Ironman Lake Placid Race Report

Well it is the early morning after the big day and this is always a time of reflection about the months of work that I put into the pursuit of finishing an ironman. Good news, I completed IMLP as it is known. Better news, I achieved a personal best at 11:33:28 by 8 minutes over Ironman Canada. Both of these courses are considered to be tough by Ironman standards and so I believe this truly is a pb. In rough terms, I had a 1:15 swim, a 5:33 bike and a 4:33 run – the rest was spent resting (as Stew McGuire would say) in transition.

Each time I race one of these events, I always come away humbled. The effort of training never seems to be quite enough to prepare me for the challenges that will exist out on the race course. Yesterday was no different. Here is the backdrop to my day.

The good news is that I got to race day without any major injuries, training went largely according to plan, a lot of time spent on the bike and running, far less so this time around on the swim. If anything remains clear, i love riding my bike more than I love running. Having said that, one of the things that I implemented in my training was running to work in order to fit it into my day. This will probably remain a part of regiment post ironman training. A great byproduct of this craziness. 

For race week, Maddie and Dianne joined me for the journey down to Lake Placid, we left early on thursday morning and made the 7 hour trip to our hotel. A great place for anyone planning on attending this race – Whiteface Lodge, pricey but they take great care of you. This was supposed to be a mini vacation for Maddie and Dianne, of course always a challenge when your dad/husband is preparing for his race. We managed to get in a number of activities around my preparation, all captured by my daughter’s list.

Friday morning I wandered down to the lake to get a swim in. The air temp was 8 celsius, the water temp much better at about 20, so lots of steam coming off of the lake at 6:30 in the morning. At placid there is an underwater buoy line that marks the race course, negating the need for sighting. Having said this, no doubt that this will be a busy place on race day. I got in a good warm up swim, putting in about 2km, feeling very good. Following the swim, I went back to the hotel and had a great breakfast buffet. The plan for the rest of the day was a trip to the bobsled run (Dianne hurtled down the course in 43 seconds – not bad for $70!!) and then a reconnaissance of the bike course and then fit in some of Maddie’s activities (shopping ). For the bike course, I had heard that the descent into Keane was ripping fast but that the road could be quite treacherous, bumping and grinding you all the way down.  While I am very confident in my own bike handling skills, it is always a worry about those around you not holding their line, particularly if the wind is up or the ground is wet, the latter was fully expected. I took the descent as quickly as was reasonable given I had to hug the right side of the road, on race day we would be given three lanes to work with, making the descent much better. After this segment, I jumped back into the car and we drove the rest of the route to mile 40. This is the point at which the climbing back into Lake Placid begins. I wanted to get a good sense of how I would be managing my watts. My goal was not to push through 280-290watts for any sustained period. During this test climb, I found I was able to maintain a reasonable speed, while aero and not pushing the watts beyond my target range. Check. During the rest of the day, Maddie and I went fishing at the little pond they have out back, she swam in the pool and then we made smores over the campfire. 

Saturday morning I went out for a nice run around Mirror Lake. As has been the case since Welland, I have been running 2kms and then taking a 1 min break. My plan in IM was to run 5:30-5:45/km and then have the rest after 2 sessions, believing that I could manage to convince myself that 2 x 1km segments were easily achieved. Everything felt good, no stress. The rest of the day we used to check the bike in, do some fishing with Maddie, some more shopping, we watched a movie in the cinema at the hotel and even used their bowling alley – as I said, a great place to stay. For the bike check-in, I was not thinking and instead of putting my bike and run stuff in a plastic bag within the transition bag to keep everything dry (given all of the weather reports said rain was a given over night and on race day), i simply put small holes in the bottom of each bag to allow the water to drain out. We had an early dinner in Saranac, decent family italian restaurant, ate whole wheat penne and chicken.  Felt good on race day eve.

Sunday morning – I had set the alarm for 4:15am and a wakeup call for 4:30, didnt need either as I was up at 4am. Had my usual breakfast of Vector, some OJ, banana, and some coffee and then got regular. Given there was no rain over night, I put out some plastic bags in order to do what I should have done yesterday and repack my transition bags when I got there this morning. Weather reports still were suggesting that at least 2-3 hours of the race were going to be done in the rain.  I gathered Maddie and Dianne and we drove the back route to the race site that we had carefully plotted out and found a parking spot 5 minutes from transition. At this point, despite being a 3 time ironman, I was to prove that i am still an amateur. I got to my bike and pumped up my tires. Good news was that the tubes didn’t blow during the heat of Saturday (wasn’t likely but is always possible – right Stew). I filled my aero bottle with my eload+carb mixture and put my concentrated bottle (equivalent of 4 bottles once mixed with more water – a first time experiment for me) on the bike. As I walked back through transition taking note of entries and exits again, I realized that I didn’t have the plastic bags with me – stupid! Worse still, I had left my special needs bags (for the bike and run) at the hotel – stupider! Oh well, I have not used the special needs in the past, except in Austria and that was a disaster. Having said that, I did not have enough room on the bike to carry all that I wanted (nor do you want to lug the weight around) so I had planned to pick up round 2 of nutrition at the special needs. This time i had made PBJ on Hawaiian bread rolls (great tasting and 240 cals for each one), other than at the Tour of California, I had not raced with these but thought they would break the sugary gel load.

