Louisville IronMan - Race Narrative - What Have I Learned About Life?

What have I learned about life?

First, trust your coach. My coach, Lisa Rainsberger (http://www.traininggoals.com/) gave me advice along the past 20 months that I heard, but couldn't follow. More spin classes? Yep, should have done that. More group rides? Yep, out of necessity I had to do most of my rides alone. Not a good idea. Not worry so much? Sure, in retrospect, but that’s hard to do.

I am an executive consultant; I coach people all the time. I realize more now why they may not heed my advice. Sometimes, you have to try, compete, and fail to realize what your coach is trying to tell you. I get that now. I will be more patient with my own clients, letting them know what I see and advise, and sticking with them as they test drive my advice and counsel...they have to learn things for themselves. It doesn't mean I have to stop offering, but it does mean I have to realize they need to independently verify, and that may mean they continue to make mistakes until the learning sinks in.

Take each day and live it more richly. I managed to fit in training, and family, and work, not always in the most elegant way. There were many mornings I was on my bike the basement at 4 am, and done with my brick workout by 630 am, feeding the kids breakfast and getting ready for work myself…many, many days. There were days I flew into cities early to swim before meeting clients, found pools and runs in areas I never thought or knew existed, and jammed in workouts between meetings during the day. But you know, it all worked.

I am less willing now to accept, from my clients, that they cannot be fit. I am less willing to accept their own self-imposed limitations. I am willing to go first, to try things out, and to join them. I am willing to fail. But when I hear the rationalizations, the self-imposed limitations, the "I can't because..." I will find a way to help them through that denial to the other side. I have to tell you all, it is much nicer being fit, ready, and hungry to have impact, then to spend your energy tied up in worrying whether or not you can do something.

Involve the family and be grateful for what that family allows one to do. In training for an IronMan, I had to spend some time away from my family. They felt left out at times, so I tried to do the bulk of my training during the week, and pace my work around it, leaving Saturday open. It meant my Sunday training always started at 5 am and finished by 8 am, if possible, so we could have the day as a family. It didn’t mean I was always fresh, however, and so they had to deal with me being tired a lot. They came to two half-ironmans, and both times, the kids caught either stomach flu or were sick, leaving me even more tired before the races.

It’s hard to be both a parent and an athlete, so I think that later, separation of some sort may make sense, if I am focused on a goal race. But overall, by the IronMan, they were very much a part of the journey, and were very much a part of the celebration of my accomplishment. I can’t imagine not having had them along the way, all the way, even as it cost me in terms of timing. I think in my 30s, I would have wanted to get faster times. In my 40s, I considered that any finish was the goal, and for those finishes, I was grateful. Being the breadwinner, and having a really demanding job, meant that whatever else came with that by way of athletics, I was simply grateful.

Achievement is not a singular event - and friendships developed when trying to achieve something challenging are truly a gift. I realized, that even though this is a singular sport, the friends I made along the way, the encouragement, the normalcy of the goal that I had…(as a psychologist, I was incredibly sensitive about "exercise dependence," a condition that involves obsessing about exercise to the point of the reduction of other life pleasures), was only possible with others.

And now it’s time to thank them, and to set the next goal.

Louisville IronMan - Race Narrative - What Have I Learned About Training?

Where had I been prepared? Where had I not?

For the swim, I think it would have been better to ask about currents, where they are, how to use them. It wasn’t a lake, so the river currents could move you very quickly off a straight line. I improved about 50-80% on the swim since I started 20 months ago. I think I have another 20-30% to improve over the next 20 months; I'm ready.

For the bike, simply put, bike more hills. I live in a flat, urban environment. I did the first 100 mile ride in Wisconsin. That was an orientation to a 100 mile ride, up and down hills. For the second, I went to southern Wisconsin, but it wasn’t hilly enough. So I never really learned to ride them, nor how to use my equipment and its momentum. I could tell other riders were using strategies about how to use their bikes; I just, pretty much, pedaled. I have a lot of room to improve on the bike. A LOT.

For the run, I wasn’t expecting the exhaustion. I had been expecting pain. Exhaustion creped up on me, and I think I would have managed it better had I noticed the signs. This marathon was completely different from running a regular marathon...the signs of your body slowing are different. They need a different mental plan; I'd like to do this race again someday, to check my hypotheses...

Since I had been up since 3 that morning, it wasn’t surprising that at some point, my body would want to go to sleep, even if I were moving. That’s what it had felt like. In retrospect, I think I would have tried to drink chicken broth sooner, to get some more calories into me of more substance and given myself a more strategic approach to food…knowing when to tolerate a little stomach upset, knowing when to expect it to pay off.

