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| How to pronounce this city's name? |
http://www.asiorders.com/view_user_event_video.asp?EVENTID=75726&BIB=2863&S=230&PWD=
What follows are my thoughts about my very first full Ironman race. On August 28, 2011, I successfully completed the Ironman Louisville triathlon. My overall time was 14:11:17. The full breakout of my times is below.
This was a well-run race on many levels. The race management
spared no detail. There were an abundance of aid stations on both the bike and
run courses, and they were well-staffed with helpful folks. There were a number
of port-a-johns available on the course (a lack of which I have taken issue
with in previous races, such as the 2010 Ironman 70.3 Taiwan).
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| The mighty Ohio, as seen from the official race hotel (transition area is at center, in the green grass field, and if you look very closely out in the river, you can see some of the buoys marking the swim course) |
The race course
Swim
There was certainly an “uphill” and a ”downhill” portion of
the swim. The uphill was going upriver against the current. Once we made the
turn past Towson Island and headed downstream, things got decidedly easier.
Nonetheless, this 2.4 mile swim was the longest I had ever done. Note to self:
train better for the swim next time.
Bike
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| IM Louisville bike course went northeast out of Louisville and made two laps before heading back into the city |
The 112 mile bike course consisted mostly of rolling hills
and flats. There was a variety of scenery, including horse pastures,
suburban-type dwellings, small towns, and rural highways.
Run
The marathon was on a very flat course running through downtown Louisville, past
the University of Louisville, Churchill Downs, and almost out to the airport
before heading back from whence it came. The course passed through one area
near downtown filled with historic homes and another ethnic area nearby. We had to make two loops of the course to make the total mileage of 26.2 miles.
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| Transition area, the day before the race |
Weather and Race Day Conditions
We were fully blessed this year with conditions far milder
than years past. People on the course were saying that last year it was 98
degrees with high humidity on race day. This year it got up into the mid-80’s
and the humidity seemed pretty comfortable to me, someone who lives in the dry
climate of Denver. We were lucky this year! There was a little bit of wind on
the bike course, but not enough to significantly degrade riding performance. We
may have Hurricane Irene to thank for the milder weather this year.
Race execution
I ran what I would consider to be an almost perfect race in
terms of my execution. I stayed within my abilities, remained patient, and kept
the long view necessary to complete the race. Before the race, I sketched out
what I thought my times would be:
0740 swim start (actual 0743)*
0940 swim complete (actual ~0922)
1000 begin bike (actual ~0930)
1800 bike complete (actual ~1650)
1815 begin run (actual ~1700)
~2315 race complete (actual ~2200)
Obviously, in making my estimates and having never run this
distance a race before, I consciously tried to err on the side of allowing a
little bit more time than I though each piece would actually take. I was almost
dead-on with my estimate for the marathon (5 hours predicted vs. 4 hrs 58 min actual).
Issues:
My GPS only lasted about 5 hours into the bike ride. I guess
if I were a faster cyclist, this wouldn’t have been a problem – just complete
the ride before the battery dies! But I knew that if I went faster than about
15 mph average on the bike, my chances of not blowing up on the run would be
significantly decreased. So, keeping within my abilities, I went slower than I
figured I really could. I have a hard time doing this unless I can located
another rider to pace off of. Note – this does not mean draft off of, I keep my
interval in keeping with the rules of the sport. I found a few “pacers” out
there – athlete 2620 during the first couple hours, a different chap toward the
end of the race. The only time I ran into an issue with keeping my pace
conservative was when I was on the part of the course where riders have to do
two laps of the same section. Here, there were faster riders already on their
second lap mixed in with folks like me who were taking it a bit easier on their
first lap. When I am surrounded by riders going faster, I just want to push
myself harder, too. It was hard to resist that urge, but thankfully once I
started my second lap, the faster riders were on their way to the finish and
the riders left on the course were by and large not as aggressive. This helped
me keep my pace. But back to the GPS: I made the mistake of staging it at the
transition area the day before the race. I should have known better than to do
this, for having used it quite a lot since acquiring it in 2007, I know that
best results are obtained when taking it directly off its charger immediately
before use. As it was, the device started to give me low battery warnings only
2.5 hours into the ride, though I was able to coax it on for another couple
hours before it gave up the goat.
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| IM Louisville bike graph |
The early demise of the GPS had implications for my ride and
for my run. Essentially, thereafter I had little means to determine how fast I
was going and the time of day. This is why it was doubly important for me to
find a “pacer” who I could use to keep my from going too fast towards the end
of the bike portion.
I think the lack of a GPS worked out well for me on the run.
