IMAZ - Race Day

Wow - what a long day.

Well - there's more to my race report than just that. It'll be long so get comfortable.

First - congratulations to all the Boston runners -all with sub-4 marathons in terrible weather. Won't be hearing "too cold to run" from that group ever again.

Saturday night saw an early dinner with plans to turn out the lights at 8 pm. Well, I got a little too interested in the book I'm reading and went until 8:30. I called the front desk, requested a 4:00 am wake up call and then set the alarm also. Can't be too careful. Good thing the bladder alarm is reliable because the alarm didn't go off and the call never came. I woke up at 3:45 closed my eyes again and then it was 4:05. Got up, made a latte (of course) then went down for breakfast. Saw my way to clear then had a little more breakfast. The hotel had a shuttle to the start so I was on my way at 5:30.

The start area had tons of people - 2100 athletes and twice that in supporters and volunteers. I found Glenn and checked in with him on how he was doing. Then we saw Raf from the NB team. He was in crisis mode - seems he forgot his wetsuit at his friend's house in Scottsdale. Even if he was able to get in touch with them and they drove his wetsuit to the start, they wouldn't have made it in time. So Raf was trying to psyche himself up into a no-wetsuit swim. He was more worried about treading water for the start (IMAZ is a deep water start) than anything else.

I suggested we walk over to the expo area and see if the Blue Seventy guys were there and if they had any demo suits he could rent. No luck - they were already packed up and gone. But the Trisports tent was open selling last minute gear items. We asked if they had any demo suits available - nope, but they did have some trade-in wetsuits. The guy said we could look through them and find one to use. The first one he pulled out was a TNT ORCA suit that fit him perfectly. Raf was now one happy triathlete. It had to be a good karma thing to pull the TNT suit out of the bin and have it fit just right. Raf had a good day from there on out.

I got my wetsuit on and we walked over to the start. The pros went off at 6:45 but they started letting in age groupers at 6:30. I didn't want to sit in the water for 30 minutes so Raf and I sat on the edge until about 6:50. The actual start is about 100 yards from where we jumped into the water. This gave us a nice warmup. I wanted to start towards the back on the left side. The swim start was not as chaotic as IMCDA - a good thing - no getting kicked in the head, nobody swimming over the top of me - not much of a washing machine at all. Probably because I started pretty far in the back and it's a wider start.

The swim is one loop so the turn wasn't too congested either. The downside was we started out to the east - right into the rising sun. I couldn't see anything, there was no way to sight on anything but other swimmers. I'm sure I zig-zagged a lot but made it to the turn and welcomed having the sun out of my eyes. I tried to focus on my stroke, front quadrant swimming, and maintaining my glide (sound familiar?). At one point I noticed my left hand doing a weird flipping thing as I started my recovery with that arm. I realized I wasn't finishing my stroke at all and was just flopping my hand forward. So I worked on that for a bit and tried to stay focused.

The very best part of the swim and probably the entire day - getting out of the water and not being dizzy or nauseated at all. This was huge for me considering at IMCDA I had a 30 minute T1 trying to get over the dizziness and stop throwing up.

Swim - 1:26

I took my time in T1 (13') and then headed out to my bike. They had us put all of our bike gear in the T1 bag so there was nothing by our bikes. They made us all go out the center aisle but a volunteer got my bike off the rack and brought it to me. That was cool.

My bike plan was to take the first loop very easy and then try to push it a bit more on each following loop. Going out was fun - I was cruising at 20-24 mph, not pushing at all. Made it to the turn around in just over an hour and then headed back. Holy crap - I've never ridden in that much wind before. My speed dropped quickly to 12 mph. Someone said later the wind was gusting to 40 mph. At about mile 30 I heard "On your left!" and saw Michael Lovato riding by me. Then I thought, hmm, he had a 15 minute head start on the swim, probably did it in about 50 minutes and my swim was 1:26 - so I figured he had about an hour head start on me and it took him 30 miles to catch me. Well, really to lap me but I held him off for as long as I could.

