Ironman Coeur d'Alene 2012

Swim
After a 3:48 AM wakeup, we ate breakfast and Shaina and I drove into town. Shaina took a nap in the car while I made a critical trip to a port-a-pottie. The good news was that it was relatively clean at that hour.
Transition was a lot less stressful than in Florida. Perhaps it was because I knew what to do. Perhaps it was because I was not particularly worried about finishing (I knew I could) or any particular time goal (it's hard to know what a reasonable goal is on a new course).
At 6:15 I headed over to the start and stood next to Tim O'Donnell (a pro) as he was putting on his wetsuit and kissing his girlfriend, Mirinda Carfrae (another pro), goodbye. What a power couple. Their babies would be so good at exercising.
At 7 o'clock the cannon went off with little warning and we waded into the 59 degree water. The beach was relatively narrow and we were all packed in there. Stupidly, I started in the middle of the beach. The first 400 yards of the swim I felt as if I were in a washing machine. I wanted to stop swimming and just wait, but I realized that I would just be swum over by the people behind me. It was a truly awful experience. I should have just started wide and done some extra distance to avoid the madness. And it wasn't just me. I heard from many other people that the swim was especially chaotic. I say especially, because anytime you have 2800 people start swimming at once, it's going to be chaotic. Imagine lining up for a marathon, and having everyone close their eyes before the gun goes off. You have the Ironman mass start. The cold water exacerbated the panic. It was so cold that one person was pronounced dead out of the water (but then revived at a hospital by the marvels of modern medicine).
After making the turn back to shore for the first lap, I was sighting on the wrong building and went way wide. At least there was clear swimming out there in the middle of nowhere. On lap two I was actually swimming very fast for a bit (the key to improving my swim technique?) but it was too tiring and I fell back into my modified doggy paddle for the rest of the lap. I had a blinding headache for the swim. It was probably the too-tight swim goggles that caused that. Why didn't I know that they were too tight? Because it was my first time wearing them, of course. Everyone knows that it's a good idea to try things out for the first time on race day.
There's not much else to say about my swim except that I was 5 or 6 minutes slower than Florida after taking lessons and getting lots of practice over the last 7 months. I think my next strategy will be to take no lessons and stop practicing in the hopes that that approach has the opposite effect. I got out of the water 1:24 after starting.
T1
Transition from swim to bike was much faster than Florida. Instead of going into the changing tent and fighting for a bit of space, I just plopped myself down on the grass and did my thing. My hands and feet were pretty numb so I was not as agile as I would have liked. I actually used the volunteers to pull my wetsuit off of me because I was so dizzy and out of it. A volunteer helped me grab my bike and I was off to the bike. T1 took a bit over 5 minutes.
Bike
I set out on the bike under overcast and rainy skies. The air temperature had also dropped to 56. I was just wearing my onesie and my feet were numb but I figured that I would warm up as I got moving.
We had driven the bike course earlier in the week to scout the hills. It was hilly. The course is an out and back along the lake (approximately 15 miles total) and after you return to town, there is another out and back along a hilly highway (Idaho 95) south of town (approximately 41 miles). You do this entire circuit twice. Along the lake, there is a smallish half mile hill just to soften your legs up. Along the highway south of town, there are three monster climbs on the way out and one on the way back. During our scouting trip, we convinced ourselves that the hills were shallow enough that you could really cruise up them. That was delusional.
After setting out on the bike, I really tried to keep myself in check. It's easy to get caught up in the excitement of the race and forget how long your day is going to be. On the first little hill, there were some guys who charged up, but I stayed in my little chainring and spun up the hill and talked to the guy next to me. I love talking to people during these races.
I liked riding to a certain power number a lot. It got me working on the flats and downhills much more than I would have otherwise. And then I backed off on the uphills more than I would have otherwise. I'm convinced that it's not just a different way of riding, but that it's better. I was passing (on the flats and downhills) and getting passed (on the uphills) by a group of guys for about 30 miles. But then they faded behind me as their surges on the uphills took their toll.
