Ironman Madison

Photographer basically told me I HAD to pose like this.

I’ve been lazy writing this race report, mainly because I’ve repressed much of this (literal) day’s worth of suffering and embarrassment. But, the masses have spoken (actually, just Aaron), so without further ado, the improbable and idiotic recap of my first (and oh please god, only) Ironman Triathlon.

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As my blog’s followers have probably noticed, I haven’t really been in the throes of triathlon training. In fact, my most recent triathlon was a half Ironman back in 2011 (I’ve also done a short sprint tri back in 2009). That half Ironman was a pretty clear indication that I generally suck at swimming and biking, and while completing an Ironman is written down in my bucket list, I assumed I’d complete it with the rest of the semi-obese balding 50-year olds in the midst of their midlife crises, a few years down the line.

But a perk for being employed with HOKA ONE ONE has me working the expos for some big local races. I had the chance to work the Chicago Rock’n’Roll Half expo, will be working the Chicago Marathon expo (more on that later), and had me in Wisconsin for Ironman Madison’s expo. It was on the drive up the Wednesday before Sunday’s race, that I was informed that I could use our 1 complimentary entry.

Probably not my smartest idea...

Now, there is absolutely no reason why I should accept such an offer. I’ve been keeping fit, but mainly training for a 5K road race. I literally hadn’t swam in open water since living in Martinique 2 years ago (not to mention NEVER having swam in a wetsuit), and my bike training consisted of sporadic hour rides when I felt too beat up to run. I’d be on my feet, working the expo the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday before Sunday’s race, and my bike was sitting in my Dad’s garage, 2 hours away. Only an idiot would attempt an Ironman under these conditions.

But I’m a glutton for punishment. And a comped $750 entry is too much to pass up for someone as frugal as myself. And it would sound pretty BA. So, I said yes. Then, 12 hours later, found myself in the emergency room.

This doesn’t necessarily pertain to the Ironman race, but it’s probably worth mentioning. Not too long after accepting the race entry and picking up my race materials, I picked up some grocery store sushi for dinner, then went to bed. At around midnight, I woke to some intense stomach pains, so debilitating that I couldn’t walk. Then, the vomiting started. This explosive disaster lasted about 30 minutes before I realized it wasn’t going to stop (and I’d be paying some hefty cleaning fees), so I hit the emergency button on my hotel room’s phone, and soon found myself on a stretcher heading to the hospital. I was still in some pretty incredible pain, so I was administered some morphine, and the pain all but subsided at around 2am. The nurses did blood work, performed an ultrasound of my stomach, and discovered that I had had an acute bout of pancreatitis. They believed it was caused by gallstones, released by my gallbladder from the fatty fish in the sushi; when the doctors found my blood work totally normal the next afternoon, I was free to go.

Thankfully, because literally zero training had gone into this Ironman, I had no expectations going into this race (except to actually finish). I had to borrow a wetsuit from the local Fleet Feet (we guessed on my measurements, as I couldn’t go into the store because of the expo), I drove back to Chicago to pick up my bike at 2am, and was able to buy a pair of goggles for cheap. The night before the race, I googled “First Ironman,” read a few articles on race day nutrition, and shaved my legs (instant regret). For whatever reason, I was ignorantly optimistic, ready for some good ol’ fashioned cardio the next day.

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For the uninitiated (or for those who didn’t google it the night before the race), an Ironman consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike, and a 26.2-mile run. You’ve got two transitions, between the swim/bike, then bike/run. Once the starting gun goes off, there’s no stopping it, so it’s all about forward movement, however small that may become. The time cut-off is 17 hours, with 2:20 allowed for the swim, 8:10 for the bike, and 6:30 for the run. And honestly, I thought there was a strong chance I wouldn’t make it through the swim in time for this cutoff.

See, I’m not a swimmer. When I raced that half Ironman 4 years ago, I was DFL in my age group, finishing the 1.2-mile swim in ~55 minutes. This time, I’d be going twice the distance, with literally zero recent swim training. But I did have a wetsuit this time, which I’d heard makes things much easier (more buoyant/ hydrodynamic). And stepping into the water at 6:30am along with the 3,100 other participants, I noticed it right away. I could stand vertically and float perfectly in the water; plus, it provided some nice insulation to make up for the pathetic fat reserves I have on my body.

