Mont Tremblant 70.3 - Race day

Mont Tremblant Ironman 70.3 - June 24, 2012, Mont Tremblant Quebec

It was 3 am when I awakened and realized that I wasn’t going back to sleep.  I lay in the dark in anticipation.  My shifts working the overnight help desk have taught me that simply lying quietly is worthwhile even if it’s not actual sleep.  For a week I have been adjusting to an early schedule, and I was rested and ready to go early.  Dawn was just breaking at 4:30 when I got up. 

Dawn

I finished the Lucky Charms yesterday, so I wondered if a new box of cereal had arrived to replace it.  There’s Shreddies.  The family went on a grocery run yesterday.  I haven’t had Shreddies in years, and pour myself a bowl and sit on the balcony to eat. 

I rented a condo on site at the resort so I would be close to the action.  It’s about a 10 minute walk to the staging area.  The place is lovely.  The kitchen comes complete with dishes and pots, so you can save money by cooking for yourself.  I need to do my own cooking the days leading in anyhow.  I’m not trusting restaurant food to be what I want, and my schedule is odd, so this is ideal.  Saturday I stayed close to home, eating massive bowls of rice.  That’s my food of choice the day before.  Food for race day is a bagel with peanut butter.

After finishing the cereal, I toasted the bagel, and ate it while I dressed and packed.  Everything was laid out the night before, and I stuffed it into two handbags.  One is for the bike and the other for the run. 

At about 5 I woke my squire.  Eldest daughter Jennifer had agreed to walk me to the start, and handle my gear.  We headed out the door at 5:30 to find the shuttle bus going past.  These run on a 45 minute schedule taking people from all the condos to the pedestrian village where the shops and restaurants are.  That’s excellent for us, so we board it expecting a free ride instead of the short walk.  He drove to the main road and ordered everyone out.  Roads are closed for the race and he can go no further.  That’s no good, since the walkway at the other end of the cul-de-sac is closer.  We had even farther to walk for having taken the shuttle across the parking lot.

 My squire has to carry the wetsuit, and I carried the two bags.

Squire carries the wetsuit

Emergency crew at transition

First stop was transition where I arranged everything by the bike which had been parked overnight.  I remembered to crack open my Cliff Bars before putting them in the carrier.  They don’t open easily while riding, since I can only use one hand and my teeth. 

All set

I met up with Jen again.  She wasn’t allowed into transition, to maintain security.  We head over to body-marking in the courtyard in front of the clock tower. 

Body marking

There’s still over an hour before I start, so we sat on the bleachers for 20 minutes or so.  They had music playing from the bandstand.  It’s cool this early in the morning, and my hands started to ache, so we got up and took the ride on the overhead tram to the top of the village and back.

Grandstand

We walked to the beach and I put on the wetsuit.  Standing in the sun with it on I quickly warmed up.  I felt the water.  They said it was 73 or 74.  My open-water swims in the local reservoir were in water at 60 degrees, so this was really nice.  Race start was indeed special.  As if they had been radio contact with the flight crew to time it perfectly, only moments after we finish singing the national anthem the jet planes turned on the smoke trails and zoomed toward us overhead.  It was the Snowbirds aerobatic team on duty for our event.  The military also provided a cannon which fired for the start of the race. 

Dressing

It was wave 7 for me, starting 30 minutes after the elites.  Heading out into the water I couldn’t catch my breath.  That wasn’t going to turn out well, so I held up to tread water for a few seconds to calm down.  The other men went on ahead, and I started up again nice and slowly.  I was fine after that.  By the first turn buoy the 40-y.o. women caught up to me in their white caps.  At the second turn, the 50-y.o. men did the same, brushing my feet as they overtook the slow guy.  At that corner, I could see bottom, so I held up and dunked to see if I could touch, but it was too deep. 

Transition 1 was better than last year at Welland where I arrived from the swim to find no socks. They were still in the car, so I biked and ran barefoot. Biking was fine, but I wore holes at the achilles from the run. This time I laid out two pairs of socks, in case I wanted to change them when putting on the running shoes. That pair turned out to be a single.

I love my bike.  That’s why I do this sport.  The weather was terrific – sunny and cool with no wind. 

Beware of falling rocks.  The landscape around here is Canadian Shield. It's a vast rocky area running across northern Ontario and Quebec.

