Docter Strangemoose, or How I learned to ignore my ACL and drag my butt across the finish line.
» August 13th, 2009
Anon down St. Vrain
Holy cow-rap -- what an intense weekend. Well, not in the way that one would expect, but sitting here at the coffee shop, a little after six, on an idle Wednesday afternoon, it’s just hard to believe that the 2009 5430 Long Distance triathlon has already come and gone -- and I’m officially half of an IronMoose… erm… IronMan.
Only my third triathlon and it was a doozie. I really do have a new appreciation and respect for people who can finish the IronMan series races in the six hour range, because, well, you can’t be human! Skynet called -- they wan’t their T-100’s back. 
Thursday and Friday… and maybe Saturday.
Ah, taper week, my love! I took Thursday and Friday off of work so I could take care of some errands and relax -- just get away from the job stress and focus on what would have to be accomplished on race day. I did intend on cleaning house a bit, but I didn’t get much around to it. Oh, well.
I did get some laundry done, and I somehow managed to finish the fourth season of being cracked out of my mind… erm… I mean the fourth season of Stargate SG-1. (Josh has been kind enough to let me borrow them, season by season.)
Thursday, after a long, exhausting day of playing Sims 3, Josh and I went to the park to do some riding. I needed to test out the disc wheel for riding dynamics -- just get a feel for it and determine if I wanted to race with that or the HED 3 rear wheel. The wind kicked up a little bit due to an afternoon storm, so I got to feel what it might be like if there was a little breeze out on the course. It wasn’t really any different than fighting with the HED, so I thought that the disc would provide some good aerodynamics for downhill inertia. (Boy, was I right!)
While we were out, I passed right by KBoss, who is one of the editors at the company where I work. She had Thursday off, but I didn’t hear her call my name. 
Friday I did some shopping before my nieces birthday party. I got a new tri-suit with a thicker chamois and a fuel belt. Went from the bike shop on to Lady Bug’s party -- she’s four this year. She decided she wanted a pool party, so I spent most of the time in the water keeping track of her and my 5 year old nephew.
For someone who was supposed to be resting, I was throwing kids around in the pool, swimming around, and trying to teach my oldest nephew (I call him either Tiger or Bud) how to do butterfly. After that, I took Monster (the middle nephew) to the playground, where he, and the rest of the kids, pulled me around, climbed on me, hung off my arms and legs, and drained the rest of my batteries. Better than any other workout I’d get. 
I wish I had their kind of energy for a race! Where does it all come from!?
Saturday I had team counsel meeting with the swim team, and then I had to jet to the rez so I could get to the mandatory pre-race meeting. Same old stuff. Rules, regulations, and course information. Got to pick up my packet, got a 12 pack of hammer gels, some magnesium supplements, and a gel bottle. Ran into Andy and Patrick from the team, and we went to a place in downtown Boulder called Proto’s Pizza. 
They didn’t have chicken, so I got a pesto and spinach pie. Pretty good stuff, if you’re up that way. Check them out!
Got back in time to take Argos to training. Of course, he would only listen to the class instructor. Little turd. After that, went home, got shaved down, packed for the race, and I was in bed by 10:30.
Race Day
Ugh. Four in the morning is too early for anyone to wake up. For some reason, my roommate was still awake. I took a quick shower, got dressed, had a pre-race meal, let the dog out, loaded the car and for some reason, I recorded this (updated, so you can actually hear the audio):
So, I sound like a tool when I wake up. Scatter-brained. No starbucks opened, so I wouldn’t be able to get my morning cup of coffee. Epic sad. 
And to make matters worse, transition opened at 5:00, and that’s exactly when I was hitting the road. Half way to Boulder, I realised that I forgot to get a can of spray-on sunscreen. I called Patrick to see if I could borrow some of his -- he was already there with everyone else, and I was just turning off I-25 onto 36.
