JW's Big Fat IMWI Adventure!
Nov 30, 20014: I had finished IMCoz by walking the last 8 miles of my race. This concluded a long season which saw a crazy amount of training, 3 Ironmans including Kona, and an enormous toll taken on my family. I had a lot of time to think in reflect on this 8 mile stroll on that Carribean island. I had promised my wife that 2015 would be "her" year and we agreed that I would not be doing an IM.
Dec '14-March '15: I quit my job in NYC, took another job in Minnesota, sold my house in NJ, moved halfway across the country, started a new job and did exactly 0 workouts. Since I was moving to MN, I bought a fat bike to ride in the snow which I did exactly 2 times for a combined 45 mins (and smiled the whole time). I dropped my completely strict dietary regime and pretty much ate anything and everything I wanted (and even some things I didn't want). I put on almost 30lbs and was generally a fat lazy slob... Over this time frame, Jess was in the process of fighting several different injuries and ailments which made it so she really couldn't work out at all.
Late Feb '15:
Jess: "I can't take it anymore... You need to sign up for a race or an event."
Me: "huh, I thought we agreed I'd take this yr off?"
Jess: "that's before I realized that meant you were going to turn into a fat out of shape slob who would be setting a bad example for our kids"
Me: "um... What are you saying?"
Jess: "do you think you could make a goal to do an IM, but with the following conditions 1) train with moderation 2) don't try to KQ, 3) don't try for a 9-handle"
Me: "um... Yeah, I'll figure something out"
Our plan... I would do IM Wisconsin on my Fat Bike. This would serve 2 purposes. First, it would give me a new shtick for fundraising for ReserveAid. The whole “support me for yet another IM” was becoming a harder and harder email to send out every year. It also forced me to throw out all time goals and expectations and just have fun and see what happens. My honest original goal was to just finish. And there were A LOT of people who said that could not be done. I also committed to do all of my workouts around my commute (I lived 12.5 miles from work now) with the exception of one weekend day per week where I would be home by 9AM. Pretty simple right...
Early June: I had the following conversation with Jess:
Jess: “So… Are you going to actually train for this IM?”
Me: “Um… I thought we agreed I would train with moderation this year.”
Jess: “I thought you meant moderation for YOU… Not moderation for a NORMAL person”.
Surprisingly I was able to get a lot of training work done around my commute. Riding to/from work for ~45mins-1hr, two times a week was more mid-week bike work than I had ever done during training. And I wasn’t leisurely riding a bike for transportation, I was HAMMERING on a Fat Bike! And the 12.5 mile run to work was pretty good, but the 12.5 miles run home was even better. Long story long, I showed up on race day WAY fitter than I imagined I would be.
JW’s Big Fat Challenge. I like to rattle cages. I don’t do it to draw attention to myself, but I just like to be challenged and to also challenge those around me. And I do like to draw attention (and donations) to my Charity, ReserveAid. So before the race I talked a pretty big game and EVERYBODY thought I was off my rocker. I was pretty sure I could be fast on that bike, but it gave me even more motivation to do so when everybody doubted me. I love that extra fuel for my already hot internal fire.
The Race: I “Super-hydrate” the day before IM races and also load up on electrolytes. So, on Saturday I had taken ~6-8 salt sticks. I also took 4-5 Ca/Mg pills and drank a bunch of water and a couple of Gatorades throughout the day. Just before I went to bed around 8PM, I also drank a Skratch Labs Hyper-Hydration Mix. I also made an Ultragen Recovery shake and left it in the ice bucket near the bathroom of my hotel. I did not set an alarm, but woke up around 1AM to pee and drank about ½ of the Ultragan and went back to sleep. I slept a FULL 8 hours in quite possibly the deepest sleep I have ever had before an Ironman waking up around ~4:40AM. I drank the rest of my Recovery shake, ate a Kind Bar and a larabar, took a nice warm shower and headed off to do the pre-race stuff which went seamlessly. This was my first race in my EN kit and the MoJo was awesome! Was cool to see everybody out there and have everybody actually recognize me as part of the squad.
