It's been just over a week since Ironman Canada. The race is still sitting sourly for both Justin and I. It was a hard, hot (95 degrees) day and things didn't roll out exactly how we had hoped. Having done Lake Placid, we (secretly) had grand goals of sub 12 hours as we did 12:30 and 12:35 in 2009 - we both felt like we saved enough during Lake Placid that sub 12 was absolutely attainable, and we still hold this true. However, with each race is it's own conditions and complications and it can either be the best day of racing or the worst. With that said, here is my Ironman Canada race report:
One side note: Justin sent me this article today from RunTri. And I quote, "It was a tough race, 11% did not start, 9% did not finish, and the average finish time was 13:12, ranking among the most difficult of our Top 25 Toughest Ironman event ranking.... The average splits and finish times illustrate just how tough the course was, especially the marathon, in 2011.... Not a single age group averaged less than 12:30 for the event. Very rare."
Pre-race:
Please read the previous post for this... there was sightseeing in Seattle, a road trip to Penticton, a pasta dinner and a couple freak out moments thrown in the day before the race as my bike seat broke. The town was oddly calm for hosting the Ironman - very different from previous races... kind of nice and a bit relaxing though you didn't get the adrenaline rushes like you usually do just by walking around town.
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| Joey's bike rack, but no Joey. |
Race Morning:
We went to bed around 8:30pm, woke up at 3am to eat a bagel croissant (grocery store was all out of bagels, not a surprise and all they had were bagels shaped like croissants... interesting) with PB, honey and nutella with sliced banana on top. We hopped back in bed for another hour and half. At 4:30am it was shower time and prepping last minute things. We were in the car at 5:15am for the 20 minute drive into town. Parking was easy to find. At check in, they made you walk about a half mile around gates and the town to get to body marking and transition when they very easily could have saved us the energy and created an entrance closer to transition. I walked right up to get marked, headed into transition to my bike, checked the tires, added my bottles and nutrition and left my bike for good... I don't think it's smart to fuse with your bike the morning of the race, I do that all the day before. As long as everything passes the very quick checks, I leave that thing alone! Justin and I got coffee and used the restroom (found one that no one was using so didn't have to wait in line!) and made our way to the swim.
Swim: [Liz - 1:22:39, Jus - 1:32:36]
The water was shallow so everyone started out standing. At 7am the gun went off and we were off. I had read in other race reports that this was an awful swim as you never get your own space - SO TRUE! It wasn't until 8 buoys in (which I think there were 12 buoys until the first turn point) that I finally stopped getting kicked, smacked and swam over. That doesn't mean I had room to myself, there were still people all around me but at least I had enough room to relax a little and not be on edge ready to fight someone who punched me as they swam by. It was such a hectic start to the swim. I kept getting irritated with the men because they would come up behind me on both sides and corner me in so I had no option but to slow down so that I could free myself from their trap. It kept happening and I was getting so frustrated! Once I passed the first turn point, I seemed to have found my groove and just tried to focus on staying relaxed and getting through the swim, after all I hadn't trained but twice for the swim (I know, very stupid) so I wasn't in the best shape to try hard. The water was warm and very clear and clean. I made it to the exit a 1:22:39, a minute faster than Lake Placid... impressive as I truly trained very hard for Lake Placid.
T1: [Liz - 4:45, Jus - 4:39]
Bike: [Liz - 6:48:11, Jus - 6:46:46]
This is where the race fell apart for me. I felt great coming out of the swim and took the first couple miles very easy to take in some fluid and gather myself for the 112 miles ahead. Within just a short time, I was holding a solid pace and was feeling fantastic. I was passing a lot of people on the side fixing flats which made me nervous. Then, come mile 30 I hear my back tire making a funky sound. I turn my head, look down and see what I had dreaded... FLAT TIRE! Ugh. I pulled over and took probably 10 minutes to change the flat. Not sure why it took so long but I didn't want to rush anything and screw up so I just kept telling myself to take the time to breath and rest a bit. The cause of my flat? A itty bitty tack... turns out all those people I kept seeing on the side fixing flats had run into the same problem... a volunteer said someone had thrown tacks on the course the night before - awesome, really. I hope those people got enjoyment out of that.
