Ironman 70.3 Wisconsin: Two Dropped Chains, Two Wrong Turns, One minor crash, and a whole lot of Hurt

This past weekend was my first race of the year at Ironman 70.3 Wisconsin in Madison, WI. I hadn’t raced in about 7 and half months, but during that time had made major gains in the swim and bike. If you’ve been following along with my posts leading into the race, you’ll know that I’ve been dealing with a 2.5 month stretch of significant running-related injuries, that have made my running extremely inconsistent, not running for weeks at time, doing a run, then having to take another couple weeks off, and so on. The most significant injury is a right hip injury that I have had on and off since September 2014, and next weekend I have an MRI to determine if I have a labral tear in the hip, and if it will require surgery to repair. A very close second though in terms of severity is a left hamstring problem that I’ve been dealing with for 7.5 months. In my last post, I talked about having still not reached a decision to whether I would run or not in the weekend’s race. Even on the morning of the race I had still not made a decision.

My Dad and I arrived in Madison late Thursday night, and to be perfectly honest ever since going through horrendous rush hour traffic in Chicago on the road trip here, everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong. Friday morning we headed over to get race kit and check-in. I was planning on swimming in the lake to see what it what like, and get some more time in the wetsuit and open water (after doing only my first open water swim on Wednesday). While putting up great swim times in the pool is great, it just isn’t the same as being in the open water. So after getting the kit we headed down to the lake where the seaweed that was taller then the height of the water was been cut by some machines, and further out into the lake there were just too many boats (speed boats and fishing boats with lines in the water) that it would be way too dangerous to swim. So after waiting around to see if there was any decent spot to hop into the water and splash around for a bit, I decided to just go over to a pool. Unfortunately the pool we drove all the way to was private for only those who lived in the neighbouring community (and the “manager” who was about 12 told me she couldn’t make an exception). We then spent most of the rest of the afternoon looking for a pool that was open to swim in. Eventually we found one, but most of the day was gone by that point. I was also intending on driving the bike course that day but didn’t get a chance to, so I would have to do that Saturday. On Saturday things really started getting crazy. Headed out to drive the first third of the bike course, ride the middle third, and then drive the final third. On Saturday it was stupid hot and windy, blowing the car around the road, and being a lightweight rider with a 60mm wheel on the front and disc on the back (although the disc really has no effect on stability in wind) I was very nervous the whole first third of the course. It took a long time to drive the first third because to no fault of my Dad, who was driving, there were just so many turns and blind intersections that we went the wrong way a number of times. Not to mention the fact the roads were so rough it was practically shaking the car to pieces, so I couldn’t even imagine what this would do on Sunday to my beautiful girl Elektra. Eventually I found a spot to get out and start riding, but it took so long to even set the bike up with the wind blowing the bike around even as it was just stationary there at the side of the road. Eventually I started biking, but stopped after only 5 minutes because the wind made it too dangerous not to mention I was biking the middle third, which was the very technical part of the course with hairpin turns, 90 degree turns halfway down steep hills, and more rough roads. I was so angry after that I didn’t even want to see the rest of the course because this was too demoralizing, and still had to get in my pre-race bike before having to check in the bike to transition before 5. So went back to the hotel, biked on the trainer had pretty good normal pre-race workout, but just at the end of the workout the bike started making just an awful sound that didn’t go away. Went over to the race, was going to grease up the bike but the grease got so hot in the car, and with the strong wind almost none of the grease actually made it onto the chain. The day’s woes continued later at dinner at the Olive garden where I hoped to have something similar to my normal pre-race meal but the Olive garden has really slimmed down there menu so made for not a great dinner at all.

