Ironman, like life’s most poignant stories, is one comprised of a thousand more. Many thousands, even. All of them collide and intersect to make one great, beautiful – if sweat-drenched and stinky – story. Much like the marathon, this event is so powerful that it creates myriad new stories, which may be the most marvelous part.
Feel free to take my words with a grain of salt. I’m well aware that life is full of staggeringly beautiful tales that don’t require expensive bikes with aerobars. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned recently, it’s that the truest experiences are the ones we feel deeply.
I finally figured out how to do this, how to best express my Ironman. Over the next few days, I’ll write about some of the stories that gave my Ironman experience its emotional truth. They’re stories of the people who helped and inspired me, and to whom I owe the most thanks.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Deep Thoughts: Ironman Edition
So I still need to write a very general summary of Ironman and how much it meant to me. Now that my move is winding down, I’m finally getting a little time to think about these things. But before I write and post that, I also wanted to talk about other, less profound things. I could talk about my Ironman experience all day long, but who would enjoy that (I’m not fishing here. You really don’t want it). Instead, I wrote up a condensed list of some of my Ironman reflections.
I’ll think of more things, I’m sure. Word of warning, if I think of enough things there may be a follow-up deep thoughts post.
- I sweated off the body markings on both my arms before the bike ended. What I gather from this (whether it’s correct or not is another matter) is that I did a really good job hydrating. Normally, I do a less-than-ideal job with this. I can’t decide what’s worse, my hydration abilities or my sighting.
- I did not question the cleanliness of the water in the Hudson until we reached probably the last 10 yards of the swim. I put my face in the water and suddenly could not see my hand in front of my face because it was so black. I kept putting my head in just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things but then I got a mouthful of what tasted like motor oil and decided to just keep my head out until the end.
- That hill! That hill at the beginning of the run was brutal. I’m glad we didn’t have to do it twice. When I got to what looked like the end and realized it made a sharp turn and kept going up, I said “COME ON!” and the guy at my side laughed at me.
- I’d like to add following directions to the list of things I’m bad at…okay fine it was the first thing on that list (Kim, I can see you laughing). I didn’t bring my bike and run gear bags to transition the day before the race as instructed so had to take them the morning of. It ended up not being a disaster somehow, even though no one seemed to know where the bike bag location was.
- Bonk Breakers bars are really good. I looked forward to getting off the bike just so I could eat like two of them. It was my idea of an Ironman feast. They’re so good that I even tried and succeeded at eating one while on the bike. I know, guys. I didn’t even fall.
- At one of the miles Trey asked me if I’d tried chicken broth, which they had available at many of the hydration stops on the run. I thought the idea sounded pretty foul, but he insisted that it was amazing so I gave it a try around mile 23. Trey was right. It was amazing.
- At some point, though I also stopped being able to eat that much. At the end of Dyckman Hill, someone handed me an orange slice. When I wondered aloud why I hadn’t been eating them the whole time, she handed me another cupful. But I looked down at them and sadly realized I couldn’t eat any more. In the trash they went.
- Dyckman Hill was no joke and I admittedly walked it. Even the voice was like “eff that.” For the record, I walked a lot on the run. It’s something I look forward to improving upon in future Ironman races.
- Triathletes are really tall. When I was at the pre-race briefing I was surrounded by people and most of what was at my eye-level was mid-back. Toward the end of the race, I was running as fast as Trey could walk.
- The swim was fast. I did mine in 1:01! That’s only 6 minutes longer than it took me to swim half the distance in Providence
- Crossing the George Washington Bridge was amazing. Not only was the view beautiful and the wind fantastic, but drivers were honking encouragement! At least, I think it was encouragement. But then again, this is New York City so who knows.
- I thought about a lot of things on the bike. One of the strangest, though, was a burning desire to know why the eff Berger would break up with Carrie over post-it?!?! If anyone can provide some insight into this, please do. It’ll give me something to ponder on my next IM ride.
- I got my nails done (purple, in case you were wondering) for the race. Just because I smelled like an armpit didn’t mean my nails shouldn’t look pretty.