I wasn’t the last one there, thankfully. Traffic going into the rez was a mess, and it took me almost ten minutes to get to my parking spot due to traffic. There were people riding in on their bikes from Boulder, transition bags on their backs. That’s one good way to do it! I got my bottles filled at the car, got my bike together, tires checked, stickers and race numbers on the bike, and headed toward the transition area.
Got my body numbers just as the sun was starting to come up. Walked into the transition area and heard one of the workers call out that we had only ten minutes left until the transition area closed. Crap. Took me a moment, but I found a spot in the Wave 8 area (it was almost completely full), and I had to throw my transition area together at the speed of light. I was starting to freak out a little, because I thought I was forgetting something. Something just… eating at the back of my mind.
“30 SECONDS! PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY OUT OF THE TRANSITION AREA!”
Did a once-over and everything seemed to be together just fine. Walked out and realised that 1) I was still wearing my street-clothes and 2) I was carrying my transition bags. (Usually, I would store all my crap in my transition bags and leave them behind my bike, so I wouldn’t have to worry about it during the race.) I wasn’t even in my wetsuit yet, and I still felt like I was forgetting something.
I met up with the team, since Andy said we should meet up behind the stage and watch the pro/elite wave take off. When I found them, Patrick was saying that the timing chips that we were wearing around our ankles reminded him of those angle tracking anklets that they give to prisoners on house arrest. That was it. I forgot my timing chip.
After some pictures, Andy took me to one of the Boulder Triathlon teams tents, which he practiced with after work from time to time, and we left my bag with them. It would have been better than walking the half mile back to the car to store it (because I would have had to walk half a mile back to it to change, and I would have been too exhausted after the race to be running around all over the place.) Then I borrowed some sunscreen from the team -- from the industrial sized tub of it they had -- and the numbers on my arms -- put there in permanent marker -- rubbed clean off. Not even a trace!
When I went back to get my timing chip, I had one of the ladies re-mark my arms, then I was good to go. (The numbers came off again in my wet-suit during the swim. Bleh.)
And so it began…
I’m all for taking a refreshing dip in a lake at half-seven in the morning, especially after tossing and turning all night long and waking up at 4. No -- I’m serious. It wakes you up, and I knew that this was going to be the best part of my race. (And I was right. I was ranked 100 in the swim out of 1134 athletes. Top 9% baby, YEAH!)
I got back to the beach about fifteen minutes before my wave. I had my wetsuit half on, and I was looking for Patrick since we were in the same wave. The sun was shining right back toward the beach, and from where I was standing, I could see the people in the orange wave taking off. But the orange caps looked red from where I was standing. So there I was, standing far up on the beach with my wetsuit half on, thinking crapples! My heat’s leaving without me!!
It was a good thing that another red wave person walked by me just then, or I would have felt like a real dumbass — running down the beach, pulling on my suit, and starting in the wrong wave.
I warmed up a few laps, then found Patrick standing in the shallows. He was shivering pretty bad since he wasn’t wearing a neoprene wetsuit. There was only one wave ahead of us, and they were just about on their way out the gate when I found him. Purple heat took off, then the reds took up position at the starting line. Man -- that pit of adrenalin. Wished Patrick good luck, counted down with the crowd, and took off at the front of the line.
There are some aggressive swimmers out there. I got smacked upside the head a time or two… elbowed… shoved… kicked in the chest.
Man, I LOVE open water swimming. 
It’s so much fun, and full contact freestyle aside, I was really digging this swim. I went out good, I was keeping ahead of the pack, and most of all, I was feeling really good. Never even really got tired, and I could have pushed myself harder, but I wanted to save energy for the rest of the race. Looking back now, I really wish I would have picked it up — with my ACL acting up in the run, I didn’t have much of an endurance issue after T2 until the last 3 miles of the race. I swam the mile in 26 before, and if I could have made the whole 1.2 miles in the very low 24’s (VERY low) I would have ranked first in the swim.
Notice: Left arm behind me reaching for the zipper strap, and the darn thing is wrapped around my right arm. Behind me: the guy I was pacing with.
