I have been waiting for this day since March. In March I ran 3:30:14 at the Shamrock Marathon in Virginia Beach, VA. That qualified me for the 2009 Boston Marathon when I will be 45 years old. I needed to run at least 3:30:59. So I qualified by 45 seconds. I would have finished a minute or two earlier if not for a nasty side stitch at mile 23. But I qualified!
I already have a hotel room booked (geez, those Boston hotels are expensive). But I had to wait until today for the registration for the Boston Marathon to open. It opened this morning at 9am. By 9:10 I had completed my registration. I won’t get an acceptance notification until October though. I don’t know why I wouldn’t be accepted though.
I have some friends from the Las Vegas Marathon club that I belong to that have already registered for the Boston Marathon as well. It will be good to see them, though I may not see much of them during the race as we all run at different paces. But it will be fun anyway.
I have been wanting to do an Ironman. I wanted to sign up for Ironman USA (Lake Placid). But unfortunatly that Ironman sold out before it ever went online. That would have been a good one to do since it was so close.
The Louisville Ironman was my second choice since it is the next closest. According to Google Maps, it is about a 10 hour drive. Long but doable. I can take my car with my bike mounted on a rack. I wont have to go through the logistics of shipping my bike, and having to ship it home. Or the added expenses of flying both me and my wife…and my bike.
My wife and I were off camping for Labor Day weekend. But I wanted to be home at noon on Labor Day so I could sign up when the Louisville Ironman registration opened. I know that last year when the Lake Placid Ironman went online, it sold out in like 10 minutes or less. I didn’t want to miss out. A friend of mine who has done the Louisville Ironman twice, told me that it took a few weeks last year for the Louisville Ironman to sell out. But I didn’t want to take my chances.
We managed to get home about 11:15am. I checked the Louisvile Ironman website, and now there was a link to active.com. Previously there hadn’t been a link to active, and the 2009 Louisville Ironman hadn’t even been listed at all. I thought that they might be going to use a different registration service this year. The wewbsite said accepting registrations, so I clicked the link, made it a little ways, before being told registration opened at noon. So I waited. I tried periodically as it was near noon. Finally it let me start to register. There was the normal registration stuff. But there was also a bunch of questions such as why I wanted to do an Ironman, and what were my greatest accomplishments. I would have liked to have spent time answering some of these, but I didn’t want to having the Ironman close out from under me. So I answered these questions briefly, and went on. Soon I was done, and just had to click one more button to commit to doing it. $525 plus the $10 USAT one day license, plus the $25 processing fee plus the huge amount of work etc. I was a bit nervous. But I clicked the button. I had successfully registered for the Louisville Ironman. Now I need to learn to swim much better!
For months I have been plannning to try to register for the Lake Placid Ironman. The race was on July 20th. I was even up in the Adirondacks on July 19th where I ran an ultramarathon. I considered driving up to Lake Placid after my race, so I could watch the Ironman. I even had a friend racing in it.
Then registration for the 2009 Lake Placid Ironman was held on July 21st. So we could have hung and I and I could have gotten in line. But my wife had to work on July 21st. So she couldn’t do it.
So my plan was to try to register online. Last year, 1200 spots sold onsite the day after the Lake Placid Ironman. The rest of the spots sold out online in like 5-10 minutes. I knew it would be tough to register online, but I was going to try.
When I got to work in the morning, I logged in to Active.com to make sure it wasn’t blocked or anything. If it was blocked, I planned on going to the local public library for lunch and using one of their computers. But I was able to connect to Active.com with no problems. I openned a text document, and typed in stuff like my credit card number, and address, so that I wouldn’t have to type them. I could just cut and paste them into any forms if I had to, and maybe save a few seconds, just to improve my odds a bit.
About 11am I connected to Active.com only to find a note that the Lake Placid Ironman had sold out onsite, and there would be no online registrations. So I guess I wont be doing the Lake Placid Ironman next year.
My next hope is the Louisville Ironman. That race is on August 31st, and I am guessing the registration for the following year will be the next day. I will keep an eye on it as it gets closer.
Lake Placid is much closer, like half the distance of Louisville, KY. Another thing is that in July, my wife probably would have been able to come. At the end of August, it is more likely that might wife might not be able to make it. With luck she will be done with school, and have a job as a teacher.
Well, we’ll see what happens.