With a mass start, every single participant starts at the same time, making for a very frantic and chaotic start. Without any shred of competitive urges, I started a good 200 yards back from the start line, behind almost literally every other triathlete. And when the starting cannon boomed at 7am sharp, I laughed (at myself, for actually doing this), and eased into a nice easy freestyle. Within minutes, though, I found myself in the frenzy of kicking feet and swinging fists – it really was impossible to swim more than a couple strokes without getting swam on top of/getting kicked in the face. I swallowed more than enough water, and despite the inefficiency, found myself swimming with my head out of the water for the entirety of this first stretch, ~0.5 miles.

Once I hit our first 90-degree turn, I shifted wide, outside the wake of the other swimmers, and just started swimming. It was a weird sensation, something that’s only happened while running, but I found myself in a sort of flow state, effortlessly gliding through the water. I soon made my next 90-degree turn, which meant I was getting close to the mile marker. Because my wetsuit covered my watch, I had zero idea how fast/slow I was moving, which really allowed me to get in the zone (again, a very foreign concept for me when it comes to swimming).

I probably made it 1.5 miles like this before I started feeling fatigued, especially in my huge, muscled arms/biceps (sarcasm). With still a ways to go, I decided to switch it up and do some modified backstroke (think butterfly, but on your back?), and immediately noticed I was passing everybody. Literally moved up 50 people in the span of 5 minutes, all while doing *THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK* which was also infinitely easier than freestyle. I kept this up, continuing to fly by other racers, and honestly thought I was cheating, thinking this was some illegal stroke or something. Passing the 2-mile marker, I went to switch to freestyle, but immediately found myself falling back in line with the other swimmers, so decided to resume passing everybody with the easier/more fun backstroke-y thing. I literally did this, periodically checking over my shoulder to avoid bumping into anyone, until I reached shore.

There was a large clocked ticking up, and going into the race, I was hopeful for a sub-2 hour finish (even this seemed farfetched). So when I saw 1:14, I was equally bewildered and ecstatic, but frantically ran onto land to get my wetsuit taken off, then made the sprint up to the transition area. The crowds along here were going nuts, so it was all I could do to not actually sprint, but I made it up to and out of transition in probably 5 minutes, changing into a biking shirt, shoes, helmet, and the ubiquitous stunna’ shades.

Hopping onto my bike, I was a bit apprehensive, only because the adrenaline of the crowds was wearing out and I started feeling the effects of the longest swim of my life. Plus, having had a handful of dry Kix cereal for breakfast, I was hungry. Of course I didn’t have any nutrition on me, meaning I’d have to wait until the first aid station (mile 15) to load up on GUs/Gatorade. But thankfully, the bike started out slow, most racers content to coast through the winding downtown streets until we reached the 50-mile cornfield loop we’d be completing, twice. I don’t have any sort of odometer or GPS device on my bike, so I had zero concept of pace, but tried to remain relaxed through these opening miles, and soon made it to the first aid station.

Stunnah shades though.

I’d read somewhere online that it’s pointless to drink water during an Ironman, because your body needs as many calories as possible, so Gatorade would make up 90% of my liquids (my own pathetic tears would supply the remaining 10%). I picked up a Clif bar, a GU, and some Chomps, as well as a 20-oz Gatorade, and told myself I had to finish it all before the next aid station (roughly every 15 miles). This was actually not difficult at all, and I found myself craving more during a couple long, lonely stretches.

This was a long bike ride, so I won’t bore you with too many details. The views were gorgeous, weather pErFeCt, and several port-o-potties stops were made. I got the song “Girl” by Jukebox the Ghost randomly stuck in my head, which I proceeded to sing out loud for 4+ hours. The random crowds were amazingly motivating, and those I talked to weren’t lying when they said the hills of Ironman Madison make it one of the hardest Ironmans in the country.

