Ironman Wisconsin Pre-Race

Pre-Race

I drove up to Madison from the Cities on Friday for check-in. It's a Sunday race, so you have to be in town on Friday. I was on my own. Due to the Friday and Monday that Ironman requires, Tina and the Boys could not make it. 

Road Trip!

I left at 7:oo am, and arrived in Madison with plenty of time before my 3:oo hotel check-in and the 5:oo deadline for athlete check-in.

Athlete check-in is extremely well organized. They have you sign waivers, record your weight, pick up your packet, get your bracelet, pick up your gear bags and register a timing chip. The packet has your stickers, bib and swim cap (green!). The gear bags are for T1, T2, special needs and morning clothes. You get two special needs bags.  You have access to a special needs bag halfway through the each of the bike and the run. The bracelet (green!) gets you into everything for the weekend. I also got an orange bracelet that indicated this was my first Ironman. I thought there would be some benefit to the orange, but it was never mentioned throughout the weekend. Still kinda fun though.

The swag for check-in included a poster, flag, luggage tag and back pack. The poster and flag have the logo for this year's race: a barn and a cow. UGLY AND STUPID! I would be so much happier with just an m-dot logo. What a bad marketing decision. The backpack is cow-free and super nice. Probably not big enough for race day tri gear, but it will be a nice gym bag.

Poster, with the barn covered.

After check-in, I went to an athlete info session. There wasn't a whole lot of new info (if any) presented. If you knew the rules of Ironman and read the athlete guide you knew what was going down.

That was about it for Friday. I got checked into my hotel which was a half mile away from the race, and tried to rest the day away. The hotel was not cheap, but it was probably worth it. Being able to walk to the race and not worry about parking saved me a lot of stress on the weekend. My hotel and the finish/transition were all by the state capitol.

Friday night I had to pack up my transition bags. This went pretty quick since it all had to be packed and sorted Thursday night before my Friday road trip.

Saturday morning, I went down to the lake for a quick swim. Folks online had been growing concerned with the drop in water temp. I figured it was worth while to check it out and know what to expect on Sunday. I only swam around for about ten minutes. With my long sleeve wetsuit it was actually a nice temp after you got past the initial shock.

Saturday was gear check-in, and again it went pretty smooth. Bikes were checked into transition and the gear bags were checked into rooms just outside transition. I ended up on the second farthest bike rack from the mount line. Not a terrible inconvenience, but a little annoying.

Can't even see the turn to the mount line from here.

You had to rack by the seat.

Run Gear bags.

Men's Transition

Again, after check-in I went back to the hotel and tried to rest the day away. The lazies seemed to work. Even with an after noon nap, I was still in bed and sleeping by 9:30. I suppose it's a good thing that I get sleepy when I'm nervous. I set my alarms (3) for 4:15. Transition opened at 5:oo.

The dream.

The octopus is a little wierd, I know. Tina found it for me. I carried it around on the weekend and through the race so that whenever someone asked me about it (or gave me a cock-eyed look) I would think of Tina and the boys.

2017 Toughman 70.3

Toughman Half

Chisago Minnesota

Sunday, July 30 2017

1.2 mile / 56 mile / 13.1 mile

Training

My summer classes ended on July 17. Since then I've been getting in a lot more hours of training for Ironman. The two weekends leading up to this race I did an 88 and a 100 mile bike ride. Both ended up being about a 16 mph average. The hills really don't rival the Ironman WI course, so I think I'm hoping for a 7-7.5 hour bike with a 15-16 mph average. Otherhows, there's not much new in training. I've started doing one hour swims at the gym, and I average about 20 miles a week running. Going into Toughman, I've been trying to treat the race as just another training day. It's tough to get into that mindset though. This was the race of my life last year.

Swim: 1.2 miles
Goal: Under 40 minutes
Actual: Over 40, but a little better than 2016
Just like last year, the swim was not wetsuit legal for this race. There was a wetsuit wave for those who wanted to, but I just stuck it out in wave four without my wetsuit. I felt crappy the morning of the race and through the swim. I had a rotten stomach. The swim went alright; I followed a few different folks to avoid sighting on my own. This seemed to work out well. I figure this will be the game a Ironman; with 2500 people in the water I think traffic management will be the key.

Anyhoo, pretty uneventful until the one mile marker when I took in a big gulp of water. When I was hacking it up I saw I was at about 35 minutes. This put me behind the 40 minute goal, and I kept that pace through the end of the swim. Oh well, maybe next time.

