Ironman Coeur d'Alene: The Bike

Well, it’s safe to say I should have spent those extra 5 minutes in the heated tent. I’m still operating on auto-pilot as I start the bike. The beginning miles of the course take you through downtown Coeur d’Alene and along the lake before rejoining in transition and heading north towards Hayden. My supposition that I would warm up quickly on the bike didn’t really pan out. For what ended up being the first 10 miles, I was driving drunk. My depth perception was shot. I could not ride in a straight line. I was shaking violently and struggling to breathe. My reaction time was a small percentage of what it typically is. All I could think about, the only thing I had the ability to process, was how cold I was and how long it would take to just warm up and feel better. I didn’t get any significant calories in me over the first 45 minutes, which is exactly what I was supposed to do. It wasn’t until after the 10 mile marker that I noticed I had stopped shivering, felt comfortable on the bike and was ready to settle in to my race pace. I couldn’t help thinking, where am I? How did I get here? I think I blacked out…

Regardless of how I should have handled that, it was over and I was finally feeling pretty good. My goal was to keep my power under 150 watts at all points on the flat and downhill sections of the course. For the hills, I’d throw it into my easiest gear and spin up every one of them. Having seen the hilly part near Hayden Lake I knew I was in for several hills far too steep to spin up even in my easiest gear, but the plan was to take it as easy as possible. There’s no such thing as “too easy” today, I’m going to finish this course with plenty left to run. Or that’s the plan, anyway; you know what they say about best laid plans.

I have a bottle of Infinit with 3.5 hours of nutrition in it, and another bottle waiting on my in special needs. Other than that, take in water as needed and store the rest in my SpeedFil bottle. Grab a Powerbar or banana at an aid station if needed, but the Infinit should be plenty of calories and plenty of salt. After all, I designed it that way.

The out-and-back section took about 15 miles of course before we headed north on Government Way. I had driven the course and knew the breakdown. Essentially the first 20-25 miles are flat, with a hill near the turnaround of the out-and-back. Once you pass the Hayden golf course, it’s only a matter of time before you run into 15-20 miles of pretty significant hills. Most are short, only one or two longer than a half mile; but they are invariably steep, most in excess of 6% grade. There’s just no easy way to go up hills that steep, no matter how short they are. The obvious choice is to rise out of the saddle and stomp up the hills, which is also a good way to put some distance between you and your competition. Not only is that generally never a good idea to do in an Ironman, particularly on the first loop, but my goal was to do as little work, put out as little power, as is necessary to simply cover the distance. Regardless of how you handle the hills, it flattens out quite a bit in the closing miles. The final 10-15 miles are generally downhill and have few turns, giving you a chance to make up some ground or simply to spin out your legs. Once you’re back in town, rinse and repeat.

So with my plan in hand and a body that’s now along for the ride, I take off in search of the hills. I’m pushing 20 mph in my power zones and finding it very easy to do so. In a race as long as Ironman it’s important to never get too wrapped up in how you’re feeling at any moment, so I try my best not to let it define me. I start to take in my Infinit and water and pay as much attention to the course as I can. It’s still a very mild day, probably low 60s by this point, and I’m not drinking much water. After Ironman Louisville and a spring of hot, humid base miles in muggy Nashville, I figured I’d be taking in a lot more water than I found myself needing; all the more reason to split up your calories from your hydration, in my opinion. I’m cruising along and everything feels great.

Inevitably the hilly section comes and I’m very glad to have already seen it from both the bike and the car. I was hoping to see my cheering section, which is down to simply Denise and my mom by IM #3, parked up in the middle section, but I didn’t. I was glad to hear that they never actually made it up there; it’s hard to recognize anybody in the middle of such controlled chaos. I was wholly unconcerned with how many people seemed to be passing me up the hills and was more than willing to race my own race; hopefully I’d see them on the run.

It ended up being a pretty good thing I was so lax with my bike goals, because I ended up losing a lot of time to a flat tire. The story starts about a month ago when I took my bike to MOAB for some reason or another. I racked my bike on my car and secured the front wheel to the rack fork. Upon getting to MOAB, I noticed that my wheel isn’t on my car anymore. Surprise! So now that there’s a pending product integrity claim with the manufacturer of my bike rack, and I was forced to use the only other front wheel I have; a very old, out of true trainer wheel I bought used and very beat up 4 years ago. I haven’t ridden on the thing, much less changed a tube, in months. But when it’s your only option, you work with what you’ve got. Somewhere along the hilly section, I notice that the tire is bowing out to the right in a very odd way. Several miles later, I notice it’s completely flat from what was evidently a slow leak. I finish the climb at English Point Rd where it intersects with Lancaster and pull over. I very calmly take off my front wheel and take my tire iron to it. Problem is the tire won’t lift. The old ass tire, over countless miles and months of non-use, had essentially glued itself to the rim tape. There was a spectator who wanted to be helpful, but there wasn’t a whole lot either of us could do about it. I try my best to enjoy the break, but I’m starting to get a little pissed off at the situation. I eventually give him the go ahead to grab his metal tire iron and go to town on it. Just as he finishes prying the tire off of the rim tape, and wholly screwing up my rim, a bike mechanic shows up on his white stallion (moped) and takes care of it for me. He was extremely calm and upbeat, which helped my nerves quite a bit. It takes him several minutes of wrestling with it before the tire will remove, but he eventually gets it off. He shakes out a piece of glass in the tire and changes the tube for me; even thoughtful enough to pump it up with a floor pump, rather than making me use a CO2. I thank him for his help and hop on the bike, having lost 10 minutes in the process. I take it as a chance to rest, take in some more calories and relax. I sure wish it had come later in the ride when I needed it a bit more, but you can never plan for flat tires. Anyway, I keep moving, just glad to have one more problem sorted out.

