Silverman Triathlon

Took me a while to actually post this. Hopefully it will provide some good winter reading and motivation for next year. Take Care, Bill

Silverman Full Distance Triathlon

2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run
Stats:
Total Time: 13:44:40
Swim: 1:25:50
T1: 6:24
Bike: 7:13:28
T2: 5:24
Run: 4:53:37

Last year I decided to make a goal of completing an Ironman. The only problem was that I had no swimming experience. So I signed up for swimming lessons and learned to swim at the local pool in Los Alamos. Since the swimming was coming along well, I did the 5430 long course triathlon in Boulder in August. That race turned out all right, so I signed up for the Silverman Ironman distance race for November in Henderson, Nevada.

Shortly after signed up and reading a little more about it, I realized that this was one tough race. The bike course has almost 10,000 feet of climbing and the weather had been notoriously windy the last couple of years. With the thought of a tough bike ride, I stepped up the training rides in the hills around Los Alamos. I got in a couple of long and hilly rides in before the race and figured that I would be as ready as I could be.

The race was on Sunday, but since registration started on Friday, I left Los Alamos after work on Thursday and drove out of Flagstaff. After camping the night in the National Forest near the interstate I was up early and on my way to Henderson. My plans for the day quickly came to a halt as the Jeep shuddered and came to a stop about 10 miles from Kingman, Arizona. After a quick tow, I was at a repair shop in Kingman where a broken cam-shaft sensor was deemed the problem. Unfortunately, there was no spare part in town and it would not be until Monday before they go the part. My only option was to rent a car and continue the drive up to Henderson.

Even with the delay from the broken down car, I was still able to get a swim in Lake Mead before the race check in. At check in I got a lot of good schwag, including a backpack. I spent some time on Friday packing my transition bags and getting my stuff ready for the race. On Saturday I dropped off my bike and all my transition stuff and attended the race briefing. All that is left now was to get a good night sleep.

The weather forecast for race day had been looking good during the week before, but a couple of days before it started to change. By the Saturday before, the forecast was for windy conditions with a slight chance of a rain shower.

Race Morning

I got to the start of the race and had my body marked with my number and picked up my timing chip. I checked my bike and was happy that there were no flat tires. Everything was looking good. The weather was even better than forecast, only a slight breeze with some clouds off in the distance. Little was I about to know that things were going to change. I have never actually been in a washing machine, but I think that this race was about as close as it would come.

The soak cycle

The race started at 6:30 with a mass swim start. There were around 200 people in the full distance event and the swim was in Lake Mead. I started in the middle of the pack and just tried to get into a good rhythm. The first half of the swim went by uneventfully and I was feeling pretty good. I had now gone around the buoy at the turn around and was retuning towards the start.

The agitate cycle

As I was swimming back towards the start the water started to get choppy. Did I just see a white cap as I was sighting to the next buoy? Sure enough the wind had picked up and was blowing white capped waves perpendicular to my swim direction. As I slowly approached the final turn towards the shore, the wind continued to pickup. Once I made the final right turn, things got all crazy. I was now swimming directly into the wind and the waves which were now on the order of 2 feet tall. This made it almost impossible to see where I was going. Every time I tried to look up to see the buoys, a wave would break over my head. At one point I was swimming in the totally wrong direction and it took me many seconds to figure out where I was. I sure hope that there is nothing bad in the water, as I ended up drinking a lot of it. After what seemed like a struggle, I finally managed to pull myself out of the water and into the swim to bike transition. I was thinking that this is going to be a fun bike ride in this wind….. (Side note, the half distance race which was to start around the time that I finished the swim was delayed an hour because the conditions were too bad to swim in).

The rinse cycle

The bike started with a hill out of the lake area and then onto hilly roads. I tried to not start out too hard and was managing to deal with the wind alright. Just when I thought that things were not too bad it started to rain. This had me a little concerned as I have never ridden my bike in the rain. I had also just gotten new bike tires and I remembered asking the salesman in the bike shop how they handled in the rain. His response is that these tires were not that good in the rain, but why would you ride in the rain anyhow? My thought was, yeah, it never rains in the Las Vegas area. The rain came in waves. One minute it was raining hard and then the next there was nothing. The wind was variable also. At one point I had to lean to the side into the wind to not get blow over. This on and off rain and wind last for about the first 40 miles of the bike ride. The road had puddles in it and I road a little bit conservatively, especially on the down hills. I had started the bike in a sleeveless jersey and was glad that I had packed a wind breaker as I got really cold. There was one crazy guy who did the whole race without a shirt. Yikes! And as if the rain and wind was not enough there was also a brief period of hail and thunder and lightning.

The middle 40 miles of the bike was pretty nice. The road began to dry out and the wind was not too bad. I finally warmed enough to take off the wind breaker and focus on keeping a good speed up. Almost the entire course was either up or down a hill.

The dry cycle

The final 40 miles of the bike got tough again. As I was riding back into town the wind picked up and it was a head wind. From about mile 75 to 90 was really bad as at times I was reduced to a crawl. At mile 90, the bike course turns off the main road and goes onto a bike trail. This is also the section that has the famous 3 sisters. These are three short hills with a 15% to 18% grade. I actually enjoyed going over the 3 sisters. It was a good opportunity to get out of the saddle and work a different muscle group. At this point I got charged up and just want to finish the bike ride. So I picked up the pace on the final 15 miles. The bike trail was a grind though as it was up a slight incline the entire way. Once back into town, I got onto some fast down hills and before I knew it I was headed into the bike to run transition.

After swapping bike shoes for running shoes I was out of the transition area. After about 100 yards, I realized that I forgot to put on my race number. So I had to go back to the transition and get my race number. What a drag that was as they had already taken my bags out of the changing area. All in all, I lost about 4 minutes. The run course is a two lap course with a couple of hills. The first lap was going pretty good until about mile 10, when I started to have some digestive distress. The required several pit stops over the next 8 miles. While on the second lap the hills which did not seem too bad on the first lap seemed to have gotten much bigger. I was starting to slow down and was losing my urge to finish fast. At around mile 18, my stomach began to feel better and I just wanted to get this thing over with, so I started to push the pace again. As I went I felt better and got into a good run which I was able to maintain until the finish.

After finishing the race I got a massage and enjoyed the food and beverage. The accomplishment of finishing one of the tougher iron man distance triathlons was a good feeling.

This race was a wonderful event and very well organized. The volunteers were awesome and the support on the course could not have been better. My thanks go to the race director and all the volunteers. The course is hard but also very scenic.