The Ironman Coeur d'Alene Experience

Ah yes, it's the week after the Ironman. My legs are more or less non-functional, so I might as well sit around and blog. Yes, I'm working on writing up my race report - isn't that what everyone does on completion of an Ironman?? But first I wanted to take a little time to talk about the experience of doing this particular race - Ironman Coeur d'Alene. My friend Sharon (here with me in the world's awesomemest M-Dot shirts) has done IMAZ, and I've done IMFL, and both of us agreed that the IMCdA was simply amazing,

To get an idea of why, you have to picture coming down 10 blocks of downtown Coeur d'Alene with both sides of the street lined with cheering throngs of people - you zoom through here on the bike several times and each time it just sends your spirits soaring. You feel like you're in the Tour de France or something. Then of course there's the beautiful scenery - the lake, the rolling hills, the green valleys. Simply spectacular.

The aid stations and on-course support are also terrific. From the Mardis-Gras themed aid station on the run to the bagpipers on the hill of the bike, there was something around every corner to keep you smiling when the race got tough. People in neighborhoods sat out with boom boxes or squirt guns, dance music and entertainment along the way.

Then, the finisher's chute is downright crazy. Those downtown streets have even more people than before, and all of them are going nuts as you run the last eight blocks toward the big Ironman arch. Wow.

Of course, there are also some difficult aspects of this race. The weather in Coeur d'Alene changes by the minute. In the five days we were there, we had everything from chilly to hot, from calm to windy, and from dry to absolutely torrential rain. There was also a big lightning storm thrown in for good effect (fortunately not on race day). The lake was 53 degrees when we got there, but had warmed to the high 50's by race day (I do NOT believe it was 62 as the race officials said - they always lie about stuff like that, and I know what a 62 degree lake feels like!). So you're definitely playing roulette with the weather when you sign up, you might get a scorcher or a freezer or anything in between.

Overall, this race was quite an experience though, and I really enjoyed myself on this course. I'll write up the particulars of how it went for me personally, but I would highly recommend this Ironman to anyone who is looking for a terrific race in a gorgeous location.

Countdown to Ironman, Week 7: Riding the new IMCdA Bike Course!

As Ironman Coeur d'Alene creeps ever closer, I was hoping I would get a chance to take a look at the new bike course before seeing it on race day. Fortunately, my step-sons both live in Spokane, a hop-skip-jump from Coeur d'Alene, and so we combined a family weekend of BBQs and fun with family with some time for me to take Pinkalicious out on the course and see first-hand what was in store for us.

The day I chose to ride the course, Saturday, was not especially promising, weather-wise. It dropped to 35 degrees that night, and was still a chilly 42 when I set off in the morning. On top of that, the big wind storm that wreaked havoc on the poor Ironman St. George participants seemed to be blowing up through Idaho as well. The winds were howling, the lake had 1 - 2 foot whitecaps, and I was very glad that I wasn't actually racing, but just checking out the course.

First I rode down the Lake Drive that constitutes the first part of the course. I had already seen this on the Computrainer Ironman course, but it was far prettier first-hand. I tried to picture my ride through town on this quiet Saturday morning the way it will look on race day, streets lined with cheering mobs. A thrill of excitement and goosebumps, not to mention a little lurch of the stomach shot through me as a small echo of the race day nerves to come. Then, after moseying along the small roller hills of the lakeshore drive, I headed back through town and out onto the newly added course on Hwy 95. I had no idea of what to expect here, and to be honest I was not thrilled about riding on a highway with all of those cars whizzing past.

As it turned out, the ride is quite scenic, and I think on race day when we'll get a couple of lanes of traffic all to ourselves, it will be very beautiful. To ride the course right now, you have to stay on the shoulder, which means contending with a serious rumble strip. These are very hazardous to cyclists, especially those of us on thin tires with squirrely aerobars to contend with. Throw in some wickedly gusting winds, and you have a bit of a nerve-wracking ride on your hands. Still, in most places the shoulder was very wide, leaving me lots of room to avoid the dangerous strip. And the good news was that motorists were not likely to casually venture onto the shoulder and strike me, since the rumble strip would quickly alert them to any detours from their lane into mine.