Anyways onto the race. Sunday morning I still didn’t know whether I’d be running or not. Fully loaded on anti-inflammatories, we got to the race and my grand test of the hip was a tiny 15 meter slow jog to and from the car, and said that I would give it go.  A thorough test for sure. Set up transition and then went over to the water to get my awesome Vanquish wetsuit on and ready for the warm-up swim which would be happening 6:30 to 6:45 (the race would start at 7). Suit on and ready to get in, 6:30 came around and we weren’t allowed yet into the water, 6:35, 6:40, 6:45 still no, and the warm-up swim was then cancelled. Why? Well the ambulance wasn’t at the race yet so they couldn’t let people into the water. So there everyone is standing around for about 40 minutes in wetsuits sweating like crazy, and would not get any chance to loosen up the arms, get the wetsuit wet, and make sure the goggles had a good seal. If you’ve never been in wetsuit it gets very hot in it since your wearing a thick black rubber (neoprene) full-length suit, so there is by design not much breathability. Plus being a day were it was 33 feeling 42 with humidity, before the race even started there was sweat literally dripping off my face and could feel it going down my back, and rest of my body. More so then just being frustrating standing completely stationary for 40 minutes, it’s pretty darn tough to go from standing around to swimming flat out. With zero countdown, the cannon went off and what made not getting warm-up even harder on the body was that the water was very (like 3ft) shallow for the first 100 meters or so which meant instead of swimming you were dolphin diving for a while. If you don’t know what dolphin diving is it’s basically a version of butterfly. You do a butterfly stroke and as you arms go into the pull phase of the stroke, you grab the ground underneath you and leap frog forwards into the next stroke. It’s tiring, and especially so doing butterfly with arms that aren’t really ready to start going that hard. I realize that all the competitors need to endure the same challenges the racecourse itself throws at them, but I’m just describing my experience with it being someone who has dual goals to both finish on the podium and number goals as well (certain powers, certain paces for swim and run, etc.). So we started going and once I finally started swimming and was a little bit back from the two leaders. My problem was that I made big mistake in that I didn’t know how far we would have to dolphin dive before hand, whereas the couple lead guys who I was chatting with before the race said they had gone for swims in the lake either the day before, or they lived in Madison so knew the lake very well. Because of this, for me at the start I would do a couple dives and then try to start swimming thinking that surely the water would start getting deep, it didn’t, then would come up to do another couple dives, then try and swim but still to shallow, and so on, wasting a lot of time. So the leaders quickly distanced themselves from me, and swam pretty much start to finish solo. My goal for

the race was under 26 minutes for the swim - I was 26:36. I only really started getting into the groove halfway through the swim when I could just feel my arms finally starting to open up and speed up the cadence. The last half I averaged about 1:17/100m (which would be a 1000m PB for me), and the last 5 minutes was a 1:15/100m average which significantly closed the gap between the leaders and me. The first half was pretty slow, so overall it was a 1:21/100m average (about 2 seconds per 100 slower than I wanted). Got out, ran the billion miles to Transition – it was an entire 3.5 minute run from the water over to transition, I passed 2 guys ahead of me during the run to T1 but that long of a run was frustrating (I think I was 5^th or 6^th out of the water). This made me start the bike already not in a great mood because I knew I was almost a minute slower than I planned in the water, and then T1 with the 3.5 minute run just to the bike, took about 3 minutes longer than I planned.

I have almost zero picture in aero since all the photographers
were mid-way up hills.

We started out the bike, and can you believe that here in an Ironman branded race we started the first few miles on a narrow twisty bike path, which get this wasn’t even closed to the public, so there were people on bikes coming the other way, and walkers going along it, with me coming through on a TT bike at 40+ kilometers per hour. It made trying to overtake the 3 leaders ahead of me pretty tough just to maneuver around them and trying to get a spot where the path stayed straight for a half-decent stretch of time. I made it around 3^rd and 2^nd, and then a little bit later overcooked it on a turn that I didn’t see coming up on the narrow little path. I went off the path onto the gravel and into the grass, somehow stayed upright, and bunny hopped the bike back onto the path – something I’ve never done on Elektra. Finally got off the death trap of a bike path and onto the super bumpy road – which almost seemed like a relief at this point. Was now within sight of 1^st overall, caught up to him on a hill, and went past soon after. Was now leading an Ironman race and that

was pretty cool feeling with two motorbikes now near me. Although I was winning and the 2^nd place guy was now out of sight, I kept seeing my overall average speed to that point (on my main screen for races (there are four screens total) all I have is Overall time, Overall Average Speed, 3s Avg Power, and Avg Power) saying average 37 or so, but my power was much higher than I was planning to that point, so I kept thinking that the speed would maybe come back in the second half of the bike where the wind would not be hurting as much – it was a strong and gusty SW wind. However, the lack of rhythm that the course provided having to do turn after turn, big bump after bump, and really zero stretches where you could just “relax” and stare at your power in your aero position was very frustrating. It was just a very poorly set up even with regards to the aid stations placement with one of them right before a good size turn that made it almost impossible to grab anything especially given the last area where you could throw the trash from the station was only a couple meters after it. Normally I would grab the bottle from the station then empty it into my front bottle on the bike and then toss the empty one maybe 25 meters after the station, but here it was pretty much at the station that you would need to toss the bottle almost immediately. So at that second aid station I got no fluids, and the frustration continued to build, even though I was still leading the race at this point about halfway into the bike. Soon after that a rider came up past me, and right after that when I was about 80-90% up a hill my chain fell off the front chain rings. Do you know how difficult it is to start going again from a stop on a steep hill. I had to put every muscle fibre in my right leg to push as hard as it could to get going again. After the little stop to get the chain back on, the gap grew a little up to the rider in first. Two wrong turns later at poorly marked intersections where there seem to be pylons just all over the place, and one more dropped chain this time cresting over a hill, the lead to 1^st was now significant. Mile 40-50 I found particularly challenging mentally, since I thought in the final quarter of the bike the speed would start to come back up but the hills and turns just didn’t stop. Still though, I was firmly in second at this point. However we then got to the ultimate frustration of the bike course: the final 2 miles. Not a word of a lie, and I’m not exaggerating this part at all. In a race on a time trial bike, we entered into a parking lot rode through it onto a sidewalk (ya I said a sidewalk) then a complete u-turn to underneath a bridge back onto another bike path, a complete 90 degree turn on the very narrow bike path (with a little fence on your right being the barrier between this tiny path and

