IMLOU - Gasping for air.
Ironman Louisville taught me a very valuable lesson that I’m not soon to forget: You MUST be totally and absolutely honest with Ironman. There is no place to hide, no rug to sweep your trash under. If there is a deficiency Ironman will detect it and exploit it. For matters of health, safety and sanity you need to be completely and brutally honest about the physical condition in which you toe the line at an Ironman, if not you may just have the day I had. You see, for two weeks prior to Ironman Louisville I had a growing bronchial infection and lied to myself that it was just a summer cold. As a result I had the most difficult day of my triathlon life, let me tell you all about it.
The Swim
Here’s a shocker: I’m a triathlete and ….wait for it, wait for it…..I’m not much of swimmer. Shocking, I know. However I had worked very hard in the water this season and thought I’d be coming out of the water somewhere between 1:18:00 and 1:23:00. Slow, I know, but a vast improvement for me.
This, unfortunately, was not to be the case. After I worked my way down the cluster(censored) of a Time Trial swim start it was my turn to jump in the water. I jumped in and immediately the guy behind me jumped in on top of me. I swam to the surface and swam out to the center of the channel and realized I couldn’t breathe, so I swam over the island and stood up.
90 seconds into the race and I was at my One Thing. Less than two minutes into the race and I thought I was done, so I stood on the island and calmed myself and tried to take a number of big deep breaths to open up my chest. I stood there for Five minutes.
I started swimming again and made it about 50 yards before I started wheezing again, unable to breathe at all. So, I swam back over to the island for another Five minutes.
12 minutes into the race I had swam less than 200 yards.
After that break I got back in the water only to have the same thing happen to me: Wheezing, nose completely useless, unable to take a full breath. I knew that if I stood up on the island again I was going to take myself out of the race so instead I held onto a kayak and forced myself to cough so violently I almost threw up, anything just to clear an air passage. Knowing my day was pretty much done I said “Well, since you’re here let’s just see how long you can make it.” So, I swam kayak to kayak, buoy to buoy. Slowly enough the landmarks started ticking off, I circled the island, under the train bridge, under the interstate bridge…..and I just kept swimming within myself, stopping to cough at every kayak.
In total my swim time was 1:56:00 or thereabouts. My total “stoppage” time was easily north of 20 minutes meaning that my swim was still pretty pitiful. Moreover, it was such a struggle that I was able to find no joy in being out of the water. It took every last effort I had to make it to dry land and into T1.
The Bike.
I am a HR not a Power athlete so I had a pacing and HR plan for the first 90 minutes. I was to ride between 16.5 and 17 mph on average for the first 90 minutes, bumping it up to 20 to 21 on average for the balance of the ride. My ride target time was 6:00:00.
I got on the bike, got in aero and realized instantly I my lungs were not going to cooperate. This, along with being exhausted from gasping for air for two hours in the water caused an ongoing persistent and sometimes hacking cough. When I hit that first hill on 42 I thought my lungs were going to explode.
My “one thing” was “You’ve earned the right to do this, you’ve proven you belong to be here (now keep moving).” Keeping that in mind I just said I would ride within myself and when my body told me it was time to pull out I would (note: my body had been telling me that for two weeks, I just hadn’t listened). I used my gearing on the uphill, I kept good form on the downhill. Despite the uptick in coughing it caused I drank Perform religiously and I strictly kept to my regimen of eating ½ a Power Bar every 30 minutes. In total I was putting somewhere north of 600 cal/hour in my body.
Every time I tried to get ahead of myself and test my speed my lungs pushed back, however I used one of the four keys and just stayed in the box. I stayed within myself. So long as my average pace didn’t drop below 16.5 or so (aka a sub 7 hour bike) I said that I’d continue to ride. I was rarely passed on the uphill, I noticed a lot of cyclists fooling with their gears, trying to climb out of saddle or showing some other pace killing move. I saw a guy wreck on a downhill and break a collarbone because of careless riding. People were swerving on uphills, braking hard (out of fear) on downhills and skidding. Lines weren't held, etc. I know as triathletes we're supposed to be lousy cyclists, but this was an all time high. I wondered at one point if a lot of these people didn't have much experience and were doing this race merely because it was open, not because it was their best choice.