The ride out of town on Idaho 95 was a bear. We were facing a headwind and monster hills. I was riding up at about 8 mph for 600, 500 and 300 foot climbs. It was nice to be able to sit up out of the aero bars, but I could tell that even though I felt stronger than Florida, my time was going to be slower. You never get the speed back on the downhills that you lose on the uphills. Speaking of downhills, the ride back into town on Idaho 95 was glorious. For the most part, it was down two huge hills and I was cruising along between 25 and 40 mph.
I was planning to pee myself on the bike, but it was so cold for the first 40 miles, that I couldn't bear the thought of being wet. Like a weinie, I pulled over and peed in a port-a-pottie around mile 35. I was concerned that I was over-hydrating given the cool and wet conditions. Later, my concern swung in the opposite direction.
On one downhill on the first lap, there was a group of people clogging the lane riding up on their bikes (not tucking for max speed). As I'm flying down the hill, I have to hit the brakes and I start screaming "Left! Left!" They eventually moved over and I continued down the hill. At the bottom of the hill, one guy from the pack caught up to me and started screaming "What's your problem? That was a no passing zone." (There were a few no passing zones where the road was too narrow). In my calmest tone, I explained that he had missed the sign that said end of the no-pass zone and that he should look more carefully for it on the next lap, but that if he didn't believe me he could take my number down and report me if it turned out I had passed illegally. I never saw that idiot again but I was hoping that I would if only so I could ask him for an apology.
As I came back into town to start lap 2, Claire told me that I was only 2 minutes behind Shaina. Unfortunately for me, that news coincided with the great "power outage of 2012." I felt as if I were flying for the first 56 miles. I guessed that training was paying off. Then around mile 58 or 60, I felt dead. I could only muster about 70% of the power that I was pushing earlier. Maybe this was the time during all my training rides that I had stopped for outrageously large lunches and my body wasn't ready to push on. I was feeling so delirious that I was staying out of the rightmost part of the lane (where you are required to ride unless passing) because I was afraid that I was going to blackout or otherwise veer into the oncoming vehicular traffic. I was quite worried about what was happening at this point.
I knew that something needed to change. I noticed that the sun was out and it was warmer so I considered that I might be dehydrated. I started drinking 20 oz of Gatorade every 10 miles, ate a salt pill and started eating Clif bars much faster. I struggled for the next 10 miles, getting passed by three 40+ year old women and almost being peed on by one of them. But I did something right, because by about mile 70 I was back and passing people left and right (this is an idiom, obviously I was obeying all USAT rules and only passing on the left). I could almost sustain the power numbers that I had on my first lap. From almost a mile away, I could see Shaina in her outrageous orange and pink bike garb and used that as further inspiration to keep going.
As I mentioned, the sun was now out and I was regretting not having sunscreen on. I wouldn't realize how much I would regret it until the end of the day when I looked at my back and saw a color that could serve as "fire engine red" for Benjamin Moore. The downhills were great on the way back into town and I started preparing myself for the run by spinning at a higher cadence.
I finished the bike in 5:51, or 19.1 mph. Not as fast as IM Florida, but the course was much more difficult and I think I did a much better job.
T2
I came into T2 and gave my bike to a volunteer and ran to the bike-to-run bags where a volunteer handed me my transition bag. Then in the changing tent, where yet another volunteer helped me get what I needed and packed up my bike stuff for me. There was no volunteer to help my apply some vaseline to my crotch, but that was probably for the best as it was all dudes in the transition tent. I stepped outside the tent and 4 women applied sunscreen to my arms, legs, back and head while I did my face. It was like a 20 second massage. I would have stayed, but there was racing to do. T2 took just under 4 minutes.
Run