Beware of falling rocks

Canadian shield

For expressways like Hwy 117, they blasted gaps in the rocks to let the road be straighter and more level.  It felt like downhill both ways.  There’s some long hills.  They are shallow enough to keep up a good speed on the incline, and go on for so long that on the downhill you can really pick up some speed.  They gave us the entire northbound lane, with automobile traffic bidirectional on the other side of the median.

Highway 117

 

These two guys in areo helmets would fly by me on the downhills, and then I’d catch up on the climb.  I didn’t like the downhills.  At 60 kph I’d ease on the rear brake. 

Rival in aero

 

These two guys in areo helmets would fly by me on the downhills, and then I’d catch up on the climb.  I didn’t like the downhills.  At 60 kph I’d ease on the rear brake. 

Bike aid 1

 

For catching water bottles, they set up hockey nets. 

Bottle catcher

 

At the third aid station, I had less than half a bottle of Power drink.  On my long rides, it’s essential to keep the bottle carriers stocked when I pass a variety store, since it could be a long hot ride to the next.  I thought of that and picked up a water.  These were big bottles of water, and I was heading into the Lac Superieur area.  I wouldn’t even open that bottle.  The hills are so busy that it’s a bad place to drink. The extra weight wasn’t going to help.

Bike aid 3

Returning from the highway, we rode right through downtown (sorry, no pics).  It wasn’t a big crowd, at least by the time I got there.  Those left still had some enthusiasm.  I rang my bell and gave a good sprint up the narrow road.

McDonalds

In the Ontario triathlon events, one of the cardinal rules is to not cross the center line.  Here, they have pilons along the edge, forcing us over, but it felt wrong.  Then on the bridge, all we had was the left side of the road.

Narrow road

Keep left

Road to Lac Superieur

The road to Lac Superieur isn’t one big hill like some events have.  It’s a winding, twisty, hilly road with an uphill trend.  Both directions have plenty of up and down.  Instead of carving through the rocks, they curl the road around and over them.  I was regularly shifting down to the small (front) ring, but they didn’t feel hard.  Certainly not tough like Bower hill in Woodstock.  The hills were short enough that they didn’t really drain my strength before the next downhill.  A good kick at the top sends you flying.

Curves ahead

Winding road

By Transition 2 my head was in a bit of a fog.  I took off the bike shoes, put on one of the running shoes, put on the other bike shoe and stood up to put on the number belt and the water belt.  That didn't feel right.  I replaced the mismatched shoe and headed to the exit.  The guy held his hands up and pointed over my head.  My helmet was still on.  Back to the bike to drop that off.  I didn't notice that I was still wearing the cycling gloves until I hit the porta pottie.  I secured them to the water belt. 

Le P’tit Train du Nord is a light gravel former railway.  You don’t get much flatter than a railway by a lake.  With the trees there’s some shade depending on the time of day when you get there.  My gel is in the water belt.  I don't know how people did these things before they invented gel.  It took 4 Gu gels to cover the running course.

P'tit Train du Nord

The bad hill of the day is between the resort, where transition is, and the rail trail. On foot, it’s long and steep both ways.

Routing the finish through the pedestrian village was great for us.  It’s a shallow downhill, so you can run fast no matter how tired you are.  Shout to the crowd and they will cheer back at you.

Less 30 minutes

Race Report – Waterloo Marathon 2012

I woke before the alarm went off, as I had done most days this week.  For the previous two weeks was setting the alarm gradually earlier every day, down to 5:30 am.  Today, I was up at 5.  One essential thing about race preparation is consistency.  Don’t try new things on race day.  I showered and had my typical breakfast of a bowl of cereal, plus my go-to high-energy food; a bagel with peanut butter.  One special task that morning was to log in to the office and reset a server.  I had promised to get this done by 7.  I tried to limit work requirements for today, but ended up with this on my schedule, plus three more servers to do this afternoon. 

There was light frost on the car window as I started out.  It was going to be a cold morning.  Not a cloud in the sky, however, so the weather would warm up towards noon.  Cresting the hill on the approach to Cambridge, the sun dawned through the trees across the Grand-River valley. 

The principle reason for choosing this marathon course was its proximity.  Less than an hour away, I could forgo the overnight hotel stay that was needed for Toronto events.  For the frugal runner, this was the bargain of all the marathons, at a mere $55.  I’ve read that it costs them $400 a person to put on the New York City marathon.  Of course, it isn’t a city tour like most.  They start at the edge of town and head out for a loop through the countryside towards Conestogo. 

