IronMan Kentucky 2008 (A Matter of Perspective)
Originally written on Tuesday, September 2, 2008 at 8:40pm
When I got back to my hotel Sunday night after the race I pulled out my leather journal I picked up in Italy and started writing an entry about my experience in the 2008 IronMan Kentucky race. Here is what I wrote:
So it's just past 11 p.m. and I am resting after a very long day. I woke up at 4:45 a.m. and went through my normal pre-race routine. I took a shower, started listening to my iPod, stretched, dressed in my tri gear, ran a mental check on everything I needed, and left for the transition area.
Once there I checked to make sure my bike was secure and that the tires were still fully inflated from the overnight stay in the transition area. Satisfied with everything, I began walking towards the swim start.
A quick aside: One of the many ever-present contradictions in my life is the dichotomy between being in 'deep thought' and being in 'the zone' whenever I train or race. Sometimes it's one or the other, and sometimes it changes between the two throughout the duration.
As I walked to the swim start I thought about all the preparations I had made to get myself ready for this race. The intense training sessions twice a day for a month leading up to the race. Booking the flight and hotel nearly a year in advance. The extra days I took off from training in the two weeks leading up to the IronMan. Everything. All for this one chance. This one opportunity to put everything on the line for a chance to qualify myself for the Kona World Championship IronMan in Hawaii. I was confident. I was prepared. I was ready.
On the morning of the race the water temperature in the Ohio river was a frigid 83 degrees, far too warm for the use of a wetsuit. As I expected. Knowing that the swim leg of any triathlon had traditionally been my weakest event I spent a considerable amount of extra time building up my endurance in the water for this race. A 5,000 yard swim three times a week gave me some much-needed assistance getting ready to start the race.
As I made my way toward the dock where each athlete would jump into the Ohio river I allowed my mind to go still. The calm before the coming storm...and with that, the race began.
Jumping into the water I immediately noticed how poor the visibility was. I couldn't make out anything past two feet, including the tips of my outstretched arms. My main concern though, was the quality of the water. As the second busiest commercial waterway in the United States, the Ohio river isn't what I would really describe as...clean. Far from it. I suppose it was inevitable that I would end up swallowing some of the water throughout the course of the swim. Still, I didn't think the water would cause me any significant problems.
As opposed to the traditional 'mass start' of an IronMan in Louisville they basically line all the athletes up on the dock and allow them to jump off a few at a time. The benefit to this is that you don't have some 2,000 athletes trying to occupy the same space in the river at the same time, but on the other hand having so many athletes staggered out does cause some confusion and a lot of traffic later on as the faster athletes try to pass the slower ones who started ahead. Plus, the race clock isn't accurate for anyone except the pro athletes who start in the beginning. That, to me, is very irritating.
As I climbed out of the water at the transition area I took a moment to record the split on my watch. I swam the 2.4 mile open water river swim in 1:22:03. Out of nearly 1,000 male participants in the race, including professional athletes representing over 22 different countries, I posted the 91st best swim time. Out of 1,000. Needless to say I was very happy with my swim time and very thankful for all of the training I had put in.
Immediately after leaving the water I sprinted (I don't jog) into the transition area and put on my socks, shoes, gloves, glasses and helmet for the bike portion of the race. I didn't bother bringing different clothes to change into. After bathing myself with a quick layer of sun screen I hopped on my bike and was off peddling away. Total time spent in transition? 4:10...nice.
One quick side note. It was here that I made a small mistake. Usually, I keep a towel in my bike gear bag to dry off my feet before slipping into my socks, but I must have taken the towel out the previous night for some reason. Anyways, more on that later.
The bike portion of the race...112 miles. As if the distance was not intimidating enough, welcome to Louisville, Kentucky. Where the climbs are steep, the hills are many, and they never end. Ever. The entire length of the course save for the first and last 12 miles was nothing more than a contiguous length of rolling hills.
Revelation #1: Plan accordingly.
My bike...is amazing. I love her. Yes, my bike is a she for a number of reasons. Her name, by the way, is 'Whistler'. Not only because she is so stunningly beautiful that people can't but help to whistle when she rides by, but because of her speed. My fastest recorded speed on her actually came in today's race. It was over 50 m.p.h. On a bike. I was actually going so fast that I was drifting too close to a congested group of cyclists in front of me and I had to slow down. I've yet to come across a bike faster on a down slope. Often times you can hear the wind literally whistle through my helmet. Hence the name: Whistler. But I digress...
