#ironmanboulder

This was my fourth full distance triathlon, but the first one I’d done in nearly three years. I felt like I’d changed a lot as an athlete and wasn’t sure if I could remember how to race something like a full Ironman. There were several reasons I’d taken a break:

1.      My last full was Ironman Lake Tahoe and the prep and execution for that race was so mentally draining that I couldn’t muster a repeat for quite a while

2.      I needed a full that I was really excited about in order to be willing to put in the work and stay focused during training. I loved racing the 70.3 in Boulder but I didn’t want to sign up for the full unless there was a really solid chance that it would be wetsuit legal. When it was announced that the full would be moved from August to June, I knew that was my chance, so I waited until 2018 (I was a little busy getting married in 2017 :) ) and signed up for it. I’m not opposed to swimming without a wetsuit – I actually love my swim skin – but I hate to willingly take such a competitive disadvantage in a big race.

We arrived in Boulder on Thursday for the Sunday race, and had a grand time in the interim. For the sake of brevity, I’ll omit all that and just recommend hitting up Full Cycle for their coffee, brews and snack bar. It’s the most perfect place ever, and if it were in my hood, I’d be a regular.

Nutrition Overview:

Pre-race: Zest Tea black tea; Ezekiel toast and half a white bagel, both with almond butter; banana; a bottle of water mixed with Pedialyte; a chocolate Clif gel

 Bike: four Yukon gold potatoes, heavily salted with Himalayan salt; six scoops of custom Infinit; probably six+ bottles of water

 Run: two chocolate Clif gels; two cups of cola; two halves of banana; many handfuls of chips and pretzels; endless water

The Swim, 2.4 miles:

I wasn’t super-optimistic about the swim, and was just hoping for a split that wasn’t completely embarrassing. I lined up in the 1:10 – 1:20 group since my last full swim times have been 1:13 – 1:16. I knew I’d probably be on the slower end of that given my recent half times, and that was fine. My written goal was 1:15 – 1:20 and I was hoping for <1:18.

Michael stayed back to start with me even though he’s a much faster swimmer. It was nice to have him nearby right up until we got in the water. I had already decided I would bravely swim in the scrum and risk being swum over and whatnot to ensure I could leverage drafts and try to stay close to the buoy line. I think I did that pretty well. There were several instances where I found a pair of feet and stayed on them through multiple buoys.

The course was a sort of triangle, tackled counter-clockwise. When I reached the first turn buoy, I rounded it super-aggressively. Too aggressively, I did a 180* and was swimming back towards the swim start! Luckily I spotted and noticed that I should not be swimming into a pack of swimmers and heard the “wrong way” shouts intended for me. Good save, ha ha! Ugh.

I was sadly sore and tired by the half way of the swim and it felt like I’d been swimming for sooooo long. While I knew I was being smart with execution, I also felt like I’d been in the water too long. I was bracing myself to see 1:20 – 1:25 on the clock and was relieved at 1:17.

T1: Generally uneventful, volunteers were spectacular!

The Bike, 112 miles:

I headed out on the bike feeling pretty decent despite the fact that I was tired during the second half of the swim. I was excited to pedal hard and use my legs. The first stretch along Diagonal Hwy was pretty fast, and with the u-turn on that, I knew we would be in for a windy day. <10 miles in and already a false flat into the wind. After the course turned off Diagonal onto 63rd, I felt it even more. My legs were burning and I knew I’d spend more time in the small ring on the second loop, especially with the wind guaranteed to kick up more.

There were three stretches on each loop where you’re riding towards the flat irons, meaning false flats, climbs and headwinds. Mentally, that’s how I was breaking it up, the efforts remaining and reprieves to come on each loop; even if that meant battling crosswinds on Hwy 36 in the interim. A lot of this dynamic was from out-and-back sections on the course, there were three u-turns on each loop. That has a slowing effect, but it allowed me to see Michael twice on the bike, which seldom happens when we race together, so I didn’t mind it.

The wind was much more pronounced on the second loop, as was the heat. That’s when I started using the aid station water bottles to also – in addition to drinking them - wet the back of my kit and help keep me cool. I was warm, parched and in anticipation of each subsequent aid station well before I reached it.

