Peter's really late IMCDA Race Report
Sorry this is so late, the week after cda, we bought a house, the week after that we sold our current house and I've been in inspection hell for a few weeks now.
Swim:
My plan was to swim a 1:15-1:20. I thought that’s about where I would be, so I seeded myself at the middle of the 1:15-1:30 group. Prior to that, I got in the water, got my goggles on and swam for 2-3 min. Everything seemed fine. Once people started getting in the water, it went really quickly. I ran into the water, swam 50 yards or so and then my goggles started to fill up with water. I sat up and cleared them and started again and more water. I couldn’t get my goggles not to leak. These are goggles that I’ve used for 2 months with no issues. I started to panic and hyper ventilate. I took a 90 degree turn and swam towards a kayak and held on. Panting uncontrollably. I couldn’t stop. I tried tightening my goggles and then started to swim some more. More water in the goggles. I finally just grabbed the straps and pulled as hard as I could. That seemed to fix things. But I still had the uncontrollable heavy breathing issue. I swam on my side for a bit and tried to think myself off of the ledge. I finally told my self I was an idiot. 6 months+ of training and 10 min into the swim its over. Not going to happen. I put my head in the water and off I went. The rest of the swim was awesome. I started counting strokes and just moving forward. After a few minutes I was back in a rhythm. Now I had slower people in front of me which turned out to be great. I just swam towards one set of feet, then the next and the next. Turns out I did a 41:42 first lap and a 38:08 2nd lap. I was really happy with the 2nd lap. Total time 1:19:60
Bike 6:33
The bike when just about as planned. I was planning on being just about 150 watts. I ended up being at 148 watts. The course itself was kind of annoying. Going out on the highway was a gradual uphill that kind of wore on you. But the ride back was nice with all the downhills. My nutrition went well on the bike, I drank and ate what I planned on eating. As usual, I passed a bunch of people going 40+ on the downhills, and then they would pass me on the uphills. I did this with one lady 8 or 9 times.
Run: 5:40
The first 16 mile of the run went according to plan. I did realize that I didn’t grab a water bottle off my bike as I had planned. That seemed to come back to haunt me as I was between aid stations and wished I had some water to drink. Around mile 14/15 things started to go bad. I started getting tingling in my fingertips which usually means low potassium. So I had a few banana pieces to try to top off my potassium. A mile or three later things were not better, so I had 2 small cups of broth, thinking it was salt. That didn’t fix things. By this time, my whole body was tingling (even my nose) when I ran. So I started to run/walk. I drank some and had banana’s and broth at the next aid station. Nothing seemed to work. By mile 18 or 19, when I ran, I started to get tunnel vision along with the tingling, so I decided to just walk. I didn’t want push too far. My walking was at a 17/18 min pace. I got to cheer many EN peeps on as they passed me which was fun. Around mile 22 I realized I had sausage fingers and my wedding ring didn’t move at all on my finger (its usually really loose). I also starting thinking back on what I should have done. I chose one path, but it seemed to be wrong. I then realized that not having that water bottle really hurt me. I usually run with a bottle. So at the next aid station, I grabbed an empty bottle and filled it with water and started drinking. I will note that I did stop to pee twice in the first 15 miles, so I didn’t think I was dehydrated. But in hindsight, I should have started drinking a lot more water along with the other stuff I tried. I added a bunch of salt, but didn’t wash it down enough. I did also get to talk to a few people who were on their 1st loop and I tried to encourage them to keep going and try to make all the cutoffs. Hopefully I was able to help them finish.
Final time : 13:45
If all things would have gone perfect, I would have probably been around 12:30. But heck, I finished. It amazingly went by fairly quickly. People always say ‘that’s a long time to do something’. Honestly, it goes by quick. Lots to do/see/think about and you never look too far past where you are at. Now its time to get focused for IM Tahoe in a couple months.