Morty didn't show up until mile 80. I had to stop and massage my foot it was burning so bad. Then at mile 100 I had to stop again and massaged the foot. Morty is a Morton's Neuroma in my right foot. The nerve behind the 3rd and 4th toes gets inflamed then burns then cramps to the point I can't move it at all. So stopping and massaging it was perfect. I had one bad cramp in my right thigh but was able to stand up and stretch and finally it went away.

On the Beeline Hwy part of the ride we were pretty much out in the desert. I kept hearing a muffled pop like someone in front of me or behind me blowing a tire. Or worse, something subtle going wrong with my bike. Fortunately it was neither- there was a gun range off to the right and it was just target practice I was hearing. But it fooled me each time I went by it.

The wind made the ride very difficult. Not only taking away much needed energy but very de-motivating as well. So I just got into aero, looked at the ground in front of me and pushed on.

Bike - 7:10

Second best part of the day - getting off the bike and actually feeling like I could run. My plan was to run 4 minutes, walk one. This worked great for me. I'd pass people while running then watch them go by me while I was walking then I'd catch them again. My quads started hurting around mile 16 then really started hurting at mile 20. So I walked for a bit longer, tried to do a 4 run, 4 walk for about 2 miles. At mile 23 I decided to run again. I found it easier to run uphills and walk the downhills. Just the opposite of what others were doing. The course wasn't really hilly - just the bridges over the river - but I ran up and walked down. Then I saw mile 25 and felt good enough to finish running the last mile. It was great to cross the bridge and be able to take the finisher's route instead of the loop #2 or #3 route. I had to do that twice already watching others finish as I headed out for another loop.

Run - 5:30

Overall - 14:24

So all in all - a good day. No flats, no falls, no dizziness and #4 IM is in the books. I really am a "Back of the packer" and feel pretty damn good about it.

Thanks again for all the support and good wishes.

Stayed strong, went long-
Dan

IMAZ Day 3

The day started pretty easily. Slept in a bit or at least tried to - got up around 6:30 and fired up the espresso machine. Made a latte, saw my way to clear then went down for breakfast. For some reason I just did not want to get started on the gear bags. Finally about 10 am I laid them out on the bed and started the video. You'll see all the different bags and numbers at the start of the Day 3 video.

Made quick trip to Safeway to get water and a few other items. Then dragged myself back to finish putting together T1 and T2 bags. I guess by making these preparations it makes this Ironman real. Got the bags done, had a sandwich for lunch then headed over to drop the bike off and finish the video.

There are some amazing and very pretty bikes here. Probably close to $500k in bikes and wheels alone in the transition area.

I made my way to find my bike spot then remembered I needed to put on the bike stickers. Another good video opportunity. My bike spot will be very easy to find - it's at the end of a row right by the only orange porta-potties in that area. But Glenn got an even better spot. Check out the video.

Dropped the bike off, then went to drop the T1 and T2 bags. Another good spot for my bags at the beginning of a row just inside the entrance. Made some more video and also got a shot of where we'll be swimming. The Tempe Town Lake is really a dammed up portion of the Salt River. Should be a narrow start but with it being just one loop, the first turn shouldn't get too crowded.

After dropping off the bags I came back and put my feet in the hot tub. Just needed that strong jet to massage the bottoms for a bit. Plan is for dinner around 6 then in bed with the lights out by 8 pm. Not too hard for me really. Early wake up call at 4 am, latte (of course), breakfast, another clearing episode I hope, then off to the race at 5:30.