By the time I got back to the beach, I was in a mixed crowd of purple, pink and orange wave swimmers. I think I was fourth in my wave to leave the water. Me and this other red-cap were really racing after the last turn, since we paced almost the whole way around the lake. My goal was to get a body between me and him. I hit the beach first, but he was the smart one and ran into transition, whereas I walked up the beach trying to find the strap for my zipper on the wetsuit. I lost about 20-30 seconds there, and lost one place because of it.
But, then again, I wasn’t there to be seriously competitive. My only goal was to go at a comfortable pace and finish the race. That’s it.
The Bike
Got into the transition area, got my wetsuit off quick enough. Threw on my Aero helmet, my glasses, and my socks, grabbed Aethon, and out of T1 I ran. I had my shoes clipped on the bike already, so I got to the mounting line and slipped in.
You could always hear when someone with a disc wheel was about to pass you. It’s funny, they kind of give off a noise like a car, for some reason, except it’s kind of unique. Speaking of discs, one lady said she loved my wheel as I passed her up. I don’t think you’d be able to tell what the design was as it was spinning, but the red is set to match the rest of the bike.
The first portion of the ride was like any other ride I’ve done in Boulder over the last few weekends. Nothing really changed other than I was a little more fatigued than usual, and I was holding back to conserve some of my energy. One thing we didn’t do when practicing was do the right part of the course on the back half of the loop. Going down St. Vrain, we’d always turn right at 65th street, instead of 75th. My guess is that in previous years they’ve done 65th instead, because they used to loop back in toward the rez, turn around and start over. This year, they went down 75th, which eventually turns into 73rd, then turned in on a side road toward IBM for half a mile, and turned back around and continued on. This new straight was nice because it was all flat. The road into the rez is a little on the hilly side, and the last little bit is murder on tired legs.
The bike rode like a dream, and I didn’t have any issues with it other than the speedometer setting. (Not even a flat tire!) After about 20 or so miles, it stopped taking speed, but did fine with cadence. This is why I really need a Garmin of some sort. Satellite telemetry to tell your location and how fast you’re going? Heck yeah! Oh, and speaking of St. Vrain…
Vrrrrroooommm!!
Don’t kill me, Mom -- but I got a ways over 44 MPH on the hill the first time down. 
There’s that pesky inertia thing again. Before we went down the second part of the hill, I had to slow down both times. The first time, where I was going over 44 (that’s where my wheel was spinning so fast, that the speedometer couldn’t pick up the magnet, and went from 44, to 23, to 7, to 3 then to 0), the front wheel started to get a little bit of a wobble to it. Did not want. The second I was getting too close to the person in front of me, and I didn’t want a drafting penalty.
I started to come through for the second lap, and Doston (who was supposed to be doing this race but mysteriously wasn’t) was taking pictures of our swim team members in the race. I was starting to feel it, though. I fried my legs a bit on the first six miles of the second loop on the false flats, and I was starting to falter a bit. Not quite to the point of bonking, but I was really feeling it. (It always felt good to grab a fresh water bottle and down it while passing the aid stations. But man, I had to pee so bad by the time I got into the run.)
After fifteen or twenty miles, you really do fall into a pack. I noticed that I was playing leapfrog with the same ten or so people for the rest of the bike leg. Of course we’d pass other people, and get passed by quicker racers (the elites were just finishing their second lap and passing me just as I was turning in toward the IBM turn-pin on my first lap. Sheesh, those guys are crazy fast!) I passed a clydes or two, which got me to thinking that in this particular race, perhaps I should have raced in the Clydesdale division. I wasn’t going to win anything in the age group category…
I got to the third aid station (the pirate themed one) and I yelled out for a gatorade. She wasn’t able to get the seal off in time, and she said she couldn’t as I passed. I didn’t think it would be a huge deal at all. (The had run out of the regular water bottles for gatorade, and were handing out the plastic bottles with the drink spouts. Well, not only do they have the plastic seal, for your protection, they also have a freshness seal INSIDE the bottle. So I was trying to drink, and nothing was coming out. I couldn’t get the flap up, so I was going down the road, tucked in aero position, trying to gnaw the darn seal off this bottle. Took me a while, but I got it off… AND a healthy splashing of orange endurance formula gatorade all over my face and arms. Ugh. Fun.