 I left transition and found Dianne and Maddie out on the road, after being body marked, I put on some sunscreen, not expecting to need it, but not wanting to be burned if the weather man was totally wrong – and then waited. Dianne had suggested that she might go to the hotel and pick up the special needs bags and drop them off, which would solve my problem. I told her not to worry about it. The excitement was building, the swim area was a throng of athletes and spectators. 

 The swim:

I got into the water about 10 mins before the pros started, simply to get wet and ensure my goggles were sealing – check. For the second race since announcing changes, this was going to be a “time trial” start where they would send us out in waves of 100 or so, self seeded by time. I put myself at the back of the 1:10 group, feeling that this would be a quick time but doable. While standing there Jodie Ferneyhough joined me, funny in the mass of 2500 athletes, the two BCCers were going to start together. At 6:30 they sang the national anthem and everything became real, ironman 4 was about to begin. Within about 10 minutes we were into the water, the kicking, shoving and slapping began in earnest. While much more manageable than the mass starts that have been my Ironman experience till now, there was still lots of action. Frankly I have to say, the women are the most aggressive in the water, as everytime I was thrashed by kicking, I would look up to find a pink cap in front of me. In any event, the swim went reasonably well, loop 1 had a couple of occasions where it bunched up and it was difficult to find open water. I was staying relatively close to the underwater line, which likely meant I was going to be in for more contact as people fought for this line. I came out of the water after the first loop in a very tidy time of 35 minutes, faster than projected. The second loop was a little less chaotic and this time I wasn’t getting on as many feet as I did on the first lap. As a result this cost me about 5 minutes of additional time – i probably also settled in a little bit more. I always think of the swim as the mere price of entry to completing an ironman, do it fast if you can, but just get it done. Official time out of the water 1:15, this put me 121st in my age group and 969th overall, clearly not Michael Phelps!

Transition:

coming out of the water, they had the wetsuit strippers available immediately, so quickly that I hadn’t actually unzipped myself. After a little bit of wrestling, they finally got me out of my wetsuit and I started the 300m jog to get my bike. As I ran down the chute, I was looking for Dianne and Maddie in the hordes of people hoping I would see them before leaving for the next couple of hours and they didnt disappoint, standing right agains the barricades before transition. I stopped and gave both a hug and kiss – now I was on two round two. In my mind, my strongest part of the event, but this year I saw it as simply the precursor to the marathon – I wanted to have the legs to complete a reasonable IM marathon. Nutrition – 1 gel and half bottle of water

The Bike (2 loop course):

I changed with reasonable speed but nothing earth shattering. I decided to ride with a vest and arm warmers, I used the former to carry food and I probably didn’t really need the latter, but they weren’t a bother. As I came out of transition on the bike it started spitting ensuring that a more conservative approach to the ride was in order. There is an immediate quick short descent out of transition with bales of hay at the bottom of a sweeping left turn. The idea was not to HIT THE BALES OF HAY! check. As I got past this dicey little part, I started to take inventory of how I was feeling. The stomach was good, the legs felt strong, the butt felt good and my mindset was good. I then took stock of my electronics. I had put my old garmin 310xt on the bike with the sole purpose of showing me my watt output. My 910xt was on my wrist, to take me through all 3 events in triathlon mode. Everything had worked yesterday like a charm, and so there was a bit of panic when I saw that the watt screen on the 310 showed nothing! Hmmmm, no issue, maybe it just hadnt picked up the power stages meter yet. So as I was riding, i began scrolling through the screens in order to pair the power meter with the 310. Hit the “pair the device” button, here the beep that pairing is successful – great, I can ride with power again – NOT. The screen was blank. No issue, maybe it is just the 310 acting up, it is why bought the 910 in the first place. Scroll through the screens, no power. Ok, pair the device, get the beep, no power!! WTF, I have done all my training with the express purpose of riding this course to a prescribed watt level. I went through last minute jumps through hoops to change over my crank so that I could use my stages crank with my race wheels instead of my power tap on my training wheel. AND NOW Nothing is working. Ok settle down, this isn’t my first rodeo, I will ride by heart rate, speed and perceived effort. I had expected that my 235 watts planned output should have delivered a race time of 5:20-5:30 if I was able to maximize my aero position. Now I will never know. For me the bike is fun, I am able to reel in rider after rider, rarely giving up position to anyone and this was while keeping myself under control. The first 45 minutes on the bike, give you the opportunity to start the nutrition process given there is some modest climbing but nothing to challenging. The descent into Keene would be great fun on most days but with the rain, I put more caution into the ride, although still hit 71.4km/h on this descent with an average speed that was closer to 60km/h. What I didnt realize given we drove the next part of the course was that once we “bottomed” at Keene, the course still descended modestly, allowing me to maintain 40+km/h with a heartrate of 140-145, everything in check. I took the opportunity to take in some PBJ, a gel and taking on liquids. Until we get past Jay (there is an out and back there) the course is relatively flat and boring, turn the pedals, take in nutrition, pee if you can and get ready for the climbing that will be the last third of the course on this lap. The climb to Wilmington is probably steeper than the climbs back up to the race start. I focused on just providing a steady output, if I had power, my guess is should have said 280-290 watts, but I will never know.  Past the short out and back in Wilmington, we begin the climb of 16 miles into Placid. The general bias is an unrelenting move up with probably 2-3% grade until you get to the 3 climbs within the climb – Mama Bear, baby bear and the Papa Bear. Here people line the climbs cheering you on. Here you climb from 300m to 600m in about 20km. Again I just kept my focus and didn’t get carried away trying to reel people in. Once past the climbing it is a fast 5km run into placid itself with people lining the course screaming at you. As I rounded the last corner I pulled over to pick up my special needs bag and get my next two PBJs. Dianne had taken me for my word, they didn’t have my bag, oh well, I will survive! Lap 2 was much the same as Lap 1, only this time there were a lot fewer riders on the road. While I wasn’t focused on time, I knew my pacing would be putting my in the top 20% of riders meaning I was now catching or distancing myself from those who came out of the water ahead of me. My first lap took about 2 hours 40 minutes. As I came through the start area, I wondered where I would see Dianne and Maddie and I didnt have to wait long, as I rounded the first corner past the start area, there was Dianne with her signs screaming at me. I stopped gave her a kiss, and got a slap on the ass from a race official!!! The next 90kms was simple, focus on getting good nutrition and hydration (pee at least once – check), keep the legs turning at a good cadence (no cadence meter – given it is embedded in the stages crank, which wasn’t working) so that they were not exhausted for the run – it was all about setting up for the marathon. I figured my pacing was solid and I could afford to back off a little bit. While my times dropped I felt good coming in off the bike. Total Time 5:33 a good result. I had now moved up to 24th in my age group and 223rd overall, which means that I was 16th in my age group on the bike. 