Out of the gate, I was jazzed to be on the last stage of the race. So jazzed that I looked at my watch and saw that I was running 7:15 miles. Uphill. I almost had to bring myself to a stop to get to my goal pace of 9 min/miles. I pretended Drew was there, I was running with him and we were cracking jokes and mugging for the camera. My plan was to run the first 3 to 6 miles at 9:00 and then gradually pick it up. By mile 3, the fatigue was setting in and I was running 9 min/miles without trying to run that slowly. I decided to inch it up to 8:30 or 8:45 miles. At the turnaround at mile 6.5, I saw Shaina right behind me. I thought we were going to run together. But I also needed to pick up the pace and I started running 7:45 miles with one or two 7:30s thrown in. I was feeling great and felt that I was getting enough calories from the cola and sports drink that I was forcing down at every aid station. But by the time I got back into town at 13.1 miles, I was feeling pretty tired and I fantasized about wading into the lake for an ice bath instead of heading back out on the course for another 13 miles.
I tried to banish such thoughts and hit the turnaround. I was down to about 8:00 miles and was increasingly thirsty. I was trying to drink and drink but it was starting to cause me "sloshy stomach" and seemingly did nothing to quench my thirst. I wondered if the salt pill had been a little too effective. On the way out of town, I told myself that I only had 11 miles to go because the last two didn't count because they were so close to the finish. Soon I had 8 to go. Then six. The course designer put the cruelest hill on the run course at mile 5 and 19. You have to run up a 5% grade for .5 miles, then down for about .25 miles, then turn around and do it in reverse. I did everything I could to keep my legs moving and not fall down to a walk. I managed that, but my pace dropped to 9:30 or worse. By the time I had finished with that hill, I was telling myself that I only had 3 miles left (actually 5 miles) but I couldn't pick up the pace anymore. I was walking for about 30 feet through each aid station, drinking 3 cups of water in an attempt to quench my thirst and giving myself a cramp in the process. I considered walking a few times, but remembered the sign that I had seen that said "If this was (sic) easy, it would be called Your Mom." One foot in front of the other. Then I came across the lawn party where they were drinking beer and playing party tunes. I starting wondering why I wasn't doing something like that instead of doing this stupid race. With 1 mile to go, I tried to pick it up, but no go. I think it was that I was in so much pain already and I couldn't convince myself to make it more painful for almost no gain.
I know that I had energy left because with about .4 miles to go, I realized how close I was, saw Claire screaming encouragement and starting running 6:30 miles. So obvioulsy, there was something left in the tank. But with 1 or 3 miles left, I couldn't convince my body that finishing  in 11:04 or 11:05 (instead of 11:06) or finishing in 48th in my age group (instead of 49th) was worth the extra agony. The entire experience has left me thinking that half of these races is being trained and half of it is convincing your body to give you all its got. I think that very few people can actually get their body to do the latter; it's a matter of how close you can get. The run took me 3:42. A whole minute faster than IM Florida! (To be fair, it was hillier).
The finish was a slight downhill and the crowd support was terrific. I crossed the finish line in 11:06, started wobbling before someone grabbed me and carried me to a chair. From there, someone else carried/walked me to the medical tent where I drank as many fluids as possible while icing my Achilles (which had started hurting at mile 13). I tried to eat some food, but felt like vomitting.
Post-Race
It was quite hard to walk around for a while, but changing out of spandex into cotton (including my Touch Me To Finish sweats) helped me tremendously. Most importantly, we met up with the group we were staying with and went out to dinner. I could only drink two beers because I wanted water so badly. After dinner, two beers, and three cups of water, I peed for the first time in about 11 hours. Ooops. We went down to the finishing chute to cheer on the rest of the runners, including many of the ones we were staying with. There is a 17 hour cutoff for this event, and one of our group was very close to the cutoff. There was a lot of nervousness until she crossed with about 4 minutes to spare. Then one woman came across about 12 seconds too late. She'll never be on the official roll of finishers, but someone who just made the 17 hour cutoff gave her his/her medal and a bouquet of flowers and she got to celebrate with the crowd. We got home at 1:15 AM and despite a valient effort to stay up, were asleep within the hour.

