John Bayone - 2019 IMMT Race Report.
So I ask, is it physical or mental or both?
First I am sorry that it is so long. I tried to just answer the sections on the template. Enjoy!!
Your Race Goals / Expectations
It has been a few years since I did a triathlon and overall the goal was to finish, and I tried not to have much in the way of expectations. The last few months of training just very careful coming off a serious hip flexor injury earlier in the year so I tried to do I could without over stressing my legs. Overall, coming into this I felt pretty good physically. While I did want to run under 4 hours, since I had not done that in my previous attempts at this distance. However, it was more important to have a positive experience.
How did the race unfold?
Race morning, I was awake since 2 am and could not fall back asleep, without turning the TV on or looking at my phone I just tried to fall back asleep but nothing seemed to work. At 5am the Residence Inn opened the breakfast so I took a few minutes to make sure I got something to eat and then off to the transition area. Put drinks & nutrition on the bike pretty quick, caught up with some other EN folks and we were off to the swim start area for pre race photos with some EN teammates. The swim start area has a nice warm up area off to the right side so I had a little warm up swimming around and then the real fun could begin.
In the last few years I have had a few episodes of prerace anxiety, and this day would turn out to be no different. Even though I had tried to pace myself and remain calm all morning up till now apparently nothing seemed to work. So about 15-20 minutes before the race start the anxiety, nausea, and almost overpowering desire to get outta there really started kicking in. Just standing there my HR was up over 100 bpm, and if I could just disappear I would have. Unfortunately in the moment, and fortunately in the long run, there is not a way to just turn around once the crowd started moving forward? OK, there might be, but when you feet are moving forward across the sand, the rest of your body can not stop shaking and it feels like alarms are going off in your head and the brain is going 100 miles an hour of all the ways I could get out of this. It is really terrifying. So with this entire 3-ring circus going on in my head, into the water we went.
It felt like it took hours to get past the first few buoys in the lake. We were allowed to swim on the inside of the buoy line as long as we went around the ones at the far end of the lake so to avoid contact I stayed to the inside and had minimal contact. I kept thinking with every kayak I passed that I wanted out of there, but the real life guard boats that had the ability to make that happen were on the outside and I would have to swim sideways in front of the people behind me and the danger to others and myself in doing that wasn’t an option. This continued and never really calmed down until almost half way when I could see the red buoy at the turn. On the way back I noticed someone about 10 feet to my left that was swimming about the same pace as me and tried to stay with her and only sighted a few times and stopped really looking for the bouys. Finally to the dock and up the stairs, that felt like it took days.
Excited to get that wetsuit off and just be moving, so T1 seemed to go by pretty quickly. It was a good idea to have my bag organized with what I wanted first was on the top.
Once on the bike, it was overcast and comfortable and I tried to get my HR down and I just kept trying to slow down. I finished the 2 bottle of Scratch Labs drink on the bike by the 1st aid station, and like planned I took the water bottle and Base Endurance (B.E.) sports drink from them. One sip of the B.E. Peach Mango and I tossed that bottle into the hockey net before ever even putting it on the bike. Sure, I should have trained with it & that is a big no-no to not try to train with what is on course. However, if I had then I would not have had a topic to think about for the next 6-1/2 hours to try to make jokes about. So lets look on the bright side.! When framed in that way, it made me question on Rt. 117 when going past some farm land that smelled like it had been recently fertilized….was that smell really from the farmers tending to their land, or was it from the athletes in front of me already suffering from gastrointestinal distress from drinking that stuff? Several hours later on the run course you could smell the port-a-johns from 10 meters away. How can so many healthy people generate such a biological catastrophe? Could it have been that B.E. sports drink from the bike course? I am not really sure.
Anyways, I had packed as many gels as would fit into the top tube bag before the race, had more in my special needs bag, and they had gels on the course if I needed them. So I figured that for the rest of the ride I would take the gels and water. The last 100 miles of the bike I took 9 gels and 2 bottles of water at every aid station. I either drank that water or it would slowly get poured down the back of my neck or even better was down the front of the jersey and on my arms. It was warm and windy on Rt. 117 on the 2ndloop, but I felt ok with constantly staying wet and kept drinking. In the moment not drinking the sports drink was a good thing, cause it was forcing me to be very focused on making sure I was drinking the water and I did have some of that Base Salt and took that a couple of times. When I got off the bike one of the main objectives was complete….for once in 4 attempts at this distance I was not dehydrated and feeling cooked.
Overall, I would finish with an IF of 0.667 with NP of 142W, and my target was .67 @ 135W and avg. HR under 140bpm. So while those were close to planned, the data shows my Avg. HR as 145bpm. Not sure how, since most of the ride it was in the 150’s. I backed off as much as I could the last 20 miles trying to get it down and only then after being out there 6 hours did the HR finally come down.
T2 seemed to go by pretty quickly considering that I totally changed into normal running shorts and a tank top with race number already pinned on, dried my feet with a towel I had in my bag put on socks and tied my shoes and put on my running belt. (FYI, the Nathan VaporKrar Waistpak is outstanding!! Holds a ton of stuff and once you tighten it, it does not move.)
The last aid station on the bike I took an extra water bottle and carried that in my hand and just slowly sipping it for almost the 1st 13 miles. I still took cups of water at the aid stations, but it was just nice to have to know that if all I wanted was a little sip I did not have to wait until the next aid station. I finished it off right as we got back to the main village and I had another water bottle in my special needs bag.
