Nick, Justin, Me, my P3 and a hacksaw!

Caution, some readers may find the following graphic details disturbing.

Ok, so it all started out well and with the best of intentions.

It’s been two weeks since Ironman Louisville and I was ready for a good brick workout and really looking forward to getting out for a good ride with the guys. Nick and Justin are in the thick of their Miami 70.3 training and I was really looking forward to getting out with them after my rest week. I didn’t have a whole lot to do the bike, it was pretty much ready to go from Louisville and the only thing missing was the pedals.

During recovery week, I needed something to do, so I decided to build the P2 back up. I had stripped it down for a thorough cleaning and to touch up a few stone chips. I had enough spare parts around and since I’m thinking of selling it to buy a power meter, I thought it would be better to have it ready to test ride in case I found a buyer. Once I had it ready to go, I had to move the pedals over off the P3, as the only thing I didn’t have was a spare set of pedals. I rode the P2 last week and everything was great.

So Saturday morning, I took the pedals off the P2 and went to put them in the P3 to get ready to ride. I grabbed one of the pedals, bent down and started to thread it into the crank arm, it’s not catching. That’s strange, I try the other side, same thing, I can’t get either side to thread in. OK, that’s weird I tell myself. I double check to make sure I’m trying the pedal on the correct side and I orient the pedals to the crank arms as I would see them from the perspective of clipping in and I have them right. I try again, can’t get either one to start. OK, I think to myself, I have them on the correct side, but maybe I have the right hand/left hand threads mixed up. I look it up in the book and check to make sure I’m turning them the right way, yes I am. Still won’t catch?

What the hell? Now I’m really starting to sweat, we’re riding at 11:00 and I really want to ride today and its 10:55, they’re expecting me at 11:00. I call Nick “You’re not going to believe this” I tell him, “I can’t get my pedals on” “What? Nick says, I tell him again, “Impossible, we’ll be there in 5 minutes” he says and hangs up. Now I’m really freaking out, the last thing I want to do is hold these guys up, it’s an absolutely beautiful day and I know how important it is for them to get their ride in and I really want to ride!

I run down to the basement and grab an old set of Time pedals, I run back upstairs and try them. I can’t get them started either! I screw them into the crank arm backwards to make sure they’re good, no problem. But unfortunately they won’t go through far enough to reach the outboard threads. Try to screw the Look pedals in the same way, they’re too short too. Oh shit, now what? I check my tap and die set and don’t have anything close to that size, forget about that idea. What now? I think to myself, well they just came off the P2 crank, right, so I’ll put them back on. I run down to the basement and, no problem, they thread right in. OK, now I’ll swap the entire crank so I can ride. The chain will be too short, but I’ll stay out of those gears. I pull the crank off the P2 and run with it back upstairs to the garage. Pull the FSA crank out of the P3 and push the spindle of the P2 crank into the bottom bracket. Not the best set up, but at least I can ride.

Nick and Justin arrive at the open garage door and stand there and look at the mess I’ve created all over the floor of the garage. Tools and parts are everywhere. I explain again to Nick again what’s going on. “Can’t happen” he says as he picks up one of the pedals and tries it in the crank arm, it’s going on, I can’t believe it. I look at it and then at Nick with disbelief. “You must have had them on the wrong way”, he says.” I didn’t, I swear”, I say as I try to defend myself from looking like a complete idiot! He tries the other side and gets it threaded on as well. Well, now I’m relieved, I really was hoping there wasn’t anything wrong with my nice FSA carbon crank. Believe me, I used to race cars and I’ve taken apart and put things much more complex back together properly.

Alright, with the pedals back on the crank, let’s put the crank back on the P3 and get out of here. I start to unwind the crank arm off the older FSA crank and it gets about halfway and stops. What now! I keep turning and it’s not moving. It looks like in my haste to get the crank on, I installed the left side arm one spline off and it’s stuck. What am I going to do now, it won’t come off and it won’t go on. There is a space of about 10mm between the crank arm and the bottom bracket. We try to screw it on and off and it’s not going anywhere. I’m going to get a hacksaw I announce, it’s the only way to get it off.