By the end, my lower back was starting to ache. I think I need to invest in a better seat, as well -- the one I have isn’t really doing it for me, and it’s not entirely comfortable after 35 miles. The last eight miles was where I was really starting to question weather or not I would be ready for an IronMan by November of 2010 -- even after doing a triathlon series with a half included over the preceding summer. (Looking at it now, I still kind of figure I’m crazy in the head.)
Running on shaky legs
I took my time when I came back into transition. It took me a bit to find my spot again, as there wasn’t this big honkin’ red bike to flag me down like a road flare. Sat down, had a gel, took some magnesium suppliments, and moved my orthotics from my cycling shoes to my running shoes. Got my race number belt on, then my fuel belt.
On a side note, if I may: Why in the world doesn’t FuelBelt integrate a race number bib clip on any of their products? People DO wear them for races, so it would make sense to add the ability to hold your race number so you didn’t have to wear two separate belts on the run! Just a thought.
Coach Hawks (behind me in the green shirt).
ANYway. I was leaving T2, and I heard someone call my name. Well, they called the name I used to go by when I was younger. I figured I heard my brother in law, but when I looked, I saw my high school swimming coach standing right next to the gate! Still don’t know why he was there, or who he was there for, but that really did put some wind in my sails for the first part of the run. Endurance races are a mental game, so every little bit of encouragement helps a lot.
I put myself into a nice, steady pace -- just to run as far as I could without having to walk. I was being passed by… well… everyone. I don’t think I ever actually passed anyone. (There was a guy with some hip pain on the last leg, but we were doing the whole leap-frog thing…)
After I got between the second and third aid station, about four or so miles in, something in my knee started acting up. I was still feeling strong, other than that. I’d been having these knee pains for the last two or three months whenever I run, but they hadn’t been this persistent. The second time it happened, I had to hobble back to the car. This time, I just worked through it the best I could.
On the back half of the loop was the ONLY porto-potty on the whole running course, and like I said before, I really had to pee. I had to wait in line for ten minutes before I could get in. I think this pit-stop took about 15 minutes off my total time. (Next time, I think I’ll stop at one of the restrooms on the bike course, since two out of the four stations have one.)
My ACL was progressively getting worse. The strange thing was that if I would slow to a walk, it would hurt more than if I was to keep a slow pace, but I needed to let it recover a bit ever so often. It wasn’t an endurance issue with this race, it was a knee issue. Blast it all! 
Passed the starting line for my second lap, heard Doston cheering again. Jogged through the area so it at least LOOKED like I was doing something to all the spectators. Something really odd happened, though. I got to the one mile marker sign, and even though you’ve already gone seven and a half miles, you’re sitting there looking at this sign… and for some reason I was like… awwwww… man. This is where it was turning into a mental game, because it felt like I was just passing the first mile and the rest were for naught.
I kept my chin up and kept psyching myself up. Thought about all the people at home who said they’d be thinking about me, and there was my second wind, beit a pain in the knee sorta wind. 
Andy passed me up. He left waves before I did in the swim, and I passed him going out on the bike. Seems like all that distance I put between me and anyone else in the race was closing fast. He did great, though.
Then, Patrick passed me. My knee was really starting to get the better of me. People along the course were really supportive, though. It was nice having the people at the aid stations cheering you on and keeping you going. I was alternating water and gatorade by station, every third I would get a gel. I got ice where I could and iced my knee when I really needed to stop, dumped the rest down my suit to try and lower my temperature a bit.
Consequently: don’t unstrap your fuel belt and try to readjust it when you have ice hanging out in the front of your suit.
