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.

Ironman Arizona Race Report

I have a love/hate relationship with this race. The run course is flat, and at times creepy in the dark, remote areas in the wee hours of the evening. Some parts of it smells like sewer gas. The miles of concrete destroy my feet. The three loop bike course is ugly, boring and times evil when the wind comes howling out of the same exact diagonal as the Beeline highway. Past memories of the exhaustion from futilely fighting the wind were indelibly etched in my brain. Countless hours of mind-numbing training on this road made it difficult to tolerate its existence.

Still, Arizona was the one race I thought I could do, since I had finished it before. After being forced off the Ironman Lake Tahoe bike course last year, it seemed like a good idea to sign up for Arizona. Maybe, I would finally get the finisher’s high or I could be faster than the last time I raced it. It might make up for the rest of my crappy race season this year. I was wrong.

The line last year for registration. Bring your own chair.

The rest of the world had the same delusion. This race gets more crowded every year and sells out when registration opens online. Hopefuls think that the swim, bike and run will be kind to them.

The day started with traffic gridlock getting to the race site in the morning. I tried not to get stressed as time slipped away while the line of cars in front of me barely moved. A half an hour later, I reached the parking area. Half dazed from lack of coffee and sleep, I walked in the dark to the transition area.

I felt irritable negotiating the crowds in transition, and wished they had left their strollers, significant others and small children behind. The time before a race was filled with dread of the unknown and innumerable tasks to do. I had to drop off bags, get my bike tires pumped up, get body marked and stand in a long porta-potty line. Why can’t these people poop faster? I wondered if I would be able to start on time.

The ducks seem happy

I usually dread the swim. Fear intensified the unpleasantness of immersing myself in cold water in the chilly dawn morning. I was herded into the lake with the other masses. To get in involved climbing down a set of stairs, jumping off into the green, murky water and hoping that an unseen obstacle didn’t lurk under the surface. Plus, not hitting the other bodies already in the water. The process was so slow that the start was delayed five minutes to 7:05 a.m. I went in and was immediately was hit by the chilliness of the water, but it wasn’t the face-stinging cold that I have encountered before. 

The start line required a swim under a bridge, but usually what I thought about was not where I was, but being pummeled by all the other swimmers. In other races I had felt an almost mystical calm before the swim, but now I only thought about the task at hand. The usual emotional drama of the mass start wasn’t there for me. Spectators think it’s great, but they weren’t in the midst of the flailing arms and legs, which can cause injury.

Practice swim. The start line is beyond this bridge somewhere.

The swim was one loop, which was great because the fast swimmers were out of my way, but it went on forever. The buoys inexplicably zig-zagged, if they could even be seen in the glare of the rising sun. The lake curves, which I always found to be slightly disturbing. I appreciated having so many lifeguards in kayaks, but they were an obstacle sometimes.

After an eternity, I reached the turn buoy, went across the lake and turned back west. The sloshing water grew choppier and the surface rippled with the unwelcome wind that had picked up. Other swimmers were struggling and hanging onto kayaks. I felt strong and in control, but battling the chop took a lot of effort. The conditions would have been difficult for the unfit or inexperienced, but I had been in worse.  

At last the final turn red turn buoy appeared. The water was clogged with kayaks and people were cheering loudly. This probably indicated the swim cut-off was near, so I went as hard as possible. After being hauled up the stairs by a volunteer, I looked at my watch and inwardly groaned as it said 2:08. I wished I could have swam fast like anyone else. I still had time, but had to hustle.

Not being hypothermic after the swim for once, I got dressed fairly quickly with the help of a volunteer. Having sun screen slathered on my legs by volunteers felt nice. I could get used to that, like it was a spa. I had my bike handed to me and I got onto the course. 

No time to pee and I really needed to. I hated riding a bike with a full bladder and stopped at the first porta-potty. Some people pee on their bikes, which can be entertaining to watch, but it would have been treacherous to be downwind of in this weather. I didn’t have that particular skill set.

The bike route is considered by fools or the unwary to be fairly “easy”, but it can turn into a screaming harpy in the wind. And wind there was. A mind-numbing lap up, then down a hill three times. Descending was much faster than ascending. I really wanted to avoid the soul-crushing nightmare of not finishing in 2008, when the temperature was ninety degrees and the wind twenty-five miles per hour. 

The scenery was a unpleasant mix of industrial areas, ruined buildings, trash, and stark desert. A Sonoran Desert version of an Appalachian slum. Plus, the route passed a dump six times. If the wind was blowing the wrong way, it could be an olfactory assault. Today it was.

I was in a hurry, so I ignored the ugly surroundings and stared down at the road while other riders whizzed past me.

The first lap, I made my goal time in order to beat the cut-off, but I had to ride hard to do it. Like the swim, the rest of world biked faster with less effort. I turned around to ascend again past the cheering crowds in the Tempe streets.

Six miles into the second lap, I shifted gears and my chain fell off. I put it back on, but the shifter cable was loose. I stopped to have it fixed and went on. Around mile fifty-two, the wind had picked up to about twenty-five miles per hour and the uphill was slow. My aspirations for this race quickly vanished in the evil breeze. Doubt and despair dropped into my mind and constantly nagged at me. The fear of not being able to finish made me want to cry. I was losing the battle. Still, I desperately pedaled on, exerting a lot of energy to go slowly up. My leg muscles were threatening to cramp, with stabbing pain at random intervals.

