My First Full Ironman - Wisconsin 2005

My first Ironman. It was a really tough day. The race director has dubbed this race the "Carnage Man", as it had the highest DNF percentage (19%!!) out of any Ironman race conducted in the past 20 years. Temperatures reached 94 degrees and it was really windy on the bike. The heat, hills, humidity, and wind took it's toll - over 200 people didn't make the bike cutoff and were pulled off the course. On top of all this, the air quality was at a poor rating (more on this later).


Before I begin my race day, I should mention that all through my training I would see butterflies. They seemed to fly in front of me & beside me during almost all of my training runs and I came to think of them as my spiritual cheerleaders. Seeing a butterfly would always lift my spirits during a training run. I knew that if I saw them out on the course I would surely finish.


After spending the prior three days in a nervous coma (phrase coined by Mike), I was glad to wake up to the actual race morning. One year of work was finally going to pay off. I was unusually calm race day morning. Everything went smoothly pre-race. I got in the water with enough time to wedge myself into the second row fairly close to the buoys. After swimming a bit of the course Saturday morning, I had decided to get close (but not right next to) the course
buoys, as starting wide would add a good extra 200yds to my swim. There were 2000 people starting at once, so I was going to get clobbered wherever I started, I figured I might as well swim the shortest distance as possible. This was my first experience starting with males (they made up 75% of the athletes), and let me say they are quite a bit more aggressive than females. I got elbowed in the face once pretty good, and got kicked & clawed in the ribs and legs more times than worth counting. Things finally started to spread out after making the turn around for the second lap. At the start of this lap another woman was next to me and we were swimming stroke for stroke the same speed. After 5-10 minutes of this I decided to let her go ahead and I slipped in behind her for the draft. That was great, as I just had to follow her feet as she maneuvered through all the people. Going the same speed with 20% less effort! I did this until there was a quarter lap left. My drafter started sighting poorly and wasn't swimming in a straight line anymore, so I went solo in from there. I got kicked a few times in the ribs (I hate it when people stop to sight and then do a breaststroke kick), but otherwise it was painless. I did feel my triceps throbbing at the end, but I wouldn't be needing them the rest of the day, so all was good.


Swim 2.4miles 1:03:04 11/111 in my age group


Exiting the swim was a breeze. Volunteers pull you up and out and then you lie down on the ground and more volunteers pull off your wetsuit. This was really cool - I hate getting out of my wetsuit! From there I grabbed my wetsuit and ran up two stories of the parking lot ramp to the transition area. The ramp was swamped with spectators cheering, so it didn't take much effort to get up to the hallway. From the hallway you run into a ballroom, volunteers shout out your number and another volunteer grabs your wetsuit and your transition bag and leads you over to the changing room. There you can sit on a chair as the volunteer dumps out your bag and asks what they can do for you. Mine was great - she unsnapped my race belt, laid everything out and got me a cup of water. I put on my socks, helmet, and race belt and ran out the door, down the hall again to the parking lot where the bikes were racked. I was carrying my shoes and had planned to put them on at my bike (so I didn't have to run in my clips), but the ground was wet at the entry point (they had cups of water there), so I stopped and put them on there so I wouldn't get my socks wet. I ran to my bike, a couple of volunteers unracked it for me, I ran wayyyy down to the other end, then mounted my bike to ride down the ramp.


T1 6:36


I saw Maggie (my sister-in-law) on the ramp on the way down, and then I was off. For all of you unfamiliar with the bike course, it's a two loop lollipop. You ride a straight stretch out to Verona, do two loops through Mt Horeb and Cross Plains, and then ride the stick back to Madison. Once on the bike I tried to relax and get my heart rate down from a raging 150. My plan was to keep my HR in the 130s for the bike so I didn't blow up on the run. Since I had never ridden the course before, I didn't know what speed that would be. It seemed like forever (it was about 20 minutes) before my heart rate came down and I was able to relax into a good cadence. There are a ton of turns in the first 5 miles, so it's hard to get any speed going. Once I hit the first hills on the lollipop stick, I was feeling good and enjoying myself. There were a lot of farmers and other townsfolk out at the end of their driveways cheering us on. Shortly after starting the first loop, I saw the sign that gave me the best laugh all day - it was "Holy F**K - You're doing an Ironman!". The first loop of the bike was awesome. After training in the Santa Cruz mountains and foothills all year, the hills at this race were small & I was cruising up and down them & having a blast. It was so much easier than the computrainer course (you can't get much momentum transfer off of hills on that - for those of you that don't know it's a bike trainer) and easier than our usual training ride at home. I saw my first butterfly at about mile 15. It was a small white one, not unlike the butterflies at home. That put a huge smile on my face, and relaxed me a lot. I saw the second one right by the Virgin Mary statue. That was also cool. In all I saw 20 butterflies on the first loop. Old Sauk Pass was very cool. Just like I had read from other race reports, it was just like the Tour de France. People lining the hill, leaving a narrow path for you to ride through - everyone shouting your name. The only negative on the first loop was pain in the balls of my feet starting around mile 54. This hadn't happened in training except on really long rides (100-125 miles) so that was disappointing, and no matter how I tried to shift my feet, I couldn't get rid of the pain. It followed me through the rest of the bike. In hindsight, my feet probably swelled from the heat and this put more pressure on my clips. Nonetheless, I was feeling great and right on target for a 6:15 bike split when it got realllllly hot and reallllly windy.


