It's time once again for my annual Ironman triathlon update. As you are probably aware, I completed the Ironman Arizona triathlon on April 15 th in Tempe Arizona. This was number three, and in case you were wondering, they don't get any easier! You may also notice that there are no pictures attached. As always, we are camera challenged and they always seem to fail at the most inopportune time. I think we've owned 10 digital cameras, all of which fit this trait. Dianne purchased a disposable camera and we may have some pictures developed at a later date.
Kira and I arrived in Tempe on Thursday afternoon and Dianne came up Friday after work. None of us had been to Tempe before, so it was fun just to hang out and check out the local sites. Tempe is right next door to Phoenix, 10 minutes from the main airport. The biggest thing in the city by far is Arizona State University (ASU), home to 50,000 full time students. We didn't rent a car as we stayed right down town at the start of the race.
I believe there is only one main street on town and true to any college town, Mill Street had bars every couple hundred yards. The town came alive at 10:00 p.m., so we naturally saw very little of the nightlife. Kira and I spent Thursday and Friday hanging out and watching the goings on. It was pretty funny to watch the same group of characters wandering up and down the street showing off and trying to be cool.
Tempe weather was also pretty good when we arrived with temperatures around 80 during the day, although it was cool in the morning and in the evening. It is definitely a dessert town with no grass to be found anywhere. Outside our hotel window were views of cactus and dirt. I've heard it sits at over 110 all summer and thankfully we were long gone before such temperatures to set in. It may be a dry heat, but 110 is still hot.
As with past Ironman events it is always inspiring to just hang around, meet some new people and hear some great stories. There was a mandatory athlete meeting Friday night that Kira and I attended. On stage the oldest and youngest participants were introduced. The oldest guy was a 76 year old who started exercising about 15 years ago. He finished in about 14.5 hours. (Dad, there is hope for you in this sport!) The youngest person was an 18 year old girl from Sonoma. When asked about her training she stated that she was completely uncoordinated and never played sports in high school. She started training for triathlons early in the morning after high school. Asked if she missed hanging out with friends late at night because of her early morning training, she replied she hardly ever slept. She qualified for Hawaii by winning the female age group award. The emcee then asked all the athletes to raise their hands if they were competing for the first time in an ironman event. There were over 800 first timers out of the 2100 athletes. He then asked if anyone had lost more than 30 pounds training for the race. Probably 100 people stood up. He asked people to remain standing if they lost more then 40, 50, 60 all the way up to 90 pounds. With two people remaining standing they were invited to the stage to tell their story. One guy lost 170 pounds in just over a year. It was pretty incredible. As he said, the best thing someone ever said to him was "Who are you?"
These triathlons are not a poor man's sport. I think the value of the 2100 bikes surpassed the gross national product of most African nations. Walking around the Expo on Saturday Dianne asked why I didn't have those cool wheels like almost everyone else. As we walked by the "sale" on bikes and other equipment I showed her the price tag (per wheel) including the $150 event discount. At $1000 per wheel, Dianne seemed to be a whole lot happier with my several thousand dollar "clunker". It's funny though, because everyone was grabbing for the free Gatorade.
My calf muscle, which had been bothering me since January seemed to feel pretty good during the week before the race. I had taken off about 5 weeks of running and had not run more than 8 miles since early January and it was certainly making me nervous. Lots of stretching over the past few weeks seemed to do the trick.
Having done a couple of these now I wasn't quite as nervous as I was in past. Saturday we spent hanging around and watching the goings on. I decided to train like Floyd Landis and so we sat outside and had a beer at one of the local breweries. We wandered back to the hotel in the afternoon and were subjected to two weddings in the court yard. I thought it was very weird to have your wedding out in the open. All hotel guests were asked to keep the noise down as the ceremonies proceeded. Not all the 5 year olds agreed, especially after the first 20 minutes or so. Very odd indeed.
It was early to bed Saturday night and early to rise Sunday morning. Both Kira and Dianne were good sports didn't stay up late. By 5:00 am we were down to the start of the event. I spent the time limbering up, getting my body markings with my number and age plastered on my arms and legs, waiting in line to empty my bladder like everyone else and then putting on the wetsuit. The swim course was an out and back one loop course in Tempe Town Lake. We started in the middle, about 50 yards off shore. Having done a couple of practice swims in the lake earlier in the week, I was now most afraid of getting some sort of skin disease. It is certainly odd to have signs stating "No swimming in the lake – except for triathletes". The fact that I couldn't see 3 feet in front of me didn't help my confidence. When the cannon went off at 7:00, my heart jumped, I thought to myself, what the heck am I doing here, and then off I went. As with the other mass start Ironman events, there was a bunch of thrashing, kicking and otherwise near drowning events for the first couple of hundred yards. After that, it was pretty good and I only got kicked once pretty hard on the chin. I didn't do a whole lot of swimming in practice leading up to the event, averaging about an hour a week. I wish I had spent more time learning to look where I was going. I was swimming in a zig zag fashion and added what seemed like an extra mile to the 2.4 mile course. In the end I was out in just under 1 hour 20 minutes, almost the same amount of time in the previous two ironmans. I was in 1218th place. Nowhere to go but up!