Nutrition had 4 PBJ sandwiches, 5 gels and 5 bottles of eload+carb and 1 bottle of water. Ideally, I would have added 2 more sandwiches.

The Run:

My nemesis, but it was something that I was setting up my entire day to complete. Since my disaster at Welland where I posted a horrific half marathon, I was hell bent to change this experience. In training, I had decided to change from “run for as long as you can” to “run for 2kms then walk for 1 minute.” My goal was to post 5:30min kms which were then followed by 1 min of brisk walking that covered about 110m. If I did this 20 times I would post a marathon of 4 hours – a real achievement in my view. I figured that negative self talk (i hope everyone goes through this!) could be overcome with you can run for 2 kms, then you get to rest.  And so my marathon began. As I came out of transition I began looking for Maddie and Dianne and once again they didn’t disappoint. Resplendent in their pink t-shirts with Team Q – 2244  they were waiting for me with big cheers and signs. I stopped for hugs and kisses and off I went. The Lake Placid run course is a fair one except for the last climb into town that you do twice – however, as you leave town the downhill is huge and while on a bike it is a time for massive speed, running can be a challenge. For the next 13 miles I stayed very close to plan, the best start to the marathon of any of my 4 ironmans. I had a bottle of eload+carb in my hand throughout the run and 1 eload gel I took at 40 mins (1 had 1 gel in transition). As I came through the start area to begin my last 13 miles I started to feel some sluggishness and a little lightheadedness, nothing surprising. Dianne and Maddie were there again cheering my on, Dianne told me I was well on plan.  I stopped for another round of hugs and kisses and began the descent out of town. On a number of race reports, they talk about how this is where the race really begins and so it was for me. My groin started growling at me at about 24kms, not a good sign. This is where training doesn’t really help you because in training you stop as you don’t want to become seriously injured, only becoming race hardened helps figure out how truly hard you should push. The next 14kms would be nothing more than arguing back and forth with myself about my ability to run, jog, walk quickly, walk slowly, just don’t stop putting one foot in front of the other. On this I can say that except for 1 pee break I delivered. I got myself back to the massive hill climb back into town and while I didnt really know my total elapsed time, I knew I was well past breaking 11 hours and the only thing I had to fight for was my PB at Ironman Canada of 11:41. As I got to the top of the hill, once again my support crew were there for encouragement. Some more hugs and kisses and this time Maddie escorted me by running “along side” me – ok she only had to walk quickly! Dianne told me that she would see me near the finish line. One nasty of IMLP is to take you past the finish line on an out and back of 2 miles before the finish line. There are huge crowds lining the streets yelling out your name and encouraging you to run. I tried but man was it tough to do more than shuffle. The interesting thing is how that all changes with less than a km to go. As I made my way back to the Olympic oval and the finish line, I could see by my position relative to the swim start that I was now less than 1 km to finish. The adrenaline started to kick up and my cadence quickened. By the time I came into the Olympic oval I was running again, with a huge smile on my face, trying to find Dianne and Mads in the crowd. I rounded the final corner, hearing Mike Reilly calling out the names of newly minted ironmen and then I saw them standing right at the barricade, about 50m from the finish line, BIG Smiles – I had done it, Dianne and Maddie were screaming at me, I heard my name Quentin Broad, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN, but I stopped short of the finish to give them another set of hugs and kisses, then crossed the finish line in 11:33:28 with a 4:30 marathon – respectable, but still not first rate. 

