Can we climb this mountain
I dont know
Higher now than ever before
I know we can make it if we take it slow
Let’s take it easy
Easy now
Watch it goWe’re burning down the highway skyline
On the back of a hurricane
That started turning
When you were young
When You Were Young by The Killers
Sorry that I am a little late with my race report from Ironman St George but I have been off hiking this past week as part of my recovery.
So lets start the report with a comparison of time splits from my last two Ironman races.
| Ironman Canada | 11:27:47 | 490 | 24 | 73 | 905 | 1:10:50 | 1:52 | 17 | 366 | 5:35:20 | 20 | 41 | 692 | 4:31:59 | 10:23 |
| Ironman St George | 12:50:26 | 493 | 30 | 68 | 947 | 1:20:14 | 2:05 | 40 | 636 | 6:45:26 | 16.6 | 26 | 415 | 4:30:33 | 10:20 |
The most obvious (and painful) statistic is that my finish time was a full 1 hour 23 minutes longer at St George than at Ironman Canada. That is a huge differential. What eases my pain is that despite this lengthy increase in time, my overall ranking in both races is almost identical. I think that this is a good indicator of just how tough the IMSG course was and that perhaps I was not the only person that was challenged by the events in Utah on May 1st.
Triathletes love statistics, almost as much as they love excuses, so here are my race day excuses for Ironman St George:
- Altitude. Is there anywhere in Utah that is below 3000 feet? I am sure that altitude played a factor in my poor race performance.
- I was still recovering from Frozen Shoulder so I swam fairly conservatively
- Don’t cycle with your brakes on as it will slow you down (more on that later)
- Driving 2200 km to a race can really screw up your back
- Getting up at 3:30 am to race is not optimal
- Don’t assume that your Special Needs bag will be there on the 2nd lap of the bike course. It might not be.
Lets start at the beginning. One of my 3 alarm clocks went off at 3:30 am however I was already awake. I jumped out of bed and went down the hall to the hotel dining room where they were serving breakfast early for all of the athletes. I had some fruit and yogurt then thought about eating more however the smell of waffles and syrup was making me nauseous. I returned to my room to finish my preparations and then jumped in the car and drove to downtown St George. I parked on a side street and then walked a couple of blocks to race central where I dropped off my Special Needs bags and then boarded one of the school buses that would take us out to Sand Hollow. Fortunately I did not have to worry about getting body marked because the organizers had marked me with temporary tattoos during registration. I thought this was a clever idea and hope that other races adopt this practice since it speeds things up on race day.
The bus dropped us off at the Sand Hollow reservoir around 5:30 am. It was cold and dark. Next time I will be sure to wear my headlamp so that I can more easily complete my bike preparations. I found my bike in the dark, it must have been blown around in the wind overnight because it had slid down to the end of the rack and was hanging askew. I did not think to much about it at the time and therefore just continued on with my preparations. I decided to make one last trip to the porta pottie. The lineups were very long for the toilets and so I barely had time to get my wetsuit on before they closed the transition area.
I had swam at the reservoir earlier in the week so I knew the water was going to be cold and therefore I delayed getting in the water as long as possible. I waded into water and lined up about 10 deep from the start line and off to the right hand side. The gun went off and off we went. I did not get beat up or jostled too badly since I was off to the side and so I pretty much just settled into the swim and tried to keep on pace. Everything went well for the first 3 km which is when my shoulder began to get cranky and my stomach began to complain from ingesting far too much water. After that is was just a slow slog around the red rock island and then back to shore.
Exiting the water, I noticed that my feet were numb and it felt like I was walking on stumps. A volunteer pulled off my wetsuit, gave me my bike gear bag and then I headed off towards the change tent. I was ranked around 900 getting out of the water which meant that the transition area was crammed with people. I had a lot of fun laughing at myself as I tried to pull on socks and bike shoes with my numb hands and feet. Then I grabbed my bike and headed out of transition.
I noticed that something was wrong with my bike as soon as I got on it. The wheels did not seem to be tracking correctly but I was not sure what the problem was so I road off anyway. The first 20 miles were painful and slow. Everyone seemed to be passing me and I felt like I did not have any power in my legs. I was considering dropping out of the race since I was obviously not able to keep pace with anyone on the course. I decided to stop at the porta pottie just outside St George and consider my options. It was while I was waiting in the line for the toilet that I noticed that the front brake caliper on my bike was askew and therefore was jammed against the wheel so that it could barely turn. I straightened out the brake caliper and then jumped back onto my bike. It was a miracle, I could actually ride normally now. What a relief although my legs still felt totally sapped of energy from riding with the brake on for the first 20 miles.
