Ironman Louisville 2010

By Mark Vellek

Okay, last year as Joe Greaves and I finished up our first Ironman at RedMud (thanks Bob) we both vowed not to do that again next year. Two weeks later, “We’re going long, again.” Oh maaan. I fill out the on-line registration in January.

Joe starts off the year with Hunter getting spooked and tripping his hapless owner, breaking to ribs. Then it’s his hips, then it’s the varicose veins and blockages, and then to top it off, he falls off the bike four weeks before and cracks his collarbone and two more ribs. This is not looking good.

Mark learns to train a lot by himself, sometimes suckering others into the Tuesday century rides, other times content with running in the desert of Cabo San Lucas or China. Gets third in age group at TriZou and a PR finish at Kansas 70.3. This looks pretty good. I am peaking at the end of July. Then I go for a two week family vacation in China. I get three short runs and a couple of tiny swims, but you can’t call this training. Call it enforced taper. Too much taper. I get back and have a terrible schedule in clinic and am able to workout once on the bike at the Boonville Festival ride. It takes me ten days to get over the jet lag. Mmmmm.

Louisville.

August 29th.

We know it’s going to be insufferably hot and humid. We know it’s a lot hillier than Redman. We’re about as prepared as we can get.

We agree to leave at 7:30 am Friday for the six hour drive, as we HAVE to register by 5 pm. Oh yeah, they’re on Eastern time and we lose an hour. At 6 am Joe texts me with an emergency “project” and can’t leave until 9:30 at the earliest. Pause. “I’ll meet you there, then.” is my icy reply. I take the rack back off the car and put the bike inside and drive to Louisville solo. I have brought enough snacks and groceries for our road trip, so at least I don’t have to stop.

I check into the Galt House and find registration. You stand in line and fill out a card that I am sure is if they find you dead on the side of the road, they have an idea of who to contact and where you’re staying. Then you stand in another line to get your race number. Then you go to another line to get weighed and body fat and water content measured. I think she was generous with the 154.6 weight (with my jeans and iphone still on) and 9.6% body fat. From there you go inside to fill out two waivers and make sure that all your information is, indeed, correct. You turn it into another table, where they direct you across the hall to packet pickup. You hold up your name, they find your folder and painstakingly explain where all your stickers go, why you have five bags, and your timing chip. From there you go wave your chip in front of the computer to ensure it’s working and then you pick up your Ironman sling bag to stuff everything into. Then you go through the expo where they tempt you with all sorts of great looking triathlon clothing and gear and you pay for it. Whole process takes about 1-1/2 hours.

I get in touch with Jenny Clark and her husband joins us at Joe’s Crab Shack down the street. As it passes 6:30 Joe arrives and gets a bite and we head to the mandatory race meeting. Scripted for two year olds, but blaring and echoing in such a manner than no one can make out what they’re saying, we glean that the water temperature is 84 degrees. That’s about what we learned.

Next morning Joe and I head downstairs to get him registered and get his bottle bracket installed on his bike (the two brackets that he “knows” he put in the truck are gone. This takes most of the morning. Lines for bike service are never long, but never seem to end as a cavalcade of anxious triple AAA people need tweeks, adjustments, or new tubes. We go to pick up his bike and they are installed upside down. The humorous guy checking everyone in becomes decidedly un-humorous. They fix it in about 15 minutes, but more bikes are piling up and check in is 12-5. It’s almost noon. We get our bikes and our bike gear bags (nothing can be with the bike – all shoes, socks, helmets, glasses, etc are put in a red bag and lined up) and head off for a 10 mile ride. It feels really good. Too good. Something is not going to go right here, I have a feeling. We turn in our bikes and bags, only to discover they want our run bags as well. We trot back to the hotel, get our bags straightened out and bring them back down. It’s weird, you have to have a volunteer take your bike to the designated area and then you have to deposit your bags in the correct position in line. Strange set up from previous triathlons, but I guess it works. We’re all worried about how Joe is going to do and what painkillers to take when and he has a list and a waterproof bottle for a dose mid-swim, if needed.

Race day.

Beautiful weather. Clear sky. 78 in the morning, 91 in the afternoon. 8 mph wind from the south and very little humidity compared to what we’ve been training in. We all get in this ridiculously long line to queue up for the swim start – six at a time jumping off a pier into the water, with two piers running at the same time. It seems like every athlete has brought 6 people with them for encouragement, which means the line is stretching out over a mile from the start. This is at 5:30 am. It gradually gets light and we in the back hear the starting gun for the pros at 6:50. The line starts to inch forward. And forward. And forward. By the time we get to the porta potties we’re told to put on our caps and goggles and start running down the ramps. Splash. We’re in the water. Pretty warm, very little current and you get to swim upstream for a third of the distance around the tip of an island before heading down to swim out. I have not been very good at swimming this summer, convinced I can’t get any faster, but I didn’t realize how much slower I could get. Training doesn’t lie. I plod through the water and after an eternity finally round the corner. You then swim downstream past the three major bridges over the Ohio to the swim out. At the rate I’m going I know that some of the pros have past the 70 mile marker on the bike by the time I clamber out. I feel okay, just drained from being in the water for almost 1 – 3/4 hours!