Swim: 1:12:38 (Expected ~1:15)
I lined up just to the left of the ski jump a few minutes before the start. I have a brand new Garmin 920XT which I planned to wear for the swim (1st time recording a swim leg) and I had my trusty Timex on my right wrist. When the gun went off I started both and got into the middle of the scrum. The first 5 minutes were chaotic with a ton of contact. I’m a big confident dude, but this was even a bit much for me. I starting counting strokes and wanted to see how high I could get before I lost count. 1,700 or so was my number (yes, I was in my box for most of the swim). Besides the start, the only major contact I got was around every turn buoy where it got pretty rough again. I exited the water, got my wetsuit stripped and made my way up the helix to the Transition area. My Garmin said ~20s so I guess it got kicked and turned off in the beginning scrum. It was really awesome to see Jess and the boys at the top and I stopped for a couple of quick high-5’s
After the swim: 86/428 AG, 649/2,990 OA
T1: 6:09 (Expected 7:30)
I dumped out my T2 bag and the volunteer said “Huh, I guess this isn’t your first time”. The only things I had in it was my helmet and a Zip-lock baggie with a few bars and my gloves in it. He offered to put my wetsuit and stuff in the bag and I was off. As I ran to my bike, I put my helmet on and stuffed the bars in to my rear jersey pockets. I put on the gloves and ditched the baggie all before I got to my bike.
Bike: 6:06:24 (Expected ~6:15, everyone else in the world expected me ~7hrs).
I got on my Big Bike to the cheers of all of the volunteers and spectators. This was the start of a lot of cheering for the day. I rode down the helix with my feet on top of my shoes which were already clipped onto my pedals. I slid them in once I was on the road at the bottom. I was only ~1.5 miles into my ride when the “excitement” happened. The course takes you along a “no pass” section of sidewalk then out onto a road. A couple hundred yards later, this road intersects with another one that you need to turn 90 degrees to the right onto. Well, my big Fat Bike hardly corners all that well. I need to start turns wide, then carry momentum into the apex of the turn then exit them wide again. I was arguably coming into the turn a bit hot when the person well in front of me decided to hit his brakes hard and slow into the corner. To avoid hitting him, I went wide into the turn and had to turn sharply. Given that there were oncoming cars (only at like 5-10mph) in the lane if I went too wide, I’m probably pretty lucky that my big tires lost traction and I laid my bike down. My Garmin launched off the front and my bottles went flying. I had ripped my brand new EN shorts and had a few scratches, but luckily the only thing that was injured was my pride. I had a lot of thoughts run through my head as I got up off the ground, one of which was “everybody said this was a stupid idea to ride this bike, if I DNF at mile 1.5 they are all going to be right…. I am so stubborn and stupid!”. I ran down the road to retrieve my Garmin only to find that my K-Edge mount was crushed and the tabs on the back of the computer had broken off anyways… I slipped the bike computer into my rear pocket and realized I would be riding “blind” for the next 110.5 miles. I hopped onto my bike and pedaled away, but was unable to “clip in” to my right pedal. Riding without data is one thing, not clipping in for 110 miles would be something totally different. A half mile or so later, I pulled off the road and got off of my bike again. I fiddled with the pedal and took my (now ripped) toe covers off of my shoes. I bent back my messed up shifter and once I got my shoe to clip onto my pedal, I remounted my bike and got moving again.
Here I was, ~10 minutes into a very long bike ride and I had spent 4 of them not moving... Surprisingly, I wasn't worried. I'm a data geek, but I also have a ton of racing experience at this point. I had done a bunch of group rides with people on road bikes and tri bikes and did a lot of my long rides with another person this yr (my friend and fellow Team ReserveAid member David Chene). For all of those rides, I didn't sweat my numbers, I just hammered to keep up. I know how to ride a bike, so off I went to hammer through the field.
Because of the Challenge I had laid down to so many folks, one of the pledges that a few people made was to donate to ReserveAid based upon how many people said something like "nice bike". So yes, I kept track ALL DAY. I also included every time anybody said something like "You're a Beast", "Whooooo Fat Bike", "You're Crazy", etc. etc. I also heard a lot of funny comments like early in the race when I was passing a fast looking female on a fancy tri bike with aero wheels. She looked at me as I was passing with a disheartened look on her face and said "Now I know what a guy feels like when he gets chicked". And it wasn't just other riders (even though at least one out of every three riders I saw gave me a positive comment), there were spectators at every turn all over the course. Almost all of them lit up and smacked the people next to them to make sure everyone saw and screamed for the idiot on a Fat Bike.