the river underneath the bridge) up to the other side of the bridge, then a u-turn about 50 meters before the dismount line. I haven’t looked at the stats completely yet but that last mile my average speed must have been close to running speed – I guess maybe a way to get your head more mentally prepared for the upcoming change in speed. Really it was the worst designed, and just downright dangerous bike course I have ever seen. So dangerous that I forgot to even mention that out on course the road just ended and turned to gravel for a little, because that wasn’t even significant compared to everything else it had wrong with it. Ended up doing the bike in 2:23 (37.7 km/hr) that was 2^nd fastest on the day, I was intending on doing 2:14, and what was frustrating was that I have had so many rides with a faster average speed than that. Again the power was good and pretty much where I expected it to be but given the hilliness and with so many turns the average power was much lower than the normalized power, which indicates that the power was not that steady (variability index was 1.10 which is very high). Power that is so variable also does a number on your legs, since the very high power surges after a turn or up a steep hill use about 100% carbohydrate, whereas at a steadier tempo power you will use a mix of carbohydrate and fat (at the intensity I’m going at it will still be a much higher proportion of carbohydrate than fat at even a steady power, but with surges the balance will be almost 100% favored to carbohydrates as the energy source).

After that craziness of a dismount into transition 2, ran into transition, and I guess everything that I had in my pockets (HotShot for cramping, and my salt tablets) flew out, I wouldn’t expect anything else with how this day was going. Started out the run in second place a couple minutes back from first. After doing that huge 15 meter run to test the hip out I really had know no clue what was going to happen. Went through the first kilometer in 3:43, and was trying to hold myself back but my legs were just kind of rolling along. They didn’t feel great obviously after such a physically and mentally taxing bike (having think about so many things: gears, braking, lines to turns on the narrow path, etc), but the speed was better than I anticipated. 2^nd kilometer went by about 3:49 or so, and then got to first aid station, and boom hamstring is gone. I thought it would hold out at least for a little longer and was just so unbelievably upset and thought that was the end of the race there at only the run’s first aid station. I was at the side of the road hunched over, with a volunteer who happened to be a doctor who was giving me some attention trying to not only pump me up to keep grinding, but also pouring ice down my shirt in the back to try to cool me down since already in the 42 degree heat I was starting to melt. The amount of sweat dripping off was just unbelievable; I have never been sweating so much in my life. After about 5 minutes of crying there in pain at the side of the road got up and went after the few racers who went by me when I was down doing a couple more 3:50 kilometers. I got to the fourth mile aid station, and then the hip joined the hamstring in the misery, and after going up one of the hills I felt like my heart and head was going to explode. I got a massive headache, and my heart was beating out of my chest. I think in addition to obviously the extreme heat, the extra effort of having to now drag my broken hip and hamstring along just amplified the heat’s impact and was really suffering. I dropped down to the ground at that aid station in unbelievable pain, and suffering badly from heat exhaustion. Again despite the horrible setup of the bike course, and poor organization of the swim warmup or lack thereof, I need to really thank the volunteers’ cause they came over immediately to help me out. I was balling my eyes out and just totally defeated, took my chip off and was saying I’m done. I continued to sweat profusely long after I stopped, and then they called for the medical team. I was on the ground on my back for almost 25 minutes total. The medical team there measured my heart rate over 200, and in addition to the obvious problem I was having with the heat, the hip was just pulsating in pain. After a little while longer my head was feeling better after having bags worth of ice poured on me and drinking what seemed like gallons of Gatorade, and water. I got up and said I would try to just walk for a bit, and just started running. The first kilometer after feeling pretty much dead at the side of road for almost 25 minutes was a 3:49, the second around 3:55, third around 3:55, so many people had passed me when I was out of it on the ground, and then was picking people off one by one. The hamstring still hurt, the hip was still in shambles, my calves were now starting to hurt (remember I haven’t really run in almost two months and was now running in racing flats which was a lot to ask of my calves), but I kind of