On the first loop, there was a noticeable head wind for maybe 5 out of the 42 miles, on the second loop there was a headwind for roughly 40 of the 42 miles. The stretch from Verona to Mt Horeb felt easy the first loop, on the second loop I was battling the wind & was hoping it would dissipate at every turn. Somehow, with the exception of a few downhills, the wind would switch direction all the way around the course. There was a headwind all the way around the loop! It was crazy. I felt bad for the slower swimmers and bikers that would experience that headwind for both loops. So now the temperatures were really starting to rocket and I knew I wouldn't be seeing as many butterflies on the second loop. I still saw 10 more and four of these were Monach butterflies that floated right out in front of my bike (no, I didn't hit any of them!). On the second loop, those butterflies really helped cleanse me of any negative thoughts. They always seemed to appear right when my foot pain was intensifying, or when I started having negative thoughts about doing what I was doing. Going up Old Sauk Pass this time, someone yelled "Hey, red bike, it's you again - pull over, we've got bacon on the grill!" Mike said that the devil (a guy always dresses up as a devil and hangs out on this hill every year) had bacon on his pitch fork and was waving it in front of people. On the second loop I was starting to worry about Mike, as I was expecting him to pass me on the first loop. I figured since he's so big, the heat was taking a heavy toll on him. He did pass me around mile 90, and it was awesome to see him! That was a big relief and allowed me to relax once again. I will say, this was the first time that I ever saw people laid out on the grass (in the shade) on the side of the road. One guy pulled over to the side a few feet in front of me, got off his bike, and did a nestea plunge right into the grass. The race director mentioned that at a usual race, ambulances pick up 20 people off the bike course. This race, it was somewhere around 220 people. I heard ambulances screaming all day long. I'd say hundreds of people passed me on the bike. I just stuck with my mantra of relaxed, patient, strong, and let them go by. They were either much faster than me, or I'd be seeing them on the marathon. And see them on the marathon, I did!

112 mile bike 6:35:03 27/111 in my age group


By the time I got off my bike at T2, I didn't much feel like talking. It was outstanding to have a volunteer take my bike (I didn't have to rack it - hooray!). My feet were absolutely killing me, so I took off my bike shoes so I wouldn't have to run on my clips. I carried them into the T2 room, and sat down in a fog. The air conditioning felt great. I changed my socks, put on my run shoes, took one long drag off of my inhaler, and was off. Got slathered with sunscreen, took a quick stop at the portos and started my run.


T2 3:31


The run started off HOT. It was about 2:45 when I started, so I knew it would keep getting hotter until about 4:00. So, I dumped ice into my hat at the aid stations and held more in my hands as I ran. This did wonders in keeping my body temp down. My feet were throbbing the first mile, and then either I got used to the pain, or it subsided enough so that I could stop thinking about it. I passed Mike about 15 minutes into the run. He still looked good, I gave him some ice out of my hand and squeezed and went on. I was a little disappointed to find that there were no people in the stadium as we ran around, but it was nice to run on the turf instead of the cement. My plan was to keep my heart rate in the low 140s, so I was sticking to that. At the end of the first 10K, :55 had passed and I thought I'd be able to reach my sub-4 marathon goal. Then, at around this same point my hands began to tingle - a slight pins and needles like both hands were asleep. I tried not to think about it too much, but this continued for the last 20 miles of the marathon. I also slowed down to 10 minute miles for the second half of the first loop. Heart rate was the same, but I was slower. At the time, I thought this was just a matter of my body saying "Hey, aren't we done now?" since I didn't do any transition runs longer than an hour in training. However, in hindsight, I now know the hand tingling meant I wasn't getting enough oxygen and I just couldn't go any faster without it hurting. I passed hundreds of people on the run, so that was really cool - kept giving me the will to go, go go. Every time we ran on State Street, I was looking for my parents, Daria and Max, but unfortunately I never saw them. Our timing was off. I did see Chris 3 times (or I should say Chris saw me 3 times - I always ended up shouting his name after he had passed and my brain registered who that was that was talking to me!). I also saw Maggie on Observatory Hill the second time around, so that was cool. I did see Mike again (or rather he saw me) with about 1.5 miles to go. The last 10K I was able to ratchet my speed up to 9 minute miles (well, close to that) and at mile 25 I realized that I only had 9 minutes to go 1+.2 miles if I wanted to finish in under 12 hours. I dug deep and thoroughly enjoyed the run down the finisher's chute. It's pretty amazing to have hundreds of people shouting your name - gives you that rock star feeling for a bit :)


Run 4:11:40 3/111 in my age group


Total time 11:59:52 6/111 in my age group


So after I finished, two volunteers walked me around and asked me how I felt. I told them about my hands and they walked me over to the med tent. They weighed me (I was half a pound heavier than at weigh in) so that wasn't the issue. Then they had me drink half a coke (this tasted sickly sweet to me), plus they gave me some chicken broth. Then, as I was sitting there I realized I was about to have an asthma attack, but I hadn't carried my albuterol with me. The med tent had been sent air meters instead of inhalers, so I had to go sit in an ambulance to get a nebulizer treatment. Of course, my dad is watching me go into the ambulance without knowing what's going on. They even started up the engine to get the AC running - when I came out he yelled at me. Something about being insane and jeopardizing my health - and I'd better never do one of these again! I had never had an asthma attack in warm weather before, but then I had never exercised for 12 hours straight before, either. Next time I'll be sure to use a preventative inhaler the week before the race. Next time? Yeah, next time. I was too close to going to Kona for there not to be a next time. Top four in my age group automatically got slots to Kona and I was 3 minutes from 4th place. One of those four people denied their bid, so one slot rolled down to 5th place (I was two minutes from 5th). Soooooooooo close. Arrgh. I'm a firm believer that things happen for a reason, so I'll be riding my bike a lot this winter to make up some time. If I had qualified I don't think I would have quite the desire to improve that I have now.


In all, it was a great day. One that I won't forget. I think I will be sticking to half-ironmans next year, but I'll be back for more in 2007

!