning next to the fire place – which I don’t recommend without putting your
bike and trainer in some sort of kiddie pool to capture the sweat. My runs were outside like normal and swims
all in the pool. Ironman Texas was a
race I truly looked at with no expectation of finish time. With the variables in temperature, biking
outside two times prior to the race, no outdoor swimming, running in cooler
temperatures, my true goal was to finish and have fun on my terms.
The day before the race it was 90 degrees and humid. The lake where the swim takes place normally
doesn’t allow swimming, so the morning before the race they open it up for 2
hours for practice swim time. When I
think outdoor swimming I naturally think “wet suit”. There was some phenomenon that I can’t
explain regarding participants in Ironman Texas and wetsuits: Ironman has rules against wearing wetsuits if
temperatures are too warm – somewhere around 82 degrees, this protects the
athletes from overheating in the water.
Race week the lake had been near 75 degrees. At 75 it was in the ‘wetsuit legal’
temperature. With Friday being a hot day
the expected race morning temperature of the water was between 76 and 77 degrees. This is the ‘wet suit optional’
temperature. Athletes had the choice to
start at 7 am without a wetsuit and be eligible to qualify for Kona, or wear a
wetsuit, start at 7:10 am and not have the opportunity to qualify for
Kona. For me it was a no brainer, but
that practice morning as I began pulling my wetsuit up I had three different
athletes point out the fact that it was going to be wetsuit optional
temperature and stuck their noses up as they zipped up their ‘speed suits’. I swam the practice without my wetsuit on but
quickly realized how cold 75 degree water felt after spending 2 hours a week during winter and spring
in a heated indoor pool.
My mind was made up; I was wearing the wetsuit for a couple reasons: temperature wise it was no big deal, more importantly
it split up the swim group – big difference swimming with 2,400 friends and
swimming with 1,000. Also, I’d minimize
me getting run over in the water as I’d be out in front of the slower swimmers from
my start as well as catching the slower
swimmers from the non-wetsuit start which meant keeping traffic in front
of me where it was more manageable.
Logistically the race start is quite a bit different from
what I am familiar with here at Ironman Wisconsin. In Texas the transition area is located between
the finish line and the swim entrance.
This means on the morning of the race I prepped my bike and loaded it up
with my hydration and nutrition and then had to walk about a half mile to the
swim start. Special needs bags were to
be dropped at the swim start near where the morning clothes bags went. While packing my gear two days before the
race I made the decision to not bother with the special needs bag. For guiding Ironman Wisconsin I loaded both
bike and run special needs bags with frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,
but this year I had been using Perpetuem on my long bike rides and calculated
that between a heavy goopy concentration of the Perpetuem, GU and Ironman
Perform, I’d be taking in enough calories.
Race morning was like all mornings I had in Texas, about 75
and muggy. The plan was to park near the
finish line, but the finish area to the race is a large mall area so much of
the parking lot had been blocked off to accommodate people who were actually
going to shop there during the day. I
ended up parking in a ramp near the transition area; biggest downside – the
walk from the finish area after completing the race back to the car. The bike staging area was hustling and
bustling with everyone getting tires pumped, loading nutrition and making other
last minute adjustments. This was also a
time you could access your T1 and T2 bags as they were laid out on a walk way
just outside the bike area. I had
nothing to add as I went pretty minimal and basic with my needs for the
day. With the delay in finding a parking
spot, which must have been the case for many, as many of us were leaving as
they were shutting down transition. The
walk moved quickly as fans and athletes shuffled along to the swim start. As the swim start neared I was greeted with
the first funny sign of the day: a man wearing a snorkel and a speedo standing
up on the bridge, his sign said “Swim lessons $140.6!” He had a counterpart in the park at the swim
start area. I arrived a few minutes
before the pro’s started (6:50 am). I
got body marked and dropped off some bags.
I was curious to find out how many others had chosen to wear their
wetsuits. After the pro’s started the
non-wetsuit athletes started flooding the water. There was another staging area we wetsuit
athletes went to on the water’s edge.
It’s hard to estimate the number of people wearing wetsuits; it appeared
to be less than half the field as the swim start area thinned out significantly
as the non-wetsuit group entered the water.
The national anthem was sung and the cannon went off. As the non-wetsuit swim started I made my way
to the water. There were a couple docks
where we entered and a number of athletes were hanging on as they waited for
our start. I made my way just inside the
far right starting buoy. This had me on
the outside of the front line. I feel
I’ve been swimming pretty well and that this would allow me to slowly move on
in towards the buoys that lined the course as traffic thinned to the
inside. Our cannon shot and off I went. The first leg of the swim was a straight shot
of about 1,400 or 1,500 hundred meters.