2010-2011

It's a new era. I'm going to resume blogging. Soon to come, a recap of the disastrous 2010 Boston Marathon and the amazingly fun 2010 Timberman Half-Ironman.

Running on Turkey. And more!

It's been awhile, I know. I blame the stress at work that is making the rest of my hair fall out. Let's see, what's happened since November 16th.

MIT Biathlon (November 22):
The beginning of a tradition. Those two squash/swimming powerhouses, Canada and the US, represented by Alan Lee and Rob O'Brien respectively, squared off at the "Z-Center" at MIT on Sunday night. It was a split, with the US narrowingly winning the squash competition and Canada swimming circles around the US in the pool. Granted, I was going up against a champion swimmer, but the depth of my failure made me consider using some sort of motorized propulsion system for my next triathlon just to stay in the thick of things. More time in the pool can only help.

Donahue's Turkey Trot (November 26):
Sunday, November 22nd I came down with a mean cold. That had me waylaid until Wednesday. Coincidentally, that was the first day of my Thanksgiving vacation. What luck! It meant that I was going into the Turkey Trot on stale legs. But I'm getting ahead of myself. In 2008, the O'Brien/Howard/Schweizer/Bernstein family started a family tradition--running in the Donahue's 5K Turkey Trot in Watertown. This year, almost the entire family ran. Here are some notables: aunt Susan Howard won her age group, mother Karen Howard and father Chris O'Brien ran very well for their first races ever, brother Charlie O'Brien took several minutes off his time from a year ago. I, on the other hand, got slower. Fortunately (?) this year, I was wearing my new GPS watch which allowed me to see that I ran the first mile in a blistering 5:49 and the third mile at a crawling 6:24. Bad pacing.... I have already found many scapegoats: 1) the lingering cold; 2) my lack of training in the month of November; 3) a holiday spirit that made me smile and talk to my fellow runners and thank the volunteers instead of crushing the competition. Whatever it was, maybe I'll do better next year. Although, as a wise man once said, every year I get older and they stay the same age. (please submit your guesses as to the reference guesses in the comment section).

November 30th:
Miracle of all miracles, I got up to run on a weekday morning. I was obviously well-rested if I convinced myself to get out of bed. I was recovering from some "runner's knee" that I got during the Turkey Trot and this run definitely didn't help matters. The experience actually led me to believe that I should shut it down for the rest of the week. That happily coincided with a string of 4 weekday mornings during which I didn't want to get out of bed.

Rehab:
Following a discussion with my unofficial injury coach, Meggie S., I spent a good amount of time stretching and doing some leg strength exercises. Here's a link to a great blog post of hers about the benefits of stretching (and ways to do it).

Winter triathlon (December 6th):
Yesterday I decided to get back at it (after an indulgent weekend that pretty much necessitated it). Under clear and crisp (cold?) skies, I donned my tights, long-sleeve, vest, hat, gloves, shoes, and ridiculous watch and headed out for a run along the Charles. I actually decided to run backwards this time! Not actually backwards, mind you, just in the opposite direction from which I usually run. So I headed down Cambridge St., across the Longfellow Bridge, and west along the river to the Weeks Bridge. I crossed over and ran back to the Longfellow Bridge, down Charles St. and up Beacon St. My nifty watch told me this was 8.92 miles. For you runners out there, you can probably agree that running a course backwards is somewhat akin to running in completely new neighborhoods. It was a real breath of fresh air, almost as fresh as the cold air that I was actually breathing.
After some football watching and beer drinking, I headed to MIT to meet up with Mr. Canada for some more squash and swimming. The squash match was very streaky, with very little consistent play. The swimming was more consistent, in that I was consistently on the border between "swimming" and needing to be rescued. Hmm, that scene from the Sandlot comes to mind, maybe I'm on to something here. Actually, I thought I was swimming better than last time, I felt like I could swim for quite a while. That should come in handy when I need to swim 1.2 miles this August. Post-swim, Alan and I had burritos and hot peppers from Anna's. The hot pepper made me forget all about my aching legs and made me focus on my burning mouth. Maybe I should try some variation of this strategy during my next marathon....

Swimming Past Boredom

I'm staying at the Peninsula Hotel in Chicago (free slippers!), and I woke up this morning at 6 to jump in the pool to do some laps. The pool was beautiful and quiet as I "swam" back and forth, back and forth. Despite the near idyllic settings (picture here), I soon found myself growing quite bored. There was no music to listen to; no runners running, dogs playing, or geese pooping to observe; no one next to me to talk to (as I can riding side by side on the roads).

My mind was wandering and getting tired of it; I wanted more stimulation (and oxygen). I tried to focus on the bottom of the pool and observe exactly how far I was able to glide with each stroke, but without any focus points on the bottom, that was hard to determine. Some people say it is this very inability to focus on external objects that makes swimming so enjoyable--they are able to enter into a Zen-like state. As I sit here writing this, that sounds great; but I wasn't able to get there. Between my muscles burning and my gasping for air, there wasn't much room for a peaceful, meditative state.

I don't have this problem with boredom when I swim at Walden Pond. Perhaps because the distances are longer and I'm focused on making it to a particular point on the far shore. Perhaps because I'm swimming with other people and trying to keep up with them.

If I'm going to get serious about swimming, I'll be spending a lot more time in the pool this winter and I'm going to need something to keep me from watching the clock on the wall. Does anyone have any tips on how to make swimming laps more enjoyable?

Tights and Tight Buns

This morning marked the beginning of the running pant season for me. While it's definitely possible to run through a Boston winter in shorts, I think it's better for the leg muscles and joints to keep them warm (and supple) while you are asking them to perform. So I throw on a pair of pants or running tights if the weather is cold enough that I would end my run with pink legs. This morning was one of those mornings.

