Ironman Canada 2004
29 August 2004 - Penticton, BC

Prelude

Well, this is a bit silly, I think. This race was August 29, 2005. Today, as I sit here writing this race report, it’s almost the middle of June, 2005. I have no idea why it has taken me so long to write this report... or that I’m writing it at all at this point. Results wise, this was my best race to date. Perhaps I haven’t been all that inspired to write about this race because although it was my fastest, it wasn’t really my most enjoyable. Again, I really don’t know why.

After Ironman New Zealand earlier in the year I really needed to take a break. Mentally I was fried about six weeks out from IMNZ. Just wanting to get the race over and done with so I could take a break. My break from training wasn’t really much of a break mentally. I went straight from New Zealand to Canada for one week. Then I drove to California, towing a 24-foot travel trailer, where I spent less than a week before heading out on the USA road trip with my coach and his training buddy for the next three months.

I got back to training on the road, but I was having trouble. My coach would give me goals for my workouts, but I just couldn't seem to reach them. He would say, "ride three hours with the middle two at steady pace," sort of thing. It was just too much work and all I wanted to do was simply enjoy being out there on the bike and sightsee. The workout goals put pressure on me to achieve, and every time I came back having to say that, yet again, I didn't hit my goals, I felt like a failure. Finally, I told my coach that I just wanted to enjoy training again for a while. I didn’t want any goals at all. I wanted to "just ride" and "just run" and "just swim" and through all of it, I wanted to "just enjoy".

As soon as the pressure was lifted of having to meet particular goals, I started to really enjoy my training again and had a great summer preparing for IMC. My only goal at the race was simply to do better than the last one.

A couple of weeks before the race, a friend of mine asked if we had room in the truck to take his race wheels to Penticton. If I took them up I could use them for the race. Sweet! He had these flash HED Stingers that I knew were going to look so sharp on my bike. I was excited.

Race week was fairly quiet and relaxing. We rented a condo up at Apex with a few friends. I however, found myself a little on the emotional side early in the week. Don’t know where that was coming from, but by race morning I was the most calm and mellow I’ve ever been before an IM.

Race Day

The Swim
The swim was pretty uneventful, well, maybe not. It was actually a pretty rough swim. I was getting beat on almost the entire swim. I remember thinking that as soon as I rounded the first turn it would open up a bit, but no such luck. I had a draft much of the way, but it didn't come without a price.

Made the first turn and the beating didn't let up. Made the third turn and the beating almost increased. I was getting so frustrated with it and the swim started feeling so very long to me. Finally, with only about 300 meters to go, it seemed to open up a little and thought, "screw the draft, I'm going for open water!" Good call I think. It made for a much nicer swim and I was able to settle in to a little bit of a groove -- for all it was worth at that point.

I stepped out of the water with a one minute PR. Not much but I'll take it. I don't get too caught up in the swim - it is what it is, and to me, that's just a warm up for the rest of the day. Its such a long day, that as far as I'm concerned, the swim really doesn't have an effect on me. Of course if I drilled it the whole way I'd run into an issue.

Got my wetsuit stripped, made a quick change, and was out of T1 in one of my best-ever IM transitions. Getting better at this game. :-)

The Bike
Once on the bike I just settled into my own little world to enjoy the day as it came to me. I was feeling good cruising along Lake Skaha. Friends would pass me on the bike and I was like, "wow, I beat so-and-so out of the water?!" Getting towards the turn up Richter Pass I passed a couple friends and was amazed that I'd caught them. The day and the conditions were great, but somewhere around Yellow Lake I started feeling like this was such a long ride. It was long and I was ready to get off my bike.

I rolled into T2 with another big PR on the bike - half an hour faster than at IMNZ earlier in the year. Gotta be those stylin' race wheels! :-)

The Run
This is really the highlight of the day if for no other reason than the strategy that took half an hour off my marathon time. A couple of months before the race I had a running session with Bobby McGee. It is pretty expensive to have a private session with Bobby, but what you walk away with is more than worth it. We did some biomechanic analysis, run gait analysis, specific core exercises, etc., and he gave me a strategy for the race - walk the first five minutes, then run 10 minutes, walk one minute thereafter. And the walk isn't just a stroll, but more of a powerwalk.

I was skeptical of this, but tried it out on a long run. I ran a regular route that had "markers" along it. With walking the first five minutes, I made my first marker point two and half minutes faster. I ended up finishing the run six minutes faster with a lower overall heart rate. That's the goal - faster at a lower HR.

Out of T2 I started running and then remembered my strategy for the run - to walk the first five minutes. It was tremendously hard to stop and walk, but I did it. Kind of funny as I walked, people were being very supportive saying, "its okay, hang in there you can do it." I kept telling them it was a strategy! ;-)

I felt great for the first half of the marathon and was holding a great pace on the interval runs. Things changed just before the turnaround though. I'd been plagued with a minor case of plantar fascitis since January and running downhill on pavement aggravated it. All was good until then. I started favouring that foot, then my knee on the other side started aching from taking the added load. Bit of a bugger to be running so well and then have injuries slow you down.

I became a little discouraged somewhere in those middle miles on the way back to town. I felt that my pace had slowed considerably... which it did. In the last four miles or so I was able to pick it up again, but now it was work. I was thinking that I would stop with the strategy and just run that last two miles straight in. When I got to those last two miles though, I thought, "nah, I'm going to walk my minute." I was tired. I didn't want to run anymore. I wanted to be done. The closer I got to the finish line the more I thought that if my one minute walk interval fell in those last 500 meters to the finish line, I was going to walk it. Turned out that my last one minute interval fell two seconds before I crossed the finish line.

Phew! Another race under my belt and another huge PR. I took another 62 minutes out of my IM times on this one with a 13:32 time. I was pretty happy with my time, as well as individually happy with both my bike split and my run split. All in all it was a great day out. Nothing tremendously outstanding, just a good day.

I got scared out there though, maybe that had something to do with my feelings. As I was running and calculating my estimated finish time I knew I was coming in for another big PR. I thought to myself, "you're down to 13 hrs now. How many more times can you keep taking these big chunks out of your times?" I have total confidence I'm on my way to a 12-hr IM... and then who knows. All I know is, I'm not done yet!