I finished 47th in my age group of 329 who started (losing 23 positions from when I got off the bike) and 435th overall out of 2,536 competitors.

Post Mortem

Ironman is a humbling experience. Each time I do one of these I am amazed at its ability to bring me to my knees. I always believe that I can do better than what I achieved never quite believing that I left everything i had on the course. I am not sure whether this is a defence mechanism or the truth. The challenge of ironman is evidenced on race day, but it is all the effort in the 6-8 months leading to the event that is the true challenge. I can thank my family who make all of it possible. They have been very supportive in allowing me to pursue a sport which takes a lot of training time, some of which definitely comes out of family time. I love the sport, the culture, the focus, the energy levels, and the impact it has on my body. Being able to compete in Ironman is a tremendous luxury, thank you Dianne for being an enabler for this part of my life. 

Ironman France – 2011

Ironman France is in the bag – not wonderfully in the bag, but completed nonetheless. This was tough one, but they all are – this is Ironman, but sometimes you just keep wishing it was a lot easier. The key details are as follows:

• 2,319 competitors went to the starting line at 6:30am on June 26th, a brilliant day that was expected to be full of sunshine and temperatures that would be 26-28 degrees Celsius, hot, but not as hot as previous years! Only 2,058 would post a finishing time.
• Interesting to me, there were very few women in the race, only 182 went to the start line but the ones who were competing certainly knew how to climb mountains!
• There were 355 men were entered to compete in my age group, 263 finished the race and I finished at 125th or 1,102 overall.
• During the race, the competitors consumed
  • 30,000 liters of water
    7,000 PowerBars
    15,000 PowerGels
    15,000 liters of energy drink
    1,000 kg of bananas

As usual, to bring the race report to its crescendo, I finished in an official time of 12:40:56. To put this in perspective, it is almost 2 hours better than my first brush with Ironman in Austria in 2006, where I finished in 14:26 and almost 1 hour worse than my PB at Ironman Canada in 2009, when I finished in 11:40. In terms of timing, I have provided my garmin times against my pre-race plan (which appears to be more of pipe dream in hindsight!!)

Swam 3.8 km in 1:11; plan was  1:08 – ok considering the full body contact in this race

Bike 180 km in 6:07; plan was 5:35-5:45 – disappointing but a tough bike course

Ran 42.2km in 5:10; plan was 3:45-3:50 – demoralizing, hell, hot, painful, why do I do this??

Let me now put some context around the race, to give you a little better feel for my personal journey at IM France. For those of you who ride or compete in triathlons, hopefully the devil of the details will be interesting to you, for everyone else, I apologize for the report’s length and its detail – you could probably stop right here and feel like you have a sense for my day – very tough, just like ironman should be. It is painful for everyone out there, no matter what their times. It is a great sense of accomplishment although every one of the 42.2 kms of the run, I questioned why the hell I do this to myself. I love the training, I love the discipline of training, I love the fitness involved, I love the positive impact it has on my fitness, I love competing – I hate the pain of Ironman! Thank goodness Dianne was out on the run course, cheering, egging me on every 5 km because otherwise I am not entirely sure I would have been able to hear those magical words –

“Quentin Broad, you are an Ironman”

at 7:10 pm on June 26, 2011 in Nice, France.

 Now the Devil of the Detail for those who have an interest (be forewarned this even longer than my  usually verbose blogs):

 I arrived in Nice on Wednesday night and managed to find my way to the “youth hostel hotel” as my wife calls it – Hotel Ibis, about a 15-minute walk from the starting line. Now perhaps knowing better, as my fine friend Milt Bonellos does by competing in his 3rd IM France, I should have booked the Meridien, which is located right on the start/finish line of the race – one of the best places to view at least half of the race (stay here on floor 4-8, rooms 00-10 even numbered if you are planning to race IM France).

 Thursday morning I had planned to register, drive the bike course during the afternoon and then join up with Milt on his arrival Thursday evening. Unusual for Ironman, the Expo was empty when I showed up 10 minutes before its slated opening time of 10 am, so I waltzed right in at the stroke of 10 am and was registered in under 15 minutes. A couple of things about IM France. They request that you have a “one-day” racing license and if not you must bring a medical certificate signed sometime in the last 60 days and pay 30 euro. If you have no medical cert, of course they will have a doctor on site who will also charge you 30 euro to stamp your clean bill of health. Well, for those contemplating competing in the future, I would suggest that you just bring your USAT card or even your OAT card, and save yourself $42.00 – as they didn’t check my med cert, but certainly were looking for the money. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, largely flew by as I hung out with Milt waiting for Dianne to arrive as she went through her own travel hell just trying to get to Nice. We did some pre-race swims, which would prove useful only insofar as I had never competed in salt water. However, with no buoys to define the race course prior to race day, figuring out what sighting would be effective was useless. He had lots of pasta, kept well hydrated and tried to stay off my feet.