I either wear a pair of running/wind pants with poly-pro boxer briefs underneath, or I wear running tights (here are the ones I own). This morning was a tights morning. About half the running population along the Charles agreed with me that some sort of extended leg covering was appropriate. The other half stubbornly clung to their shorts. Of that half wearing pants, about half wore running tights (or were they leggings? A category of clothing I didn't even knew existed until two weeks ago), although most of those wearing tights were women.

Anyway, fearlessly onward to the point of this entry--please, for the love of God, do not wear things under your tights. They are meant to be worn sans underwear. 1. No, your underwear/panty lines do not look sexy; 2. putting cotton(?) underwear under performance wicking fabric defeats the purpose of that fancy fabric you paid extra for; and 3. you are asking for chaffing issues and no, I will not have any sympathy for you. Furthermore, if you wear them without underwear, you have to wash them after each use and that means the manufacturer gets to sell more! Obviously, that's how the manufacturer meant them to be used.
Finally, in case you need more convincing, imagine that you are running along the Charles on a bright, crisp morning. Do you want to run up on this or this? For the sake of humanity, make it the latter and leave the underwear at home.

The same goes for biking. I never want to see underwear under bike shorts/bibs. You just paid anywhere from $50 to $400 dollars for special shorts that elimate chaffing and give you some padding. Why would you ruin that?

I also need some tips. On very cold mornings, I get dangerously cold--well, I guess I'll just be adult about this--my penis is freezing! Any recommendations? For all the above reasons, I'm not about to add underwear under my tights, and it also happens with the boxer brief/wind pant combo. This has created some real problems on long runs in the winter and I'd be forever appreciative if someone could tell me how to solve this. Yeah for winter running!

Musical Inspiration

When I'm training alone I often listen to music for inspiration/to stave off boredom. More details below:

Swim: I'm not about to buy one of those expensive and cumbersome underwater headsets but some pools pump music through the water. Usually it's pretty mainstream music (which I'm fine with) and adds an interesting element to the swim. At the MIT pool last week the lifeguard was playing Michael Jackson. I think she was going to let me and Alan choose the music.

Bike: I don't ever listen to music on the bike because I think it's too dangerous. I used to listen when I could ride in Central Park (when it was closed to traffic) but here in Boston I'm always struggling to maintain my place on the asphalt and need to know when a car is about to run me into the ditch (a la the Italians in Breaking Away; sorry, couldn't find a link). I do however have some great music for spin classes and have the pleasure of having some instructors with similar tastes. I think techno has a place in spin class whereas it might not have a place on the road. If you are interested in sampling some Sweedish techno (isn't all techno European? Why is that?) check out Basshunter--they have some "inspirational" music videos. And by inspirational, I mean, they make you want to work out so you can look as good as everyone in the video. I don't think this is one of their better songs, but it's certainly one of the most unintentionally hilarious ones.

Run: Definitely, unless I'm talking to someone. Depending on the mood I'm in, I have different playlists. There's the angry, rock playlist (I'm really fast and pick races with people who may or may not know that I'm taking them down). There's the R&B playlist. There's the country playlist (generally more mellow, good for long runs and all my runs in Vermont). I listen to certain playlists too repetitively, then they are forever associated with a certain time in my life. For instance, I can listen to playlists from May and basically relive the events of that month during my run. It makes for some interesting introspection.

Any song recommendations you'd like to pass on to me?

The End of An Era

Tomorrow morning marks the end of my self-imposed exercise hiatus. Although it's arguably warm and light enough to go biking outside, I've shifted my focus to the indoors for the season and I'll be headed to spin class at the crack of dawn. I just created a playlist for class in case I get to teach.

I've been reading a lot about how biking is therapeutic and recommended for a lot of injuries. Here's hoping that's the case with me and when I resume running on Wednesday, it's pain free. I have been less diligent about treating my injury this weekend than I would have liked. Speaking of treatment, Meggie made a good point about my last entry being misleading--stretching should never follow icing. Don't try that at home kids. Stretching should be undertaken when the muscles are warm and supple.

Having been largely sedentary this weekend, there's not much else to say here. However, I do have a great training tip. Do not attempt to go inverted on a stripper pole, you will end up on your head/back and will severely strain your left hamstring. Live and learn.