After having nightmares all night of the abominable snowman chasing me down on the bike course, I made my way down to the race start at the Lake in Kings Beach. It was cold. Correction, it was FREEZING- 27F degrees to be exact. There were icicles and snow on everyone's bike. I would be a liar if I said I was not downright petrified of what was about to take place. The little kid with her eyes squinted as she anticipates a jabbing inoculation needle? Yeah, that was me. I was very fortunate to sit in Dr. Triestman's heated and fully-loaded camper, complete with my own bathroom to use pre-race. Foof and I walked over to the beach, with winter hats, gloves, ski parkas and boots on with just about 10 minutes to the female pro race start. I wanted to make sure I was able to keep my core body temperature up to the last minute. I waited as long as I could to take my layers off and strip down to my wetsuit. The lake temperature was actually not too bad, 61F degrees, which was obvious when you saw the tremendous amount of steam rising from it. The steam rising from the lake was actually very pretty, but I also knew it had the potential for making it very difficult to sight those giant buoys (I fondly refer to them as the "giant doritos"). The beach sand was frozen and crunchy and felt like you were stepping on two day-old snow.
The cannon went off and we set out running through about 100 yards of ankle-deep water. At the beginning of the race, I felt very confident in my swim, besides the sighting issues from the steam, the water was calm and I was hanging onto the first or second pack of ladies. Naturally, I did lose about five ladies, but still felt like I was pushing a strong but relaxed pace and when turning my head to breath, I actually saw two or three ladies hanging onto my toes. The swim course was a two-loop course, set up in a vertical rectangle. As I neared the shore to start the second loop, some of the faster male age-groupers (the amateur field) had caught up and passed with no problems. I continued to swim at what seemed to be a good pace, and reached the buoy to turn and do my second loop. As I was turning, I saw what seemed to be three female pros (we wear different colored caps) right behind me out of the corner of my eye. It was smooth sailing for that first loop, but when I started my second loop, things got a little more complicated. Considering the number of people that were entered in this race, I was surprised at how easy it was to navigate around the slower age-groupers. I was also very happy that even though I could not find feet to draft off of, I was leading a couple of pro ladies. I had made my way to the top right corner of the rectangle and made my first turn of the second loop. As it was a vertical rectangle, the top left corner should have come shortly after (like around 2 minutes later). It seemed like it was taking awfully long to hit the second turn and additionally, it seemed like all of the age-groupers were swimming against me and not WITH me. I was so confused, I felt like I was swimming upstream and with the massive arms and legs and steam, I couldn't see a dang thing. I was getting more confused and panicked with each stroke I took and then someone grabbed my leg and yanked it, HARD. I was startled, shot straight up and stopped swimming. A kayaker (water safety volunteer) had grabbed my leg and said, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING???? YOU'RE SWIMMING THE WRONG WAY!!" As it turned out (as evidenced on the garmin course that showed up when I downloaded my data), I must have hit the first turn buoy of the second loop (the one in the upper right corner) and turned immediately right back to shore. The kayaker sent me back to the turn that I had ALREADY made and got me going in the right direction. The three ladies that were drafting off of me were LONG gone. I tried to push the pace for the rest of the course, but I definitely had a lump in my throat thinking about how much time I might have added on...darn. I hit the beach, looked at my watch- 1hr, 9minutes. UGH. Most people would be even more disappointed when they realized they were emerging from the water at the same time as a lot of the age-groupers who started ten minutes AFTER you did, but in that crowd of people was my friend Kirsten, and we ran on that freezing cold sand to the transition tent together. With the wetsuit off and nothing but a bathing suit on I was a human popsicle running like Fred Munster.
Swim time: 1:09
Into the changing tent, I couldn't feel anything on my body, I collapsed and had probably five volunteers using towels to dry me off and try to get my blood flowing again. I usually race in the same tri kit all day- swim, bike and run in it. However, since I knew it was going to be so cold, I wore a bathing suit and completely changed into dry clothes for the rest of the race. There were no space heaters in the tent. It was 35F degrees out and they did not provide any kind of heat. I was so cold that I couldn't stand up and every time that I tried I literally fell into the volunteers' arms. I sat in the transition tent for ten minutes, fully clothed with two VERY caring volunteers doing a sandwich bear-hug move around me to try to warm my body up. I finally sucked it up and figured I was wasting too much time and needed to get on my bike. I left the tent wearing two pairs of socks, neoprene bike shoe covers, leg warmers, arm warmers, two pairs of gloves, my tri jersey, a vest and a windbreaker. I wished I had NOT already had my shoes clipped into my bike as the run from transition to my bike was on soaking wet pavement (in my socks) and my feet froze right back up instantly.
I saw Foof right as I was mounting my bike and I cannot even imagine the look of horror I must have had on my face. I knew that there was no chance of warming up until I hit the Brockway Summit, which was over an hour away. The first 30-40 minutes of the ride were in the shade with a headwind and slightly downhill. With the mercury hovering around 37F, it was going to be damn cold. That being said, I still had hope. I knew most of this course like the back of my hand and had much more experience on it than most of the pros that were racing. Pushing through the first hour, I couldn't feel my hands, left arm, legs or feet. I was not even quite sure what kind of force I was pushing into the pedals; I was kind of just going by muscle memory. There was one section of the course, the Martis Camp neighborhood that contained a couple cat 3 and cat 2 climbs and we were not given access to it until race day. I felt a little clueless with what to expect, but figured, "eh, how bad could it be?"
