Going into Beach2Battleship I felt pretty confident in my preparation and abilities to race well. I’ve had a great season racing mostly Xterra, shorter Triathlons and a few Mtn Bike events. I’ve had so much fun Mountain Biking on the new trails here in Chapel Hill this summer that I didn’t touch the TT bike from early July to Early September. But I feel I put enough time on it and I felt good in the long rides that I did! Mountain Biking left me with enough power the hardest part was just getting my back and neck used to the TT position for 5 hours again!
Swim: 2.4 Miles - 57:40 - 8th overall.
Race morning air temps for the swim were hovering right at 40 degrees. You take a Trolley to the swim start from T1 which was quick and easy. Once there you had to shed your clothes and get into your wetsuit. I opted for the long sleeve, mostly just for standing around pre-race and I’m glad I did. Walking to the swim start you had to cover about 400 yards on the beach. By the time I got to the water my feet were numb! Getting in the 65 degree water actually thawed them out! Warming up I noticed the stand up paddlers had to keep paddling to keep from going out to sea which happened to be the opposite direction in which the swim headed. Signing up for the race I had expected a good current, with the fastest time from previous years being 39 mins. But 5 mins before the start it was plain to see that wasn’t going to be the case! One of the stand-up paddlers assured me in the next 5 mins the current would stop and we’d have a slack tide for the race. I really didn’t believe him! (NOTE: next year the race will be 2 weeks earlier so since that is before the time change the current will be back in 2011!) The start gun went off and there was a pretty good crowd to make the first turn buoy, I was getting hammered between 2 guys so I backed off and let them go. Swimming in the inland water way is pretty cool, you just had to swim buoy to buoy but really any way you wanted to. There are a couple of turns so definitely have to keep your head up and looking forward from time to time. Swim was pretty uneventful, I felt ok, not great but not bad. Water seemed pretty rough, probably due to the head wind coming in at us. Stayed with about 4-5 guys most of the way and seemed to hold my position. I climbed up the wooden ladders carefully so I didn’t cramp and exited the water in 8th position.
T1: 5:03
There is about a 500 Meter run from the water to the entrance of T1. I stripped the wetsuit as I was running and ran straight to my bike where I had all my clothes laid out. Given that it was still in the low 40’s I decided to put enough clothes on to be comfortable. In my testing pre race I noticed that if I was too cold my HR would go up. That is wasted energy so the time invested in getting dry and fully clothed was well worth it. I put my Trek 29r Crew bibs and jersey on over my tri shorts along with arm warmers and mountain bike gloves. Even after wrestling to get all that on I still managed to have the 2nd fastest T1 time so the practice in the hotel my wife always makes fun of me for paid off. (Note to self though next time practice wet or dry off better, there’s huge difference!)
Bike: 112 Miles - 5:01:45 - 8th fastest bike split.
This bike course is awesome! A few hills with bridges going out, but for most of the first 30 miles you’re riding on a Highway in a lane closed to traffic. Very sweet road surface for 85% of the ride and flat and fast. Some country roads in the middle, then the last 35 is on another state highway. In my mind this is probably one of the best bike courses out there after Lake Placid and Kona. And of course it’s nice that it’s mostly flat, but that doesn’t necessarily make it easy with the wind that can kick up around there.
I started the bike off pretty conservative. Just kept it steady and slowly got my HR down into a comfortable zone which for me is around 140 bpm. I’d say it took a solid half hour before I settled in to this pace. I passed a few guys and watched some relay guys and 1 other full competitor go blowing by me. I ignored all of them at that point just wanting to just get into my own rhythm. I had my drink mix with cytomax and accelerade and powergels mixed together. My first bottle had about 900 calories and my second bottle in my special needs bag had another 1000 calories. I sip this every 10 mins with water. Easiest nutrition plan ever and it works well for me. I also had a camel back with 60 ounces of Gatorade in it. Hammer products were on course which a lot of people love but I’m not used to them so I carried my own sports drink. Worked out well since I could also put my spare tire and tools on the camel back as well and eliminate the behind the seat bottle launcher. I was happy, in my own world, until Peter Kotland went by me around mile 30. I knew Peter’s track record as a great runner in IM races so I made a competitive decision to stay with him as long as I could. I had to up the effort to about 150 bpm to keep pace with him so I hoped he wouldn’t keep that pace up for the rest of the day. For about the next hour I stayed about 5 bike lengths behind him and just gutted it out. The funny thing was I actually started feeling better somewhat after a while! Maybe the pace finally loosened things up and got the body warmed up nicely. After about an hour of this I finally attempted to go by him after he slowed to stretch a bit. Once in front of him I tried to slow the pace but he wasn’t haven’t it and passed me back pretty quickly. I went back to hanging on. But he was slowing a bit and every time I passed him I’d slow the pace and he’d let me lead a little longer. Eventually about 60 miles in we were back closer to my HR goals! We caught the 3rd place guy around mile 65, so we were now a nice group of 3. I’ve got to back up here a bit and note that I missed my special needs at the mile 51 aid station. I didn’t see it there so I just thought it would be further up the road. In hindsight I should have stopped and asked but you live and learn. Luckily I had the Gatorade in my camel back or I would have had no calories until around mile 75. I grabbed some hammer gels and a hammer bar at mile 75 and got those down but looking back I figure I took in about 1000 calories less than I had planned on the bike ride and more fluids than I needed since I had to suck down the Gatorade early. I also had a pop-tart that I was looking forward to in my special needs. Being cool and drinking too many fluids caused me to have to pee a lot! This is always the part of a race report a lot of people skim over, but it’s part of Ironman racing. I don’t think I lost much time from it though, I would just have to drop back and stand up to get things flowing then I could pedal standing up for a bit. I’d drop back a 100 yards or so the I’d have to surge back to get back in touch with Peter but it was good in a way to change the muscle groups up on this flat course. We had a pretty good crosswind most of the day, which was against us for the first 75 and with us for the last 37. But you never really felt like it was totally with you. Peter stopped to use the bathroom around mile 75, so after that is was me and Arthur Mathisen into T2. I felt pretty strong and was able to keep my effort level constant all the way back. I knew I was right on a 5 hour ride pace heading back!
