Race morning:
BG at 4am 6.7 (126)
Alarm went off at 4am and for the first time since signing up, for a minute I thought “let’s just cancel it”. I don’t know if it was because it was 4 am or if it was ordinary pre-race nerves. I had a small breakfast of 1 banana, 1 Fibre One pop tart and half of a puff pastry cinnamon stick (from the Madison Farmer’s Market). Normally I would have preferred a toasted bagel with peanut butter, but these substitutions were fine. We left the hotel by 4:50 and drove the 5 minutes to Monona Terrace – the start of the race. Race morning was busy – when checking in our bikes the day before, most athletes had let some air out of their tires to prevent them from bursting due to the high temperatures. You could see most athletes walking around in the pre-dawn darkness carrying pumps. The first ten minutes in T1 were a little eerie – it was dark and it was so quiet – everyone was very seriously going about their business without a word being spoken. After those ten minutes all of a sudden more athletes were arriving, it was getting brighter outside and the pre-race rush started to kick in.
Expecting another hot day, I didn’t pump the tires to their max 120psi, I stayed on the safe side of 110psi. I had left my meter in the bike transition bag, so I went and got that to put in the pouches on my bike, while my daughter ran my special needs bag up to the designated area by the capitol building. Originally I wasn’t going to use special needs bags, but opted to fill one for the run portion – in it I packed a fresh pair of socks, a small towel, chamois butter, band-aids, extra strips for my meter and some wet wipes. I didn’t bother with a bike special needs bag, only because the weather was pretty much guaranteed to be warm and dry all day.
Nutrition on the bike:
The plan was to go with water which would hydrate without affecting BG, and powerbars which would satisfy energy needs and ease the hunger. I used Clif Builder powerbars with a higher protein content. It’s a 55g bar with only 30g of carbs. I cut them into pieces and put them in a Ziploc bag in my bento box. I used two different flavours to alternate and alleviate the monotony of eating the same thing all day. I also threw in a pack of gum. My bike was set and there was still an hour to race start. I met up with my wife Carlene and daughter Malika and we went and sat on the floor inside Monona Terrace to relax for a bit before I had to get my wetsuit on. I wanted to follow the recommendation to stay out of my tri shorts until the last possible minute, rather than putting them on before leaving the hotel. At 6:15 I changed into my tri shorts and put my wetsuit on. Normally I don’t bother with bodyglide under my wetsuit, but when I had done the practice swim two days before, I ended up with some chafing on my neck. So I greased up my neck, armpits, nipples and waistline where my shorts hit.
BG at 6:20am 10 (180) (ate a GU before getting in the water)
Swim:
Carlene wanted to watch the swim from the rooftop terrace to get the best view of 2406 people in the water at once, so I accepted their hugs and good lucks and made my way down the helix to the start of the swim. As soon as you got to the bottom of the helix, you could hear the announcer encouraging people to get into the water. It was 6:30 and there still weren’t very many athletes in the water near the start line. The pros were starting at 6:50 and I was just at the water’s edge when the gun went off for them to start. I made my way to a spot about 100 feet away from the buoy and maybe five rows back from the front. I remember looking back to the shore two minutes before the gun and there were still people on the shore getting into the water. The national anthem was sung and the gun went off. The worst leg of the Ironman had started. Twenty feet into the swim, I got a hard elbow dead center in the goggle of my right eye. Being a first timer, it took me awhile to adjust to the rhythm of the swim – finding the appropriate speed/placement to stay clear of those in front and those coming up behind. At the 90 degree turns, because of the congestion, a lot of the swimmers are more vertical than horizontal and as they turned they would do a breaststroke kick – right into the poor swimmer behind. I started to dog paddle the turns with one hand out in front to protect my ribs and the other hand to protect my head. I seemed to be actually moving just as fast at those turns, and then after the turn when we had more room again I could get back into my regular swimming. I finished the first loop in 38 minutes, 2 minutes quicker than I had expected. I had eaten my first GU at the 27 minute mark and the second one at about 45 or 50 minute mark. The third one I had as I was getting out of the water. Because of the traffic, I couldn’t turn on my back to eat the GU – way beyond my skillset. So I stopped at the buoys, grabbed the rope with one hand and ate the GU with the other. My swim time ended up at 1:20:36…. My goal had been 1:20
T1:
Running up the helix wasn’t long at all – with all the spectators cheering. I ran into T1, grabbed my cycling gear, made a small mistake of putting on my shoes instead of carrying them to the bike. The run from the changing room to the bike was actually quite long and it would have been easier to put them on when I got to the bike. Only the pros were allowed to have their shoes already clipped on the pedals. Running out of Monona Terrace, I heard my name and turned to see Carlene and Malika holding the big signs they had made to cheer me on. Grabbed the bike and off down the helix on the other side. Tested my sugar ten minutes into the bike. T1 9:15
