Amulya's 2018 IMSR Race report

IMSR was the first time where I was able to put my feet down at the starting line of a full Ironman. I was training to do IM Lake Tahoe in 2015 and IMCdA in 2016 but could not race due to running injury.

IMSR was a Saturday race so packet pickup had to be done on Friday by 3:00pm. The race is somewhat local to me (about 80 miles north of where I live) and my plan was to drive up to Santa Rosa on Thursday night and stay there until Sunday. I was going to pickup the packet on Friday morning and setup my gear bag and drop off my bike all on Friday morning. On Tuesday of race week, I started to panic If I would be able to do all that and also attend the athlete briefing which was at 11:00am. So I decided to drive up on Wednesday evening just to finish checkin/registration and pickup up the athlete packet. Wednesday evening/Thursday morning, I went through my checklist and put everything in the Bike and Run gear bag and took pictures of what was going into it. I have a tendency of rechecking and didn’t want to panic so pictures helped.

Wednesday evening I didn’t get a rested night sleep. Just seeing the Ironman village and expo got me excited and I kept picturing what the race would look like all night in my dreams and how I would cross the finish line. I wasn’t nervous but the excitement didn’t let me sleep well.

Thursday evening I drove up to Santa Rosa with my wife and got checked in to our hotel. I was somewhat disappointed with my hotel when I checked in, but I didn’t have much choice since most hotels near the venue were sold out when I was trying to book. For someone who travels a lot and stays around 100 nights/year in hotels, I should have known better ☹. I didn’t get a good night sleep on Thursday either but it was slightly better than Wednesday.

Friday morning, I had made breakfast plans with the EN crew. It was great to meet Gabe, Matt and Shaughn for breakfast. Got some tips from the wicked smart members and I headed off to drop my gear bag. Drove up to lake Sonoma after that to drop off my bike at T1 and also to check out the swim exit etc since I had not done a swim recon. Also wanted to check out the parking situation at the lake on race morning since space was limited and my wife wanted to be there. Attended the athlete briefing, had lunch and took a 2 hr nap in the afternoon.

Race Morning: Woke up at 3:15am when the alarm went off. This was the first time I was actually in kinda deep sleep on a race day. The first thing I did was flex my ankle while in bed to check if I had any pain in my achilles. I’v always had issues my achilles/posterior tibialis which has bothered me at every race in the past regardless of distance. So to feel normal and to be able to flex without any tightness or pain felt a little odd but I was very relieved that there was no new issue. I finished my business and had a bagel in my room and got ready to head out. Suddenly I also felt very fresh and alert which was a good feeling. I slept pretty well for 6 hrs that night. Drove up to the Ironman village at 4:15am and dropped off my bike special needs bag. I then drove to the lake with my wife and started sipping GE throughout the drive.  We got lucky with parking when we arrived at the lake and could find parking in the first parking lot closest to T1. Walked down a few hundred yards to T1, checked up on my bike and GE bottles on the bike. Fortunately everything was exactly how I had left it and there was nothing to worry. I was supposed have a cliff shot gel just before the start and I had realized that I forgot to bring that with me. Oh well … nothing I could do now. I looked around if there was any gel that was being handed out but could find any. I used the porta potty, changed into my wet suit and then headed down to the boat ramp to the start. I was hanging around sign that said swim time “1:10-1:20” and was looking to spot Shaughn since his race plan said he would seed around 1:15. It was almost impossible to spot anyone in there … what was I thinking LOL. It was around 6:10am by now and was just hanging out with my wife who was there to cheer me.

SWIM – This was something that I was very comfortable with. May be a little over confident too. I would always cut my swim workout this year around 2500yards each session mostly because I would get bored. My longest straight swim set was around 2200 yards too .. but I’m a year round swimmer swimming atleast twice/week. So that kept me confident and I was always comfortable in the water. I’m not fast but I’m consistent (1:45/100 yards pace).

