Race Report - IronMan Louisville

As with most big events, I did not sleep well prior to the race. Especially for this one where I had so much time, energy, and money invested. I was anxious, nervous, and excited. I think I managed to fall asleep around 10:30 or 11 and then woke up without an alarm at 3 AM. I laid in bed for 20 more minutes, but then got up. I rinsed off in the shower, got dressed in my race gear, and then filled up my Perpetuem bottles. Then I made my oatmeal and had breakfast. Felt good and ready to go.

I met my friend Rob outside right around 4:40 AM to get down to the transition area early. This is a unique swim start as far as IM races go, in that you have to get in line and then basically run down this dock and jump in the water. I wanted to get there early and get in line so as not to be behind too many people. Rob and I walked down (with my better half and his dad and brother) and got our transition area ready. I pumped up my tires, put my bottle on, set my PT computer, and put on my little bento box on my frame. Then I lubed my chain and my bike was ready to go. Next was dropping off special needs bags. Finally, I met up with the group and we waited for the other folks that Rob knows from St. Louis that were doing this race.



After about 15 more minutes, as I got more and more anxious to get moving, we headed down to the swim start. It’s about a ¾ to 1 mile walk down to Tumbleweeds boat dock and the swim start. From there, you swim up the river for like the first ¾ of a mile and then back down the river for the rest. Anyway, we got down there, I got body marked, ate my banana, and got in line. Rob and I decided we should get in the port-a-potty line now. We waited, and waited, and waited… Then we finally decided to walk over to the woods and a dock by the river. There was a nice, convenient, dark pathway down the hill, so we both went there. Nonetheless, we waited there for like 30 minutes standing around before the start. Once we got back in the mainline with the group, we heard that the line was going to start moving. They had the pro start and then a minute or two later we were moving. Rob told me that once you start moving, it goes pretty quickly, so I got my skinsuit on and my goggles and cap out and got ready. I had my final gel at like 6:50 thinking I’d be in the water around 10 minutes after 7. With that I was ready to go. Here are a couple shots at the swim start with some family (sister-in-law, nephew, and my better half) and then walking toward the dock to do the running start.







Swim (or “I thought a TT start was supposed to have clean water from the beginning”):

Once you start moving, it really does go fast. We winded down the dock towards the boat ramp and they instructed us to get our cap and goggles ready and this was it. They split you into 2 lines and then you run up, cross a mat, and jump in for the start. I was off!!!

The water was warm, but I was ready for that. What I wasn’t ready for was the fact that this was a time trial start, but there was still a scrum for most of the first 20-30 minutes of the swim. You go up this channel between an island and the shore of the river and it was still fairly crowded. I couldn’t really get into a rhythm well and got knocked several times. This wasn’t the worst part of the swim though. As I continued on, and started coming out of the channel and heading towards the turn-around buoy, I started feeling cramps in the bottom of my feet and my calf muscles. It happens to me occasionally in the pool and it has happened to me in races before, but not badly since Wildflower ’07. I’m not sure exactly why this happened again. I ate the same things I usually do. All I can figure is standing around for an hour and then running and jumping off the dock for a >hour swim and going from standing to a horizontal non-weight bearing position so quickly has something to do with it. So I was kind of bummed, but kept moving forward trying to get into a rhythm. Finally I found the turnaround buoy and headed back down the river. I was expecting this part to be much easier, but it still seemed crowded. On top of that, the cramps continued every few minutes. Swimming with your feet perpendicular to your legs is not ideal to say the least. It was also a bit more choppy than I expected. Oh well… I figured it’s going to be a long day and these things are about having something left for the marathon anyway, so nothing to get too worried about. One nice thing about the swim is that sighting is easy because of the two bridges you go under on the way back to the transition area. Here's a shot of the lead swimmer approaching the finish of the swim.


The rest of the swim for me was relatively uneventful, but I still did have some cramps off and on throughout. I approached the steps and a volunteer helped me out, then I glanced down at my watch and was disappointed with a 1:17. I thought I was capable of about 1:15 as a conservative estimate but I was expecting in the 1:10-1:13 range.




