Candy
Ironman Arizona race report - be careful what you wish for...
Ironman race reports are soooo 2004 that I wasn’t going to bother doing one. But lots of people seem to be asking for one, and I have a transatlantic flight and a fully charged battery, so here goes. I’ll cut it and paste it when I get home, so it looks like I’m the world’s fastest typist (if not the world’s most competent ironman).
Despite what some people have been contemplating, I can tell you that crashing a motorbike and breaking your foot is not the best race preparation. In fact it’s rubbish. I had to spend ten weeks out of what should have been my three big training months doing an hour’s aqua jogging twice a week. That has to be the most mind numbing pastime imaginable. Even worse than doing long swims in a short pool. Plus of course it attracts the unwelcome attention of every chav in the pool (A.K.A. “floaters”) even more reliably than would having to fix a puncture outside a comprehensive school in the middle of a council estate at going-home-time whilst wearing pirate kit. Altogether not recommended.
So come taper time I hadn’t really done any training, and I had absolutely no idea about how fast I might try to go on race day. I’d just have to go by heart rate, and keep it prudent, and see what finishing time that came out with. Also I was a bit worried about surviving the run, since I hadn’t been able to run for more than an hour before tapering without my foot cramping up and making me hop home crying like a small girl. At least there was no risk of being overtrained.
One worthwhile tip I learned quite by chance is to research the course properly in advance. I happened to find the archived IMLive feed from last year’s race, and it banged on about how many punctures people got on the day. People DNFing due to getting more punctures than they had spare tubes, and other horror stories like that. I moaned about this on some thread or other, and Keg Killer confirmed that he’d been out cycling on the IMAZ bike course and had been plagued by punctures. Up to that point my plan had been to carry one spare tub with me and stash one in my special needs bag, and not bother with any tub sealant gunk because it had always been more trouble than it was worth in the past – clogging the valves up and spraying all over the living room carpet and generally getting me into bother with ‘er indoors. But I changed my mind and got straight onto Velomax to order four new Tufo Elite Road 23mms (the best tubs in the world for heavy road use!) and a big tube of sealant gunk.
We arrived a week before the race, and I met up with Serpie (and IM virgin) Ed McKinley on the Monday for a practice ride. One loop of the bike course, very relaxed. It was still a bit early in the week so there weren’t that many riders about. Just an Aussie who we hoped was a pro after he left us standing and vanished into the distance as soon as the lights turned green, and two other pairs of riders who we passed on the hard shoulder changing flats. Those nasty desert roads again! I definitely changed my plan now to carry two spare tubs with me, even if it meant sellotaping one to the crossbar or something. I still wasn’t quite convinced about using the sealant gunk though.
The just after the turnaround – bang! One of my brand new Tufos down the swanny, and £42.99 or whatever it is that they cost. Managed to do a roadside change in 8 minutes flat – which has to be good going for a tub change. During that 8 minutes I decided that using sealant gunk was definitely the way to go.
That meant stripping my tyres off, messing around with the gunk and gluing new ones on when I got back to the hotel. With two weeks still to stay there, I didn’t want to p*ss off housekeeping by making my room to look like I’d been shooting a messy porn film, so I went and did it outside. Probably over did it a bit as I managed to get a full tube of gunk (for 5-7 tyres) in two, although most of it went over my trousers. Now ironically at this point any tripetalkers (and Gumps) would really have creamed their trousers, because Spencer Smith came over to see what I was up to. I managed to get rid of him by regaling him with horror stories about the punctury nature of the course (see above). Crikey, I’ve never seen anybody move so fast, it was like shouting “MACBETH! MACBETH! MACBETH!” at an actor. As he disappeared, I yelled a few more puncture stories at his back to make sure he didn’t come back. Obviously my jinxing attempt failed completely though, as he had a bit of a storming bike ride. And swim. And run.
The race week build up was as exciting as ever, but with a relaxed southwestern vibe to it. We arrived early enough to see the athletes village gradually appearing in Tempe beach park. All credit to Graham Fraser, Paul Huddle and the rest of the IMNA team. Those guys are the best race organisers in the world. The vast majority of IM races are very well done (in fact all but one of the ones I’ve done), but the IMNA team are in a league of their own. Their attention to detail is amazing, and the race could have been a lot more difficult without it. Also they produce great expos. I lost myself for two full days in there, although I must have put on a stone in weight from the free Fig Newtons and Gatorade being forced on me every time I walked past their stands. I really must learn to say no.