Best part of the day was walking thru the expo and stopping at the PowerBar tent. TNT signs up the coaches for the PowerBar Team Elite program. It's a way for Powerbar to market to coaches and hopefully the coaches will promote their products. At events they always give out special stuff if you say you're with the Team Elite. So anyways I'm getting more swag and the young girl helping me sees I'm wearing my Ironteam TNT t-shirt. She asks if I'm TNT and I say yes. She then thanks me for what I'm doing and tells me she's a leukemia survivor. Can you believe it? She thanks me. I was humbled - here's a young girl just starting her life and she battles cancer and survives. And she's thanking me. I really didn't know what to say other than thanks. But it really brought me back to why we are all training so hard and raising so much money. So people like her can be survivors.

Thank you all for your hard work and fundraising so far.

I hope you enjoyed Day 1 of Boot Camp - that's always a fun day - at least for the coaches. Have fun tomorrow with Day 2.

Here's the link to the latest video -

http://www.vimeo.com/clip:170151


Going long in the morning -
Dan

IMAZ Day 2

IMAZ Day 2 started with the most important item of the day. Setting up the espresso machine and making a latte. Once that was done I went downstairs for the free breakfast at my hotel.

I went to the Expo area to meet Glenn for a swim. The new video starts with this area showing the bike transition and swim start. Not too much to see but there were a lot of people there for the practice swim. Maybe it just seems like a lot since it's in a much smaller area than IMC or IMCDA. Glenn and I got a nice swim done. The water was just chilly at first but then was very nice. The weather has been perfect. Well, except for yesterday. Very strong winds blowing a dust storm through Phoenix - gusts up to 45 MPH. My hotel is right under the flight pattern for Phoenix airport. With the wind blowing hard and the planes overhead - it sounded like a freight train in my room.

So anyways - we got a nice swim done. The water should be just fine for Sunday - temp is pretty similar to what we had at Wildflower for practice weekend. After the swim we got in line for registration. We stood in line for almost an hour. The funny thing was once we got to the actual registration area we were through it in about 10 minutes. I'm not sure what the hold up was for getting to this area.

Day 2 video shows the area where folks were getting ready for the practice swim, then the registration line, weigh in, instructions, more instructions and getting the timing chip. Plus a little bit thru the souvenir tent and then the free massage.

Or at least what I thought was a free massage. I forgot it was really the "Active Release Therapy" - which is still free but not quite a massage. The woman there worked on my quads and found some tender areas. She pushed pretty deep with her thumbs while I was stretching my leg back and forth. Probably good to work some of whatever is in there out a bit - but I was really hoping for the free massage part. Guess I'll have to wait until Sunday night.

Glenn and I also found Raf from the NB team. We walked to downtown Tempe for a quick lunch. Then Glenn and I decided to drive the bike course. It's a three loop course so we had to drive it three times to get a good feel for it. No, not really. Just drove the long road - Beeline Hwy - once and found the hills. After last Saturday's ride and the Calaveras loop before that - these aren't really hills. More like sustained "ups". The out ends on the uphill then we turn around and head down for the back into town part. Should be nice if the wind holds off.

After driving back in to town I went back to my room and rested a bit. Met up with Glenn again for dinner and the mandatory race meeting. Best news from the race meeting - each water stop on the bike route will have 4 port-a-potties - and a bike rack! What a great idea! A bike rack while you're dropping the kids off at the pool.

More tomorrow on putting the various transition bags, special needs and race numbers together. Then I'll drop off my bike in the afternoon and get a shot of the transition area filled with bikes.

Here's the link again for today's video -

http://www.vimeo.com/user:177522/clips

It's a big file so make sure you have some time and lots of bandwidth to download it.

Thanks again for all the good wishes.

Staying strong, going long (on Sunday) -

Dan

IMAZ Day 1

Well, the sage advice for any Ironman is not do too much stuff just prior to the race that will add additional stress. So of course, I ignore my own advice. Not that I'm close to any type of sage or other herb.