I arrived plenty early at 6:40, being one of the first there.  The line of porta-potties was still being set up.  Packet-pick-up was in an indoor soccer arena.  I’ve never seen that before.  The artificial grass was soft and lumpy, like actual turf.  It looked like grass as well, not a smooth mat.  Unheated, it was plenty cold in there too.  I chucked the literature into a recycling bin and sat to eat my second bagel.   

The race shirt is short sleeves.  That seems like a joke on a cold day like this.  I am bib number 5.  Doesn’t anyone else plan this in advance?  Race winners were #104 and #90.  That’s out of 106 entrants.  Makes it look like they decided just that morning,” ya know, maybe I’ll mosey over to Waterloo today for the race”.  Showed up and paid the fee at the door.  If it rained were they going to skip?

Time to get dressed.  I went back to the car, well, actually it’s a minivan, and put on the tights.  The car next over was idling.  He must be trying to stay warm.  The fumes had settled all around the minivan, and were making me nauseous.  I grabbed my pack and went to a nearby picnic table to finish.  I already had my long-sleeve running shirt on, so I put the jacket over that.  Then came the question of what to do with the number-bib.  I didn’t want to pin it to the jacket.  My jacket  was too expensive.  Besides, I was likely to take off the jacket later.  I could wear it under the jacket, but then the marshalls wouldn’t be able to see it.  The right thing to do was bring my race belt and clip it to that, but I hadn’t brought that today.   This is what they make them for.  I try the water belt, and pinned my number very effectively to the bottle holders.  The cold wind had whistled right through the mesh material of the running shirt, so I decided to change to the fleecy undershirt I had brought.  Off went the jacket and the shirt;  on with the other shirt, and the jacket.  Showtime.  The pack and all went into the car.  My keys I would carry in my hand for the entire trip.  That’s what I used to do when I was single and had to carry my keys every night. 

A third stop in a porta-pottie was cutting it close time-wise, but I’ve been in there before when the starting gun went off, so what the heck.  I got to the line as he was announcing one minute to go.  There didn’t seem to be more than a hundred of us.  (I see now it’s listed as 106 entrants).

We were off into the sun.  The gloaming was dim enough to not need the sunglasses earlier, so I wasn’t wearing them.  That turned out okay.  I never missed them.  I brought only two water bottles in the belt, and now noticed that they were empty.  The intention was to fill them as needed, so that was okay too.  I had my 8 energy gels; no deep-fried turkey. 

The road was closed for us for the couple kilometers to the first corner, then we were sharing it with traffic.  The police presence was heavy through here, so the cars were all driving slowly.  We headed through Bridgeport, across the bridge, then out of town.  Around 10 km we came to the hamlet of Bloomingdale.  The half-marathon started  half-hour after us, so I had some concern that I would be caught by their leaders before the turn-off which takes the marathoners on the longer loop.  My speed is about an hour for 10km, so there was some non-zero likelihood of that happening before the Bloomingdale corner.  No sign of them yet as we were directed across the road in front of the waiting traffic and away.

That's when the migraine hit.

 Like the glowing afterimage of dozens of flashbulbs going off in front of me, a sparkly haze suffused itself over my vision.  A couple years ago I went  to the local eye doctor to find out what was going on.  She called this experience an optical migraine.  Many migraine sufferers will have this happen, and get a piercing headache a few minutes later.  Me, I just get the light show, without the headache.  So a kilometer later, my left eye had almost entirely clouded over with a veil of static rather like what you get trying to pick up a TV station through the antenna, but with it too far away to get a good picture.  There’s shapes and colours, but mostly random static.  The right eye wasn’t so bad, with just a few crackles.  I carried on running.

The 10 km – 20 km leg is the fun part of a marathon.  Jacked up on adrenaline and endorphins, I was giddy with runners high.  Smiling steadily, I waved at bystanders and gave a super-cheerful greeting to the support staff at the water stations and intersections – and skipped lightly around the horse poop.  A Mennonite buggy passed by on their way to church.  Theirs wasn’t the only horse, because the road was well-littered with droppings.  It doesn’t bring down the joy of this section of the run one bit.  There’s still no clouds at all, and the countryside is beautiful.  It’s rolling hills, mostly taken up as farmland, but with plenty of wooded areas, especially along the river which we were staying near to.