 Race day was the usual mix of emotion. Dianne and I planned to leave the hotel at 5:15 am to get to the race site at 5:30 where we would join Milt (of course he just had to waltz out of his lobby and he was at the start line). Some of the many challenges of racing in another locale, let alone another country that is an 8-hour plane ride away is ensuring that you can stick to your routines. I got to bed around 9:45 pm, but mostly rested, not sure how much you really sleep before one of the these races. I had asked for a wake-up call and set my numerous electronics for various times, 4:15 am being the first wake-up. Unfortunately, finding breakfast at 4:30 am in any place is tough. Having your breakfast that you would normally prepare at home in advance of a big ride or run is also made difficult when you are staying at the Hotel Ibis. With no fridge, no coffee maker, kettle, microwave etc., I was left to my devices to create a breakfast. On Friday, I had managed to pilfer a plastic bowl from the pasta party and used it to make oatmeal I brought from home, mixing in warm tap water – YUM! I then managed to down a banana, and put together a small baguette of PB and Jam. Key for me, however, was no coffee – I always drink a coffee – preferably a Timmies – before the big workouts to get things jump started, but not today. I filled my bottles for the bike, they were premixed with the eload carb, electrolyte adds, and the powerbar perform. I made three up, one for the aero bottle and the other two for my cages. In hindsight, this was a mistake, at most I should have had just two filled with water and probably could have gotten away with just the aero bottle filled. The organization of the feed stations on the course, makes it easy to keep weight to a minimum and just substitute out bottles when you need them, keeping things light for all the climbs.

 We walked down to the transition area and met up with Milt. Things were hopping already, with the race still an hour away, they began warning athletes that the transition area would be closing in 30 minutes. Of course, all I needed to do was drop off my bottles, and add air to my tires (hoping that I had taken enough air out the day before so that they hadn’t popped while sitting in transition on Saturday – why leave any air in you say? So that I know if they popped or have a slow leak, then I can fix them before the race begins!). So after some hello’s, how did you sleep, how was breakfast etc. Milt and I went to find our bikes. When we racked the bikes the previous day, I was very lucky to be situated in a row where the light standard above had two of its three lights missing. Since this was a 500-metre-long transition area (a very long transition zone, in my experience), and there were 15 light standards in total, this proved to be a key landmark for me since I was able to quickly locate my bike as I came out of the swim. In shorter distance triathlons, it would also enable you to rack your bike quicker on the way in from the bike portion, but in Ironman they do the return racking for you.

 Hmmmm,….I am standing right in the area that I left my bike yesterday afternoon……where is my bike????….. Announcer: “Athletes you have 20 minutes to clear transition”, no problem, lots of time, I look one rack over to my left, I look one rack over to my right – no bike!! WTF is going on? I keep staring at the bikes in front of me, checking them again and again – that is why I put red handlebar tape on the bike, so it sticks out. Nope, none of these are mine. I start to lose it a bit and return to the light standard to get my bearings. Nope, still no bike. I figure I should find a pump while I am noodling where my bike might be, so I flag a woman down who is standing outside of transition with a pump and ask in English if I can borrow it. She responds in French something about her husband needing it while pointing at him. I go talk to him and he tells her it is ok so she hoists it over the fence. I now start trying to figure out my bike riddle. I start scanning the bike numbers trying to figure out where it should be given this is supposed to be in numeric order. Announcer: “athletes, you have 15 minutes to exit transition”. OMG, as panic starts I get to the other end of the row to find my bike exactly where I hadn’t left it (they had reversed the order of the rack, or the first rider to have racked his bike put it in the wrong end the day before)!! I check the tires, they held air so I started pumping quickly, pushed in 120psi, threw the bottles into the racks, and filled the aero bottle. I turned to give the pump back to the women and I see her walking away from the fence – Announcer: “Athletes –10 minutes to exit transition”. I start yelling at her in my best French – hey mademoiselle, mademoiselle, le pump. She isn’t listening, what else is going to go wrong. Finally my yelling is heard and she stops, looks at me and sheepishly comes to the fence to take her husbands pump. Whew, Announcer: “Athletes –5 minutes to exit transition.”  As Stew McGuire would say, “See, tons of time to spare”. I exit and find Dianne and Milt waiting just outside transition. At this point I need to have my daily constitution, so I make my way across the street to Meridien, use the facilities and return to get the wetsuit on. I give Dianne a kiss, we get a photo of Milt and me and begin the descent down to the beach for the start of IM France.

 For those of you who have not been to Nice, it’s a gorgeous city, abutting the Mediterranean. You descend a long ramp to the rocky beach (not much in the way of sand, just huge rocks or big pebbles – ones you would have no chance of skipping on the water). Unusual for the 3 races I have competed in, IM France creates corrals based on expected swim times. The pros are located right in the middle with times expanding to the left and right of them. I choose the 1:06 corral (I was targeting 1:08) and slipped through the group to go frolic in the water for 5 minutes. I managed to get 50 metres of strokes in before they started calling the swimmers in with 15 minutes to race time. The course had only been set up that morning so we had not had a chance to see the race course in any of the practice sessions, so there was a lot of talk in the corral of exactly where we were going. It seemed logical to me, so I just focused on my game plan and didn’t get caught up in any chatter.

