Well, I made it. It wasn’t pretty, but despite “challenging conditions” and a race where most course veterans went slower, I managed to still I cut a handful of minutes off last year’s time and moved up the rankings by several hundred places. Without further ado, here’s the race report.

Pre-Race:

For the entire day before the race and the morning of, I couldn’t help but have in the back of my mind “this is going to suck”. Yeah, I know us triathletes are supposed to be full of positive energy and carry an endure all attitude. But I’m just being honest here. :) With Kona-like heat (as later confirmed by some athletes that have been there), this wasn’t going to be a standard Wisconsin fall day.

The morning started off with my incredibly healthy breakfast of two bowls of Basic 4 cereal and two Krispy Kreme donuts. Yeah, most people wouldn’t call that race fuel, but I needed calories in my belly that wouldn’t sit heavy in my stomach. Plus, my body really does seem to respond well to fat for whatever reason and it there was plenty of time before the race to digest.

When we got to the race site, it was already bustling with folks making last minute additions to their transition bags and pumping up their tires. I brought my own pump because the lines to have your tires pumped up by the folks there are always horrendously long. That inevitably means that everyone in a 10 foot radius around you says, “Dude, can I use your pump?” Whatever. I had to put my extra water bottle cage on (giving me four bottles - two of a 1200 calorie CarboPro mixture and two for water) anyway.

With the tires pumped and my transition bags all ready, all that was left was to don our wetsuits and head down to the swim start.

The Swim:

I positioned myself forward and to the left, giving me a pretty straight line to the first buoy. I really wanted to break an hour on the swim so I figured the less I had to swim distance wise, the better my chances. Wisconsin is an in-water start so you sort of tread water (well, just kick back and float with a wetsuit) until the cannon goes off. Right before the start, there was a helicopter that flew overhead that must have been a filming crew of some sort. That was awesome! How many times do you participate in something that requires helicopter coverage?!

BOOM! The cannon goes off and the washing machine begins. Actually, compared to last year, I didn’t think the swim was all that rough. I did start a little more steady than last year, so that probably helped me to have some clean water. But I throttled back sometime in the first length because I didn’t want to toast myself a few hundred yards from the start line. I swam pretty steady and fairly straight. I got kicked in the jaw twice, but that was half my own doing trying to pass someone without giving myself enough space.

The lake felt a little too warm for my liking. The water temperature was 74 degrees and I have a full sleeve wetsuit. I also have a tendency to overheat while swimming, so every 50-100 yards I’d take the top of my wetsuit (I have a two piece design) and flap the bottom of it to get some water inside to cool me off. That helped considerably although probably didn’t do good things for my time. Oh well, how many seconds could it really cost? Maybe 23? ;)

The lengths of the swim always seem really far. I mean, yeah it’s 2.4 miles in total, but the length of the rectangle seem to go on FOREVER! I kept thinking to myself, “Oh, we must turn here at this big orange buoy up ahead.” Nope. Not yet. Like every orange buoy I found myself saying that. Put I kept paddling along and finally I found myself turning the last corner and approaching the finish. As I was swimming towards the ramp, I took a look at the clock that was next to it and saw it tick from 0:59:59 to 1:00:00. !@#$%@ Oh well. Close enough. ;) Time: 1:00:22 - 1:35/100m pace.

T1:

The wetsuit peelers were awesome. They quickly got my wetsuit off me and managed to keep my tri bottoms on at the same time. I “quickly” ran up the Monona Terrace helix and I was inside to grab my transition bag and head to the changing area. One of the good things about being a fishie at Ironman is that there are plenty of people in the changing tent to help you out; you get the royal treatment. There was a volunteer working the changing tent that dumped out my stuff from my transition bag and placed everything very neatly on the floor so I could grab everything. After I was fully dressed and on my way to get my bike, there are volunteers out there calling out numbers of the athletes coming in while other volunteers further down the bike area go and grab your bike for you. Pretty slick. Ironman volunteers rock! Time: 7.22.

(P.S. Thanks for the T1 picture TriMama!)

The Bike:

It was a fairly comfortable temperature at the start of the bike leg. Still, I reminded myself that it was going to be a long day and to start out slowly. Or at least what felt slow? I was cruising nice and easy for the first hour or two. I don’t remember when it happen but I heard a ping followed by a thud. I didn’t hit anything but a quick check of my gear and I noticed that one of my bottles of CarboPro hit the ground. !@#$% That’s not good.

