IM AZ race Report - New Yawk is in da Haus!
Flew in on Friday and immediately went about the admin stuff.
Registered and then had lunch with a friend who was also there for IMAZ. Then I picked up bike from TBT brought it back to hotel for dressing. Went to hotel, checked in, brought bike up, dressed bike, laid out bags, pulled up checklists on Laptop and laid out everything. Went back to the expo to check things out and went to the team EN dinner. Great group of folks had the privilege of sitting with Sir Al Truscott (yes I have knighted him) and his lovely wife Cheryl as well as John Stark in to volunteer and Chuck G and their friends. I soaked up every tidbit of advice they (especially Al) had for me.
I had decided to not do any workouts in Arizona given that I only had Saturday to play with and just rest my body (some more). Brought bike and T1 & T2 Bags to check in, found the team EN peeps for a very well attended 4 Keys talk with Coach Rich. After the talk, I hopped in the car and took a drive on the bike course to get familiar with it. Came back to town and sat at the bar at the Red Robin and had a burger and a Big beer. The big beer may have been the single best decision as I barely drank in the last few months to try and cut weight. The beer did a good job of knocking me out and took a 4 hour nap from around 2 in the afternoon to six. Woke up, got a turkey club from a place across from the A Loft and went back to the room. Watched TV for a bit and actually slept from about 9PM -2Am when I got up for a carb shake. Not sure how much I slept after this, but I did doze off a bit.
Drove to the race site, dropped off special needs bag (extra tire change in case I flatted at all and needed a 2nd spare) after getting initial hydration on the bike, sat in a quiet spot with some nice folks and drank a Gatorade while getting wetsuit on. Handed in my day clothes bag, not realizing my garmin was still in it! Fortunately when I realized that, the volunteers retrieved it for me. At this point the pre-race jitters were high. Walked with the herd to the edge of the Lake where the dock you jump in from is.
Swim: 1:36
Watched as people started in, definitely was apprehensive, this lake is supposed to be cold after all. Finally jumped in and of course it wasn’t so bad. Made my way to middle right about 15 rows back from the start. National anthem, Ozzy Osbourne and then POW, gun goes off and the bumper pool begins. Got into a rhythm, though didn’t often feel like I had my glide going, but counted strokes, repeatedly to 170 on one side which I figured was about 10 laps in a pool and about a 17th of the swim, something to mentally keep me feeling the progress. Crowd thinned out sooner than I thought, got to the second bridge, and then felt good about seeing the red turning buoy. Trip back of course seemed faster, short leg from last turn to the steps seemed to take forever. Swim was 10-12 minutes slower than I expected when I got out. But was happy to be done with it and that I really was on my way to becoming an IM.
T1: 9:10
Got my wetsuit stripped and actually jogged a bit which many people were not doing to get up to bags. Got my bag and per AL T’s suggestion, did not go into the changing tent. Did a relatively quick change(I thought), despite the relatively cool temps, I opted not to wear the LS shirt I bot the day Before and went with my borrowed EN Singlet. I then had a nice volunteer pack my swim stuff in the bag, ran through the tent, on the bike and off I went…
Bike: 6:43
Felt Great to be on the bike from the start. Moved my garmin from wrist mount to bike mount and inadvertently hit something that froze all the buttons, so was stuck on distance and speed screen with no time! Forgot about that for a while and then eventually figured it out. Spent the time focusing on not drafting as I was passing many slower riders (faster swimmers?) and really focused on “just riding along” and not pushing. The biggest problem I had was over hydration, took a break for the porta-potti just after the top end turnaround which cost me four minutes, this would turn out to be my nemesis as I ended up taking 7 stops for this along the way(do the math on that). I have to learn how to pee on the bike! Now on my down the hill and into the wind. Oh that wind… really focused on staying aero and not pushing, just trying to ride along, given that much of the wind was an issue on the Beeline and not the roads into town as much, we had the downgrade to help, of course on the last lap the wind shifted and was more of a cross wind on the Beeline and a horrid headwind coming back to town.
T2: 2:36
Real fast change here. Only needed to ditch the bike shoes for running shoes and take off helmet & gloves.
Run: 5:26
Focused on going slow based on my training times. Walked the aid stations and felt good for the first lap, Given that I had only started running in early September due to a chronic calf injury, I had doubts about running the whole marathon. I did however drink the EN kool aid and really worked hard at ensuring that I would only walk the aid stations. Team EN cheering us on at the beginning of each loop was a huge factor, replaying the video of Rich’s 4 Keys talk the day before also helped, but alas at mile 16? There is a big hill and I walked the first part of the hill. Not a wimpy giving up walk, but a long stride fast power walk where I was passing walkers. It was walking as a strategy to deal with the big hill. After that hill I made it through to about mile 21 or 22 where running became very difficult as something was going on with my left Achilles which I never had before, nonetheless, this wasn’t a giving up walk, it was the same fast walk as I did on the hill. In the last miles, I have no idea why the race tracker shows me at 16 min miles as my garmin never showed me slower than 14 which was only a minute a mile slower than what my running/ walking the aid stations was at. I did often try to run (never say die) and while I wasn’t passing many people, I actually did pass a few. Nothing like the feeling of that last turn to the finish!!
Total Time: 13:57:54, take a half hour off for Pee stops on the bike & run and I would have been ridiculously happy with this, on its own, I am thrilled to have done this time. The execution and advice from EN were invaluable.
Back at this to finish up the run EN style in IM-LOU ‘11
Comments
if I had your transitions and you had my ability to pee on the bike (only bc after getting a flat i refused to wait in line), we would have had a great race!
seriously, congrats!!! sounds like you executed really well!
Yo, New Yawk! Loved, loved, loved meeting you and seeing you smiling on the run course! Way to go my friend. "You Are An Ironman!" Wear the mDot proudly!
Congratulations: You Are An Ironman!
Scott, way to push through! You are a definite Ironman! We look forward to reading your IMLOU RR next year. Congrats!
Bet you wish you had that Kevlar sail out there on the bike.
@ AL - to paraphrase the great philosopher, Fletch, "c'mon, it's all carbon fiber these days"
@ Greg - the only thing more thrilling than finishing was being there when you found out that you got the roll down for Kona, BIG Congrats to you!
@ JT- it would be great to get a Tri State Sleeper Cell going and do some rides next year, I am planning on the Toughman again next year, maybe we can get an EN team together for it?!!
scott,
sounds like a great race day for you. congrats! it was a tough day and you handled it great. good to know i was not the only one out there peeing up a storm..or during the storm!
gh
oh, almost forgot, the run times have been updated. check again and the spilts are corrected!!
GH
Scott,
Great race and great to have met you! You looked great and ready to do it again at RB Sunday night