Journey Back to Kona Day 216: 13 Hours and 25 Minutes

Thirteen hours and twenty five minutes. That's the average time it's taken me to finish each of my 15 Ironman races. My fastest was 11:31:59 at Chattanooga in 2014.  My slowest was at Santa Rosa in 2018, which took 14 hours and 52 minutes, holding my Kona spot in 2019, all I had to do was finish.  That was the year I hadn't trained, literally completing an Ironman on under 4 hours a week of training, and recovering from a cold to boot!  Nine of my fifteen Ironman's have been completed in under thirteen hours.  My first Ironman, Ironman St. George 2010, took me thirteen hours, eighteen minutes and twenty-six seconds. I was 50 years old at the time.

I will compete at Ironman World Championship in St. George in just under three weeks.  I have a goal.  Finish in under thirteen hours and 25 minutes.  Considering that I'm now 63 years old and this is one of the hardest Ironman courses on the planet, that would be a tremendous accomplishment.  My training has been good, albeit, not perfect, especially with my recent knee problem.  That seems to have almost cleared up, which gives me about 10 days to sharpen my bike training.  I can't be more pleased with how I'm entering this race from a swim and run perspective.  My swimming is totally on track, and I anticipate having my best Ironman swim in years, although my only goal for the swim is to not go too hard.  My bike training now totally necessitates that I don't push too hard.  That's not a bad thing for any Ironman, especially one where the bulk of the climbing occurs in the last half of the bike!  As always, the run will be what it will be, but I'm coming into this race with my best run fitness in years, perhaps ever.  In fact, I've recently run my fastest "open" and half ironman half marathons in nearly a decade.  My Ironman run PR could be in my sights.  Ironically, it was set at St. George in 2012.  

I used to create goals and blog about them, and I haven't done that in some time. I certainly know better than to stick too closely to goals for an Ironman, but I really feel like it's ok to put my goals out there for this race.  It's a World Championship, and I'll be competing against the best in my age group.  If I swim anywhere under 1 hour and 20 minutes I'll be happy.  Interestingly enough, swim times do seem to drop once you hit the 60-64 age group.  My swim is back on track and I'm swimming better than I have in years.  I could swim as fast as 1:15 if conditions are good, but expect to be right around 1:20.  

The bike is going to be a challenge.  With nearly 7500 feet of climbing and a good chunk of it in the last fifty miles of the race, I can't expect too much.  I'll be happy with anything under 7 hours and will be satisfied with anything close to that.  If conditions are good and I'm feeling strong, 6 hours and 40 minutes is probably as good as I can do.  Realistically, I won't be surprised by a 7:10 bike.  Regardless, I need to leave enough energy for the run!

If I am having a fantastic day, I could start the run with 8 hours and 10 minutes already on the clock.  More likely, it will be closer to 8 hours and 40 minutes. It really will be "all about the run!"  The way I've been running, I'm cautiously optimistic about being able to run a 4 hour and 30 minute marathon, which would allow me to finish in under thirteen hours and 25 minutes. I think on the best of days, I could pull off a 4 hour and 15 minute marathon, and if I'm challenged, it could be as long as 5 hours.  A great run could have me finishing the race in under 13 hours.  

There it is. My goals are out there.  Back to training...

Journey Back to Kona Day 207: Following My Own Path

I have always been one to follow my own path. I realize that there are two aspects to this tendency. The first is as a leader.  If I'm following my path as a leader, others will come along with me, if they so choose.  The second way is just me as an individual.  I can choose to follow my own path, regardless of the path others are choosing, with no intention of pulling people along with me.

A few years ago when I decided to take on the editing of a major textbook, I had some of my mentors downplay the value of it.  I'm not sure why, but in the end, I chose to follow my own path, and I'm glad that I did.  Perhaps it was as simple as the fact that my path and their paths had diverged, which is fine. I won't get into other psychological reasons, as they presume that I know how other people think and feel.  

I've followed my own path pretty much my whole life.  From the 3rd grade, where my teacher said that I was preoccupied with the war in Vietnam, to the 6th or 7th grade where my English teacher complained about my reading books that appealed to me, to high school, where I was just plain iconoclastic on a regular basis, following my own path has pretty much defined me.  

As a leader, there is the complication that people following you may not feel like your path and theirs are the same. Yet, as a leader, you really have no choice, unless you decide that you want to vary from the direction that appeals to you, or are swayed by another path put forward.  I've always been open to other ideas, and willing to listen to other approaches. Still, as a leader, if you successfully message your path, others will invariably follow you.