 At exactly 6:30 am, the gun went off and my long day of IM France began – all of the times I have put in this race report come from my Garmin, which is slightly off from the official race times). I will try and post some of the race photos Dianne took on the beachescycling.com blog, the mass of athletes moving into the water was unbelievable when viewed from the shore. The mass of athletes when viewed from the middle of the washing machine was even more unbelievable. In my 3 ironmans, I have never had the body contact that went on in this race. There was no place to go, you moved as fast as the person in front of you unless you got real aggressive and tried to push your way through the bodies (sidebar: much is said about getting in open water swim practice – I believe it is almost useless for ironman swimming – it is quite useful for wave starts, but with the mass of bodies, the churn of the water – which makes anything other than the breast stroke ineffective for sighting – it seems to me you just keep swimming in ironman, bilaterally breathe and make sure there are people on either side of you. If somebody all of sudden seems to be cutting in front of you almost diagonally to your current course, then check to make sure he’s going in the wrong direction not you). The first loop of this course had 3 turns over 2.6 km, then an exit from the water and then another 1.2km swim with 2 turns. The congestion never ended, at each turn it was like the gardiner expressway at rush hour with a 7 pm Leafs game – lots of irritation but nowhere to go. Throughout the battles, I had to adjust my goggles about a dozen times as I was getting smacked and kicked and was taking on salt water. I couldn’t see effectively given the salt irritation, so I just kept pulling into a breast stroke / treadwater and try to get them back on with a good seal. Notwithstanding the craziest ironman swim ever, I came out of the water just 90 seconds behind my goal time split. I went back in for the remainder of the 1.2 km and I was able to finally find some sort of rhythm only to have it crushed at the first turn, returned for a bit and then was thrown off from the second turn through home. I got out of the water and my watch seemed to say I had produced a 1:11:27 (garmin) swim, a good number given the experience in the water relative to my expectations.

 Now for the bike – one of my best disciplines. I had told Deirdre Casey (my coach) that T1 (or the first transition) was going to be a long one. As I mentioned earlier, the transition area was huge, I estimated almost 500 m of length in the bike corral alone, not to mention the run up from the beach. Then I wanted to ensure that I was slathered in sunscreen given I was going to baking for at least 9.5 hours (or more!!) and figured skin cancer is not a good outcome. It took me 6:34 to get through transition, which I think is ok all things considered. You could possibly shorten this by 2-3 minutes.

 I jumped on the bike and began the longest leg of the ironman race. The first 10 km of the ride I was getting comfortable, took on a little bit of hydration and spinning quite effectively. My average speed was 37.3 km/h, my average power was higher than it should have been at 240 watts and cadence was 95. Heart rate was elevated at 154. This is a fairly flat, to slight uphill as we exit Nice going toward the airport and then divert towards the wondrous mountains. My second 10k was flowing nicely also, the muscles were getting into the rhythm, I began taking on some food, with a gel, and keeping the hydration going. We made our way up a short 500m steep 12% grade climb, which marked the beginning of the hill work – not really the beginning, but a taste of what is to come – this little test signals that this course is different than the others! My average speed had dropped to 33.8km/h, watts were still 238, cadence at 95 and heart rate was down to 151. I felt good, execution was probably a tad aggressive – in hindsight, I may have killed my effort by what appears to be too high a watt output.

 The hills (mountains) start at about 20k, through to 70k, with rolling terrain from 20-50 (net flat I believe) but the piece between 50 and 70 is a killer 20km climb up to the col de l’ecre – a peak of 1,120 metres – 3.5 times (ish) the height of the CN Tower. My pace was beginning to reflect the changing nature of the course as it dropped to 25km/hr, but watts were firm at 242, cadence had now dropped to 90rpm, but that was still in my tolerance to spin as much as possible. Heart rate, was high, not a good sign at 159, I needed to start backing things down or blow the engine. From 30-40km, I dropped the watts to 214, mostly because I felt I shouldn’t have been where I was and because we had more downhill than up. I managed 30.6km/h, 92 cadence and the heart rate had settled down a bit to 154 but the goal was sub 150. My eating and hydration felt really good. For readers of my IM Austria ordeal, you will note that there were no upchucks on this ride, and I managed to ingest pieces of banana at almost every aid station in addition adding a gel almost every 40 minutes or so. The next 10k saw me hit 40.5km/h average speed as I was taking strong advantage of the descent opportunities, getting into my drops and being as aggressive as possible without putting my bike off the edge of every cliff. Cadence remained perfect at 91, watts had slipped to 208 and heart rate was now on my 150 high end target. Through 50kms, the course had been a delight, some good climbing relative to Ontario roads, excellent quick, twisty descents and even some in the aero bar flat road. Through 50kms, I had taken about 92 mins or an average speed of 32.6km/h – right on target for the 180kms!! Piece de Gateau!!