I also could NOT ride the way I was trained to race Ironmans for the last several years. Prior to this race, I knew "Ninja Bike Execution" meant riding really steady, with a high cadence and constant power. This meant staying aero for as much of the ride as possible only coming off of my aerobars onto my bullhorns when I was climbing below 12mph. On the rare occasions I would get out of my saddle it was simply to stretch with zero power spikes. Fat Bikes are simply a different animal than a tri bike and comes with it's own necessary style of otherwise "inefficient" pedaling from an energy conservation standpoint. For instance, the wheels are huge (with 30psi instead of 110psi) and the rubber alone weighs a few pounds. So even though my entire bike wasn't all that much heavier than my tri bike, the rotational weight of the tires alone meant that it was very important to conserve momentum. And power spikes that were previously avoided were now absolutely necessary. I was out of the saddle for almost EVERY hill and it wasn't just to change positions and stretch, but to help generate enough power to keep my big wheels a rolling. This way of riding is a hell of a lot of fun, but horrible for conserving your legs for an IM marathon. I knew all of this going in and wasn't going to stress about it once I was in the thick of it.
Now back to the race... The course has a ~10 mile "stick", then two ~45 mile loops then a return leg back to transition on the stick. About halfway through the loops there are three separate fairly steep hills that only take a few minutes each to get up (but they are a tough few minutes). I knew I was flying on the first 20-30 miles simply because of the people around me. There were a ton of people on fancy bikes that looked like they were riding fast but they weren't dropping me. In fact, I was passing a whole lot more people than were passing me which was even better knowing that I had a decent swim. Spectators were still going crazy over seeing my bike all along the course. I just tried to carry speed anywhere I could. If somebody passed me, I immediately hopped onto their wheel to stay in their draft for about 10-15 seconds before they moved on. Similarly, if I was passing someone I always aimed for their back wheel and stayed in their draft until the last second before the pass. This is all legal, but given that I was not blowing past everybody (like I would on my tri bike) I actually got a lot more of these small advantages throughout the day than normal. There is also one technical downhill on the loop and I bombed down it like I would have on any bike. I passed many people on that downhill and one guy caught back up to me after the downhill. He looked at me and said "How are your bike shorts big enough to hold your balls???". Um, I'll count that as another compliment for charity, thank you. There were also several straight downhill sections that I thought would be a huge disadvantage for me on the Fat Bike. I decided to take these head on. As I approached any downhill I would simply spike my power by pedaling as hard and as fast as I could until I spun out (at >115rpm), then I would sit as low as I could (sometimes on my top tube) and rest my chin all the way down on my handle bars and descend like you see guys going downhill in the Tour du France. Looking at my Garmin file (from my back pocket) after the race I had a top speed of 45mph during the race! I either stayed with the people around me or passed them on almost every downhill which was a pleasant surprise.
Climbing the first of the big hills on the first loop I really felt the crowd MoJo. People were lining the road several deep and they just erupted as I pedaled up the hill, "out of the saddle", rocking my bike back and forth. I was going the same speed as the other riders around me it must have just looked more impressive on that big bike... It was awesome. On the second hill of the loop, I had one of the best race experiences of my life. The eruption of crowd noise followed me up the hill once again, but this time near the top I saw my family. My 9 yr old JT saw me and had a huge smile on his face... I also beamed with pride as he ran up the hill alongside me for at least 30 seconds. It was truly awesome! Talk about "Performance Enhancing Advantage", that was it. Fellow teammate Bruce Thompson also ran alongside me and gave me an update on other EN'ers in the race. I also tried to tell him that I wrecked and that I had no data to look at but that I was okay and felt great.
Another big hill and I was close to finishing the first loop. There's a section that heads through a town that had Ironman banners and loud speakers setup. Mike Reilly (the voice of Ironman) was on the Mic and went crazy as I came through town "THERE'S JOHN WITHROW... OUR FAT BIKE RIDER AND MAN IS HE FLYING ON THAT THING, JOHN WITHROW EVERYBODY!!!". The crowd erupted as I flew past them.
A couple of times different spectators saw my kit and said "Hey EN... Does Coach Rich approve of that bike?" I would always laugh and say "Nope, he thinks I'm an idiot". The one guy said "And at least he's honest!" Another guy said "Holy Sh!t... That is either you are either Awesome or Stupid and I really don't know which..." I wish I could remember even half of the cool things people said to me because there were literally dozens and dozens of cool things that just made me laugh out loud. Many times it was something simple like "Wow, you really know how to make the rest of us just feel like crap". And "I can't believe you are passing me, but I'm also not gonna try to keep up with you..." To "How the hell are you making that freakin' bike go this fast...?"