As an individual, knowing the path that you want to take is important. Obviously, there will be barriers along the way and differences of opinion from others around you if your path conflicts with theirs. Depending on the various paths, there doesn't have to be conflict, but that's a discussion for another blog.  Suffice it to say, for my entire life, I've pretty much followed my own path. I think I'll choose to keep that mantra going.

Journey Back to Kona Day 200: Painful, but Gratifying

For a change, I didn't write my race report for the California 70.3 in advance, which has been my habit for many years.  There were a multitude of reasons, not the least of which has been some knee pain that began three weeks ago during a 4 1/2 hour bike ride with a ton of climbing.  I rested the knee for a week and rode again last weekend for an hour and the pain came back.  I had my cleat adjusted and was hoping for the best today.  Well, let me just say, hope springs eternal.  But, I'll get to that later.

For some reason my allergies really were acting up this week and I kept hoping that I hadn't come down with the cold that my grandson had brought home with him.  The good news is that it seems like I've skirted the cold.  With that said, we checked into our Airbnb and I didn't realize until the day after we checked in that the pillows on the couch were made of feather, to which I'm highly allergic.  No wonder I felt miserable.

I woke up this morning around 3:30 am (an hour before my alarm), and realized that I was excited to get going to the race.  I had actually done this race for the first time in 2004, prior to getting a coach and really the year that I decided to commit myself to triathlon training.  My times that year were:  Swim 37:53  T1 4:24   Bike 3:10:51 T2  2:29  Run  2:12:27  Finish  6:08:04.  Today would be my 8th time racing in Oceanside, but my last race seemed like years ago, which it was, in 2015, when I finished in 5:37:01.  Seven years later, at the age of 62, I was interested in seeing where I was.  

My swim has been coming back lately, and honestly, I'm swimming as well as I have in years.  Today's swim would be the first time I did the beach start in Oceanside, and it was glorious!  There were waves, boy were there waves!  They kept coming.  I'd dive under one and come up and the next one was on its way. I'd dive under that one, etc., etc. In some respects it was a little scary, but in another, it was fun!  I was truly enjoying the swim when WHAM!, another athlete literally punched me in the side of the head.  Now, I've been hit before (one year I got a blood lip at Oceanside), but this wasn't just any hit.  Honestly, I felt like I was hit hard enough to almost knock me out.  By far, the hardest I've ever been hit in the head.  Fortunately, it didn't knock me out, and I just smiled and kept going.  As I write this, however, my temple is definitely sore.  Of note, I was avoiding other swimmers, but this person obviously wasn't avoiding me.  They came up from behind and WHAM! Still, I stayed very comfortable, with a very solid swim stroke.  

I came out of the water in about 38 minutes, which was actually close to my swim time 7 years ago.  I could still use some open water swim lessons but I was really happy with my swim, and, I felt good enough to run to my bike.  I took some extra time in transition putting on socks and my bike shoes, and almost forgot to put on my bib number (required to bike through Camp Pendleton).  My transition time of nearly 7 minutes wasn't bad considering all of this.  

On to the bike.  This would be the moment of truth.  The first several miles felt really good, and I felt very solid and was putting out decent wattage without too much effort.  And then the knee pain returned.  It didn't take long, and I tried everything, including focusing on where my foot was pointed on the pedal.  The rest of the bike became a game of sorts, with me trying not to make the pain worse, while continuing to put out reasonable wattage (which I actually did, maintaining an average wattage of ~155w, which should be close to my ironman wattage.  Still, I couldn't push too hard, lest the pain increased.  I actually did fairly well on the climbs, though I did find myself standing more in order to relieve the pain.  At around Mile 40, I massaged a muscle in my inner thigh and the pain in my knee went away for several minutes!  Unfortunately, it came back and I struggled to find the spot again.  As I rode into transition, I wondered what would happen when I started running.  I hadn't given it much thought until then, as there wasn't much I could have done.

I racked my bike, put on some aleve/menthol on my knee, took a little extra time putting on my compression socks and my running shoes, and took off, stopping for about a minute to pee before actually starting the run.  The good news: no knee pain!  I kept my heart rate around 145 for the first 7-8 miles and managed to keep ~8:50 running pace.  I picked up the effort for the last 5-6 miles and ultimately finished with an 8:43 average pace.  My heart rate settled in to the low 150's.  It was hard, but I was really happy to negative split the run.  When I finished, I was done!

My age group was stacked! The best people in the country were racing today.  Still, my run was right up there with many of them, except for the exceptional guys at the top of the age group.  Now, I just need to figure out my bike position and deal with my knee pain.  St. George is in 5 weeks.