Lake Stevens Half Ironman - race report

Racing is racing, training is training and sometimes you can't train for the race.

Pre-race

Kristin and I showed up in Everett for packet pick up and the race briefing on Friday, as planned. This allowed me to have a little bit more time, and to be relaxed and settled in for Sunday's race. The race briefing was informative, but one of the biggest concerns that came out was a question from another athlete. Short version of the conversation, there needed to be some extra cops at the country market as last year there were some jackasses throwing tacks in the road. Man I was hoping not to have some hillbillies mess up my day.... Little did I know it wasn't the local talent I was going to need to worry about. More about that later.

After the briefing and packet pick up, I went and drove both the bike and run courses with Kristin. Both the bike and run courses were based on doing two loops on local country roads. The bike loop was pretty much the first 10+ miles as a gradual uphill with a couple of uphill kicks to remind the body your legs were still there, then the next 10+ miles of downhill with a couple of uphill kicks to keep it interesting. And you did this loop twice.

The run portion was also two loops which were pretty flat except for one hill that was going to kill the legs after the bike leg and at miles 4 and 11. Other than that, it was a pretty straight forward course.

Saturday, I only had to take my bike to transition which makes Sunday a little easier. I did a very short run and ride that day to get the legs shook out. The run my legs were feeling a bit dead and heavy, which was not inspiring, but I know this is kind of normal for me whenever I taper down, so I didn't put too much weight in to it. On my bike ride, I felt completely on, and I was ready to crush the bike course!

I racked up my bike after my shake down ride, and left the transition area feeling pretty good. I then took a very quick swim without a wet suit, just to see how warm the water was and to get a little stroke drill in to put some stroke back in to muscle memory. The water was very warm at 72-73 degrees and the water was clear, so I was happy to be swimming in a clean lake.

Overall, I was excited to be here. Lake Stevens is a beautiful town and lake, and the roads were great for a Triathlon, the weather was a bit warm, but we can't have everything perfect. The event organizers were top notch! I felt the event was done as good or better than any event I have ever attended. AA Sports is the only other event organizer that has come close, from what I have seen in the Pacific Northwest.

Race Day

Kristin and I were out of the hotel room at 5:15 AM (Yes, I can wake up that early, I had to wake up at 4:30 AM). We made it to the start at 5:45 which I thought was plenty of time, with transition closing at 6:15. Well, it was barely enough time, but I got my transition set up.

Probably the best part of the pre race was being able to see David Barker who was doing this event as well. I have trained many hours with him over the past year, and it was great to see a friend at the event who was going through the same pre race jitters. We were able to chat a bit, and talk while waiting in the huge lines for the porto-potties.

For those of you who don't know about races and the bathroom situation, let me explain something. Everyone is super hydrated, super nervous, and needing to use the bathroom, and frequently. It is common for the lines to be really long and it doesn't seem to matter how many porto's are there... So, David and I had a good amount of time to chat, I think we were waiting in line for like 15 minutes.

My swim started at 6:46 and this time I took a different approach from my previous tri swim starts. I started the swim towards the front of the pack. My theory was since I am a strong swimmer, comfortable in the water, and comfortable with all of the crawling and kicking that happens in the water. I also knew I could be in the top half of the group, and rather than crawling over everyone to get in front of them, I would just start there.

This really paid off, and it provided me some humor in the first 250 yards of the swim. During the start, I had a ton of guys jump up in front of me. They were all looking like they were doing 100 yard sprints in the pool. Arms going at a fast cadence, kicking like they were really getting power from their kicks, etc. I just laughed and I was confused if they were really that dumb, no way!!! Yep! After the first 100-150 yards, I was swimming over and around these guys. I hope they learn pacing... Another thing that really surprised me was that within about 250 yards, I was catching guys from the wave in front of us, 4 minutes ahead. These guys you could tell were already struggling. Wow, talk about making for a long ass day for these guys. Although, great for them for doing it!

