Full Vineman race report: 1st IM!!
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Prologue
So I’m 22 years old, relatively fresh out of college (graduated a year ago) and in my second year of this sport. I decided that after graduating, I wanted to take a year off, get some more work experience, and have some fun doing cool stuff before continuing into grad school. Triathlon seemed like a pretty good outlet for this.
When registration for Vineman 70.3 opened up, I was REALLY indecisive about whether or not I wanted to enter. In short, I just wasn’t sure if I was “ready”, or if I wanted to commit to training for something like that so far in the future. Unsurprisingly, procrastinating got me shut out. Eh, c’est la vie...
Around the same time, I joined Endurance Nation and started training with a new sense of intensity and structure. This really helped me rethink my potential and what I wanted to do with my fitness. In around December, I was browsing around for potential races, and I noticed that Full Vineman looked pretty cheap (remember that I’m on a student’s budget here...). I figured that well, I have lots of free time with no significant family/kids/personal obligations, I’m in good shape, I’m being coached by the world famous Iron-gurus Rich and Patrick, and that this would likely be one of the very rare opportunities I would get to do something like this without tremendous time constraints. So why not?
Surprisingly, I never felt overwhelmed by the prospect of training for an Ironman, though I certainly knew to respect the challenge. I figured from the beginning that there’s likely more than a dash of stupidity and hubris that goes along with signing up for an IM given my relative lack of experience in this sport. I guess that explains why I was somewhat shy about telling people about all this? I don’t think I told anyone other than a few family members and a handful of my triathlete friends while I was training. I’ll have to learn to be more publicly accountable in the future.
Now fast-forward to 12 months of training, and now it’s race day!
Race morning
GOAL: Finish with a smile, and have fun without chasing a clock
Pretty minimalist. Woke up at 4:30AM, took two bottles of Ensure (~700 cal), put on some sunscreen and Body Glide, and was out the door. Even after arriving at the beach and getting my transition set up, I was surprisingly calm. The water was notably warm and comfortable, and I knew I would have a good swim just from the favourable conditions and the relatively small size of my wave. I stepped into the river, floating around while waiting for the horn to start, and then off we went!
Swim (1:34)
My focus during the swim was to maintain good form and a very easy effort. I kept my head in the game by counting my strokes, but I found I could only count to 40-50 before getting distracted, losing count, and starting over. It really helped pass the time though, and I don’t think I ever got bored or mentally tired at any point.
As people have mentioned, the water gets incredibly shallow at some parts and there are many places where you can stand up and walk. I did stand up a few times, but only because I was tired of scraping the bottom of the river and bumping into the people who were walking. I realize that one of my weaknesses is that I sometimes tend to take advantage of opportunities to be lazy if they’re given to me just like that.
In retrospect, I may have slacked off a bit too much
. I think I could have swam a 1:20-1:25 based on my race rehearsal swims, but I spent too much time taking it easy, stopping to take a breather and watch the masses of people swimming up behind me (it’s a cool sight!), and walking around the turnaround buoys and saying hi to people. On the other hand, a good swim split was never my goal to begin with since I’m a poor swimmer, and I just wanted to have a comfortable swim without getting shelled. In fact, I’d have to say that this was the easiest and most comfortable part of my day! This was the first time when I’ve been able to say that I had a “good” swim in a triathlon (i.e. not feeling totally trashed) and had fun doing it. Never would have expected that to happen in my first Ironman...
T1 (8:07)
I stepped out of the water feeling GREAT! I’ve been totally shellacked after every tri swim I’ve done in the past, and feeling that good out of the water really gave me a lot of confidence that I would have a terrific race. The people in transition were surprisingly relaxed, and it was so refreshing being able to take my time getting changed (as opposed to the panicked frenzy in a sprint/oly race). Stripped off wetsuit, toweled off, put on shoes/socks/arm coolers/HR strap/sunglasses, and walked my bike out to the mount line. Okay, I probably could have saved myself a few minutes by being a little less relaxed and hurrying a little, but I didn’t mind taking my time.
Bike (6:23)
Goal for the bike was just to ride steady, keep my HR down, create a mental “box” in which I would just focus on 15 minutes at a time, and ignore everything else around me.
Nutrition: I had ~6 hours worth of 3x concentrated Infinit in my Speedfil (around ~1400 cal total). Every 15 minutes, I’d take two gulps of Infinit, followed by four sips of water from my aero bottle. Ridiculously simple to manage, and I never got hungry. The bike took longer than I thought, so I took an extra gel towards the end just in case.
The morning was nice and cool, and I think I drank too much water. Had to get off the bike and wait in a line for a pee break at an aid station. Cost me a few minutes, but I’m just not brave enough to pee on my bike.
Lots of folks drafting on the course. I realized that I unfortunately have this obsessive need to be polite, so I was too afraid to call them out on it. At the same time, I was really picky about staying out of people’s draft zones and didn’t want to spike watts by passing people aggressively, so I think that in effect slowed me down a bit. Perhaps I could improve my bike splits in the future by being more of a hardass?