I’m not much of a YouTube subscriber, myself. I realize that I’m missing out on a whole lot of pop culture, but I just can’t keep up with it. There are far too many videos out there achieving wild popularity, many of which I just don’t get. There’s no telling how many not-so-inside jokes I miss out on, on a daily basis. I certainly missed the one about the honey badger. I had noticed several times signs with this ugly, scary looking critter and the words “don’t care” emblazoned along the side. Sometimes the sign would say “big hill? Don’t care,” sometimes they would have someone’s bib number… “don’t care.” I didn’t see the video until after the race, and immediately wish I had. It would have been good for a smile out there. Check it out on YouTube. “It’s pretty badass.”

After climbing my way out of the hilly section, I tried my best to notice little nuances of the final 20 miles. I made a mental map of descents, which were squirrely and which could be hammered. Where is the wind blowing? How many turns were left at mile 45? At mile 50? How long down Government? How long down 4th? Making it back to downtown and handling the pussy little out-and-back along Northwest, I was happy to split my Garmin, but not overly happy to see I was quite a bit over pace to break 7 hours. But whatever, I don’t care. You think I care? I don’t give a shit. I just take what I want and leave everyone else to pick up the scraps. I wish I had seen that video prior to race day, -sigh-.

I’m still feeling like a million bucks heading out onto the 2nd loop. I had run out of Infinit around mile 56 and was looking forward to getting my next bottle. It took a while to get to special needs at the turnaround by Lake Coeur d’Alene, but I finally got there, switch out my bottle and grab my energy drink. I’m interested to see how the Delta E helps my plight to finish the next loop without giving up too much energy. I find I don’t really need to take it, so I just shoot it down at the Hayden Lake golf course, in preparation of the hills to come. I feel it almost immediately and it helps.

The second trip through the hills are less eventful that the first, thankfully. I’m marginally more tired and marginally more stiff, but still in no level of worry. Having already done the first lap, I know to look for mile 90. Mile 90, which is nestled right up against the turnaround on Ohio Match Rd, is essentially the moment when you take the short route back into town. There are still climbs, still turns; it’s hardly the home stretch. But generally we’re taking the short route back downtown, and mentally it makes sense to have that in mind as the halfway point.
I’ve peed twice on the bike, once early in the bike and once right after special needs, but haven’t had to go over the last couple hours. That means I’m either becoming dehydrated, or I’m nailing my hydration strategy perfectly. I don’t particularly want to drink water more rapidly and don’t want to have to waste more time in the porto john, but it’s still something worth holding in the back of my mind. I swing through cycle after cycle of good and bad patches, trying to keep drinking Infinit whenever I start to feel grumpy or flat. The second half of my second bottle is hard to get down. I’m getting extremely sick of this stuff, which doesn’t really happen in training. Take it for what it’s worth, just keep drinking, keep taking it easy. This course will be over soon enough, and the real race will begin. The hills take longer to get up, but they pass and generally leave me no worse for the wear.

Right around the time I reach the “halfway” point at mile 90 and start to head back into town, my Garmin dies. I’m now left with only my Powertap computer, which can either give me a rough prediction of speed or a far rougher estimation of cadence, depending on which mode it is in. I cycle through the two options over the last 22 miles, never really deciding which I prefer. I’m most bummed about not having a true calculation of total climbing for the day. Although the flat portions make this mentally the easiest and my personal favorite bike course of the 3 IMs I’ve done, it is probably the slowest and will certainly rival Louisville and Wisconsin in total climbing.

The stretch between mile 90 and 100 is probably the hardest. Not having my Garmin working, and not having started at 0 miles on the Powertap, I had no idea what my mileage was at any point over that section; and that’s a section I’d really like to have known my mileage. Although the stoutest of climbing is finished, there were plenty of hills left to slow things down. I began to lose big chunks of time not paying attention to what was going on around me. Like driving cross country, you just “wake up” and have no concept of how long you had zoned out or how many miles have passed. After what seemed like hours, I passed the 100 mile marker, which is always a great sight in an Ironman race. We’re now on Government Way heading back into town, and this ride will be over in 45 minutes.

The slog in is flat to mildly downhill and features increasingly dense crowds, so it passes quickly enough. I put a little power to the pedals in the final 5 miles and try to get my average speed up, more to simply get to transition marginally quicker than to improve a bike spilt that’s already pretty far gone. Getting back into town and doing the ridiculous out-and-back before entering T2, I try my best to spin my legs out and get mentally prepared to run. I feel like I’ve accomplished that. Despite a bike ride that’s more than a little embarrassing, I feel confident knowing I took it very conservatively. I’m not exaggerating to say I was a little happy to face the marathon; a little anxious. This was what I had come for. This, alone, would define whether the day, and therefore the last 9 months of very hard training, would be a vindicated one.

Bike: 7:18:07
Avg Power: 117; 73% FTP
Normalized Power: 134
Educated climbing estimate: 2,400 ft

T2 goes pretty quickly. I’m not violently shaking from a cold that went right to the bone like I was in T1. I’m also not really stiff or any kind of tired after what amounted to be a long but easy stroll on a new, unfamiliar course. The most time consuming task is taking off my base layer, but I soon slip my socks and shoes on, grab my GU and Garmin (305) and head out. Seeing Denise near the run out tent, and noticing that this is the section I came for, I say “well, here we go.” and strike out for the next 26.2 miles of quality control field testing.

T2: 3:46