Race Report: Beach to Battleship Iron-Distance Triathlon

Sub-Optimal (in the best possible sense)
Beach to Battleship iron-distance triathlon
Wilmington, NC, November 1, 2008
My pre-race thoughts on this race

They say when doing a race – especially an ironman – you should never try, do, or use anything new on race day.  That concept, which in principle I agree is a good one, was pretty much shot for me from the outset, and flew even further out the window as events unfolded. 

Due to a variety of circumstances, I had just bought a new bike the weekend before the race – and had yet to ride it more than 5 miles at a stretch.  So that was one huge new factor.  I just installed my odometer on it the night before we left, and also a completely new rear water bottle holder which put the bottles behind my seat, after 3 years of storing them on my downtube.  I was also going to have to wear shoes while running for the first time in 20 months.  And, a classic Stanley screwup would bring even more novelty to my day.

Pre-race
I drove down to Wilmington, North Carolina on Friday with my friends Dave and Erik & Patricia.  We arrived at about 2:00, checked out the Battleship Park where the USS North Carolina, an imposing WW II era battleship, is moored, and where the finish line would be the next day, and which lent this race its somewhat militaristic name.

Then we went to packet pickup, I worked on my bike for a while trying to finish installing the bottle carrier which I hadn’t completely had time to finish installing after buying it the night before.  Then to listen to the race meeting, where among other things we were told that the currents were so strong in the swim that we could expect 10 minutes off our pool-swim time.  (My best 2.4 mile pool swim time is 1:03.)

Then we went over to the first transition area and finished preparing our bikes and checked them in.  Then out to a pretty nice Italian restaurant for dinner, then to our hotel where we finished our race preparations.  These were quite complicated.  Not only did I have to figure out where I would be getting my recommended 300 calories an hour for the estimated six hours of bike riding and six hours of running I’d be doing – I decided to mix up my two bottles with water, 1300 calories of carbo-pro (tasteless drink mix with 112 calories a scoop), and Trader Joe’s Lemonade – but I also had to pack six (6) bags in preparation for the race, including a pre-swim bag, a swim-to-bike transition bag, a bike special needs bag (which I could access halfway through the bike course, a bike-to-run transition bag, a run special needs bag (for mile 13) and a post-run bag with anything I might want after crossing the finish line, should I prove capable of doing so.

Finally to bed, then up at 4:20 to get ready for the race.  Gathered up my stuff, and joined Dave and Erik in grabbing a 5:20, 5:30 shuttle bus the mile or so to the T1 area. I checked in all my bags and then started walking towards my bike to put my bottles – OMG!  I’d left my carefully pre-mixed nutrition Trader Joe’s lemonade bottles in my hotel room fridge! 

Well, the shuttle only took about 5 minutes so I figured I’d just zip back to the hotel and get them; it was only 5:45. I left Dave & Erik and waited 10 minutes, no shuttle.  Clearly the service had ended.  Time to move to plan B: living off the land (“land” in this case being aid stations every 15 miles along the bike course, starting at mile 25).  Well, my bike was new and untested, what better to go with it than a completely new and untried nutrition strategy?  Why worry just because experienced iron-distance racers unanimously say that nutrition strategy is the most all-important factor in race performance, ahead of training. 

Well, I seem to have a strong stomach at least, I told myself.  Guess that would be put to the test this day.  I never did have much of a nutrition plan for the run anyway, so this just evened it out.  Would I hit a wall from lack of good nutrition?  Would I throw up from force-feeding on unaccustomed calories?  So many racers do one or the other.

I went back and retrieved my special needs bags and did some on-the-fly reshuffling of the various foodstuffs I’d put in the bags for each stage of the race in case I craved them, so that I would be carrying a lot more calories of solid food on the bike than I’d planned.  No sweat, all the advice for iron races also said you should expect something major to go wrong, you just have to roll with it. I tried to find some water to put in my front aero bottle (empty but already affixed to my bike) but no luck in the pre-dawn darkness and chaos of the transition area, so I gave up & hopped on a trolley which took me a couple miles out to the end of the promenade where the swim was to start, a finger of land that separated the channel where we would be swimming from the Atlantic Ocean.  On the way over I chatted with a nice guy who had done local swims, who tried to give me advice on where to swim to catch the best current (I was never very clear on what he was trying to explain).  Saw Erik and Dave when I got off, and went about putting on my wetsuit, applying body glide to prevent chafing, except on my neck, where my too-tight wetsuit had previously chafed me despite liberal applications of the stuff.  Instead, taking advice I found online, I applied strips of waterproof medical tape, which I figured would do a better job.  I guess that was another untried untested new race day strategy.  Meant to test that out in the pool, never got the chance.  Oh dear, I sure was doing a lot of improvising this day. 

