Steve Swanlund-- Ironman Arizona Race Report
Ironman Arizona 2011 Race Report:
My race prep went nearly perfect. I had some epic weekends including 3 days of climbing the roads up Mt Rainier and Mt St Helens in Washington state and then a week at the Aspen Bike Camp at Al Truscott’s. Had a great RR1, but then on RR2 I had a catastrophic blow-out 50 miles from home and had to be rescued by my wife 3 hours later. After that my training plan took a turn. I started to have some knee trouble in my left knee, that would come on after any kind of running. Also had some Achilles trouble on my right ankle. Due to these issues I took the 3 week taper much easier than I had anticipated. The last week I only swam once and did 2 one hour rides, and no running. I wanted as much healing as possible leading up to the big day. I knew if the day was close to perfect I could possibly go sub 11 hours.
Race Day:
Got up at 4:20 and had my usual (greek yogurt and a banana) got ready and was out the door by 5:20. We stayed at the Buttes Marriot so we were about 8 minutes away and found great parking a block from Ironman Village. Got my special needs bags handed off and put some last minute things in my T1 and T2 bags. Went over to my bike and put my bottles in their holders, got air in the tires and then headed to the swim start. The swim entry is about 200 yards from the swim start, so you have to jump in and swim up to start, which was fine for me because I had not done the practice swim the day before. It also gave me chance to get used to the temp (61 degrees).
Swim:
We were all treading water waiting for the countdown, we heard the star spangle banner, mike reilly was firing up the crowd and then it got quiet for a about minute….then BANG! No warning. Everyone was reaching for their watches and then we were off. I started about 20 yards from the inside bouy and about 6 people back from the front. As soon as we started to go I moved to the inside of the bouy line. It was relatively quiet there except for the half a dozen smacks to the face I took and the shiner I got, it was a fairly uneventful swim. I am a middle of the pack swimmer and it seems that working harder at my swim doesn’t yield much improvement. Time: 1:12:11 Ranked 62 of 369
T1:
I was a little tweaked by my sub par swim (hoping for under 1:10:00) so I kept my mind on RnP’s slogan; slow is smooth and smooth is fast thoughout T1. Carefully getting stuff out of the bag and making sure everything that I would need on the bike was there. It took a minute and a half longer than I wanted, but missing something would surely have costed me more. Time: 6:24
Bike:
Now the bike is something I have put some extra time in since IMCDA in June. I had some great weekends with some epic rides working hard at getting my FTP ceiling raised up. I did not test my FTP since prior to IMCDA but found that I could hold 80-90% fairly easily for a substantial amout of time, so I know it had to have improved. I had rode the Beeline Hwy portion of the ride on Friday with the team and was a bit concerned when I had a .849 IF for the 22 mile stretch and it took me 58 minutes to complete. Obviously an IF of .849 wouldn’t work for an Ironman bike leg. After I mounted my bike and started to ride out I noticed my Aero bottle was loose and had to stop and tighten it up. (slow is smooth….)I took it fairly easy the 50 minutes until the turn around at the Beeline Hwy, we had a head wind all the way out and soon as I turned around it became a tailwind. Nothing like going 35 mph for about 8 miles passing everything in site. About that time the wind switch and became a headwind for the rest of the first loop. The turn around back into town is something to behold. 2 miles of crowd packed streets hoopin’ it up. Now the tailwind is on the way out and as soon as the turn is made on the beeline you have to battle a headwind coming back to town. I found the need to stretch my back and legs every 10 minutes or so, but I was able to keep my place everytime I did it, and it made the bike and the run much more comfortable. On the last loop I had to make a pitstop at the Porto-johns (I am NOT a bike pee’er) unfortunately I didn’t notice the line of two waiting. So I jumped back on my bike to get the next one. (1 minute lost) The next opportunity had no line and no bike next to the porto-john. As I got off my bike I noticed the “in use” flag on the handle was raised. After waiting patiently for about 2 minutes, I noticed that there was nobody inside and the door wasn’t actually latched. DAMN! Another 3 minutes lost. Oh well all I could do now is get on my bike and ride. The wind was at it’s worst this last loop, but I was able to ride all my loops within 5 minutes of each other including my “lost 4 minutes”. Final IF- .644 NP- 187 Avg Speed- 20.24 Time: 5:31:57 Ranked 60 of 369
T2:
Uneventful …slow is smooth, smooth is fast! Time 3:26
Run:
I have spent the most time and energy working on improving my run since IMCDA in June. Lots of speed work and lots of mileage. So I was expecting an improvement over my previous 4:26 IM run. I was shooting for a sub 4 hour run. Normally my legs are dead coming off of the bike but this time I got running legs immediately and had to work at keeping my pace down. I am not really good at going slow at the beginning and then speeding up after 6 miles as RnP suggest, I seem to do better at finding my pace and going steady all 26.2. So “my pace” was going to be 9:00/mile. The first 8 were slightly too fast, and I couldn’t seem to slow down enough to get to that pace. After the first loop I really started to drop off, then at mile 9.5 I was starting to bonk and getting slower and slower. The next aid station at mile 10, I walked through eating and drinking everything. It was a fookin’ smorgasbord. 2 cokes, 2 performs, 2 waters, cookies, a couple chocolate gels, a banana. Walked for about a minute and half to get everything down and started to run again. By mile 10.5 I was back to my pace and felt great. The third loop I was able speed the pace a bit, making up for my 2nd loop slow down. Coach Rich was at the Inspirational Mile reader board so that was always a highlight of the loop, high fives on all three laps. Someone from EN was at the aid station right before the hill at mile 6. Thanks for screaming for me on each loop, it really helped at time when it would really hurt. The final two miles is through the crowd and I was running well, I don’t know how many people I past (several hundred) but I know I past 31 people from my age division on the run. I knew that I would need a PERFECT day to go under 11 hours and by mile 20 on the run I knew I was having a near perfect day. With the sub 11 in hand my next goal was go sub 4 on the run, that was going to take some 8:45 miles to finish the run. So I dug deep put myself in favorite DARK place and went for it. Time: 3:58:15 Ranked 30 of 369
Finished the race in the top 8% of my age division and 13% overall.
This was a 1:05:00 PR from IMCDA 5 months ago. Swim- 3+ min PR; Bike-32+ min PR; Run- 28+ min PR
0
Comments
Awesome race execution and an impressive PR. Congrats!!
Steve, Congrats on your HUGE PR vs IMCDA (which I recall was a pretty solid race for you too). Sounds like you were in control and in your box the entire way. Too bad about the shiner from the swim, but it didn't sound like it impacted your performance. Well done!!
Hey Steve,
Great to see you race twice this year and congrats on your massive PR! You were very focused on the run course!
@Tim- my nutrition consisted of 2 gu's prior to the swim start, 2 concentrated Infinit bottles and 80oz of water on the bike, then water, perform and sometimes coke at every aid station (except for the buffet line at mile 10). I walked 15-30 seconds on the backside of each aid station.
@ Rich- thanks for a great year, honestly would not have seen those gains without your guidance. And thanks for being there on the course. BTW...didn't see Mark Allen, Dave Scott, or Gordo out there!
@Jenn- I will have to have a similar performance if I am going to hold you off at IM canada in August.
@Bruce- Chicks dig shiners!
I love your running economy, buddy. The Canada course whould suit you very well. Kepp pushing up on that overall and AG % - you haven't hit the ceiling yet, not nearly.
Great job Steve!