For a variety of personal reasons, which I will not put the
reader through, my training for Ironman Arizona was not where I wanted. As the race approached, I had to face the
realization that I was undertrained and overweight; even by my own pudgy
standards.
There is no cramming for the Ironman exam. It takes months of consistent training to be
properly ready. I trained, just not to
the level I would have liked.
I left San Diego for Tempe on Thursday, and took a nice easy
drive out. Checked into my room, which
was actually in Mesa, as I went cheap and stayed eight miles away to save $45 a
night.
Friday I went over to the Ironman Village and picked up my
packet. Having done two full Ironman races,
I knew what to expect, I strolled through the vendors, talked to one of the
recovery boot vendors, and did a 10-minute demo. They felt pretty darn good, but they are out
of my budget right now.
I picked up my bib, timing chip, and goodies, and took a
stroll through the Ironman store. I
always get an M-dot shirt with the names of the participants on it. I have one from every half and full I’ve
done. And I liked the IMAZ coffee mug,
so I got one of those. I don’t need to
buy out the store anymore though, I’ve done this!
Got my stuff, time to put my feet up for a bit. As I drove back to my motel, I passed the
spring training facility for the World Champion Chicago Cubs! What a facility, and the cool part is they
got the streets around the park named Addison, Clark, Waveland, Sheffield.
My routine for the day before a race is to get a short, 30-minute
shakeout ride, then rack my bike and rest.
The shakeout ride went fine, but I thought my rear brake was soft. I gave my bike to bike tech to check it out. They were swamped and had a 3.5 hour wait, so
I went and had some lunch. Came back and
still had to wait an hour. Ugh. Finally got my bike, racked it, and went into
rest mode. Social media off, calm the
mind, visualize a successful race.
I slept GREAT! Woke
up 10 minutes before the alarm. Had my
breakfast as I drove in. Got parked,
made my final preparations and now nothing to do but wait. I found a place to sit and get off my
feet. Pros start at 6:40. Age groupers
start at 6:50 in a controlled self-seeded start.
About 6:20 I start putting the wetsuit on, take my morning dry
bag down, and got in the queue for the Roka swim course with the 1:20 swimmers.
BOOM! There goes the
cannon and the pro men are off.
BOOM! There goes the
cannon and the pro women are off.
BOOM! There goes the
cannon and the age-groupers start! And
now, we are moving. It didn’t take long
and into the water, my race starts.
Swim, swim, I can’t see. Roll
over, rinse goggles, go. Swim, smash,
smash, goggles and cap knocked off.
Grabbed the goggles, lost the cap.
Swim, swim, can’t see. Goggle
fix. I could not get the goggles to stay
clear. Finally got far enough as we
approached a bridge, and I could sight off it, so I wasn’t worried about the
limited vision. I felt strong swimming
at this point, and this continued throughout the swim. I figured I had dropped back to the 1:30-1:35
swimmers with the goggle issues, and had some negative self - talk, and doubt going on here. So I gave myself a butt-chewing and got to
it. Then good positive self – talk as I
got in a groove! Here comes the final
red buoy, left turn, I can here cheering, and announcing, and can see the exit
stairs, and volunteers, and I’m out of the water! In 1:23:17!
My second best swim at this distance, which is three Ironman races, and
one Tiki Swim. But it feels like a PR
with the start being so bad. I really
thought it was about 1:30 so I was stoked.
Off to Transition one.
To be continued…
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