After 2-3 hours, I noticed that I started to rub a bit “down there”. It was tolerable for a bit, but then the chafing got BAD. It got to the point where I just couldn’t stay aero because of all the rubbing, and I started coasting a lot because it really didn’t feel good to pedal. My average watts really dropped in the second half of the course. I also had to get off the bike at a few aid stations and put Vasoline down there, so that cost me a bit of time. I think I could have split a 5:45 or 5:50 if not for all the time I lost due to chafing related issues and being off the bike, but I wasn’t chasing any time goals today.
Other than that, it was a very cool bike ride! The course was hilly, but quite manageable with proper climbing and pacing skills. Lots of gorgeous scenery too. I found it really helped keep me mentally strong by totally ignoring “big picture” stuff like total elapsed time, time of day, the fact that I had to run 26.2 miles now...
T2 (5:08)
Came in feeling pretty awesome and ready to run. Very happy to be off the bike at this point and be done with the horribleness of chafing. Surprisingly, I wasn’t intimidated at the prospect of running a full marathon at this point at all. Racked my bike, changed shoes/socks, slapped on some sunscreen, tucked a few salt tablets in my pocket, visor on, and out I went!
Run (4:27)
It was pretty warm now (around mid 80’s), and I was concerned about how well I’d hold up in the heat. I was originally aiming for around a ~9:30 pace, but decided that jogging along at ~10:00 pace felt just fine. Maybe a little too easy, but I wanted to be very careful and conservative here.
Nutrition: Very minimal. I alternated between water and Gatorade/coke between each aid station. No gels or anything else, just liquids because I was afraid of running into GI problems. The hardest part of the run was that the food offerings at each aid station were making me hungry. Cookies, chips, fruit...I had to run past a buffet every 10 minutes!
Again, I really wasn’t paying attention to any times at all, and just focused on keeping myself in a “box” where I could focus on getting between each aid station at every mile. This made the run VERY manageable.
So the gist of it was jog between each aid station, get a drink, take a shower (volunteers were hosing us down with water), and walk a little bit. Repeat 26 times.
It was a hilly course, and my glutes/hamstrings were pretty tight and tired from being on the bike for so long. Instead of killing myself on the hills, I just walked those sections before it got too tough. I felt that saving my legs like that really paid off.
I could tell that my pacing was excellent because I was not slowing down significantly at all in the last eight miles, and I still felt great. I was waiting for the “line” to arrive when the run would get much much harder, but I don’t recall ever hitting that point. I think I walked a few extra steps at mile 24, but in the last mile, I just took off and went straight to the finish...
...and I ran down the finish chute and lifted the tape with the biggest, stupidest smile ever!!! I knew I had a terrific day because my first thought after finishing was, “Wow, that wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought!”
Finish: 12:38. 6th in AG, 202 overall.
Epilogue
Did I have a awesome, fulfilling, well-executed race? Absolutely!! Did I race to my full potential? Likely not, but that wasn’t a priority. I think I could have gone sub-12 hours, but my only goal today was to finish, feel great, and have enough mojo to maybe try something like this again in the future. I certainly didn’t feel the need to push myself to the point to being traumatized, or at least not the first time. Nonetheless, the Ironman distance is truly a challenge, and I’ll be sure to still tread carefully if I ever make a second try in the future...
So what now? I’m sitting here trying to think of what I want to do to fill in my training and race schedule from now until December, because it’s pretty empty right now! My immediate goals after I recover are to get myself some quality swim instruction (putting that off way too long now...), raise that VO2 roof that’s holding me back on the bike, and work on getting speed and consistency in mileage back into running.
As for long term things, I’m going to be moving across town to start my PhD at UCLA in the fall. Unfortunately, this means I won’t be able to see most my local training buddies as regularly, but I will certainly see you guys at the races! But I guess that also means I’ll have to race more frequently, and that I’m closer to the Santa Monica mountains where we have all our beloved trail runs that I’m terrible at. Oh dear...
Thank you again everyone for your good vibes and support!! I’m tremendously grateful and humbled by all the encouragement and accomplishments that everyone has to offer. I’m very happy with what I’ve done in this sport so far, but quite aware that there’s still much growing and learning to be done on my end. I look forward to doing more cool things with all you cool people!
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Comments
Good luck at grad school - I have a suspicion you won't be able to keep the tri-bug hidden away for too long, so give yourself an outlet every so often and do a half iron or whatever your schedule will allow!
As for chaffing- this was my best race for NOT chaffing. I had been through MANY pairs of shorts, finally settling on a pair that was not too obnoxious. Then I used Body Glide all over the seams after the swim, AquaPhor before the swim and Belgian Butter at BSN. I actually chaffed more on the run, despite BG in my armpits.
Good luck with the PhD. I start my doctorate program in January, so tri goes on the back burner for me too. But I have IMAZ in November first.
Great job and Congratulations on a stellar finish.
Anson, great job on Saturday! It was nice to talk to you on the run and afterwards for a bit. Could NOT believe how terrible the road conditions were. In fact, after the first loop my handlebars/aerobars separated from my stem and I had to jury-rig them to make it thru the second loop! Yes, chafing has gotten me in the past too. You might try layering Bag Balm with whatever chammy cream you are currently using---has been working for me lately (one last thing to dwell on during the bike). See ya around!
Good luck with Grad School.
I have enjoyed seeing you posting here.