Since then, the Ironman distance has by far become my favorite race and event to be a part of.
These races and this distance is an absolute defining part of my life and who I am right now. I am having so much fun.
Take a look at the picture below for a moment - When I get up in the morning and look in the mirror, THIS is who I see and who I am proud to be at this point in life.
Speedo, smile, and all.
Me: Circa 2014
Note about training leading up to IMTX:
Sorry for skipping the last few weeks of my training log... My taper for this race had been extended and I was not too happy about that. I received a nice stomach bug from my son 2.5 weeks before race day, thus had a full 2.5 weeks of pretty lax training. I was worried about what fitness I had lost or left on the table going in to the first big one here, but there was nothing that I could do. I was better to go into IMTX over-rested than overtrained anyways.
I always take the week of a full distance race VERY easy with minimal training in order to reduce any residual fatigue, and so I had some hard (short) workouts Mon/Tues, had a 6.5 mile HARD run on Wednesday followed by a swim. Whatever. Fitness was in the bank by then.
The Trip Down:
I worked Monday and Tuesday of last week, and thought it would be convenient to "miss" three of the last seven days before our summer vacation at Longs Peak Middle School. Bad planning on my part. Oops ;)
I packed up the night before, and on Wednesday morning after a final run/swim workout. My parents, Aiden, and myself went to DIA for a late morning flight and landed in Houston early afternoon.
Aiden loves to fly and does it often, so this trip to the "oarport" was a welcome one. Can't you tell that this kid was happy?
Nice fake smile dude.
We had dinner over at Landry's Seafood restaurant Wednesday evening after building up the bike from travel (with a beer in hand), then enjoyed a nice nights sleep next to my kid. We shared the bed and I loved it.
The Days Before:
Thursday morning came and breakfast was included at the hotel, so we did that. I ate 15 hard boiled eggs (no joke), then headed over to grab the wristband, packet, and get ready to witness the commercialization of triathlon at its finest (WTC).
I didn't have gas from the large amount of eggs all day - I have a gift for being super egg tolerant.
I often joke that I drank the cool-aid that WTC (the company who puts on Ironman events) has been pouring us, and, at this moment in life and that I like it.
WTC puts on great events and I thoroughly enjoy doing them. For the same reason that I use Apple computers, I am willing to pay for an event and an experience that works well and is - well - awesome in almost every way.
Anyways, Thursday was great - We had a nice time down in the Woodlands walking around doing all of the pre-race stuff and taking in the sights that these races bring. If you have never been to an Ironman before, they are quite the spectacle.
Misc note: Another big reason why I am having so much fun doing this right now is because I am having fun showing my kid a few things that other kids don't really get to see.
I want to be the dad that does four Ironmans in a year, and who takes equal pride in racing his kid to the door at his montessori school every morning. And, that is indeed what I am doing.
Training and racing this distance does have a lot of bad parts though. I am missing a lot of daddy duty time. My wife, Beth, has been beyond the team mate here - there is absolutely NO WAY I could do these races without her support. I never thought I would marry another triathlete/athlete, but having the understanding of your significant other is the only way that this works. I am a very, very, VERY lucky guy.
I let Aiden win the races to the door most mornings BTW.
Thursday PM, we went over to the Woodlands edition of the Bonefish Grill for dinner and Aiden slept through a wonderful dinner. We got him a Wendy's "hangebuuur" on the way home. Ha kid - no fish for you.
Beth got in late on Thursday night, so I grabbed an additional Stella with Mom while Dad drove to the airport to bring Beth to the party. I love to drink beers in the days leading up to these races.
This is not (AT ALL) typical of my fellow competitors, but I consider myself a fairly atypical triathlete anyways. I NEED to be in the right headspace to do these things...
Beer = fun = happy racing.
It has worked for my other races, so I will keep on doing this.
Friday morning they let us sample the waters of Lake Woodlands in all of it's wetsuit legal/windy glory. The water was cool enough to allow for wetsuits this year, and so it happened that I had to stretch out the suit from the winter of hanging in the basement.
I swam a nice quick 1,000ish meters and got out and rushed back to the hotel to get the transition bags ready for bike/gear check in by 3pm.
For those who don't do these events, bike/gear check in happens the day before these big races. The bike needs to be mechanically finalized, and the run and bike gear needs to be put into separate "gear bags" that you grab while frantically running through transition during the race.