Race day started at 4:30am. I got up, showered, and got dressed for the race. I ate a quick breakfast of a PB&J sandwich and a Pepsi. About 5:30 I headed off to pick up a fellow racer who was staying at a nearby lodge. We came back to our inn, and I picked up my wife and Big Al. Then we all headed off to the start line. After our experience with the deer flies the night before, I sprayed myself heavily with insect repellent. Big Al did the same.
Race Director Jim saw me and greeted me by name. I guess I made an impression last year. I was wearing my Primal Wear - Bone Collector shirt. People seemed to really like the shirt, and wanted to get pictures of me in it. I also had requests for me to do my “up yours” salute. *blush* I checked in and got my bib #.
Pictures were taken, and Jim did his speech in the parking lot, instead of at the starting line due to the deer flies. Following Jim’s speech, we made our way into the woods to the start line. Fortunatly the deer flies weren’t out yet, or maybe it was the repellent working.
At 6:30, we started off for Wakely Dam which was 32.6 miles away. My plan was to run an easy 10:00 minute/mile pace and take walk breaks every half mile. Last year I did a run/walk of run 3 minutes/walk 2 minutes, and walked up the hills, and the awkward terrain. But in the dim light under the tre cover, I couldn’t easily read the distance on my Garmin 305, at least not while running. So I changed plans to run one minute out of every five minutes. I could easily read the time. This seemed to be going well. And I was about an hour and a half into the race, I found myself on pace for a 6 hour finish. I was hoping for 7 hours. But 7:30 would have been nice too. But the the terrain started getting rougher. A lot more uphills, or rocky difficult to run stuff. It got to where it was nearly impossible run very far before running into some un-runnable terrain.
For fuel I brought Carb-Boom gels and Butter Finger candy bars. I started with the Butter Fingers as the gels just didn’t seem too appealing that early in the morning. I was also carrying two 16oz water bottles which I would refill at streams. Since you don’t want to drink the water straight, I also brought iodine tablets. But the iodine tablets take about 30 minutes minimum to work. I drank from the bottle on the right. When it was empty, I would move it to the left, and drink from the now full bottle on the right. When I came to a stream, I would fill the empty bottle, and drop in an iodine tablet. In 30 minutes it would be ready to drink, and I would drop in a neutralization tablet. I ran out of drinkable water a couple times on the course. The first time I had refilled one bottle from a stream and the water was kind of colored. I dropped in a tablet anyway. When I went to refill the second bottle, I found a stream that was nice and clear. I filled the second bottle, and decided to dump the first bottle, and refill it too. Though now I would have to wait for at least 30 minutes before I could drink any water. Another racer took my picture of me with my camera with the stream in the background. The picture came out great.
The course was muddy in lots of spots. Muddier than last year. And it wasn’t long before both my feet were covered in mud. I had to stop 3 or 4 times along the course to take my shoes off and dump stuff out. If I do this race next year, I will probably look at buying some gaiters to keep the muds, dirts, rocks, leaves, pine needles and other stuff out of my shoes. These alone probably would have saved me like 5-10 minutes and some discomfort.
I tripped over rocks and roots about 4 or 5 times and found myself sprawled on the ground. But no serious injury. Another runner tripped trying to go over a fallen tree. He got a nasty gash under his left eye. I was right behind him and his buddy. I didn’t see him go down, but saw the aftermath. Lots of blood. I gave him a couple bandaids and a clean hanky that I had. He got lucky. An inch higher and he might have lost an eye. And I think this might have been around mile 18 or 19? He would have had a way to go for help.
I started getting tired and started running 3 minutes and walking 2 minutes. Around the halfway point I found it hard to keep running. My energy was just gone. And everytime I tried to run, my abs would start to hurt. Ack. I just started walking. My run 3 walk 2, and start to turn in walk 5, run 0. My goal now was just to finish. I took pictures along the way. I wish I had taken more. I was just very tired. Many of my pics turned out slightly (or more) blurred since they were taken while I was walking. I should have taken 5 seconds to stop and take the pictures. In retrospect, I think I should have been drinking gatorade from the start instead of plain water. I didn’t start drinking Gatorade till late in the race, and I actually started feeling better. I also should have kept hydrated more consistantly with the warm temps. If I do the race next year, I will look at getting a Steripen which is a UV light and can purify the water in 45 seconds. Then I would have water ready to drink immediately instead of having to wait for 30 minutes. I would have started taking the gels sooner.