Once my flat was fixed I was really deflated, so many people passed me while I was on the side. I kept trying to keep myself in a good mood. I gave myself the goal to pass as many people as possible and try to catch someone I had been riding with before my flat. I gave great effort to try to regain some time but was freaking out most of the time checking on my tire to make sure it wasn't flat... paranoia. Around mile 50 I was riding a downhill. I looked down at my bike computer and it said 39mph.... I look back up to spot myself and looked back at the computer and it was reading 0mph. WHAT?! When I hit the next flat I glanced down at my wheel to find that the cat eye chip had fallen off... again, awesome. From that point on I didn't know my speed and my timing for nutrition was all screwed up because I had been basing it off my bike computer, not my watch. Whatever, I am perfectly fine riding without knowing my pace. I had gotten through Richter Pass, a 10 mile gradual climb and seemed to be surviving the constant sun rays and heat - it was starting to get really hot out there and I was taking salt tabs every hour. At one point on the course, around miles 70-80 you come to two out and backs, one right after the other. The race started to really feel very difficult for me at this time. My neck hurt, being in aero position was very painful and I could start to feel my sunburn on my back. Soon after I came across the second out and back which is where you pick up your special needs bag. I pull over to grab my bag and yell my number "2367"... 20 seconds later the volunteer yells back "2367? I don't see a 2367!" .......................A-W-E-S-O-M-E! After checking again it was official that they had lost my special needs bag which had a PB & honey sandwich and the remaining gu's I needed for the bike. I didn't have any nutrition from there on until I started the run. I was taught a lesson to pack for the race not needing my special needs bag - you can never rely on anyone else on race day. At that point, I started crying. I was so fed up with the day - nothing was working for me and I wanted to just give up. Crying while biking does not really work. I wound up having a very hard time breathing and snapped myself back into it. Ironman is not just physical, it is mental as well, and I let the race get me for a moment. I decided to take the remainder of the bike easy, very rarely getting into the aerobars, afterall I had no nutrition and I was really hurting and was super hot. The last few miles are all downhill which was a relief. I rode back into transition at 6:48:11, very happy to be off the bike. I was 14 minutes slower at Canada than Lake Placid... but don't forget I had my flat which I took a significant amount of time to fix!
T2: [Liz - 5:35, Jus - 9:36]
I don't have any pictures from the bike... so you get us racking our bikes the day before :)
Run: [Liz - 4:53:49, Jus - 5:03:43]
Heading out of transition I ran to the sunblock stand and had a volunteer slather block on me. "OUNCH!" she says, "you are burnt!" Thank you for that... now please let me continue on to my way in the sun, with no shade, as I complete this 26.2 mile run. Grr.
I started my run off nice and easy. To my surprise, my feet weren't numb and I didn't physically hurt as much as I did in Lake Placid. The start of the run is a bit brutal because you run right by the finishing shoot...not cool. I was heading out right as the first place pro male was finishing - ugh, I have such a long run ahead of me! The run course actually didn't seem too difficult to me. Had it not been so freakin' hot and I hadn't mentally fallen apart on the bike, I think I would have been able to kill this run course. However, that was not the case and I took this one real easy. I walked each and every water station, grabbing 2 waters, 2 sponges and 2 cups of ice at each. I drank the water, ate a peice of ice and dumped the rest down my shirt and in my hat and cool myself down by squeezes the sponges over my head - the heat was getting the best of everyone. This was my routine. At the end of the water stations I would begin to run again. Everyone was walking the hills but I would run them, keeping my eyes on the ground so that I wouldn't see everyone walking ahead - way to easy to influence me to walk as well. At one point, while I passed a guy walking a hill, he says "there are two people running this hill, you and the man up there, everyone else is walking! What is wrong with you two?" The run was entirely along the side of Skaha Lake. There were boats out playing music and a sad sounding steamboat that I couldn't seem to get away from. One of the boats was playing a really good song and I tried to remember the lyrics as I was running but now I have forgotten them - I think it was Ludacris but all my searches for the song are coming up empty :( Anyways, I was pacing an easy pace throughout until mile 16 when I felt the awful side cramp that I had suffered from before in my long training runs coming on - NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! All I could think was that it figures, this is obviously how my days was meant to play out. Now when I say cramp, I am talking serious pinching to the point where it hurts to stand straight. I started taking in double the liquids, cola and pretzels as soon as it started at the aid station and was running VERY slowly as I leaned to my left side. It came to the point where I had to walk it out so I took 5 minutes to walk and stretch at the same time. Still in pain I began running again and just hoped for the best. Maybe 4 miles later it had disappeared and I was running smoothly again. I warned myself not to run too fast now as I know the cramp could very easily come back. So it goes for the next several miles and with 3 miles to go the cramp of course came back and I slowed down. I stopped to walk several more times after this point. With 2 miles to go I told myself to suck it up and run the rest of the way, which is what I did. In pain, of course, I made a bee-line to the finish line, finishing in 13:14:57, running my slowest marathon ever, placing overall 36/80 in my age group (Justin's finish was a 13:37:19).
Finish:
I wanted to see Justin in at the finish as I knew he was also having a bad day out there but as I stood there, I felt like I was going to throw up. A volunteer walked me to the medical tent where I stayed for a hour and drank broth and sports drink. I was freezing cold and wanted to go home. We check out bikes into BikeTransport (awesome company, highly recommend them!) and went home. We wanted to stick around for the last finisher but the thought of a warm shower, dinner and bed sounded much better.
And so that was my Ironman Canada. I would like to head out there again one day to do the race again and see what I can really make of it, but for now it's so long! Happy to have raced another 140.6 and proud of my accomplishment, overcoming the bad times and finishing what I came to do... and that is to do another Ironman!
On a final note, let's go back to the article... I quote "If you beat one or more of the split times in your age group, consider your race a big success." Let's take a look...
W25-29
Average Overall Time: 13:29:48
Swim: 1:18:40 (4 minutes over)
Bike: 6:45:17 (3 minutes over)
Run: 5:13:50 (20 minutes under) <-- This qualifies my race as a BIG success!!!!!!