This allowed me to just go by feel and not worry about what kind of pace I was
keeping mile by mile. Instead, from very early on in the run, I adopted a
run-walk strategy that entailed running several blocks (usually between 3-5,
but sometimes more), then walking a block or two, and repeating this over the
entire 26.2 mile course. As much as practical, I incorporated walking through
the aid stations into this regimen. I figure this ended up having me take
between two and three walk breaks per mile.
This run-walk strategy was also conducive towards favorable
gut conditions. In past long-course triathlons, I think I have tried to consume
too much on the run, and the sloshing effect made me have issues with cramping,
sideaches, and general gastrointestinal (GI) tract distress that is not
conducive towards timely event completion or an enjoyable race experience. This
time, I decided to only consume liquids and to sip them slowly while walking
through the aid stations. This would ensure that the nutrients made it into my
stomach and by not eating solids, I would avoid the associated delays in
gastric emptying that I think have caused me problems in the past on the run
segments of half Ironman races.
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| For those who made it to the end |
My go-to drinks were cola and chicken broth (the latter of
which I began to think of as a “liquid pretzel” from the yummy saltiness it
provided) alternated at aid stations along with a cup of water. I completely
avoided the sports drink offering on the run and ate no gels throughout the
entire race. In fact, the only solid foods I ate during the entire race were
one (1) powerbar (split into two halves), several bananas, and a few pretzels.
I drank a lot of sports drink on the bike portion (hence why I did not want to
drink any more of it once I got to the run, plus I think that the non-diluted
strength of the drink slows gastric emptying as well, which is not as much of a
problem on the bike as it is on the run), along with quite a bit of water. I also
dumped quite a few bottles of water over my head and on my jersey and shorts to
help keep cool on the bike.
To combat heat on the run, sponges soaked in ice water and
ice cubes were available. A few times I dumped some ice into my hat and put it
back on my head, but most of the time that ended up being too cold for my
scalp. I liked better to grab 2-3 sponges and put one in my hat and use the
others to squeeze cold water onto my shirt.
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| Public art in Louisville |
The bike ride twice passed through the town of LaGrange.
Riding down the main road lined with spectators yelling and cheering was cool –
it felt like I was in the Tour de France! Naturally, I was
hammering through this portion of the ride both times.
On the swim, I had a hard time sighting the buoys used to
mark the swim course. This was due to two problems: fogged up goggles and
scratched up lenses on said goggles. (Not to mention that I am nearsighted.) I
had to stop numerous times to get my bearings, slowing my time.
What would I change about the race? I would have prepared
better. The race program from the Ironman lists various stats associated with
the “average” Ironman athlete. Age-wise, I am pretty much dead on (average age:
37), but with respect to the average training distances claimed, I am lacking.
For instance, according to the race program, the average Ironman athlete swims
7 miles each week, bikes 225, and runs 48. My averages are way, way below all
of those. So certainly I could benefit from greater training volume.
I would also like to have at least one “support human” at
the race. It would have been nice to have someone I knew at the finish line
(though I was well-taken care of by the volunteers there). It was also a bit of
a hassle to have to go get my bike and gear from the transition area after
finishing the race (a support human could have done that for me).
What’s next? I know that I certainly want to continue to run
triathlons, though it is possible that I may stick to the half Ironman and
below level. I’ll have to wait a couple weeks to see what I think for sure. I
definitely want to take advantage of the various events offered out in
Colorado.
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| These are made in Louisville |
All in all, Ironman Louisville 2011 was a fantastic
experience and I commend the race organizers and all the volunteers who made it
happen! I am also happy that my first Ironman experience ended up taking place
in the U.S. – while the novelty of running Ironman China would be great (as I
had planned to do in May of this year before the race was cancelled), I have a
feeling that the race organization would have been lacking and it would have
been a much less fulfilling experience. Ironman Louisville was the culmination
of 10 years of racing and training for me and I look forward to seeing where I
go in the future.
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| One of Louisville's sister cities is Jiujiang, People's Republic of China |
*IM Louisville's swim is unique as that it is a time-trial start, as opposed to mass or wave starts at virtually all other races. What this means is that instead of having all members of an age group (for instance, males aged 35-39 yrs) start the swim together (a wave start), as is fairly standard at many triathlons worldwide, at IM Louisville each athlete jumped into the river singly in succession (OK, actually there were two lines to make it go a bit faster), which explains why even though the race actually began at 7:00 AM, I did not enter the water until nearly 45 minutes later. Luckily, the 2 hour 20 minute swim cut-off did not start until the last athlete entered the muddy waters of the Ohio River (which was much more pleasant to swim in than I had feared it might be. It was a comfortable temperature and it did not smell of sewage, unlike the previous triathlon which I swam in a river for.).