- When I finished, I thought Mike Reilly had missed my name and I was crushed (I know, it didn’t diminish the fact that I’d finished the Ironman but let’s face it, no one is rational right after finishing). Many thanks to my amazing friends for hearing (or at least convincing me that they’d heard) him say it.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Alive and an Ironman
I'm still alive and I finished! It's been a week now and I haven't written my thoughts on it. Partly because I'm making sure I do it right and partly because I've been moving into a new apartment all week, which makes writing difficult. Anyway, wanted to check in at least. Here's a picture of my hardware!
Friday, August 10, 2012
Ironman Thoughts, aka, I Promise I'm Not Crazy
“Come on, ladies!”
“Let’s see what you got!”
“How bad do you want it?”
Let’s put aside the fact that it should be “you’ve” and “badly” in those bottom two for one second. These will likely sound familiar to anyone who participated in coached athletics of any sort. They’re the voices that drive us and they come from many people. Sometimes it’s a motivated parent volunteer or teacher with a selfless investment in seeing us succeed. As we get older, we’re left to our own devices in the motivation department. For better or worse, I don’t have a greater cause. I’m doing the Ironman because I can. About four and a half years ago, a different voice started to speak up.
If I start sounding crazy, just bear with me.
At first, the voice was reasonable. I saw a billboard flier advertising a 10k and somewhere inside I wondered if I could do it. After weighing all the evidence, the facts that I had two months to train and that I knew I’d been able to run farther distances at some point in my life, the voice said yes. And thus I began hitting the gym at night, after work and running on the treadmill. During those days, running consistent 12 minute miles was a struggle.
In time, I was brave enough to venture outside for my runs. Ithaca is, after all, gorges. A few weeks before the 10k, the voice piped up again after I’d done a beautiful four mile loop. It told me to do another one and I figured “Why not? I can, so I might as well.” Then the voice got crazy and told me to keep going until I’d hit 10 miles. And I did.
I hobbled to campus to visit a friend (I’m looking at you, Gretchen Schmidt) at work the next day. Upon observing me struggle up the two steps into the building and across the marble floor toward her desk, she said “well, that’s what you get for running 10 miles.” It was a fair comment and one that delighted me, not only because it was affectionately snide, but also because it made me feel like a badass.
The voice got louder and more demanding. Not long after moving to New York City I ran a surprise 11-miler. The voice is seductive and it tugs at my consciousness, suggesting that I do just one more. One more mile, one more lap, one more hill. And then it used its sly logic to convince me that running that 11 miles meant it was time for me to sign up for a marathon. I did that, too.
That voice. Or, this voice. It confuses me sometimes. What I’ve observed is that there’s me, and I tell myself things like “I’m not really up for a run, I’ll go out for a few and see how I feel” and there’s some beast in the background that responds with something like “well you’re out here, might as well make it 13.”
The voice’s ideas aren’t always good. It urged me to run an ultramarathon a few weeks after my first New York City Marathon and that happened to work out. But the next year it also convinced me to sign up for a Half Ironman. I didn’t finish and was crushed. The voice didn’t care. It just applied its logic in different ways. My downfall at the Half Ironman was the bike, so it convinced me to sign up for a 90 mile charity bike ride two months later.
Finally, I’ve begun to appreciate the voice in all its mysterious forcefulness. If I’ve learned one thing from Ironman training, it’s that my success (defined for me as finishing) will depend on my ability to trust that voice above everything. A few weeks ago at triathlon camp, as I toiled up a monstrous hill at Lake Placid, I heard it again. It said many things to get me up that hill and made me understand that there was no pride in stopping and no satisfaction in letting the hill beat me. What I remember it saying clearly was, “This is Ironman.” It told me that whatever I was feeling then would be many times worse at the actual race so I might as well suck it up and embrace the pain. Well played, voice.
There are some things we understand and others that we believe. We understand things that make sense in our heads. We believe things that are true to a deeper part of ourselves. They’re not mutually exclusive, by the way. I understand it, but someday I’ll even believe that the voice is mine. I did this. I trained for an Ironman and by God’s grace and many, many hours of training, I hope to finish it.
So tomorrow, when the voice asks, “How bad do you want it?” I’ll shut off everything that’s telling me to stop and I’ll push for the next five, ten, twenty, however many miles are left.
I want it bad…ly.
“Let’s see what you got!”
“How bad do you want it?”
