Day 1 – 10k swim: 2:26:03; 90 mile bike - 5:50:04, Total: 8:16:07
The swim
couldn’t have gone better. I knew there
were a couple fast swimmers in the field so I was expecting to be duking it out
for a little while in the water. I knew
from experience that there was a fray at the start with all the kayaks grouped
together 100-200m into the swim; Adam and I planned to rendezvous 800m out so
that he wouldn’t be caught up. I was
pleasantly surprised that I had the lead from the start and was swimming
relaxed. I thought it was a tougher
swim than when I competed previously, in 2011, but Adam kept a super straight
line (6.26 miles on my Garmin). Around
the halfway mark I picked up the effort, but it actually resulted in me going
slower – so I quickly reverted back to a longer stroke that cut through the
swells more efficiently. And after
looking at my Garmin I was even happier with my swim – the first two 1000 yd
intervals were approximately 12:30, while we were in the Bay, then the next 9
1000’s held pretty steady at 13:30’s.
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| The MAN at work - if it was a fast swim year it's because Adam kept such a straight line and everyone followed him! |
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| May be the only swimmer who likes a full sleeve wetsuit |
I wanted to
be relatively quick in transition – I got in and Jen had everything laid out
for me, with Ryan up the hill with my bike.
Everything went really smooth and I was in and out in 1:45, on the long
1500 ft climb over the first 10k of the bike.
My HR was high immediately, but only by a few beats and the power was
exactly where I wanted it and felt good.
I hoped to settle in over the climb but it didn’t end up happening. After the first climb the course rolls between
1000-2000 ft and I was able to settle in, lower my HR and get into a rhythm. Honestly, I felt great and was super psyched
to be maintaining my lead out front. As
we passed the halfway point in the bike the winds kicked up – from mile 45-60
there were some crazy crosswinds combined with wet roads and a 2000 ft
descent. I was unsteady through here and
took this super cautious. Still, I went
through mile 52 with an 8 minute lead.
Unfortunately as we approached the last 30 mile, 4000 ft climb I started
to feel nauseous. I had been ready to up
the power output into the 230-240 range, but instead it dropped into the
160-170 range. Right as this started
Mike Coughlin came by me like a freight train.
Some days you got it and some days you don’t. I kept forcing calories in, but the mantra
came to be live to fight another day. Up
the climb Dave Kalinowski and Billy Edwards came by me, both looking super
strong. At the end of the day I was
happy to only be sitting 6 and 8 minutes behind each of them.
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| Heading down to South Point - Mile 50 Day 1 |
Day 2 – 171.4 Mile bike: 8:23:18, Total: 16:39:25
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| Opening descent from Volcano |
After
vomiting immediately following the Day 1 ride and having GI issues all through
the night I was expecting a long day 2.
Fortunately we changed up the nutrition plan slightly and it appeared to
solve all problems as I had no GI issues all day. The day began with the typical light wind,
rain and darkness for the 24 mile descent form Volcano. In 2011 I was super skittish and spent almost
no time in the aero bars. This year
while being much improved, I still lined up in the middle. Sure enough the top group of 10-14 took off
immediately and I never saw them again on the hill. That said, I averaged 29 mph and hit that
first turn ten minutes faster. My crew
also told me I was only 6 min down on the leaders so I was super pumped. I settled into a relaxed cadence, pushing
200w – my plan was to stay easy/relaxed to Hilo and then really push. Around this time I was going back and forth
with Chris Draper – I enjoyed that as we had biked most of the day 2 in 2011
together.
Around mile
40, as I was approaching Red Rd I flatted.