I pack everything I would ever need into these bags. Normal things like nutrition, shoes, helmet, etc - but also things like bandaids/petroleum jelly/pictures of loved ones. It's a long day and you can't let something like chafing end your race.
Here is Beth waiting in line to hand over my bike to get racked.
The bike racked and ready for the morning.
After a walkthrough of the transitions and a little mental prep for Saturday, we headed to Lupe Tortillas for some pre race gas (mexican food) and dos mas beers.
Race Day and the Race:
I woke up at my usual 3:01am alarm to kick off the day right. The process of emptying out and filling up is essential.
The goal was to eat 1500-1700 calories from 3am to 7am, and I think that I met that. I recall having 3.5 very large bagels with copious amounts of Nutella spread, gatorade, some cereal, a half of a Cliff bar. All was good, I was getting stoked for the day ahead.
We were loaded in the car with the kid and the special needs bags in hand by 4:45, and at transition by 5. I got into transition to fill my tires to 120psi and load my bottles onto the bike for the beginning of the ride. I kept it simple and had a bottle with a mix of scratch, and a bottle of condensed (higher calorie) gatorade. I planned to get most of my calories from gels and on course nutrition/special needs bag at mile 60.
After making sure the bike was ready to go as fast as possible through the 112 mile ride, we were off to walk the mile or so to the swim start. The swim at TX is a point to point.
When we got to the swim start, the first thing I did was get body marked and line up for a port-o-john.
Success in the bathroom - a good sign for a good race
Here I am before putting on the wetsuit. No joke - I was this excited. Party time.
Then I put on the wetsuit and rip. Oops.
I ripped the wetsuit right below my right glute, so Beth went to look for a little duct tape. No luck, so I was off to get in the water and place myself for the start.
SWIM: 1:05:30
I placed myself near the front, right side of the 3,000 or so people and of The canon went off at 7am. It was high contact for a good 400m, but after that I found some space and the swim kind of spread out. My plan was to try and swim around an hour or slightly under, and I was fairly certain that I had the strength to do so.
The first section of the swim is an out and back to a canal. That makes up about 2 of the 2.4 miles. I was not swimming as strong of as comfortably as I wanted to, but I was making it. Taking a right towards the canal, things bunched up again and the waters got super crowded. I was not in any sort of groove and proved to myself that I NEED to start acting like a swimmer if I want to get that Pro license later this summer.
Spotting the finish, I was damn ready to get out of the water. I saw a 1:05 on the clock, thus I left at least five minutes on the table. Hey Colin, here's an idea - GET YOUR ASS TO THE POOL MORE!
I ran up the stairs and used the wetsuit strippers to yank off the suit as fast as possible. Ran without issue to get the bike gear bag and was off to the change tent.
Bike: 4:48:38 (4:43:51 moving time without counting penalty)
Link to garmin file: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/505018657
Average power with 4 minute stand down: 208w. Without: 213w
T1 went off with no issue. I put compression socks on for the first time in my life during a race and was able to do so quickly. Total time with all of the running/prep was 3:54 in transition. Probably left another minute on the table here. These lessons learned will be applied to Boulder/Louisville/Kona later this year.
On the bike, my plan was to hit 215 watts avg for the whole ride (13 watts higher than my race in Kona last October). I knew that wind would be a factor, and thought that the course was going to be very, very flat. It was windy, but not as flat as I had hoped. I wanted to try and ride the 112 mi course in 4:39:xx
Since my start of training with a power-meter a year ago, I knew that I have become one of the top cyclists in the overall ag field so I knew that my average swim was going to leave me with a few hundred people to pass early on in the ride. I had a really fast setup and thought that I could average around 24mph @ 215 watts over the 112 miles. Early in the race was non-stop passing for me which is good - I can get some of the slingshot effect of the draft coming from other riders on the course. I was holding slightly higher wattage for the first 20-30 miles but was okay with that.
Nutrition for the ride was to try and hit 300kcals/hour. I did get that down and all was well with any digestive issues. A few little burps here and there but nothing more. I have come off the bike in every ironman with excessive swelling and bloat, so I took my usual 400kcals/hour down to try and avoid this. I think it helped in the end. I also had 7 salt stick tabs (pills) during the ride as well.
The remainder of the ride went very well. There were some solid packs of riders that I worked up and passed throughout mile 75. There was some drafting, but not much. Around mile 80, I was with a new group of people.
Around that same time (mile 85?), there was a drafting marshal on course that I got a big dose of paranoia from. She never held out a card and pointed to anyone or said a number, but I thought that I may have gotten a penalty for being too close.
