IMChoo: Let's go biking!

T1

My main goals for T1 were to remember to put on face sunscreen before chamois cream and to eat my first Gu of the day. I did that successfully, changed into my other tritop that is more comfortable to wear for the rest of the day and headed out!

Without running, I got through transition in 7 minutes, when I had allocated 10, so that was perfect.

Bike 

I had some power numbers from a free trial of Best Bike Split that I was hoping to use as guidance, but also wanted to make sure my heart rate didn't get too high and that I stayed on top of my nutrition.

The course was a lollipop with 11 miles to ease into the idea of biking. This included some railroad crossings, which given my recent bike-fall-down, I was super cautious around. I even went so far as to unclip one foot to be ready to catch myself if my wheel slipped. I called out my intentions loudly to all the people whizzing past me, so hopefully didn't disrupt anyone's day.

From the 70.3, I had observed "Get bottles that fit well in cages. Noteworthy bumps in first few miles left nutrition on the side of the road." Apparently a lot of racers didn't read my note because there were bottles all over the place, which made the crossings even more treacherous. I didn't lose anything myself, so still had 3 Gu's, two bars, and two bottles of Skratch keeping me company as we headed out of town and into Georgia.

For the next few hours, I biked and ate, and biked and drank. Everything was marvelously uneventful and I kept my focus small. Like the swim, I stayed "in the box", which I implemented by pretending it was a training ride, and using my fake cue sheet to look for the next road, and not thinking about how many more miles there were in the day.

Heading out, I read down the left side of the road names, and on the return half of the loop, I read up the right side. I needed a compact view to be able to fit this all onto my handlebars. Some year, when I get a tri bike, I expect to plaster the front handlebars with information, since there is so much more real-estate to work with, but until then, I have to keep it compact.

The best part of the loop was on the way back after passing Halls Mill, I could start looking forward to seeing family and friends at the cheer station at Pigeon Mountain Grill.

Soon after that was bike special needs, where I took my ziploc of tube + CO2 and put it in my back pocket, reloaded my bento box with Gus and bars, and took 2 more bottles of Skratch. Then I headed off down the road, and used the next few miles of mostly uphill riding as a chance to eat Cheetos, holding the open bag with my left hand, since I wasn't shifting into the big ring any time soon, and wiping cheese dust on my right thigh. That was pretty delicious and thankfully sat well in my stomach.

Loop two was lonelier, and I no longer had people passing me decisively, so I had to work a little harder to avoid drafting, but I kept my power up, and my heart rate only drifted up a little. The perfect weather continued, so I wasn't overheating at all, and after making the turn to come back on the loop, I was able to start making up time towards meeting my biking goal -- while also reminding myself that this is not a bike race and to be smart about this.

One of my goals for the day was to "Experience the day," which sounds a little cheesy now outside of context, but I wanted to stay aware of what was going on around me. On the first loop, I saw some goats and sheep, and signs for bulls, pigs and chickens for sale. It was great countryside and I enjoyed seeing it. The next loop, the animals had moved on to other pastures, but the bulls, pigs and chickens remained for sale.

I looked just as happy passing the cheer station a second time, and am pleased to see from the photo that I hadn't developed any weird posture quirks

"Only" a marathon's worth of biking to go and still on pace and smiling!

My bike held up really well to all the shifting, even with getting rained on the night before. For the half, I had noticed a lot of people dropping chains on the hills, so I worked on being aware of upcoming conditions, so I wouldn't get surprised and need an unexpected front-ring shift. I hope to spend more time in the big ring next season as I continue to get stronger on the bike.

Thankfully, I did not consciously think of the distance I had left to bike, or left to go in the day, and just kept on pedaling, eating, and drinking.

For the return stick, I changed my bike computer's display to show me cadence. I wanted to avoid the tendency to coast that had been happening at the end of my long rides, and I wanted to finish appropriately strong. With cadence, power and HR showing, I tried to keep my effort at an appropriate level and succeeded quite well.

I was super pleased that I had eaten all of my food by that point, and kept sipping at the Gatorade bottle I'd picked up to try to catch up on hydration. My plan had been to get through about a bottle per hour, with 3 calorie bottles per loop and the rest of the drinking as water, but I didn't manage to finish that up. Thankfully it didn't come back to haunt me later, but I should either accept it takes 5 drinks to finish a bottle and plan calories appropriately, or work on taking larger drinks so it only takes 4.

