That was a lot of work for a free banana.
A few months ago I decided it would be a good idea to warm up for my first marathon by swimming and biking 114.4 miles beforehand. I found out this past weekend just how good of a decision that was. I dug deeper than I have ever had to, in part thanks to a nutrition nightmare that almost had me quitting 70 some miles into the bike (more about that later below) and due to general inexperience pacing for the marathon run.
Saturday was a growing process. I got humbled in more ways than one. I can not thank the volunteers and spectators enough for giving up their Saturday (and some their whole weekend) to help the athletes compete. This was my first IronMan branded event, and the volunteer support was outstanding. The volunteers at the aid stations further away from the finish area on the run course were particularly helpful in keeping the athletes motivated. Megan Tobin from the SMOG crew and her daughters did an outstanding job in one of the more remote aid-stations along the run course. Thank you!
The spectators were likewise fantastic. So many folks cheering everyone on made it much easier to get through the discomfort of the marathon run. I am lucky to have amazing friends that came out to support. Justin Owens and Marie Claire flew in from the East Coast to turn it into a multi-day winecountry vacation. My old college friend Andrew Zayac and his girlfriend Alex came up from the San Francisco area. Desi Rodriguez from LA Air Force Base made the trek and had an awesome cheering squad near the finish line turnaround point on the run portion. I heard them every time. And my wonderful girlfriend Liz travelled up with me and took great care of me leading up to the race and the day after. She selflessly took time away from her work to help me accomplish yet another one of my crazy goals.
I was likewise humbled by all the support people provided towards my fundraiser for The Soldiers Project. Together we raised over $2000 to provide free and confidential mental health care to Active Duty and veteran military members and their families. Not wanting to let those that helped me down helped me overcome the issue on the bike and soldier on into the run.
Big thanks to everyone that helped me get ready for the race. Thanks to my coach Cliff Scherb from TriStar Athletes for putting together a multi-month training plan and for trying his best to reel in my expectations. His predictions were pretty much right on point (as discussed below). Also big thanks to Brian Mineo and the SMOG open water swim/triathlon community for fostering such a great group of like-minded folks wanting to improve and become better.
I also received a ton of mentorship from Bud Winn ever since I signed up for the race last Fall, and Matt Olivas was always up for a good long training session on Saturdays. Both competed and crushed the race. A big thank you also to Jim from EROSports for helping me with a great bike fit, and Garrett and Shawn from VeloFix for tuning up the Huffy so it ran super smooth for all 6 hours on the bike during the race. Ceril and the great folks at Feed The Machine were also helpful with all the nutrition help over the past few months (and no, the nutrition issue I had during the race was not their fault! Haha). And again, I have to thank my girlfriend Liz the most. I put in well clear of 350hrs of training for this race over 6 months, and she has been more than supportive throughout it all.
Now… on to the race, the biggest humbling of all! I knew going into it that the full 140.6 distance is a completely different animal than the 70.3 (half-IronMan’s) I had competed in before. Still, I thought I was going to be able to translate my 70.3 pace better into the full distance, especially on the run. Like any good first time IronMan’er, I overestimated my abilities and underestimated the task. I talked about my goals in my previous post (see them again below), and I came up short on all of them. It may seem harsh on myself for a first timer, while also running my first marathon, but you have to fail at your goals from time to time in order to improve and come back stronger next time. I competed in the Male 30-34 age group, of which there were about 131 finishers (and 30 some DNF and DNS’s). Overall some 1800 athletes from aged 18 to 74 took part in this race. Time to break it down:
Race Morning
I got up shortly after 0300 after resting for most of the afternoon and evening beforehand. I didn’t sleep all that much, mainly because I was super pumped. I tried to focus (not too hard) on just closing my eyes and resting my body. Since I had eaten a big lunch and big dinner the night before, I wasn’t all that hungry for breakfast. I ate some bread and a bit of oatmeal with banana before heading out to city center to drop off my bike and run special needs bag by 0400, then it was off to Lake Sonoma. We arrived at the lake shortly after 0500, leaving me plenty of time to get ready (swim start would not be until 0645).
Swim (2.4 miles, 77:20, 1:45/100yds) – grade: B
The swim was a self-seeded rolling start based on estimated finish time. I know I would not be able to swim faster than 70 minutes, so I placed myself in the 70-80minute group. This was my first big race with so many people in the water at once, so I was expecting a bit of jostling around for position, and it got pretty packed near the turn buoys. I got hit in the head and neck a few times by some eager folks, and someone definitely grabbed and squeezed by right butt cheek at some point, but all in all I was able to find plenty of clear lanes and focus on my technique. Long strokes, high elbows, good torso rotation, and frequent sighting during exhales (thanks Brian!).
