2012 Vineman Race Report - David Lesh
My first Ironman race, Ironman Arizona, was amazing and exciting for not only myself, but also everyone around me. It was my moon landing that others watched with interest. Every step I took in that race was breaking new ground. My second Ironman race was a very different experience. Much of the shininess of my first attempt at the iron distance had worn off. When telling others that I was doing my second Ironman their response was not that of awe but of indifference. Despite the fact that the race still required me to complete the 140.6 miles, most people commented on how easy the second race would be because I had already completed one. Many felt that I had already ticked the box on my bucket list and couldn’t understand doing another one. Vineman was more of a private battle. It was something that I had to want from inside myself.
In a half Ironman race 3 months before Vineman I crashed my bike on a descent where water unexpectedly flowed across the course. I separated my shoulder, had deep bruises on my hip and arm, severe road rash, and cracked my helmet in half. I finished that race but had to take a long break from training as it affected my ability to swim, bike and run. When I was able to start training again I was forced to ride on the trainer and run with an altered gait, but swimming was still out of the question. I wanted to allow my shoulder to completely heal. At this point I should have been well into my buildup to Vineman. It was frustrating. I learned to accept the limits imposed on me and refocus my goals for the race. I focused on making sure the workouts I was able to do were quality and my recovery was as good as possible. I also learned to enjoy the trainer more. I caught up on movies and TV shows that I had missed. I was able to get in exact training intervals and not have to worry about stop signs, crazy weaving cyclists, flat tires, or angry motorists. I slowly built up to a point where I started to feel faster and stronger again. I started to swim, first only for 15 minutes, then 20, 30, 40 minutes. For a triathlete the feeling of being “behind” in training is painful. We are always searching for personal best times and signs that we are improving. I may have been behind where I could have been, but I was doing it. I was actually on the way to my second Ironman.
The Ironman Arizona course is a great course for a first race as it is flat, fast, and spectator friendly. In 2011, the year I raced, the weather was also pretty much perfect. The Vineman course is much hillier, has a lot of rough pavement, and is likely to be very hot. The run course is known for being particularly brutal due to its steep hills and exposed heat. I knew that this along with my sub-optimal training would require a very good race plan and an acceptance of a slower finish time. Again, it would be a race where I would have to find some kind of intrinsic motivation and judge success based on factors other than the clock.
A week out from race day, when I was starting to feel rested and good, thoughts of pushing the pace and seeing if I could actually perform above what I did in training crept into my mind but I quickly quieted those thoughts and focused on my race plan and preparing. I virtually walked every part of the bike and run course on Google Maps to get a sense of the hills, roughness of the road, and visual identification of where the major turns are. I read any race reports from all over the internet from previous years and even read reports from the 70.3 race that is held on the same course and noted any tips or recommendations. I prepared my equipment a few weeks in advance so that any changes could be tested during the last few weeks before the race. I checked all of the major bolts on the bike, installed new race tires, mounted the aerodynamic wheel cover for my back wheel, cleaned and oiled the chain, made small adjustments to the shifting, and finally gave the bike a good cleaning. All of the equipment I would need I started packing a week in advance so that it gave me time to remember anything I might miss. It is a lot of work just preparing everything for an Ironman.
We planned to drive to Windsor on Thursday morning so I packed as much into the car on Wednesday night as possible to make the morning easy and reduce the number of things that got left behind. My lovely Sherpa, Katie, picked up smoothies for the race eve dinner and race morning breakfast, snacks, and other food type items. Of course I forgot the smoothies when we left but it turned out to be the only items left behind and they were easily replaced when we arrived. We had a nice relaxing lunch and then drove a loop of the bike course. I put together all of the Google Maps research with the drive to get a mental picture of the course. We also stopped at a few wineries along the way so that my wife could get something out of the drive as well. We rented a room in a house about a block from the Vineman finish line. Our host was also a triathlete so he knew the whole crazy ritual of preparing for an ironman and made our stay wonderful. I thought of how pro triathletes are often hosted in a house for races and imagined that was what I was doing. The rest of Thursday was spent relaxing.