At around mile 75, going down a steep downhill into a sharp right turn, and feeling explicably tired, I realized I wasn’t going to make the turn, slamming my breaks and somersaulting over my handlebars. I landed on my hand, with my wrist/hip taking the brunt of the damage. Dazed, I managed to stand up (relatively) painfree, then found my chain totally off my gears, so spent a couple minutes rigging it back up, soon back in the saddle with a huge surge of adrenaline. My hand was bleeding pretty bad, making it almost impossible to rest of right hand on the handlebars, and by mile 90, my swollen wrist prevented my from shifting any gears. Understandably, this made those last 22 miles quite unbearable, but making it back to the bike/run transition was all I could’ve asked for. My tentative goal going in was under 7-hours, so finishing in 6:20 was definitely another little ego boost.

The run portion of the Ironman was what I was actually genuinely excited for; I’m definitely not a swimmer, am competent enough on a bicycle (except apparently when going downhill), but definitely consider running my “forte.” I had lofty goals of utterly destroying this marathon, maybe even netting a new 26.2 PR? I figured I could run 8-minute miles in my sleep, so if I were feeling good, I’d run a low 3-hour marathon; if not, I could at least manage a 4-hour ‘thon. Oh how wrong I would be.

That there's some derpy-ass form.

Flying out of the transition area, again spurred on by the booming crowds of spectators, I had zero concept of pace again, passing runners left and right. I heard a couple people in the crowds remark how fast I was going, and it didn’t hit me until I came through mile #1 in a bit over 6-flat pace. Uh-oh. I consciously eased up a bit, grabbing a GU and some pretzels at the 1.5-mile aid station, and came through mile 2 at around 7-flat pace. It was honestly around here that I started feeling pretty dead: 2 miles into a marathon. Mile 3 was 8 minutes, mile 4 was 9, and from then on, I don’t think I made it through another mile without some walking.

Hat did not last much longer. Fan I threw it to was not amused.

The port-o-potties couldn’t come soon enough, and my face hole couldn’t stuff enough food down: cookies, potato chips, Red Bull. I’d come through every aid station devouring everything in sight, then finding it harder and harder to resume running again. Obviously I was physically tired, but more so mentally, as having nearly everyone pass me was quite demoralizing. This was supposed to be my event, and I couldn’t even maintain a 9-minute mile pace. The run course consisted of two 13.1-mile loops, so coming back into town/the finish line/crowds let me throw in another surge, dropping a couple 8-minute miles (which seemed blazing at the time), but immediately leaving downtown, I was resigned to walking again.

Blasting out some 11-minute miles.

It’s surreal thinking back to this: at the time, you could’ve put a gun to my head and I still wouldn’t have run. I started doing mental math, calculating my estimated finish time if I were to continue walking these 16-minute miles. Then, I started calculating whether or not I’d finish within the allotted 6:30 timeframe. Miles 14-17 were pretty low for me, and there was definitely a 15-minute bathroom stop where I nearly fell asleep. But then something clicked, and I realized 10-minute miles were better than 16-minute miles, and my slow, embarrassing yog would let me stop sooner. So I stumbled and trudged through miles 18, then 19, then 20. I clicked off consistent 10-minute miles until 22, then walked another mile before getting close to downtown and resuming running.

It was starting to become dark, and there were huge floodlights lining the last two miles of the course with thousands of spectators screaming and cheering. I was definitely in a daze, but fueled by the frenzy of the crowd, started to pick up the pace (one might even consider it running again), throwing down a sub-9 mile (wooooo!) going into the last mile of the race.

Nasty. But yes, I beat him.

It must’ve been a half mile to go (I was pretty delirious at this point) when I overheard someone say there were 8 minutes until 8pm. Somehow, I was able to do some mental math and determine that if I were to finish before 8, I’d run a sub-13 hour Ironman, a respectable enough result. So I flipped the switch, and out of nowhere let out a furious kick. At this point in an Ironman, nearly everyone is walking, so when I started sprinting, the crowd went nuts, so I kept sprinting harder. I flew down the final straightaway, tongue out and form to shit, finishing into the arms of the nearby officials. My final, official time is 12:55:24, splitting an embarrassing 5-hour marathon.

Woof.

But, I finished, and for that, I was happy. I ate some pizza, got my wrist checked out (it was the size of a softball by this point), then made the interminable 30-minute drive back to my hotel room where I proceeded to PTFO. While I don’t have any desire to do another Ironman anytime soon, I am curious as to how I’d do with some actual, legitimate training. Until next time!