Ironman CDA report from Dan Rees

I had a good day. The swim, as usual, was my weak point. A strong wind was blowing across the lake and churning up the water. It was also colder - but it turned out to be a perfect temperature for racing hard. The water temperature in lake CDA was 65 deg. which was warmer than the air temperature. The two times I saw a thermometer during the day had the air temperature in the 40's. This was in the morning and on the way back to the hotel around 7 pm. I'm sure it got a little warmer in the day. The rain held off until just about 5 pm so the last 8 minutes of the race I had a little rain, but nothing like what the people who were out there for the duration went through later that night.

It was a shore start which resulted in a slightly more civilized swim than usual. I didn't take the same kind of physical beating I suffered at IM Arizona in November. The wind had created strange currents in the lake. The course was a rectangular course and the turns at the buoys were worst. It was two loops and you ran through a timing gate in between loops. My 1/2 way time was around 36 minutes with my full swim at 1:16. Not my best, actually pretty close to my worst. I came out the water 103 in my age group. My age group had around 270 people in it, so I knew I had a little work to do if I wanted to race Kona with Amy.

The wind was blowing 10 - 15 mph from the Southwest. This wind actually suited me well. Normally, if the wind is blowing like this I can write off the day because I don't seem to do well in the wind. However, the direction of this wind pushed you out of town and assisted you on the uphill and was in your face as you were descending back into town. The bike is two loops. with a short out and back each loop along the lake. There are substantial rolling hills in the middle of the course and it reminded me a little bit of IM Wisconsin where you would work hard to get up a hill and when you started down the other side, not get a good descent because they would put a sharp turn right at the bottom of the hill. I had ridden the course on the computrainer, so I knew what type of average speeds to expect at different points of the course. Generally, on my computrainer rides I would end up coming out of the hills averaging around 18.6 to 19 mph (keeping my HR at my race pace). I came out of the hills the first loop with an average speed of around 21.8 mph and had been passing people consistently. The wind was completely manageable descending back to town. I didn't descend as fast as I climbed but I still boosted my average speed. When I hit town, my average speed had climbed up to 21.9 mph. I held this through town until I got back out to the hills. I was pretty tired by that point, but I knew the average last qualiying time for Kona in my age group from last year was 10:17. The swim plus transistion was 1:21 and I knew that a 3:30 run would be good which forced me into a bike plus T2 of around 5:24. I finished the bike in 5:20 and had moved to 15th position within my age group.

It was pretty empty in transition and I had my own private helper who was shoving my hat on my head and my nutrition in my jersey so I moved through transistion pretty quick. The first 1/4 mile of the run was a little shaky and I got passed by a couple of the people who were with me in transition but that didn't last long. My legs remembered how to run by the time I hit the 1/2 mile mark My first mile was under 7 minutes. I then settled down into around a 7:30 pace for a good bit of the first half of the marathon. The data on the web site is wrong. The timing mat for the 21.75 mi split on the web site was really before mile 21 so it is off by about a mi. The web site shows my pace at aroung 7:30 through mi 21.75. I had actually started running between 7:30 and 8 min milse by that point. It also shows my time falling apart the last 4 mi. This didn't really happen. I slowed down, but I was still running around an 8:15 min/mi pace the last 4 miles. I was able to keep my heart rate up throughout the run. The first half of the run, my heart rate was around 145 - 147 bpm. The second half of the run, it dropped to 140 - 143 bpm. I drank mostly gatorade at the aid stations, took 4 salt pills and 2 gu's during the run, and had a mint each mile and 3 packages of enervitine. I ended up setting a PR for the run of 3:25 and a PR for the entire race of 10:08. My old PR was at IM Lake Placid last year of 10:17. I was 4th in my age group. Numbers 2 and 3 were 4 minutes and 2 minutes in front of me. The first place person in my age group was 32 minutes in front of me. Last year the Kona slots went 7 places in my age group so I pretty sure I will get one. We go down to the race venue in about 2 hours to collect the slot. Amy's going to sign up for next years race at the same time. While I am having trouble moving around quickly today, I would say that I'm in better shape at this moment than usual after an IM.