I got past the porto-potty, and started feeling a little fatigued. I had four more miles to go, and I was a mile away from the next station, so I decided to break into one of my own gel packs that I was carrying. It was the first time I needed to use one of my own, since they had them so readily available on the course. I made a stupid mistake. I was already starting to feel like I was going to hurl. The heat was stifling, and the gels were warm from being up against my body the whole race. I pulled one out of the pocket, tore it open and took it down. I don’t even remember buying one that was coffee flavored, but that’s what I got. After almost gagging on it, I forced it down with the last few drops of water on my fuel belt, and kept on going. I still had that feeling, but I was running along feeling like I was about to hurl a cup of coffee all over the footpath.
And I had coffee burps the whole rest of the way.
At the finish line.
The last two miles were really hell. I wanted to run it all the way, just to say I did. “Come on, Dustin! You can do this!” I kept thinking to myself. But with the knee, I was stopping every quarter of a mile to walk about a hundred feet, then starting the run again. There are so many times on the last two or three miles I just wanted to give up and walk. Then again, hell, I was determined to finish the damned thing, and I was going to give my everything.
I got to the concrete. Last quarter of a mile. Closer and closer. Finally, the finish line was in sight, and that’s where I really started picking up the pace (but not my feet, I guess.) There’s a small surge of emotion when you cross the line your first time, where you’re sitting there thinking holy crap! Did I just do a 70 mile race?!
I found John right after I finished. He had just taken a quick dip in the rez, and it didn’t sound like a bad idea at all. I put my belts, shoes and glasses with my transition bag, and I took a quick swim to get washed off a little. Man, I really felt like I was going to barf. I went back to the bag, put my clothes on, and went to the food area. I got two slices of watermelon, a banana, a little carton of Athlete’s Honey Milk, and half a vegetarian Qdoba burrito. Man, food has NEVER tasted so good as it did at that moment. Literally, I was famished!
Got loaded up, and headed for home. Man, I was just sore all over the place. Just drained. (In a good way, of course.)
Later on in the afternoon, we had a potluck dinner with the swim team -- which was really awesome. Everyone brought such awesome food, and I was still really hungry. I had JP look at my knee, since he does acupuncture and works on sports injury. This is where I found out that the pain in my knee was in my ACL. I think I’m going to see Dr. Dan in the next two weeks or so, then have JP do a treatment on it and see if I can’t get it back to feeling normal.
Overall, I felt pretty good about the race. It’s really a life experience I would suggest that anyone try at least once. Even if you don’t do well, at least you can tell people you did it and finished, and most people can’t fathom doing a race at that distance.
821’st place out of 1134 athletes. Ranked 67th in my age group (darn knee).
Swim: 31:13 -- Ranked 100 -- top 9%
Transition: 2:36
Bike: 2:54:13 -- Ranked 585 -- Avg. 19.3 MPH
Transition: 2:53
Run: 2:58:55 -- Ranked 996 -- Run pace: Continental Shift (erm… I mean 13:40 Minute mile)
Total time: 6:29:51
Goal for Boulder IronMan 70.3
Next year, when I do this thing again, I think I’d like to take at least an hour and 15 minutes off my time. I would like to be ANYWHERE UNDER 5:15:00, which means I’d have to bring my running pace to around an 8 minute mile, and boost my average bike speed to the low-mid twenties. I think I also want to go out quicker in the swim, and try to rank in the top 3%, or do better than 25th place in the water. (This calls for a plan of action!)
I think I want to plan this race out a lot better, as well. Nutrition and goals are a good thing to have for a race like this, and I hope I’m in better shape to be able to do it all.
Sorry for the novel, if you read this far. 
Check out the gallery below. Cheers!
Tags: 70.3, ACL, Aethon, Andy, Bike, Boulder, Boulder 5430, Coach, Coffee, Disc Wheels, Doston, Fuel Belt, Gallery, Gatorade, Gels, Goals, Hawks, Ice, IronMan, John, Josh, KBoss, Knee, Lady Bug, Monster, Nephew, Niece, open water swimming, Patrick, Porto-Potty, Results, Run, Supplements, Swim, Tiger, Triathlon