Swim Split: 1:17:01 (680 OA, 107 AG) T1: 4:36


Bike ( or “slave to the little yellow computer”):


My plan on the bike was very specific. For nutrition, I was going with liquid and gel calories only and had done so on all my long training rides. For pacing, I was going to stick with a power target of about 180-200 watts cruising and below 250 as best I could on hills. I started out on River Road and kept it in the small chainring for the first 20 minutes or so just to set the tone nice and easy. It was pretty crowded at the beginning so I just tried to stay easy and out of peoples’ way. At 15 minutes, I started on the perpetuem. My power numbers were nice and low, but I did notice that my HR was not dropping as low as expected at this low effort. From an RPE standpoint, it was definitely an E2 pace, the same at which I did most of my easy-paced long training rides. It is not a hard effort. Based on this, I decided to ignore my HR for the time being and stick to RPE and power. When I got to the first hill on Wolf Pen Branch road, I realized how tough it would be to stick to 250 watts on the hills, but I did my best. I kept it very easy and tried to keep the power meter steady over the whole hill, easy at the start, steady through the middle, and then gear back up over the top of the hill to keep steady pressure on the pedals. Some of the hills make it tougher to do this, but that was still the planned procedure on every hill.

On the way out of town, I also noticed there was a little bit of a headwind, which was very encouraging because it meant the 2nd half of the loop and the 30-some miles back into town at the end would be all with some kind of tailwind. The next several miles were uneventful. I got to the out and back down into the ravine and back out and it was no big deal. I flew down the hills and kept it steady and easy back up, always keeping my power/effort in mind. I watched other people stand up and grind it out thinking to myself “you’re going to need those legs later.” After the out and back, I headed towards the loop for my first time around. The first part is somewhat hilly, but not that long until you make the turn toward LaGrange. Once headed toward LaGrange, there was that headwind again, but I was OK with it, because I knew it would help later. Going through LaGrange was really fun because of the crowd. It’s not quite like climbing the hills in Wisconsin, but you do have a nice crowd there. After LaGrange, it’s out through more beautiful horse-farm country on the back roads and some more up and down. This course is deceivingly difficult (5000 feet of vertical) and it’s like small 100-200 foot hills most of the day. Then I turned back toward town and finished my first loop. It was still somewhat crowded but was starting to thin out. I passed the half-way marker and was still doing well. From a hydration standpoint, I was definitely good. I stopped twice in the first hour to pee. And these were not dehydrated-style pees, they were long and not yellow. Some hardcore types pee while riding, but I decided that was not a good idea since I had not tried it while training. And when I was standing there in the port-a-potty, I was glad, because it would’ve been a lot of liquid and would’ve taken a while. But I digress…

The 2nd loop was not too bad. I still felt strong in general. I was starting to get fatigued, but nothing outrageous and not any different than any other long ride where I had solid runs afterwards. However, around mile 75 or so, I did start noticing a little bit of bloating. I figured it would go away and stuck to my nutrition plan. It never got out of control, but the Perpetuem and Hammer gel was not going down as well as early on in the ride. Nonetheless, I motored along. After the last turn toward town, the wind was still there and I was still feeling pretty good, so I kept a steady pace. It was less crowded now and even more so once I passed the loop start and headed down the last stretch of route 42 before you get to WPB road. This part is mostly downhill and not too bad. I was tired, but still had legs left and was feeling OK about having to run afterwards. From a power standpoint, I was pretty steady across the ride, which was a planned goal. Here are some numbers per hour:


1st Hour 2nd Hour 3rd Hour 4th Hour 5th Hour Last 45 Mins.
Avg Speed 18.8 mph 19.3 mph 19.6 mph 19.7 mph 20.0 mph 21.4 mph
Avg Power 171 watts 182 watts 179 watts 178 watts 177 watts 163 watts
Avg Cadence 91 rpm 90 rpm 88 rpm 88 rpm 92 rpm 92 rpm

I felt like this was a well-executed ride. I don’t have HR numbers because I was using my Polar HR monitor and not the PowerTap strap. That way, I didn’t have to switch during T2. However, my average HR for the entire ride was 143, which was high. Not sure exactly why, but my RPE was a solid E2/easy. I was not riding hard.

I headed back into town down River Road and once I could see the skyline was very encouraged. I was ready to get off my bike and was definitely tired, but not like I was in Madison 2 years ago. If I had a PowerTap back then, my power would’ve dropped way off in the last 2 hours of that ride!! As I approached the turn into T2, I spotted the family and was again elated at all the support. It gives you such a great boost. I got off the bike and knew I had a good ride and was ready to keep it going. I ran into transition, changed clothes and then made another visit to the port-a-potty. So my T2 time is a minute and a half longer because of that, but I had to go pee again and I took this as a good sign on the hydration front.