I should really go back and pick that up.

No, you can’t, you’ll lose time!

But I’m going to lose more time if I can’t eat. (A minute later…) I should really stop, go back, and pick that up.

No, you can’t. You’ll lose time!

Ok, but if I DNF, it’s your fault.

Ugh. So much for my planned day of nutrition. Later in the evening, I’d find out that my entire water bottle cage fell off. The welds just completely broke away on that cage and the cage on my left side also broke, but was at least still somewhat usable for the last couple hours of the bike. And these were brand new cages that I put on just a couple weeks before the race! Grrrr… the manufacturer is going to gear an earful!

But I digress! Onto plan B which I made up as I rode to the next aid station. It’d be Gu’s and Gatorade for me for fuel I guess. I never take any gels or plain Gatorade with me on my rides, but one of my better strengths is my cast iron stomach. It seems to be able to take whatever I give it without too much GI distress so I just went with it. What other option did I have, really?

The climbs actually weren’t as bad as I remembered them being for whatever reason. Maybe I’m a little stronger this year or perhaps it was just the power of the amazing 12-27 cassette? By the way, that cassette was totally AWESOME for this course. By far, it was the best investment I made in equipment this year. If you’re thinking about doing Wisconsin, I highly recommend whatever bailout gear you can put on your bike. Big cogs, compact cranks. I can almost guarantee that if you have it, you’ll use it over the period of the course. Hell, I’d have used a triple ring if I had one. :P But again, I digress. The climbs were covered with people on both sides. They were cheering and screaming like mad. And as you approached the top of one of the climbs, the road narrowed bordered by spectators in Tour de France like fashion. It was totally awesome! Ironspectators come in at a VERY close second to Ironvolunteers. Both are absolutely essential in making the race what it is.

Fairly soon after the climbs, you hit Verona where the crowds again were in full force. The streets were packed with folks on both sides cheering and making noise. It’s such a nice motivational lift after riding for hours with virtually nobody around. I checked my bike computer and saw that I had averaged either 19.3 or 19.5 MPH up to that point (I don’t remember exactly which). That speed was fast for me, but not too fast taking into account a full taper and aero gear. Alas all good things must come to an end. Verona isn’t that long of a town and before I knew it I was back alone on the road. And that’s when things got ugly.

I estimate around mile 70-80, I hit a bad patch. I mean like nasty, dizzy, cramping, I-want-to-DNF type patch. Alone on the bike course, your options are really limited on who you can lean on for support. So I went straight to the Man upstairs. We chatted for a few minutes and we got my nutrition back on track. A few salt tables, some water, fuel, and about a thousand “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” later, I started to pull through the patch. I really owe Him one here.

The last 20 miles or so of the bike was with the wind (finally! it had felt like I was fighting a headwind that entire second loop)! I was feeling considerably better, but still cautious and I didn’t want to start cramping again by pushing too hard. About an hour later, I was approaching T2. In my opinion, there are two great moments in an Ironman. The first obviously, is the finishers chute. The second is seeing the transition area after riding 112 miles. Monona Terrace was sure a sight for sore eyes. Time: 5:56:47 - 18.83 MPH.

T2:

This ended up being a little more crowded than T1. But soon after I dumped my stuff on the ground, there was someone was there to help me sort things out. I decided this year to go with a fresh pair of socks. I took my old ones off and went to put on my new pair. Cramp. @#$! that hurt! I waited a few seconds. “Lets try that again.” Cramp. Ugh. But the third time was a charm and I got both my socks and shoes on and headed out the gate. Time: 4:12.

The Run:

By now, it’s hot. I mean Africa hot.

The faster you move, the sooner you’ll be done.

Can you shut up here and let me run? You sit up there in my ice cooled skull giving me pointers. I don’t need your advice right now. Quit being a back seat driver and find some way up there to grow me a new pair of legs or something!

The first few miles went ok. I think I split something like 8:30, then 9:10… then 9:30? Then I started bouncing all over the place. 11 something, 9 something, 10 something. But I was still moving and for the first lap I had no signs of injury or anything which made my happy. I saw TriMama and her crew out there. I wish I could have mustered more than my weak smile and wave that I gave, but that was about all I had at the time. Sorry TriMama and crew! You guys were really awesome and while my actions may not have shown it, my pace definitely picked up after passing through your aid station. So a very big thank you for that! :)

I kept plodding. But I could feel myself getting more and more dehydrated and the cramps were ever present. Around mile 10, I pretty much had had it. I just flat out didn’t want to be out there anymore.