Having had trouble with foggy goggles in open water swims in the past, the careful scientific application of toothpaste and saliva worked like a charm and I stayed fog free throughout the swim. Considering the Lake Sonoma water was significantly warmer than what I was used to swimming in the pacific (high 60s compared to high 50s), this was my first little victory of the day. I passed the turnaround for Lap 1 about 36 minutes into the swim, so I knew I was on track to place at least in my time group. Pro tip: Saw a guy with a spare set of goggles around his neck, he must have had a bad experience before with all the trashing in the water!
Snapshot of my Garmin watch data is above. The “planned” is what my wise coach Cliff Scherb from TriStar Athletes had in store for me. I thought I was going to be able to maintain a higher pace overall, but wasn’t too disappointed with a 1:45 average. I had a few navigational hickups along the course but ill take an extra 233yards of swimming (GPS isn’t always the most accurate either so that number can be slightly higher or lower).
Transition 1 (that was a long uphill run, 10:10) – as predicted
Having only competed in 3 smaller triathlon’s before, I knew the transition zones would be quiet a bit larger in this race. It was about a .2 mile steep uphill run from the lake to the T1 tent, with volunteers along the way to help you strip off the wetsuit (i think the official volunteer position name is "stripper", awesome). I did not really run up the incline but adopted a fast walk as I wanted to ease my legs back into having to support more of my weight and get ready for the punishment ahead.
As always, the volunteers were super helpful in getting you the bike gear bag and into the change tent I went. I put on my bike gear and found my way to the bike relatively quickly. I probably could have shaved a minute or two off of T1 but that was not going to make a big difference overall at this stage of my Triathlon experience. Photo of me (in the Zoot wetsuit) exiting the water and getting started on the bike below. All on-site photos courtesy of the awesome Elizabeth Woytowicz.
Bike (112 miles, 5:52:49, 18.9mph) – grade: C
The bike portion was fairly technical, with a number of gentle rollers and some fasts descents. Given that I had taken a few spills on the bike during training, I was pretty cautious on the descents. Overall though, the course was pretty flat and allowed for plenty of calculated power output. My target window was to maintain a Normalized Power output of 180-200 Watts. I ended up managing 178W throughout the ride. I controlled my heart rate pretty well, and stayed in Zone 2 for the vast majority of the ride.
Now the nutrition issue that ended up probably being the highlight of my day. My race plan was to eat solids (bonkbreaker bars) on the bike every 45minutes along with drinking 32oz of water with added electrolytes per hour, for an average caloric intake of about 500cals/hour and roughly 1300mg of sodium/electrolytes an hour. This is what I had done in training for my long rides and I had come to enjoy the bonkbreaker bars quiet a bit. These bars are relatively small but super dense, packing a lot of good stuff into a small volume (210 calories, 190mg of potassium, 6g of protein, 28g of carbs, and 50mg of sodium).
For unknown reasons, perhaps race day jitters or something I ingested in the lake or a combination of factors, about 2 hours into the bike ride (roughly 40 miles) my stomach was doing flips and I felt pretty uneasy. About an hour later, I felt what I can only imagine a glob of 4 of these bonkbreakers trying to make their way up my esophagus. The mixture was so dense it didn’t really want to go more than 75% of the way up. I felt like it got stuck somewhere between my adams apple and epiglottis. Try as it may, the little glob couldn’t make its way out of my throat for me to just spit it out. I could swallow it again without much problems though, but every time I tried to eat more solids it would trigger a partial gag reflex, accompanied by all the unfavorable byproducts of vomiting including an awful acidic taste. I tried to throw up a few more times but to no success. It probably didn’t help that I did not stop pedaling and moving on the bike this whole time. For some reason, my thought process never suggested to stop for a bit, get off the saddle, and re-attack the problem.
My backup plan was to rely on fluids and gels for the remainder of my nutrition intake for the rest of the ride (about another 3 hours). This got me worried that I would be behind the power curve on nutrition coming off at T2. Worse yet, the idea of quitting entered my mind just passed mile 75 of the bike as i felt the glob come up for what must have been the tenth time. The very idea of this glob of dense material crawling up my throat like some little alien trying to be born from inside of you every now and then (Aliens is still one of my all time favorite movies) was eating away at me. I felt like i was fading while trying to maintain a constant power output on the bike of 185-200Watts.
This was the big positive turning point for my race. I have had difficulties pursuing other goals in the past (hard times during grad school, disappointing performances on my way to getting my pilots license…). In all those previous instances I had the chance to take a day to recover and try again the next day, refreshed. There was no such option here. I had to power on, and I did. Eventhough I felt weaker in the second part of the bike leg (obviously due to the effort exerted already but also due to the limited calorie intake during the last 60 some miles), I had a renewed sense of motivation to push on. I did manage to pass a chunk a bit smaller than a golf ball past my throat eventually. I just count the fact that I only had problems in the upward direction, and no GI issues in the downward direction as another small victory (number 2).