 From km 50 to km 70, IM France took aim and fired – I wilted. For the first 10kms of the climb my watts dropped to 218, not bad for a flat road, but the mountain began eating me up. The heat was starting to take hold as we moved from morning sunshine and lots of tree canopy, to a higher sun and fewer trees. My heart rate was now 161 and my cadence was dropping and averaging 78, I couldn’t keep things spinning with the gears I had. Speed of course, as an outcome of these inputs, fell to 16.5km/h. No problem, I say to myself, as a 3 time racer of IM France, Milt suggested that the last 110kms is almost as fast as the first 70kms – so just grind it out QB, you can then use your aggressive descent skills to make up time. Well the next 10k certainly doesn’t get easier as you race to the summit. Skinny short people, skinny tall people and even some not-so-skinny people are passing me left and RIGHT (the ones passing on my right I keep yelling at to pass on the left). At this point, I harken back to Chris McCormack’s book (a must read for any triathlete or cyclist for that matter) and on page 110 he says; “at 177 pounds (that is what I weighed on the IM France start line!!) I am way too big to race Ironman France (now remember this is one of the most vaunted professional triathletes to walk the earth – just ask him!), they would have to pay me a hell of a lot of money to go there because I just can’t climb with those little guys – its just physics, I weigh 177lbs, they weigh 130lbs”. 10kms at an average speed of 14.5km/h takes a long time. My watts had dropped to 197, but my heart rate had remained elevated at 159. My quads had now begun their major protests. Every time I tried to stand out of the saddle they would screech, I would then sit back down and they would spasm, first the right, then the left then both together. It was like they were playing a symphony of pain. I kept chanting David’s (my yoga instructor) admonishment, keep breathing, this isn’t about being physical, keep breathing! That works for yoga, it wasn’t working so well for the hill climbing. I kept sipping my electrolyte drink thinking maybe I was out of sorts given every athlete that I had gone by me had “white” shorts on (sidebar: when you are cycling at 14.5km/h, you get to study very closely and for much longer periods than you would like – everyone’s butt and by this time, almost all of them were heavily covered in salt stains). Well the climb to the top of the col de l’ecre, 20kms straight up, had cost me 78 minutes. However, according to Milt, it was easy from here and I was under 3 hours to this point – barely (note to reader – what goes up must come down in a looped race therefore I was going to experience 1,120m of descent. However, coming down this high of a mountain requires a lot of twists and turns, not ideal for making up time).

 From here the race remains a tough test, it is a net downhill for sure, but there are still 3 more climbs to be made and they are not insignificant. I felt that my bike was solid but my legs were telling me that I was asking a lot from them. With a goal time of 5:35-5:45, I was in clear danger of not holding this together, not because of the time I had taken to get to the halfway point of the bike (3 hours 28 minutes) but because my legs were not feeling resilient under the constant climbing, which did not bode well for the run.

 The rest of the ride was slower than I might otherwise have hoped given its profile. This race course is materially different than anything we ride in Toronto, or for that matter what I rode at IM Canada or even IM Austria, which both had large climbs of their own but very straightforward fast descents. What makes these mountains even tougher for a cyclist is the technical nature of the descents and the fact, let’s face it, most triathletes do not have great bike handling skills. Add to this the fact that many were riding tri bikes and trying to negotiate descents in the aerobars and it makes for some tough passing and clogging of the road. This isn’t an excuse, it is a fact. The many turns, switchbacks, cars on the course, narrow lanes, and harrowing falls off the cliff if you miss a turn, all make for more trepidation when descending than I would ordinarily like. I think the roadbuilders might be bike collectors as many of the “guardrails” are 12-18” high stone blocks that would serve simply to stop the bike from going over the cliff, leaving the rider flying through the air with the greatest of ease.

 At this point, my goal is to get this bike done in 6 hours and hope that I have something left in the gas tank to make my way through the marathon. Throughout the ride I have been taking on lots of water, electrolytes (critical that it is not straight water given the salt loss) food, gels etc. The race plan has gone reasonably well except for the timing of the bike but more importantly what feels like a heavier toll than I expected on my legs. At just over 6 hours, I can still reel in a good run and be able to post an 11-hour ironman finish, very respectable and a PB.

 I got back to transition and jumped off the bike, leaving my shoes on the bike (unusual for me but I felt it was the best way to go given the long transition zone). I picked up my run bag and slathered some more sunscreen on my arms, shoulders, neck and legs, very fearful that I was being burned to a crisp. All through my training and I had been doing brick work (this is the name for running right after cycling; for those who don’t do triathlons, going from the bike to running is very challenging, you almost need to reprogram your legs to run). I felt very comfortable making this transition and in fact throughout training I was having to hold myself back in terms of pacing.

 I had planned with Deirdre to do the run on a 5:15-5:20/km pace, which would equate to a marathon time of 3 hours 45 minutes to 3:55 – very respectable. For the marathon at IM France, the runners go from the start area, out to the airport, which is 5kms away along the waterfront and then return to the start/finish line. Each time you come back to the start line, you get a coloured bracelet to take back out with you. Collect three of these bracelets and then you know the next time that you return from the airport you will be running down the finisher’s chute to become an ironman.

