Off to a great, completely unawkward, bikeless, regular diet, night on an island, three days before a race I've basically spent the last 15 months training for. If you’re a Slowtwitch regular, the previous sentence would be pink text and would have already given away my sarcasm, if it wasn’t already evident. Slowtwitch, although full of trolls, bickering, rumors, saddle height controversies, overly opinionated opinions, over-my-head aerodynamics vs rolling resistance discussions, and ‘science vs X’ arguments... can still serve a purpose: Roommate Finder.
The strange Idahoian, turns out to be quite the nice guy, great athlete and even has a name: John. He and his girlfriend Heather had an extra room posted on ST which I was able to purchase for a nominal fee. It was great to make some quick friends on the little Mexican island filled with (slot stealing) Europeans.
Friday Nov26
7:00am swim at Chankanab (swim start) with John, we went out two buoys and back, roughly 500y. Practiced finding some bubbles and staying on some feet. Swim felt fresh, though the
water was not. Salt! Which means buoyant, which means skinny guy does not sink... at least not as easily.
Back at the hotel we went out for a quick 2 mile shake out, very humid, very hot, screw you big guys (although Potts and Lovato aren't exactly tiny, and they seemed to fair pretty well), I'll take any advantage I can get. I like it. After our run we drove one lap of the 3 lap bike. Super flat, and a bit windy (pretty much the green part of the course, as seen on the Ironman Channel at the hotel)
The B2Pro showed up after our course drive, so a quick 30' ride was in store on the course (which is basically the only road (one can ride) on the island).
Saturday Nov27:
8:00am swim at Chankanab, again, felt quick (for what it's worth... it's all relative) followed by a 10' run and and a 15' cycle to bike check-in/body marking.
Big day of oatmeal, quinoa, fruit, larabars, seeds and nuts, rice, and tuna. Two nice naps, and bed by 9:30pm.
Sunday Nov28 (Race Day):
4:15am wake up call.
Breakfast=1 Cliffbar, 1.5 Larabars, 2 coconut dates, 1 glutino bar, 1 banana, 1 bowl of quinoa flaks w/ raisins (made with water), 1 cup black coffee, 12oz FRS, handful of almonds and dried berries. Topped of with a gel and some carbo pro at swim start. Finish off the last of 5 gallons of water on the 4th morning. About 950-1100 calories.
Nutrition on Bike: 2 bottles CarboPro 1200 (285cal each) (1 bottle with 1 scoop EFS prerace), 1 EFS gel flask (400cal), 1 larabar for mile 85 (220cal)
Make a couple bowel movements, meet up with John and Heather and board shuttle to swim start. The ambience on the shuttle is filled with nervous tension. Not much talking, plenty of straight faces, and blank stares. After the 10 minute ride to Chankanab we topped off our tires, loaded our nutrition on the bikes, turned in gear and special needs bags (in hopes of never requiring the SN bag contents)
SN Bike: 1FRS and remaining 600cal of CarboPro
SN Run: N/A (I had one Redbull shot in my Run Gear bag, which I conveniently remembered I forgot to grab, right when the first monkey jumped on my back at mile 4.)
Walked down the pier with the masses, John and I wished each other the best of luck and went our separate ways in the water in order to strategically position ourselves based on our swim strategy. I took a quick pee in the ocean and made my way up and over to the front right side of the pack. At this spot the tide was pushing everyone up against a fence containing manatees and dolphins, many people were content on saving energy and hanging onto the fence (about 10meters back from the rest of the field. I chose to stay even with the pack and tread some water.
Soon enough, the gun went off and I was only 1 person back from the front line. It was the cleanest mass swim start I've experienced. our right-hand pack angled slightly toward the first buoy which we would have to turn. There was minimal thrashing, elbows, feet, hands to the head... smooth. As I made my way toward the left I kept looking for stronger swimmers, and was able to find a couple feet to follow for a couple hundred meters at a time. Turns were crowded, got dragged down a couple times. Next time stay wide at the buoy! Otherwise the swim was great, I felt fantastic the last 600y and was actually passing people in the water. I Swim: 1:02:52 (1:07 ahead of goal)
Long run up the pier to T1 (4:31), everything went pretty smooth, got on the bike feeling good.