This was definitely a race that I found it difficult to stay on top of my hydration/nutrition. With it being cold and there being very little humidity in the air (we're talking around 10% humidity), I was not perspiring and therefore, what I was drinking was just sitting in my bladder. After working A LOT harder than I expected to get through Martis Camp, I FINALLY made it to the Brockway Summit and I was actually excited! I got to pass my house AND there was sunshine! I felt super strong climbing the summit- I OWNED this thing!! I passed a lot of people and it felt good despite the numbness in my extremities!! The descent down the other side felt equally good as I had practiced descending on it so many times on banged up pavement and since they had just repaved only the week before, I flew down even faster. Developing my descending confidence and skill has certainly been a work in progress, but I had a great day that day and hit over 40 MPH both times I descended the Brockway Summit, with which I was very pleased. Because of the cold weather, the race officials made a special "drop zone" where we could deposit (ok, hurl through the air while we sped by is a better description) any unwanted clothing at one point on the bike course as the temperature was EVENTUALLY expected to rise. It was not until about mile 60 that I regained feeling in my legs. My fingers and feet were numb during the entire ride. As I made my way through the second loop I tried to focus on pushing down through the pedal and even though my bike computer was showing watts way lower than I had hoped for, I tried to keep my exertion level within the plan that Coach Cliff had created.
There are several rules that must be adhered to in order to avoid having to sit for four minutes in the penalty tent, or worse- be disqualified. As this was a no-draft race, being a pro, we are obligated to keep 10 meters in between our front wheel and the back wheel of any competitor who happens to be in front of you (unless you are passing). One thing that I found to be a major nuisance and something I had never encountered before was the number of bandits (cyclists that are not registered in the race) that chose to ride on the course. To be honest- it was really annoying. It is hard enough to keep yourself riding legal with all of the other athletes, but throw in some locals who have NO CLUE how to conduct themselves on an Ironman race course and it is hard NOT to want to yell at them. Making my way up the Brockway Summit for the second time, there was a man riding abreast to any athlete who was willing to talk to him. Course rules are very clear that unless passing, there must be single-file riding at all times. When I was descending for the second time, the same man came bombing down the summit, weaving in and out of athletes, cutting them off...going down hill fast on two skinny tires the width of your thumb is NOT when you want to be slamming your brakes on because of a reckless cyclist.
I finally made my way through the final 12 miles and it was within that time that I thought that the hopes I had for things to turn around were lost. My heart rate was low, and my low back was very tight and felt as if it would seize up at any moment. I had a good feeling that between a poorly placed bike seat and legs that were too cold to function, my back had already done way too much work. I saw Foof as I made the turn into the Olympic village. The last two miles also happened to be the first two miles on the run course and I saw four female pros just starting their run (in fact one was walking) and thought, "well, you have a strong run, there is no reason why you couldn't catch those ladies within the first few miles." I weaved my way through the last couple hundred yards to the dismount line, got off my bike and...collapsed. Down I went, and down I stayed for a good ten minutes right in front of the transition tent, shivering. And all I could think was, "Did I stop my Garmin?? All of my friends and family watching back at home are wondering what happened, I hope they aren't worried." Medical came running over, but I could not move, my low back went into full on spasms, something I had never ever experienced in my life before. My race was over. All I could think about was the sacrifices I had made, Foof sacrificing a killer 40th birthday celebration (his birthday was the day of the race), the time I had spent in isolation and how DAMN HARD I had worked to have the race of my life. I was certainly disappointed. I lay in the med tent for a half hour or so. It felt so good to FINALLY be warm! Once the cramping and spasms had stopped, I exited the tent, looking like Charlie Brown with my head hanging low in total disappointment.
Bike split: 6:20 (gulp!!!)
Run split: DNF (did not finish)
I met up with Foof who was anxiously waiting and just said, "Well, at least we can go have beer and pizza for your birthday!" The Olympic Village, where T2 and the finish line were located was set up like a European ski village with restaurants and shopping centrally located around a town square. We had a beer (ok, maybe more than A beer) and some cheeseless pizza and tried to dissect what happened. It seemed that the cold had just gotten the best of me. After talking with Cliff that day, we also decided that he should have a look at my bike fit since it was giving me some L shoulder discomfort. I was able to go to bed that night feeling content in knowing that just because this race did not go well, the next one would
It was nice to be able to stop in Vail, CO for a couple days and our stay at the Four Seasons certainly helped ease the sting of a DNF. Thanks to good friend Maddy for helping with the arrangements :)
On our drive back to Rhode Island we stopped at Coach Cliff's and he discovered that my seat was raised so high that he could actually see my hips teetering back and forth with each pedal stroke. In bike fitting, this is a big error and can cause you to lose a lot of power (read: you have to push on the pedals twice as hard to go the same speed). Whether it was from a bike fitting I had this spring out west or because my seat had been put in the wrong spot the last time it was broken down/put back together, I will never know. Cliff marked where he wanted the seat from there on out with some electrical tape.
When I returned home and started riding again to prepare for the next race, I noticed instantly that my power readings went up by about 20-30 watts and I felt so much more comfortable. My shoulder still felt irritated, but not even close to what I had experienced this summer. Why did such a huge mistake happen? I haven't quite figured it out what the reason for the bike seat error; I suppose the short answer would be IMLT just wasn't my race. The good thing about the DNF is that because I did not run the marathon, the recovery time post-race was only a couple of days, versus a couple of weeks. I had planned on doing maybe one or two half iron-distance races before the end of the year. However, because I didn't get to race all of IMLT, the plans changed. Since there were still three Ironman races in North America, Coach Cliff and I quickly decided that Ironman Arizona would be next up.
I had a few days rest and then it was back to the grind...