The hills on the run the 1st 5k seemed to go by pretty easy, but I kept trying to slow down. Every time I looked at the watch I kept thinking this was too fast and I needed to cool it. This lasted until the turn around about 10km +/-, then the long slow uphill back to town. Which still seemed very manageable even at a slower pace. However, when we got to the downhill parts I would “make up some seconds” by just opening it back up. It was starting to really take a beating on my quads and the hip flexor I spent time recuperating in the winter & spring. So from then on, there was a lot going on mentally. Perhaps getting so worked up worrying about blowing up physically, the mind took over and just put an end to it. A sliding scale of mental vs physical with walking breaks, and for once I was not making myself crazy about it. There would be a big positive split on my run split today, but as strange as it might sound I was actually enjoying it. Not stressing out about it, and taking the time to just soak it all in. The volunteers that were so nice to everyone, the locals & spectators that had been out there for hours and were still full of energy and doing everything they could to help motivate everyone, the scenery, all of it. Ok, I get it….it is the run course of an Ironman triathlon and not a damn sightseeing tour, but for a few brief moments in there I couldn’t have cared less.
What Should Your Teammates Know About this Race?
This is an absolutely fantastic event, as well as area to vacation. There are a lot of great outdoor activities in the area so if you were traveling all the way there with family or friends I would recommend spending a few extra days to see the area. I went for a long weekend over the July 4th holiday and it was great to see the area and the course before the race. That took all the stress out of not just knowing the course, but where the grocery stores, restaurants, shopping and other things area located.
Swim. In the lake on the way back, there is a dock with stairs. I think they only put the stairs onto the dock for race weekends? I am pretty sure this is new to the course. On race morning there were some big white banners on the railings on that dock that you could see from almost 1km out. On days of practice swims those banners were not there, so just know that there will be something there about 50-80 feet wide that you can use as a marker. Also the level of water in the lake was down this year so we expected to have to stand up and walk the last 50-80meters to get to the stairs. Overall, it helped to calm me down a little cause you could only go through that area so fast anyways.
Bike. Great support at the aid stations. Bring patience, sunscreen and a lot of gears. There is no shade on Rt. 117 and for most of Monte Ryan. The hills on Chemin Duplessis are short and steep and I saw people walking their bikes up them on the first loop. Also I got to hear, not just people swearing in English as well as French, but what sounded like gears and chains being mashed like they would break at any second. So I cannot stress enough to bring whatever gearing to be prepared to not have an issue there. It is easy to say “just spin” but without the right ratio of gears for your abilities and those slopes, that is just talk.
Run. While the hills in the first portion of the course are short and steep, just stay steady and be careful on the way down them. Once you are past those there is mostly shade from the afternoon sun when you get to the out and back on the bike path. At the same effort on the return trip your pace might slow down cause you might, like I did, forget that you are on a long gradual up hill back to the old village by that lake. When running back on the bike path, try to take in the view of Lac Mercier, which will be on your left. In the late afternoon with the sun starting to go down it is absolutely amazing.
What Would You Do Differently Next Time?
At the moment, not much. I am sure in the coming weeks or months I will go through some notes I made and pick apart some of my race, but for the moment I do not have the energy to do that. Not in a bad or negative way at all, but in the best way possible. I had an amazing experience and I want the feeling to last a while, hence why it has taken almost a week to finish writing this up. Overall, I know that there were a lot of positive things that I can take away from this go around at the Ironman training and racing. So when someone asked me this week at work “so what was your time?” I could only respond with “time? Oh, I had an amazing time” and just smiled.
Thank you all very much for your support!!!
Comments
Great write-up @John Bayone !
I loved that race course and it sounds like you really got out of that race what you came for! Awesome awesome job!
And to answer the question you led with... is it physical or mental or both? the answer is Yes, Yes it it!
Great race and awesome report John! We loved "watching" you all day and are so proud of this accomplishment. Sounds like you actually enjoyed moments in the race:-) Hope to see you back out on the NJ roads with us soon!
After a 4 year layoff a very smart race (as always) and a great way to get back into it! Glad you had a good time (sort of)!!
Great race report @John Bayone . It was refreshing to read how you embraced the challenges of the day, didn't try to push harder than you knew you could, and took what the course was giving you.
Have you given any thought to what's next for you, either later 2019 or 2020?
Curious, it sounds like the course only had liquids from Base, not GE? Do you know if that is common for a non-US IM?
Thank you very much. I can not agree more, that course it great!!
I took last week (right after the race) totally off, and this week will be a very easy week. I am planning on running the Chicago Marathon in October and would like to do another full IM in 2020. Just have not decided. I guess one of the things that has really changed in the last few years is that we have more time to decide, since the races do not sell out inside of an hour or two from when registration opens.
@Jeff Phillips I think the Base Endurance drink was only on the Mont Tremblant course but could be wrong. I looked at Maryland and a couple of others and those races show the Gatorade Endurance products.
Thanks again and have a great week
The answer to your question is C. All of the above. Or JW's Yes , yes it is. I assume you directed that to how you felt at the beginning of the race? We all suffer those feelings of anxiety pre-start, I imagine yours were magnified due to being out of toeing the line at an IM for 4years. As with anything it gets easier the more you do it, but it never goes away completely, but lets be honest, that is one of the big reasons I think we do these things. Enjoyed your story and "I had an amazing time" Congrats on your Welcome back.
"90% of the game is half mental" as the folk philosopher Yogi said.
You set your mind to it, and ended up being able to say, "...as strange as it might sound I was actually enjoying it." Yep, this is how we have fun.