Overall at this point I was very stressed out about this race; nervous about the unknowns in my bike ride, and terrified of the run for which I was massively undertrained .

Then it was time to move toward the start, and we walked the half mile or so out to the water’s edge in the pre-dawn darkness. Soon thereafter, I reluctantly stripped off my sweatsuit and relinquished my “pre-swim bag” in preparation for the beginning of the race.  It was cold – high 40s – to be standing around in a sleeveless wetsuit and contemplating jumping in the ocean and swimming 2.4 miles. 

The race was delayed about 15 minutes because it was too dark still.  Then they called “60 seconds.”  I wished Dave & Erik a good day and moved up near the front.  The horn blew and we charged into the water. 

Swim
I strode into the water until I was up to my waist or so and then dove in and as my face hit the water swallowed a big ol’ mouthful of brine.  Great start to my first ironman!  Then I started swimming and immediately felt more relaxed than I felt like I had in weeks. All the pre-race tension, stress over my job and trying to buy a new bike and get ready and juggle my overextended life disappeared as I settled into the oh-so-familiar rhythm of the swim.  It felt great!  Soon we hit the first turn bouoy, a 90-degree right turn a short distance away from the beach, and it was so crowded that a bunch of us piled on top of each other, and a number of us poked our head up and all just started laughing good-naturedly, because the course design made this pileup so inevitable.  Got through the turn and kept swimming.  Got socked, hard, in the cheekbone/goggles a few minutes later, but that didn’t stop me from continuing to soak in the relaxed feeling of a nicely paced swim – not too hard, not too soft, like a fast walk.  Actually I never really thought about my pace, slowing down or speeding up literally never occured to me.  I think I have done so much long swimming I may have a single rut of a pace.  Often people warn against single-speed training, and urge a variety of speeds lest you end up like the runner I saw quoted somewhere who said, “you could drop me out of an airplane and I would still move at 8:30 per mile.”

Anyway, I found a couple of good people to draft off of, and felt like my race was off to a good start.  Sometimes the water would suddenly feel colder, and I always liked that because I figured it meant I was moving into one of the main currents coming in from the sea and therefore moving even faster.

Halfway throught the swim I felt chafing on my neck. This is going to be bad, I told myself – in the past I’d had really bad chafing on swims half this length, in fresh water, despite never feeling a thing during the swim itself.  I think my tape came off.

Transition 1
Soon enough I came to the end of the swim, feeling good and relaxed, climbed a wooden ladder on the side of a dock, let the volunteer wetsuit strippers do their work, ran through the fresh water showers to get the salt water off, then starting the 300-yard jog to the transition tent, soaking wet and wearing nothing but my swim jammers in the morning cold (though, I wasn't really cold and the day was warming fast).  I looked at my watch to see my swim time and it said 00:000.  Oops, forgot to start it.  I asked a guy the time and he said we were about 54:00. 

In fact my precise swim time was 53:19, which put me in 56th place out of 337 men overall and 11th out of 54 in my 40-44 age group.

Grabbed my transition bag and went into the changing tent.  There I toweled off, changed into my biking shorts, selected upper-wear (decided to go with just a short-sleeved biking jersey), put on my glasses, helmet, shoes, and rifled through my bag selecting some food (a banana, cookies Meg made for me, a spare baggie of carbo-pro), a hand pump, and knit running gloves.  My hands were a little numb I realized which made it difficult to do all this.  At some point I glimpsed Erik enter the tent and sit down on the far side from me, I was glad to see he had a good swim.

I jammed my swim stuff into the bag and zipped out of the tent, got my bike, and headed for the exit.  Saw Patricia there cheering me on which was so nice.  Got on my bike and started off on my 112-mile ride.

