Julia's IMC race report
Ironman Canada race report July 26th, 2015. Ironman Canada was going to be my 6th Ironman. Knowing the difficulty of the hills on the bike, I refrained from any real time goals. My real goal was to do well on the marathon and see where that would take me. Weather had been bouncing around a bit with some periods of rain, but nothing too crazy, and always a perfect cool temperature. I was optimistic on that front!
Pre-race morning – I had worked through my lists and then made another list for the morning. I figure that since I have done this enough times I should be writing everything down so that the wheels just continue to go smoothly in the future. I found it definitely decreased the stress levels! I got everything that I needed done with just enough time so that I wasn’t sitting around too much, but didn’t feel rushed. It just started to sprinkle as we got in the water…
Swim: The swim was an in-water, (yay!) mass (eek) start. I love the in water starts because I really need the time to get comfortable and warm up. I hadn’t been in a mass start since St. George three years ago. We had plenty of room actually, but after the gun went off it seemed that everyone swam straight for the buoys, so my comfortable middle position got squished pretty quickly. I slowly picked my way out to the edge in a gentle diagonal without hitting many people, and there I was much better for settling into my rhythm. 20 strokes, good form, sight, repeat. On the last big straightaway of the 2nd loop, I could feel the rain coming down pretty hard now. But, one thing at a time. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming… (time 1:18 something)
T1: popped out of the water, relatively happy with my time. Was thankful for the sleeveless because it made the transition around my garmin watch very easy. The air was not as cold as I was expecting but the ground sure was. It was raining pretty hard at this point. I got in and got out fast, and I grabbed my disposable mitten warmers, but I neglected to put on the tube socks I had fashioned as arm warmers because I was so wet and I thought it was going to take forever. I regretted that for a time. I did grab my cheapo rain cover-up, which was at least smart. (time: 6 minutes something)
Bike: When I got on the bike it was pouring rain, harder than anything we had seen all week. Everything was drenched and the roads were slick and full of puddles. I tried not to think about it very much, because I didn’t want to get into a negative space, but there was a little corner of my mind in fear that it was going to be like this all day. I don’t know Canada like I know California so I figured anything was possible. This was about the time I started regretting not putting on the arm warmers and stuffing in the hand warmers. My fingers and hands were pretty cold. The gentle downhills were not doing much to warm up my muscles. Never thought I would be thankful for the uphills but I was. About 30 minutes or so into the bike, the rain let up. I was so happy for the break and determined to cherish every little one. Thankfully it didn’t rain like that for the rest of the day. Light showers came off and on a few times, but that first one put everything back in perspective. Got up and down the first hill and then headed out to Permberton meadows. It was a great flat spot, and I felt like somehow I had a bit of a tailwind in both directions. My goal was to stay in my box in my goal watts and aim for a good cadence. This worked great until mile 95, when we started climbing to get back into Whistler. It was a mental blow to be chugging along all happy and have to be faced with those final hills, even though I knew they were coming! But you just go up them. My Garmin didn’t hit the full 112, which gave me mixed emotions – but mainly I felt relief because I knew I didn’t cut the course and the climbing was over. I was also super happy that I was under 7 hours because I never thought that would be possible, but at 109 miles, maybe it was. 
(time: 6:56)
T2: Didn’t even bother to change socks, but got my gear and decided to go ahead and try my new tactic of bringing a water bottle for body cooling, even though the temps weren’t bad. (time: 4 minutes something)
Run: The first part of the run was a bit hilly, so I just settled into my easy pace, giving myself extra time for the climbs. After the first 5k, things flattened out relatively well, allowing for a reasonable pace. The water bottle and arm coolers were working out well. Between my bottle and having volunteers pour their cool water on them, I feel I was able to keep moving pretty well. Apparently I am like an old American car – my engine just runs hot no matter how cool the day is. I was able to keep a relatively steady pace and allow myself the 30 step breaks every mile or two. The run course itself was amazingly beautiful! I think it really helped make things pleasant. It was going pretty well, but I knew that there would be a rough spot between miles 22-24, and sure enough there was, but my slowdown wasn’t as bad as it has been in the past, so I was happy. Then of course things perked up a bit at mile 25. The run back was actually kind of cruel because you can hear the announcer and there is a turn where you think you are headed down the finish chute but no, you have to run another few km before you are ready done. Argh. But after making it that far you just keep going. Crossed the finish line one happy girl!!! (finish: 13:22:12)
Final notes: for me, I learned a lot about nutrition during the day. I know this sounds crazy, but my body doesn’t really respond the same was during racing as it does during training, although I can’t imagine prepping any other way than the way we do. For instance - I have trained this season and many others with caffeine as part of the day, and it was incorporated on both hot and not hot days. Never a problem. During this race my body reminded me that caffeine was a diuretic, and cutting it out and upping the salt to higher than what I had trained with worked to prevent excessive bathroom breaks. The increase in salt also helped perk me up a bit on my run. To my surprise I felt myself flagging just a bit on mile 13, but switching to gels with a much higher salt content (from ~50 mgs to 230 mgs) worked wonders. I also felt much better when crossing the finish line than the past two races. The last two ironman races before this I was reduced to a trembling little thing that needed to collapse in a heap. Not this day! The cool temps probably had a lot to do with that, so that is something to keep in mind for me when I choose races. All in all, I consider it a successful day!
Comments
Congrats! And pretty funny how you and I did the whole "ships passing in the night" thing on the bike paths a few times this summer :-)
Hey Julia - your smile crossing the finish line says it all - as you say, "a successful race".
Funny how people are different. I didn't need any cooling on the run. I actually put on a Patagonia pull over from my special needs bag to keep warm for the back half of the run.
Congrats on a great day!
Rich and Dino - it was great seeing you guys out there during training!!! Can't wait until our race paths cross again!!!