A volunteer grabs your bike gear bag and heads you into the changing tent. You get your stuff, I put on some more sunscreen and head to the bike. It’s pretty easy to find, since I was at the back third of the start, and with my slow swim times there aren’t many bikes left – not an encouraging sign, I might add. Hop on the bike and the first twenty miles is pretty flat. During registration, I often told newbie soon-to-be-ironmen to take it easy on the bike. I don’t. I’ve been biking like crazy and I can do this. It feels so right. My first split is at 19.7 mph. Then the hills start. I read the course, I looked it up, Jenny told me about it at dinner as she had driven it, but the realization of all the hills started to become apparent. By mile 40, the legs were starting to cramp. Not a good sign. By mile 80, I was going up a hill and my left quad and my right hamstring went into tetany (spasm). I really hadn’t been sweating that much on the course and was well hydrated, having peed twice on the bike already, but I gobbled up four endurolytes and kept going. Within five minutes the cramping subsided. Then I would come on again in a few minutes, so I was popping the ‘lytes every 20-30 minutes. Had to go into survival mode to finish, as my splits showed their never ending decline. I wasn’t the only one as the bike course was littered with pro and age-group athletes grabbing their legs or being hoisted onto gurneys for the ambulance. Not good. Couldn’t use the aero bars the last 20 miles, then neck hurt too much, even though we were in  a mild headwind and when I went aero I could tell the difference. Ohh well.

Got to the bike in, where again a volunteer grabbed your bike and you just headed down to pick up your run gear bag. Changed. More sunscreen and I’m off. The first couple miles take you on a bridge over the Ohio and into Indiana before a turn around. That’s when I found Joe. Ahead of me! The injured bum was beating me! Of course no one could pinpoint your water entry, so it was a mystery until the end. After the way my legs felt on the bike, I knew this wasn’t going to be pretty. I hobbled off, stopping at the aid stations and walking, then started running again. I caught up to Joe around mile 3 and we trudged along with this run, walk routine. We went past mile 5 where Ford had five twenty-something girls singing and dancing and motivating. They saw us and nicknamed us the “Double Mint Twins” with our green CMC outfits. Now I was having a bad time with nausea. Every aid station I would try something a little different, but there wasn’t a lot of variety. They had Ironman Perform, new from Nestlé, water, sponges, bananas, cookies, and hammer gel. I would try one combination, then another. Shortly after leaving the 8 mile aid station I just had to stop and walk, resisting the temptation to sit on the curb and collapse. It didn’t help to see two people in front of me run to the curb and start retching. I sent Joe ahead and continued my long plod. I did a 17 minute walk to the next aid station.  I knew I needed electrolytes, I knew I needed nutrition, but this was going to be a challenge. I grabbed a hammer gel and just about lost it choking it down, had some ice water and took off running again. Felt pretty good after this. I caught up to Joe once again, but now my hips and legs were in major complain mode. Many of the stragglers in our situation were around us. One man commented loudly, “Well, this wasn’t in my training plan!” We spied our fellow CMCer’s on the course and we all looked a bit worse for wear. The volunteers kept shouting at how great we looked. They were fabulous.

About mile 16 the nausea again hit, along with the hip and I told Joe I was done with the run and walk for now – go ahead and he did. Tried some different combinations, including chicken soup (not good cold) and struggled on. My aim for a four hour marathon was in the toilet, since it took me that long to go 18. The collected athletes around me all kept encouraging one another, jogging for a short bit, walking much longer. And longer. I passed Jenny at mile 21 and she just explained that she had no legs. She didn’t tell me she had an episode of anaphylaxis on top of everything else! At least at that point I was moving. Sort of. The last four miles were much more walk than “run.” It kept getting darker. As I came to within a mile of the finish, a woman collapsed to the curb and told the overlooking police officer to, “Call for transport, I’m done.” A paraathlete was collapse on the side of the road with an ambulance coming up the street. I vowed I would not be one of them. I had to play it straight, if that meant walking the entire way. The police and volunteer coverage was amazing.

I came up my last half mile and there was this energetic blonde screaming encouragement. She said, “Only two more curves. I’ll run them with you.” I declined. She persisted. I again declined. I was saving my self up for the last 200 yards, which is all I had in me. She looked at another woman and got her running home. She asked me again. What I really wanted to say was that even if she took off her clothes so I could chase her, this wasn’t going to happen. I just said, “No thanks – can’t.” As I rounded the last curve all these people were yelling out encouragements and so I painfully started the slow jog down the finishing chute. Amazing. Hundreds of families and onlookers here to cheer – Me – on. I ran faster and with more confidence. Close to the end I saw Joe’s outstretched hand, gave it a slap and put my fingers in the air of the “number one.” The crowd went wild. I did it again so they could get it on picture and I was done! In the chute they had a volunteer cling to you like you were going to collapse at any moment. Many finishers did. The girl who ran ahead of me? Grabbed a bucket and started retching. A whole line of competitors sitting on red chairs hurling into red buckets. Wow. I didn’t need that.

Joe and I dropped off our morning clothes bag at the hotel and went to go retrieve the bikes. We yelled out congrats to anyone with a finishers shirt or medal or arm marking. We loaded it all on the elevator, got off on the 9th floor and hit the shower. We were in that post-race nirvana/fog and then the hunger hit. Strong. We got dressed and went down to the finish and had steak sandwiches while looking over the last half hour of finishing. The crowd would go wild for anyone. Especially for an 80 year old who finished at 16:55. The announcer started going crazy and 16:59:40 as there was this guy coming in. We all cheered and screamed and banged on everything. He went into the chute. Down the chute. Finished. At 17:00:13. You’re NOT an Ironman.

I think my short Ironman career is going on hold, as my family has complained about the training schedule and how I only seem to “live in the house.” They’re right. I’ll keep training, but not for this type of distance for a couple of years. Thanks to all the CMC members who have encouraged and been helpful with suggestions, and for just being the party animals that you are.

Nationals are next…