Bike
As I took off on the bike, it felt great! I was no longer worried a bit about the unknowns.  I realized that a lot of my stress over the race was about optimizing my race, ensuring that all the details were correct, that I would have every advantage possible available to me and every contingency planned for.  I realized that by embracing the sub-optimal, the fact that everything wasn’t going to be perfect, that I would have to improvise, was tremendously relaxing, even liberating feeling for me. Perhaps embracing the sub-optimal is optimal.  And, plus, just getting going and actually doing the damned race instead of worrying about it.

So, I just settled into spinning my legs at a very relaxed pace, yet seemed to be zipping along.  This sensation maintained itself for 20 miles of the bike course.  I was passing a lot of people, including people on very expensive aero getups, which made me worry I was making the classic newbie error of going out too fast, but I did feel like I was very relaxed and hitting the right pace for a 100-mile ride so I kept going.  For one thing, on the gradual but real inclines along this part of the course, I probably had one of the lightest bicycles in the field at that time, unencumbered as I was by even a single drop of liquid (some guys, meanwhile, having paid $thousands for slightly lighter bikes than mine, were carrying 3 or 4 full water bottles – ha!).

At the 20-mile point, just when I was turning off a busier highway (Rt. 421) onto nice backwoods roads, one of my contact lenses came out.  In 3 years of riding I had only lost an extended wear contact lens once before while riding on a bike. Fortunately I was able to grab the lens from my cheek/eye socket before it was lost.  There was a minivan parked at the corner of this turn, with a woman and her children sitting in front.  I pulled up, asked if I could use their mirror, and tried to put it back in (which required cleaning the lens in my mouth, and then my hands, which from my knit gloves were covered in fibers which soon got on the lens).  Soon enough it was back in my eye on the first real try.  Total delay: probably 3 minutes. 

But not 10 minutes later, it happened again!  This time I tried to grab it but it was gone.  I did have some spares in my saddle bag, and contemplated stopping, but didn’t feel like pulling off the road again, rummaging through my bag, trying to put it in with no mirror – especially since I would inevitably lose it again, not only because some combination of temperature/humidity and eddies of air swirling around my glasses was clearly predisoposing them to pop out this day, but also since the lenses in my bag were the thinner daily disposables which *do* frequently fall out when I’m riding even on best of days.  So, I rode alone with one lens.  I could see the road right in front of me well enough and I could see further away very clearly (especially when I closed my right eye!).  And I stopped noticing it after a while – it was hardly worse than having smudgy glasses.

Shortly thereafter, I came upon a left turn.  I angled into the turn in my aero bars – and suddenly found myself going too fast, going wide, heading into the very sandy shoulder, with sand at least an inch deep.  I had no choice but to straighten up lest I slide over sideways, and plowed through the sand like a truck with no brakes on one of those emergency stop ramps.  Barely slowed, I then hurtled forward into some more firma terra and was able to get back on the road.  It was a close one, I very nearly spilled.  Note to self: depth perception a little lacking with one contact missing.

Well that all left my heart really pounding and I began to wonder if my day was going to be cursed by incidents and accidents.  But, I talked myself out of any negative thinking, focused on the fact that I was on a beautiful road on a beautiful day and feeling good and in the middle of my dream of a ironman race, and cruised along.  

Soon thereafter I hit the 25-mile aid station, where I pulled up, came to a full stop, and got my first drink since begging some water off Dave before the swim start (not counting the salt water *during* the swim).  Grabbed a bottle of the Heed sports drink they were giving out – in the past I had found it foul but today quite enjoyable – and poured a bottle of water in my front aero bottle.  Actually I usually go quite a while without drinking at the beginning of rides (against all advice, but it seems to work okay for me) and I wasn’t really that thirsty.  I’d held off eating anything without water, so once back on the road, I sipped water & Heed, ate a banana, and some chocolate cookies that Meg had made me.  Yum!  It all tasted great.  After that first aid station I abandoned the water and began pouring bottles of Heed into my front aero bottle whenever I ran low.  I never even used my new rear water carrier, which I had worked so hard to install at the last minute.  I think for the ride I probably drank 3 Heed bottles and the one water bottle. I did run out of liquid again at about mile 85 and I wasn’t sure if they would have the scheduled aid station at mile 95; fortunately they did as I was getting thirsty at that point and sipping futilely away at my aero straw, making noises like a kid in a restaurant with an empty coke.