Nick and Justin look at me like I’ve totally lost my mind. “What other choice do we have” I say? Nick tries to move it with a screw driver, but it’s not budging. I run to the basement and grab a hacksaw. I carefully start cutting through the spindle. Poor Justin is looking at the whole scene like he’s come across a bad car accident. “I never seen anything like this” he says. Nick and I take turns braking hacksaw blades and after about 10 minutes, we finally make it through. We tap it out and jam the FSA crank, with the pedals attached, back in. Operation complete.
I take a deep breath and off we finally go. Unfortunately, my bad day wasn’t over quite yet. We had just gotten up on to Aurora Side Road when I ride over something that punctures my rear tire. First flat of the year. I pull over and turn back and look at Nick, shaking my head, I tell him I have a flat, I can’t believe it. Fortunately, fixing a flat is not a problem and I had it changed and we were back on our way in short order.

Pulling away, I tell them, if anything else happens to me on this ride, just leave me and go! Oh well at least all this happened after my races and not during! Thanks for putting up with all that mess boys, I promise not to be as much trouble next time out! Hopefully that is as close as you’ll come to having trouble over the next couple of months!

Anyone Can Do It !

By far the most common reaction I get when people hear about my participation in Ironman triathlon is “That’s amazing! I could never do anything like that.” Although swimming 3.8 kms, then biking 180 kms, then running a full 42.2 kms marathon all in one day may seem like a daunting task, it really is something that anyone can do if they really commit to it.

In the book Going Long: Training for Triathlon’s Ultimate Challenge , elite triathlon coaches Joe Friel and Gordon Byrn say: “the truth is, anyone can do the distance if they want it badly enough”, and I agree. If you think that you’re too old, too young, too out of shape, too busy, or too nonathletic to do an Ironman, then here are some 2010 Ironman Louisville competitors that will prove you wrong.

Ken Fetters
Ironman and MS - for most people, these two ideas have no place in the same sentence. Ken Fetters isn't most people - he's an Ironman triathlete who just happens to have multiple sclerosis (MS). 43-years old, Ken battled constant health issues and numbness before being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Most deservedly, Ford Ironman Louisville recognized Ken Fetters, of Portland, Oregon, with the 2010 Everyday Hero award. It's an award bestowed upon one athlete among thousands, at each of the eight full, Ford Ironman events, recognizing his or her significant contributions to a person, charity or organization while balancing the rigors of Ironman training. For the past two years, Ken has been a player and fundraiser for Team DefeatMS in Bend, Oregon. Funds raised by the Team were then given to the National MS Society in the name of MS research. In four years, they have raised more than $100,000 raised.

Kurt Kahl
73-year-old Kurt Kahl started competing in triathlons when he was 50. From Madison, Indiana Kirk was in Louisville to finish his 39th Ironman, 17 of those in Kona. "It’s not about your age," he said at the welcome dinner. "It’s about your training. My goal is to be there at 80, like my friend Bob Scott." (Bob was the oldest competitor in the race). He is another amazing athlete, setting the record for being the first person over 70 years of age to go under 12 hrs in Kona.

Zachary Phillips
A former high school football player, 18 year old Zachary Phillips was in a car accident a few years ago and is lucky to have come out of it alive. He spent three months in hospital after the crash - he only remembers one month of that time. "The doctors told me I would never do sports again," he says. Competing tomorrow is his way of proving those doctors wrong, but he's also using it as a chance to raise money for the hospital he spent all that time in. His brother started doing triathlons last year and, according to Zachary, "set the goals high." As the youngest competitor in tomorrow's race, Phillips has set some pretty high goals, but considering what he's already overcome, he seems ready to take those on here in Louisville.