felt like I just came back from the dead, and was running angry. Eventually I got up to the guy who was ahead of me in 1^st off the bike, who was now having his own struggles in the heat and was reduced to walking, and he could not believe it when I came streaking by at 3:50 something per kilometer pace. Can’t remember exactly what he said but it basically “how are you running right now, amazing man.” I ran those last 9 miles (14.5km) in a world of pain in my hip, and hamstring feeling like it could completely tear on me at any moment, plus now with the calves going, and then the ridiculous 42 degree heat, it was just something I never ever want to go through ever again in my life. Continued to pass one person after another and actually had the 5^th or 6^th fastest second half of the run in the field, after being dead to the world for almost 25 minutes. The race ended on a massive steep hill, I would say similar in size to the final hill at the Spring Run-off in High Park, and despite the garbage time raised my arms up at the end, because of what I went through to get to the finish line.

After the race, and the pitiful post-race food of some white bread with a slice of cheap cheese on it, and some sprite or coke – no muscle milk, no chocolate milk, no Gatorade, absolutely nothing to do anything for recovery, I felt just emotionally and physically broken. I trained my absolute butt off the last half a year; only to have my run legs break down yet again. Like I said in my last post this sport I’m in now will just expose any weakness or injury you are carrying. I feel just like although my swim is very strong right now, and the power on the bike (which was like 40 watts higher then in Miami) was good enough that if the course wasn’t so poorly organized it would be a very fast bike split, the swim and bike don’t mean that much if my body falls to pieces with a little running. Although the run kilometer splits before and after the 4^th mile aid station’s collapse were solid, with a 25-minute stop the damage in the time was done.  I can sit here and say oh well if I didn’t have almost 30 minutes in stops I would have won the race by like 3 minutes, remember I was in second off the bike, and after the first 2 kilometers I was significantly closing the gap on 1^st. However, that isn’t how racing works, there is no well if this or that happened then I would have finish here or here. If you stopped at an aid station, if you had to go to the bathroom, if you made a wrong turn, the time is the time. I started this post the morning after the race, and I am now finishing it on the Wednesday after, and I’m glad to finish it now rather than the morning after. Initially, I was going to write how I want to completely forget the race essentially say F$%$ it and move on. While, I can still say F$$# it to the time and forget that because based on my number and abilities on the swim and bike, and as a runner I know I’m capable of being a sub-4 70.3 guy, I don’t want to forget everything about the race. Initially, I wanted to say I don’t even want to talk about what transpired on the run cause emotionally it is very difficult to go back to that place (I was crying on and off for basically 4 hours post-race), but I’m going to think about it in a slightly different way and say what I did on the run showed true perseverance, and toughness. Yes, weeping like a baby at the side of the road isn’t tough, but with the medical crew there offering me a ride back to start, to grab my chip off the grass on the side of the road, put it back around my ankle, knowing full well that this was going hurt beyond belief, took so much strength and grit. I knew it wasn’t going to be a good time after having stopped for so long, but I also knew I have never DNF’ed a race before, and I never will. Once you do it once, it becomes an option in the future. You can almost say that putting the chip back on, and proceeding to grind out 14.5 kms with tears of pain in my eyes the whole way, took more strength then finishing in 4:05-7 like I had planned. So in the end, I do want to remember that moment of saying I’m not done. I do want to remember the other racers looking at me in disbelief as I came streaking past after being completely dead a little while before. I want to remember seeing the 13-mile sign and for the first time in the race saying to myself “Frank the Tank.”

Next up is Racine 70.3, maybe with the Rose City Swim-Bike between now and then. I want to thank my sponsors for there support this season - Revolver Wheels (the disc was great leading to second fastest bike split), Rudy Project (the Wing57 was so comfortable on the bike), Infinit Nurtition (didn't feel "bonky" all race and the Repair came in handy after with the poor post-race meal provided), Skechers (the GoRun5s made for a fast transition, and did well draining the sweat/water with the 42 degree day meaning no blisters/chafing), Zone3 (the vanquish was great and the swim was in the top 5 fastest on the day), and Compressport (the V2.1 came in especially handy the day after the race). I promise my next race will be a much better. Almost forgot one good thing that did come out of the race, was because I finished 4th in the AG, I got a spot and accepted it already to race the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Chattanooga, TN in September. So that's two world championships in one year.