Sorry this may take longer to read than it took me to finish the race!

Ironman Coeur D’Alene 2009

PreRace

Wednesday - Arrived into Spokane and after a 4 hour delay in San Francisco was happy that I was able to make it in. I hoped that this delay was the worst thing that was going to happen during the trip. After arrival no problems getting to Coeur D’Alene. I was able to drive around a little bit and check out where things were. It was something different to have sun light till after 9pm, my body was thoroughly confused about the time.

Thursday - morning I got up and headed over to the swim start to check out the swim and get in a quick lap. The course was set up short and was just a good opportunity to get in the water. I could not get in my house until 3pm so I was luckily able to hang out with John Stark during the day. We drove the bike course, got registered and picked up bikes. A group of us then went for a short bike ride to check everything out. After the bike ride I headed to the house to check it out and see my parents who had arrived in town. I grabbed a quick shower and went to the EN Dinner. This was a great opportunity to meet so many of the people who I only knew from the forums.

Friday - I went for another swim in the choppy but uneventful waters. They had the loop set up for the full course +/- and I did 1 loop and it felt fine. The plan was to do a short run and bike today but since it was raining all day I just hung around and did not risk crashing on the bike or getting my running shoes wet. The rest of my family came in the afternoon so it was nice to have them around to just hang out. I spent some time and laid out everything I thought I would need for tomorrow.

Saturday - I spent the morning packing up all my transition bags and getting my bike ready. This ended up taking much longer than I had planned. I should have spent more time on this Friday so I could have been less stressed about finishing things up on Saturday. I dropped my bike and my transition 1 and 2 bags off mid day and spent the rest of the day relaxing. My family went out for dinner and I stayed home and cooked my usual pre-game dinner of chicken and pasta (and remembered not to eat too much!)


Sunday - I was up at 4am and had a small breakfast of Bagel w/ PB, a banana, cup of coffee and a bottle of Gatorade. I took a quick shower to get warmed up and help wake up then finished packing up my special needs bags. Since there was a question of rain or not for the day I had a few extra items ready to add to my T1 and T2 bags if needed. The weather still looked “good” so I left all the cold/wet gear at home. My dad drove me downtown at about 5ish so I could get down there with plenty of time. I had plenty of time to get everything dropped off and situated.

The Race

Swim - I headed down onto the beach at about 6:40ish. I tend to overheat if I put my wetsuit on early so I was trying to balance getting really cold with out my suit on and too hot with it on. I placed myself about middle of the beach in the middle of the pack.

My plan was to let the first group go in than get going unless it looked too crazy then I would hold back and let it clear up a little bit. The most uncertain part of the whole race for me was the swim start. I have never participated in a mass start and have heard and read all the stories about getting beat up, swam over and almost drowned.

So when the gun went off the first group hit the water and everyone around me stood still. I saw a little gap into the water so I took the opportunity and went right in. The swim was crowded and I got bumped a few times but just took it easy and kept aware of the people around me. A few hundred yards in I knew I was swimming too fast but when I slowed down I could tell I was going to get swam over so I slowed a little but not as much as I wanted to. This is when I felt the zipper on my suit start to open a little. (I have a profile design suit that has the zipper that zips down from the top. I have always had some trouble with it opening a little bit but have always been able to reach around and zip it back down). As I reached back, and stopped stroking, to zip it I received a nice kick to the face and a pounding on the legs from behind. After zipping it back down I continued on, no problem. At the first buoy I started the turn way on the inside of the buoy, now that was full contact swimming. At that moment I felt my suit zipper coming up again but there was no way I could stop swimming here, then it happened, the entire zipper came undone…WTF! My suit immediately filled up like the staypuff marshmallow man. Many thoughts crossed my mind at this point, but none more than how do I get out of the way of these people while I get this issue addressed. I than proceeded to swim to the outside, for those of you that ran into a guy swimming 90degrees against you right after the turn now you know why. After I was out of the swimmers I could finally think about how the hell I was going to reclip my zipper and get it zipped while treading water. For those of you who have never used a suit that zips down think of starting the zipper on a jacket and having to thread your zipper for the jacket behind your neck while pulling the wetsuit full of water together. My only other option was to take the suit off and continue without it, which did not seem like a very good option. The only thing that saved me was the fact that I always zip my own suit, for some reason I never let others help me zip the suit up. I was luckily able to feel the zipper and was able to get the thing together on the first try and get it zipped. I left the zipper pull hanging down after that and had no more problems with the zipper coming up for the rest of the swim. On the second lap as I passed the turn around I was thinking about the zipper and figured that the zipper pull must be too short and when I extend on my glide it must pull the zipper up, so leaving it hang down will now be the standard for that suit. The second loop was uneventful I was able to find my pace by counting strokes and finished the swim feeling good heading into T1!