Let’s put aside the fact that it should be “you’ve” and “badly” in those bottom two for one second. These will likely sound familiar to anyone who participated in coached athletics of any sort. They’re the voices that drive us and they come from many people. Sometimes it’s a motivated parent volunteer or teacher with a selfless investment in seeing us succeed. As we get older, we’re left to our own devices in the motivation department. For better or worse, I don’t have a greater cause. I’m doing the Ironman because I can. About four and a half years ago, a different voice started to speak up.
If I start sounding crazy, just bear with me.
At first, the voice was reasonable. I saw a billboard flier advertising a 10k and somewhere inside I wondered if I could do it. After weighing all the evidence, the facts that I had two months to train and that I knew I’d been able to run farther distances at some point in my life, the voice said yes. And thus I began hitting the gym at night, after work and running on the treadmill. During those days, running consistent 12 minute miles was a struggle.
In time, I was brave enough to venture outside for my runs. Ithaca is, after all, gorges. A few weeks before the 10k, the voice piped up again after I’d done a beautiful four mile loop. It told me to do another one and I figured “Why not? I can, so I might as well.” Then the voice got crazy and told me to keep going until I’d hit 10 miles. And I did.
I hobbled to campus to visit a friend (I’m looking at you, Gretchen Schmidt) at work the next day. Upon observing me struggle up the two steps into the building and across the marble floor toward her desk, she said “well, that’s what you get for running 10 miles.” It was a fair comment and one that delighted me, not only because it was affectionately snide, but also because it made me feel like a badass.
The voice got louder and more demanding. Not long after moving to New York City I ran a surprise 11-miler. The voice is seductive and it tugs at my consciousness, suggesting that I do just one more. One more mile, one more lap, one more hill. And then it used its sly logic to convince me that running that 11 miles meant it was time for me to sign up for a marathon. I did that, too.
That voice. Or, this voice. It confuses me sometimes. What I’ve observed is that there’s me, and I tell myself things like “I’m not really up for a run, I’ll go out for a few and see how I feel” and there’s some beast in the background that responds with something like “well you’re out here, might as well make it 13.”
The voice’s ideas aren’t always good. It urged me to run an ultramarathon a few weeks after my first New York City Marathon and that happened to work out. But the next year it also convinced me to sign up for a Half Ironman. I didn’t finish and was crushed. The voice didn’t care. It just applied its logic in different ways. My downfall at the Half Ironman was the bike, so it convinced me to sign up for a 90 mile charity bike ride two months later.
Finally, I’ve begun to appreciate the voice in all its mysterious forcefulness. If I’ve learned one thing from Ironman training, it’s that my success (defined for me as finishing) will depend on my ability to trust that voice above everything. A few weeks ago at triathlon camp, as I toiled up a monstrous hill at Lake Placid, I heard it again. It said many things to get me up that hill and made me understand that there was no pride in stopping and no satisfaction in letting the hill beat me. What I remember it saying clearly was, “This is Ironman.” It told me that whatever I was feeling then would be many times worse at the actual race so I might as well suck it up and embrace the pain. Well played, voice.
There are some things we understand and others that we believe. We understand things that make sense in our heads. We believe things that are true to a deeper part of ourselves. They’re not mutually exclusive, by the way. I understand it, but someday I’ll even believe that the voice is mine. I did this. I trained for an Ironman and by God’s grace and many, many hours of training, I hope to finish it.
So tomorrow, when the voice asks, “How bad do you want it?” I’ll shut off everything that’s telling me to stop and I’ll push for the next five, ten, twenty, however many miles are left.
I want it bad…ly.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
An Ironmanalysis
Yesterday, while perusing the Ironman US Championship website, I was thrilled to find a list of participants. Why so much enthusiasm? Well, I was presented with a rare opportunity to combine two of my favorite things: triathlon and Microsoft Excel.
I pivoted the crap out of that table. Let's talk about results!
Women vs. Men:
I was surprised to find that the data I pulled for the Ironman US Championships indicate that the ratio of men to women is nearly 5:1. There are 466 women registered as of 6/25 and 2208 men. I'm trying to obtain official data that says what the women/men percentages are for all Ironman events combined. At some point, I definitely heard from someone that the overall breakdown is close to 50/50. But 17/83 is a far cry from that, so I'm starting to have doubts that it's true.