Friday morning I slept in and then went to Starbucks for some coffee and bagels. After breakfast it was time to check in and setup my bike to run transition. At Vineman the two transition areas are in different locations so participants must setup their transition areas the day before and keep their fingers crossed that it will still be there when they return the next day. We were also required to attend a mandatory meeting which I like doing because everyone gets reminded of the rules and that’s always a good thing. They showed a super cheesy video with some sort of chicken puppet that nobody could understand so it was actually a waste of time, but it was funny for a bit. When it was over everyone started running to the door to be the first out the door because the transition areas are on a first-come basis. I didn’t see the need to get so excited over it. The stopped us at the door and made everyone stand on a scale and recorded their weight. Strange. Of course the women asked everyone to not look at their weight, basically stripped down, and then commented on how the scales must be way off. After the weigh in we had to wait in another line to get our race packet and timing chip. They didn’t give out as much swag as at Ironman Arizona, but the race shirt was pretty cool. After that I setup my transition area right at the end of the rack. Setting it up was basically just putting my shoes and a little plastic bag with my running hat and race belt down on the ground. I witnessed some people spreading out giant towels with all kinds of equipment. I walked the bike in and run out paths to make sure I understood the flow and knew where the dismount line was to avoid any surprises. Picked up lunch on the way home and relaxed the rest of the afternoon. For long races I like to use a liquid diet. For dinner I drank Naked Juice smoothies and a couple of Ensure drinks. My wife picked up some delicious looking cheeses and breads. So evil! I resisted the temptation though. After watching some Olympics and making sure my transition bag had everything I needed in the morning, I went to bed early.
I woke up on race morning at 3AM and drank more smoothie and Ensure. When I wake up and have nerves I tend to get cold very easily so I made sure I wore many warm layers and beanie. Packed up the bike and my transition bag and drove to the race start about 17 miles away. We got there pretty early, got a nice parking spot and just sat in the car for a bit watching others pumping up their tires and getting ready. Vineman does not have a bike check in the day before the race like Ironman Arizona did, so I had to bring and setup the swim to bike transition on race morning. This made it feel a lot like a local sprint or Olympic distance race. Transition setup went smoothly. When I get focused on what needs to be done my nerves tend to settle down a bit and I start feeling much more confident for the day ahead. I got to the port-a-potties early for the ever-important pre-race waste removal. It’s always a little scary going into those things when it’s too dark to see everything, but it was early enough to avoid anything gross. I found my wife and dad along the fence and talked with them briefly before pulling on my wetsuit. Although my cheering section was small it was awesome to have people there to support me. My wife hid a wonderful card in my transition bag that made me tear up and would provide the motivation I would need to get through the day. At times you feel so alone in training and racing but then you realize the tremendous support you get from those close to you. I was excited and ready.
The clouds were hanging low in the trees. It was beautiful and surreal. I made my way down to the start corral and joined the other rubber-clad penguins waiting to get in the water. Unlike Ironman Arizona’s amazing mass start, Vineman has wave starts 2 minutes apart. There was one wave ahead of mine. As we waited for that wave to start before we could get in the water there were panicked racers who were late and trying to push through the crowds to get down to there start, probably not the most relaxing way to start the day. The gun finally went off for the first wave and they allowed us to get into the water. I adjusted my wetsuit and swam out to the middle of the river. I wasn’t able to get all the way out and position myself very far forward before the gun went off. This was ok because I wasn’t going to swim very fast due to my recent injury and limited swim training. The Russian River is very warm this time of year (70.3 degrees they said) and very shallow. The river is also fairly narrow so you can never get too far off course during the two 1.2 mile loops. All in all it is a very enjoyable swim. I just stayed smooth. I know that it’s easy to get sucked into going out too hard and I know that if I do that I tend to struggle. So I went out super easy and built up very slowly. I only encountered some bumping and a punch to the face for a few minutes then it was like I was alone for the rest of the swim. There is a very slight current in the dammed off river so I stayed to the right shore going upstream and swam more toward the middle on the down stream. The river gets very shallow at points and my hands would touch the gravely bottom. A few of the swimmers were walking this section but I found that I could use the bottom to get a super solid catch and pull without the need for a perfect arm position. Felt like cheating but I could hear all of the hands scraping the gravel on the bottom so I knew I wasn’t the only one doing it. On the way back a group of swimmers swam across the center line and straight into the group around me. We all had to stop and make our way around the lost group while the kayakers yelled at them to get back on their side. Luckily nobody was injured. At the end of the first loop there is a section where you get to swim along a spectator lined section of the river. You could hear a bunch of yelling but I never could make out anything specific with my swim cap over my ears and the water flowing over it. It definitely got me a little pumped up through that section. Half way through the second loop I started to get a cramp in my right calf. The same thing happened at about the same distance my Ironman Arizona swim, but this time it was much worse. I never get cramps in my legs during long swims unless I am wearing my wetsuit. I am not sure if it is cutting of blood flow to my lower leg or not, but this was the worst it had ever been for any swim. I stretched it between strokes and kicked a little harder for a while but it wasn’t really going away. I decided to stop and walk it out a bit at a couple shallow sections but it would just cramp up again when I dove back in. I rubbed it a bit while standing and it seemed to loosen so I swam the rest of the way back hoping that it wouldn’t seize up when I stood up to run into transition. Finished the swim with a decent (for me) swim of 1:10. Much faster than I ever thought I could swim and with a couple stops because of the cramp. Post race there were a lot of people complaining that the swim course was too long. I didn’t even look at the time when I exited because I wasn’t concerned with it at all.