Luckily Marty Raymond was there and was able to loan me a front wheel as
the gash in the tire was too large. I
lost somewhere around 5-8 minutes, but it was a sloppy day so I wasn’t too
concerned about the time loss – there was still a big day of racing. Less than two miles later I was at the turn
to Red Rd. and as I went into the corner my rear brakes clamped down, I lost
control and went down, skidding a bit across the pavement. I quickly bounced up, checked the bike and
myself. Bike was fine. I had three gashes on my forearm that were
bleeding pretty good and had formed a contusion around the larger two; my ankle
had taken some impact and my hip hurt but there was no rip in the tri
suit. My crew had seen me go down; Adam
was closest and I asked him if I needed to get my arm cleaned up – he said to
just continue. That was exactly what I
needed to hear. I was quickly back up
and going. The impact had been on my
left side, but I found my lower right back to be tightening up. Over the next few miles I jumped out of the
saddle frequently to loosen up my back.
Eventually I got back in the aero bars (which was painful as that’s
where my wounds were – luckily the pressure on the aero pads cauterized the
wound). It wasn’t fun peeling my arm off
to climb though. The next 40 miles to
Hilo were uneventful. I lost the magnet
for my power meter in the crash so I was a bit blind, but I had established a
baseline HR that I maintained through Hilo.
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| Climbing up to Waimea |
After I left
Hilo my crew was telling me there were four guys up the road so I pushed to
catch them. I was feeling good. I was thinking back to the 12 hr rides Inaki
and I had done in early October that came followed the UM course for the next
54 miles. I was ready to race! I caught the four guys my crew had told me about
pretty quickly; Trout was the last I passed and he moved back around me pretty
quickly. I was happy to ride with him
through the rest of the gulches so I settled in about 50m behind for
awhile. As we approached a construction
zone with a 1-lane bridge (we had been warned we’d most likely all get stuck
for a while here) I caught back up and we both made the light. I pulled up next to him on the bridge and
said “that was a freebie,” pulled in front and promptly got a flat. Jinxed
myself. His crew called mine and I was
back on the road in 4-5 minutes.
I didn’t see
anyone for the next 30 miles. As I was
climbing from up to Waimea though we got reports of 2 serious crashes – my
friends Christian Isakson and Scott McDermott crashed separately and badly and
needed to be taken to the hospital. Both
are home now, but have a long road to recovery ahead and all thoughts and
prayers are appreciated. With the
knowledge that the winds were once again pretty crazy and the roads wet, I had
my crew swap out my front wheel for my training wheel at the 2500 ft line. This went really quick. Then I was moving again. Around this time I caught Inaki – I knew he
wasn’t having a great day but he was fighting tough. Seeing him got me pumped as we approached the
Kohalas – he was encouraging me to push.
We had done a 75 mile ride 2 weeks earlier that ended with a 20 minute
FTP effort going up the Kohalas. I tried
to channel that and push the same way I had that day and felt like I was
flying. The Kohalas are a beautiful place
and I felt much more comfortable pushing here than I did in 2011. Near the top
I came within a minute of Trout again, but hung back as I knew how skittish I
was on descents. Sure enough this
stretched my limits – it was a much tougher descent than 2011. We had similar wind, rain (downpouring at
times) and the braking situation/crash had gotten in my head a bit. I was 5 minutes slower coming down in the
race than I was with Inaki 2 weeks before – and trembling with both fear and
borderline hypothermia. I crossed the
line nearly 40 minutes faster than 2011 – probably my best day of
racing on a bike. When everything shook out,
I remained in 4th place, 18 minutes behind Billy, 2:20 ahead of Tony
O’Keefe and 40 minutes ahead of super runner, Miro Kregar – it was going to be
a battle in the lava fields! I had
thoughts of second at the beginning of the day, but David can ride and he
slammed that door in my face with authority – his 7:31 is scary good – and it
took the greatest performance Day 2 has ever seen (by 11+ minutes) by Mike
Coughlin to beat him.
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| A little banged up but -- Finished! Huge thanks to Helen (on Mike's crew) for bandaging me up! |
Day 3 – 52.4 Mile Run: 6:49:23, Total: 23:28:48
This was the
day I was waiting for; my favorite day. My
biggest goal for Ultraman was to push the back half of the run – to see how I
would respond mentally, especially considering my lack of miles entering the
event. I entered with confidence though;
I was running well aerobically and had been able to get in a 90 minute and 2 hr
progression run in my training. While
this was on the low end, I was confident that I hit an adequate mix of volume and
intensity to run a solid double marathon.