If I did get a penalty, and I did not stop at a penalty tent, my race would be a DQ. I did not come to do this race and get disqualified, so I stopped at a penalty tent at mile 100 to ask if I DID get one. She had no radio so she said that the best I could do is stand down for 4 minutes while she recorded that I served time. I played it safe and stopped for 4 minutes.
That stop was deflating. I think I just threw away four minutes for no real reason. Better safe than sorry.
After the four minutes, I had 12 miles left and booked it in. Bad mistake - Don't try to make up time on the bike after serving a penalty. I know that I cooked my legs a bit too much getting back to the Woodlands.
Anyway I look at it, I am VERY happy with my progress on the bike. I have proven that I can ride with some of the professionals and with any of the other top ag athletes in the sport. Confidence on two wheels is there.
Run:3:22:25
Link to Garmin file: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/506560149
Out of transition 2, I felt great as usual. I had chosen to wear my Hoka's which were much heavier than I had been used to. I have been doing all of my training in Saucony Type A6 racing flats.
Bad idea - should have packed the flats for this race - lesson learned.
For the first miles, everything felt very controlled and easy. I thought that I could run under a 3:10 (my IMFL 2012 time) marathon if things went well. I left T2 with 6:00 total race time on the clock and thought that I could get under 9:10 total even with the penalty. I wanted to have an Ironman PR on this day - hopes were high.
I went through the first 10k in a bit over 43 minutes and everything felt pretty good. Shortly after that, I knew that I had overcooked that last 12 miles on the bike and would pay for it during that marathon.
Towards the end of the first lap, I knew it was going to be a fairly tough 26.2... Even though things started to feel a bit tough around mile 9ish, It was great seeing everyone at the end of that lap and it made me happy to see my amazing little boy taking a nap in his stroller. Good job Aiden.
About two miles into the second lap, I grabbed my special needs bag and took the red bull and chugged. I don't recall feeling much of a lift from it, but I don't think that it hurt. Half marathon came and I saw 1:35ish on my watch. I was on pace - but knew this was temporary. I slowed and slowed. Take a look at the Garmin file for splits.
The back half of the marathon was one of the tougher ones that I have ever had and I don't know exactly why. I do think that I rode to hard on the last little bit, but also think that wearing the heavier shoes contributed. There were many spots on the last lap where I just wanted to "walk it in" for a sub 9:40. I could have done that, but in retrospect, I am very glad I didn't.
Even though I was a bit toasted, I joked and laughed as much as I could with anyone I saw. When it's not your day, the best thing you can do is laugh about it.
Fact - When you wear a speedo, you get a chance to laugh more with people yelling funny stuff at you.
The finish came, and the finish went. Crossing the line in this race was anticlimactic, but I was fine with this. Crossing the finish line is magical, but I think that mentally I am looking at these races as just "races" this year. I have four of them, and I can't put too much pressure on how special they are "supposed" to be.
About 25 yards from the line
This picture sums up my attitude towards my performance on this day
I was done with the race and not too happy at all with my performance overall. I knew that Kona was a chance here, so I guess that was cool.
When you go 9:23 on a pretty poor day, things are looking up. I look forward to hopefully having a "good" day at one of the other Ironmans I am in this season.
We headed over to Landrys again to have some food and beers.
After dinner, we got everything from transition and headed back to the hotel bar for a continuation of fun. Rashelle (a childhood friend of Beth) and her friend Chelsea came down from Austin for the race and to stay the night. It was a pretty great night for sure. I love the after party of these races.
In the morning, we played in the pool/hot tub for a bit then off to awards and slot allocation. I was fifth and got a Kona slot. I'll take it.
Before leaving, I met an internet legend. He was a guy who started a slowtwitch thread last year about having one shot to qualify for Kona. He met his goal and accomplished a dream. It was awesome to meet him and I will look forward to seeing him on the Big Island in October.
A link to the thread that made him "famous" is here: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=4643720;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;
In summary:
1.) This was a great family trip down to Houston. It was my first time down there since losing my Nana (Dad's mom) a few months back - I thought about her much and the great times I have had in the Houston area throughout those few days. I hope I made her proud.
2.) I love this distance.
3.) My team is awesome. I have the greatest family support ever - Racing these things without them wouldn't ever work.
4.) I need to start acting like a swimmer again.
Fun times in Texas! On to the next one...