So, on to the question that's probably on everyone's mind who will be riding the new course: What about the hills? To be honest, the first one is pretty intimidating when you look at it, especially if you look UP and see the road winding way above where you are now (later on, you'll get to look DOWN into this amazing valley below you and wonder that you managed to pedal your way so high). The good news is that because you're on a highway, the grade is very gentle. It probably tops out at about 6%. On race day, this could make these hills seem deceptively easy. I rarely got into my lowest gear, and I don't currently have a compact crank on my bike. So it would be easy to overbake these hills on race day by a few watts here and there, and enter T2 with considerably less gas in your tank than you counted on. I filed this away in my mental notebook for race day: stay within my zones on the hills and you'll be fine. For me, riding the hills put my mind at ease. There's nothing here that I don't ride a thousand times in the hills behind my house. I can tell myself  "It's just another hilly ride, take it easy and enjoy the scenery."

And on this particular ride, the hills took a big backseat to the wind. I literally would be winding my way up a hill, reach the flat part at the crest and get hit by a wall of wind so stiff that it made me gear DOWN from the gear I was climbing the hill in. I had to pedal harder on the flats and even the downhills than I did on the uphills. This had the effect of making the whole first half of the Hwy 95 portion into an effective 20 mile uphill grind. Somehow I think on race day it might feel a whole lot easier (if we don't get an IMSG-style windstorm, that is).

All in all, my take on the new course is:

Hills: not too terrible.

Technical: None. All of the sharp turns of the old course are gone. You'll want to be comfortable with screaming down a couple miles of 6% grade at 45 mph+ though.

Highway: Rideable for people who want to check it out before race day

Scenery: Top Notch. Green valleys, horse pastures, rolling hills, big clouds scudding across an impossibly blue sky. Glimpses of the lake in the distance. What's not to love?

Old Part of the course: Fun, with cheering sections in the city, and beautiful lakeshore views outside of town. A couple of rollers will warm you up in the first 15 miles.

Race Report: Scoggins Valley Olympic Triathlon

I bet you've never read a race report that starts like this: I was awakened at 3:00 am by a screaming chicken...

But oh, I'm getting ahead of myself. First off, this race was a last-minute entry to my race calendar. The Olympic race that I had planned on doing (my all-time favorite Black Hills Triathlon) was cancelled due to some bonehead type-A triathlete cussing out some poor old couple in the park that it's held in. So I had to scramble to find another Oly that fit into my shrinking September timeframe. I already have a half-Iron in the last week of the month, so I couldn't put anything too close to that. The Scoggins Valley is a course I've done before (in the sprint and Enduro distances only though, never an Oly distance) so I thought it would be a good one. It's a very hilly and challenging course, but one that suits me. And I've done a LOT of hills this year in training.

Goals for this race: Mostly train through, no taper, use race to dial in transitions, nutrition, pacing, etc. for half-Iron. BUT, I was hoping to do fairly well (I know, conflicting goals there), thinking that a top-5 women's finish was within the realms of possibility. However, in the week before the race, I did a 60 mile bike and a 3-hour trail run, so I knew I would not be on fresh legs.

Okay, back to the screaming chicken. I was camping the week before the race, and we had so much fun up at the lake that we didn't roll back into town until about 8:30 Friday night. Uh Oh. I haven't packed for my Saturday triathlon yet, and it's 120 miles away so I have to leave at 4:30 am. I hurriedly throw my tri gear together and sling it in the car. Since I was home late, I assumed that hubby put the chickens up (it was dark when I got home). Since I was coming home, I guess he thought that I would do it when I got there. That explains why at 3:00 am the chickens were screaming - a raccoon was in the henhouse! Wow, there's nothing like a big shot of adrenaline to boost you out of a deep sleep. After scaring off the raccoon (and sadly dispatching the one chicken he managed to get ahold of), there was no point in going back to bed. So it was eat some breakfast, make tea, and off to the race. In the craziness, I left my Accelerade bottles in the fridge. Luckily I always pack along a ziploc baggie of extra powder, so I just mixed some up at the race course.