Age:
The oldest woman in this race is 66 years old and the oldest man is 75. There are three 18-year-olds, two women and one man. It should be noted that 18 is the youngest one can be to compete. Also, the two women have the same last name, which leads me to believe they might be twins.
The average age of US Championship participants is 40.3. The averages for men and women differ slightly, with the average age of the 466 women being 39 and the average age of the 2208 men being 40.6.
Speaking of outliers, there actually are two in the data (age listed as 0), but I've left them there since it's probably a data quality thing and the records likely do represent people who are participating. In the graphs below you'll see these categorized as "WHAAA?" which was my chosen indicator in the gigantic nested if-statement I created to sort everyone into age groups, which brings me to:
Age Groups:
Let's see some tables, shall we?
Mmmm...yes...very interesting. Now, pie charts!
New Jersey – 430
Unspecified – 362
California – 124
Connecticut – 124
Florida – 107
Pennsylvania – 60
Texas – 55
Massachusetts – 46
Virginia – 43
Illinois – 38
But wait! There are 11 listed here! True. This is a result of the "Unspecified" category. You'll notice that the number of competitors without a state listed is sizeable. Rather than take out that chunk, I just added Illinois, which could very well be the 10th state if those 362 participants were correctly categorized (or maybe it wouldn't. What if 68 out of those 362 are from Manitoba? I don't really know. That pesky Unspecified category could change that list quite a bit, but we can't know for sure).
Well, that's that. If you have any questions about the data, ask away and I'll try to get you some answers. If you see any errors, let me know!
I pivoted the crap out of that table. Let's talk about results!
Women vs. Men:
I was surprised to find that the data I pulled for the Ironman US Championships indicate that the ratio of men to women is nearly 5:1. There are 466 women registered as of 6/25 and 2208 men. I'm trying to obtain official data that says what the women/men percentages are for all Ironman events combined. At some point, I definitely heard from someone that the overall breakdown is close to 50/50. But 17/83 is a far cry from that, so I'm starting to have doubts that it's true.
Age:
The oldest woman in this race is 66 years old and the oldest man is 75. There are three 18-year-olds, two women and one man. It should be noted that 18 is the youngest one can be to compete. Also, the two women have the same last name, which leads me to believe they might be twins.
The average age of US Championship participants is 40.3. The averages for men and women differ slightly, with the average age of the 466 women being 39 and the average age of the 2208 men being 40.6.
Speaking of outliers, there actually are two in the data (age listed as 0), but I've left them there since it's probably a data quality thing and the records likely do represent people who are participating. In the graphs below you'll see these categorized as "WHAAA?" which was my chosen indicator in the gigantic nested if-statement I created to sort everyone into age groups, which brings me to:
Age Groups:
Let's see some tables, shall we?
Age group percentage breakdowns are similar for men and women. My age group, women 25-29, has 49 people. Here's hoping I finish better than 49th. The largest group for men is 40-44 while the second largest is 35-39. For women, this is switched. Also, well done, gentlemen, for having 5 participants over the age of 70.
Finally, we come to
Home States:
Not surprisingly, New York will be producing the largest number of competitors in this race. Or maybe it is surprising, considering that most of the race takes place in New Jersey. Discuss.
Top Ten Home States (by number of competitors):
New York – 882New Jersey – 430
Unspecified – 362
California – 124
Connecticut – 124
Florida – 107
Pennsylvania – 60
Texas – 55
Massachusetts – 46
Virginia – 43
Illinois – 38
But wait! There are 11 listed here! True. This is a result of the "Unspecified" category. You'll notice that the number of competitors without a state listed is sizeable. Rather than take out that chunk, I just added Illinois, which could very well be the 10th state if those 362 participants were correctly categorized (or maybe it wouldn't. What if 68 out of those 362 are from Manitoba? I don't really know. That pesky Unspecified category could change that list quite a bit, but we can't know for sure).
Well, that's that. If you have any questions about the data, ask away and I'll try to get you some answers. If you see any errors, let me know!
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Race Report: Amica Ironman 70.3 Run
I was in the middle of transition in T2 when I saw my rival on the bike (to whom I've been referring as "Pink") run out before me! Considering I got into T2 first, I found this completely unacceptable so raced out without doing one key thing: taking off my bike shorts.
