Ironman 70.3 Indian Wells La Quinta 2018 – Race Report

Official Time: 05:00:50
1.2 mile Swim: 00:36:06
T1: 00:04:05
56 mile Bike: 02:28:01
T2: 00:02:56
13.1 mile Run: 01:49:42
Overall: 249th of 3063
35-39 AG: 34th of 310

What a weekend. It was the perfect culmination of a long season of hard work and progress in my pursuit of continual improvement. The 2018 season has been a steady exercise in expanding my mental concept of what my body is capable of. This time last year, I thought my natural running pace was about 7:50 min/mile and didn’t think I would ever break 10 minutes on the 1.5 mile Navy fitness test. I was prepared to accept that I will never swim faster than a 1:40 per 100 yard pace. Riding a bike more than 50 miles was an achievement of itself, but maintaining a race pace for that distance was nearly unfathomable. I had only ridden with other cyclists a couple times and riding in a group gave me anxiety.

One year, eight multisport events, several new personal records and a mental paradigm shift from racing comfortably within lowered expectations of myself to a genuine expectation to win – or at least achieve something I can be proud of every time I cross the finish line – later, I arrived in Indian Wells ready to take on my first 70.3.

My goal was to finish in less than 5 hours, which may have been aggressive for my first go at this distance, particularly due to my lack of experience with a race of this size; like how long it would take to get through a transition area the size of two football fields. For that reason, it was a soft goal; one to hope for, but take the experience as it comes and be happy just for the chance to run up an Ironman chute and cross the finish line.

Before Race Day:
We stayed with Melissa’s grandparents, who live 10 minutes away from the finish line. I am so thankful for the opportunity to stay with them; it not only saved us a lot of money on lodging and food, and allowed Melissa and the kids to sleep in on race day and just show up to cheer during the run, but it also let the kids have a great weekend with their great grandparents while I was otherwise occupied with pre-race prep.

I spent a lot of time visualizing and thinking through each part of the race; contents of each transition bag, how much nutrition and fluids to take on the bike, the steps I needed to take in each transition, etc. This helped a lot with pre-race nerves because I was confident in my plan to manage the added logistics of day-before gear checks, changing tents, and split transition locations.

With my solid plan, I then spent most of the day running around decontaminating and turning in gear, visiting with friends who came out to support me, and hanging out with the team. I loved every minute of it.

Race Day:
I got to Ironman village and promptly boarded a bus to head to the lake where my wetsuit and bike were waiting for me. I took my time setting up my bike, stood in a long line to pump my tires… I wanted to stay in my warm clothes in the transition area as long as I could. At the 5 minute call to exit transition, I put on my wet wetsuit, handed off my dry clothes bag, and headed to the beach.

Swim:
The water was lingering around 57 degrees. I opted to do the warm up swim – a total misnomer but I was getting cold standing around on the beach anyway so I might as well shock the system and get the heart rate up to get some blood flow before the start cannon goes off.

After I swam some closed-fist drills (my favorite warmup to trigger muscle memory for a strong catch) I returned to land and found a few teammates. Friendly banter, hugs and good-lucks and then we made our way to the starting chute. A rolling start; four swimmers run into the water every 5 seconds. Beep Beep BEEEP and I’ve begun my first half ironman.

The water was cold but didn’t seem worse than other cold water races I have done in the past. I stuck with that thought and focused on straight lines and smooth powerful strokes but the congestion, and chill, in the water made it difficult to get into a good rhythm. I have poor circulation to my extremities anyway, but by the half-way point both feet were numb. Before the last two right-turn buoys, my right hand started to go numb. Finally got out of the water and ran to the white bag with a ‘1981’ sticker on it. Luckily my transition bag was hanging at the end of a rack, where a folding chair was conveniently left nearby. Both my calves started to cramp as I tried to peel off the wetsuit so I sat in the chair to prevent a real injury. Wetsuit off, helmet on, wetsuit stuffed back into the bag and I’m running on painful peg legs cause I can’t feel my feet.

Bike:
Transition seemed so long and felt like I was running across a football field of broken glass. I was very happy to finally get to the mounting line and jump on my bike.

In every race I have done, there is always at least one little detail I forget; a couple times I have clipped my shoes into the wrong pedals, once I forgot to turn on my cycling computer, several times I start the race by pushing the wrong button on my watch… minor challenges that add to the experience. Luckily, on this day the only thing I missed was opening the velcro straps on my shoes to slip my feet in after the flying mount.