Alex Kuhn
When Alex Kuhn found his weight was just under 300 lbs., he realized he had to make some changes.Since he works with the American Heart Association, he felt indebted to "live what I was preaching. It was hard for me to carry that message." Kuhn started walking, then started running. Now he says "marathons just weren't enough," which is why he was attracted to Ironman. He's lost 125 pounds in his journey to the Lousiville starting line.

Cassie Scull
19-year-old Cassie Scull got into multisport since she enjoyed swimming and running in high school. From New Jersey, she was the youngest woman in the race in Louisville. She’s one of four from her family racing in Louisville – she’ll start in the morning along with an aunt, uncle and cousin. She comes to the sport with a background as a swimmer and a runner, she had to learn the cycling.” “If I can do this, I can do anything,” she told us at the welcome dinner, when asked why she's racing here.

Heather Wajer
Single mom Heather, 37, once weighed 315 pounds. She made a bet with a coworker to see who could lose 40 pounds first, but didn’t stop there and lost 141 pounds during her Ironman training. When asked what made her set her sights on the Ironman, she replied: “You don’t get to 315 pounds by doing things in moderation.”

All of them finished the 2010 Louisville Ironman with me, and you can do it too.
I’ve met lots of other great soon-to-be Ironmen during my training and many of them aren’t what you’d expect a “typical triathlete” to look like. They are normal people with normal jobs and normal lives who decide that they want to push their limits and see what they can accomplish. Don’t get me wrong… it took many of these people many years to get there. But they did get there with determination and perseverance.


Competing in an Ironman triathlon is a huge undertaking and involves a truly dedicated commitment of your time, sweat, and money. Only you can decide whether you want to take it on, but don’t let “I could never do something like that” keep you from considering it. You can do it if you want it badly enough.

OK, this is not a good picture of me and I won’t be updating my facebook profile with it. But it pretty well sums up how I felt 5 minutes after crossing the finish line in Louisville, exhausted. I laugh at it now. I use it as a reminder for next year while I’m training.

I've got to get back to the pool. There is nothing worse than stopping swimming and then starting again. It seems like, after a few weeks, you go right back to square one and start over and it takes forever just to get back to where you were when you stopped. It really is a lot easier to just keep swimming 2 or 3 times a week.

My Ironman recovery has been coming right along although I’m about done with the junk food. Mentally, I'm ready to start training again, physically, I don't think my body is quite ready yet. I’ve spent my time reassembling the P2. I was thinking about using it on the trainer and sparing the P3 the strain of being ridden indoors all winter. But, now I’m thinking of selling it. I’d really rather put into the hands of someone that will enjoy it and get as much out of it as I did.

One week after

So it’s been a week since Ironman Louisville and I’ve been spending my time eating anything I want and resting. I’ve unpacked everything from Louisville and most of it is sitting in a pile on the basement floor. Every time I’m down there I put a couple of things away and it is slowly getting smaller.

We got together with Paul and Cathy and the kids for a post race ice cream celebration at Dairy Queen the other night and it was great to get a chance to talk to Cathy about her great race. She set a personal best at Ironman Canada by over 20 minutes and passed 134 people on her way to an excellent marathon split. And I got a chance to talk to Paul and hear his thoughts on signing up for IMC next year. I joked with Paul that while training for an IM, he’ll have to slow down a bit when he cycling to be able to run afterwords and that now I might have a chance of keeping up with him.


I’ve read a lot of race reports on various Internet sites of people that completed, or didn’t complete the race. The more I read, the more pleased, maybe satisfied is a better term, I am with my finish. Although I was initially disappointed, I realize that under those conditions, any finish is a victory. Out of 2400 starters there were 488 that didn’t finish and over 1000 that passed through the medical tent at some point during the day. I managed to keep myself out of both of those categories at least.

My results...
Swim time of 1:21:25 placed 57th out of 115
Bike time of 5:57:20 placed 20th out of 115
Run time of 5:50:44 placed 66th out of 115
Total Time 13:23:12 placed 38th out of 115

What it all tells me is that if I could have run in the neighborhood of how I did last year, I could have finished close to the 12 hour mark.

