IMLP-John Bayone
The day started out with a few simple goals…..get out of the lake, Stick to nutrition plan & goal watts on the bike, and run strong to the finish. In the days leading up to the start of what would be my first ironman race, I got a lot of good tips, but a few seemingly simple pieces of advice that would stick in my head and really helped. The actual words might be slightly different but it is what I remembered.
From Jason Bladomir; “You are going to see some people doing some ridiculous shit out there” This really helped me keep me calm on the first loop of the bike course, when people were pushing past me up every hill…..or even better would pedal like crazy to get back in front of me even though I had said ON YOUR LEFT…..I think some people were thinking that I had said “please pedal like crazy to try and see if you can distract me”.
From George Jordan on race morning; “Sometimes your plan B is more important than Plan A”. When I knew something was wrong on River Road, and I had to fix it, and quick, this helped me stay calm and come up with something to save my race. This really made me think at the time George said it, cause I was so proud of myself for having a plan at all going into this, and my goal was to stick to it. What could go wrong?? LOL.
And from the random volunteer race morning; After I put my nutrition and bottles on my bike, and dropped off my clothes bag, they made an announcement ….something about safety pins being available to put into your timing chip strap to help it from coming apart. I walked over and asked this young guy where those were. His words exactly “OK…you are freaking out and need to calm the f___ down, and just go over to the lake and get ready for the swim start and don’t worry about that $hit.” This put me right back to normal in a millisecond. It is not everyday that a total stranger would talk to me like that (they might want to but hold off), and it was exactly what I needed to hear and with the tone I needed to hear it. Funnier still was when I ran into the changing tent in T1 and went to the far end of the tent who was standing there and ripped my bag out of my had and helped me put my jersey, sleeves and shoes on in just fractions of a second….the exact same guy. I made sure to thank him for our earlier discussion. This guy did everything but pull the goggles right off my head. I left that tent almost laughing, and in a great frame of mind.
Swim (Actual 1:25:xx)Started out with the 1:20 to 1:30 group for the swim, and with the exception of being to close to the inside at the first turn, it worked out pretty well. After getting hit a few times at that first turn I stayed as far to the outside as possible. This caused a few (well….ok…almost all) of the life guards on the kayaks to yell to me to move inside, but I was having very little contact out there ….so I stayed there.
T1. As planned I tried to think of what to do before out of the water. This helped since I must have been a little out of it, or dizzy or something. When the volunteer helped pull my wetsuit off, she helped me stand up but held onto and jerked my wrist and very sternly asked me “HEY Are you OK?”. It took me a second to answer but it got me out of whatever it was and I was back to normal. Started to walk away, when I remembered my plan…RUN….so I took off running past people on the way to the bags. Wow was that green carpet wet and slippery, so tried not to fall down, got bags, and into the tent. (see above).
Bike (Actual 7:04:xx) Getting on the bike, the support from all the EN folks near the mount line was just overwhelming. Thank you everyone. For the first loop I was a little under on my goal watts, and I was able to negative split the bike by about 2 minutes.
The total ride Power breakdown was
Avg. Power = 132
NP= 146
IF=0.671
VI=1.11
Avg. HR=150
Avg. Cad.=76
Second loop on the bike, and finally it felt like I was passing people. Side note…..just because the sunglasses that you have say “Ironman” on them does not mean squat. At the start of the decent one of the lenses came loose and was flopping around in front of my eyeball for the next 8 miles or whatever it is down to Keene. After the turn onto 9N, I took them off and put them in my pocket.
After Keene on the second loop, with the tail wind I was under on my watts and I was passing dozens of people. It felt great. There were a lot of people at this point that were sitting up and pedaling slowly, and coasting the down hill parts. Except for one guy that continually keep pedaling like a nut case to get in front of me, and then totally stop pedaling. I would eventually pass him again with a friendly “on your left” he would go from not pedaling at all to what must have been is zone “to infinity & beyond”….I guess we can just call that “Buzz Light Year Mode”. This guy was obviously was not at the 4 keys talk on Friday morning. Sooner or later this stopped when he blew up on the way from Jay to Wilmington.
My goal to save effort for the last hour back into town from Hazelton road worked out ok, but the power file would show that my peak hour was the hour right before that. Could have been from going into the head wind back from Ausable Forks, and then up the hills over to Wilmington. Also that last portion up hill from Wilmington, my mind started to wander a little thinking about the run to come, and making sure I did not get lazy with my nutrition, and having to pee a couple more times
During this time I made possibly my big mistake on the day. Wanting to make sure I was fueled for the run, I think I took in too many calories and too much solid food in that last hour. I think had a powerbar and a half because it was all that was left on the bike, and my goal was to finish it all. Like the goal you would give a small child ….If you eat all your vegetables you get ice cream. Also I polished off at least 2 bottles of that orange mango pig vomit. Hydration was at or above goal quantities since I stopped counting on the second loop because I must have P’d about 10 times total on the bike.