At the turn onto a local dirt road, the migraine went away as quickly as it had come.  It was a great day.  My standard long run (20 km) is out of town on dirt roads like this, so I felt right at home.  I was playing my customary music set too, so it felt like a regular Sunday morning.  The runners were stretched out with 20-40 meters between us now.  In the valleys I was all alone, with no one to be seen ahead or behind.  The valleys and trees blocked the wind enough that I took off the jacket. 

The water stations are frequent.  At every 3 km, this is more water than any other race I’ve done.  That’s why I brought the water bottles.  I keep rigidly to my 6 km schedule for consuming Gu.  Having my own water, even in a race, is essential for this.  Today, it would have worked well enough to use the on-course water.  The cups are full, which I can’t always tolerate.  Oh well, Gatorade into the grass.  It’s got what plants crave.

Just past half way I came to the red covered bridge that they have on the home page.  I’m all alone on the bridge too.  After the bridge, it felt proper to turn back to home.  It was roughly half-way after all.  The marshalls directed us further from home.  I pointed the other way, “but my stuff is back that way”.  She laughed.  Maybe I was the first one to say that, or perhaps she was just humouring me.  The breeze along this stretch was stronger, and let me know right away that it was still cold out.  The fleecy shirt has a zipper at the collar, which I was moving up or down depending on conditions. 

The race winner would be finishing about now.  Let’s be clear about this.  I’m not very fast.  I don’t carry a watch.  My only pacing technique is to remind myself regularly to take it easy – there’s a long ways further to go.   Therefore I have only a rough idea based on how long it normally takes me to cover this distance.  I’ve done marathon before, and several 30 km runs this winter, so my pace is consistent. 

Coming around the furthest corner, with the wind at my back, I rolled up the sleeves.  This was the home stretch.  With 10 km still to go, I was pleased to still have some gas in the tank.  Any time previously I’ve been completely trashed by now, like some of the human wreckage I pass in the next hour.  My quadriceps felt like they’d been stabbed, which I can put up with.  In the essentials I was still good --  energy to continue, knees okay, ankles fine, no problems in my right hip which had been sore the last couple of days.  It reminded me of what Sara Conner said in Terminator 2 about how the future was now an empty highway; we were making things up as we went along.  This was a new experience. 

I turned the volume up on the music player, and skipped ahead to some of the phat bass tracks that I had loaded.  That helped a lot.  I shut out the world and went into my only little dream zone where I could ignore the pain.  The trouble was the cars and trucks whizzing past at 80 km/h.  For this section of the race we were running along the edge of the highway, with light traffic going by.  Couldn’t they put some cones along the white line to better separate us from the cars?  Couldn’t they post it with a temporary speed reduction?  Sometimes I dropped down into the gravel, but damnit, I paid for this race, and felt entitled to my 18 inches of pavement. 

The rolling hills were more difficult now, but manageable, except for that one at 40 km which reduced me to a walk.  Crossing the finish I was very happy.  4:07.  An attendant asked if I was okay.  I don’t know if she asked everyone that, or if I looked particularly poor.  No, I’m not okay -- my legs felt awful.  I’m very proud of myself. 

The bike is on the wall

I bought the Mastercraft Horizontal Bicycle Hanger and now my racing bike is hanging on the back wall of the garage.  It looks great.  When you come into the garage, it really stands out.  First thing was to ditch the Phillips screws for Robertsons.  It seems sturdy enough.  I used 3" screws into a beam.

With the warm weather, I've been tempted to go riding, but didn't.  Monday I arrived at work with a soda pop and explained that I was warm from the ride.  It was -1C, and I had dressed for -10C, making me quite warm.  If I was dressed for +10, it would have been cold.  I can dress effectively down to -20 below which my mittens can't cope. 

Me and my racing bike

Port Burwell bluff

This was Oct 8, overlooking Lake Erie at Port Burwell.  The round trip from Ingersoll to Port Burwell is my favourite ride.  It’s mostly quiet country roads, with lightly rolling hills.  There’s a few fun climbs crossing Big Otter Creek, which I cross about four times each direction.  This route, down Delmer line through Straffordville and back along Culliton Road is 110 km. 

The bike is my Scott Speedster S30 which I got last spring.  The odometer recorded 2200 km over the summer.  It’s got new blue handlebar tape since my crash in September.  I’m considering replacing the helmet.  The crash left visible damage, and people are telling me that it needs replaced.  I’m obsessive about reading the directions, terms of service, rules, so of course I know that the manufacturer recommends it.  This picture, however, made me realize that the colour doesn’t match.  That’s a good reason.