After the first 250 yards, things started to calm down, I was passing some guys here and there, mostly from the wave in front of us, but nothing out of the normal. At the first buoy turn, about 700 meters in, I was about 20-30th place on the swim. Right were I was hoping to be. About at the half way point I was starting to get passed by guys in the wave behind me. Wow! Did these guys look amazingly smooth in the water. I was jealous of their stroke.

After the last buoy turn, we were on the home stretch with about 700 meters left. I was doing well, still holding my ground within my age group. About 50 yards past that last buoy with a left turn, I see a guy with a cap from the wave behind us (in other words a fast swimmer) was coming at me at a 45 degree angle. The only reason I saw this was because I was breathing on my left side, taking my inhale breath just as the dudes hand came down on my head. His fingers went underneath my goggles, scratched my eye lid, pulled off my goggles, took off my nose clip, popped out a contact and pushed my head under the water as I was inhaling.

This resulted in me having a lung full of lake water, which immediately resulted in my body doing everything it could to get rid of it. Which was vomiting and coughing. After I had finished dealing with that, I look up and there is a guy on a Kayak coming over to check on me. I gathered myself enough and waved him off, thinking I was okay. I reset my goggles and just got back on with my swim.

The problem was, I wasn't able to swim like I am used to swimming. I was dazed, I couldn't focus, I couldn't put power in to my stroke. Every time I tried to up the pace, my body would want to expel anything out all avenues. All I could think of was, not in the wetsuit, not in the wetsuit!! Then, for some reason, about 150 yards from the swim exit, it smelled like I was right next to the porto-potties. I really wanted to vomit at that point. I just wanted to hold it in, I did not want to puke in front of all the spectators. I was in a bad place at this point. I was honestly questioning if I could make it in, if I should get some assistance, but I just wanted to push it out and get to the bike and hopefully be okay.

I get to the swim exit, I could barely stand, I was not walking straight, running was not an option, and puking in front of everyone I thought was really uncool, so I held it in. I took my time getting to the bike, had a couple of lake burps, and get on my way, hoping the bike would do me some good and help me turn around the craptastic swim.

The bike felt much better than the swim. I was unable to push myself too hard, as it would make me sicker, but I was able to maintain a fine speed. For the first 15 miles or so, I was feeling pretty okay, and I was pretty confident I was gonna come out of this funk. During the last uphill pitch, my stomach hit me full force. I held it in, not wanting to vomit and lose the nutrition and fluid I had just put down. I held on to it for most of the downhill, and during the downhill/flat section, I finally lost the battle.

At the beginning of the second loop, I thought about dropping out as I was pretty sure this wasn't going to get any better. I decided, to hell with it, either I am going to get better, or I am going to just suffer this out and put in a crappy bike time, but I am not going to stop this easily. I then committed myself to doing the second loop, and my stomach wanted nothing to do with me the rest of the ride. If I pushed my HR above 130, I was immediately sick. My goal HR for the bike was 148 to 153 bpm, so this was far below where I am used to performing. At times my HR was below 100 bpm, just keeping my stomach at ease. I just suffered the rest of the ride, and suffered quite a bit.

At the bike finish, I knew I was done for. If my stomach can't handle the bike, it can't handle the jarring of running and running requires a higher heart rate than 130 for me. I still had 4 hours to complete the half marathon, but who wants to walk for 4 hours in 90+ heat? Not me!

The thing that sucked the most is my legs felt fine, probably due to the lack of effort put in on the bike. I really feel I could have finished the run, had it not been for my stomach, but my stomach ended up stopping me in my tracks.

Where does this leave me?

Well, I feel like I was kind of robbed of a chance to do a half ironman, yeah, shit happens, but I feel that I need redemption.

I am going to do an Olympic distance Tri in a couple weeks, and if that goes well, I am going to do a Long Course Tri in late September, which is the same distance as a half Ironman, just not the official Ironman brand hosting the course.