T2. Having a small towel to dry my feet, and having the socks & shoes already loaded with baby powder felt great on my feet. I changed out of the tri shorts and into a pair of running shorts. While doing this I realized I was standing right next to a big opening that had developed during the day in the side wall of the tent, as well within eye shot of the exit doorway. Oh well, at this point of the day these people have seen it all….literally.
One more lesson learned, is to practice the multisport function on the garmin 910……I did not push the buttons in the correct way, so it has me as being on the swim for 2.9 miles, and in t1 for @ 7 hours and 111.xx miles. OOPS. I figured this out coming out of T2 and quickly fixed it so I had the correct info on the run course. I did not need this thing on the swim anyways, and on the bike I have a Joule 2 for my power and other data.
Run (4:33:xx). Out of the tent and down the road. It was great to see Coach Rich there in the middle of the road. Gave me a quick reminder to take it easy, which was just what I needed to hear.
I felt great, full like I had just had a thanksgiving dinner, but I was running nice and easy, and this was going to be a great run. Until somewhere out on River Road at about mile 4, was where my earlier feeding frenzy would come back to haunt me. I had plenty of strength and GO in the legs, but everything from my chest to the top of my head was off. I was feeling dizzy and nauseous. In my head at the time I could not figure it out, I was running 10 min/miles and was feeling sick? How could this be? This is supposed to be my strength! My “go to” time of the day to pass everyone in front of me! What did I do in a prior life to deserve this? (oh hell…who am I kidding I have done enough in this lifetime to deserve this kind of torture) If anything it was suppose to be my Achilles that would slow me down. I had injured myself in a fall and was not able to run on it at all from June 27th, until the Saturday before the race. Then George’s words from earlier...plan B. walking it in from Mile 4 was not just going to happen so all I could come up with at the time was to stop looking at the pace, because it is only going to freak me out, and turned the watch display to show my Heart Rate. From about mile 4 until the end all I looked at on that watch was the HR. If it went above 157/158 I felt sick, so as long as I kept it under about 155 it would be ok, and at least I am still running. On a few up hills it would go above the 158 and I would walk as fast as I could until my HR came back down. In the end I would have an even split on the run course. So the plan B must have worked. All throughout the run I really loved to see everyone out on the course, it felt great to say a quick hello to everyone going the other way.
Looking back I think I put way too many calories and fluid into my system, especially the last hour or so on the bike. Heck, I peed on the bike almost all the way down the hill on Northwoods Road, for a total of about 10 times on the bike, as well as 3 stops at the porta Johns on the run course to pee some more. My hydration strategy was put together figuring on a sweat rate from experience on warmer days with the sun out....whereas on race day we had overcast skys with lower temps. Ideal conditions, but with all the fluid going into my system I was just bloated. With all this stuff in me, I did not really have a sore stomach I just think it was impossible to for my system to break down all of this. Perhaps to compound the problem, I "might have" followed my nutrition plan into a brick wall, without any modifications. I kept stuffing gels into my mouth every 30 minutes as planned, one s-cap every hour, and kept drinking the perform at every aid station regardless of how much I found it almost impossible to get down. Other than having to slow down my pace to eliminate the sick feeling, I never felt like I bonked or ran out of calories.
Once at the finish, it is crazy to say but I felt "fine" (end of race fine anyways). I wasn’t hungry, I was not physically broken down. Thank you Rich & Patrick. Without a great training plan, and execution strategy & resources I would still be on that bike or on the side of the road someplace.
I was just still wondering what I had done to get queasy like that. Lastly, does the guy who takes the finishers pictures work at the division of motor vehicles or something? Cause he waited for me to be laughing to take the photo….I was asking everyone standing there "Does this shirt made me look fat?". They all got a huge laugh out of that, and that was when he took the picture. Oh well, next year I will make sure to have a more serious look on my face, and sorry I forgot the gang sign.
Overall it is hard to put into words the TOTAL experience, other than to say it was awesome. There are too many people to list and to thank, it is just overwhelming. From the training, the planning, and race weekend support from everyone was just more than anyone could expect or even hope for. I would guess it is like a kid at Disney World.
Thank you!
Comments
Love the "Buzz Lightyear Mode" reference.... so fitting!
At that point of the day I am sure it is normal to be happy to just be finished, regardless of time, place, condition. Not really a time for me to worry about the results or how things played out. that is what the next few months are for? LOL.
John, this is such and awesome report. I think I saw you twice on the course and you were always smiling. You made my suffering a little easier to take. Great Job!