SWIM: 21:31
Beautiful day. Promises to be sunny, yet not too hot. The lake is warm, mid-70s. I decide on full-sleeve suit anyways, for speed. One of my goals this year is to lose my trepidation about getting out right in front of the swim pack so I positioned myself front and center, not my usual to-the-side approach. Two women that were fast broke away from the pack and I went with them. Damn, these gals are smokin! I decided to go for it and try for a good swim split, was feeling very froggy. VERY happy with my swim time: 21:31. I think that's a PKPR (post kids PR). The other two women came in just ahead of me and believe it or not the three of us turned in the three fastest swim splits of the day (faster than ALL of the men in the race!)

T1 2:29
Went as planned. Well executed.. Tied for fastest women's T1 split. I'm getting my game down. However, several men went under 2:00. Clearly I could improve!

BIKE  1:19:33
This course is hilly. Nothing but hills. Up. Down. Up. Down. Most of them are rolling so you don't notice a lot of extra effort, but there are a couple of sustained climbs. Two-loop course lets you see it all a second time. My second loop was slightly faster than my first as I became more confident of the course. My goal was not to use my brakes at all. When I did this course in a sprint race, I braked down too many of the hills, making me use more energy going up the next one. Mission accomplished, I hit a tuck on the hills and roared along. I kept it very aerobic and felt strong. My split put me about at a 19 mph average. A bit slower than I want to go at the Half-Iron, but a much hillier course. Also, legs did not feel fresh, which I expected with no taper. I used the course to practice my race nutrition. One gel every half an hour plus Accelerade. Stomach felt great.

During the bike loops, the duathlon and sprint races disgorged all of their athletes onto the course, so there was no real way to tell where I was at in the race. The only data point I had was that no women had passed me, so I knew at a minimum I was in 3rd overall.

T2  1:22

A little slower than I wanted. I had trouble with my right shoelace which popped out of where I had it tucked. Could've saved 15 - 20 seconds here.

RUN  57:25

What can I say, the run is never my strong point. This was however a VERY hilly run. Most of the women's run times were over 50 minutes. So my time is not as slow as it looks :-)  Mostly I just kept it aerobic, wanting to feel like I was training for more of a half-Iron pace. I thought I was well within my goal of still finishing top 5 in the women's race, so I stayed mellow.

That is, until I got to the aid station just before the run turn-around and the volunteers yelled "First Place Woman!!!!" at me. SAY WHAT?? I think I might've run just a teeny bit faster if I'd known that. Cripes! Now all of a sudden I was interested in pace. One gal caught me just after that, a seventeen year old who went on to win the race. She was also the fastest swimmer, a great all-around athlete! After the turnaround, I took a hard look at who was behind me. Looked like five women within 2 - 4 minutes, all within striking range. I picked up the pace for a negative run split and tried to hold them off. One caught me in the last two miles, and I kept the rest at bay for an overall 3rd place women's finish.

BOTTOM LINE

I'm very happy with my race as I accomplished both of my goals. I feel like I set myself up to have a good half-Iron by practicing my nutrition and pacing. And I turned in a top-3 finish on a hard course.I was 3:40 behind 1st place and 1:50 behind 2nd place.  I think I could decide to go back to this course in another year and really nail it. My training on the hills payed off as I felt strong and confident, especially on the bike. I've run a lot of hill repeats this year too. That doesn't really look very evident in my run split, but given the fact that my legs were not all tapered and fresh, I'm pretty happy with even my run performance.