Bike Split: 5:44:47 (455 OA, 90 AG)
T2: 4:52


Run (or “What the $%^&* happened?”):

I headed around the transition tent, up the path and across the bridge to the run course. Almost as soon as I got off my bike, I knew I didn’t have my good run legs. In training, I had been doing hard 22 mile runs after 50 mile rides and doing them in sub-8 minute pace fairly easily, but that was just not in the cards and I’m not sure exactly why. Nonetheless, I started going and tried to stay easy the first few miles and get into a rhythm. I saw my family after coming off the bridge and that was a big boost!





Miles 0-3 I was still not feeling great from a digestion standpoint and I was already thinking “I’ve got 24 miles and I don’t feel that good now,” but after the first few miles I started feeling a little better and thought maybe I could salvage something decent. Miles 3-6 weren’t that bad, but soon thereafter, it got a lot worse. My legs were like bricks and I a don’t know why??? I didn’t go hard on the bike and was eating well most of the day. My HR was a little high on the bike, but my power and RPE were right on the whole time. I finally made it to the turn-around at mile 8 and headed back towards town. I started walking the aid stations and the time I would walk slowly increased. My pace started to slow and then by mile 10, I had my first bout with cramps. My left hamstring was in a knot. Not good. I stopped for about 30 seconds and stretched it out. I was able to slowly start up, but the next few miles I was feeling worse and worse. I was stopping to walk every aid station but at least not walking in between them. I made it back to town and tried to ignore the finish line as I turned back out for the 2nd loop.




That is always the hardest part of these things on a 2-loop course. You literally come within a block of the finish, but then have to turn around and run another 12 miles (in this case). I saw my family again and my wife/coach had been getting information from my coach back home and told me everyone was slowing down. I explained to her that was a moot point by now, but she was very positive and encouraged me to keep plugging away aid-station to aid-station. So that’s what I did. I walked them all, but kept jogging in between. In the 2nd half of the marathon, I didn’t even have the legs to get my HR above 130, which is the same thing that happened to me in Wisconsin. If I ever want to have a race to my potential, I’ve got to figure out why this is the case because it never happened to me in training, even after hard rides. The last couple miles before the 2nd turn were really tough. I had to force myself to start jogging again after the aid stations. Once I made the last turnaround and headed back towards town, I had 6 miles to go. I knew I was quickly losing the opportunity to break 11 hours, so I just focused on grinding it out. At mile 21, I had to stretch out another cramp, but could manage to still run in-between aid stations. Once I got to mile 23 I tried to pick it up just a tad. I could taste the finish now!!!




The last couple miles weren’t that bad, I even skipped the last aid station and kept motoring. I got close to town and was getting very excited to finish. I saw my family right at the last turn and then headed down the chute. I glanced behind me to make sure I could have my own finish-line moment and then saw Emily at the end. I was filled with emotion (as usual) when I see her at the end of a race. It’s an incredible feeling and part of why I do these things. When you are that physically drained, your emotions are just over-flowing… After I crossed the line, two volunteers grabbed me and helped me along. They got my shirt and hat for me and asked me what I wanted to drink. Then they made sure I met up with Emily. The attention is always nice ;-)

I gave Emily a big hug and we had a little moment. Then we headed over towards the convention center to recover a bit with something to eat. She had sent my family back to the hotel, which was REALLY nice. So I wasn’t completely bombarded immediately afterwards. I tried to stomach a little pizza and a cookie or two, but had to wait a while to eat. We gradually made our way back to the hotel and there I had a HUGE reception!! I have an incredible group of family and friends and their support helped me get to the line on a tough day when I just didn’t have it.


Run Split: 4:05:43 (483 OA, 87 AG)
Total Time: 11:17:04 (396/2314 Finishers OA, 77/360 AG Finishers)


I am disappointed with my run split because I know I am capable of so much more. I need to figure out how to pull off one of these IM marathons. They are not easy, but I know I can do a whole lot less than 4:05 if my open marathon PR is 3:10 and that was almost 4 years ago. I have some work to do and plan to do 2 of these things next year to give me more opportunity to put together a good race overall. In spite of all this, I am still satisfied with another finish and taking 1:15 off my PR.