The Weather: Humidity- Persona Non Grata
Ironman Louisville definitely deserves an entire section dedicated to the weather. I’ve raced in heat before, Ironman Canada in Penticton was 95 degrees, so I naturally ignored all caution about the Louisville weather. There is heat and then there is suffering. I should have known I was in trouble when the national weather service had a heat advisory for Louisville all weekend long. I’m from Indiana and I thought we had humidity, this humidity was impressive. It rained every night we were there. On race day the temperature was in the 90s and the humidity ranged from 65% to 75%-an improvement from the 85-95% the day before. Apparently more than 400 competitors needed some kind of medical assistance. Ironman Louisville consistently ranks as one of the slowest Ironmans globally because of the heat and humidity. In fact, after this year they are moving the race to October because of the weather.The Swim: Current-a love hate relationship (Time 1:04)
The swim isn’t a mass start, but a time trial start. Everyone lines up and jumps off 2 piers one at a time into the water. The crazy part is the swim line forms first come first serve so racers started waiting in line at 4:00 AM for a 7:00 race start! My dad (he was also racing with me) got in line around 5:45 and even then the line seemed to stretch on forever. You start swimming between an island and the shore upstream for the first third of the swim. The current here wasn’t too bad, its mildly protected from the main current. However you have to swim for about 300-400 meters past the island and there you could really tell the current had a mean side. The entire time I just focused on rotating and not being a barge going through the water as Coach Bill will frequently call me. I also really worked on swimming downhill and sighting every 3 strokes. Visibility in the water was minimal, you could see you elbows but not your hands!I have to give a special thanks to Coach Bill and the entire tri team on my swim. I finished in 1:04:33 good for 44/170 in my age group and 431 overall! I couldn’t believe my watch when I got out-I was ecstatic! This was 17 minutes faster than my last ironman and I could really feel the improvement I had made in my swim. All those Tuesday night swims and OWS swims really paid off and having Coach Bill around can’t be understated. Thank You
The Bike: Horse Country
The bike was gorgeous. It’s nothing but picturesque houses and fields with horses hanging out, with the occasional Tobacco farm J. It became abundantly clear to me why they call it horse country (not a creative name). I would call the bike course fair with 5,300 feet of gross elevation gain but with the majority of it in the form of rolling hills. For some reason the GPS on my Garmin was acting up so I didn’t have speed or distance for the entire race and regulated my effort off of heart rate and cadence alone.After my last Ironman my mission on the bike was to fuel up a lot, given the heat and humidity. I had 12 electrolyte pills, 4.5 cliff bars, 2 water bottles of Hammer Sustain, 3 bottles of water and 2-3 bottles of PowerAde Perform, and one banana piece. (I ate 1 banana before the bike and 1 before the swim). After the bike I was sick of PowerAde perform and it made me nauseous as well.
The first 85 miles of the bike went by well. Then around 1:30 PM-2:30PM the hell fire and brim stone god of the old testament decided to show us who was boss. The heat picked it up into high gear and the humidity decided to envelope you. I say envelope because even on the bike you could liteally feel the humidity. I ended up finishing my bike in 5:36:01 which I was surprised by as well. I had made a point to not crush myself and still averaged 20 mph. I think all those spinning classes really paid off!
The Run: Where I met my maker
The run was TOUGH! I started the run around 3:00 pm and at the point I was feeling really proud of my race. I had PR’ed massively on both my swim and bike, beyond my expectations. I knew if I could put together a 4 hour marathon I had a could break 11 hours and given my two marathons in May were 3:05 and 2:59 I felt pretty confident about my chances. However, those races were in sub 70 degree weather not in 90 degree weather and high humidity. I’m also not Felix J I started running an 8 minute mile for the first 2 miles but then quickly my body started rebelling and my pace dropped down to a 9-10 minute mile pace. By mile 11, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to run the entire marathon and by mile 14 my body was in full revolt and I had to walk a mile run a mile for the remainder of the race. I wasn’t alone, I saw several people collapsed on the side of the road during the run. At mile 8 I saw a woman walk up to the aid station to get water and she just passed out onto the ground like a rag doll. That and the countless other people I saw receiving medical attention definitely put the fear of god into me. The main thing stopping me on the second half of my run was very painful cramps throughout my entire core. It felt like my diaphragm was seizing up along with my entire stomach. I’m not sure what caused this but even still I have pain in my core when I lay down or take deep breaths. I’m still trying to figure out if it was something I did on the swim or just the heat, exhaustion, fitness and nutrition. It was a bit disappointing to have such an awesome start just to lose it on the second half of the run (especially since that’s my strong suit) but the second half of the marathon is also where the race part of the Ironman begins-so I can’t complain.In the end my time was 11:56:31 good for 27/170 in my age group and 351/2095 and I massively improved on my swim and my bike. Unfortunately my dad had to DNF after mile 13 of the run which was disappointing. Given the conditions though its completely understandable. My main take away is PowerAde preform is not good, and makes you feel sick. I also need to continue to work on my nutrition. I did a better job of it this time but there is still lots of room for improvement. I also foolishly spent little time training for the run, expecting all my training leading up to my marathons in May would suffice. This proved incorrect and ultimately proved my doom.
I would like to thank the entire MIT Tri team. I really enjoyed training with everyone this past year and all of you helped me improve so much. Not to mention you made working out so much more fun! I’m now living in Chicago so if you ever find yourself in town please don’t hesitate to E-mail me.
Thanks for everything,
Sean
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