BIKE: 5:00:14
I took it out the first 2 miles super easy, high cadence to get my legs under myself. Soon enough though, it was time to go. My legs didn't even feel like they were exerting any effort, quickly made my way up the road. Eventually a nice chase group formed of about 6 guys, who stayed honest at about 10 meters apart. It was a strong group, we passed several mini pelotons along the way around the first loop. Some guys fell off, and some guys kept passing and being passed as seems customary in every race. Some of us got to talking about the swim, guys with compression socks, AG position, etc along the way.
I only passed a handfull of C's (C=25-29 AG), little did I know there were about 32 out of the water before me. When the bike was over there would be 12 still ahead. There was a pretty decent head wind heading up to Punta Sur. When the road turns to cut across the island there seemed to be a significant tail wind. I took advantage of this opportunity at free speed to push it a bit harder, rather than let up and relax.
Coming into town gets a bit tactical as street narrow and turn frequently. Also preparing for the headwinds again it is to one's benefit to find a chase pack again. A couple miles into the second lap (at mi 40) my adductors began to cramp, and remained tight the remainder of the bike. I found as long as I stayed aero and forward on my saddle the discomfort was minimal. (*New muscles to work on this off season... get on the "lady leg" machines at the gym)
Through out the first and second lap I did well with alternating the my CarboPro bottles with gatorade and water at every aid station. I would try to grab 2 waters each station, one for cooling, and to sip, another to take onboard and replace empties with.
On the third lap Mathias (the biggest clydesdale ever) came pounding by at about 50rpm like a 19th century locomotive. He had a in his draft about 5 passengers, one of which was Ernesto. Ernesto is your standard "cheap as they come, probably wore fins in the swim" sneak. The guy was on everyone's wheel, about 5 inches back. No shame. I yelled at him a few times. The first couple times worked when I said the officials are right behind us. However, he called my bluff after the second time and continued to suck wind.
With about 25 miles to go until T2, I broke away from the pack (which may have ultimately been my marathon demise, that or Chicago Marathon 40 days prior). Only one guy managed to come with me, low and behold it was Ernesto. I wasn't too concerned since he was 30-34, and didn't look like he would be worth much on his feet coming off the bike. However, his clicking bottom bracket, and the principle of the sport, eventually got to me. I sat up and allowed him to go by, which he hesitantly eventually did. With only 2-3 miles to transition I took advantage of the tail wind, took it easy on the watts and picked up the cadence a bit to shake out all the waste in my legs.
RUN:
At the dismount I saw two more 25-29ers, both of which I passed in transition. Coming out of the tent a quick right turn releases us into the radient sun. Running straight up the coast, there is minimal shade on the course, a couple palm trees in the median of the road offer the occasional 1 second of -10 degree coolness. The first 3-4 miles felt OK, I held 6:40 pace through 4 miles. Passing people pretty quickly, but only one in my AG. I only ended up passing five guys in 25-29, and 6 of the 7 guys ahead of me weren't getting getting closer, they were putting distance on me. 2011... time to learn how to run more than 4 miles off the bike.
Like the final round of Supermarket Sweep, I went shopping at every aid station, grabbing all the ice and water I could. Ice down the back, water on my head, gatorade and coke. My filed off Newtons got soggy pretty quick. My quads burned like crazy for 22 miles. I thought for sure I was going to have permanent damage. Every step hurt worse then the last. I gradually slowed from 6:40s to 8:29 pace, for a 3:23. 30 minutes slower than Chicago, and only six minutes faster than Kona's run. Work needs to be done.
On the 3rd lap of the course, I saw a "C" coming towards the turnaround/finish shoot. Not knowing what place I was in, I sat on him for about 600m and waited to see if he would turn or go into the shoot. There was no need for a final kick because he had another lap, I took it in at my painfully slow pace and finished up in 9:32:38.
Promptly got walked over to some pizza, and a nice 30min massage. But probably should have walked around a bit more before passing out on the massage table as I could not get off the table without assistance. Finally made my way over to some tables and sat around with the other finishers and shared race stories. Found John and Heather at this point, hung out a bit then got our bikes from T2 and negotiated a cab ride back to the hotel.