Got into the water and there was a lot of touching and feeling for the first 50-100 yards. I tried to stay clear of everyone and just decided to follow a pink swim cap which was a couple of yards ahead to my left. I also breathe on my left side and It was easier to spot pink than green in the water. I finished the first loop and looked at my watch and it said 0:38:30. My swim goal was 1:15:0 and I was already behind. I didn’t panic nor did I try to push harder. I was swimming at a very relaxed pace and I knew it was going to be a long day. No point to upset if I was behind by a few minutes. I finally exited the swim at 1:24:47. I also realized that I had gone off course a few times and knew it was because of that. Overall I was happy with the swim.

As I was walking up the boat ramp, I saw my wife and friends who were cheering me and I waved backed to them. I also spotted Shaughn with the EN kit who was walking about 50 yards ahead of me. Caught up to him and said “hi” and we both got our wetsuit peeled off around the same time. Got setup for the bike at the T1 tent, put my wetsuit inside the gear bag and handed it over to a volunteer. As I walked out, I got a volunteer to slap on some more sunscreen on me.

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/2694978302/1

BIKE – This was the leg that I was most comfortable with. I had ridden 10+ 85-100 miles rides in the last 3-4 months. So mentally this was just another Saturday ride where I was going to ride easy. My goal was to keep an IF of .68. The EN 4Keys video I watched earlier kept replaying in my head saying stay in my IF for the first 20 miles and sure enough as the video said, I felt like I wasn’t pedaling hard enough. I just kept to my zone and pedaled along at .68IF. After a while I did notice my IF started dropping, mainly due to coasting on the downhills. I then ignored the IF and stuck to my watts making a mental note to maintain 160 watts while pedaling. I tried to pee on the bike but just couldn’t 😊. I have never practiced bladder release on the bike and realized it’s not easy to do. So I stopped at the aid station at mile 56 and peed. My nutrition was going like clockwork. I was chugging about 1 GE+1Picky Bar every hour and one cliff shot gel when I felt the need for instant energy boost. I expected to finish the Bike around 6:00hrs but I finished at 6:27. I didn’t feel too stressed about it and I knew it was mainly because I was not in my aero bars for atleast 50% of the time. Lesson learnt – Get a bike fit which is more comfortable.

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/2694978302/3

T2 – Changed into my run gear, used the porta potty and headed out.

RUN – Now this was the most challenging part for me. I felt good as I jogged out of T2 and there was no aches or pains to be concerned about. It was mostly mental at this point. I had never run more than 15 miles in my life before which was the week before the race. I just believed coach P at this point where he said running frequency during training counts. My goal was to run 10:30 pace with the first 6 miles being around 11:00. There were a few things echoing in my head.

1.       Walk the 30 steps every aid station – Which BTW made a huge difference

2.       Drink GE at every aid station

As I started running, I setteled in around 11:00 pace for the first 6 miles which felt comfortable. At mile 6 I tried to pick up the pace but my body did not agree with me. The difference in feeling on how it felt between 10:30 and 11:00 pace was huge at this point and I just decided to stick to 11:00 pace and enjoy it rather than screw something up around mile 15-18. Around mile 10, I started getting a low battery alert on my Garmin Fenix3 HR. Not something I had planned for because it was fully charged the night before. I have never run without a watch before and I got me a little frustrated here as to why the battery ran out. The total activity time was around 12 hrs here and the watch was supposed to last atleast 16 from what I had read before. Anyway.. I thought it is what it is and I didn’t let it bother me. I tried to pay attention to my RPE and get a sense on how I should feel at this pace if my watch dies. I stopped to pee twice on the run but apart from that I was jogging a 11:00-11:15 pace the whole time and never walked except at aid station. I crossed mile 15 and I had just crossed a huge mental barrier because I had never run past this distance. Then came mile 18 and things were mostly the same. I checked to see if I could pick up the pace with a short burst but by body said nah. I kept moving forward at the same 11:00-11:15 pace.  I felt some slight pain creeping up in my achilles around mile 19 but I could still run. So my plan was to not screw up anything and just run at a pace that I was comfortable. I didn’t want to slow down (in other words walk). At mile 21 my Garmin finally died. I got pissed … mostly because I was not going to get my longest run recorded on Strava LOL. I just maintained the same RPE at this point and then picked up the pace at the last mile to finish strong.

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/2694978302/5

Overall I’m extremely happy with my results based on what I had trained for. Couldn’t have be more excited crossing that finish line on my first Ironman!!!!