JW's FatBike Liberty Half
Liberty Half Iron, June 13, 2015
Swim: 42:04 (included long-ish run up to T2)
T1: 2:09
Bike: 3:12:33
T2: 2:33
Run: 1:54:13
Total: 5:53:29 (15/29 in AG, 136/231 OA)
I decided to sign up for this race the week before. I had been doing most of my training around my commute and early on Saturday mornings. Don't mistake this to mean that I haven't been working hard, because I'm making the most out of my rides and runs. The swim is a different story. The last time I had my goggles on was IMCoz last November. No joke, This race would be my very first swim this yr.
Had a great conversation with EN's 2014 Kona Qualifer Rick Goullaud (only found out later who he was). and then had Wicked Smart William Jenks over for a super low key dinner before the race.
Got a lot of smiles and cheers as I wheeled my big Fat Bike into transition. The person body marking me said "Please tell me you're not doing the Half on that thing..." I got a high five when I confirmed that I was. I found a spot in Transition and eventually made my way down to the water for a short 5 minute warmup. This was the first time I was in the water this yr and it felt pretty okay.
Swim (42:04):
I decided to just swim EASY, like easier than I have ever swum in a race before. I settled in at an easy pace and looked up and I was about 25yds to the right of the bouy line, then it seemed like 2 mins later I was 20yds left of the bouy line. This was a fight I would continue for most of the swim. My whole upper body started to get sore and tired before I had even made it to the turn-around. I started questioning my sanity and wondered what I was thinking having NOT swum before today. But interestingly, when I was half way back I kind of went into a trance and things stopped hurting and I just cruised it all the way home to the finish. I glanced at my watch as I got out of the water and saw 40:36, but made my way easily up to transition and the mat for a 42:04 official time. I think if I would have just sighted more and swum straight I was probably looking at 2-3 mins faster.
Bike (3:12:33):
As I mounted my bike, a spectator yelled "Hey Fat Bike... See you tomorrow"! My plan was to hammer the entire bike. I was expecting a 3:30-4:00 bike split. I had cranked up my tire pressure to close to 30psi which is basically the max they are rated for. I was riding my trusty Salsa Beargrease XX1 fat bike. The only upgrade I did to the bike was to change the single front ring to a 32 tooth (from the original 28). This means my biggest gear is smaller than when a normal bike is on the small ring of a compact crank which has 34 teeth. I basically get out of the saddle and hammer up all hills rocking back and forth as my big studdable tires rumble along. (It's the anti-EN style of riding the bike leg). It was raining and I was getting passed over and over and over again. I decided to keep track of how many people I passed on the day, it was 3. Technically it was 5, but 2 of them were people on the side of the road fixing flats who probably passed me again once they were back on their bike. There weren't that many people ahead of me to start though since I started in wave 2, just behind the elite's. William Jenks came flying by me like I was standing still at mile 6. I got more support on this bike ride than I ever have on any ride of my life. I would guess that at least 60-75% of the people who passed me gave me encouragement. Things like "You're crazy man", "Are you trying to win the Animal award", "Holy crap dude, what were you thinking". One woman passed me around mile 40 and said "Dude, I have a fat bike but never went more than 6 miles on it, I know how hard it is to ride those, how are you moving so fast". My bike is the biggest disadvantage in the wind, and it simply creates too much drag to go faster than 25mph on all but the steepest downhills. But if I'm pushing it hard, I can climb pretty quickly on it. I averaged just over 17mph fir the whole ride. When I got to around the 2:30 mark I really started to question my sanity. My legs were on fire and my lower back was killing me. If I was going down hills or into the wind, I would crouch down and rest my forearms on the handlebar. I guess this, mixed with the constant out of the saddle hammering, just fried my hips and lower back. As I came into T2, most of the spectators were cheering. Rick Goullaud who I had chatted with the night before was standing in T2 and gave me a big high-5. I took my time putting my Injinji's on and changed from my bike jersey into my EN tri top.