 So as I began my last leg of IM France, with now the largest component of the race completed, my concern as I was coming out of transition was how were the legs given the ride and would they hold up for a marathon. Given the time I delivered the clear answer to both questions was NOT WELL and NO. Perhaps the better question should have been how tough was the mind, and was it prepared to handle the pain that was about to be foisted upon it? This was an equally dismal answer, but the development of this story at least took a few kms!!

 Dianne was at the bike transition area as I came in, so I was able to get a kiss and some good words of encouragement! As I left T2, I heard her shout our family’s favourite race mantra from the movie of the same name: “Run, fat boy, run!” And an added, “Don’t embarrass us!” I got the legs moving relatively well coming out of T2, easy to do given this is the finish line for the race and the crowds that had gathered were significant, the music was blaring and there was lots of cheering. The run course is a mixed bag. Fantastic because it is flat, boring given it is an out-and-back loop of 5 km each way. Tough because it is right along the Mediterranean and has absolutely no shade outside of 50 m during the 5-km route. With 28 degree weather, we were certainly getting toasty warm out there and the only respite available was to run under showers that were positioned at each aid station. Of course, if you were doing this, you were going to complete a marathon with soaking wet feet, not something I wanted to do.

 My first km was on a 5:10 pace, a little quick but I knew it would be given the crowds and the desire to get on with things. My heart rate was 148, which was just fine and it would certainly be ideal if I could keep it south of 155, while maintaining pace. Hmmmm….I backed things down a bit in kms 2 and 3, fearing going out too fast would exact a heavy toll. So I put up a 5:15 and then I walked an aid station, and posted a 5:46 ooops, need to get that back. Then a 5:35 and 5:42. At this point I had reached the airport turnaround and was feeling decidedly bad. This is how almost everyone feels, but somehow when you are feeling it, it feels really bad. At this point I noticed my equilibrium was off, a little dizziness and the fact my ears were not clearing. Perhaps the combination of water in my ears and the altitude from the bike, left me with clogged ears, meaning that my breathing was amplified in my head. My heart rate was now pushing 160. I tried walking two aid stations, see if I could find something that give me a jump. I took on some coke, banana, orange, cracker and hit of a gel. I had a pee (at least I was hydrated enough). Nope, nothing, notta. My pace was dropping to a shuffle, the race was disintegrating before my own eyes as I posted 2x 7:48kms.

 This was becoming ugly and we weren’t done 10 km yet!!!! I started hoping to see Dianne, to pick up my spirits and get things moving.  I pushed things a bit, got it back down to a 6:43 pace but this felt like hell and it wasn’t even fast – in fact, as I was running, I thought I was shuffling relatively quickly maybe a 5:40 or 5:45 pace only to look down at the garmin and see how really slow it was. I finally saw Dianne at about the 9-km mark, she yelled out my name, had a big smile and a huge sign for me. I stopped to talk with her and hoped that she might not talk me out of quitting. Fortunately or unfortunately, she just suggested that I should keep going, one foot in front of the other, I could do this.

 The rest of this story is just a painful recollection of km after km of legs telling mind that they weren’t interested in playing any more. Mind telling legs that they only had to get to the third stop light and then they could walk again. Legs telling mind that he was lying about the third light, because now we were at the sixth light. Legs deciding to cramp up in protest, spasms moving to groin area, all my body parts working in concert to get mind to quit this stupid game. Mind praying to see Dianne and getting a boost each time from her encouragement, reminder that I have trained to do this, that I have done this before – twice! Mind reasons that this just makes me insane because the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome – pain is always the same outcome of IRONMAN. What was I thinking? Why do I do this to myself? The run/walk becomes a walk/run and for those of you who have done ironman, you will know exactly when this transition occurs because you have experienced it or because you see it in the competitors around you. I managed to get Dianne’s support on each 5-km segment, which at least made this experience a shared one.

 The interesting thing about ironman is you can’t fake it. There are a lot of things that you can deliver in life by going through the motions but this event won’t let you just go through the motions. It demands your respect, it demands that you train your body for what is one of the toughest race formats around. Inherently it demands that your mind is trained as thoroughly as your body for the extended period of discomfort if not pain that you need to deal with on this day. However, the 5+ hours that I got to spend on that marathon course, got me to wonder why I do ironman and will I do it again.  As some of you know, I have put my sights on qualifying for two events; the Boston Marathon and Kona. I have missed qualifying for both three times. Unfortunately, I am very competitive and I don’t quit and while I continue to think these goals are lofty they are achievable despite some race results that might indicate otherwise. I told Dianne during the race that I wasn’t going to do Ironman again because it was just too painful and that while I loved all of the effort that went into getting ready for this event, the race itself was just hell. She suggested that, like any mother during labour who swears she’ll never have another baby ever again, this too shall pass. Thankfully our memory of pain is short so I will have to give this another go. It will need to wait for a bit, and like Macca, I may have to choose my race course a little more carefully, ensuring that it suits my talents, whatever they may be at the time.

Until then, I am proud of the fact I finished IM France and can now call myself a 3x ironman finisher.