As I was saying. My bike is amazing...in short distance sprints or on a flat course. I use a very small crankset, which basically means that it takes more strength/power to pedal each revolution of the tire, but the maximum potential for speed is increased. Throw in an extremely hilly course and you begin to see my problem. With the steep incline it takes that much more of my energy to pedal. In the future, I will definitely take the terrain into consideration where my bike setup is concerned. Lacking that option for this race, I improvised.
I played to my strengths. The two flat segments of the course at the beginning and end I just brought down the hammer and cut loose. For the other 88 miles, I kept it in first or second gear on the uphills trying (and failing) to conserve energy, and gained as much momentum and speed as I could on the downhills. When I dismounted from my bike I checked my watch. I finished the 112 miles in 6:35:13. A few minutes slower than I was hoping, but a great time considering the hilly course. 98th position out of 1,000.
Switching out of my bike gear after dropping off Whistler and changing into my run gear took me another 8:33. Another good transition split. Before I go on to discuss the run I have to point out three things that had happened by this point, two of them very significant. The least important first. Remember how I said I didn't have a towel to dry my feet after the swim? Yeah, that's a bad thing. Wet feet create blisters. Especially after biking 112 miles. I had some amazingly painful specimens. So why is this not important? Because I have become so desensitized to that kind of pain that it's like turning off a switch for me. The blisters were causing me pain, so I stopped paying attention and ignored them.
Now, the two critical developments. First, I had an agonizing headache throughout the entire bike leg of the race. I mean constant sharp pain blazing in my skull like a sharp needle piercing the skin. It was brutal. I felt so badly during the bike portion that I was shocked to see my time when I started the run. Fortunately, during the run my headache had subsided to something more manageable that I could ignore. I can only speculate at the source of the headache, but I think it was the water I swallowed from the river. I didn't have the headache when I woke up, and the water was truly filthy. Several people I talked to after the race agreed that the water could have negatively affected me. Of course, it didn't help that I could smell the gasoline in the water for the last half-mile section of the swim.
The last, and most devastating development: bloating. I wish I was kidding. My stomach was bothering me severely by the halfway point on the bike. By that time, I had only consumed 1/2 of a Snicker's Marathon Energy Bar, and three individual servings of GU energy gels. That's about 400 calories. Those calories represented all of the food I ate the entire day of the race. 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run...on 400 calories. I lost 10 pounds.
Which leads me to explain the run. I was setting a great race pace for me by the time I started the marathon. A combined 8 hours for the swim, bike and both transitions. My goal was to run the marathon in just under 3 1/2 hours at an 8-minute pace. The first five miles of the run I finished in 40:11 which was perfect because the first few miles after the bike tend to be slower while your muscles adjust. And then it hit me...hard.
When I started the run I noticed two immediate problems. I had some pretty serious muscle cramping in my right quadriceps. I knew I would be able to run through it though because of all the experience I've had in running with and, more importantly, through, pain. The increased bloating however, I could not ignore. Not only was I unable to eat anything, but now because of all the gas buildup I was having difficulty breathing. Normally when I run I take deep, measured breaths to keep my heart rate controlled, but by the fifth mile I couldn't even take a shallow pant without having sharp pain course through my backs, chest and stomach. It's one thing to deal with muscle pain and quite another if you're unable to breath with each and every step you take.
Whereas I finished the first five miles in just over 40 minutes it took me just under two hours to finish miles six through 10. I was in bad shape. One of the most precarious moments came at the aid station near the seventh mile. Fatigued as I was with no energy I thought to take a few minutes to use the restroom. It was inside the wonderfully fragranced porter-potty that I almost blacked out. My vision blurred for a few seconds and my skin was pebbled with the chills that accompany any day with temperatures in the mid nineties...
Realizing I still had over 18 miles left to run, the degraded condition of my body and the inability to change it I realized how my position was. By the time I reached the 10th mile I tried to alternate between three minute intervals of jogging and walking. This forced march allowed me to cut down the time it was taking me to complete each mile. I wasn't concerned with the race clock or my ability to finish before the cutoff. By this point my competitive race was over. I was still in a race against time though. My body was shutting down, and it was only a matter of time before it made the decision for me.