2010 Ironman Louisville Race Report

We arrived on Wednesday about 4:30pm and checked into the Downtown Marriott without any problems. Later that night after we settled in we took a trip to Walmart to stock up on groceries as we had a full kitchen in our hotel suite.

Arriving on Wednesday gave me the luxury of a 15 minute, painless, line up free, registration process. On Friday the line to register was huge and I’m sure some people were standing in line for over an hour. The process includes getting weighed in and your hydration level checked on a Tanita scale. Mine was 62%, they are looking for a minimum of 60%. Filling out all the insurance and emergency contact forms, picking up the race packet which includes swim cap, 5 transition gear bags, wrist identification band, timing chip and bike and race bib numbers, and finally a bag that didn’t contain anything but advertising flyers.



I decided to take a walk down to the practice swim on Saturday morning and decide if I wanted to jump into the Ohio once I got down there. As soon as I got there I decided to go for a swim. Once in the water my right side goggle kept filling up with water, I stopped a few times to reposition it and it kept filling up. After the swim I took at look at it and saw that the entire gasket on that side was coming off. Oh well, off to the expo to get a new pair of goggles, just one of the million things hat can go wrong at Ironman!

Later in the afternoon, we walked down and dropped off the bike and the gear bags. Everything has to be checked in and left overnight. It was very hot and the forecast was for even hotter weather on Sunday.



On Saturday night I had a reasonably good sleep after 8pm and we were up at 4am. As I changed into my race gear, put on my heart rate strap and timing chip, I forced down a bagel and a banana. I never feel much like eating the morning of an Ironman, and I prefer to start on the lighter side, but you really have to get some calories down and get the nutrition plan kicked off.

We left the hotel at 4:30am. You know it’s going to be a hot day when you step outside the front door of the hotel and it feels as hot as it did the night before. It really didn’t feel like it had cooled off much at all. From out hotel it was a 5min walk to the transition area where the bikes are kept and a 15min walk up the river to the swim start venue. I headed off to check and stock up the bike and Steph headed off to the swim start.

The transition area opens at 5am and because of the huge number of people there, they had opened it up early and I was able to get right in. A lot of people don’t have anyone to stand in the swim line for them, so they have to get into and out of the transition area as quickly as possible to get into the swim line. I went down to the gear bags, found my on the grass (in the right numerical order) and added my Garmin 405 and flask of GU gel to the run bag. It was still 2 hours before sunrise and the entire area with lit up with huge flood lights.

Checking that off my list, I headed over to find my bike. The P3 was there and I filled the aero bottle halfway with water and put the half empty bottle in the down tube cage, checked that the tires were still inflated and hadn’t blow up in yesterday’s heat and made sure I was in the right gear to get mounted and going. The transition area was packed with people doing the same thing and I heard the dreaded tire pop as I was leaving. I never pump up my tires on race morning. I did once and I buggered up the valve and had to replace it. I really don’t think much pressure is lost overnight and I prefer the peace of mind of not screwing around with it on race morning.

I knew I had a few minutes to spare, it was only 5:20am and I knew my spot was saved in the swim line so I took a few minutes and just took in the atmosphere. I stopped at the Bike Tech Tent and watched the growing line up of people with their bikes. I’m always amazed at how many people have left things to, literally, the last minute and now need something fixed or adjusted on their bike. They bike tech guys are awesome, there was three of them and they were all working on at least 2 or 3 bikes each.

Swim

Once again this year I was very fortunate to have Steph save a spot in the swim line for me. Unlike all other Ironman races, Louisville is a time trial start. Everyone lines up single file and jumps off one of two entry points into the river. Each person’s timing chip is activated as you pass over a timing mat on the edge of the dock and that is the start of your day.