I tried to focus on getting low and keeping my head down to cut through the wind as best as possible. While I felt like I was significantly slowed by it, I also wasn’t getting passed and was actually passing a lot of other athletes.

This was a big deal for me. I’ve long feared a windy bike course. I’m a smaller cyclist, so I have fewer lbs to fight back with and tend to get pushed around a lot by the wind; it doesn’t help my cause versus the competition and can also be pretty terrifying with cross winds threatening to knock me over.

Despite all the struggles, I was actually feeling really good on the bike and would have been happy to just continue riding my bike all day. The main relief with wrapping up the bike portion is that your race is in your own hands; no worries about a bike crash, mechanical or flat, just you and your own two feet!

T2:

As good as I felt ON the bike, I nearly feel over dismounting and had baby deer legs running into the transition tent. Oh dear…or deer :). I loaded up on cooling mechanisms and run gear and headed out towards the run course, hoping my mind was in the right place to tackle a long and very hot effort. On my way out of transition, I had the volunteers do a thorough once-over with sunscreen because the rays were getting super-intense.

I also heard and saw my parents as I headed out of T2, great to have them on course cheering on such a tough day!

The Run, 26.2 miles:

Once I started running on the first mile, just trying to get into a rhythm, things straightened out and I felt pretty good. Not fast by any stretch, but good enough for an Ironman at altitude on a blazing hot day.

I’ve heard reports that the high was anywhere between 95 – 97* with a “feels like” of 102. The “almanac” figure I’ve seen is 95*, so let’s go with that, noting that the sun is super-intense when you’re 5k feet closer to it in Boulder!

I was on my nutrition, cooling, etc fairly well and feeling like I could keep up a very modest pace and had people near me that were similar paced. I kept telling myself to just keep running what I consider my “guilty pleasure pace” and everything would sort itself out okay.

The race director had made provisions for the conditions, so I was handed a cold, wet towel as I left transition, and around mile 5 or 6, volunteers were giving out tube socks with ice in them. I also had a cooling wrap that I was using as an infinity scarf to keep my neck covered and cool, and as a way to pack wet towels, ice-filled socks, loose ice, etc on my person. I was also putting ice in my hat (actually, I had the ice-filled tube sock in – and hanging out of – my hat) and cold water down my back at the aid stations.

Around mile 11 or 12, my stomach started to revolt and rally against my race nutrition. I had to stop at a porta john. And then again about two miles later. I was not feeling so good. My goals shifted slightly at that point to start walking the aid stations so that I’d have something to look forward to, and then maintaining a “run” in between, even if that run was 10’ miles.

I also started to take chips and pretzels at the aid stations, which took longer to eat and wash down, but I was hoping that would help settle my stomach. And it did, I started feeling less awful.

At that point, I was heading towards the final out-and-back along the most exposed part of the course. I had a travel-sized sunscreen in my kit and was reapplying but it seemed to do no good. The sun at altitude was strong, and my skin was cooking in a major way. I was trying to stay cool and keep marching towards the finish as best I could.

 I had seen Michael three times on the course before the brutal turn around at mile ~21. That was a tough one because it takes you back along a very exposed section of the course for a very extended period of time. There was serious suffering on that stretch, a lot of people getting sick – bent over, vomiting, on the side of the course - and most of them walking. I got too many compliments on my pace for running 10’ miles.

 I was also able to see Jane and John three or four times. They made a surprise appearance near 10K which was also ~ mile 20, and had a perfect spot albeit in a very hot section, bless them!

I knew my miles were slow with the aid station meandering to take in salty snacks, so was trying to focus on race time and what my finish time could still be. It was a hard day to keep moving, but three things kept me going:

1.      It would take sooooo long to finish if I started walking, and I’d told my parents I thought I would be done 6 PM ish, so I wanted to deliver on that and be done in time to get cleaned up and eat dinner. I mean, I know I cleared my calendar to race and all but it might be nice to have a little down time before bed time :)

2.      I had so much to look forward to if I could just get beyond this race and sort of do my training some justice – picking up our new dog and doing a goat yoga class the following weekend and then closing on a house the weekend after that. I wanted to rightfully be able to focus on what was next instead of getting redemption for a crap race.