The weather forecaster kept changing his mind – every day the prediction for Sunday got hotter. At the start of the week it was a pleasant 80 degrees, but by Thursday it had already reached 90. It was going to be hot.
Went for a practice swim on Thursday. Tempe town lake lived up to it’s reputation of being murky… and then some. It was the worst visibility I’d ever swum in, much worse than Rutland Water or Sherborne. Kind of a solid opaque khaki colour, except under the bridges where it was an inky black. The lake runs east-west, or west-east, and the swim goes straight into the rising desert sun. So you couldn’t see a bl**dy thing when you popped your head up out of the water, either. There was a line of orange buoys to follow somewhere, but there were about 20 people treading water and squinting and nobody could see them. Then I had the brainwave of heading straight for the sun. It worked a treat. I passed within a few yards of each buoy on the way down. Coming back the buoys were yellow, but with the sun behind you they were easy to pick out.
Race day came around scarily quickly, and it was up at 3:30 am for a big breakfast. A couple of weeks ago I read something by a sports physiologist that suggested not eating in the three hours before the race, to promote fat burning and spare muscle glycogen. Bearing in mind the Pirate motto “Always try something new on race day”, I thought I’d give it a shot. So I stuffed myself with 1500 calories or so before 4 am, and then stuck to water.
I don’t much like deepwater starts, and this one was even more annoying as we had to tread water while some bloke sang the star spangled banner, but soon enough the cannon sounded and we were off. The zero-visibility made this the roughest swim I’d ever done, by a long way. Not because people were being rough, but because everybody was swimming blind. You couldn’t see people’s bubbles or anything. You couldn’t see your own shoulder, in wetsuit black. You couldn’t even see people’s feet until they were just about to smack you in the face. A white blur would materialise about 8 inches in front of your eyes, and then… wallop. I got kicked more times than I could count, and almost lost my goggles twice, except by a stroke of randomness I’d put them on before my cap so they stayed on my head. Still, treading water to try and reseal them was a bit of a pain with people repeatedly slamming into you.
The aquatic rugby scrum continued for 2.3 miles – right to the last turnaround. It probably didn’t help that I’d been practising my navigation, so I swam a dead straight line right by the buoys, presumably in the most crowded water. One I tried swimming inside the buoys to find some calm water, but something bit or stung me on the heel. Probably just a wasp or something, but I immediately started having paranoid fantasies about swimming rattlesnakes and stray (by about 2000 miles!) alligators, so I put my boxing gloves back on and headed back to the brawl.
After the last turnaround, either everybody I was swimming with put on a spurt or I suddenly faded. I got completely dropped by the group I’d been swimming with. The steps out of the water and the crowd of volunteers was inching towards me at a ridiculously slow pace, that last couple of hundred yards took ages. The temporary metal steps only went a foot beneath the surface, in deep water. Huddle’s tip for getting out of the water had been to swim right into them and grab the third step up out of the water, so you were naturally kneeling on the bottom step. However I saw people struggling to get up, falling over, legs buckling and all sorts, so I decided that looking like a numpty would have to be the better part of valour this morning. So I turned backwards and plomped my arse down on the bottom step, then shuffled up them one step at a time until I could get my footing.
About 1:30 for the swim. I wasn’t happy at all with that. One upside of the broken foot was that I’d spent a lot more time in the pool. I’d got my “steady 400m” time down to 6:45, and I’d done the full IM distance swim in 1:04. A lot of it was down to the roughness, but some of it was down to generally not feeling comfortable in the murky lake. I’m always crapper in open water, but I’d been hoping for 1:12, or at the very worst for a swim PB (previously –and still- 1:22 at Florida).
But the first rule of Ironman is to live in the moment. Being annoyed about what’s already happened is almost as stupid as worrying about how far you’ve still got to go. Save the analysis until after the race. So I let some women lay me down and pull off my wettie (sorry, can never resist that one) and then I legged it round transition.
One feature of IMNA races is that they always have incredibly long transitions. This is great for spectators but, err, it makes your transition times a bit longer. Here you had to run right around the back of the field where the T1 bags were laid out in rows, run down the row and find your bag, run into a changing tent (Uncle Sam frowns on nudity) then run across the park to where the bikes were racked. After the unfortunate incident in Florida where I forgot my race number and tried to get changed into a small Canadian woman’s bike kit, I had the brainwave of fastening dayglo straps to the strings of both my T bags. It worked a treat. Well it would have, had the organisers not got some “bag volunteers” to call ahead your race number and have somebody holding out your bag for you when you got there.