Overall my lesson from this – reinforcing my experience from the Timberman Half I did in August – is that there is a lot of hooey out there about hydration, how you need to drink all these really large amounts of liquid really early.  My experience is that there is no harm in building up a bit of a thirst and then quenching it.  Of course, some say you can train your body to get by with less liquid and it’s possible that by being sloppy so often I have unconsciously done that.  Or maybe I would have done even better if I'd drunk more, but for now my takeaway is:  why lug your own drinks up hills on a race when you can just live off the land?  Why flush your system with excess fluids constantly and have to pee every hour (and possibly flirt with deadly hyponatremia) when you can just drink as you get thirsty?

As far as calorie intake, however, I took very seriously the widespread advice to maintain a high intake for better performance.  Not sure I hit the recommended 300-400 calories per hour, but I had grabbed a couple gels at that first aid station and took one at some point, and some peanut butter crackers.  By the time I tried to eat half a PB&J at about mile 70, food was no longer tasting very good and it was hard to eat.  I ate my second gel; usually I hate gels and haven’t ever used them for like 2 years, but this day they went down far easier than anything else except liquid and I continued to take them periodically throughout the run as well (though no more than 4-5 total for the day).

During much of the day for some reason I had the following song lines by the Doors running through my head.  Appropriate enough I think (even if I wasn't remembering the song perfectly):

Take it easy baby, take it as it comes
Don't move too fast
Specialize in having fun

At around mile 70 the course returned to the long, straight, somewhat busier Route 421 – 40 miles to home.  This stretch was my least happy part of the bike ride.  I think I was getting tired, felt myself slowing slightly, and every single time I looked up the road seemed to be on an upward sloping incline.  Also I was spending more and more time in my drop bars as my butt and shoulders were getting sore in my new bike’s aero position, which I had conditioned myself in for approximately zero hours.  Of course, you can spend 5 hours in a sofa chair and start to feel sore if you don’t change positions.

Finally I saw the spires of the Battleship looming to my left!  Hooray, I was done!  Um, except for just the little matter of running a marathon next.  It was about 1:30 in the afternoon at this point.

My bike split was 5:29:16 (average pace 20.4 MPH).  That put me in 32nd place out of 337 men overall, and 3rd place out of 54 in my age group.  I really loved my new bike; who knows how much it helped me but it sure felt great!

Transition 2
Rolling into transition, volunteers were there to take our bikes from us. Before giving mine up, I had to get a contact lens out of the saddle bag, which seemed to take forever as the zipper got caught and then I couldn’t find the lens, but eventually I got the bag unzipped and found the lens and re-zipped the bag and gave up my bike and headed into the changing tents.  With no mirror I was worried about putting in the lens but I was able to pop it right in on the first try.  Then I went about changing into running clothes – my tri shorts and a blue shirt – selecting some food to stick in my pockets (all I took were these caffeinated watermelon jelly beans, which I ate later and were great!), lubing up a little to prevent chafing, and repacking my bag.

Footwear: once again as in the Shamrock Marathon 20 months earlier I was in an awkward spot footwear-wise, having never run once with shoes in those 20 months, yet not having my soles conditioned for the marathon distance.  So, I decided to do what basically worked for me at Shamrock and wore my Puma H Street running flats, which are very very light sneakers, pretty close to bedroom slippers.  My plan was to run 5-10 miles barefoot on the second loop, and just stick my shoes in my waistband for that portion as I had at Shamrock.

Run lap #1
After I was done with everything, I sat in the tent for a moment trying to think of something else to do so I would have an excuse to not actually get up and hit the run course.  But, that’s what I did – and almost immediately realized I’d forgotten to use the port-a-potty.  I ran a stiff but not too painful 9:30 mile to the first aid station and used the one there.  It was the first time I’d peed all day (something that people who follow standard advice on how much to drink are aghast at).  However, I did notice my pee was like bright neon glow-in-the-dark yellow, so I figured I’d better start drinking more.  Thereafter I took cups of Heed and water at nearly every aid station, two for a while and then one.  (I think I peed 2, maybe 3 times during the rest of the race.) I ran the second mile, then walked, then ran.  I saw Patricia again at about mile 3, during a fun section of the course in a nice waterfront downtown area of Wilmington.