3.      As hard as my training was and as many sessions as I had where I wanted to quit, I only did one time. I had a temper tantrum during a brick run on a super-hot day on an exposed ride and run route where I was mostly likely dehydrated. My takeaway from looking at my splits that day was that I was hitting my goals/targets and if I had just kept my head on straight, I would have executed well enough. I had the presence of mind during the IM Boulder run to realize that while my written goals were out the window, I could still PR the distance on a super-tough day, and that would be a cool feat. I wanted that and was ready to chase – err, jog after – it.

As I kept an eye on my watch, I was on mile 24, approaching mile 25, and saw Michael up ahead of me. He was walking. I think he asked me if I wanted to walk it in with him. I replied “no, I can still PR – run in with me!” I could tell he was hurting, but he picked it up and we were at the same pace, pushing with everything we had to run 10’ miles. After the 25-mile marker, there were actually almost 2 miles left to go, and it was the longest two miles EVER! Beyond that mile marker, there’s an out-and-back before you arrive at the finish and every twist and turn revealed that we were still not at the turn around point. A lot of grumbling taking place but also sharing encouragement; I was soooo glad to have Michael beside me to help wrap up a day that was extremely challenging, physically and mentally.

We finally got to the “this way to the finish” portion of the course and rejoiced and found our way down the chute. Seeing that finish line was the greatest thing ever, and made even more amazing by having Michael by my side. We held hands running down the chute and received a lot of cheers for that :) What a day, what a race.

The Aftermath:

The muscle soreness was real, but the bigger challenge for me was the systemic stress of pushing through those conditions all day. When I run “fast” I often grunt a lot through labored breathing, and I found myself doing that in the latter part of the run although I was barely moving. After I’d finished and was lying on the grass, I noticed that I was wheezing and very short of breath. I was also really sick to my stomach and couldn’t imagine eating or drinking anything despite being soooo hungry.

I was in pretty bad shape the rest of that night and even woke up in the middle of the night with more pronounced wheezing and shortness of breath, and had to use my inhaler. I remember thinking something along the lines of “I hope I’m going to live” ha ha!

Happy to share that I made it, and I think I’m going to live.

That following day, Monday, temperatures returned to what is expected and normal that time of year in Boulder and were 15-20* cooler. Dern.

Final Thoughts:

The race was interesting. Exercising at altitude never feels that “off” for me but my race times are always skewed. To boot, the sun is pretty intense, being 5K+ feet closer to it; you bake pretty quickly, even at typical temperatures like 80*. In Boulder in particular, there is a wind that comes from the west off the flatirons that can impact a bike course if there are long stretches in that direction.

This particular course was also interesting with three out-and-backs on each loop of the bike and four on the total run course. The bike course was arguably confusing with regards to how entering the second loop is treated and there were more DQs for not completing the proper course that day than at any race I’ve ever experienced. I counted 8 – 9 in my AG, including three in the [original] top ten.

That all being the case, I’ve struggled with whether I’m proud of a 2’ distance PR in the conditions or if I’m disappointed that I was 35 – 45 minutes off where I wanted to be on the day, that I didn’t handle the conditions better and that I wasn’t more competitive. It kinda stings to see that other athletes weren’t quite as impacted, because I felt like I worked SO hard to prepare for this event and suffered through some pretty brutal training conditions in central TX. I kinda just feel like Ironman is stupid and am even more baffled at the people who do multiple of these a year. Maybe I lack discipline because I enjoy balance (read: wine).

Since I’m getting bored with my placements in my own AG (always a top 10, rarely a top 5, seriously every IM brand race after my first year excluding the first time I raced St George and the Worlds races), I’ve started looking at where my time would put me in the M 30-34 and M35-59 age group races. I would’ve finishing in the top 20% at both IM 70.3 STG and IM Boulder, though neraly top 15% at Boulder. Michael and I both observed that the ladies were killing it in the tough conditions and really outperformed the men on the day. I’ll take whatever stats feel best, and right now, it’s these ha ha 😊