Ironman Louisville: The Bike

I could already tell that things weren’t going according to plan; I could hear some kind of rhythmic clicking sound coming from my bike. After some deduction, I was pretty convinced it was my bottom bracket, which I had pulled off to clean and replaced. Maybe I did it wrong; I’ll have to stop by Pro Cycling and ask Alex. Add to that, my chain was not nearly as clean as I thought it was earlier in the week and was slippery on the gears. Finally, I went into the race knowing that my chain stay rubbed against the drivetrain-side wall of my disc cover, and generally was left with the feeling that I may have caused more harm than good to my race-day well being by attempting to go all DIY in the months leading up to the race.

Quickly into the bike ride, cyclists began to fly past me. I knew going into the race that I planned to swim well and ride VERY conservatively, so I did my best to take that as a sign of a good swim and keep moving. The stretch along River Rd wasn’t really all that nice for very long. What was a flat became a false flat climb that seemed to have no end. I’ve made trips up to Louisville to ride the loops several times; I was quite familiar and almost comfortable with the loops. But, I had yet to ride the 20-some miles from transition to the out-and-back on 1694, and was quite unprepared for it. Aside from the aid station at mile 5, there wasn’t a whole lot to think about; just the bumpy road, a constant stream of riders screaming past me and fighting myself to take in lots of calories to make up for the glycogen-depleting swim.

Whereas in training, I had programmed my Garmin to show me my current speed, for the race I had programmed it to read average speed and I looked forward to seeing my average speed creep up over the back half of the race. Unfortunately, where in all my training rides I was between 16 and 17 mph, I was looking down at around a 14 mph average through the first 10 miles to 42, and I’m still climbing this godforsaken hill I didn’t even know existed. About mile 12 the gradual climb ended and the course became gently rolling, which gave me some time to enjoy a downhill at least. I kept eating, drinking and waiting for the next aid station. No aid station at mile 10. Nothing at 12. The turn off onto 1694 was around mile 18. Still nothing. I celebrate being on familiar roads once more, but I’m running out of fluids. 1694 is flat for two miles, has a one mile plummet into a valley and then a climb of untold length to the turnaround. No aid station before the descent. No aid station, in fact, until the turnaround point at mile 22.5. That’s pretty s#itty to me. I just can’t for the life of me figure out why it remains so logistically difficult to have aid stations within a predictable distance of each other. “Every 10 miles” should mean “every 10 miles,” not “11 aid stations scattered haphazardly over 112 miles.”

I was pretty excited with myself to reach the turnaround and head back towards the huge hill because it meant that between practice rides and the previous 20 miles, I had seen every part of the course. Thus began the theme of the day: the heat. The sun was out in full force at this point and began to radiate down upon me. I was pedaling along wondering how long it would be before I reached the point where my speed would start to increase, but that point never seemed to get here. I managed to keep my heart rate within acceptable zones cresting the 1694 hill, which is the biggest hill on course, and looked forward to seeing my cheering section on 393. I’m still being continually passed by people and am starting to realize that something is terribly wrong with either my bike or my body. I simply am unable to put any kind of power to the pedals; something crucial is simply missing today.

Turning onto 393 and transversing the mountainous rolling hills, I simply looked forward to finishing up those 4ish miles and seeing my cheering section at the Police Station around mile 40. Finally reaching them, I notice it’s much smaller than I expected: only Marian and Denise are there. Shaking my head in defeated frustration, I yell at them “it’s not my day. It’s REALLY not my day!” And it wasn’t, to say the least. Off of 393 and onto 146, I forget about the festival in La Grange until I’m right on top of it. I was already in a pretty poor state of mind going into this section and was pretty unable to take in all the energy, but I was pleasantly surprised just how many people showed. It was very uplifting to see that many people, and made that half mile or so much easier, but by that point my motivation was already quite sucked out. Motivation was sucked out at mile 45. Oh… Crap…

Eventually, I finally reached the one hill on 393, the mile long plateau and the descent just before the turn onto Ballard School Rd. I took the descent as an opportunity to stretch my back and neck and generally relax for a while. I knew going into it that there was little sense in hammering that downhill because there was a hard left turn at the bottom. I will now cease narrating every unique characteristic about the loops, but will repeat once more that for the remainder of the two looped sections, I knew the course, their hills, descents and turns like my own backyard. I gave myself one more stretch break on the last descent on Ballard School, before the turn onto Old Sligo. The best-advertised aid station was on Le Esprit Parkway, so I grabbed some more water and continued my nutrition and hydration protocols. I felt like I was getting enough calories and at least adequate amounts of fluid, but regulating body temperature became increasingly difficult to do. I started the practice of putting ice in my helmet to help cool my body. It worked for a time, but the contrast of being so hot to so cold didn’t do any favors to my comfort factor. Besides that, the rate at which the ice was melting was absurd. A two-handful scoop of ice, roughly 24 ounces, was gone in 10 minutes. Water from the melted ice cascaded over my face and cheeks as if I had put a bag of water with a hole in it on top of my head. The temperature heated up seemingly without end. I can’t even tell you at what point it became an issue because I didn’t notice it myself; it remains simply the only logical explanation of my perilously sub-par performance.