Soon I decided that I would run a full mile, then walk for 4:30, then run, then walk as a rest before running the next full mile.  Only this plan never really seemed to work out well because I never seemed to hit the mile posts when I was ready to run a full mile.  As a result, my real plan was more like: walk when you feel like it, but not too long.  I probably ran a full mile straight about 5 times, the rest of the miles were mixes of runs and walks.  I tried somewhat to keep to a pattern but also basically walked whenever I felt like it.  I calculate that I did my first 13.1 mile run lap in about 2:22 (about the same time as my revelatory Timberman walk-run). 

The first lap wasn’t that hard; my feet and legs began to get a bit sore, not having run that distance in a long time, but my cardio felt strong.  I took note of the running surfaces and decided I would run barefoot on the second lap around mile 17 when I hit these nice paths running through an extensive park.  I stayed focused on finishing that first lap, promising myself that when I finished it I would give myself a 5 minute rest.  Finally I crossed the bridge across the Cape Fear River and came upon the Mile 12 marker, and did a nice run back to the Battleship Park.  Patricia was there to cheer me on, chat a bit, and snap a photo.  I changed shirts, hit the port-a-potty, dug around my special needs bag to see if there was anything in there among all the food I’d packed that I wanted to eat (yuck no way!)

I paused and looked up the road leading out of the park.  Holy mother, I couldn’t *believe* that I now had to go and do another half-marathon loop.  Well, that’s just the way it is, I’ve gotta do it. 

Run lap #2
I started trooping down the road on my second loop, determined to once again run the whole first mile and not really thinking beyond that.  Did that, and then slid back into the same hodgepodge of running and walking.  On the second lap, I walked considerably more, not due to cardio or physical exhaustion but mainly because my legs were hurting: feet, shins, knees, quads – just about everywhere (though, importantly, not my old ankle injury!)  I started taking Coke at each aid station (it tasted heavenly; they say once you start taking Coke you should keep taking it the rest of the race and I had no problem with that!) 

When I got to the park I took off my shoes and had probably my easiest, nicest-feeling mile run since my legs first loosened up at mile 3 or so.  Unfortunately, my memory/observation of the trail was flawed, and the nice new tar trail I’d noted soon turned into old dry asphault, one of the worst surfaces there is to run on.  After it turned bad I was able to do okay running on grass and on the smooth gutter, but it was too much effort after a while so at about mile 19 I sat down on the curb for a second to slip my shoes back on (I wore no socks).  Just then my friend Erik, whom I’d been expecting to pass me ever since mile 1 of the run, finally caught up with me. Since I was just sitting he passed on by with a friendly word.  But, my stop being momentary (I don't tie my shoes I just slip them on), I was soon running behind him, and after a minute called to him, and we began running & walking together. I encouraged him to take off whenever he wanted but he hung with me and I with him for the next several miles.  It was a wonderful boost and blessed distraction to run with my buddy at this point in the race.

At mile 20, we realized that it was 5:45 PM.  That meant that we still had an hour and a half until the 12-hour anniversary of the race start at 7:15 AM that morning. If we could cover 6.2 miles in 90 minutes, we could break 12 hours!  That would require just 15-minute miles.  Holy cow, we could actually do that!!  From that point, that became the focus for both of us.  But, a lot of things can go wrong with your body at any moment after 11 hours of exertion, there was no guarantee.  As darkness fell, and prodded along by Erik to do a little less walking than I would have otherwise, we ran mostly 10-12 minute miles, building up a nice cushion against our goal.  At about mile 24.5, we had to climb up a ramp to cross a big bridge, and decided to walk it.  But, Erik decided to speed walk it, and my legs hurt too much so I told him to go ahead and meet me at the finish line.  He walked a bit ahead of me then took off.  It looked like I would meet my 12:00 goal, that was enough for me at that point.  So, I took a nice long walk across the bridge, until I hit the 25.1 mile point (which I recognized by the sign that said “12 miles” – do the math) so I could run the last 1.1 miles to the finish.  I guess I could have run the last 1.2 miles but I allowed myself the indulgence of walking that one last tenth of a mile. Such were the things I was negotiating with myself over at that time.

