Ironman Louisville – The Bike

I was off on the 112 mile bike leg of Ironman Louisville.  I felt great!  I had heard that the bike course was hilly.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to check it out before the race, so I saw the course for myself for the first time during the race.  The course is a lollipop shape.  You ride out from the city, ride two loops in the country and then ride back into the city.

Hilly was a great overstatement of the course.  There were quite a few rollers, but only two hills that I would really consider climbs, and they both were at the beginning of the course and you only had to ride each one once.  Does anyone else notice that people tend to describe every course as "hilly" unless it is pancake flat?  I think this is horrible, because I hear about people training for a hilly course and then they get to their race and the course is flat and they are not prepared.  For me, flat courses provide unique challenges in mental concentration and fatigue (you never get that change in elevation to use different muscle groups, as you do when climbing).

Going into the bike, my biggest concern was metal focus.  Often on the bike, I would find myself day dreaming, letting my cadence slow down, and letting my speed drop.  I have really worked on improving my mental concentration over the last two years and felt like I really had a break through at the Spirit of Racine Half-Ironman in July of this year.  I stayed focus for the entire ride and improved my bike split by 30 minutes from the prior year.  However, that was less than three hours on the bike.  Ironman was going to be 6-7 hours.  Could I stay focused for that long?

When I got out on the course, I quickly noticed that the feel was much different than any other race I had done.  No one was in a hurry.  You could even tell that the faster age groupers were pacing themselves.  This was good, because it made me realize that I didn't need to be in a hurry either.  It was going to be a long ride and there would be plenty of miles on the bike and plenty of miles on the run to use up any extra energy that I had as I neared the end of the race.  Once out on the course, I settled into a cadence of about 95 and a speed of 18mph.  That felt really comfortable, so I decided I would try to maintain that for the duration of the bike.

My second biggest fear of the bike was the heat.  It had been as hot at 95 degrees on race day with high humidity.  We lucked out.  Temps stayed below 80 degrees the entire day and it was partly cloudy.  It couldn't have been better racing weather.

Half way into the bike, I was still intently focused.  Things were going great.  I felt great.  I was starting to picture myself crossing the finish line.  At about mile 48, the first time around the loop, I saw my family out on the bike course.  It really motivated me to have people out there cheering for me.  I waved to them as I passed, and said I'd see them again in about 1.5 hours when I came around for the second time.

Out on my second loop I realized that I wasn't going to make it back to transition without a bathroom stop.  I had thought about this before the race, but didn't really have anything planned.  I should have paid more attention to were the Johnny on the spots were.  I decided better to be safe than sorry, so I'd stop at the next one I saw, which ended up being about 15 miles later.  As I approached, I saw there was a line.  Great!  I stopped, because I didn't know how much further I could make it.  Waited in line about 5 minutes, went to the bathroom, and was back on my bike.  5 minutes lost time!  Next, came the bag fiasco.  Another 5 minutes lost time!  I was now below the 18 mph average that I had been keeping.  I came around the loop again at mile 78, I saw my family again!  I was feeling great.  I knew if I picked it up I could come close to hitting a 6 hour bike split.

As I came off the loop and headed back to the city, I turned it on.  I averaged 20 mph on the last 20+ miles of the bike.  I knew I wasn't going to hit 6 hours, but I was going to see how close I could get.  I was back to transition 6:11 (18.1 mph average.) for the bike.  It was a good ride!  I jumped off my bike.  I felt great!  My legs felt strong.  I didn't feel fatigued at all.  I started running toward the gear bags and suddenly realized in all of the excitement I had forgotten to take my bike shoes off before I got off my bike.  Stopped and took them off.  Ahh . . . it was much easier to run without the shoes.  As I approached the gear bags, I was surprised to see one of my clients, Beth, there to get my bag for me.  I knew Beth was going to be volunteering, but I didn't know what she was going to be doing.  How cool was it to see her there to get me my gear.  I grabbed my bag and was off to the changing tent.

T2 was wear I made another error.  I decided that I would change from my tri clothes to running clothes for the run.  Why?  I really have no idea, because I have never been uncomfortable running in tri clothes into he past.  It was tough to get my tri clothes off because I was sweaty and wet.  I will have to admit that it was nice to put on fresh clothes, but after I dumped the first cup of water over my head on the run, it really didn't matter.  After 6:08 in transition, a wave to Beth, and a wave to my family who was there to greet me as I exited transition, I was on the run course.