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. 

Ironman Louisville - The Swim

The picture to the left was taken the day before the race.  Notice my brand new TYR, Sayonara swim skin that I am wearing.  In it’s 2 year history, Ironman Louisville had never been a wetsuit legal race, so I bought this swim skin to use specifically for this race.  I had the opportunity to use it several times for practice swims, and I absolutely loved it.  I was so excited to try it out the next day at the race.

The picture to the right is me on race day starting the race.  Notice anything missing?  Yes, my swim skin!  After pumping my tires up in transition on race morning, I made the 3/4 mile walk to the swim start.  When I arrived at the swim start, I opened my bag to get my swim skin out, and it was not there.  My husband made a frantic run back to the hotel to look for it.  While he was gone, the race started.  The start of Ironman Louisville is unique in that it is the only Ironman race with a time trial start.  Racers line up first come, first serve to start the race.  I slowly watched racer after racer start.  My husband returned.  The swim skin was not at the hotel.  I decided I needed to stop worrying about it and get in line to start the race. 

I walked the 1/2 mile to the end of the race line.  I was the last person in line to start the race for a long time.  I really thought I was going to be the last person to start the race.  Finally, as I neared the start 3 other people got behind me.  I was, however, the last female in the water.  In the water ahead of me were over 2000 other participants.  Unfortunately for me, that equaled 2000 obstacles that I had to swim around, as I am a good swimmer.  This slowed me down a lot!

The swim for the race is in the Ohio river.  About 1/3 of the swim is upstream and then you make a turn and swim downstream.  Fortunately, for all of us in the water, the dams upstream were closed, so you really couldn’t feel the current.  Note:  if you ever do a river swim with a strong current, stick near the shore.  The current is not as strong near the shore as it is in the middle of the river.  The water was very dirty, and I couldn’t see anything.  When the water is like this, I actually like to close my eyes and try to relax.  I know it sounds crazy, but why have them open?  You can’t see anyway. 

There was one interesting portion of the swim, where I ran into a major traffic jam at a point where the water was shallow and people were standing up.  I had no idea I would encounter anything like this in the middle of a river.  There seemed to be about 50 people standing talking about the swim course in the middle of the race.  It was crazy!  I pushed my way through the crowd and went on my merry way.

I made it to the end of the swim with a time of 1:16:49.  I was frustrated.  Not a good swim for me at all.  I blame the bad swim time on my swim skin commotion, being one of the last people to start the race, and probably not logging enough yards in the pool during training (I will elaborate more on this in the future).

Okay, time to get over the prerace swim skin commotion and bad swim time.  I still had 138.2 miles of racing ahead of me!  I spent approximately 4 minutes in T1, and I was off on my bike.

Ironman Louisville Race Report Part 1 – Bags, Bags, and More Bags!

For those just joining my blog, I completed the 2009 Ironman Louisville on August 30, 2009. It was my first Ironman race. Here is my race report. This is long overdue! For those of you that were wondering what happened to me at Ironman Louisville, I survived, beat my goal time by an hour, and am looking forward to doing another Ironman distance race.

We arrived at Louisville the Friday before the race. For those of you planning on doing an Ironman, it's important to note that you must register and check in for the race 2 days prior to the race, so plan your travel accordingly.

When checking in for the race they use one of those Tanita body fat scales to check your hydration level to make sure you are properly hydrated going into the race. My readings on the scale were 18% BF, 54% water, and 130lbs. I believe they said they wanted 45-60% hydration for women and 50-65% for men. I passed that test with flying colors and got checked in for the race without a problem.

The expo was okay. It was not as big or as nice as I expected. I did not see anything there that I absolutely had to buy nor were there any great deals. I didn't purchase anything from the expo prior to the race, but did hit it after the race to purchase some of the "Finisher" merchandise. Another note for those doing Ironman: they put out a ton of stuff at the expo the day after the race, that is better than most of the stuff they have prior to the race, so don't spend all of your money prior to the race.

On Friday, it was time to check my bike and gear in. They give you 3 gear bags and 2 special needs bags. One gear bag for your stuff you wear to the race site in the morning, 1 gear bag for T1, and 1 gear bag for T2. You get 1 special needs bag for the bike leg, which they give to you at about the halfway point and 1 for the run, which is also at the halfway point. It all must go in your gear bags. You are not allowed to put any gear by your bike. It all must go in your gear bags.

A big question that I got from people after I did the race was, "What was your nutrition plan?" My biggest piece of advice is that everyone is different, and it is best to experiment and practice during your training in order to determine what works best for you, so please don't count on using my nutrition plan or anyone else's nutrition plan for a race without testing it on yourself first. I have a sensitive stomach, so I pretty much know what I can and can't eat prior to a race and during a race. For example, I cannot drink Gatorade when I run, but I can drink it on the bike. Another note about your race nutrition plan, it should probably begin a few days before the race. For example, it's a good idea to avoid fiber, dairy, raw vegetables, and anything else that is difficult to digest the day or two leading up to a race. Often people will have gastric distress on race day and think it is their race day nutrition that messed them up, when in fact it was something they ate the day before the race. Remember it takes about 24 hours for food to make it all the way through your system.