Swim 1:11:30

T1 - Got my wetsuit stripped, also something new for me, and remembered to hold onto my shorts. Got my bag and headed into the tent. The tent was crowded when I got in and I almost took a seat in the middle of the crowd before I looked past and saw it was really empty at the exit so headed over, sat down got my shoes, glasses and helmet on. Off I went.

T1 5:20

Bike - Headed out on the course my cheering section was at the exit and was nice to hear everyone. I kept glued to the power meter watching the watts and everyone riding past me. On the way out of town a guy rode up next to me a asked if I was Patrick from Endurance Nation, “why yes I am” I replied. He proceeded to thank me for everything I did to prepare him for this race and how grateful he was. I was having trouble figuring out how I was so supportive of this guy when it hit me who he thought I was. He was already riding off into the sunset before I could clarify that I was just another student who happen to share the name (P if you get a email from a guy who talked to you on the bike you now know why).

My bike ride was uneventful. I am glad I dressed as I did with no arm warmers or anything else since temperature wise I was perfect. The first lap was more difficult than it should have been, as usual I rode too hard.
I had some trouble taking in enough nutrition since my gut did not feel great, I think too much of Lake CDA was riding with me. I finally stopped at a portapotty and than helped. I was happy to head back into town and was happy with my time. On the way back out I saw my family and that helped get me going again. The second loop felt quicker and I was riding fine but slightly slower. By half way through the second loop I was ready to be done with the bike. RnP did a ride by with positive comments and it was nice to see some familiar faces, unfortunately the only words that came to mind I will not repeat. At least that gave me something to think about for a while as the look on their faces as they rode away made me laugh (ya I know I am strange – Sorry again RnP). As a new power student I worked on trying to keep to my gears, but failed. I know I rode so much smarter than I ever would have w/o EN so that made me happy, but looking at my power file I know I need a lot more practice “smoothing the line”. I did keep my TSS under 300 which was a major accomplishment in my eyes since I was not even close on my two race rehearsals.

Power Data:

Duration: 6:20:01 (6:31:34)

Work: 3242kJ

TSS: 293.9 (intensity factor 0.695)

Norm Power: 176VI: 1.19

Distance: 106.538 mi

Min Max AvgPower: 0 455 148 watts

Cadence: 30 244 76 rpm

Speed: 0 43 16.7 mph

Pace 1:24 0:00 3:36 min/mi

Hub Torque: 0 439 74 lb-in

Crank Torque: 0 791 169 lb-in

Bike 6:30.51

T2 - Came into transition and saw the family again which was great! Got into the tent to get on shoes, visor, gel and was off. No problem!

T2 3:48

Run - I am not a runner and have never run more than the 16 miles I ran in my longest training run, but I came out of transition ready to run. All I could think about the last 20 miles of the bike was running.

I was actually excited since I felt I had energy for the run. It took a little time for the Garmin to start working and of course when it did I was running my 100m pace not my slow plus 30 pace. It took a little while to get that down, than I added walking to slow it down even more. I was moving forward but the mind was quickly coming to a dark place. WTF I’m not even close to mile 18 closer to mile 6. I was tapping into my 1 thing much earlier than I should have been.Somewhere in there John Stark came by and we spoke briefly he drilled into my head to focus and find the reset button. I also had a quick chat with Bill Russell about staying in the box and doing what I needed to do to keep running. I hope these guys know how taking a few moments from their day helped keep me going when I really needed it! Somewhere on the short out and back on my second loop, maybe when I stopped to use the portapotty, I was able to hit that reset button. I went from thinking I was headed for a death march on the second loop to I can run/walk this thing no problem. I felt better and ran my “race” walking the aid stations and hills and running most of the rest. I really found a happy place and was so excited to finish the race! Running along Lakeside that final time I saw my Mom, Dad and Sister once again and that was awesome. I knew I was only about a mile from the finish. Running down Sherman to the finish was one of the highlights of my life!!! I was in another world. My garmin shows that I was running a 6:30 pace at the end of the race, for at least 50’. I positioned myself perfectly so that the spotter would be able to get my number and I could hear Mike Reilly call me in. As loud as the finishers shoot was I only heard Patrick and Huntington Beach, but I knew that was me and that I was an Ironman.

Run 5:44

Total Time 13:35:51

I had 3 goals for my first Ironman. #1 was to finish the race, #2 was to have a smile on my face at the end & #3 was to finish under 14 hours. I am so proud to have accomplished my goals and will add this as a day I will never forget.