Okay, so my first iron-distance race is only two days away, the Beach to Battleship race in Wilmington, NC. Here are my pre-race thoughts and expectations:
SWIM:
This should be easy and fun. I am a pretty strong swimmer and have no problem knocking out a 2.4 mile swim. In the pool I usually do that distance (which I swim about once a week) in between 63 and 68 minutes. The only unknown is the mass start -- instead of starting in waves by age group, each with a reasonable number of people in it, for some reason in an full ironman the tradition is for everyone -- in this case about 500 people -- to all start at the same time. That many people going from vertical to horizontal at the same time can be really ugly and I've heard a lot of stories about how rough it can be. I'm not too worried, I've experienced some of that in other races, I'll deal. Another factor will be the cold, with the low temps for Friday/Saturday night forecast for the mid-40s, it should be quite cold. Supposedly the water will be in the 60s, however. Basically, I'll freeze on the beach once I shed my sweatshirt & pants, and until a few hundred yards into the swim. Then, should be fine. We are of course wearing wetsuits (though mine has no sleeves). I am confident that whatever hits, I will beat 1:20, expect to beat 1:10, and -- just because there is supposedly a current that will push us along, perhaps dramatically -- I could even conceivably break 1:00. My best guess with the current: 1:05.
TRANSITION:
This will be quite new to me. Unlike the usual no-nonsense speedy transition, there will be showers, wetsuit strippers, possibly people getting my bike for me, changing tents, and all kinds of other novel factors. I will spend a lot more time in transition than I am accustomed to. In a 13-hour day, no sense cutting a few seconds, I'll be changing into comfy bike clothes. Hopefully it all won't be too confusing and lead me to do something stupid and absent-minded as I am prone to do. I hope the thing won't take too long but I'm not planning to rush it. One guy whose account I read online said he went smoothly and reasonably rapidly in his transitions, and was surprised to find that it all took him a full 15 minutes. So that may be the case.
BIKE:
I think the bike will be enjoyable, at least the first half. Complicating things slightly is the fact that I just bought a new bike on Sunday -- a Cervelo Soloist Team -- and have never yet ridden it longer than 6 miles or so at a time, and probably less than 25 miles total. But, I have it set up in time-trial position (it is kind of a hybrid time trial-road bike) and expect that the ride will be very enjoyable. At least until the turnaround and the last 40-50 miles, which is supposedly quite boring and at which point I will probably be ready to get off the bike anyhow. I'm thinking par for me will be about 6 hours; on my 4-5 half iron races my bike times have improved from about 2:55 to about 2:35, so I figure 6:00 is about right to double that distance if I am feeling good.
RUN:
I expect the swim and bike to be fun, and the run to be -- not. I have been so careful about not reinjuring myself that I have erred on the side of undertraining. The longest run I've done in past 14 months was 11 miles (at Timberman) and I've done a few of 5-7 miles or so, and the rest were 1-3 mile runs. They say pretty much no one actually does their first ironman run without doing some walking, so there's no shame in that. My baseline goal is to run half of the 26.2 miles. Once I reach that point, I figure I can probably run a number of other miles on top of that, but I'm keeping my expectations low and I'm going to try to pattern my run after the run I did in the Timberman triathlon -- slow, lots of walking, relaxed, pleasant -- and, in the end, hopefully as at Timberman, not actually much slower than much more painful runs I'd done previously. Another complicating factor is my barefoot running. I haven't run with shoes in a long time, yet my soles are clearly not conditioned to run a marathon at this point, so that's a bit of an awkward spot I find myself in. My current plan is to do the first of the two run loops with my H-Street running flats, hope they don't mess me up, and then do the second 13.1 mile lap barefoot or mostly barefoot, perhaps with my H-Streets tucked in my waist band.
OVERALL:
So, I am very excited and nervous about this race. I am most nervous about the run. The run is always tough, and here because I am so undertrained it could be even tougher. I may hold back on the swim and bike a little less than might normally be wise, since I plan to walk a lot of the run anyhow. We'll have to see how I feel.
My main goals are as follows, in descending order of importance:
- Finish the race (the cutoff is 17 hours, or midnight)
- Have it be a happy experience, not one that is so painful and horrendous that it makes me feel nauseous whenever I think about it.
- Break 13 hours. With 90 minutes for the swim and two transitions, and 6 hours for the bike, that would give me 5:30 in which to complete the run. For perspective, the two marathons I've run were in 4:18 and 4:02. With a 7:00 a.m. gun time, that means I would cross the finish line around 8:00 p.m.
There are a lot of things that can go wrong on an ironman. Will I finish the race? Will the swim be as easy as I expect? Will my time match my pool times, or be faster - or slower? Will anything go wrong with my new, untested bike? Will I fly through it, or have problems? What will my time be? How will I manage on the run. Can I do it in 5:30?
Stay tuned! The gun goes off Saturday Nov. 1, 2008, at 7:00 AM.
UPDATE: B2B ironman race report
Comments