The day started off with a huge tailwind. It was warm and humid and I started sweating
quickly. My HR was also a little higher
than I expected it to be, but the pace was quick as well – I found myself with
a group (Billy, Tony, Mike Coughlin, Mike Owen, and David) – Miro and Kevin
Willis had immediately sped off the front.
I was racing
for third – I figured if I ran well Miro couldn’t put 40 minutes into me and
that I would put the 18 minutes I needed into Billy. Tony, on the other hand, had a history of
strong runs and was not nearly as far back as I would have liked. Around the 10k mark I ran up on Tony’s
shoulder and we chatted a bit – but at 7 miles I had to make a Poop stop. It was only a 2 minute stop but that was all
he needed. Shortly after that stop we
hit a headwind for a couple miles – rough!
I tried to relax into it, lean forward and not push as it was very early
in the day. Through Kawaihai I felt good
– my legs felt heavy from the start in 2011, and today they felt fresh. At the 30km mark we hit a mile long hill – I ran/walked
this to keep my HR down, maintaining the 2 minute gap to Tony as we turned onto
the Queen K. Here I was joined by my
pacer, Ryan Toner. The plan was for him
to stay with me for 20 miles (miles 20-40) and get me through this area strong. We were cruising pretty well for the first 12
miles, passing the marathon at 3:21:21, and the 50km at 3:59:34. Throughout this entire stretch I couldn’t
reel in Tony at all – he maintained his 2 minute lead and we remained in a
virtual tie.
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| Ryan and I in sync around the marathon - Ryan paced me for 14 miles, and got me through the roughest part |
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| Says it all - these guys were rock stars and got me through this quickly! |
As we crested the
climb I saw my parents – they had flown in the night before. I still felt awful, but when I saw them I
knew I had to start running…and I did so begrudgingly. Jen
started running with me here and for what it’s worth I never walked again. I started feeling better and better and was
enjoying the fact that she was breathing heavy and having a hard time keeping up. She dropped out short of 2 miles, as we were
approaching the 88 mile marker. I had
gotten the time gap to Tony at 8 minutes and knew if I was to make up the 6
minutes I needed I would have to move now.
The 88 mile marker was a key landmark for me as I had come out and done
2 x 20 minute tempo on that stretch (from 88-91 I had averaged 6:09/mile). I set a goal that I wanted to come within
1:30/mile of that and picked up the effort.
I had set my watch to autolap in 4 mile intervals and interval 11 had
just started. I looked down at my watch
and saw 7:07 pace and was super psyched; the next time I looked the pace was
6:53! My crew was getting pumped
watching me surge and the time gap was coming down rapidly (6:45 after 1 mile,
then 4:30). I passed a couple people- and could see Tony up the road and they told me Miro and Mike
Coughlin were just past him. Miles 40-44
were at 6:59 pace and 44-48 were at 7:09 pace.
I tried to
maintain the pace but was starting to fatigue from the effort. I really wanted to catch Mike and push him to
the finish – he was close to both the course and World records. My surge stalled out though – came within 40
seconds of him but couldn’t close. Around this time my HS buddy, Kimon, and his
girlfriend Judy surprised me on the course – was totally the boost I
needed! Judy did cartwheels down the
shoulder and Kimon ran with me for a couple hundred meters and I got new life. The last 4 miles I faded to 7:32 pace, but it
would have been worse without that jolt.
Both Mike and I got caught at the second to last light – Mike’s crew had
been incredible all day cheering and offering support and when I got stuck here
Khai made sure I was ready to finish strong.
He ran with me the next 200m and made me surge to get through the final
light. When I looked at my data, days
later, and isolated the last .75 miles I saw that his encouragement pushed me
to close out at 6:45 pace.
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| Tremendous support! |
This was by
far the best day of racing of my life – and I owe it to my crew, encouragement
from Mike’s crew, and the competitive drive of the guys I shared the course
with.