Big lesson learned, have a backup nutrition plan on the bike in case Plan A doesn’t work out. I could have taken a few extra Gels with me to substitute for the solid foods. Gels didn’t cause much of an issue, but I only had 2 with me on the bike. I tried to grab a few at the remaining aid stations to help me on my way.
Overall, the bike was a good experience. My stomach would not stop its revolt and accept solid foods again until about mile 10 of the run, but I knew after that turning point at mile 75 on the bike I wasn’t going to quiet. Better yet, I had no flat tires or mechanical problems (Victory number 3). I also developed a killer farmers tan and didn’t get sunburned (victory number 4). The overall pace was not where I wanted it to be, but I had fun on the bike all things considered. My coach in all his infinite wisdom predicted my performance baseline pretty well as shown below.
Transition 2 (06:55) – as predicted
I had done a lot runs coming off long rides during training, but nothing can quiet prepare you for how your legs feel coming off of the 112mile bike at race pace. I had to remind myself to slow my pace right off the bad as I made my way to the changing tent. Again, there are some changes I can make to speed up T2 (like properly tying my shoes ahead of time!), but none of those would have made a big impact in my overall time at this point in my triathlon experience. Below is me trying to find my run legs on my socks with my funny Alien helmet on.. we looked pretty ridiculous.
Run (26.2 miles, 04:21:41; 10:05min/mile) – grade: D
At some point on Sunday, the times on the IronMan website started to display marathon run times 20 minutes faster than the actual time. My Garmin data is below. This is where I overestimated my abilities the most and where most of the humbling took place. This was my first marathon run and I learned a lot about my own capabilities and where I can improve for the next go-around. Although I did not maintain my pacing goals, I did hit my coach’s estimate right on the nose (its like he has done this before?). And I swear I ran 26.2 miles and didn’t take a shortcut! :)
The run course consisted of three big loops, which was awesome because there was a lot of spectator support for a portion of each loop. The spectators were incredible. So many of them (including all the volunteers as well) cheering you on made the race easier to conquer for sure.
I worked my nutrition from the get-go. My plan was to rely on gels and liquids mostly during the run. My stomach finally slowed down around mile 10 of the run, and I started to eat solid foods again at the aid stations after almost 4.5 hours of not eating. Bananas (no matter how green) and pretzels never tasted so good.
I was averaging my target pace (8-9minutes/mile) for the first 6 or so miles but quickly dropped down to a 10 minute pace after that. My inexperience at the marathon distance showed big time. Try as a may, I wasn’t able to increase my pace as my legs were cramping up, so I decided to settle into a nice jog, continue to take care of my nutrition and salt intake, and have more fun out on the run. The Woo Birds started coming out (woop woop) and I tried to encourage as many runners as I could. I led a few Jodies (that I picked up at basic training) on the run, including classics like “Follow Me”, “Granny”, and “C-130”. The only other one I could remember at that point was “killing the baby seal”, but I decided the wider audience wasn’t ready for such dark military humor. A few folks, some military but mostly civilians, joined in on the fun.
The marathon run is something special in an IronMan, and it sucked big time. Therefore it was also the most fun overall part of the race. You get a chance to encourage other participants and take in all the spectator support. Its truly humbling to see athletes from all ages out on the course. As I was starting my third lap, a 65 year old grandmother (!) was just starting her first. We talked for a minute as I slowed to take in more nutrition. I don’t think I saw anyone with a more positive attitude and bigger smile all day. She said that this was her third try at the full distance after not making the 17hour course cutoff time on the previous two tries in each of the preceding years. I forgot her race number but she seemed to have her strategy all worked out and I hope she met her goal. I cant even imagine how strong a person must be to put in 15, 16 or 17 hours of hard work to complete the race, well after it gets dark and cold. I had it easy finishing under 12 hours. This put my own little struggle into perspective for sure.
The marathon run is by far my biggest area for improvement, so im going to give myself a big fat D just to come back stronger next time. I may even actually run a stand-alone marathon at some point in the not so distant future to build up my long distance running repertoire. And then there is the finish chute. Nothing is quiet like it. So many people line those guardrails that you get an instant nitro boost to make it look good for the last 200 meters or so (and for the finish line photo of course). I finished while it was still daylight out (victory number 5).
Garmin finish time: 11h 47min 34sec
IronMan finish time 11h 46min 38 sec
Division Rank: 54
Gender Rank: 278
Overall Rank: 323
Overall feeling: I got a PR!
Video of the finish (courtesy of the awesome Liz Woytowicz) is at the link below.
https://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.woytowicz/videos/10155685189842309/