I may have failed to mention this before, but I wasn't wearing proper tri attire for this race due to typically poor planning. Instead, I'd devised a plan in which I'd wear tight black shorts for the swim and run and wear bike shorts over them on the bike. It was a great plan but would have been better if I'd executed the last part. No big deal, as it turns out. Also, I dropped Pink after maybe a tenth of a mile.
But back to the run. It consisted of two loops. Here's a handy dandy map. I've taken the liberty of marking the spots that were torture.
From approximately mile 1 to mile 2.5 was basically uphill. And the majority of that was in the sun with no shade and no water. At the end of the biggest part of the hill, I was grunting at every step. It wasn't my finest moment, but hey, I got up the hill without walking. As an aside, they were giving out wet sponges to cool us off and those were life savers. TMI Alert: I even put ice in my bra. It was hot!
This part of the course was so hard that I started to really worry about the Ironman and wonder how I'd ever be able to do twice that distance. Fortunately I spoke to another friend of mine who also did the race and he said it made him think the same things. AND HE'S ALREADY DONE AN IRONMAN. That made me feel a lot better. Plus, I really did come back to my senses once I got off that hill.
The second time was even more of a struggle and the only reason I made it without walking is that I read 5:40 on the clock as I was entering my second lap. I knew that if I managed to push through and not walk, I'd have a good chance of breaking 7 hours. So every time I wanted to stop and walk (which was almost every step at some point), I thought about breaking 7 hours. Even though my run had slowed to what couldn't have been much faster than a crawl, I made it up again.
But this time, my sense of dread lasted a little bit longer. I was in a "just get through it" mindset until about mile 10.5 when I had an epiphany: I was almost done. 2.6 miles was all that stood between me, a revenge medal, pizza, and potentially even a sub-7 hour finish. At that point, I went all out. I was passing people left and right. Many of them seemed bewildered by it, too. It was a fine time to turn on the jets. And once I reached the barricades leading up to the capitol building, I started an all-out sprint to the finish. The clock read 6:47 as I crossed and with my swim start taken into account, I finished in a little over 6:42. That's a full 26 minutes faster than the one I did in May!
The run itself came out to 2:10 and change, which I did not expect at all. There were points in that run when I speculated that my time would be 10-15 minutes slower than it was in May. Guess not!
All in all, it was a good race. Despite my battle with the run course, I'd do it again.
I may have failed to mention this before, but I wasn't wearing proper tri attire for this race due to typically poor planning. Instead, I'd devised a plan in which I'd wear tight black shorts for the swim and run and wear bike shorts over them on the bike. It was a great plan but would have been better if I'd executed the last part. No big deal, as it turns out. Also, I dropped Pink after maybe a tenth of a mile.
But back to the run. It consisted of two loops. Here's a handy dandy map. I've taken the liberty of marking the spots that were torture.
This part of the course was so hard that I started to really worry about the Ironman and wonder how I'd ever be able to do twice that distance. Fortunately I spoke to another friend of mine who also did the race and he said it made him think the same things. AND HE'S ALREADY DONE AN IRONMAN. That made me feel a lot better. Plus, I really did come back to my senses once I got off that hill.
The second time was even more of a struggle and the only reason I made it without walking is that I read 5:40 on the clock as I was entering my second lap. I knew that if I managed to push through and not walk, I'd have a good chance of breaking 7 hours. So every time I wanted to stop and walk (which was almost every step at some point), I thought about breaking 7 hours. Even though my run had slowed to what couldn't have been much faster than a crawl, I made it up again.
But this time, my sense of dread lasted a little bit longer. I was in a "just get through it" mindset until about mile 10.5 when I had an epiphany: I was almost done. 2.6 miles was all that stood between me, a revenge medal, pizza, and potentially even a sub-7 hour finish. At that point, I went all out. I was passing people left and right. Many of them seemed bewildered by it, too. It was a fine time to turn on the jets. And once I reached the barricades leading up to the capitol building, I started an all-out sprint to the finish. The clock read 6:47 as I crossed and with my swim start taken into account, I finished in a little over 6:42. That's a full 26 minutes faster than the one I did in May!
The run itself came out to 2:10 and change, which I did not expect at all. There were points in that run when I speculated that my time would be 10-15 minutes slower than it was in May. Guess not!