The stretch along 42 was long, hot and awful. It’s 10 miles long with nothing to see and no aid station. It’s a net downhill, but there is no noticeable descent. Most crushingly, I can feel myself crawling along at a pace not any faster than 14 miles per hour. I see my average speed slide closer to 13.5 and it finally hits me. I had put off this realization as long as I possibly could, but there WILL be no redemption here. My speed is not down because of a hard first section, this is just what I showed up with on race day. A little over halfway down the stretch of 42, I reach the 56th mile of the bike and see my time is right around 4 hours. This all but makes me sick to my stomach. The humiliation; the indescribable humiliation. How is this even possible? How can I possibly be so much slower than in training on the same roads, with better course support, on faster equipment, after fully resting and taking care of my body to the absolute letter? This defies all logic. It was at this point that I started to wonder if I’d be able to even finish this race. It was also when I swore I was not going to write that race report I promised everyone.

Finally reaching the turn onto 393 and starting the 2nd loop, I very quickly changed my mind about the day. I planned to turn in a 3 hour 2nd half, good for a 7 hour bike split and a chance to limp home with a chance at PRing the race with a good run. I suspected this plan was still pretty half baked, but I needed something to shoot for. I looked forward to seeing Denise and Marian at the police station on 393 again. The thought of that got me over the hills one last time. They were still there and telling me how good I looked; all I could think is “Lady, you have no idea what good looks like.” Off I go onto 146. Going through La Grange again, I see that things have thinned out quite a bit. There aren’t many people still out on course, and most spectators have headed back downtown for the run portion. To my surprise, I see my mom and dad out there cheering for me. I didn’t see them at all on the first loop and barely noticed them the 2nd time around. That was pretty disappointing.

This is pretty much where it stops. As much as I like the little details and as much as I think the specifics of the race are what allow them to stand out in my mind, the 2nd lap is simply covered in a fog. I just don’t remember much. Things started looking soft. I was starting to go a little bit insane out there. Not that it didn’t happen on the first loop, but more so on the second loop there were cyclists all over the road lying in the grass. Helmets off, bikes on the shoulders, lying in whatever shady area they could find. Police, ambulances and sag wagons were overworked cleaning up the mess. Each one I passed, I saw dreams crushed. Still, each one I passed made doing the same look more and more like a good idea.

I had run out of Infinit about 10 miles before Special Needs, so I took on a bottle of Ironman Perform for calories and salt. Eventually, Special Needs comes and goes and I start taking Infinit again. I continued to shovel ice into my helmet and keep going. I use the ice pack I put in my special needs bag until it’s not cold anymore. I throw it away at some point, but can’t remember where; I hope I didn’t litter. The aid station before Le Esprit (I can’t even remember where it was) had run out of water. I had my aero bottle mostly full of hot water and a little bit of extra hot water, so I kept going without grabbing anything. After climbing one of the hills on Old Sligo, I see this mass of cyclists stopping near some trucks. I panic for a moment thinking it was a time cutoff, but soon find out that there are people giving away water. They claim the aid station on Le Esprit had also run out of water, so I went ahead and filled up. The next aid station did, in fact, have water, but it wasn’t cold and hot water did me no good at that point. I grabbed a bottle of Perform simply because it was cold and headed towards 42.

Hwy 42 was something I looked forward to for a while. Before the race started, I was looking to get to the last turn onto 42, around mile 80, before I could start to complain about the bike. I wanted to ride comfortably in my aero position up until that point, then just tough it out over the last 30. Not to say my pacing strategy wasn’t shot to hell hours before then, but I still looked forward to being able to bitch about it. I split up the rest of the course into 3 parts: 10 miles to 393, 10 miles to River Rd and 10 miles of downhill/flat to transition. It was hot, it was boring, it sucked. There’s nothing to say about it. It sucked ass. I was broken. It was over for me. Just try to get off the bike without being DQ’d.

Lacking energy or motivation, I limped in over the last 30 miles promising myself I’d rest some in T2. All those people lying down on the side of the road looked entirely too damn tempting, so I promised myself I’d do it in the changing tent. Coming into T2, I saw my mom and dad snapping pictures and cheering. Any other time that would have been great, but, ya know, it just wasn’t helping right now.

I drop off my bike and walk in no particular hurry to my run bag and the men’s changing tent. There are, at this point, more volunteers than racers and I still couldn’t get anyone to as much as look at me. Not to say that the volunteers are bad, they’re amazing; but compared to my experience in Madison, I really expected a little more interaction. After a couple minutes of laying down, I slowly change clothes, slowly slip my run nutrition into my pockets, slowly use the bathroom, slowly notice I’m sunburned, slowly backtrack and get sunscreened up and slowly start to jog towards the run out. As I’m jogging, I see a CUTE girl, about my age, who passed me on the bike about two miles from transition. We exit transition on the run about the same time, but she can’t bring herself to run. She makes some comment about how she “wishes she could run like that” and I respond by saying “yeah, we’ll see how long this lasts…” I really hope she starts running soon just so I have something to look at, potentially someone to talk to. All the same, I see some familiar faces as I cross the timing mat and lap my Garmin to start the 26.2 mile boulevard of fire between me and my medal.

Estimated Bike Time: 6:00-6:45
Actual Bike Time: 8:29:24

T2: 10:37

*Note* I programmed my Garmin to automatically lap every 10 miles. Here are my splits:

Miles 0-10 39:26;
Miles 10-20 42:08;
Miles 20-30 46:45;
Miles 30-40 45:34;
Miles 40-50 44:08;
Miles 50-60 44:14;
Miles 60-70 47:40;
Miles 70-80 50:35;
Miles 80-90 50:13;
Miles 90-100 46:17;
Miles 100-110 46:23;
5:08 for the last mile and change