I jogged up the ramp and used the wetsuit strippers and continued to my transition spot. The transition area at Vineman is all dirt and gravel. During Ironman Arizona I got some dirt on my feet before getting on the bike and ended up getting blisters on the run. I wanted to avoid this so I spent a little extra time wiping me feet off before sliding them into my bike shoes. This plan worked and I had no issues with blisters for the entire race. I ran with my bike shoes and up the small hill at the mount line to avoid a few people struggling to get on their bikes, and mounted at the top of the hill.
The bike course starts out following the Russian River along River Road, which is the main artery into and out of Guerneville. As I road along shivering a little I noticed that Katie was passing right next to me in the car. Most of the streets in Vineman are not closed to traffic, which makes it even more important to stay to the right. After a few miles the course makes a very sharp right hand turn where a lot of people always crash into the blackberry bushes despite the hundreds of warnings. After this turnoff the road gets rather rough and the rolling hills start. There is a particular section in this area that has a fairly fast downhill section with a large bump at the bottom. I made an effort to remember this section and make sure my water bottle was secure but I had forgotten to put my GPS tracker into my tri-suit pocket and it ejected from the small container on my bike. I only discovered this about half an hour later when I finally remembered and went to put it in my pocket and found it missing. This tracker would text and tweet updates to a special twitter account I set up so that friends could follow my progress along the course. It also was the way my wife would be able to see where I was on the course and when I would be passing her. My heart sank because I might not be able to see her for the entire bike and I knew she might worry if she saw that I was stationary for hours. One of the racers actually picked it up and carried throughout the race, so people thought it was me. I tracked him down in the finish area and got it back. He was shocked that I knew he had it. I guess that’s the benefit of losing a tracking device. The rough pavement is draining. It slows you down, makes you weave around potholes constantly, stresses your neck and arm muscles, and can give you bad chafing down there. It is also is mentally taxing as you have to constantly need to pay attention to the road ahead and prevents you from getting into any sort of rhythm. The speckled sunlight coming through the trees, while very pretty, made it difficult to see surface irregularities and forced me to take it slower on some descents. I made sure I was as relaxed and smooth as possible and settled in for a long day on the bike.
The first hour on the bike was quite chilly because of the morning cloud cover but I knew that would quickly change once the sun burned off the clouds. It didn’t take very long. I had been paying close attention to the weather forecasts and knew that it would be fairly hot so I decided to be very conservative on the bike to prepare for a hot run course. At this point everyone was flying past me up hills. They were standing and just powering up the hills. One guy in particular who was wearing a strange tri-suit was laughing as he flew past me up a hill telling the guy with him that there were so many weak cyclist. I pretty much knew I would see that guy again on the run course. I settled into my target effort and spun easy up the hills. I would get passed by people crushing it on the uphill and pass them on the way down or on the flat after. They were just burning match after match that they would need on the run. There was of course a bunch of people drafting and one guys was even drafting off a car and as he rode by me said he could do that all day. I told him that it would be cheating all day too. This was the first time I had ever been able to pee on the bike. It was just a little but it made me laugh. I finally felt like I was a real triathlete. In Geyserville, the furthest point out on the bike course I saw my wife cheering for me like mad woman. I had a smile on my face for at least the next hour. At about mile 44 you hit the only significant hill on the course, Chalk Hill. It’s not very big or long but you can definitely burn yourself out on it. I just sat up and spun up. It was lined with spectators Tour de France style and was pretty cool riding through. I got a bunch of comments on the super crazy tan lines on my legs. I had to apologize that they had to witness such ridiculousness. After Chalk Hill it’s pretty much downhill and fast to the transition/finish area to start the second loop. I got there quickly and skipped the bike special needs because I just use on course nutrition. I train with whatever products will be offered on course to make sure my body is acclimated and only take a few Shot Bloks or gels with me on the bike for some variety and to get some caffeine. Using this strategy allows me to only carry one bottle holder on my bike between my arms, optimizing my aerodynamics. It also means I don’t need to worry about dropping bottles with special nutrition that I need. An aid station is always just 10 miles away. Keep it simple. I saw my dad at the turnaround and thought about how far he came just to see me go by him for a few seconds. I couldn’t let him down.