2017 Swim Time: 42:25 with a 2:01 min/100 yards average
2016 Swim Time: 43:07 with a 2:03 min/100 yards average

My time is noted in green.

Swim Rank:
194 out of 396 finishers
140 out of 259 males
21 out of 32 age groupers

T1
Goal: Run, don't walk
Actual: Yup
It's worth noting that there was one finisher time that I dropped from my calculations. It seemed pretty clear to me that the guy cut the run course.

T1 was the same as T1 always is: pretty uneventful. While I was putting on my shoes, the announcer mentioned that the winning swim time was 26 minutes. Me and the lady next to me agreed we could have lived without that information at that particular point of the day.
2017 T1: 3:40
2016 T1: 3:44


Position
194 coming into T1
205 leaving T1

Bike: 56 miles
Goal: 18 mph
Actual: Not as close as it sounds

The sprint and long courses use the same bike route for the first 12 or 13 miles. I spent those miles contemplating a DNF. I did not feel well. Also, my legs were a little dead. I suppose I should have done a shorter recovery type ride after my century seven days prior, but my knees started giving my troubles on Wednesday. Anyhoo, at the turn off I decided to give it a go. I still haven't had the DNF in a race; hopefully that never comes.

I really didn't feel much better until about 25 miles in when I hit an aid station and got some water. On my bike, I only carry a couple bottles of Infinite Go Far to drink. The Infinite is great for a long race, but terrible for a rotten stomach. After the water, my stomach loosened up and I was on my way. I ate a cliff bar or two and a few Gu packs on the bike in addition to my Infinite.

I had the bike course short by about half a mile. That makes my speed look a little better than it actually was. I was slow. It was a pretty big let down from last year.

2017 Bike: 3:08:19 with a 17.8 mph average
2016 Bike: 3:07:05 with an 18 mph average

Bike Ranks
314 out of 396 finishers
219 out of 259 males
29 out of 32 age groupers

T2
Goal: Run, don't walk
Actual: Yup
Nothing interesting happened in T2. I dropped my bike stuff, grabbed my run stuff and was on my way.
2017 T2 Time: 2:13
2016 T2 Time: 3:02

Position
297 coming into T2
287 leaving T2


Run 13.1 Miles
Goal: Under 2:30
Actual: Yup
I have not really lit it up on distance running yet this year. I know what my knees can take and I don't want to push it much farther than that. As a result, I had only run the half twice before this race.

The run started off with a mile and change of shade. That was pretty sweet. Then you take some back streets and end up on the highway for most of miles 4 through 10  (out-n-back). It was hot on the black top.  It was hot anyway, but the blacktop just helped that sun beat you down. On mile seven you do get a little shade again, and that helped me pick it up a bit.

It seemed like I passed more people than usual on the run, but that's probably just because most of the field passed me on the bike. I knew I was going to be close to beating my time from last year by about mile 8. I had a poor mile 12 but otherwise the inward half went pretty well. Somehow I messed up the math on the last mile, and I ended about two minutes ahead of my last minute estimates. It was a nice surprise.
2017 Run Time: 2:27:02 with an 11:13 pace
2016 Run Time: 2:30:13 with an 11:29 pace

Run Ranks

283 out of 396
191 out of 259 men
27 out of 32 age groupers

2017 Total Time 6:23:38
2016 Total Time 6:27:13

Finishing Positions
289 out of 396 finishers
202 out of 259 males
27 out of 32 age groupers

What's Next
Well, my time was better than last year, but it didn't feel as good. I suppose, last year I dropped my time about twenty five minutes, and this year it was about four. Anyhoo, good training run. Ironman is now four weeks away. I probably have one more long ride and one or two more long runs left. I hope I can make it to the start line healthy. So far so good. Then, I hope I can make it to the finish line. 

2017 Minneapolis Triathlon Race Recap

Minneapolis Lifetime Triathlon

Saturday July 8, 2017

1.5k/40k/10k

I like my race weight to be down around 195. At the start of the year, I was up about 15 pounds. It used to be I could lose 10 pounds in a few weeks, now it takes me half a year to lose 15. Oh well, at least I made it. I knew it was going to take a while this year so I tracked my weight. Here is the data.