It was around mile 13 that I saw a woman accompanied by a young boy waiting along the side of the road to cheer for the man who was racing for them. A husband to his wife, a father to his son. A son...who was paralyzed from the neck down and had no control over his motor functions. As soon as I saw him I started running. I became so angry with myself for making excuses and for allowing the pain to overcome me. All of the pain I felt throughout the entire day does not come remotely close to what that boor boy endures every second of his life. So I ran. I ran, and told myself I wasn't going to stop until I finished the race.
Four miles later and I threw up. Twice. I tried to continue after the first time, but when it happened again I lost control of my body. At the next aid station my legs gave out and I had to sit down. People kept asking if I needed help, and each time I politely replied that I was fine, and that I just needed a few minutes to rest. At this point my legs were shaking and tingled from the knees down. Without any calories for my body to burn and the sodium my body needed it was only a matter of time before my body died on me. A very short time.
So I got up and started shambling at a slow walk. I tried to shuffle along at a jog, but stopped when I realized that others were walking faster than I was jogging. With no choice left to me I decided to risk it. At the aid station near the 19th mile I grabbed some pretzel sticks and ate them. I needed the salt more than the calories and figured it was my only chance of keeping myself lucid. I threw up a third time.
Still, my body must have absorbed some of the salts because with just over six miles left I poured everything I had into one final focused effort. I ran the last 6.2 miles at a sub-nine minute pace. I finished the race in just over 13 1/2 hours and despite my poor run split ran nearly 30 minutes faster than the first IronMan I competed in with mono. With an abysmal run time of 5:39:12 I still managed to have a decent race.
Revelation #2: Preparation is key, but on the day of the race do what you can with what you have. I had great splits on the swim and bike, and would have on the run as well if not for something that was beyond my control. I didn't qualify for the Kona World Championship race in Hawaii, but I finished IronMan Kentucky in a respectable time and set a new personal best for myself. When I crossed the finish line, I felt every inch the winner I had set out to be when I set my mind on competing. I never gave up, and I never will. The letters 'D.N.F.' will never appear next to my name in a race.
Overall, I had an amazing experience. The race was tremendous fun. The course was beautiful and the city hospitable. The people I met were friendly and my life is enriched to have encountered them in my life. It's all a matter of perspective really, and I wouldn't trade my experience for anything in the world.
When I got back to my hotel Sunday night after the race I pulled out my leather journal I picked up in Italy and started writing an entry about my experience in the 2008 IronMan Kentucky race. Here is what I wrote:
So it's just past 11 p.m. and I am resting after a very long day. I woke up at 4:45 a.m. and went through my normal pre-race routine. I took a shower, started listening to my iPod, stretched, dressed in my tri gear, ran a mental check on everything I needed, and left for the transition area.
Once there I checked to make sure my bike was secure and that the tires were still fully inflated from the overnight stay in the transition area. Satisfied with everything, I began walking towards the swim start.
A quick aside: One of the many ever-present contradictions in my life is the dichotomy between being in 'deep thought' and being in 'the zone' whenever I train or race. Sometimes it's one or the other, and sometimes it changes between the two throughout the duration.
As I walked to the swim start I thought about all the preparations I had made to get myself ready for this race. The intense training sessions twice a day for a month leading up to the race. Booking the flight and hotel nearly a year in advance. The extra days I took off from training in the two weeks leading up to the IronMan. Everything. All for this one chance. This one opportunity to put everything on the line for a chance to qualify myself for the Kona World Championship IronMan in Hawaii. I was confident. I was prepared. I was ready.
On the morning of the race the water temperature in the Ohio river was a frigid 83 degrees, far too warm for the use of a wetsuit. As I expected. Knowing that the swim leg of any triathlon had traditionally been my weakest event I spent a considerable amount of extra time building up my endurance in the water for this race. A 5,000 yard swim three times a week gave me some much-needed assistance getting ready to start the race.
As I made my way toward the dock where each athlete would jump into the Ohio river I allowed my mind to go still. The calm before the coming storm...and with that, the race began.
Jumping into the water I immediately noticed how poor the visibility was. I couldn't make out anything past two feet, including the tips of my outstretched arms. My main concern though, was the quality of the water. As the second busiest commercial waterway in the United States, the Ohio river isn't what I would really describe as...clean. Far from it. I suppose it was inevitable that I would end up swallowing some of the water throughout the course of the swim. Still, I didn't think the water would cause me any significant problems.