In my training I focused on staying in the aero position for as long as I could and getting my neck, back and shoulder muscles ready. This always ends up being a huge advantage, even on hillier courses. On the second loop it was hot and there was a significant headwind the entire way. Most people I saw at this point were sitting up. I was passing people left and right as I stayed aero and consistent in my effort. Just before reaching Chalk Hill again there is a bridge with a pretty big bump. There were probably a hundred water bottles scattered on the road after being launched from their carriers. I had to weave through them. I later learned that a guy hit one of those bottles, lost control, and flew off the bridge. He suffered a broken hip, broken tibia, and a collapsed lung but was going to be fine. His bike apparently didn’t even get a scratch. They had to air lift him to the hospital and they blocked the road. A few participants got stuck and had to wait for around 10 minutes for the helicopter to lift off. Luckily I avoided all of that. The rest of the loop was spent praying that I didn’t flat or have a mechanical. Final time: 5:52.
Just before reaching transition I made sure to switch my Garmin to my wrist and take my feet out of my shoes. I knew the dismount line came right after a sharp turn so I was sure to slow way down around the turn and did my flying dismount right past a bunch of people and jogged the bike into transition. When I got to my spot there was already a bike racked there and my shoes had been pushed out of the way. I just put my bike in the next available spot gathered my shoes. I moved comfortably and didn’t really rush putting my socks and shoes on being careful to not bunch them. I then grabbed the bag with my hat and race belt and ran toward the exit putting them on as I ran. It turns out I had the 10th fastest transition time overall (including pros). Free time.
One of the hardest parts of an Ironman for me is running my planned pace out of transition. I am not sure if it is velocitation, but I always tend to run too fast, even though I have practiced many times. I really forced myself to run slow and even decided to run a bit slower than my planned pace based on how hot it already was early in the run and knowing it would only get hotter. I saw my wife just after I left transition and I started to get very emotional. I am still not sure why. I guess I knew at that point that nothing was going to stop me from crossing the finish line. I was doing it. I would run, walk, or crawl if I had to. Just like the beginning of the bike leg, people were flying by me early in the run. The Vineman run course is 3 loops and fairly flat but it does have a few sharp hills and a lot of off camber asphalt. It is also pretty much completely exposed to the sun. I felt pretty good throughout the entire first loop. I made sure to take fluids at every aid station and keep myself soaked with water. I would also dump ice down my tri-suit in the front and back. I wanted to do as much as possible to stay cool and comfortable for as long as possible. The first loop went by fairly quickly and soon it was time to run by my family and friends. I noticed that the cheering section had gotten a little larger as some friends had come out to see me finish. Seeing this got me nice and pumped up. I gave them the thumbs up and a wave while trying to look strong. I wanted to smile and wave while I still could. I knew that the next time I saw them I would be in fighting mode.
The second loop was much hotter. At least it felt much hotter. I continued to just be smooth and take extra care to do what I needed to stay as cool as possible and get what I needed from the aid stations. I would run for any shade and through all of the hoses and sprinklers set up by the residents along the course to help keep us cool. Most people were walking at this point. I went into a kind of automatic mode and actually don’t remember much. I just remember repeating my mantra of “keep it smooth.” I did find the “strong” biker with the strange tri-suit that hammered by me earlier and was now walking the course and looking particularly down and beaten. I think the word is schadenfreude. I pranced by him. So sweet.
At the end of the second loop it was time to get mean. My cheer squad still gave me a lift but I didn’t give them a show. I just focused on every step. Everyone was walking around me. My mind was telling me that the pain would be less if I just walked. I got mad. I wasn’t going to stop. I thought of my friends coming to see me, my dad driving across the country to support me, and the card my wife wrote for me that morning. I thought of why I wanted to do this race and about how nobody really cared if I did this race or not. If I didn’t give it everything then I would be the only one who cared. I would not be able to live with that. I might not have had the best training building up to this race and there might have been setbacks beyond my control, but the effort and execution I put into the race was under my control. I felt like I was flying the last 4 miles. People I would pass would try to latch on to me but I could hear what they were thinking with every breath. I could hear them fighting in their mind and when they made the decision to give up and walk again. I was fighting the same battle in my head but I didn’t give in.
Running toward the finish I reached the fork where you could go out for another loop or head toward the finish. It was crowded. But as I ran past I suddenly found myself alone in the finishing shoot. I don’t remember much after that. I pumped my fists and jumped around a lot. It was a huge weight being lifted off me. I didn’t know that I would feel so emotional in my second race finish. I could understand why I felt that way for the first race in Arizona, but I wondered whether I would feel empty after this race. I did not feel empty. It was different than the first but no less emotional. I gave this race everything I could on the day. It’s a feeling I didn’t have after my first race. My time was much slower but I have a great sense of satisfaction with this race. It was my race.
Run time:4:10
Total time:11:20
Age group ranking: 10
Overall ranking (including pros):53
Comments
David solid pacing, great result given your training limitations. No One and Done for you, I guess?
Like Matt and Joe, I also really liked the race report.
@Jennifer - I think I want to take a year or so off from Ironman racing. I am feeling like maybe doing some marathons or some more focus on riding. Not sure yet. Maybe do some more short course stuff too.