My coaches were a welcome sight up at the top of the hill. I shouted that I didn’t think I could finish, and one said I have 3.5 hours and that I could do it. I doubted it, but decided to try. Flying downhill, one of my contacts fell out. Luckily, it was out of my weaker eye and I could still see fairly well. What else could go wrong? No time to stop and put in another one. I got down in a short fifty-five minutes with the violent tail wind.

On the way up again, making the 4:15 cut off at the top seemed unlikely. The sun was lower in the horizon. Other people climbing in the fading light slowed down and stopped on the road, as if they were giving up. At least I could get a ride at the aid station if officials took my timing chip. Near the top, a rider coming down said that they were changing the cut off to 4:30 and we had three minutes and could make it. Persistence might be rewarded. I pushed my screaming legs around faster, heart pounding and got to the ninety-three mile turn-around in time while the volunteers cheered. 

On the way down, the tail wind had lessened, which annoyed me. It had punished me all day and now it was failing to provide a last push. The road was difficult to see riding into the sunset with my blurred vision. At the last aid station, someone said it was 5:21. Getting into transition by 5:30 was unlikely, but I pressed onward anyway. At the finishing chute, people were cheering loudly, so there might be a chance. I made the cut-off by five seconds. Five seconds! When I found this out later, it blew me away. It was the best part of the race. One small victory when all seemed lost.

A volunteer led me to the change tent. Somehow, they expected me to be able to walk when I could barely hobble. They helped me dress and I put another contact in my eye. I stepped out of the tent and the sky had turned pink. 

The folly of the effort of riding as hard as I could for 112 miles hit me. Moving was painful, let alone running. I walked in the dusk for a few minutes, hoping that the pain that came with every step would lessen. Eventually I could run, but it was feeble.

Since I had gotten in so late, I had less than six and a half hours to finish a marathon. In normal circumstances, this would have been doable. Unless I miraculously perked up, it was impossible. Sometimes it happens. A person keeps moving, gets a second wind and speeds up. That’s why giving up was unacceptable, if a chance existed to turn a bad race around.

The first part of the run course was an out and back along the south bank of Tempe Town Lake. High rise buildings were lit up in the night. Some participants were the walking dead like me, some were actually running. I couldn’t move fast enough. My legs went through the motion, but didn’t propel me. My feet felt like I had rocks in my shoes.  I passed the cheering crowd, then went into silent darkness. The aid stations had a variety of offerings, but I mostly drank coke and chicken broth, which was the food of the gods. One offered bacon, but at this point, it would have been a dubious choice. Beer, on the other hand...

Lovely view on the run course.

An hour down, and I hadn’t gone four miles. Like a dream where I am frantically try to get somewhere, but never do. To finish was hopeless at this point, but I didn’t want to stop until someone took my timing chip. The humiliation was less when someone else forced me to quit. I crossed a bridge and reached the creepy part of the course west of the lake illuminated by a sickly yellow light. Airplanes, landing at the nearby Sky Harbor Airport, roared overhead occasionally. Remnants of the choked off Salt River ran below the path. It was framed with an expressway to the north.  I thought I heard a scream in the dark, brush-filled hollow.  Hopefully, not an athlete. My feet felt worse with the endless concrete.  

People tried to be encouraging, but I couldn’t summon much cheer in my deep funk. I thanked them, but I didn’t smile. The worst were the ones who assumed that I was almost done. Just shut up! I longed for someone to put me out of my misery, but I didn’t see anyone with a gun. Which of the nine circles of hell was I in?

I was resigned to my fate now and felt like a loser. If only I could have biked or ran faster. I reached the part where the first lap splits off from the finish line. I could hear the announcer shouting “you are an ironman!” to the finishers. It wouldn’t be there for me. No cheering crowd, bright lights nor medal. Someone from my tri club walked up to me and mentioned something about being almost done. I said I was only on the first lap and wouldn’t finish. She hugged me and I was touched.

I asked a volunteer where the first lap went and he walked with me for a while. Then another one took over. Maybe I looked like death and he was worried my body would litter the course. I tried to run to get it over with. I finally met up with the chip-taker guy at the 13.1 mile mark and my race was officially over. I was sad and relieved.

I should be happy I got through the swim relatively unscathed and that I actually finished the bike in tough conditions. The rest of the world would find a 2.4 mile swim in Tempe Town Lake and a 112 mile bike incomprehensible, not to mention repulsive. In the unreality of the triathlete world, it is more probable, making it easy to lose perspective about the difficulty. Everyone else can do it, so why can’t I? 

The training was awful sometimes, but it forced me into a higher level of fitness. With a bad race, though, it seemed pointless. I missed the joy. No finish felt like failure.  

As hard as I tried, I just could not conquer this race with the howling wind on the butt ugly Beeline and the bleak banks of Tempe Town Lake. I am not up to going through this again, at least for a while. And if I do, the suffering had better be in a pretty place.