I joined the line of people walking down the sidewalk on River Road from the transition area to the swim start. It’s a long, mostly dark walk and people are mostly keeping to themselves. Once at the swim start, there were at least 100 body markers so I stopped and got my race number sharpied on to my arms and my age onto my calf and headed off to the line up to find Steph. Fortunately I found her right away and sat down to wait for 7am to roll around. It didn’t seem like a long wait, and soon enough they were asking all support people to remove themselves from the line and it as a result we all started moving forward. The pro’s went off at 6:50am and we watched them start their day, still in the dark. The sun wouldn’t rise for another 15 minutes. As we continued moving forward, I suited up in my speed suit and made sure I had my cap and goggles in hand. By the time they played the Star Spangled Banner and My Old Kentucky Home, I was very close to the dock and the jump off point. Once the cannon went off, I was in the water in 3 minutes.

I decided that after going way too far out into the river last year, this year I would stick much more closely to the buoy line and avoid making that mistake again. I felt strong on the swim and tried to concentrate on my stroke. The was a bit of current against us and the river was a little choppy once we rounded the Island and got right out into the river. The water was very warm, maybe 85 or 86 and the few spots of cooler water were a welcome relief. I wondered how many people would be starting their day already overheated at the end of swim because of the high temperature.

The water quality is not great in the Ohio, I guess the best thing I could say is that it hadn’t rained for a long time, so there was no sewage in the river, but it was cloudy and I couldn’t see past my elbows as my arms went through their strokes. With the time trial start, people are very spread out and other than the fact that you can’t see anyone when you come up behind them, there was almost no contact with the other swimmers. Once we rounded the turn around and started heading back down the river, I noticed the current a bit more and it was nice to know that we were getting a bit of a push down the river. Once at the swim exit volunteers, all the way down the exit steps and some of them up to their chests in the water, helped pull us out of the water and push us up the steps.

Bike

This was, without question, the best 180k bike ride I’ve ever done and I really enjoyed it. During the first hour or so, it was relatively cool as the sun wasn’t high over head yet. It was very peaceful, riding along and listening to the tree frogs and crickets. After all the training and the taper, the first couple of hours seemed like almost no effort whatsoever. The first 16k is flat and runs right along the river before hitting the first of many hills. Even the first few hills were effortless and I really felt good at this point. Before long we were at the out and back, a section that has a flat entry for a few km’s and then a sharp downhill and then a steep uphill. At the top is the turn around and then we go back down and up the other side again. I’m always really careful on this stretch. At the lowest point of the valley, you have cyclists hurtling down toward each other at high speeds and people cut it really close to the centre line of the road. I think this was the first time I haven’t seen an accident where someone had gone over the centre line and collided with an oncoming cyclist. I read later that there were a couple of crashed there.

As we made our way through the double loop course, I was passing a lot of people and my average was creeping up to 30kph. I knew that a 30kph average was a possibility for this race and once I saw it, I wasn’t going to let it get away. I was riding every hill properly and making really good use of my downhill momentum and gearing to get up the next hill quickly and efficiently. I was amazed at how poorly so many people were riding. I’d spin past them while they grinded away in the wrong gear, wasting away their legs. As it turned out, when I saw the results, I passed over 400 people during the bike. I saw at least 25 people with flat tires or broken bikes and at least one person every mile or so, just sitting of lying down under a shade tree on the side of the road. My Garmin recorded 97 to 98 degress for the last 2 hours on the bike.

At every aid station I was taking a bottle of Perform and a bottle of water. It was hot, but I never felt over heated, as it turns out and I found out later on the run, I should have been drinking more, much more. But I never felt that I was over doing it and felt good for the entire ride, right to the end. Usually I can’t wait to get to get a chance to pee but I never felt that I had to go, a signal from my body that I ignored. There is an old saying that if you don’t have to pee by the 80mi marker, you day is done and that was exactly where I was headed.

I was even able to add .4kph to my average once we got onto the flat stretch at the end of the ride. I was thrilled with a sub 6hr bike split and didn’t think I had over extended myself to get it.

