Ironman Arizona Race Report

Photo courtesy of Camelback Coaching

Racing an Ironman more than once is an exercise in denial. It took me five years to forget the trauma of Ironman Arizona in 2014 when the howling wind on the Beeline had made the 112 mile bike an exhausting, desperate exercise  to finish in time. I got into transition with six seconds to spare, but had been so depleted that avoiding the run limits was impossible. The memory of riding down the Beeline as hard as I could as the sun was setting was burned into my brain. And yet I signed up again with the hope that this time would be different.

Four years later, I knew the difficulty of the event, but had the hope that the end result would be better. The  odds weren’t in my favor, being a slow swimmer and biker. Making the time cut offs was always a concern. This has been my dilemma forever.. Because of my lack of fast genes, training took longer and was more affected by wind, cold and hilly terrain. I had two Ironman finishes in the past, but more non-finishes. Yet I persisted in pursuing this folly over and over again.

This time, just getting to the start line required overcoming obstacles, most of which were generated by my bike. A spoke broke, and the wheel went out of round and was ruined. My disintegrating bike seat had to be replaced and adjusting to the new one was difficult. If it wasn’t placed just right, my butt felt like it was sitting on rocks. The chafing was painful with the longer rides. Then the free hub body, a part which up until this point I didn’t know existed, decided to break down. This part allows the back wheel to coast. I chose the wrong bike shops to try to fix it. I nagged and nagged and finally they ordered the part after ignoring the bike for a week. This frustrating process of taking the bike to bike shops, only to not be fixed, took a month.

A further obstacle was that I was diagnosed with breast cancer a month before the race. It is slow growing, small, and limited to one area, but it is still the big, scary “C”. It added to the stress of preparing for the race. I had to give up replacement hormones, which made me feel more tired and depressed. The evil specter of hot flashes came back with a vengeance. Theoretically, hormones are a banned substance in Ironman, but for a person in the back of the back of the pack, it didn’t seem like it should matter.

Doubts assailed me. Would I be as strong or fast without drugs? Would the disease in my body cause me to fail somehow? Would I collapse or drown? It was hard enough to even finish under normal circumstances. When Ironman decided to shorten the swim/bike cut off two weeks before the race to ten hours/ten minutes, it was another blow. How the hell was that possible unless it was a very good day?

With the commitment of all the time, money and effort put into preparing for this race, the only thing to do was to suck it up and try, with no assurance of success. Not starting was never an option.

Race morning did not start well, with a late start because of the long half hour wait to get into the free parking garage. This left only had an hour to prepare. All my meticulous lists meant nothing.  Equipment organized into bags required planning and endlessly obsessing about what to put in them and when to do so. I failed to put salt tablets and my more appealing food in the bike bag. I also didn’t get body marked. Rushing around is not conducive to clear thinking or memory.

Due to my disorganization, I cut into the line of people to get into the water as late as 6:58 a.m.. Easing into the cold, murky water, the goal was to not to be swam over, since the faster swimmers  started then. Being early gave me some leeway on the bike cut offs, which didn’t change no matter the actual start time.

The temperature of choppy water was almost bearable and the body contact was minimal. My chest felt tight and it was hard to catch my breath for a half hour. Resting a lot was needed, which made me wonder about making the swim cut off. Since the water was never smooth, I swallowed more of Tempe Town Lake water, which was never good in any amount.  I never panicked, but the experience made me anxious and uncomfortable.

I blocked out the thought of the length of the swim. The chest tightness disappeared and I kept moving. The buildings on the south shore drifted by. It was surreal at times. The north shore marina looked like it was below the edge of the water, which was disorienting. The north shore tall electrical towers and grass hills came into sight. The sight of the last red turn buoy in the distance was a relief.

Towards the end, my foot/calf cramped intermittently, which is unpleasant when trying to avoid drowning. Inconveniently, the muscle locked exiting the lake, which caught the attention of medical volunteers. People on either side supported me as my numb feet weren’t working. They made me sit and drink broth for a while, which probably killed my chance for meeting the swim/bike cut off. My mind was dazed and my body  cold, but I was not shivering. My swim time was about two hours.

A volunteer helped me dress in the transition tent. I changed my wet top and struggled to put on arm warmers and a jacket, still in a mental fog. I hobbled to the mount line and got on my bike.

The usual evil Beeline wind tunnel wasn’t too bad, but it seemed to pick up as the afternoon wore on. The cool breeze that slowed me down also probably kept me from being overheated. The lack of salt tablets weighed on me. A few were in my bento box, but not enough. Bananas  made up for potassium. The aid station gels supplemented my merger supply of nutrition, but the strawberry-kiwi flavor tasted vile after a while. Even those were gone as the afternoon wore on.

On one of my loops, riding uphill, I saw a guy with a t-shirt that read “May I pray for you?” I am not religious, but thought, yes. Yes, you may pray for me, because the way this race and my life in general was going, I needed all the prayers, luck, good karma and anything else that I could get.

In that vein, this highway was a purgatory with the monotony of the scenery, the stinky garbage dump and the stress of trying to go fast enough. It was a lot of effort to even go slow up the hill. My legs turned as fast as they could and the loss of energy from not having enough salt tablets or palatable nutrition was a worry. I longed for fig bars and peanut butter Uncrustables sandwiches.

My heart rate couldn’t be tracked, because my watch decided it had a low battery. I used perceived effort the whole race, which was basically a vague guess as to what my heart rate was. Normally, heart rate would tell me how much energy was being expended, which was necessary over a long distance. 

I made the seventy-four mile, 3:10 p.m. cut off at Mill Avenue by 20 minutes by pedaling furiously down the road the second time.  Small triumphs. At least I had that.