As opposed to the traditional 'mass start' of an IronMan in Louisville they basically line all the athletes up on the dock and allow them to jump off a few at a time. The benefit to this is that you don't have some 2,000 athletes trying to occupy the same space in the river at the same time, but on the other hand having so many athletes staggered out does cause some confusion and a lot of traffic later on as the faster athletes try to pass the slower ones who started ahead. Plus, the race clock isn't accurate for anyone except the pro athletes who start in the beginning. That, to me, is very irritating.
As I climbed out of the water at the transition area I took a moment to record the split on my watch. I swam the 2.4 mile open water river swim in 1:22:03. Out of nearly 1,000 male participants in the race, including professional athletes representing over 22 different countries, I posted the 91st best swim time. Out of 1,000. Needless to say I was very happy with my swim time and very thankful for all of the training I had put in.
Immediately after leaving the water I sprinted (I don't jog) into the transition area and put on my socks, shoes, gloves, glasses and helmet for the bike portion of the race. I didn't bother bringing different clothes to change into. After bathing myself with a quick layer of sun screen I hopped on my bike and was off peddling away. Total time spent in transition? 4:10...nice.
One quick side note. It was here that I made a small mistake. Usually, I keep a towel in my bike gear bag to dry off my feet before slipping into my socks, but I must have taken the towel out the previous night for some reason. Anyways, more on that later.
The bike portion of the race...112 miles. As if the distance was not intimidating enough, welcome to Louisville, Kentucky. Where the climbs are steep, the hills are many, and they never end. Ever. The entire length of the course save for the first and last 12 miles was nothing more than a contiguous length of rolling hills.
Revelation #1: Plan accordingly.
My bike...is amazing. I love her. Yes, my bike is a she for a number of reasons. Her name, by the way, is 'Whistler'. Not only because she is so stunningly beautiful that people can't but help to whistle when she rides by, but because of her speed. My fastest recorded speed on her actually came in today's race. It was over 50 m.p.h. On a bike. I was actually going so fast that I was drifting too close to a congested group of cyclists in front of me and I had to slow down. I've yet to come across a bike faster on a down slope. Often times you can hear the wind literally whistle through my helmet. Hence the name: Whistler. But I digress...
As I was saying. My bike is amazing...in short distance sprints or on a flat course. I use a very small crankset, which basically means that it takes more strength/power to pedal each revolution of the tire, but the maximum potential for speed is increased. Throw in an extremely hilly course and you begin to see my problem. With the steep incline it takes that much more of my energy to pedal. In the future, I will definitely take the terrain into consideration where my bike setup is concerned. Lacking that option for this race, I improvised.
I played to my strengths. The two flat segments of the course at the beginning and end I just brought down the hammer and cut loose. For the other 88 miles, I kept it in first or second gear on the uphills trying (and failing) to conserve energy, and gained as much momentum and speed as I could on the downhills. When I dismounted from my bike I checked my watch. I finished the 112 miles in 6:35:13. A few minutes slower than I was hoping, but a great time considering the hilly course. 98th position out of 1,000.
Switching out of my bike gear after dropping off Whistler and changing into my run gear took me another 8:33. Another good transition split. Before I go on to discuss the run I have to point out three things that had happened by this point, two of them very significant. The least important first. Remember how I said I didn't have a towel to dry my feet after the swim? Yeah, that's a bad thing. Wet feet create blisters. Especially after biking 112 miles. I had some amazingly painful specimens. So why is this not important? Because I have become so desensitized to that kind of pain that it's like turning off a switch for me. The blisters were causing me pain, so I stopped paying attention and ignored them.
Now, the two critical developments. First, I had an agonizing headache throughout the entire bike leg of the race. I mean constant sharp pain blazing in my skull like a sharp needle piercing the skin. It was brutal. I felt so badly during the bike portion that I was shocked to see my time when I started the run. Fortunately, during the run my headache had subsided to something more manageable that I could ignore. I can only speculate at the source of the headache, but I think it was the water I swallowed from the river. I didn't have the headache when I woke up, and the water was truly filthy. Several people I talked to after the race agreed that the water could have negatively affected me. Of course, it didn't help that I could smell the gasoline in the water for the last half-mile section of the swim.
The last, and most devastating development: bloating. I wish I was kidding. My stomach was bothering me severely by the halfway point on the bike. By that time, I had only consumed 1/2 of a Snicker's Marathon Energy Bar, and three individual servings of GU energy gels. That's about 400 calories. Those calories represented all of the food I ate the entire day of the race. 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run...on 400 calories. I lost 10 pounds.