Tri Coach: Know Your Course, Train For Your Course

How often have you been lounging around the food tables after a triathlon and heard the following:
"Wow, I couldn't believe the course was so hilly!"
"I didn't expect the swim to be so cold"
"Can you believe that one hill on the run? It was so steep!"
"The wind on the bike course was unbelievable."

Now, way back in the stone ages when I started doing triathlons, this was excusable. You see, there was no internet. Those of you who are younger can gasp now. I repeat: There Was No Internet. If we signed up for a triathlon, it was sight-unseen. There were no course profiles online, no Google Earth, no MapMyRide.com to give you an elevation profile. No Garmins, GPS, no blogs to read of other athletes who had done the course. If you didn't personally know someone who had done it, you went in blind. Sometimes, the race director would put a little blurb in the photocopied race brochure that described the course. Of course, these were always done in the most optimistic of ways (my favorite was a race brochure that described the bike course as a "mostly downhill circular course" - WTF? perhaps designed by MC Escher??.) Some courses, like the infamous Whisky Dick triathlon, became reknowned among triathletes for their challenging and difficult courses, but I went in to many races not knowing what to expect.

These days, there is no excuse for this. Which brings up to step one when you sign up for a triathlon and begin training for that specific race:

1) Read the Course Description

These are usually online on the race's website. Often they will give you a specific map, and even an elevation profile. Even if they only give you street directions, take that to mapmyride.com, enter it in (or search on it first, chances are someone may have already done this work for you) and check the little box that allows you to see the elevation profile. Do a google search for "race reports" and the name of the triathlon and read what other people have said about the course. Is it typically windy? hot? cold? Sometimes the name of the race gives it away. In our neck of the woods, the early season "Duck Bill Chill" and "Beaver Freezer" triathlons are unlikely to be warm and balmy. There have been years when these races were run with snow falling. I once did a race in The Dalles, Oregon, a place that regularly holds world windsurfing championships. What do you think the odds are that the course would be windy (I watched a guy who unwisely used a disk wheel get picked up and blown halfway across the road).  Find out exactly what you're in for and your race day will go a whole lot smoother.

2) If Possible, Train on the Course

If it's a local enough race, go and train on the actual course a couple of times. Especially if it's hilly or technical, get an idea of where you can go fast, where you need to be cautious. Keep an eye out for 90-degree turns at the bottom of a steep hill, or areas that are exposed to the wind. For races that are too far away, this option may not be possible, although many of the IM courses are now available if you have a Computrainer at home (I only dream of this!)

3) Train in Similar Conditions

If the course is hilly, train on hills. If it's windy, train in wind. Hot? Train in the heat. If you can, train in harder or worse conditions. I did a half-Ironman once where the course description said there would be a hill with a 15% grade. So I looked online until I found a local hill steep enough to have a 15% grade, and I went on my bike and took a look at it. Holy Crap! Good thing the first time I saw a hill like that was not in the race! The bike course was a two-lap course, so I made it my business to set up a training course that hit my 15% hill three times in 45 miles. By the time I got to the race, I was, well... not exactly zooming up the hill. But it didn't kill me or intimidate me any more. I wasn't the one crying by the side of the road at least. Make sure you have met the course conditions before you get to the course and you will be more prepared than many triathletes.

4) Drive the Course

If you can get to the race venue at least the afternoon before the race, drive the course. Even if you've ridden the course, this is a good idea. Make sure you know where any turns are. Pick out landmarks that will warn  you of upcoming course turns ("I'll turn right after the big oak tree and the windmill"). You would be surprised how many athletes get lost on courses every season. Don't be one of them! Also look at the course for specific hazards - gravel or glass on the shoulder or on turns, bumpy pavement or holes in the pavement, signifigant roadkill, things like that. Make sure you know what you can expect to encounter on race day.

Now you're prepared to race the course, not just survive it. You won't be one of those athletes telling your friends how stunned you were by the challenges that the course presented, you'll be the one who met those challenges head on, aimed with your knowledge, planning, and training.