All in all, it was a good race. Despite my battle with the run course, I'd do it again.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Race Report: Amica Ironman 70.3 Bike
Welcome back to the World's Longest Race Summary! Glad you've made it this far. When I last left off, I had just jumped out of the very warm Olney Pond and onto my bike for a nice, 56 mile jaunt.
I did this entire bike course without any knowledge of my speed. Upon dropping my bike off at transition the day before, I had been dismayed to find that my cycle computer wasn't registering any movement at all and did nothing but display the time (which was even 9 or 10 minutes off...so still worthless in that regard). Although I worried that I wouldn't ride fast enough without this knowledge, I knew there wasn't much I could do about it and simply resolved to race aggressively. Map of the course, not that it's very legible:
It was a nice course with some rolling hills. the only one that really stands out to me happened around mile 42. It was long and steep and at one point I felt like I was crawling! I started to wonder if it was just me until I turned the corner and saw a line of probably 10 to 15 other riders, all struggling like I was. That made me feel a little better.
The one thing I will say, though, is that there were parts of the course that were very rough. There were certain hills that I'd descend, reach probably 22-25mph, and then encounter patches of uneven pavement and potholes. I was very nervouse that I'd either flat or crash. A flat would most likely have meant the end of the race for me, because I didn't bring a spare tube. And a crash...well that could have resulted in many flavors of disaster. Happily, I avoided both.
I spent the last 10 or 15 miles battling it out with another woman that I started referring to as "Pink" in my head because she was wearing a pink helmet, pink top, and had a pink camouflage Quintana Roo frame. Pink would pass me on the flats and downhills and I would catch and pass her on the climbs. It was good motivation and I even managed to pull into the finish a few seconds ahead.
What I loved about the course is that it ended in downtown Providence, very close to the finish line. I absolutely loved making a grand entrance into the city and even having lots of spectators for the last few turns! I pulled into T2, parked Artemis (my bike, in case I haven't mentioned by name), took off my crap and turned my number belt around, changed my shoes, and scurried to the run start because I saw Pink fly right through transition and beat me there.
My worries about not knowing my speed were unfounded. I even think it may have helped, as a lack of knowledge has also helped my running in the past. I finished the bike in a little over 3:29, which was 24 minutes faster than my time at Bassman.
I did this entire bike course without any knowledge of my speed. Upon dropping my bike off at transition the day before, I had been dismayed to find that my cycle computer wasn't registering any movement at all and did nothing but display the time (which was even 9 or 10 minutes off...so still worthless in that regard). Although I worried that I wouldn't ride fast enough without this knowledge, I knew there wasn't much I could do about it and simply resolved to race aggressively. Map of the course, not that it's very legible:
It was a nice course with some rolling hills. the only one that really stands out to me happened around mile 42. It was long and steep and at one point I felt like I was crawling! I started to wonder if it was just me until I turned the corner and saw a line of probably 10 to 15 other riders, all struggling like I was. That made me feel a little better.
The one thing I will say, though, is that there were parts of the course that were very rough. There were certain hills that I'd descend, reach probably 22-25mph, and then encounter patches of uneven pavement and potholes. I was very nervouse that I'd either flat or crash. A flat would most likely have meant the end of the race for me, because I didn't bring a spare tube. And a crash...well that could have resulted in many flavors of disaster. Happily, I avoided both.
I spent the last 10 or 15 miles battling it out with another woman that I started referring to as "Pink" in my head because she was wearing a pink helmet, pink top, and had a pink camouflage Quintana Roo frame. Pink would pass me on the flats and downhills and I would catch and pass her on the climbs. It was good motivation and I even managed to pull into the finish a few seconds ahead.
What I loved about the course is that it ended in downtown Providence, very close to the finish line. I absolutely loved making a grand entrance into the city and even having lots of spectators for the last few turns! I pulled into T2, parked Artemis (my bike, in case I haven't mentioned by name), took off my crap and turned my number belt around, changed my shoes, and scurried to the run start because I saw Pink fly right through transition and beat me there.
My worries about not knowing my speed were unfounded. I even think it may have helped, as a lack of knowledge has also helped my running in the past. I finished the bike in a little over 3:29, which was 24 minutes faster than my time at Bassman.
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