Which leads me to explain the run. I was setting a great race pace for me by the time I started the marathon. A combined 8 hours for the swim, bike and both transitions. My goal was to run the marathon in just under 3 1/2 hours at an 8-minute pace. The first five miles of the run I finished in 40:11 which was perfect because the first few miles after the bike tend to be slower while your muscles adjust. And then it hit me...hard.
When I started the run I noticed two immediate problems. I had some pretty serious muscle cramping in my right quadriceps. I knew I would be able to run through it though because of all the experience I've had in running with and, more importantly, through, pain. The increased bloating however, I could not ignore. Not only was I unable to eat anything, but now because of all the gas buildup I was having difficulty breathing. Normally when I run I take deep, measured breaths to keep my heart rate controlled, but by the fifth mile I couldn't even take a shallow pant without having sharp pain course through my backs, chest and stomach. It's one thing to deal with muscle pain and quite another if you're unable to breath with each and every step you take.
Whereas I finished the first five miles in just over 40 minutes it took me just under two hours to finish miles six through 10. I was in bad shape. One of the most precarious moments came at the aid station near the seventh mile. Fatigued as I was with no energy I thought to take a few minutes to use the restroom. It was inside the wonderfully fragranced porter-potty that I almost blacked out. My vision blurred for a few seconds and my skin was pebbled with the chills that accompany any day with temperatures in the mid nineties...
Realizing I still had over 18 miles left to run, the degraded condition of my body and the inability to change it I realized how my position was. By the time I reached the 10th mile I tried to alternate between three minute intervals of jogging and walking. This forced march allowed me to cut down the time it was taking me to complete each mile. I wasn't concerned with the race clock or my ability to finish before the cutoff. By this point my competitive race was over. I was still in a race against time though. My body was shutting down, and it was only a matter of time before it made the decision for me.
It was around mile 13 that I saw a woman accompanied by a young boy waiting along the side of the road to cheer for the man who was racing for them. A husband to his wife, a father to his son. A son...who was paralyzed from the neck down and had no control over his motor functions. As soon as I saw him I started running. I became so angry with myself for making excuses and for allowing the pain to overcome me. All of the pain I felt throughout the entire day does not come remotely close to what that boor boy endures every second of his life. So I ran. I ran, and told myself I wasn't going to stop until I finished the race.
Four miles later and I threw up. Twice. I tried to continue after the first time, but when it happened again I lost control of my body. At the next aid station my legs gave out and I had to sit down. People kept asking if I needed help, and each time I politely replied that I was fine, and that I just needed a few minutes to rest. At this point my legs were shaking and tingled from the knees down. Without any calories for my body to burn and the sodium my body needed it was only a matter of time before my body died on me. A very short time.
So I got up and started shambling at a slow walk. I tried to shuffle along at a jog, but stopped when I realized that others were walking faster than I was jogging. With no choice left to me I decided to risk it. At the aid station near the 19th mile I grabbed some pretzel sticks and ate them. I needed the salt more than the calories and figured it was my only chance of keeping myself lucid. I threw up a third time.
Still, my body must have absorbed some of the salts because with just over six miles left I poured everything I had into one final focused effort. I ran the last 6.2 miles at a sub-nine minute pace. I finished the race in just over 13 1/2 hours and despite my poor run split ran nearly 30 minutes faster than the first IronMan I competed in with mono. With an abysmal run time of 5:39:12 I still managed to have a decent race.
Revelation #2: Preparation is key, but on the day of the race do what you can with what you have. I had great splits on the swim and bike, and would have on the run as well if not for something that was beyond my control. I didn't qualify for the Kona World Championship race in Hawaii, but I finished IronMan Kentucky in a respectable time and set a new personal best for myself. When I crossed the finish line, I felt every inch the winner I had set out to be when I set my mind on competing. I never gave up, and I never will. The letters 'D.N.F.' will never appear next to my name in a race.
Overall, I had an amazing experience. The race was tremendous fun. The course was beautiful and the city hospitable. The people I met were friendly and my life is enriched to have encountered them in my life. It's all a matter of perspective really, and I wouldn't trade my experience for anything in the world.
posted by Marcos Redondo - Running For Hope at
8:42 PM
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