We started the 1st of the big loops after riding through St George. The first section was slow going because it was on a rough chip seal road surface and were fighting some tough headwinds. We were also surrounded by boulders of black lava that radiated their heat back onto the slow moving cyclists. I remember thinking to myself that these conditions were probably very similar to those on the Kona World Champion course.
The next section was rolling hills through the red rock canyons. I knew from my training ride that this would be good place to take on some nutrition since the there was little wind and the course was not technical. I tried to eat some of my Cliff Bars but my stomach did not react well so I stuck to Hammer Gel and drinking Infinit from my fuel bottles. There was one very steep climb that took us up onto the Mesa and then we picked up some tailwinds and rocketed back towards town. I stopped at Special Needs but only picked up one fuel bottle thinking that I could pick up the other on the 2nd lap (wrong!). I was flying down one hill when I was lapped by the lead athlete, he passed me like I was standing still. Next up we rode through St George on some bike paths which were pretty slow going since they were “No Pass Zones”. After that it was time to repeat the big loop for the second time.
The second lap was a bit tougher. The wind was starting to pick up and it just pounded us on the way out of town. In addition, my back was really starting to complain so I had to regularly get out of the aerobars and stretch it out. I was pretty shagged by the time I got back to Special Needs and therefor was looking forward to taking a break to rest my back and drink my smoothie. However that was not to be as the Special Needs area had been packed up after the 1st lap and therefore I had to make do with whatever fuel I had onboard my bike or could pick up along the way. Fortunately the tailwinds were still around to blow us into town off the Mesa however they were also accompanied by lateral gusts which threatened to blow us off the road as we sped back into town.
The last section of the bike route back into town ran parallel to the first few miles of the run course. I was happy to note that it was great to have all this downhill to finish off the bike course however I was not too sure how I was going to run back up those very same hills. I reminded myself to only focus on the present and not try to anticipate anything that was coming up later in the race.
My initial strategy on the run course was to run between every Aid Station and then walk through each station as I fueled and hydrated. This strategy was later modified to include walking up all of the steep inclines because there were so many off them. In fact this was one of the most hilly road racing courses that I have ever done. There were also a couple of sections of the course that appeared quite confusing since they actually had 4 lanes of athletes running concurrently through them. Confusing to look at but thankfully they were actually easy to follow as you approached them. I was walking up one steep climb when one guy looked at me and said, “You and me are going to be Battle Buddies. We are going to stick together throughout this thing and get ‘er done.” I thought this was quite funny that someone would say that to me but thought that perhaps it was some kind of honour or something. Anyway, I told my Battle Buddy to start running because I was heading out to get this thing done. He swore at me and I took off.
The sky clouded up during the 2nd lap of the run which helped me quite a lot as I was already quite overheated and sunburnt. In fact I started to pickup my pace after the final turn-around point and was heartened that I could hear the announcer calling in the finishers (even though it they were on the other side of the valley).
The last 3 miles were downhill so I started building up speed. It is always like that for me at Ironman. I am like the proverbial horse heading for the barn. No matter how poorly I have done on the rest of the course I always seem to be able to make that final sprint to the finish line.
Congratulations to everyone that rose to the challenge at IMSG. I heard from many people that this was the toughest IM course that they had ever done. One dude even told me that it was tougher than Kona however I wouldn’t know anything about that.
Kudos to the town of St George and the race organizers who pulled off a superbly run event which is truly admirable when it’s a first time event.
Here is a video from my song of the day. It is The Noisette’s singing the Killers “When You Were Young”.
No matter how you look at it, that’s a well executed race, Don.
Be proud of your perseverance, even before you discovered the dragging brake.
Thank you Bill. It was a tough day but nonetheless there were many rewarding moments that kept things very interesting.
Excellent report. A very successful race especially considering all the challenges!
Perhaps I was the biggest challenge.
Congratulations on a tough race Don. You really got your money’s worth on this one and I expect all the others in your age group appreciated you giving them a headstart with a dragging brake.
Anytime a race is advertised as scenic, that means, to me at least, that it will be a tough one. Thanks for taking point on IMSG for the rest of us.
Thank you Al. I agree with your assessment, scenic = tough course. Sometimes it is hard to appreciate the beauty when you are in the “pain cave”.
Fantastic track, and I’m not even into that genre.