July 4th, 2010

The amazing thing about your first IM is that no matter how much you have experienced in the sport and no matter how much you “think” you know, the day is going to be an eye opener for you. I have done somewhere close to 100 tris and multisport events and still felt like a rookie during much of this race. The reason being…..I had no idea how my body was going to respond to 10+ hours of racing. The variables are just too great. Crazy weather (oh, we had that…more on this later), nutrition, pace and your mental state all are “what if’s” in the overall scheme of things. Sprint and Olympic tris are a joke compared to IM distance races. I never would have said that until today. Don’t think for a second they are comparable. It’s for this reason that I am about to write the following (and it may annoy some people but hey, this is just my opinion). If you have not felt what it is like to need to rely on nutrition in order to finish a race, meaning ran a full marathon or at least a ½ Ironman race, you have no place attempting a full Ironman. Yes, you very well may finish under 17 hours but will you enjoy the experience? Learn how your body responds to these variables the best way you can….through actual racing of the shorter distances.

Off my soapbox, onto the report.

I slept like crap the night before. Thankfully, it doesn’t matter how you sleep the night before because all you need to do is sleep well the night before the night before, and that did happen. Up at 3:30 AM to Kats pre race meal of oatmeal, Lara bar, and 24 OZ Infinite energy drink. Got in my 800 calories 3 hours prior. Then sat around the hotel room for 2 anxiety- filled hours looking out the window watching the transition area come alive. We happened to have booked the hotel room closest to the race venue (surprise right!). Got to transition at 5:30 to pump up the tires from the day before when we left the bikes in the hot sun then threw on the wetsuits to go down and jump in the water. This took place in 75 degrees and glacier Smokey blue wetsuit “legal” water. Pretty nice. Janda Ricci Munn (our coach) and his wife Michelle showed up just as we were getting out of the water. How cool is that to have your coach at the event. He was on his honeymoon and drove 5 hours out of their way to watch us race. After some last minute chatter, we walked over the far left facing the water to get our place among the crowd of 2600 hard-core, mostly male (88%) and mostly European triathletes. These guys are so scary- ripped muscley looking that they make me look chunky. They are also uber-serious and the euro swim starts have a rep of being wild. So the far left seemed to be the smartest place to start. It is not easy to stay calm for the last ten minutes. Especially when there are two hot air balloons right behind you, helicopters hovering overhead, 50 boats in the water directly in front of you all filled with spectators and all these quiet, robotic looking athletes all around you. You had better know how to swim in a crowd. I give Kath a quick kiss, wish her luck take a few deep breaths and the gun goes off. 2.4 miles to go.

Within seconds, I know I am not at Spring Hill anymore. These guys are just hammering, fighting for position. I get punched hard in the head and my right goggle goes half off but I fix it quick and get back in the mix. I then get a hard whack in my right calf and I hear some guy screaming at me in German or something. All I know was he sounded like Sergeant Shultz. I was totally expecting this and found myself laughing it off. The entire goal of the swim was to get on feet and just chill. Effort was a 2/10 scale. And that’s what I did. It was awesome to swim the last 900 meters in the canal with 1000’s of spectators screaming just feet from your face on both sides of the water. Finished it in 1:07 and in one piece. No worse for the wear. Not bad as I wanted 1:05-1:08.

T1 went as planned also. There were lots of neked people in the changing tent which was weird coming from a nudity-phobic society. The weather was still coolish and around 75 degrees but there was humidity in the air and you could tell it was unstable as there were T-storms all around. The bike course is flat, and curvy to begin with then gets up into the foothills of the Alps. I have never seen such a crowded, fast moving group of people in my life. My watts were steady at 210-220 with a 260 max on the hills and I was getting passed left and right by huge draft packs, but in their defense, there really was no where to ride as parts of the road were tight. The course is as pretty as you could imagine with lake, forest and mountain views throughout. All the little villages you road through had hundreds of people cheering you on and the three big hills on the course looked like a mountain stage of the Tour de France with all the spectators lining the road. You had about 4 feet wide of the road to ride in with everyone around you screaming, “up, up, up” which means “go, go, go”. They also love to say your name on your race belt with one of two words in front. All day I heard.“super, Jeff!” or “bravo, Jeff!”. It kept you motivated.