T2: 2:44 ( I think fastest of the day)
Coming into T2 a handler grabs your bike and helmet, then someone personally hands you your “bike to run” transition bag. Very nice! I stripped out of my smelly bike clothes and threw on my running shorts and Running Room/29r Crew running singlet. It is so nice to get out of the wet biking clothes and into dry running stuff. I do all my long runs in running shorts so lately I’ve been doing my IM’s in running shorts as well. I had a quick transition left Arthur behind by almost a minute just in transition. Peter came in about a minute after us so he had kept pace after his pit stop.
Run: 3:17:05 – 4th fastest run.
This run course is actually pretty tough. It’s scenic though with crossing the river on the causeway and hitting the turn around in a really nice park with nice running trails and bridge crossings. In between T2 and the first turn around you run through downtown Wilmington which is really cool. Going into the race I had in mind an IM Florida type run, but I’d say it’s more like Ironman Wisconsin in elevation gain with a couple of long hills around a 1/4 mile long and 5-7% and 2 short steep hills on each loop.
I have to give a shout out here to the 2 pros that were kicking our butts. Zach Ruble and Alex McDonald who had both just participating in IM Florida the week before! My wife informed me they were 19 mins ahead of me out of T2. I knew I wasn’t going to run them down and my objective at that point was to hold onto 3rd and see if possibly one of them would struggle a lot.
Felt pretty good starting the run. You go about a half mile out of Battleship Park and you have to climb up a causeway with a pretty good incline. Driving this course the day before I knew this wouldn’t be a super fast race. Figured I was going to lose at least a minute for every climb off my goal of running 3 hours so pre-race I really had more like 3:05 in mind. Kept a pretty steady 7 min pace for the first 10 miles and was trying to keep my pace pretty conservative. At the 1st turn around I found I had about 3 mins on Arthur and about 6 mins on Peter. So I had the luxury of trying to stay conservative at that point. Things seemed great until I started to hit the hills again at the end of the first out and back. Then all of the sudden I started to feel nauseous and sore. Got some salt in and slowed the pace considerably at this point. I’ve been in this place before and I know once I go too far over the edge there is no coming back. Hit the first loop in 1:33 and grabbed a red bull shot at the turn around at Battleship Park which renewed me for a couple of miles. Around mile 15 things started to go bad. Ran past my wife at 16 and informed her I was in “trouble”. She hates when I do that. But around mile 15 I had taken 2 Pepto tabs and shortly after 16 I took 2 Excedrin. Kept shuffling through and finally around mile 18 I started getting my legs back and feeling better. I was able to start eating again and life was good. Going into the 2nd turn in the park I felt good and kept hammering away. Coming back around mile 20 I still had about 6-7 mins on Peter and 8-10 on Arthur so it was looking like 3rd was going to be mine. Zach and Alex were still a good ways ahead so at that point I knew they were out of reach. I kept it strong all the way back to the finish. I hit the finish line in 9:24 and managed to hold onto my 3rd place through the whole run. At times I didn’t think it would happen! I didn’t have the run I was hoping for but on the day it was good enough and it always feels good to be able to struggle through the rough patches and still persevere.
Finish: 9:24:15 – 3rd overall.
I’d recommend this race to anyone looking for a break from the IM hype but still wants to race on a world class course. The pre-race meal was probably the best I’d ever had, the race organization was superb. Check in was easy. Race day execution went great. They had a band and lots of goodies at the finish line. And the best thing was the warming tent! I didn’t want to leave there. Could have hung out and ate powdered donuts all night. The next day they had a breakfast cruise up and down the river in downtown Wilmington. It was a sunny day and after the awards we all went out on deck to enjoy the sun. It’s a little work for spectators with the different transition areas and with T2 being basically on an island, but all the good things make this race definitely one to put on your calendar in the future.
Thanks to all my supporters, especially my wife Erin who puts up with the hours of training and allows me to continue to achieve my athletic goals!
MC