I started out just fine but found it hard to find a rhythm. I kept swallowing water and wasn’t breathing
calmly. Somewhere between the start and
the first turn buoy I had some doubts.
Doubts about my ability to get through the swim, doubts about the day,
doubting my rationale in thinking I could do this race. Then I thought of a conversation I had the
day before. I was relaxing at the pool
of the homestay that I was at with David Adame and his son Brandon. David is the director of Cdifferent, the organization that sent a
tandem up for Rod and I to use at Ironman Wisconsin. I met David and Brandon last June in Denver
where Rod and I did the Denver Triathlon
as a part of the Cdifferent team. While in the pool David was describing
Brandon’s swim at the inaugural Texas Ironman 2 years before. Brandon was one of the 5 visually impaired or
blind athletes whom competed that year.
Brandon was in the pool with us and was on his back kicking and pulling
with his arms. David said this was how
Brandon started swimming that race day as he struggled with the normal
freestyle. So I did what Brandon did,
flipped on my back and kept moving ahead.
I’d catch my breath and flip over and keep swimming. I still couldn’t get comfortable, so I’d flip
on my back again. I was getting
frustrated but I was progressing and my thoughts of doubt were passing. I eventually reached the first turn, 90
degree left then a 400 meter straight away before another 90 degree left. I don’t know what happened at that red turn
buoy but I flipped back on my stomach and never left until I exited the
swim. During that stretch my mind
wandered as I settled in. My issue on
the first straight away: not rolling enough
to each side to breath. My pool swimming
got me lazy, get in choppy athlete filled water and you have to roll that much
more to get your mouth out to breath. As
I swam the long straight away I went from triathlete to doctor. . . as I was
catching swimmers it seemed my stroke found a way to end up in other’s
crotches. I’d be looking down trying to
keep good swimming form and I’d reach out in front and hit an ass. I was surprised at the number of direct hits
I had for that 1,500 – 1,600 stretch.
The swim started to get fun, not because of the ass grabbing. It felt good to pass people with ease as I
calmed down and kept going long and slow.
For long stretches I wouldn’t even sight ahead as every couple strokes I
was brushing someone and pushing them aside.
The last turn was a right as we entered a man-made channel that went
through the down town of The Woodlands.
Photo credit: clydesdaletriathlon.blogspot.com
It was about 30 yards wide and provided even more fun than
crotch-grabbing. With each breath I
could easily see the sides of the channel so again I kept my head down and
moved traffic with my hands out front.
Most of the back stretch and the channel I was passing non-wetsuit
athletes whom were more vertical than horizontal. It was a nice change to see the crowds that
had lined each side of the channel and hearing the cheers each time I rolled to
breath. The channel had a couple gradual
light turns in it that prevented me from looking ahead and seeing the swim
exit. This last stretch passed quickly
and I knew it was coming to an end and I finally arrived at the red buoy, made
the hard left and swam the width of the channel to some steps that were put in
to climb up to the exit. There were
plenty of volunteers there pulling us up.
I swam right to the swim exit so I was already out of the water and
standing at the wetsuit strippers before I even had a chance to unzip, so it
took a couple seconds to stop and pull my wetsuit off my shoulders before
jumping on my butt. I wasn’t too concerned;
speed here really meant nothing to me. I
was handed my wetsuit after I stood up and I began walking the route to the transition
bags. Before I got to my bag I saw David
and Brandon, said a quick ‘hi’ before they shuffled me along to keep
moving. The transition bags are lined up
in rows on a wide walk-way, having placed my bag the day before I knew which
row to go up. It’s a tight squeeze with
three rows of bags and athletes stopping at various points in each row to grab
their bags. I just walked and kept my
cool. The transition tent was a big scurry
of wet bodies. The one addition I wanted
to include on my race day that I didn’t in IMWI was some arm sleeves. The type I have are one unit, the two sleeves
are joined together across my shoulders.
With the sun and heat I figured it’d be a good addition to help keep as
much of my skin out of sun. It was a
little bit of a challenge to put it on as I was still damp from the swim. I managed on my gear and started the long
walk all the way through transition.
There are many volunteers lining the bike area as they help you navigate
to your bike. Having a foundation slot
meant I was up in the first two rows farthest from the transition tent. Having placed all my fluids and nutrition on
the bike before the race start I just had to pull my bike from the rack and
walk out. My bike was wedged in pretty
tight between bikes on either side and I couldn’t pull my bike under the bar
and had to push it, which meant I had to go under the bike rack also. Doing a limbo in grass in cycling shoes
resulted in my dumping my bike. My
nutrition spilled out of my bento box, my bottles fell off, so I collected
everything and repositioned it on the bike and kept pushing on through. I exited the park and onto the road to the
bike mount line and got at it.
Swim time: 1:19:25
T1: 10:39
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