What to wear had been bugging me all week. Not from an aesthetic point of view, but because whatever I wore, I was going to get horribly sunburnt on the bike. My schoolgirl complexion ALWAYS gives me nasty burns, and no amount of sun cream can stop it. Pirate kit (2-piece but with a nice collar) would give me a burn across the bottom of the back, or my 1-piece would give a burn across the back of the neck and behind the shoulders. By Friday I was 99% certain on pirate kit, because my mum always used to say that a sunburnt neck could give you heatstroke.
But then I saw some rednecks drive past in a pickup, and I had the brainwave of wearing a run cap backwards beneath my bike helmet – so the peak covered my neck. Bearing in mind the pirate motto about trying as many new things as you can on race day, I just had to go with this option. So it was Serpie one-piece baby grow and backwards hillbilly hat. It would have worked a treat too, if I’d chosen a run cap without a button on the top. The button was right under one of the hard bits on my helmet, and it drilled a hole in my scalp over the course of the bike leg. If any anthropologists dig up my fossilised remains in a million years time, gawd knows what they’ll make of the dent in my skull.
There seemed to be loads of bikes still in T1 when I checked out, but it must have been an optical illusion because I was something like 1500th out of 2000 out of the water. It’s just occurred to me that a few people have been talking about doing Lanzarote, and I’ve seen Barlist comment in the past that times at Lanza are only X slower that the average Ironman so it can only be Y% harder and he’d only need Z more hours a week training. Y and Z were 20 and 2. The missing factor here is that the quality of the field is vastly superior at Lanza. All of my IM swims have been 1:22 to 1:32, excluding Austria where I got cramp then went off on a bit of a detour around the lake. Usually in that range, T1 is still quite busy. Lots of bikes still in their racks. But at Lanza, I came out of the water in 1:25 and there were only 4 bikes in transition. It was a bit of a walk of shame going down that long, deserted racking area with only the Spanish tumbleweed to keep me company. I’m not saying don’t do it – everybody has to at least once – just don’t underestimate how much harder than all the others it is.
Anyhoo, Ironman Arizona. The bike course was three loops, out out Tempe and through the Pima-Maricopa Indian reservation out into the desert. Thanks to the Indians for allowing the race to use their land, and thanks for all the support they gave out on Beeline Hwy on the day (in a dignified, Indian kinda way!). Blimey, it’s hot and dry out in that desert. The comedy post cards in Wal*Mart were all along the same theme: a skeleton slumped against a cactus, with the slogan “Arizona: It’s a dry heat.” Whilst that isn’t a glowing testament to Phoenix as a hotbed of comedic creativity, it does give a clue about the conditions. It really did take it out of you, too. I usually drink 500ml/hour, and pee continually. On a really hot UK summers day, it might go to 750ml/hour. Here I’d planned on 1000ml/hour to be on the safe side – but I still needed more.
I don’t use aid stations for calories any more. Bear in mind that most races use powdered drink, which they pour into a big barrel of water and stir with a paddle. We’ve all used powdered lucozade/Gatorade/GO, and we all know that mixing it with a spoon is absolutely ****ing useless. So taking your energy from aid stations is just silly. You’re either going to get coloured water from the top of the barrel, or thick powdery syrup from the bottom. Either way it isn’t ideal. So my bike nutrition plan was 2x750ml of 8% GO (with one lavasalt mixed in each) behind the seat, 750ml water in the aerobottle, and 4 EAS gels topped up with water in a 750ml bottle on the frame. 3 litres of water, and 1400 calories, and plenty of electrolytes. I had exactly the same in my special needs bag (special needs was at mile 60, just after half way). That should have been plenty on paper, but it wasn’t on the day. I was dry as a bone all day.
But those wonderful IMNA people didn’t use powder, and they didn’t use crappy so-called “sports drink” with pitiful levels of electrolytes either. It was sports bottles of proper liquid Gatorade, and the new “endurance formula” – with twice as much electrolytes as their “thirst quencher” that most other races use. They even had ice machines at every aid station so it was nicely chilled. Faultless organisation. In addition to my whopping 6 litres I’d planned to use, I took 4 gatorades and 2 waters en route.
I had planned to need a pee before the end of the first loop, just to make sure I was fully hydrated. Didn’t manage it, but I did at around mile 45. I stood up in the pedals and let rip, and it felt like it had come out of the hot tap – really hot down my legs. I’ve never had that before - the inside of my body must have been like an oven! Some woman behind me squealed in disgust at me peeing on the bike. Bl**dy amateurs.
