Sunday, November 29, 2015

Ironman Louisville 2015 Race Report

On October 11, 2015, I participated in Ironman Louisville. This would be my 6th Ironman and second in two weeks after doing Ironman Chattanooga on September 27th.  Not my brightest idea ever but as I've heard, you never know your limits until you reach them.

The first hurdle, after Chattanooga, was to make sure I was recovered enough but at the same time, not completely go into hibernation and be a slug for two weeks.  The day after Chattanooga, after riding in a car for five hours to get home, I was incredibly stiff so in addition to my daily one mile run (still streaking) I went out for a 12 mile small ring only ride with the Louisville Bike Club.  Amazing how much moving around helps, even the day after an Ironman.  I then took a day off outside of my normal one mile run and went back into my normal Ironman taper routine including about a 30 mile ride and 10K run the weekend before.

Another interesting aspect of this Ironman Louisville was that it would be the first Ironman I'd do from home.  That is, I wasn't staying at a hotel the night before down near the action.  I was sleeping in my own bed and having my wife drop me off downtown at the start.

Finally, the last pre-race concern was the weather.  Ironman Louisville had always been held in late August, meaning almost 100% certainty of hot and humid conditions.  This was the first October IM Louisville so me and all my tri-club mates were watching the weather closely.

I won't bore you with the check-in/expo details as you've read those reports several times.  Things went smoothly, I picked up the normal athlete name t-shirt and got ready for the big day.  One perk of having so many club mates doing this event was being in a bike rack with Louisville Landsharks only.  It was nice to see familiar bikes and familiar faces during bike check in and all that.

Louisville is like Chattanooga in that it's a time-trial start with people getting into the water essentially one a time on a first-come first-served basis.  Also, due to the October date, sunrise was much later than August so we would be starting at 7:30 instead of the customary 7 AM IM start time.  Furthermore, this meant a maximum 16.5 hour time limit which would be shortened by any delay getting in the water.  Since I was confident in a 14ish finish, I decided to sleep as long as possible, get to transition to get my bike/nutrition set up, then have my wife drive me down to the swim start.  When I arrived I was surprised how close I was to the docks and ended up hanging out with several Landsharks in the swim line.  Always nice to be around people you know.

The Swim

Due to the October date, this IM Louisville would be wetsuit legal.  I'd never done Louisville in a wetsuit.  I had done a 1:28 in Chattanooga so with the wetsuit and some good coaching, I was hoping to do Louisville in 1:20. Nothing really eventful happened except I was surprised how fast I was in the water.  Even though I hadn't hurried down to the start and slept in, I was in the water at 7:32.  Swim time was 1:18:49, by far my fastest IM swim ever.  I was thinking I might be in for a good day.

T1

Headed into transition for a full change.  I wore normal swim jammers under my wetsuit so changed into my Landsharks tri kit.  Since we had a cool October morning, in the low 50s, I was concerned about being cold but decided to suffer a bit for the first bit of the bike instead of overheating later.

I did have my first hiccup of the day in T1.  Bikes are racked by hanging the nose of the seat on a bar.  Most bikes are small enough to drop the seat off the bar and pull the bike through.  This of course doesn't work so well when you're dealing with a huge bike like I ride due to my height.  In a rush I rather yanked my bike under the bar, caught the seat, and my seat was now pointed down about 45 degrees.  Not conducive to riding 112 miles!

Here I am looking quite shady in T1 but I was fixing my seat.


With the mishap, total time in T1 was 13:57. Not very good at all but good enough for a finish.

The Bike

Since I've ridden the IM Louisville literally dozens of times, I know every pothole and crack it seems.  I also know what I can average safely without destroying myself.  The only spot of difficulty was the temperature in about the first hour.  Since I went with a normal tri kit with bare arms, I was indeed a little cold. Suffered through some goosebumps but soon warmed up.  Again, nothing eventful and it was great to see so many Landsharks out there either racing or volunteering.

Here I am heading into T2 with a fellow Landshark, Geri, who I played leapfrog with for about the last 20 miles of the bike.






Total bike time:  6:21:02 or 17.64 mph.

T2

Another full change into running shorts and my Landsharks t-shirt as well as loads of Body Glide meant a T2 of 12:48.  For my next Ironman, I'm contemplating staying in a tri kit for the run to see how much time I can save.

The Run

After a great swim and a good bike, I knew I had a PR in my sights if I could just keeping moving at a steady pace. I wasn't sure, however, how my body would react to another IM after just doing Chattanooga.  My goal was to keep the miles in the 12s while walking through each aid station as I took salt, nutrition, and hydration.  Keep this up at a good pace for the first 10K then I could hear a little whisper in my brain, "you have to be tired don't you? You have to be pooped from Chattanooga."  Most of that is mental but since I wasn't going to be qualifying for Kona anyway, I did a bit more walking.  Still had a decent marathon, finishing in 5:33:00 for a total of 13:39:36, a 30+ minute PR!



The Aftermath

Two Ironmans in 14 days and I was sore, but didn't feel completely wrecked.  I did deal with a bit of a cold in the week after, which may have been the result of higher than normal algae levels in the river or perhaps from being in general run down and having a compromised immune system.  But many have asked if it's doable and I'm living proof it is.  I think the timing was also just about perfect.  Not enough time between to lose fitness but enough time to recover and then do some short taper workouts.