With my feet on top of my shoes, I pedalled up the first hill and out onto the road and then reached down to open each shoe, slip my cold feet in, strap down and start chasing the guy in front of me.

I wanted my normalized average power output to be about 215 watts, so when my cateye said I was pushing less than 200 I would surge a little faster and if I got up over 240 I would back off a little, unless I was passing someone.

This worked well for the first 20 miles or so. I caught up to an Australian guy who was working at about the same pace, we traded positions every mile or so but we both respected the no draft rules and kept enough distance between us when we weren’t passing each other.

Around mile 30, we caught up to a young woman in a Cliff Bar kit, who I thought looked like someone I knew but not the same person who could ride a bike as fast as Cliff Bar was. As the Aussie and I started to pass, Cliff Bar surged and tried to block. Illegal and maybe a little dirty, but I respected her for trying to hold her position. The three of us continued leap-frogging each other while maintaining legal distances for several miles.

Then a paceline of six guys came up and passed us with total disregard for drafting rules.  My competitive nature, the group’s dirty tactics, and the amount of speed I would lose to let them all pass motivated me to push harder and try to break away from them. It worked a few times, but they usually caught me again, which meant for most of the last 20 miles, I was as guilty as any of them for drafting. No one was issued penalties though; the only time we saw an official, the group was the most spread out it had ever been – and the ref yelled at us to spread out more.

Hills are my strength on the bike, and there were a couple small rolling hills in the last few miles which gave me and Cliff Bar the opportunity to break away from the group and beat them into the transition area.

Cliff Bar  (her name is actually Meaghan) went on to take 6th place in her age group. She had also qualified and gone to both 70.3 World Championships in South Africa and IMWC in Kona earlier this year.

My normalized average power output was about 220 watts, my average speed was nearly 23 mph.

Run:
As I headed out of transition and onto the run course, I got an emotional recharge from Melissa and the kids. Connor and Nora surprised me with signs they secretly made and hid from me all weekend. They were all cheering and ringing their cowbells and gave me what I needed to get through the half marathon in front of me.

The calf cramps from transition 1 lingered and worried me that they would be a problem. Luckily they loosened up quickly enough and were a non-issue. However, the tightness in my hamstrings from grinding in aero position for so long did seem to make my run stride short and slow/clunky, which never seemed to improve throughout the 13 miles. The sharp curves and steep undulation of the golf cart path run course didn’t help either. I never really felt like I found my stride.

I carried a 15 oz flask of Fluid hydration mix with the plan to finish it during the first loop and ditch the bottle and use on-course water and coke for the second. It was a successful plan and I felt good hydration-wise.

As I got onto the golf course on the second lap, I had to stop to pee – at least I wasn’t dehydrated.

At about mile 10 (or 3 on the first lap) there was steep hill followed by an even steeper descent with an aid station at the bottom. At the peak, there was a nice tree that provided shade over the path. Unfortunately, the shadows also hid a raised crack in the path just as the descent began. I kicked the crack, hard, and went down, hard. I landed on my hands and knees, but momentum and gravity kept pulling and I rolled two more times down the rough path before I could stop and find my way to my feet again. My hands and knee were bloody and my toe hurt from kicking the crack. I walked slowly through the aid station, took down two waters and a coke and then started running again.

Once I got out of the golf course, it was time to pick up the pace. But after my tumble, leg cramps were threatening and my feet just wouldn’t go as fast I wanted them to. I would try to focus on the mechanics that will usually get me back to a decent pace when I’m tired; body position, driving knees forward, 180 stride cadence. But then I’d check my pace and be disappointed that I couldn’t seem to go faster than 8:15. I stopped looking at my watch and just tried to push as hard as I could to the finish.

People always ask triathletes why we pay so much money to put ourselves through so much pain. The finisher’s chute at an Ironman brand event is the reason. The red carpet, the overhead clock, the emcee, the cheering crowd, the energy… it all validates the magnitude of the accomplishment each finisher just achieved. It was epic and it was worth it.

I finished in 5 hours and 50 seconds and closed out the 2018 triathlon season with a smile from ear to ear. I achieved more than I ever thought possible this year and I owe a lot of credit to coach Dea’s infectious and inspiring attitude that leaves little space for limitations. I can’t wait to see what we’ll accomplish in 2019.