Part way through the second loop, I started to hit a low point. I normally take my nutrition every 15 minutes, but I had no clock to look at given the status of my computer. I was just "winging it" eating and drinking whenever I could and especially while going through the aid stations. Luckily, I noticed the signs reasonably early and focused to eat and drink more and was actually able to catch back up. It certainly wasn't all rainbows and unicorns as my quads started to scream a bit. On the three big hills it became almost unbearably hard. I remember a mangled expression on my face and I was fighting back tears of pain as I climbed these hills the second time through. I kept telling myself to just suck it up and stop being such a wimp, and it eventually worked. Once I got over the big hills I was able to get it all back together again. The wind had picked up on the second loop (the wind is my biggest nemesis on that bike). I eventually found myself back on the stick and making my way back to the final Helix up to T2. My legs came back together in the last 10 miles and felt pretty good, but the inefficient position and all the standing and extra torque had taken a HUGE toll on my lower back which was now in spasm.
Bike stats for the nerds out there:
NP: 224W (5W higher than IMMT last yr and for almost a full extra hour)
Max Power: 800W (no, I am not kidding)
Max 20 min "Avg" Power: 243W
VI: 1.114
TSS: 337
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/898140708
To say this bike ride took a lot out of me would be an understatement...
After the Bike: 84/428 AG, 483/2,990 OA (Yes, I moved up 168 spots Overall during my bike ride on that Fat Bike...)
T2: 4:21 (expected 4 mins or so) T2 was uneventful. I put on my Injinji socks and my Hoka Clifton 2's and was off, putting on my run belt as I ran.
Run: 4:26:16 (Expected 4:15-4:30) [within 1 minute of my 3rd fastest IM run out of 8 attempts]
At the start of the run I was in big trouble. I looked at my Timex and saw ~7:30 so I knew if I just ran a 4:30 marathon that I'd break 12 hours. The problem was that my low back hurt so bad that I couldn't stand upright. It was VERY tight. I figured I'd just take it easy and see what happened. Running through my head on a continuous loop were the EN doubters that kept saying "If you ride a 6:15 bike split, you'll never be able to run a marathon" (For the record, nobody actually said that, but in my head that's what everyone was saying. It was now my mission to prove these imaginary people wrong).
I had a new "optical" HR monitor that was strapped on my upper arm. My plan was to turn it on once I was halfway through my bike, but since I didn't have my bike computer in front of me I didn't bother. The problem was that when I tried to turn it on, nothing... I tried several times and it was dead. I can only assume that it got turned on during the swim and the battery was dead. So this wasn't my data day, I thought to myself "self... you know how to run... Just run". I had peed 3x on the swim and another 6-7 or so times on the bike. good ones so I knew I was well hydrated. And ~1 mile into the run I had to go again. I hopped into a porta-potty and had another good one. After about 2.5 miles most of my back pain had gone away and I really started to loosen up. I just started ticking off the low 9-handle miles which was right on target. At mile ~6 or so, I saw the whole EN crew which was very cool. I gave my boys yet another high-5 and exchanged some smiles (yes, I was actually smiling). Bruce Thompson ran alongside me for a while to update me on the EN fast guys which was super cool! I told him that I felt great and he should be prepared for a negative split run (boy am I stupid).
My Garmin was disconnected to the course mile-markers, but at the pace I was averaging, it was going to be tough to beat my IMLou race time of 11:56:xx (which was my super stretch goal for this race). But... I really had to pee again. Might be TMI, but I made the executive decision to not take the time to stop at another porta-potty and simply let it loose on the fly. I was able to do this 2 more times for the remainder of the race...
I kept ticking of "fast-ish" miles, but was seeing a pretty big dislocation between my Garmin distance and the course markers. When I was getting close to the halfway point I was lapped by fellow Team ReserveAid member Ken Rideout who was within a mile of his 7th OA finish and 1st in M40-45. There was a dude hot on his heels and I yelled at him to sprint the whole way to the end and finish strong. When I got to the halfway point "turn-around" at mile 13.1, my Garmin said 14 miles, hmmm. I was at about 2:05 half-mary even though I "thought" I was averaging a pace that would have had me just under 2 hrs. I continued to feel okay for the next handful of miles, but definitely walked the big hills.
Around mile ~15 or so, David Chene (my local training partner and fellow Team ReserveAid member) came running past me... He said "I may not have gotten to do this on the bike, but at least I got it on the run" as he smacked me on the azz. He looked super strong and I told him to keep right on going as I was starting to suffer.