With 3 miles or so left, I increased my cadence which was nice for my running legs, but bad for my speed and power, so I might have to add some high-cadence drills to my biking next year to get a better handle on how to do that without compromise.

I finished the bike in 7:15, which was perfect.

T2

This was also uneventful. I remembered to take my Garmin off my bike, changed socks and shoes, ate a Gu, used the restroom and left to go running.

Somehow this took 5 minutes, but that was what I'd budgeted, so again, perfect!

IMChoo: First IM means incredibly long race report

Visualization FTW

I thought a LOT about this race beforehand. Some of my thoughts were calculations and helped me figure out time goals, and others were trying to imagine how different parts of the day would feel. I wrote out some of my best-case visualizations and read them to myself in the weeks leading to the race. This helped me to not invent worries and to feel good about my decisions.

Once I reached step 3.c of the morning "Start time uncertainty has been resolved, because you have a place in line." I was ready to try to stay relaxed and wait, but first I had to get there.

Pre-Race - Race day

Check, check, check!

Visualization 1.a "With two alarms, this will be easy. Your race day outfit is laid out and you put on timing chip, tri shorts, sports bra, HRM, tri top, and Garmin. Put on a layer of sunscreen. Over that add warmer clothes, old sneakers"

The checklists continued on race day. I made a ziploc of my race-day race clothes, and velcro'd my timing chip to my tri-top. This meant that I didn't wear it around with me all day on Friday and Saturday while also not worrying about losing it.

My race day breakfast was a fairly significant variation from my regular long-workout-breakfast, but it was hotel-compatible, while my regular breakfast (of egg&cheese burrito) was not. The toaster waffle + salted caramel peanut butter sat really well for the pre-race brick; it had slightly less fat & protein than my regular breakfast, so I wasn't expecting any surprise stomach behavior. I also loaded up on warm liquid calories with instant coffee + instant hot chocolate for a "camping mocha" and two scoops of apple-cinnamon Skratch, which was a great treat while sitting in line. Finally, while in line, I enjoyed one of the free Little Debbie snacks around 6am, so I had 90 minutes of digesting before race start.

But, rewinding a bit, before getting into line and finishing eating, I dropped off special needs bags, and made Katie go stand somewhere obvious wearing blinking green bunny ears. I'd wanted to eliminate the potential stress of not being able to find my wetsuit or chair (or sherpa) and the light up ears were a great solution.

In transition, I said good morning to my bike, put on my bottles and stashed my Gu's, and then taped my nutrition cheat sheet and my pseudo-cue sheet to my handlebars so I would be able to treat this like a training ride. I also set my checklists in a puddle, but thankfully was still able to check things off. Whew!

As it turned out, they had already announced that the race was not wetsuit legal while I was setting up transition, but letting Katie carry my bag of wetsuits back to the room was not acceptable, so, exhibiting excellent sherpa behavior, she continued to carry that bag, the chair, and my drinks around for me.

My paranoid schedule that had us waking up at 4A and at transition when it opened at 4:30A, worked out super well and we were on an early shuttle, and were able to join up with Jen in the swim line.

Getting in line resolved one of the major controllable uncertainties in the day and as I settled into the chair to wait, it was easy to continue working on eating my breakfast and drinking my calories.

From the half, I had these notes to myself:

  ·        Get on shuttle early and get in line for swim. Getting into the water early, and hence onto the bike course early was perfect for me – avoid passing people on the bike.
  ·        Bring something to sit on while in line. Send it back with your sherpa
  ·        Gu or other small snacky before swim start

Success! on all counts, except that my snackys were more like 300 calories :)


My family came out to the swim start line at a much more rational time, good wishes were shared all around, and loads of photos were taken.

Happy it is almost time to go

Swim

From the half, these were my swim notes:

  ·        Flow controlled by upstream dam. 8000 cu ft/whatever for 70.3 race day. 24000 cu ft/whatever last year on IM day. Calibrate expectations
  ·        Remember to start watch on the dock
  ·        Practice jumping in and starting swimming at swim practice. If I feel breathless at practice, the next day, jump in and swim slower.
  ·        70 degree water was ok with long sleeve wetsuit. For race day, last year, it was too warm for wetsuit. Research swim skins

For race day, we were looking at 6000 whatevers, so while it was a nice current, it wasn't the raging torrent that last year's swimmers had. I kept my planned swim goal the same, twice the half time, rounded up to the nearest 5 minutes, but was willing to accept whatever it showed when I came out of the water, since it was non-wetsuit :(

My visualization paragraphs for swimming included the great sentence "Your wetsuit is eager to give you a cozy hug" but unfortunately my wetsuit will have to wait for another day to embrace me.

