Carol D's IM CHOO race report - Hello Kona!
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IM Chattanooga was my 4th Ironman. It was probably the most fun in terms of the EN family and Mariah keeping us all together:-) Going into this race, I watched the number of participants in my new age group (65-69) dwindle from 5 to 3. I had heard from one of those women that she was doing IMMD instead of IMCHOO. So now we are down to 2! Of course being the "non-competitive" person I am, I checked out my competition on Athlinks and saw that I had a pretty good shot of beating her:-) But you never know what can happen on race day, so I wasn't counting my chickens by any means! So I had one goal of qualifying for Kona, and another goal of having a marathon PR in an IM. I'm happy that one of my goals was met:-) The other goal ended up being just the opposite! Yep, personal worst marathon time. Oh well - I'll take Kona any day!
Stats: Age 65; FTP 159; Weight on race day 112 lbs
Jan. OS training went great. Won AGs at Eagleman and Timberman 70.3s so that helped my confidence. IM training went mostly well. No injuries, so that was important. Got in most of the workouts and felt pretty good coming to IMCHOO. My swimming still sucks, but I wasn't going to worry about that. In hindsight, the one thing I should have done MORE of is train on hills! I did a little bit of bike on some hills, but nothing at all like IMCHOO. And forget the run hills! Nothing I trained on compared to that course!
Race morning: My Sherpa extraordinaire (Turby) and I got up at 3:20 and I had my applesauce, protein, and banana and a cup of coffee. Got to transition at 5:00 and brought my bike over to the railing so Turby could pump up my tires and calibrate my computers:-) I know, I am a very spoiled triathlete:-) Off to the EN team picture, hit a porta potty and got on the shuttle to the swim start. Holy Moly, that was a long line! Brandon is right that we should have brought something to sit on! I made the mistake of walking back to the porta potties and it took forever! I saw the line start moving and was nervous I would miss Turby somehow, but I got back to him eventually. I should have just waited because there were no lines at all when we were walking towards the swim start...
Swim: Goal - whatever the current decided; Actual - 1:18:50
Jumped in off the dock and was so concerned about my goggles that I got a bunch of water up my nose. Geez. Started swimming and tried to get to the right as much as possible. Very little contact during the entire swim, so that was a plus. At one point, I swallowed a bunch of water and had to hang onto a kayak for a minute to stop coughing. I was surprised at how little the current was helping. I suppose it helped somewhat since my time was much better then Kona or IMMD last year, but nothing like IMNY/NJ (56 mins!). So - I was happy to see the bridges and the red buoy! Looking at my Garmin data, my stroke rate was pretty low; so I guess I was pretty relaxed:-)
T1 - 10:04 Kind of slow and it was a pretty long way from swim exit to tent, etc. but I wasn't in a big rush. Put on my Kona EN shirt which I had sprayed the insides of with the glide stuff and that seemed to work really well. I decided I didn't need arm warmers or anything, so just put on my shoes/socks, gloves, helmet, sunglasses and was off! Saw Turby and Mariah at the mount area, so that was a boost:-) Turby said I was first in my AG at that point:-)
Bike - Goal: 6:45 - 7:00 (bestbike split predicted 6:43; QT2 predicted 7:00) Actual: 6:45 (IF: .676; VI - 1.06)
Went out easy and tried to avoid the congestion. People are crazy!! I didn't think about nutrition (other than sips of Perform) or watts until I got out to the first Dollar General. Unfortunately, going over the tracks/bumps - I lost 2 perform bottles! I tried to get them, but they had opened and there were too many people coming. One of the volunteers handed me a bottle of gatorade that somehow had dropped, so I stuck than in the back and proceeded on my way. Pretty uneventful going out to Hogs Jowl other than people all passing me on the uphills and me passing them coming down. One guys says to me, in a very southern drawl "you'all don't like hills much, do you?" as he passed me going up yet another hill. As I passed him coming down, I said "I LOVE hills!" Just after the turn, I saw Brenda and was so excited to have company for a couple of minutes. She was hysterical yelling at the idiots who were blocking and riding stupid! Coming back from the turn to Chicamauga was my favorite part of the course. You could really pick up some speed here and have fun doing it! I also saw Kim out there and she looked so strong! That brought a big smile to my face:-) At town I saw Turby and jumped off my bike to pee in the porta potty. I had peed on the bike once but the thought of getting off my bike for a minute was nice! My nutrition was a little light, so I was happy to get my new bottles at BSN and head out. The second loop was non-eventful, and I tried to get my gels in and my bottles emptied. I did an okay job, but could have drank more. Although I was not dehydrated since I peed about 4 times total on the bike. I noticed my NP on the 5-mile splits was getting a tad lower, and my IF went down from .69 to .676 during the 2nd half. I was hoping for close to .70, but my HR was in check and I felt no need to push it any harder. SOoooooooooo nice to get back to T2 and see Turby screaming for me:-) I said "how's my competition?". He answered "she never showed up!" WooHoo!!!