Felt great for the first half of the bike. I kept realising that I was doing an Ironman (and that I hadn’t drowned) and that always gives me a huge buzz. I’m the world’s least gifted athlete, rubbish genes and I always came last at sports day, by miles. So I do always allow myself a bit of time to enjoy being there and make the most of the day.
Got to special needs and restocked. Then when I tried to set off again, I clipped my right foot in (as usual) pushed down on the pedal (as usual) lifted my left foot off the ground (as usual) and toppled over sideways (which was a bit unexpected). Fortunately several other people’s special needs bags broke my fall – all those PB&J sandwiches and slices of cake made for a lovely soft landing. I rolled around a bit to make sure that everything was squashed completely flat, and then a very annoyed looking volunteer hauled me up and asked if I was OK. Managed to set off without falling over or crashing.
I’d bought some new bike shoes just before the race, really cool white ones (Specialized tri-vent or something). Hadn’t really had time to try them out or wear them in beforehand though, just on the course ride with Ed. They were obviously a bit tighter across the top than the ones I’d been training in. Riding back into town on lap 2, I could feel an ominous itching inside my left foot. This is the fist sign that the ganglion thing in my foot is rubbing on the nerve, and it’s closely followed by horrible painful cramps. I’ve only ever had it when running before though – those damn new shoes. My plan had been to take three ibuprofen just before finishing the bike, to hold this off from happening on the run. I’d stuck 6 to my tribars using mounting tape (in case I dropped three!). I hadn’t wanted to take ibuprofen before then, because it apparently affects liver function and can screw up your electrolyte balance. But my foot really started to hurt, so I took two just before the end of lap 2.
Felt crap on lap 3 with my foot, I had been bang on 6 hour pace until then (which was a pleasant surprise given that I hadn’t been training) but it hurt so much that it was hard to ignore, and my pace went through the floor. Then the tablets took effect just after the turnaround, plus of course I’d done 95 miles or so and had less than 20 to go, so my spirits lifted, the pain went away and I picked up the pace. Not very much as the wind had shifted through 180 degrees and was now in my face, but I passed a fair few people on the way back in. Overall I think I passed about 400 people on the bike, something like that, so I reached T2 in about 1100th place out of 2000.
Again the transition area was elaborate. A lot of fuss given that all I wanted to do was change my shoes and switch my hat for a Lawrence of Arabia one. But I was in and out as quick as I could manage.
The run course was very hot. Without the air cooling effect, you felt it much more than on the bike. The aid stations were fantastic though. Icy sponges – ice – Gatorade –water – gu – cookies – pretzels – cola – water – icy sponges. I couldn’t face sports drink, and gu would have caused an instant, violent reaction of the type guaranteed to make Hoose gunk his pants, so the cookies were a godsend. Choc chip or coconut went down best, but I tried them all. This, plus water, and half a tub of lava salts got me round. I really went to town with the ice and the sponges, because it was so hot.
I just fell into a comfortable cadence and a relaxed run, which happened to be around 8:00 pace. That plus walking the aid stations gave about 8:30 overall. The first lap went fine, but then my foot started doing its thing. It cramped up every half mile or so. Not really a problem, because stopping to press down hard on the top of the arch with both thumbs fixes it completely, for a while. I took three more ibuprofen to help control it, but having to stop to ar$e around with my foot every 800 yards knocked my overall pace back a bit. I think it went down to 9:30 for the second half of the run, with about 9:00 overall or something like that.
I thought I was hallucinating at one point. Half way round the first lap I came to an aid station that seemed to be manned entirely by gorgeous 20 year olds in skimpy camouflage gear. A desert mirage? But then the second time around, just before reaching that point, some guy said that the most scenic part of the course was coming up. This time I took more notice. It was a sorority house from ASU, I think it was “alpha phi”. Lorks a lawdy. Alpha Phi’s selection policies are to be commended. They seemed to include the elbow test. I almost did an extra loop of the run course.
I almost broke convention by finishing in daylight, but not quite. I finally came in around 500th, so I passed 600 people on the run, or thereabouts. Finished in 12 hours 12 minutes, either a full hour off my PB, or only an hour off my PB depending on how you look at it. Very pleased with the result, given the rubbish preparation.
Ed came 8th in his age group – missed out on the Hawaii slot he didn’t want by 2 places in the roll down.
Overall a fantastic day, and a fantastic event. Whatever it is that makes us go back and put ourselves through all that pain again and again, IMAZ has it in abundance. It was very hard though. Apparently the DNF rate was 11%, which is> enormous.
The end.