I ate a big pasta dinner on Friday before the race and then ate light on Saturday. On race morning I drank about a bottle of water and ate a bagel and banana. I carried 6 nutritional items with me on my bike, pretzels, peanut butter crackers, Gu, Gu Chomps, Nuun, and Water. Nuun is an electrolyte only drink. It doesn't have any carbs. If you can't stomach Gatorade, you might want to check it out. I at every 45 min. – 1 hour on the bike and just ate what I felt like eating. I ate about 2 packages of peanut butter crackers, a bag of pretzels, 4 Gus, and 3 packages of Gu Chomps. I drank about 2 bottles of Nuun and 2 bottles of water, and about a half of bottle of Gatorade that I picked up at an aid station. My philosophy was eat and drink as much as possible until I reached about mile 90 on the bike. Then give my stomach from mile 90-112 to settle, as to avoid having issues on the run. It worked!

I carried a bottle of Nuun with me on the run and grabbed water at the aid stations. I used 3 Gus and grabbed some pretzels and grapes every once and awhile at the aid stations. I felt like I was well fueled and hydrated throughout the race.

I did fill up my special needs bags and did stop and get them, but did not use any items out of my bags. They actually slowed me down quite a bit, because I yelled out the wrong race number on the bike, (my fault) and I got someone else's bag and had to take it back and get mine. On the run, they gave me the wrong bag , and I had to do the same thing. Probably lost 10 minutes dealing with those silly bags. If you are really trying to hit a time goal, I wouldn't use the bags except in an emergency. I did back a spare tube and tire in my bike bag, so I was able to recover my $50 tire, but that was really the only good thing about picking up the bag. When I finally got the correct run bag, I just threw it in the trash. I have no idea why I even picked it up!


More tomorrow!

Hope Everyone Had a Happy Thanksgiving!

 
Hi Everyone,
I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. This is a picture of me with a chocolate pie that I made for Thanksgiving! It was the best one I've ever made; however, this isn't a cooking blog, so let's get down to business!

I took the last 3 months off from training after completing Ironman Louisville on August 30th! Yes, it's okay to take 3 months off. I take 2-3 months off every year. Yes, I might not be as fit as I possibly could be, but I've found that I enjoy taking some time off, so I do it. If you haven't taken some time off from training, I would strongly encourage you to take a week or two off in December. I resumed training yesterday with a 3 mile run on my treadmill and some Bosu Ball exercises.

How has your training been going? Do you have a plan to stay motivated and fit this winter?

My company, Custom Coaching, is now on Facebook. Please become a fan! There is a link just to the right ->.

16 Days until IM Louisville

I haven't blogged for a long time. I've been too busy training. I'm well into my taper now and find myself having time to do things I haven't had time to do for a while, like blogging.

I'm happy to report that my training has been going very well, and I'm really getting excited for Ironman Louisville. I've been going to the pool consistently twice a week since early June, survived 3-100 mile bike rides, and my knee has held up through my limited running. I find myself feeling like I haven't felt since April . . . RESTED! It's a nice feeling, but something that is somewhat unfamiliar, because I haven't experienced it in months.

I feel ready for the race. I have one concern about the race and that is maintaining my mental concentration on the bike. I have really been working on this, but I still have some doubts about staying focused on race day.

It's all really a big mental game though . . . I've been trying to visualize myself staying focused on the bike and having a great ride. Is it helping? I think so. I'm starting to feel a little better about it. You need to be confident going into a race!

Your mind really can affect your training or your race. Therefore, we must not only train or bodies, but train our minds. Visualizing yourself having an awesome training session or an amazing race is a simple, yet highly effective way, that using our minds can help us achieve our athletic goals. It is also helpful to walk through "bad" scenarios in our minds to help us prepare for those. Examples of this include: going off course in the swim, getting a flat on the bike, or cramping on the run. How will we overcome these situations in a race? Walk through the steps mentally, so that you are prepared for everything come race day. Being prepared will lead to confidence, which will lead to success!

I'm Tweeting!

Hi Readers! I'm going to be logging my own training on Twitter, you can see my posts just to left of this site, but of course, I also invite you to follow me on Twitter. I'll be using my blog to talk more about coaching and training in general and to address issues that myself, my clients, and my friends have faced in their training and racing. I hope my blog posts will be a source of motivation and information to guide you through you training and/or coaching endeavors. I hope to share the good, the bad, and the ugly of my experiences, so that everyone can benefit.

If you're a new reader, I'm a stay-at-home mom and am training for my first Ironman. This year I also started coaching triathletes. I am excited to promote the sport of triathlon and assist others in their journey.

Thanks everyone for all of the positive feedback about my blog. I really appreciate the support!

Best week of coaching and training yet

Had a great week of training this week. Starting to feel like my running form is improving. Now running 9:30 pace at the same level of effort I use to run 10:15 pace on my long runs. It's crazy how much a little change in form can help.

Yesterday's group ride with my training group was awesome! We rode 30 miles, longest ride so far for these guys, held a good pace, and rode nicely together as a group. Looking forward to doing some longer rides. They're ready for it.

Also had a great ride with Susan today. We only rode about 12 miles during her cycling lesson, but she has improved her hill riding tremendously in just a few weeks. I can now see her attacking hills, both up and down. Just a few weeks ago, she was too afraid to ride aggesively and was really struggling with shifting and gearing during climbs. No evidence of these problems today. I was very impressed!

Feeling great. All workouts this week were completed better then expected!

Totals for the week Swim: 3000 yards (1 workout), Bike: 160 miles (4 workouts, Long Ride = 75 miles), Run: 30 miles (3 Workouts, Long Run = 12 miles)