I had researched swim skins, and decided that since I couldn't rent one and since they were expensive, I would just wear my tightest tritop and move on with my life.

I had some anxiety jumping from the dock at the half in May and had been practicing jumping in at all swim practices since then. While jumping in still doesn't feel easy, knowing I had done all that practice helped on race day. When we were being rushed down to the dock, I knew I had done everything I could have to get ready to jump off that dock, so I did it!

No excuses, no regrets.

My next visualization sentences were
"5.a. Stay relaxed & steady – start time uncertainty has been resolved!
5.b. How many buoys are there? Count them down."

This led to the first, and probably biggest, mental hurdle I had in the day (which should tell you how perfect the rest of the day was). 10 minutes into the swim, my watch buzzed, and I was just at the third buoy!! Since the announcer had said they were going to be about 100m apart, that would have meant a record slowest swim. I worried about that for a breath or two, decided the swim felt good, so probably the buoys are farther apart, and calmed myself down.

Starting to worry 10-20 minutes into my day also almost kicked off a spiral of crazy, but I worked on focusing on where I was, not on the big picture, or in other words, I stayed "in the box". I used that box All Day Long! and it never let me down.

The announcer had also said the buoys would switch color half way through. When that happened around 30 minutes into the swim, and after 10 buoys of the first color, I extrapolated that there would probably be 10 of the other color, and stopped worrying I was going unnaturally slowly.

The rest of the swim went well. I dunked someone, but he bobbed up OK, and I apologized. Otherwise, it was a very spacious swim. Every once in a while, I jumped on someone's hip to draft as they passed me, but generally kept it super relaxed -- even to the extent that I consciously noticed I was sliding my hand through the back of my stroke instead of pushing the water. Oh well! I decided not to try too hard to fix it, but it is an area for improvement and something I wouldn't've gotten away with if we hadn't had the current assist.

In a glaring oversight of prep, I had thought we would only swim under two bridges, until I was sighting and realized there were actually three. I'd only been driving/walking across these bridges for the last 3 days, and somehow didn't put that together.

I finished the swim in 1:02, which was perfect.

IMChoo: Leading up to the race...

Weds pre-race - Great day of driving and eating

I started the drive to Chattanooga after 1 last track practice and had an uneventful drive. The only good part of road trips is planning in good food stops so for this trip, I had

1. an unplanned gas station CrackerJack refuel stop
2. lunch at Harvest Table in Meadowview
3. coffee and a snack for later from Blackbird Bakery in Bristol
4. and a pizza to go to eat in my room from Community Pie in Chattanooga 

Harvest Table was even better than I had hoped. The town of Meadowview is rather desolate, but ending up at a place that is so committed to local/seasonal foods that they couldn't have tomatoes on the hamburger since they had stopped growing for the year was a great find. I had the trout cakes and it was an entirely appropriate lunch size portion. If I hadn't been aiming for Blackbird Bakery in less than an hour, I absolutely would have had dessert as well.

Blackbird Bakery overwhelmed me with choices as usual and I took away a slice of chocolate pie for later after sotcking up on iced coffee, water and ice cubes for the next long leg of the drive.

Community Pie, thankfully, still carried the Sweet Fig pizza that I'd enjoyed there in May, so I got that, and started vacation with some binge TV in my hotel & pizza and pie. mmm.

Thurs pre-race - More eating! Checking off checklists

Breakfast - Check!
Julie Darling Doughnuts - Salted Caramel on the left, Oreo/Vanilla on the right

Registration and packet pickup - Check!

I had a pretty extensive race plan document that included a number of checklists, so I was excited to start checking off things.

Registration went super well, I bought my mug, which I decided I wanted to own, even if the whole race day fell apart in some dramatic manner, and picked up a new Little Debbie water bottle, two Oatmeal Creme Pies and a Little Debbie magnet.