I won’t lie when I say that making the left turn back on do the second loop of the race was a mental challenge, knowing what was in store for me, but I just held pace, I held onto my one thing and – most important – I stayed to the letter of the law with nutrition and hydration.
Next thing you know the hills start to flatten out, River Road shows up (with a headwind) and I’m in T2.
The Run
I sat and thought about life a lot in T2. I knew that my goal of 12:30 was entirely out of reach and I was unsure if I even had the ability to get up out of the chair in the changing tent. But, having peed twice on the bike and knowing I was full of calories I got up and jogged out. I told my wife in T2 to wait for me at mile 3, that she would probably be walking me back to the hotel.
I get out on the run and in mile 1 and 2 people are already walking, but I’m at least running. What’s better is that having my back erect and upright is allowing me to breathe better than I had been able to all day. It was my plan to run the first 6 miles at a 12:00 pace (not counting 30 steps per aid station), the next 14 miles at a 10:30 pace (sans aid stations) and the final 10K at whatever extra speed above 10:30 I could muster.
Setting out at my pace I took a Gu Roctane in T2, another 20 minutes into the run, another at 40 minutes and for good measure another at 60 minutes. 5 miles into the I had nearly 400 calories of caffeinated sugar in me. While that seems like a lot the sugar did much to clear the clouds in my head. Taking comfort in the fact that (a) I was running and (b) I wasn’t slowing down I kept moving. I saw my wife ant Mile 3, gave her a high 5 and kept on running.
The rest of my marathon can be summed up in these four words: I just kept running. I walked 30-60 steps through each aid station for Perform, Gu and Ice for my arm coolers and had a delay at Special Needs to change my socks, but otherwise my running pace never wavered north of 12:00 per mile and never was faster than 10:55. When I called on my speed in mile 6 it wasn’t there (thanks lungs) but I also didn’t slow down. I called on all of my pacing and training and knew that in a worst case scenario (which I was in) what I was capable of. Were it not for the IMPECCABLE Team EN training plan I blow up in that race. That said, I just kept running. Mile 18 came and people were coming back to me in droves. I take ZERO delight in watching the misery of others, but I do take pride in the fact that I was able to hold my pace, not walk and not go backwards as I passed dozens and dozens of defeated athletes in those final miles. Gu Roctane every 30 minutes, two cups of Perform doused with my special salt mix from my fuel belt every aid station and ice down my arm coolers was the protocol, and with that I just kept running.
Rounding up 4th street and hearing my name called as an Ironman for the second time in 10 months was no less amazing than it was in Panama City last November. Because I was in a pretty fugue state it still seems a little blurry, a far cry from remembering every crisp detail in Florida. I did manage to give my wife a hug and kiss right before I finished.
The aftermath
Even though I was shooting for a 90 minute PR (14:08 in Florida) and not only did I miss that, but I lost 22 minutes on Florida I still saw a victory. I saw it as a validation of all the persistent training and the message of understanding pace and ability that Team EN teaches. I saw my run consistency as a victory, although I couldn’t call on the speed I had trained for I also NEVER WENT IN REVERSE! My time may have been crap relative to my goal, but I can thank the team and the work for giving me the strength to continue. Work works, indeed!
That aside, my take away from the race was this: IT WAS INCREDIBLY STUPID OF ME TO RACE THAT IRONMAN. Getting into the Ohio River, a major river, with over 2,500 other people in an impaired state of lung capacity was stupid. Kayak support aside, if I had gone under there was no getting me back up. I’m not trying to sensationalize it and say I was near drowning – I wasn’t – but people can, and do, suffer serious harm, including death, in triathlons because they do very stupid things. Ignoring a bronchial and nasal infection and lining up to race a very difficult Ironman was a very stupid thing and continuing to race and possibly do my body more harm was also a very stupid thing. I would like to think that faced with that dilemma in the future that I’d have the strength and courage to say today’s not my day.
Net/Net though, I still crossed the finish line with 14:30 and came out on the other side leaner, fitter, wiser and insatiably hungry for a PR than I’ve ever been. Wisconsin 2013……here I come.
Oh, and did I mention that 36 hours later I was right in the middle of Hurricane Isaac and didn’t have power for a week?
Comments
Thanks for the honesty and report. I think I would have been in your shoes as well. It's just so hard to back away when we put all the time into it.
Incredible. Glad you are ok