Race Day Short Version:
The St. George Ironman is the hardest course in North America
The swim was very cold
The bike had some monster climbs and long, fast descents
The run was incredibly hilly with over 3200 feet of elevation gain.
My times and placement in my age group(AG) (45-49) and overall (OA):
Swim 1:21:02 199 AG and 995 OA
Bike 6:06:54 23 AG and 217 OA
Run 4:01:21 18 AG and 187 OA
Add in a couple of transitions and my total time was11:41:06 (19 AG and 211 OA). Not my fastest time, but my best place finish so far. (50 minutes slower than last year’s CdA)
Happy to be done, but glad I did it and would definitey consider doing the race again.
Long Version:
Ironman number six has come to a close and it was quite an adventure.
Dianne and I rolled into town on Thursday around noon after flying in from San Jose to Las Vegas and renting a car for the 90 minute drive through Nevada, Arizona and finally Utah. We left the boys with Grandparents and hoped for the best! The drive was filled with pretty amazing scenery with mountains, cliffs and lots of spectacular rock formations.
I had never been to St. George before and didn’t really know what to expect. The only thing I had really heard about was a resort called the Red Mountain Spa that my wife had thought very briefly about going to several years ago. I guessed that St. George would be a very high-end place with lots of expensive shops and restaurants. I also assumed it would be a very small town, completely overwhelmed by the Ironman event, similar to Lake Placid. I was wrong on both counts. I’m sure the town can accommodate 20,000+ visitors at anyone time with hundreds of hotels / motels all over town. Most restaurants were mid-priced family style or fast food places.
Thursday was the last day to check in for the race, so when we made it into town around lunchtime, we headed over to the convention center and got registered. The process took no more than 20 minutes with the very friendly volunteers and then we were told to stand in line for body marking. Seemed rather odd to get race tattooed a couple of days in advance, but we did as we were told. That line took almost an hour. For the next four days, the whole town knew me as 48 year-old 1858. After exiting the Expo, we grabbed my bike from Tri Bike Transport and loaded it into the rental car.
We checked into the Green Valley Resort, which was terrific. We had our own condo, which was spacious, new and very clean. Small talk with the front desk quickly evolved into a discussion about the large amounts of wind I was currently experiencing, and frankly, a little nervous about. She looked up from the computer and stated, “Windy? It’s not windy. Yesterday was windy, today, it’s
not windy.” “Really?” I was thinking to myself. The area is also dry, dry dry. A “Dry Heat” as we would say on the left coast. What that means is that as we arrived my nose started to dry up and was near bleeding all weekend, my lips were completely chapped and swollen for days and my skin was snake-like all weekend. Every time I drank a glass of water I peed three. If I had stayed a month, I believe I would have run out of water in my body.
Anyway, we settled in, went grocery shopping and then joined some of the Endurance Nation team for a low key dinner. It was nice to put faces to Internet forum names. After, we headed back to the condo and had a rather low key evening.
Friday morning I went for a 20 minute ride on the bike to confirm everything was in good working order and then returned to pack up all the transition bags for the Saturday race. Dianne spent most of the weekend on conference calls and reviewing rather large legal documents. After the morning barrage of work activity had died down for her, we headed downtown to drop off all the stuff. Most triathlons have one big area where everything starts and ends. The IM SG course has the swim and bike/run areas separated by quite a distance. After dropping off the run stuff downtown, we headed out to the lake to drop the bike and bike gear. According to the “not to scale” map, the lake seemed to be a few miles away. It took almost 45 minutes to get there. I took a quick look at the lake. It looked calm, peaceful and very cold.
As I checked in the bike, I noticed the high winds blowing other bikes over. Not a good sign! I thought about previewing the bike and run course, but decided against it. No sense scaring myself anymore than necessary J
We headed back into town, checked out the Expo for the first time and bought some souveniers for the kids. By this time the afternoon was shot and it was time to jump in the car and head back to Las Vegas. My daughter Kira was coming in from UC Santa Barbara to be my head sherpa once again. After meeting her, we grabbed dinner at the airport and drove back to St. George. I got to sit in the back with my feet up. Back at the condo by 9:00 and it was time to settle down for a couple hours of sleep.
Race day came early. I slept very well, but the alarm still went off at 3:45. A quick breakfast of coffee, instant oatmeal and a banana and then it was off to the downtown transition. Dianne and Kira dropped me off. I handed in my special needs bag for extra goodies when I was half done the bike course. Then it was time to jump the next available bus and head out of town to the swim start. I arrived early, added bottles and my computer to the bike, had the tires pumped and then headed into the change tents to keep warm with several hundred other people. I meet some friends and we chatted for 30 minutes or so and then suited up. For me it was a full body wetsuit, neoprene hat and booties. I knew the water was going to be cold and dressed appropriately. About 15 minutes before race time we all started making our way to the water. I didn’t want to get in until the last possible minute.
It was supposed to be a deep-water start but almost everyone was apprehensive about getting in and kept crowding the shore. The course was a one-loop rectangle swum counter clockwise and I had planned to start away from the buoys, closer to shore so as not to get run over. I quickly realized that if I kept to the shore, I’d be in big trouble because of everyone still standing there, so I moved out to the middle and a bit further back. I hate mass starts and today was no exception. When the gun went off it was open water almost instantly. Every couple hundred yards swimmers would crowd together for a bit, but it wouldn’t last long. Around the first turn buoy and the sun was completely in my eyes and I could hardly see a thing. I just followed the thrashing ahead of me and managed to make it to the next turn pretty quickly and in a fairly straight line.