The athlete briefing was good as well. It was rather sunny, so I was glad to get it done at 11A instead of waiting until it was hotter in the afternoon. When I watched IM Mont Tremblant last year, they got buoys every 100m on the swim that were numbered. I was hoping for that for us as well, and the announcer said that the buoys would be about 100m apart, but I didn't go down afterwards to ask how many there were, which was one of my prime questions that I wanted answered from that meeting.

Lunch - Check!
At Milk & Honey, I had a turkey, brie and raspberry jam sandwich. Yum!

After lunch at Milk & Honey, I went to The Hot Chocolatier and bought loads of presents for my extensive support network. It was great fun, and even more fun to hand out surprises to people.

Then finally, some downtime before meeting a rolling group of friends for dinner at Taco Mamacita, which I found while in the plaza for lunch. It was a great find and it was nice to enjoy a margarita, trying to put some of the fears to rest. Luckily I was joined at first by people who had done this Ironman thing before, so they kindly didn't laugh at me for wearing my timing chip on my wrist because I was so anxious about misplacing it.

I wrapped up the day with a massage to work out twinges that had built up over the last 6 weeks and new ones that came from the driving.

Friday pre-race - More eating! And some much-needed seclusion

My Friday checklist was much less extensive. I briefly considered getting the short bike in that I had skipped from Thursday, but it was rainy, so I mostly hibernated in my room.

I'd intended to go to Waffle House, but realized that what I really wanted was a fluffly waffle with whipped cream and strawberries, like it should be, so with a little help from Google, I found the perfect solution at the Wafflez Factory

Then some foam rolling, lunch at Cracker Barrel, and more television watching, and finally my family came to town.

After spending the day mostly with myself, I was ready to talk as much as was needed to hopefully make my family feel ready to share in this selfish adventure. I hadn't explained much about the race before hand, so we took a wander around the river front and used my dinner voucher at Pucketts where my dad had his first (of many) tastes of BBQ for the weekend, and looked at maps, and talked about time lines, and so on.

Saturday pre-race - Brick and more planning

Saturday had another fairly extensive checklist, mostly concerned with packing, but before I could pack my bags, I had a quick mini-tri on the schedule.

Swim with friends, bike carefully on rainy roads, and a happy run finish.

After the brick, I changed into dry clothes and we had an early lunch at Mellow Mushroom. This was super important, because I needed left over pizza in my hotel room in case I was post-IM-starving! Also, it was another chance to let my family ask questions and plan for race day with some more experienced Ironman racers, Mary and Katie (my main sherpa for the weekend)

Then I packed my run and bike bags, using a lot of ziplocs for sub-bag control. Like, 1 gallon ziploc had everything I had to put on or use in some way from swim to bike, so I knew in T1, if I touched each item in that bag at least once, I would be ready to go biking. There were also a few optional things, so I put those in a separate ziploc so I wouldn't get confused. After dropping these off Katie watched me pace the room while packing special needs bags, and basically doing a terrible job of staying off my feet.

More checklists means more control, right?

Pre-race dinner at Alleia was amazing, though it was rather too crowded and noisy for me to enjoy at the time. I got to hand out support-crew treats that I'd got on Thursday, and got to enjoy extra helpings of the family style food that wasn't vegan by carefully seating myself near vegetarian and vegan friends. I also got a second helping of the chocolate cake for dessert by seating myself next to Katie - the non-chocolate-liking anomaly :)

Ed and Alexis had an amazing skit that helped introduce some of the crazy and disgusting things we get used to in training to our families while relating a (supposedly real) Waffle House interaction, and then it was time for photos and bed!

Racers and team-mates who came down to cheer, with no particular direction on where to look

Lights out at 9 meant there was a chance for at least 7 hours of sleep before race day, which was really reassuring, so at 9, I stopped chattering about everything in my head, and settled down to try to sleep.

The sleeping was somewhat disrupted, but I told myself that my goal for right then was to go back to sleep, and all of the race morning tasks and checklists would be waiting for me when it was actually time to wake up. This worked surprisingly well, and I'll have to remember it for regular days as well.

IMChoo: First-timer from Alexandria, VA... You are an Ironman!

I did it!

Below are my results, compared to my plan, so you can see, the day was pretty much perfect.

Mini-goals for the next few weeks:

• Keep TSB score positive while starting to move again
• Go out to weeknight events! (Movie, book reading, theater)
• Cheer for friends! (IMMD and Tussey)