I finished the run strong; I may have had more in me than I thought.

The only regret I'm feeling right now is - why hadn't I done an IronMan sooner? That's a good regret to have.

Louisville IronMan - Race Narrative Part Three - The Run

The transition to the run? The best part about it was actually going to the bathroom. I completely changed my clothes, because after 112 miles in bike gear, I was done with those clothes.

So rather than 8 minutes for T1, it was 11 minutes for T2, 3 minutes of which was spent in the porta potty. I am not kidding.

The run was gorgeous, the first loop over a bridge and back. The sky was blue, it was only mid 70s, as it had been the whole race. There was a breeze, my legs felt great. The course looped through town and then headed straight out along a shady road, slightly downhill. The road was bordered with tall trees, homes, occasional overpasses, and stations every mile.

I saw people in their sixties on the run, which meant they had kicked my butt on the swim and bike. This was a great vision - one can do these things for a long, long time...with proper planning. I congratulated them as I passed them.

My pace started slowly and I walked each stop, so I was around a 9 minute plus pace with walking. It felt fine. We turned around somewhere near 10 miles, then headed back the way we’d come and did a loop right near the finish line somewhere around 13 miles. My plan was to stay steady until 20 or 21, then see what I had left. I tried to use gels and water, or skip those and drink some Gatorade, alternating as I felt my sugar levels rise and fall.

At 14 miles, I felt something odd. Exhaustion. It wasn’t pain. My knee didn’t hurt. It was almost as if a fog settled into my body. My limbs wouldn’t move faster, even as I willed them to. I just couldn’t move. By 16 miles, I needed to walk the entire water stop, not just enough to drink, so I knew I was losing time. By 19miles, I realized that those minutes had added up, and I was 15 minutes off pace. How had that happened?!? I had been passing a lot of people and continued to, so we must have all been slowing down. Crumbs, I thought. This isn’t going at all how I had planned.

So I started drinking chicken broth. The day was receding. The night was edging inn from the dark trees. I knew the turnaround was around 20 miles, and I thought then that I would have to wait until 23 miles to kick it, because if I did that any sooner, I’d be sunk and have to walk my way in. So I toughed it out, drinking chicken broth and water, and trying to stay on pace with other runners nearby. It grew more and more dusky, and glow sticks started appearing at the water stations, though no one asked those of us headed in to put one on.

Imagine then, running in gray, with shadows closing in on you. There were no street lights yet, or just a few. The houses and trees blurred into thick barricades, and the blinking traffic lights from the disabled corners were hot and red and beckoning. Just up there, I would think, must be 23. Keep going.

By then, the volunteers were pooped. They had been offering drinks and food and water and Gatorade with enthusiasm, and now they were distracted, goofing around, sometimes surprised by runners who emerged from the shadows. Another runner and I were pacing each other up to 22, and then at about 22 and a half, my body returned.

It was an odd feeling. I took a step, and then another, and then another, and I bounced back into myself and took off. She faded. Actually, everyone one did. And around 24, I was completely into it. I stopped for a brief sip of water, when someone said, “you’re going to make it,” and I thought, “How much time can I get back?”

I thought, run as hard as you can until you hit a wall. It felt like an 830-845 pace, especially without walking, and by 25 I could hear the crowds, and by 26, and one more turn to the finish, I could see them.

Imagine then complete darkness except for a bright, white light, and crowds literally screaming from excitement. For about 100 yards, people were yelling and putting out their hands to be slapped, and as I heard, “Nancy Picard from Chicago, Illinois, you are an IROMAN!” I drew my hands across theirs and cruised in, just has I heard my partner yelling from the other side of the barriers, and turned to see her holding our 4-year-old, and I could see the top of our 5-year-old's head, bobbing up and down over the barricade to see me.

Fun day. 13.33 hours later. Fun, fun day.

Louisville IronMan - Race Narrative Part Two - The Bike

The Bike

BIKE

The bike course was slightly downhill at first, and then moved up from the river in steep, undulating hills. Rolling green field, homes, horses, fences, and the occasional stretch of nothing, bordered the course at all times. The first 9-mile loop, down a steep, long hill and back up again the other side, had people whooping and yelling. It was fast, more than 35 mph. It was on the upside of this hill that I had my first mishap; a woman passed me close enough that I could feel the wind off her bike, just as the guy in front of me slowed down, and I had no room to go anywhere but in the ditch. I crashed, falling to the left, and clipped out after I was on the ground. Since we were going up a slight uphill, I just had to stand on my pedals and pray I could get at least one revolution to get me started. It was in the first 2 hours of the race, so it didn’t throw me.