It wasn’t until after an hour or so in the water that I became aware that I was getting cold. It wasn’t a huge deal, but my body was definitely getting chills and I could start to feel the cold on my face and hands. I was a little nervous, but kept moving. After making the last turn to home, I felt much better mentally as I could see the ramp in the distance. I came out of the water almost 6 ½ minutes ahead of last year’s time at CdA. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was also 995th out of the water, compared to almost 1500th last year. I was thrilled to have the volunteer support to help with the wetsuit and get me my change of clothes. With all my stuff in hand, I headed to the change room and found a seat between a couple of other guys. It was then that I realized we were all shaking uncontrollably. We all kind of laughed as we struggled to get shoes and socks on with trembling hands and feet. It wasn’t easy and I was very, very cold by this time. I grabbed my helmet and headed out to the bike. I saw Dianne and Kira near the fence yelled hello and told them I was freezing. Ever the supportive wife and coach, Dianne screamed at me to get on the bike and start riding, it was the best way to warm up. I did as I was told.
It took close to an hour to warm up and I was pretty
sluggish up to that point. Watts on the bike were off by close to 15 from where I thought I would be. Nutrition was good though as I consumed calories on plan all day long. For the bike I carried two bottles of Cytomax and about six gels. Every hour I knocked back a bottle of Cyto and a gel. When gone, I switched to water and gels. At special needs I grabbed two more bottles of Cyto and repeated the drill.
The bike course had a couple of very big climbs. I just popped it into an easy gear and spun up the hills. Watts were right around goal watts and I didn’t push it at all. Once we hit Veyo, it was downhill most of the way home. For loop one I averaged over 30mph for the 10 miles back, topping out near 45 mph. For loop two, my neck started to get very sore about mile 80 for some reason. No problems in my race rehearsals. Maybe it was all the ups and downs of the course, possibly the swim first. Regardless, I sat up in my aero a little more on the last 20 miles because, with my head down, I could only see about 10 feet in front of me and if I was flying downhill, I think I would have crashed. As a result, my second loop descent was closer to 25 mph, but I lived to talk about it. All in all, I felt great coming off the bike, but was a little bummed I was out for just over 6 hours and my watts ended up about 15 less than I had planned.
The data:
Watts:
Goal: 196 Actual: 181 Hour one: 177 First Half: 184 Second Half: 177
IF: 0.624 VI: 1.1 TSS 237.4 Time: 6:06:54
The run:
Quick summary: Up, then down. Repeat forever.
I felt great starting the run. I hadn’t seen the course but knew it was hilly. In general it turned out to be about 3+ miles up and then down the backside of the hill until mile 6 1/2; turn around and do it again. This got you back to the start and then it was an exact repeat for loop two to finish off the 26 miles. All in all, about 3200 feet of elevation gain.
With this type of course, pacing with a watch went out the window and it became all about perceived exertion. My stand-alone long runs on a hilly course averaged around 7:30 miles. Here I kept to 8:30 miles for the first half and felt good. As I looked up the hill for the last loop my pace just started to slow and I couldn’t seem to go much faster up hill. On the downhills I began to shuffle too, not picking up any speed. I didn’t feel bad or sore, I was just going slower. I ended up averaging just under 10:00 min/miles on the last half.
When I crossed the finish line I felt really good. I stopped, met Dianne and Kira and just started to get a little light headed so I laid down and put my feet up. In a few minutes I felt a lot better, but was getting sore. I bumped into Steve Chavez and he suggested I head over for a free massage. I didn’t want to wait around forever, but shuffled over to see what was available. A 5 minute wait was required so I just laid down again and waited my turn. I was sure glad I did. 15 minutes later, I was on my way. Met up with Dianne and Kira and suggested we pick up my bags and head out. Already taken care of and they had the bags loaded in the car. OK, just get the bike and drop it at Tri Bike Tansport. All ready taken care of. Wow, My Sherpas’ were awesome! We headed home, I had a bath, laid down for an hour and then was up for a couple of very cold beer, and some left over take out Chinese food. The end of a great day!
The data:
Goal: somewhere around an 8:00 to 8:15 mile average. Actual: 9:16 mile
Time: 4:01:21
Sunday:
Almost nothing going on in Utah on Sunday so Kira and I took a tour of the Mormon Temple. We learned a ton with a personalized one-on-one tour for almost an hour.
They would have kept us there all day if we didn’t make a break for it after a while. They even encouraged my daughter to get married in the Mormon temple; marriages in their faith are “for all of eternity”. I thought to myself that for most people, “till death do us part” is probably long enough.
After lunch we scoped out the Red Mountain Spa. I think my wife may be returning to Utah!
Of course, we waited until the end for the trip highlight and drove out to Veyo. When we arrived at the Veyo Pie Shop it looked all closed up.
I insisted on jumping out of the car to test the door. Sure enough it was locked. As I was heading back to the car, someone else pulled up and I told them the bad news. Luckily, the store owner seemed to sense I was near tears, opened the door and offered all of us the opporunity to purchase pie. I left a happy guy!
Monday: Zion National Park was on the list for the day.
We drove over and took the shuttle through the park. The scenery was spectacular, unlike anything else I had seen. Majestic mountains with sheer cliffs, brightly colored stones. It was pretty incredible.
After dinner we jumped back in the car and headed back to Las Vegas. Kira had a Tuesday flight at 6:00 a.m. so we booked a hotel near the airport. We headed back closer to noon.
Utah was a wonderful visit, but it sure was nice to get back to Northern California. There is lush green vegetation everywhere, rolling hills, blue sky. Sure it all dries out in August and half the State burns down, and we’re all going to die in an earthquake, but it is home, and I like it here J.
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