T2 - 6:39 I decided to change into nice, clean bike shorts and clean socks:-) My nice volunteer tried to empty my go-to bag and I asked her to just leave it! The 2nd time she tried to empty it, I just took it from her and put it on the chair next to me! Stopped at the porta potty and headed out. Stopped to say 'hi' to Turby and Mariah and was on my way...
Run - Goal: 5:00 - 5:15 Actual: 6:04:52 Ugh!
Started out feeling fine. The first hill jacked up my HR to way above my max, so I walked to get that HR down. After that, I just ran according to HR. Somehow, around mile 1, I tripped on absolutely nothing and fell down! I scraped my hands and my glasses went flying and a couple of guys stopped to help me up. So weird! I was fine, so I just picked up where I left off. I was so happy that my nutrition was working out and my stomach was fine... that had been a big problem in the past. Got back to around mile 8 and saw Turby. He said there was a hill ahead so I watched my HR and when it got too high, I walked. Over the bridge I went and tried to run up Barton but ended up walking a little due to HR. Everything was going hunky-dorey until I was coming down the hill around mile 10 and my right knee started hurting. WHAT??? That was new. Over the bridge and back to RSNs. I saw Turby and mentioned about my knee and he said to just baby it on the downhills. Got my regular glasses and head light and continued on. 2nd loop was okay, except that I fell down again! Almost in the same spot!! This time I scraped my elbow and hit the side of my hip. A couple of guys were there to help me up and I said "I can't believe I did this again!" Well turns out that these guys were the same guys that picked me up the first time! How embarrassing!! I decided I better concentrate on picking up my feet! Somewhere around mile 15-ish, my left knee started to hurt. So now I had both knees hurting, and the pain was radiating to my hips and quads. I ran as much as I could, then walked until I felt like I could run again. This was all new to me! So frustrating since my stomach felt good, my HR was good, but my legs were NOT. At the bridge, I saw Turby and started to cry. I told him about the pain in my legs and I couldn't run anymore. He said "it's okay, let's just go for a nice walk". (Don't tell the officials!) He called my daughter and I chatted with her for a few minutes. Shes says "Mom, you can stop for a sub and a beer and still qualify for Kona!" That made me laugh so off we went for the longest, most painful walk of my life! Walking the downhills was the worst part. When I got near the finish, Turby took off for the finish line and I went around to the shoot. Everyone was yelling "It's all downhill from here!" I wanted to shoot them!!! I didn't think it was possible, but I was able to "run" through the finish line and do my traditional IM finish line dance! Too bad the IM video feed wasn't working but I know I did it:-) I think seeing Mariah was the best sight for sore eyes ever!!
Final: 14:26:00 2nd best IM finish and 1st AG :-) and KQ
First of all, thanks to Mariah, Coach P and Coach R, all the ENers, and Turby for making this IM possible and fun (mostly!). It was a great weekend meeting/seeing the EN folks. This is such a wonderful family. Seeing this group rally around Steve and Brenda, and showing so much support for each other is unbelievable. That was the one thing that helped on that 2nd loop was seeing someone in an EN kit!
Every IM is a learning experience. I am really happy about my nutrition and non-stomach issues. That was a first. Although someone on the FB Ironman Choo page said that dehydration causes the outside quad muscles to go first, and then your joints. Hmmmm. I didn't think I was dehydrated. I peed in T2 and at mile 9. I am trying to figure out what caused my knees/hips/quads to quit on me! We are thinking it's because I didn't train in many hills (it's pretty flat in NJ!), and I might have pushed it too much on the bike?! Also, Turby pointed out that a good portion of the run course is on concrete. That could have contributed? I also did zero weight training last year! Being a Personal Trainer, I should know better:-) Anyway, it's over and I'm glad:-)
Now we are off to Kona tomorrow for Turby's race! I can't think of a better place to go for a nice R&R! Looking forward to some more EN lovin'! Thanks for listening - and if you have any input, feel free to let me know! Aloha!!
Comments
Congrats Carol!!!!
congratulations on a great race!
I find that two things cause my knees to start hurting when running....I either went too hard on the bike or I'm running on hills. It doesn't seem like you went to hard on the bike, so it must have been the hills.
Congrats!
CONGRATS!
Enjoy your recovery trip
WOOOHOOO!!!! Ummm I am NOT surprised!!!! YOU'RE GOING TO KONA BABY!!!! You are a determined, hard working, KICK ASS triathlete and I knew you would just ROCK this race!! I had so much fun tracking you
Truly, truly inspiring!! Have an AWESOME recovery. XOXO
Carol - one OF to another - it's great to get another ticket to Kona. But I'm a bit concerned about your knees and your falls. I know you are probably already deeply into maintaining your fitness. But maybe you should review just what you are doing on a daily basis specific to building your strength vis a vis balance. I've been seeing the same sorts of issues the past year: I get tendonitis in the knee and hip more easily than in the past. And I took a serious tumble skiing in January that never would have happened five years ago. So I've added about 30 minutes a day of specific lower extremity and lower core body weight exercises for that very reason. And once I reccover from the surgery i have planned Nov 6th, I'll add back the weight training I;ve been lax on the past 18 months.
As to your race, as we said in the 60's: "Farm out!" Or was it "Rat on?"
Congrats on the KQ!