Heartened by the approaching finish line, I found that last mile wasn’t painful at all.  A half mile out or so, I turned onto the dark road into the park, where I ran along a narrow path marked by cones.  This was one of my most fondly remembered parts of the run:  dark and mostly deserted, the lights and the noise of the crowd looming in the distance at the end of the dark road, and every so often I’d pass a lone volunteer who would urge me on, “you’re almost there!” “you’ve done it!” “only a little further,” and the excitement of knowing that I was on the verge of reaching my goal of so long, and the running really not feeling bad at all, and the trail just going on and on, until finally it gradually emerged into the crowded, lit-up part of the park, and a volunteer shouted, “finishing or first lap?” and I was extremely, extremely glad to be able to respond, “finishing!” (Good god, I thought, there are poor souls still just finishing their first lap? There were).  She waved me down a path to the left, and I saw the turn to the final finishing chute, and I found I had the strength to pour on some speed, and there was a big crowd, and it really felt fantastic, and . . . I crossed the finish line!!!!!  I had done it!!! I couldn’t believe it!!! And someone put a medal around my neck, and took my timing chip off my ankle, and handed me a cup of recovery drink, and talked to me for a minute to make sure I was medically okay, and there were Erik and Patricia, and Erik pointed back at the clock and I saw it was just over 11:50, and half due to sheer bodily exhaustion and half perhaps in exultation at actually fulfilling this towering goal, I almost cried.

My run time was 5:08:55 (average pace 11:48 per mile).  That put me in 201st place out of 337 men overall, and 34th place out of 54 in my age group.  If my estimates are correct, my second lap was about 2:46, 24 minutes longer than my first. 

My overall time was 11:49:12, which put me in 120th place out of 337 men overall, and 21st place out of 54 in my age group.

After the race I stood around with Erik and Patricia and Dave and got a massage and just exulted in finishing.  I wasn’t woozy or out of it or anything as I had heard is common. I saw one woman cross the finish line whose legs were rubber, she could barely stand and had to be held up by several men.  (But, she was smiling!)

Then we packed up, did a lot of logistics, and drove home the next day. Overall it was a fantastic experience that I will always remember very fondly (thanks in part to this record I have set down which I thank you, indulgent dear reader, for plowing through!)

The race like most first-time events was not without its glitches but overall Setup did what seemed to me like an amazing job putting together an awesome logistical challenge, managing 1,000 athletes (500 iron distance racers and 500 half iron) and 1,000 volunteers spread out over 12 hours and beyond, and 140.6 miles of race course.  One think I really liked about this race was that both the swim and the bike were one loop - I think that's unusual in an ironman race.  It was great racing and training with Erik and Dave, and great having Patricia down there helping us out in too many ways to count.  And above all great having the support of my wife Meg in training for and doing this race!

One thing I am most pleased about is that (other than having the skin rubbed off the back of my neck by my wetsuit - I still have scabs a week later - and a little chafing on the tops of my feet from wearing shoes) I seem to have escaped from this event without injury, despite doing the marathon with very little proper training, and doing it in shoes.

Patricia has posted her excellent photo record of the event - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I did it!

UPDATE: Dave has posted his race report.

Comments

[David]

Hi, I'm a marathon coach and looking to start participating in triathlons this year. I was researching Iron-distance events to do and found your blog.

I'm not sure you could have found a way to more wrongly break the cardinal rule of not doing anything "new" during an endurance event. Regardless, your entry was absolutely fascinating to read and I commend you on your accomplishment!

Now, would you recommend this event for someone else doing their first full distance event?

Thanks!

[Jay]

David - I would heartily recommend this race -- not that I have any other full-iron races lot to compare it to, but it seemed smooth and well-run, the location was good for me, it was cheaper and easier to get into than the Ironman-brand races. The only logistical problem was the lines for spectators to cross the river on the ferry, which I heard about but did not experience directly.

[David]

Jay, I was telling my wife about your race report in the car last night and realized that while I did come back to read your response the following day, I did not come back to thank you for it.

I signed up for B2B a couple of days after leaving my comment here, based mostly on your review of the event. I've since bumped into several other athletes who completed this event last year and they too felt it was an excellent event.

Now, for the fun part... training!

Thanks again,
DC

[Jay Stanley]

David - good luck! Sounds like you got the running down, so my main training advice is to just do as many 100+ mile bike rides as you can fit into your life!

- Jay