Once out of the water the volunteers were great. A couple help pull off your wetsuit (what a great job title – stripper for a day!) and then others help you find your bag of biking stuff. Once changed, all the guys lined up to have the college girls put suntan lotion on them and then on to the bike for the 112 mile, three loop course.
I figured it would take me around 2 hours per loop, six hours in total. The first half loop was great and I settled in on the bike. It was pretty cool to be out riding past cactus. I passed the turnaround in about 50 minutes, 10 minutes ahead of schedule and feeling great. As soon as I turned, I realized that the slight breeze at my back was now a raging wind in my face. It was incredibly demoralizing to be zipping along at 25 miles an hour and all of a sudden be doing 12 mph and holding on for dear life, hoping not to be blown off the bike. The return trip into town was a very tiring 70 minutes. It felt great to see everyone in town, turn around and have the wind at my back again. By loop two, there were lots of very tired bike riders and everyone was cursing the winds. About ¾'s of the way around we were passed by the leaders who had now lapped us. They were flying by like I was standing still. I'm not sure they even noticed the wind. At one point a huge piece of sage brush came flying at me from up the road. This was desert country for sure. I never saw anyone get blown off their bikes but I saw plenty of people with taped up shoulders and arms. Post race conversation was dominated by the sites of people being blown off their bikes. All in all, the bike portion took a lot out of me, although I did finish in just over 6 hours, I was certainly glad to hand my bike over to a volunteer. I finished 1006th on the bike, so I was now moving up the field!
The second transition was incredibly well run by volunteers once again. I heard there were over 3000 volunteers helping out and they were all great. It was like a personal valet service, taking your bike, helping you to find your run clothes bag, helping to change if you needed it and then wishing you well again. We all lined up for more suntan lotion again. With the dry heat, there was nothing to show for my 7.5 hours of training except for a bunch of salt stains over my tri suit. I'm not sure applying suntan lotion to a bunch of smelly athletes was quite as fun as it was in the morning, but they were all good sports about it.
The 26 mile run course was also a three loop course and we ran along the Tempe Town Lake, over the bridge and down along the banks of the river again. I was very nervous about my leg giving out, but decided just to run and see what would happen. I clocked the first mile in about 7:30 and felt good. The run turned out to have the same wind issues as the bike and it became very demoralizing running into the wind. I turned my hat backwards after nearly losing it to a gust a wind a couple of times. Most people walked into the wind and I ended up passing a bunch of people. I was determined not to walk any portion of the distance until I absolutely had to. I ran through all the aid stations. By mile 15 I was at 10 minute miles a fading, but still running. The problem with running loops is you know what is ahead, and the wind was not something to look forward to. Running into town was definitely fun though, and the crowds were very supportive. I "high fived" 50 plus kids each loop. It made it very motivating to keep moving. On Saturday family and fans were given poster boards and markers to make up signs, which were then placed around the course. They were mostly blown over, and I never did find the ones that Kira and Dianne made up, but it was inspiring and funny to read these signs as I plodded along. The best one was probably " Racer XXX, I'm pregnant". I saw Dianne and Kira on the first lap of the run but missed them on each of the next two loops, which was also demoralizing. By mile 24 I was at a 15 minute per mile pace, still "running" but was approaching a near walking pace, but then I met up with some one and we sprinted the last two miles at about an 11 minute mile. I never did walk. I was certainly glad to be finished. With a 436th place run I ended up 591st overall for a time of just over 11 hours 55 minutes, a new PR by about 35 minutes.
Just passed the finish line, Kira spotted me, and Dianne, who had just returned from the medical tent trying to find out about my fate, (I think she was relieved to see me) got to see each other again. I felt great, but when asked for a third time by volunteers to take a blanket, I did was I was told. All in all, I ended up fairing pretty well. My feet were great (I may not lose any toenails this year, compared to the 10 from last year). I ended up with a pretty bad sunburn on area on my lower back that didn't get any lotion and I had some pretty serious chaffing from my shorts while biking that I didn't notice until I got into the shower.
After hanging out for a bit, we headed back to the hotel, I showered and we went out for dinner. My eyes were bigger than my stomach. I ate a bit, finished the beer and then we headed back to the room where I promptly fell asleep.
Dianne and Kira were awesome, putting up with me for the weekend and the hours of training for this event over the past 6 months. I felt sorry for the many spouses/family members who spent the whole weekend waiting for two second glimpses of their athlete zooming by at high speed and then off again for another two hours. In the morning after, there were plenty of spouses rolling their eyes back into their head when the conversation turned to next year's race.
We spent the morning taking one last look around Tempe before catching our flight back around noon. All in all, it was a great weekend. Can't wait until next year! tom
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From Gerry's awesome Admin:
http://www.photoshow.com/watch/np3JN7iN
Sunday, April 22, 2007
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