RR IM Lake Tahoe
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It's been a wonderful year of training and racing. The year started with running Boston (3:18:xx) for the fourth year in a row. Completed 6 triathlon's this year. A local YMCA sprint in May, Quassy and Williamsburg in June, local Olympic, Race to the peak 2 sprintish distance on a ski resort in NY (July) and IM Lake Tahoe.
Lake Tahoe was filled with anticipation. I believe we signed up 13 month's before the event. Finally after all the training it was time to drop off my bike for transport via TBT to the event. We stayed at Resort a Squaw Creek which was amazing and convientent
Race day; Woke up at 3:00 am, drove our rental car to a small parking lot across from T1. Rested in the car for 40 minutes. T1 opened at 5:00 am. Walked across the street checked the bike (ice on the seat and bar tape), pumped up the tires and loaded my nutrition. Changed into my wetsuit, booties, and neoprene cap. I then realized it was 8 minutes to the start. I had to jump a fence to get into the 1:00 -1:10 corral. No warm up, damn. Ok no problem I thought. Did some running in place and stretched. I had practiced swimming at altitiude 3 days before and did notice that I HAD to "chill" as Coach Rich said. I use the Finis tempo trainer. At the pool I set it to 90, during my practice swim I had to reduce the number to 118. The rolling start happens, I start walking in the shallow water until deep enough and then I'm on my way. Well, not really. I could NOT breath, at all. My one fear was this, I did not feel stressed been swimming my whole life. But, everytime I tried I could not breath. Mind you, I am just past the first buoy. And now my mind is racing. I turn over on my back "relax Ken, you got this" turn over again, no luck, started the breast stroke. I then noticed the next group was fast approching. I thought I done, I was only at the second buoy. I tried again, and for some reason I was able to at least get my face in the water with shallow breathes. I started on my way after about 5 minutes of considering quitting. The rest of the swim went off as comfortable as if I was in a pool except for a calf cramp on the second lap. I held onto a kayak for about 1 minute then resumed. The water was literally "breathtaking."
Swim time: 1:13:43
T1 :20:13
In my haste "slow is smooth, smooth is fast" I passed by the wetsuit strippers on there right. I did not even know they were there. So I head into the changing tent with my wetsuit around my waist. As written about before, the term sardines in the can comes to mind. I was standing the whole time in a aisle trying to take off everything, dry, and put on winter gear. Let's just give the mental image here, but you get the idea. Then feeling good that I finally got changed, I could not get out of the tent due to the amount of people.
Bike : 6:39:33
Avg Power 147 Max PWR: 535 NP 166 IF 0.706 FTP 235 (did not correct for the 10% reduction, not intentionally but forgot to change the settings on my garmin 510) TSS 321.7 Elevation gain 7,162 Avg Speed 16.65 Max Speed 50.72
I had rode 3/4 of a lap of the course Friday before the race. Got very lost in Truckee (don't ask). Ended up doing 37 miles. ("do no more than 30 miles") got a idea about Brockway. I listened to the Race Webinar at least 20 times. I honestly thought if I had to do Brockway twice I did not know how I would make it. I have not hills like this near me in Ohio and at elevation no less. Chose not to do the drive through Martis camp (denial). I heard Rich's and Al's voice in my head the whole race. The first 7 miles get your heartrate down, 90% rule for Dollar Hill (check), keep up the speed until next intersection past Tahoe city (check), now until Truckee fast, fast, fast (check). Truckee comes and now I get to ride the course (not where I got lost) under the overpass, steepish short climb, bike path (yep no passing zone), overall that section was uneventful. No need to use "common sense" around the Boulder of death( it was gone). Now onto Schaffer-Mill/Martis Camp...started innocent enough then up, up, and away. I kept hearing Coach Rich saying "it's not big deal folks, it's just a climb." I thought holy /#$% talk about down playing a climb..LOL. Pushed though with my 11-28 11 speed cassette and flew down hill until Brockway. OMG really, grind, grind. Stayed in my saddle 99% of the climbing the whole day. I sounded like a train with the huffing and puffing but damn if I didn't get up there. The down hill was insane. I just went for it, max speed was 50.7. Talk about feeling alive. Hell yeah. Repeated the loop again, nicknaming Dollar hill Mini Brockway. Next time though Martis was better actually because I knew the course and what to expect. Not easier! but better.
T2 6:27
Run:4:41:55
Dead legs and no air make for a bad combination. The scenery and course was amazing. The crowd's and volunteers were fantastic. I found earlier in the week that I could not do my usual 8:30 pace due to the altitude. I tried but I would have significant issues with breathing. So I slowed my pace until I could breath more comfortably which turned out to be around a 10:30 pace. No other issues on the run. We supported overall.
Total time: 13:01:51
Bottom line, This is what I had envisioned a IM to be. A total butt kicking, mind numbing, humbling experience. Will I do it again, yes, not next year (doing IMCHOO but in 2015, I will be back.
Comments
Overall, congrats on a solid and respectable day. Keeping moving on the IM run is a tough sell in it's own right, and the IMLT course has enough hills to take some of the wind out of your sails. Combine that with needing a bit more time at aid stations to fuel up and maybe a bathroom break or two after a long day and there just a ton of little things that can slow down your average run pace a good 30 sec/mile behind what you were actually running. Oh that and altitude + a 112 mile ride beforehand.
Ken - I'm so glad you had what I consider to be an awesome day/time at this race. Sub 7 on the bike and 4:40 on the run are true accomplishments, given the nature of the day and course. I had a great time chatting with you at Thursday dinner, and hope that I provided a bit of motivation to carry with you on race day. (If only I'd listened to my own words!)
The good news: next IM you do, you've got about 15 free minutes right off the bat in transition, another 45-50 on the bike with less climbing, and ANOTHER 20+ from lower elevation on the run. So sub 12 hours, probably sub 11:30 is really where you'll be playing in TN.
Chris