The race passed twice through a small town called La Grange, where they bussed spectators to watch the bikes fly through on two loops. The first loop, around mile 38, was fun and fast. Spectators lined both sides, yelling. They had a bouncy tent there for the children. It was festive. By the second loop, 31 miles later, there were fewer spectators. But they were loud. I heard Julie shout out twice, once each time. The second time I tried to wave and swerved too close to the barricades. I heard a few people say, “Whoa,” thinking I was going to crash into them. But I recovered.

By then, I had forgotten about my crash. But I was puzzling about my left knee. It had begun to throb, and I had been nursing it for about a half hour. By mile 70, it was too painful to push down hard, so I would grit my way through the uphills, trying to sit (and not stand), and then cruise the downhills. I tried not to worry too much about getting passed, which was happening all the time. I just kept my focus on trying to stay above 14 mph. Downhills were about 25-35 mph, but even them people passed me, pumping hard. I just let them go.

I would even get passed twice by the same people who stopped to eat, or go the bathroom. I refilled my water bottles about every hour, I was drinking so much. And at each porta potty, I could see a line, so I just kept going.

By mile 85, we were out of the hills and starting the long, slow, undulation back toward the river. What a relief. I was more than ready for this bike to be over. The nice thing, however, was I got a lot of compliments on my shirt. I had given the kids markers to draw all over the back, whatever they had wanted, so that they could be a part of the race. They drew bugs and flowers and suns and put their names. Many people said, “Nice shirt,” as they passed me. That felt encouraging, and perhaps encouraged them.

By 95, we were flying downhill, no more uphills to suffer through. There was one, long hill at the end before 100 miles, and then it was an easy cruise in. I worried that my knee would bother me on the run, as by now it was nearly a constant pain, no matter if I pedaled uphill or downhill, so I tried to rest it as much as I could.

Louisville IronMan - Race Narrative Part One - The Swim

The Swim

Yes, I was nervous. But so was everyone else. The day began with a long wait in the darkness, along a line that ran about a mile in a car parking lot. People waiting to swim were parked with chairs, friends, family, side by side, for what seemed like forever, along lines of porta potties, along dark silhouettes of trees, along damp grass, in the cold. The dock at a local restaurant, Tumbleweeds, was the jumping off point. Triathletes would run down through a tunnel of people, down a zig zag ramp, one by one, to two platforms. One by one, after crossing the mats, we’d jump in and swim up river. And, so, by 7:20, I was in the mix and, after a pause to set my watch, in the mix. Off we went.

The upriver swim was between two banks, about 900 meters apart. It was a churn, with swimmers knocking into you, stirring up the silt from the bottom. You couldn’t see your hand in the water. The only way to tell if I was making any progress was to site on something large on either side: a tower, a dock, a large tree. There were few buoys, and they didn’t matter. The upstream swim made it hard to stay horizontal, as each pack of swimmers who passed me would turn me this way and that. But the water was warm, and after about 10 minutes, at least a rhythm unbroken by five minute stretches helped to ease the nerves.

However the mouth of that channel opened to the larger river, I couldn’t say. Somehow it became brighter, not underwater, but on the next site. And, there was a buoy, and just after that, the tiniest red buoy you could imagine for the turn. Once we passed it, people jamming to the nearest inch around the buoy, fighting to turn, the river opened wide and we all began to cruise down the river. At times, the current just felt like it was moving under you. The swim was immediately over. Sure, people swam across me. At one point, I realized I was getting pushed out into the middle of the river, and had to swim back to the buoys on the left. But there was no panic. And it was over, literally, before I realized it. Again, all of a sudden, the end dock, transition, and off on the bike.

There was a changing tent for me and for women. The volunteers brought your clothes, helped you change, wished you lick, and turned to help someone else. I had put my food for the bike, 4 peanut butter sandwiches, in my run gear bag by mistake. When I saw they weren’t in the bike gear bag, I begged the volunteer to go back and get them. She hesitated, and then took off. So I waited a few extra minutes for her, but when she rounded the corner with them, I could have kissed her. They slathered us with sunscreen when we left the tent; a thick, white goo. “You look like a football player,” the volunteer said as she swiped my face before I headed off to find my bike.