I got through the half way point at 2:32 or so, right at 22MPH and my legs felt perfect. The next lap I decided to back it off as slow as I could on the three hills just to be safe, as Janda kept telling me the race doesn’t start until the bike is over. The goal was to get off the bike feeling like I never really biked.

Around mile 90 the sky got very black and a huge storm rolled in. The kind where if you were at home, you would run inside because everything is blowing around your backyard. We then road through 40-50 MPH gusts, lightning all around us, and torrential rain for the next 15 minutes. This occurred on the course where there were very fast downhills with sharp corners at the bottom. The speeds on the first lap were approaching 50MPH here and we all knew it so the entire pack slowed down. If not we were going to end up crashing into something or someone.

Bike done in 5:18 or so with just about zero fatigue in my legs. I think this is because I never felt any lactic acid like burn in my legs on the ride and my nutrition was spot on. Each hour I got in 2 salt tablets, 350 calories of a combo of E-Load Heat Formula and Carbo Pro with a little bit of NRG BAR. I also dumped all the 5 dollar per bottle mineral water I could grab on course all over me (free race day) while drinking as much as I could. I did not expect to feel this great and was a very happy camper at this point. As weird as this sounds, my legs felt worse coming off the bike at the two Olympic races I had done as warm ups in the month before.

The only issue now was the storm was gone but in its wake, it left a humid, soupy 90+ degrees with lots-o’ sun. If I was hanging out by the lake I would have been very happy, but I was now starting the marathon, so it was going to be a tough 26.2 miles ahead. The goal here was to run 4 hours. My PR free marathon is 3:15 and people say you ad about 45 minutes on to that so off I plodded at my 8:30 pace. I had 4 GU’s on my race belt along with a tube of what was to be my best friend of the day, salt tablets. Within the first mile, I chucked the GU’s knowing I was not going to stomach them. I then walked every aid station doing the exact same thing in each of them.
1. Grabbed two sponges and dumped them on my head
2. Grabbed an Infinte energy drink and took two big gulps & popped a salt tablet.
3. Grabbed a water and dumped it on my head, then started running again.
This process took about 15 seconds at every station and I know it saved my race.

For the first 13 miles or so I had some light, annoying pressure in my colon, kind of like having to pass gas but nothing is coming out. But the best thing was the legs were run strong. I was not fatiguing nearly as quickly as I thought I would. All I really wanted to do was to run to 20 miles before the wheels fell off and I would have to walk, but as the 20 approached I knew I was going to be able to run the whole way. I started to drink Coke at the aid stations at this point and it was like a burst of energy. I would get about 1 mile out of it then need more though. The course is two loops with the finish line in the middle of the loops so you go by the crowd 4 X’s which was cool. I saw Janda and Michelle again and he yelled out, “it’s a mental from here on in” as I went out for the final 10K. This is where I really started to feel the 9.5 hours behind me as fatigue was settling in. But I got to 24 miles or so before I really had to concentrate on moving or should I say slogging forward. The last ½ mile is through a park lined with 1000’s of people all cheering in German. Its amazing what adrenaline can do for you because I don’t remember feeling any pain at this point as the finish line shoot materialized before me. Crossed the line in 10:34. Marathon was 4:00:30. I think I stuck to the plan considering I had predicted a 10:26.

I then stumbled over the food tent to get some solid food in me. I can’t say I was feeling too great at this point, but hey, I had just finished an Ironman. At least I wasn’t as bad as all the guys they were carrying off in stretchers or the guys vomiting in the bushes. But one hour later after a couple of cokes, soup, pizza and watermelon I was good to go. Except my legs were like bricks and still are two days later as I write this.

They had a big screen and you could watch people finish from inside the food tent. TOTALLY AMAZING production put on by Triangle Events. Spot on with everything. I then sat in there for 1.5 hours staring at the screen waiting for my lady to cross the line. I had seen her once on the run and she said she wasn’t feeling too good, but looked good to me. But I was still worried for her.
Then the best part of the day for me happened when I saw her cross the line on the jumbo-tron. I found myself standing up in the tent cheering with tears in my eyes. They say human beings pair off in this world because sharing with a partner heightens your life experience. And this is a perfect example. The race would not have been nearly as fun if I were doing it alone. To be lucky enough to have a wife like Kat there with me was amazing. And to have us both finish without getting hurt was even more amazing. Overall it was a great experience. But not one I am going to do again for sometime…..yeh….right!