IRONMAN TEXAS
NORTH AMERICAN CHAMPIONSHIP
WOODLANDS TEXAS, 14 MAY 2016
THE SHORT VERSION:
THE LONG VERSION (hide your wife, hide your kids)
The swim was wetsuit optional-and having learnt my lesson from Boulder I took that option. Wetsuiters started at the back. I thought this might be an issue having to navigate through the back of the non wetsuit pack, but I underestimated how easy it is to swim past people when you have the buoyancy of a beach ball. Now I no how the strong swimmers like Mars and McFarland feel when they swim past my sorry ass back home.
Swim was good. Went with the wetsuit. Swam as straight as I could and had no incidents.
Time : 1:12:23
Bike was okay. Very twisty. And short. 95 miles instead of 112.
Time: 5:04:52. Pretty pleased with it considering the 83 turns we had to take.
Run was eventful. 4:35 moving time, 5:20 elapsed as we had to stop for 45 minutes due to a thunderstorm. This is my first IM run where I didn't walk other than the aid stations. Pity about the rain but what can you do.
11:50 gun time, 11:05 moving time. Roughly adjusted to something over 12 because of the 17 miles missing on the bike course.
All in all a tough day but probably easier being a participant than an organizer.
Daaaaaamn! What a friggen sh*t show that was.
Up until 22km in the run I thought I'd have nothing to write about :) . So let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start)
The pre race drama:
As many of you may know, the organizers had a nightmare putting the bike course together with residents on one section of the course telling IM to F-off and go elsewhere. Some recent flooding added to the misery. There was a real danger of the whole race being cancelled, but the organizers patched together a course with the help of a neighboring county. (All be it 17 short of 112 miles)
They gave some deferral options but Conrad was sick of training so we decided to stick with the race.
MYSELF, CONRAD AND JEFF AFTER BIKE CHECK IN
The swim:
The course changed last minute due to water contamination in the canal section. Worked out well though, the final course was perfect. This also meant a change in where T1 would be.
I took an inside line and swam mostly on my own in clear water. I passed maybe a 1000 people and didn't get hit once. Only Jesus could have done better.
1:12 easy breezy. Transition in and out.
The bike course wasn't too bad considering the hurdles. I felt bad for the cars backed up for miles. There were two accidents. I saw the one, a 3 car pile up, it was bad. I felt beastly on the bike in the first half and dialed it back. Chris passed me 40 miles in. No sign of Conrad. Drank a ton of orange Gatorade ( just writing about it makes me wanna puke ) and peed FOUR TIMES on the bike. You wanna hear about it? Didn't think so.
T2.
Looooong run to the bikes.
The run:
Pretty boring so far right?
(I blame the following events on all the cry babies complaining about how hot it was)
I paced myself easy, having finally learnt my lesson from blowing up in so many previous races. Conrad cruised by me 5k in or so. We chatted a bit but I had to tell him to get on with it. Lazy git.
On my second loop Jeff rolled up next to me. He was having a nightmare of a day (a race report on its own). I managed to stick with him pretty easily as he was taking in the sights and smells of the available porta potties. At about 21k it started to rain. At 22 the lightning started. At 25 it was a hurricane.
At one of the timing mats they told us to get off the course and seek shelter. We were told that the clocks would be stopped.
(They lied!)
So Jeff and I huddled on the porch of some country club house along with a hundred other happy campers. Some people carried on, ignoring the threats of a DQ from officials (and risking electrocution)
OUR SHELTER FROM THE RAIN. It was clearing up at this point but we found out later that the finish line had been blown down so they made us wait longer.
Jeff went hypothermic and my teeth were starting to chatter. 45 minutes later they told us we could keep going. If you've ever run then stopped you know what it's like.
By that stage Jeff was white. I don't know if it was the cold or the state of the porta pottie we had to use. Anyone ever see Trainspotting? Shit everywhere. EVERYWHERE!!!!!
I managed to get my stride back and ploughed on in the rain. Had a sip of some dudes beer; made me feel better. The crazy crowd, who were so fantastic on the first loop, had packed up and left. I made some buddies on the run, shared some stories to pass the time.
Felt good coming in, happy to be done. No cramps, no stopping, no walking except for aid stations. 4:35 moving time on the run. An IM PB for me by a full hour.
The day was a total wash as far as times go. If I had to calculate it worked out to probably a 12:15/12:30 finish assuming I'd be a bit more buggered adding 17 miles to the bike. 11:50 elapsed, 11:05 moving time.
After finishing and picking up our race bags Conrad and I felt that the day wasn't complete. So we walked out bikes and gear 2 miles in the pouring rain back to the hotel. It was a great walk and really made me appreciate the luxuries we take for granted every day of our lives: Food, Water, HOT water, Clean clothes, a roof over our heads, Good friends and........Beer!
It was a disaster of a day but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I did spare a thought for the people who were still out there on the course, some still on their bikes when the rain came. Some still on the first loop of the 3 loop course when we finished.
Thanks Jeff for another great race. Fun times brother. Conrad and Chris - well done chaps - solid.
Also thanks to my training buddies and everyone who tracked the race.
See you guys on the road. Except for Conrad - his bike is probably on ecay by now.
No comments:
Post a Comment