Come on. Just three more miles and you’re half way there!

Great. Half way. If the first and second best things about the Ironman are the finishers chute and the end of the bike respectively, by far the worst thing is coming approaching the finish line knowing that you have to run forgo it and go back out to endure another 13.1 miles of suffering.

For the second lap, there was considerably more walking. I was just plain tired. My run strategy changed from run to run until your calves start cramping, walk, and then run again when you feel like it. :P Pretty depressing strategy, eh? As I was walking on my second loop, I stopped to chat with a girl that was walking close to the same pace as me. Now, I talked to maybe… three different strangers while I was out there on the run course. This girl was one.

“Tough day out here, huh?”

“Yeah.”

(Pause as we stare at each other for a couple seconds… and in unison.)

“Why do you look so familiar??!”

As it turns out, this “stranger” actually was someone that was in my graduating class and that was a teammate of mine during my swimming days in college. How random is that? Of the thousands of folks out there, I randomly picked one who was part of just 30 of us or so that were the team. Until that day, we hadn’t seen each other in nine years. Crazy! We chatted for a bit. This was her first Ironman, but she had already signed up to do Lake Placid next year. Now she was having second thoughts. We chatted a bit more before I wished her good luck as I started another stretch of running.

About half way on the second loop, I start doing Ironmath. I calculated that if I wanted to suck it up and try and run 10 minute miles for the rest of the run, I could probably crack 12 hours. About 0.00015486 seconds later, I decide it wasn’t worth it and I didn’t care that much to have to endure that much pain. The new goal is to beat last years time. That still gives me some nice walking breaks but will still involve some running. Sounds like a fair trade off.

4 miles, 3 miles, 2 miles. Finally, we’re down to a mile left to go. Just a mile, but at the end of an Ironman that mile feels like it’s across the planet. But sure enough, I made it back to the capitol and got to be carried down the finishers chute purely by the energy of the cheering fans. If you’ve never experienced an Ironman at all, it truly is something special. If you’ve experienced it as a spectator, you have a small idea of what it must feel like knowing that those cheers are for you as you make your way down the chute. It makes the pain (almost) worth it. ;) Time: 5:05:31.

“You’re an Ironman!”

Summary and The Carnage:

“I’ve never seen so many DNF’s so early in the race,” said Marc Roy, the timer of today’s events.

Since he’s been timing Ironman events for close to a decade, that’s scary to hear!

I don’t know if my prediction of record DNF rates were seen on race day, but there was carnage all over the streets of Madison yesterday. I’d find out later that evening that one of my neighbors that I train with didn’t make it. Around mile 12 he stopped to sit in the shade and massage out some cramps. He woke up later to find himself on a gurney. The next morning, I’d check the results to find that my swimming friend didn’t make it either. I’m not sure what happened, but saw that she DNF’ed. The entire run course was filled with sirens blaring in the background. I don’t know how many ambulances I saw that day, but it seemed like everywhere I turned one was there. And I’m sure there are many more stories of folks who DNF’ed. Real people with real feelings and many folks who put in the time and training, but just didn’t have things go their way come race day. On any other weekend, they’d have likely made it. But the course was just exceptionally brutal that particular day. This was the first North American Ironman where the winning time was over 9 hours. If the pros have trouble getting it done, I guess it must be tough.

Ok, enough of the scary talk. Back to the positive. My final time was 12:14:14. I ended up more less being right on target with my swim and bike. The run was well… the run. I ended up with a PR, cutting 7 minutes off last years time (but really only 3 minutes if you consider last years time included a 4 minute mystery penalty) despite extra challenging race conditions. If my description hasn’t been enough indicating how hard it was, my seven minute faster time this year moved me up over 300 places over last year’s ranking. I ended up finishing 303 overall. I’m actually pretty happy with that. 303 out of 2200 or so athletes isn’t too shabby if I don’t say so, myself. :)

Looking towards next year, I think I may need a break. My first year, I remember saying on my run that I never need to do another one of these again. But a few months later, I had an itch that needed to get scratched. This year on the run course, I said the same thing. “I never need to do another one of these again.” Besides, Wisconsin isn’t a practical option for me next year with the wedding and all (but I will be out there cheering for you participants - right, Wil?). Still, that gives me another couple months before Florida registrations starts. Maybe by then I’ll have developed another itch that needs to be scratched. ;)