Swim (0.93 Miles)
Goal: Fast
Actual: Good Enough
It was a beautiful day for a race. No wind, low humidity with a temp that started around 70° and moved up to around 80°. The water temp was just barely wetsuit legal, and I wore my sleeveless suit for the first time. Good choice, even without sleeves I was getting a little warm on the swim.

The swim started out going east, and that put the first turn right in the teeth of the sun. I couldn't see the buoy through the water reflection until I was right on top of it. After the first turn sighting was easier, but then my goggles started to fail. I had to stop twice to empty the water out of my goggles. I think this pair is about two years old, I suppose it's time for some new.

We started out two at a time in a time trial start. I must have been near some slow swimmers because it felt like I left everyone behind and swam alone for quite a while. After about 20 minutes I caught up to a pod ahead of me, and the fasts from the wave behind also caught me. There were a fair amount of weeds at the end of the swim, but overall it was a great swim.

Swim Time: 29:34 with a 1:48/100yards average

Swim Exit

Swim Rank
235 out of 582 finishers

169 out of 404 males

24 out of 65 age groupers

My time is noted in the green interval.

T1

Goal: Run, don't walk

Actual: That's not asking much.

Over the last year I've gotten into the habit of walking through transitions. It's a dumb way to build up time, and I expected I would need every second for my goal at this race. My last Olympic race was a couple years back, and I clocked a 3:09 on a course that was a little long. I figured I would be able to hit 3:05, but I really wanted to break 3 hours. So, I ran into transition and got on my bike as quick as I could. My transition time was right on average with the field. For field and male averages, check the stacked time graph at the end of this post.

T1 Time:  3:33

Position

235 out of the water 

251 out of T1 (582 racers)

Bike (24.5 miles)

Goal: About 1:20, beat 18mph

Actual: Boom Bitches!

This was a closed bike course. The roads were still a little tight even without cars, so I can understand why they close the area down. 

I had gotten more comfortable on my bars since the NewBriTri. I got in 30, 40 and 50 mile rides between the races, and that made all the difference. There were a lot of flats to the course and a lot of curves/turns; there were not many hills. My garmin has crapped out for elevation, but it's safe to say there wasn't a great deal of climb when compared to my route at home. 

I flew along pretty good, and stuck to a higher gear than what is common for me. There were a couple guys that I passed/passed me about four of five times. I was faster on the flats and the uphill, but they had the guts to fly on the downhill parts. I am totally a wuss on the downhill parts and often ride my breaks. Not a problem; I knew I was clocking a good time. If I was slower maybe I would have opened it up a bit on the downs. This was the fastest bike split I have ever had.

Bike Time:  1:14:42 with a 19.7 mph average

Bike Rank

314 out of 582 finishers

261 out of 404 males

39 out of 65 age groupers

T2

Goal: Fast

Actual: Yup

I had a fast T2. I felt good and I was optimistic for the run ahead. 

T2 Time:  1:53

Position

272 off the bike

261 out of T2

Run (6.2 miles)

Goal: Beat a 10 min/mile average

Actual: An All-timer

The only thing I knew about the run course was that it was a double loop. I had no idea if there were any hills. Coming out of T2, I could see that I had years of time to beat 3 hours. As long as I didn't blow up completely; I should be fine. Ten or eleven minute miles would have been enough. 

It turns out the the run course is wildly flat! There were no climbs of consequence, and only one or two inclines of nuisance. Plenty of folks passed me (as usual), but I passed a few as well. 

I did the first couple miles in about a 9:00 average. I was getting a little concerned that I might blow up, but this turned out to be my day. After the third mile, the course looped and I knew there were no worries. I kept my fastest pace possible without having to walk it off. I had the course short by about a tenth of a mile, but both my watch and the official time had it as my fastest 10k in over two years. 

Run Time:  56:36 with a 9:08 min/mile average

Run Rank

354 out of 576 run times

273 out of 399 male times

41 out of 63 age group times

There were a lot of handouts in the shoot. I took one of everything, and looked kind of greedy. Naturally,  someone got a pic.

Total Time: 2:46:16

312 out of 582 finishers

244 out of 404 males

37 out of 65 age groupers

Stacked Time Comparison

I cut 23 minutes off my previous Olympic time. I beat the field average for the swim, bike and total. I beat the male average for the swim. I'm quickly approaching the point where I'm only going to break personal records with some serious training. I suppose that's not the worse thing in the world. Great race, great day.