Tuesday I got up early and went for a nice swim at Fremont with Mike and Dana. I realize just how much I've been slacking off when swimming on my own. Dana had me practice some drafting behind her and Mike (like I could keep up with them anyways)for a couple of 100's. Then they talked me into doing my taper set of 6 x 100's by doing the first and last at level 5 and the rest at level 7. I was able to stay strong throughout and even cranked out a 1:27 for one of them. I'm more of a 1:50 swimmer. That draft really helps even if I was 10 yards behind them. But the swim did a lot to boost my confidence.

Now for the stress part - last August I bought a new Honda Pilot. It was bigger than any car I've owned (and I've had a few) but I could pack my entire locker room into it and have room left over for other gear. Camping at training weekend was great since I could bring everything and more. But the gas mileage really sucked big time. So I made the decision to go look at the new Honda CR-V. I dragged Karen along with me - she's used to me doing this by now. I test drove a new one and decided to buy it. So Tuesday was spent mostly at the Honda dealer bargaining a bit - they really don't give in much on cars in demand. The CR-V is smaller, much smaller, but the gas mileage makes up for it. And it's more fun to drive, easier to park, costs less to fill up - did I mention the gas mileage?

Tuesday night I went to Sports basement for some last minute items and saw the team at spin. Lotsa good wishes and what? You bought a new car? Yep.

Here's the link to the video - http://www.vimeo.com/user:177522/clips

Wednesday morning I slept in. I was planning to leave around 9 am and after packing up the CRV and making the video - I was off. I was supposed to call Glenn and let him know what time I was leaving. We wanted to caravan down to my brother's house in SoCal. But of course, I didn't have Glenn's cell number - only his wife's Karen who was at work in her elementary school class. So I called a few people and left messages. Then I remembered my wife Karen was still at home. Called her and had her look up Glenn's info on last year's team website. Good thing they leave those up for a while. Eventually connected and told him I was leaving.

So finally I was off on 85 turning onto 101 towards Gilroy when I had a panic moment. I couldn't remember or visualize putting my running shoes into the car. Did I or didn't I? I couldn't remember. Oh well, it's only 85/101 - not too bad to go home and get them. But first I called Karen again - "Hey - did I leave my running shoes in the entryway?" Nope, she couldn't find them. But then I looked in my rearview mirror and could see them in the back. Phew... calm down, get to a Starbucks and everything will be fine. Stopped in Gilroy for a latte then headed over the Pacheco Pass to I5.

Heading down I5, listening to the new XM radio, looking at the gas mileage computer - did I mention how much better the mileage is over the Pilot? - then I look over at the car coming up on my me and see that it's Raf from the NB team. We tried to talk but with the wind and him being on my left side - I couldn't hear squat. I can't hear squat anyways and wouldn't recognize it if I did. So we pulled off at the next off ramp and called Glenn to arrange lunch. Turns out Glenn was about 30 minutes ahead of us so he waited at a Denny's for us. Mmmmm..., Denny's. Good Ironman training food. They had breakfast, I had a salad.

After lunch Glenn and I headed to Orange County and my brother's house. Had dinner at an Olive Garden - better Ironman pasta food here - then headed back for an early evening. My brother gets up even earlier than I do. But before we turned in - we had to play a little Wii. Glenn and I played tennis on the TV - that was fun but I think I started to develop a tennis elbow. Then we decided to do bowling. It was pretty funny watching the two new guys standing up with the controller in our hand and going thru the bowling motions. My brother, who's obviously played this game before, calmly sat in his chair and never stood up. He won.

So we were up and out of the OC pretty early this morning. Traffic was light except for a FedEx truck crash on I10 east of Palm Springs. That took us about 40 minutes to pass - there were FedEx packages all over the freeway.

Got into Tempe around 1 pm and checked in. My hotel is just a mile from the start. The hotel even has a shuttle set up for race morning. Cool.

This is probably more than you wanted to know so thanks for reading this far.

Tomorrow we're planning a morning swim in the lake then an assault on the expo and registration. I'll post a new video from the race site tomorrow.

Stay strong, going long on Sunday -

Dan