IM Louisville RR - "It only took 30 years!"
SWIM: 1:13:11 (Goal < 1:20:00)
BIKE: 7:07:03 (Goal < 7hrs)
RUN: 4:27:34 (Goal < 4:15:00)
OVERALL: 13:04:19 (Goal < 13:00:00)
WHY?
I've wanted to do an IM ever since I saw an ABC Wide World of Sports segment at age 11 featuring a gal crawling across the finish line (Julie Moss?). I didn't know what a triathlon was at the time, but I figured it was the coolest sport on the planet whatever it was.
PRE-RACE
First IM, not sure what to expect. Just wanted to take it easy, follow as much EN advice as my brain could handle and go from there. Taper was perfect, legs in great shape. Race morning nutrition worked great (followed EN advice). Tried to talk my way out of body marking (since I was wearing brand new WHITE wings and calf sleeves today...no luck).
SWIM
Swam slow and easy and came in under my goal time. Lived in Louisville for 25 yrs and this was my first swim in the Ohio, go figure.
T1
Way slower than expected (8:30), but anticipating a 7+ hr bike ride, I didn't want to forget anything. The "sunscreen ladies" were hilarious.
BIKE
First hour was easy going. High cadence, low watts. About 15 minutes into hour 2 I started feeling sick to my stomach. That eventually led to stabbing pain, almost like food poisoning. Seeing a wicked multi-bike crash in the out & back sobered me up, but the pain returned (still wondering if those cyclists are okay...). All I had consumed was Infinit and two S-Caps (one at the top of each hour). Figured it was the S-Caps so I stopped taking them. But the pain never went away. Hour 3...Hour 4...no relief. Lost about 12 minutes due to multiple stops. Decided to stop my nutrition and only consume small amounts of water. Zero nutrition for the last 3.5 hours of the bike, but still stomach pain. Finally, stopped at the last aid station and forced myself to puke. Like magic, a few minutes later I felt energized and completely fine. Damn! Why didn't I do this earlier??
AvPower - 107 (lots of coasting skewed these numbers)
Norm Power - 120
VI - 1.12
IF - .65
TSS - 293.6
Av Cadence - 86
T2
Again too slow (8:03). A little woozy from not eating for 3+ hours probably didn't help. Again, severe flirting from the sunscreen gals. Also, anybody know how to get permanent marker stains out of cool wings and/or calf sleeves??
RUN
I was looking forward to the marathon. Since I held back so much on the bike (because of the cramps) I thought I might be able to make it under 4 hours, even with 20" walk breaks at aid stations (goal pace btw 8:40 - 9:10). But once off the bike, I could feel serious pain in the balls of my feet: every step felt like a 2x4 slamming against each foot. No doubt a carry-over from the bike leg. Not sure what caused it. Also, my quads kicked in around mile 13 (long-standing issues with glutes not "firing" correctly). This pretty much slowed my pace WAY down (about 10:20). But managed to run the entire marathon (aside from aid stations). Also developed...um...bowel issues which resulted in 6 separate lavatory stops (probably didn't help my time). In the end thought I could push my way under the 13 hour mark, but preferred to enjoy my finish rather than torture myself so I held back the final 3 miles.
Overall it was an amazing experience. Thanks to Matt, Chris, Aimee, Brad, Lori, Scott, Coach Patrick and the other ENers who helped make it so cool!
Comments
Great job Mac. I was a sophmore in college when I watched Julie Moss crawl across the finish line.
Mac - what's amazing about your report is that you have NO negative thoughts (except for dirty calf sleeves) ddespite challenges on botht he bike and the run which would have made mamny (most?) people quit. What a gutty (pun intended ) performance. Could the bike GI issues have anything to do with nutrtion he day/night/morning before? Or with river water swallowed in the swim? I grew up in Cincinnati, and we NEVER went in the river; we'd go a hour to a lake to get in open water, but thre river ...?
Al, did you swim at Caeser Creek Lake ? I live in Cincy and that's where I do all of my OW swimming.
Jason
Way to go Mac. It was great to meet you and Elizabeth.
After 30 years. You are now in a very exclusive club. Brag about it. Nice job!
Thank all....@ Al, funny you mentioned that. After 5 hours of feeling like I had a knife in my gut I fell into a very dark place and I flirted with the idea of stopping. I realized I wouldn't make most of my goals and just thought "what's the point?" Then I had to slap myself and remind myself that any irrelevant time goals I had in my head weren't really important in the big scheme of things. It was my first IM and I was gonna finish, dammit!
But......I'm not sure I'll be so easy on myself next time