My IM race experience came in handy again on the run. I started feeling light headed and a bit dizzy on the run and I quickly realized that I needed more nutrition (I had taken 5 gu's in the first ~14 miles as well as a few swigs of GE at most aid stations). I was light-headed and was starving - I just needed something solid in my belly... I stopped briefly at the next aid station and grabbed a handful of potato chips and a coke. I crossed the road to grab 3 chunks of a clif bar from an aid station meant to serve the return trip. I think I gabbed a coke and a handful of potato chips at almost every remaining aid station. I solved my light-headedness, but after mile ~20 or so my legs really started to thicken up. I just kept ticking off miles and spent a little extra time at each aid station.
As I was approaching the last couple of miles (my watch was already past 25 miles) I wasn't sure how long to go. But I did know it wasn't a guarantee that I would break 12 hrs. I also knew that if I wanted to break 11:56 I better really start to hustle. Even though my legs really hurt, I was able to find another gear. My Garmin showed my fastest 3 miles of the day were actually the last 3 of my run logging an 8:45 for the last mile, then 8:36 for the stub (but this was on a 28.2 mile file). I skipped the last aid station and was literally sprinting around the capital not knowing exactly when I would find the finish line. Once I saw it, I powered the whole way down the hill to cross the line in 11:55:48 (beating my IMLou time from 2011 by ~30 seconds). https://www.strava.com/activities/392434968/
Finish: 11:55:48 (78/428 AG, 468/2990 OA) - I had moved up 6 spots in my AG and 15 OA on the run, not bad given the expenditure of my ride). I'm pretty happy with Top 18% OA given that I was originally hoping to just finish, then months later set a goal for this race of Top 50% OA (I guess I need to learn to dream bigger).
This might have been the most fun I have ever had during an IM race. Looking at my FinisherPix, I was actually smiling in a lot of them. Having the immense crowd support fueled a lot of my ride, but having my kids there was downright unfair to my competitors. It gave me such a high to see my kids faces light up for the brief moments they saw me in an otherwise very long day for them. Thanks in large part to the amazing support of this team I was able to raise almost $25k for ReserveAid through my efforts/bets/challenges in this Big Fat Adventure! I am overwhelmed by your generosity...
I'm writing this ~5 days after the race and can still barely walk due to my severe low back pain. It better heal quickly because I'm planning to run the Twin Cities marathon in 2 weeks alongside Jess, then I'm running the R2R2R in the Grand Canyon three weeks after that as my 40th Birthday preset to myself. Never a dull moment in the Withrow house!
Comments
Congratulations again!!!
It was great to meet you and I am still floored by that bike split. The fact that you were even upright to finish the marathon is a big win. I honestly knew you would get it done, somehow, and was glad to see you did not disappoint. Good luck with the recovery!
After talking with you, trading emails, and following you on Strava it was great to finally meet you in person.
Good luck recovering and have fun running with Jess in a couple weeks.
Look forward to our paths crossing again....
So many elitists and posers in this super competitive world and you've done a great job as an ambassador of the sport that keeps it fun and keeps it real.
Hope you & Jess enjoy the challenges coming up next. Be safe, train hard, have fun.
@ JW....awesome race, great report. What an adventure, and I'm so happy you raised a ton of moeny for Reserve Aid. I will tell you that you looked like you were having MORE FUN than anyone else in the race. You seemed so happy and confident before the swim start when we talked about your family's move to Minn. You looked so in control on the bike course, and I can confirm that your smile went from ear to ear when you saw your boys. And on the run, you knew how amazingly fast your bike split was and I could see you giggling on the inside.
It was a blast to spend the day with Jess and your boys cheering for you, all the ENers, and other racers too. Thanks so much for making it i memorable and unique race!!
All the best John and look forward to keeping in touch. Congrats on an overall successful and impressive performance.
Strong work! Awesome adventure/challenge paired with a great cause. Glad to financially contribute to #StupidWithrowTricks
It was fun to see you out on course. Congratulations on a great culmination to an "off-season". Keep on leading from the front!
By the way - you received a nice shout out as "Age-grouper of the week" from Bevin and Jon on IM Talk. Give it a listen. They were very impressed with your feat!
Ian
Yup. http://veetireco.com/product/speedster/
I fully endorse these tires (just don't over-inflate them). If you got a set for your mountain bike, you could definitely do training rides with Heather...