Bike: BG at bike start 12.7 (228) –drank only water for an hour and half to allow it to go down
The first couple km are slower, because you’re on a narrower bike path and no pass zone. I thought I was going rather conservatively in the beginning, as was my plan, I stayed on the saddle on climbs and just reduced the gears. The bike course turned out to be much more difficult than I was prepared for and even with my “conservative” approach, I started to suffer on the second loop. At one point, whether due to heat or fatigue… I was on a straight flat section and I couldn’t pedal faster than 23km/hr. I checked my blood and I was good – 6.7 (120). I had two pieces of my powerbar, imagined mentally how the nutrition was broken down and delivered through the blood to my muscles, and I was able to get back to my regular speed. There were two large, but fun climbs lined with spectators on the course. I knew they were coming, I reduced the gears earlier and had decent rhythm and low speed going up. However just before I hit the climbs on the second loop, around mile 80 my left quads starting severely cramping up. As soon as the left eased up, the right kicked in. Even though I thought I was on regular intervals with my sodium intake, just for the mental benefit, I took two tablets. Luckily for me, the cramps didn’t last very long and I was able to keep going. The last 30 miles of the ride, it was my head that bothered me more than anything. My head felt as if it weighed 50 pounds and I couldn’t hold it up. I even rested it on the aero bottle for a few seconds, a couple times – I know it was dangerous, because my head was facing downward, but I needed the break. Carlene and Malika were waiting at the dismount line and even though my legs felt bad getting off the bike, it was a great boost to hear their cheers as I ran (stumbled) into T2 . I didn’t mind taking an extra minute or so to wipe my feet with a towel and apply extra chamois butter before the run. I also used the porta-potty there, before heading out on the run – hence the longer T2 time. Finished the bike in 5:44:27 – goal was 5:30. T2 11:15
BG in T2 7.1 (127)
RUN:
The run started very well. Even though my bike split was a little longer than I hoped for, I still thought I had time to make it to my goal of 11:30 – 12 hours. I was trying to get into a good pace, so I was checking my stopwatch and looking for mile markers. The first two miles I was on target for a 4 hour marathon. But then there was no marker for the third mile for a long time. Even though my speed seemed the same , by the third mile marker the time had somehow jumped 50% more. Then there was a big hill that I had to walk or else I’d be dying. It seemed like everyone but the pros were walking it. After that, the mile markers were either not there or I couldn’t see them and I totally lost my pace and rhythm. In retrospect, it would have been smarter to purchase the foot pod for my heart rate monitor to be able to read my own distance and pace. At one point I was so out of it that when I opened the container of test strips, I didn’t bother closing it and when I tipped it they all fell on the ground – at $1/piece, I stopped and collected them all back.
I stopped at Special Needs and dried my feet, applied fresh chamois butter and put on fresh socks. I was debating whether I should stop or not, but that saved my feet – I didn’t have a single blister at the end of the whole race. A highlight on the second loop was when Michele Alswager jumped out of the crowd and ran with me for a bit. It was a good mental boost to chat with her and know this is where Triabetes started. Around mile 20, I was about to check my blood and noticed that the lancet was missing from my spibelt. I must have dropped that too somewhere along the course when I was checking my blood. I came up with the plan to stop at the roundabout where two police officers were controlling traffic. I figured they should have a safety pin in a first aid kit that I could use to poke my finger. Before I got to that, I decided to just try squeezing my fingers to see if I could get blood from a previous poke. Sure enough, I had blood squirting out of 3 separate holes on the same finger. My sugar levels throughout the run were between 6.1 (110) and 11.9 (214) – I checked seven times on the run. I started drinking Gatorade on the run, then 5 miles in I switched to water and every 2 or 3 miles I would have some Coca Cola and an occasional banana.
The last mile I sped up considerably and I felt good. I actually felt that I had a lot of unused energy and I regretted that I hadn’t started speeding up earlier. I crossed the finish at 12:17:29 feeling very good and overwhelmed with emotion at what a day it had been. My wife and daughter were right there at the finish, and I so appreciated all the congratulations that my wife read to me when we got back to the hotel. It was definitely special to know that so many people had been supporting me from afar and watching my progress online and via twitter. After having just been diagnosed Type 1 in October 2008, it was pretty amazing knowing that I did my first IM in Wisconsin – it was the story of the Triabetes team in 2008 that first really made me believe I could continue my road to Ironman as a diabetic.
BG at the end was 7.2 (129)