Run (1:54:13):
My back and legs were pretty sore to start the run and I really had to pee. When I started the run I saw that I was at exactly 4 hours. If I could just manage to pull off a 2hr half-mary I could break 6 hrs. About a half a mile in, I found a nice tree and did my business. The run was mostly on a paved bike trail that meandered through a park. It was actually a nice scenic run but had a decent amount of elevation change as it meandered along. I started passing people left and right. I felt pretty good and started ticking off miles. I lost track of how many people I passed and maybe only got passed by 1 or 2 people on the entire run. I guess that's a benefit of being so slow on the bike. I just reminded myself that "I'm a runner now" and kept turning up the dial. I negative split the half-mary by about ~3 mins or so which I'm VERY happy with and my last 3 miles were my strongest of the day.
I'm pretty happy finishing the race near the 50th percentile of my AG and Definitely happy that I did this race in under 6hrs (faster than my first ever HIM done on a proper tri-bike). However, I was really questioning my sanity near the end of the bike, it was REALLY REALLY hard and I simply hurt.. I just can't imagine doing 2x that distance on that bike. I would guess that I will have to slow my pace/effort A LOT if I plan to finish the IM, but I'm very confident now that I'll be able to finish it.
As I picked up my stuff in transition, a woman said to me "Did you really do the Olympic on that bike...?" "No..." I said, "I did the Half on it". 4-5 guys that were standing by her said "Yeah, and you would not believe how fast he was on that thing...". I'll take that as a big compliment. She later came over and asked if she could take my picture with my bike because she didn't think any of her other friends would actually believe her when she told them.
I had a lot of fun with this!
Comments
JW = EPIC
I've done 7 Ironmans now and last yr went a bit off the deep end with the intensity and volume of my training to the point that it put a pretty big strain on my family. Wrap in that each year I have raised money for my charity (ReserveAid) through mine and my team's Ironman racing. The first yr just doing an Ironman seemed almost impossible, so that was my fundraising hook. Each successive yr it has gotten harder and harder for me to justify IM being some crazy thing that they should open their wallet for. the "crazy factor" just doesn't seem that high anymore. Wrap that all up with the fact that I moved my family to Minnesota this winter and it was looking like I wouldn't even be doing an IM this yr (or any race for that matter).
So when Jess finally got sick of me being a lazy slob she told me to do another IM, but promise not to be crazy with my training. After qualifying for Kona last year and having an inner desire to eventually have a 9-handle race, I knew I had to put some self-imposed constraints on myself. Paint myself into a little box, so to speak. That's when I decided to do the IM on my fat bike. I figured that it killed a whole bunch of birds with one stone, including the following:
1) it FORCED me to remove any thoughts of KQ or a 9-handle, etc. for this year
2) With the goal of "just finishing", not I could have a little more laxity with my training (i.e. no Sunday workouts and home by 9AM on Saturday). Family First this yr!
3) Everybody I mentioned it to thought it was crazy! That made me want to do it even more.
4) A friend of mine (multiple KQ guy) said it was impossible. He bet me $500 (to the charity of the winners choice) that I couldn't finish the IM on a fat bike. He said I'd never make the bike cut-offs.
5) This also gives me a new and interesting "hook" for my charity fundraising this year. (Team ReserveAid has raised over $900,000 for military families in the last 4 years, so we're talking about big goals and big numbers...)
5) It's hard. Like REALLY REALLY hard, and I generally like doing things that are hard.
6) I like doing cool sh!t with my fitness. After I do IM Wisconsin on my fat bike, I'm going to run the R2R2R at the Grand Canyon for my 40th b-day. That's also not a race and it will also be very hard (and my birthday is a few weeks after they close the north rim and shut most of the running water off in the Canyon. But that only makes me want to do it then even more.
To sum it up, I didn't want to focus on just doing more training to do the same thing a little bit faster. Been there/done that for enough years now that I just wanted something different. Ironman is hard no matter what. I like the expression on people's faces when I tell them that I am intentionally trying to make it even harder.
"Hey Fat Bike... See you tomorrow"! that is too funny.
I would estimate the funny looks and comments to increase with a factor of 10 when you rack that baby at IMWI. Its almost the "anti-Ironman" when you think about it.
BTW- 17mph is smoking... I did 17mph on the MTB but I was drafting Heather on her road bike and I was working to stay with her !