Run

Once I reached the 4mi mark it was like someone hit my off switch. I had felt ok up until that point but I went downhill fast. I think it was right then that my mind caught up with my body and realized what was actually going on. Without the cheering crowds and noise of the transition area and first few miles downtown, to keep me distracted, the reality of the situation became very apparent. As I struggled on I felt really dizzy and my vision was tunneling, I had to stop running. I had pushed myself as far as I could. I felt certain that if I continued running, I would have passed out and hit the ground. As that would result in medical attention, I would be DQ’d. The sun was beating down relentlessly and the heat coming up off the asphalt made my skin feel like there was a million ants crawling on it. I was drenched in salt and sweat.

OK, it was time for plan B and I started doing the familiar Ironman repetitive walk/run routine and mentally fixed myself on reaching the 8mi turn around point. I was becoming more and more nauseous I made it to the turn around, just a set of timing mats and a bunch of orange cones in the middle of the road, made sure it beeped my chip and then went straight over to a storm sewer grate at let it all come up.

Just then the runner right behind me did exactly the same thing, right in the same place, as I did and sat down with me. When I saw you, I couldn’t help it, I’ve been feeling sick for two hours, he said. We sat there for a few minutes commiserating and then decided we’d better get up and get moving. From that point on it was pretty much a long walk for me to the finish line. I jogged a few hundred meters whenever I could, but no matter how much I could get down at each 1mi aid station, the damage from the dehydration was done. I think the only thing that would have helped would have been an IV or two, but once the stick you, you’re done and I wanted to finish above all.

Finally the home stretch came. As I rounded the corner onto 4th Street, the crowd was crazy, there were thousands of people screaming and banging on the barricades. Once you round that corner and the flood lights hit you, there’s no choice, you have to run to the finish line! I was glad this one was over. Mom and the Girls were there and saw me come over. I saw Katie first and she was crying, I think because I was an hour late and I probably didn’t look so great. I gave her a big hug and told her I was OK.

There were hundreds of people being given IV’s and oxygen and a lineup of people waiting to get in. I took a look over the buffet and decided the only thing that looked good was a huge bowl of potato chips. I grabbed a container of chips and headed back out to where the Girls were. We sat for 30mins or so until I felt good enough to make it back to the hotel.

Overall , I’m pleased with my swim time and really happy with my bike time, but overall disappointed with my run performance, or should I say lack of performance.I’ll be back next year, I will execute a better race and I will finish in under 12:30! There were 3000 people registered, 500 no shows, 2500 starters, 488 didn’t finish, 1200 treated in the medical tent. I finished in 13:20 something. Which all things considered isn’t too bad.

OK, that hurt!

I'm back from Louisville, finished in 13:23:11. I had a good swim, a great bike and a bad run. Will post all the details for anyone that wants to hear all the nasty details in a few days.

2 days to go!

We were up early and down for a huge breakfast again today, they have a great buffet here.We talked with some other tri people about the race, they are usually very interested when they ask how many times I’ve done it and answer that this will be my 4th time. The hotel is full now of athletes. Later we walked over to the race hotel to pick up the banquet tickets. There were tons of people checking in today, big line up. Glad I did it yesterday! Looked around at the expo again,

Later we were off to Walgreens for some bull frog sunscreen, it’s the best and it's going to be wicked hot and sunny on Sunday.The Girls needed to get in some quality shopping time so we headed to the mall and they did some dress shopping at Dillards and got some great deals on dresses. We headed back so I could do a 30min ride and 30min run. Athletes are everywhere now biking and running in every direction.

We attended the welcome banquet. Lots of emotion and it certainly got everyone hyped up. Ages in the race are from 18 to 80 and the biggest loser was a girl that lost 145lbs training for the Ironman. This year’s Ford Everyday Hero was a guy that is doing the race and has MS!

Tomorrow is the practice swim, to be honest I’m not sure if I'll go or not, we'll see. Then the bike check in from 12 to 5pm. Then…time to get really nervous!