By the third loop, the sun was low and the shadows long in the golden light. This was the dreaded near the end, try to beat the odds time. I had enough leeway to beat the 92 mile cut off, but it was close. I appreciated the presence of the cheering volunteers, but didn’t stop at the aid stations. They only had crap to offer anyway. I rounded the turn off and hustled down the Beeline with a close seven minutes to spare. The time crunch was manageable, but riding fast was necessary. Riders passed by going uphill. They were screwed and sadly, they were going to be stopped. A number of Ironman vehicles headed to the aid station to pick up the stragglers. I had eluded them.

A few of us, who had gotten past the 92 mile turn around, were still trying to finish. A number of them asked me what the final bike cut off was. Like they didn’t know? The limits were certainly burned in my brain. The group of us became comrades in arms, trying to get our slow asses back into transition, so that we could face the even more difficult feat of hauling our exhausted selves around the run course by midnight. I hope some of them made it. Unfortunately, someone crashed her bike and lay in an unmoving heap on the ground. The police were nearby and called an ambulance. She was only four miles from the end. This race can be cruel.

The sun was setting and it was almost dark by the finish of my ride about 5:31 p.m. Official time was eight hours, five minutes, but my Garmin said seven hours, fifty-two minutes. It didn’t matter because I should have finished earlier.  Getting my compression socks on was time consuming. My nose was pouring snot. My body probably didn’t smell good.  Mentally, I berated myself for moving slow, but part of me thought who the hell cares and how was I going to be able to run?

The 10 hour 10 minute swim/bike cut off was exceeded, especially with a 21 minute T1. They hadn’t stopped me, so maybe an unofficial finish was possible. 

Less than six and half hours wasn’t a lot of time to get in the whole marathon. My goal all day was to get to this point, but the pain in my legs was excruciating and I was exhausted. Resorting to a walk/run  forced  me to run, but it wasn’t fast enough. My hopes of even finishing unofficially faded and  my motivation was lacking at this point. I just wanted to stop, but kept moving with no attention to time. The mental toughness just wasn’t there. Even if I survived the 9:10 cut off, surviving the 20 mile one was unlikely. Running that far just to stop was unfathomable. .

I passed someone leaning on a pole and sobbing. I could relate to what she was feeling. Everyone was in their own private struggle.

People that I knew asked me how I was doing when I passed by. Encouragement from people I know or even random strangers is always good and appreciated, but my answer was “not so good”. Being cheerful took too much energy. I did try to thank the volunteers.

I encountered a man who said he was also on his first loop. He wasn’t moving much faster than I. We both had hope for a miracle that probably wouldn’t come.

My feet hurt so bad with every step, that I stopped, took my shoe off and rubbed my toe. It actually felt better, but getting the shoe back on was difficult. It was impossibly tight and my calf threatened to cramp.

On I moved in the dark with the undead. The broth and coke from the aid stations weren’t the usual magic elixirs. Can’t they have decent food? Potatoes would be good. This stuff was unappetizing. I swallowed salt tablets and forced myself to eat some of my gels, which by this point were disgusting.

Around 8:30 p.m., I made a half-hearted effort to move faster to beat the 9:10 p.m.cut off. Cruelly, the turn off to the finish line beckoned, which was now out of reach. I wanted the pain to end and it was a battle not to quit. A guy on a bike encouraged me to run harder. Then another man by an aid station also told me to get moving. He was at the last race that I didn’t finish. I ran without walking, but it was too late. The rest of the way was blocked with a fence. The race was over. Could  mile 20 have been possible with a harder push? The thought will haunt me until the next race, if it ever comes.

This race has turned into seeing how far I can go rather than finishing. In a way, that’s okay, but not as fun and it leaves me with an empty feeling. I kept thinking that I am never doing this again during the swim, but who knows?

Things that learned from doing this race:

I can still train and “race” the swim and the bike even at my age and manage to escape injury. The times for both haven’t changed that much since 2014. The run was another matter. I wasn’t injured, like in 2014, but it still crushed me.

The distances for the swim, bike and run are still absolutely awful to train and race.

The rolling start sucks. In the past to it was possible to hang out in the back with the mass start and actually get a warm up swimming to the start line. This time, I had to jump into line way before the time that I would seeded myself for, in order to beat the bike cut offs. No warm up was possible. The water was choppy the entire swim because everyone in the world was passing me. However, a lot physical contact could still be avoided.

Cold water is still difficult to tolerate. The temperature was 61-63 degrees. The result was foot/calf cramps and not being able to catch my breath for the first 1000 yards. Getting out of the water was like being in shock, with a mental haze and lack of coordination. The swim probably affected the whole race.

The bike is still a struggle to finish in time, howling wind or not. 

The pain of the run sapped my motivation and it was as much a mental failure as a physical one. Ten years ago, it wasn’t so difficult, but the assumption that it would be that way again this time was wrong.

I am still stupid enough to do this again, despite my failings. The process of training is horrible, but I like the feeling of being stronger and conquering the distance. The hope of finishing down a brightly lit chute, high fiving, is still there, even if getting there is unlikely. Sharing the bond of running in the dark with a community of fellow sufferers is still a draw, though I don’t know why. The experience was interesting in an excruciating sort of way. Maybe it’s the attempt to  meet the physical and mental challenge of doing something difficult. 

Results-wise, the race was a failure if success is measured by finishing. Process-wise, even if I fell short, I did the best I could with my physical limitations and mechanical problems. 

All I know is that this race is easy compared to what I am facing next, fighting cancer and facing the god awful treatments. It is like being on the edge of a cliff wondering If I am going to fall into a dark hole. 

Courtesy of One Mulisport. I am NOT having fun.