The terrain was rough. I crossed more streams on rocks than I remembered from last year. Sometimes the trail would just come to a creek and stop. You would cross the creek and then have to hunt around for the trail on the other side.
Sorry my report is so disorganised. My brain was kind of scrambled during the run. It’s still kind of scrambled.
My Garmin was giving my interesting results. Normally it over-reports my distance. So when I run a 26.2 mile race, it thinks I ran 26.6 miles or something like that. But today it was seeming to under report. So when I was at the halfway point (16.4 miles) it was saying I was at about mile 15 and change. And various people (hikers, rangers, conservation officers) I met, would tell me how far I had left to go, but it was less than what my GPS was telling me. The race director told me later that the 32.6 mile number came from trail writeups that were older, and that the trail had been tweaked over the years.
Around mile 19 I was almost out of water again. I had emptied one bottle and didn’t refill it at a stream I crossed because the water looked a little dirty. But now my second bottle was almost empty. Another running gave me a little bit of his dirty but treated water. I probably should have dropped a neutraliztion tablet in to neutralize the iodine. But I didn’t think of it.
Also around mile 19 I met a park ranger. He was just walking the trail. I got a picture of him. It was kind of anticlimatic after last year having the park ranger on the log giving out hugs at mile 23. I could have really used a hug around mile 23.
Around mile 22 I refilled my bottles from Cedar Lake. I was dumping some iodine tablets in when a couple guys in a canoe came up. The one guy commented that he thought for a bit that I wasn’t going to treat the water. I noticed they both had hand guns on their hips. I asked about that and the one guy said they were conservation officers.
I started playing games with myself. I would plan to start running when the minutes on my watch hit some time divisible by 5, But then there would be a hill. So I would walk up the hill, and plan to run at some other point. But I kept procrastinating starting to run. I kept telling myself that I would start to run when I hit the old utility road.
Around mile 28 the trail is on what seems to be an old dirt road that is maybe used by park jeeps on rare occasions. A guy using a couple walking sticks caught up to me here. I was starting to run for brief stints. Maybe a minute or two running, then walking. I kept up with him for a bit, then he pulled away as I walked up a shallow hill. I found out later he was one of the sweeps. I was starting to get into a rythm of running 3 walking 2 again unless there was a hill which I would walk up. I was starting to feel a little more energy. Maybe the gatorade? Do they sell Fruit Punch flavored gatorade powder? I had the Orange, but I really didn;’t like it much.
Some where along the road, there was thunder, and lightning, and it started to pour. I mean really pour. At first the rain felt nice, but then it got harder. I pulled out a 97 cent Walmart poncho and put it on. I was trying to run. The wet grass and bushes brushing against my legs was irritating. But I was running some at least. The trail became filled with standing water, and I started walking again. The rain stopped after a while. I pulled off the poncho and shoved it in my back pocket.
The markers were still bad in the last part of the course. But I knew to expect this. But having the waypoints in my Garmin 305 was reassuring that I was still on the right trail.
Eventually I made it out to the regular road and knew I had a mile or less to the finish. I was still doing a run 3 walk 2 thing. My running was a feeble thing close to 11:00 pace. Ack! But at least I was moving. I caught up with another running who I hadn’t seen for a long time, He was walking. He said he bonked and was going to walk it in. I pulled ahead doing my 3/2 thing. Eventually I noticed he started running, and passed me on his way to the finish line. He said later he was revitalized by his mp3 player. Oh yeah, my mp3 player died around mile 17 or 18. I paused it, and it just would restart. Maybe it ran out of power? I charged it when I got home, and it seems to work now. Maybe next year I will buy a new MP3 player with a longer batter life (like Creative Zen Stone), or use one with a regular battery and bring an extra one.
I soon saw the finish line. I ran across the dam and tried to do a Wazzu. I didn’t manage to bring my feet together. So I jumped up and tried again, and I think I got my feet together, but didn’t get very high. It was pretty bad. I am lucky I didn’t end up doing an RK (lying sprawled on the ground). The photographer manager to get me in ther air though! I can’t wait to see the picture. I got my goody bag with a shirt, and a little finisher plaque. I got a little bit of food (cookies, fig newtons), and drank some Pepsi. I finshed in 47th place out of 62 runners. My time was 8:39 which was slower than last year. Last year I chose to walk and finished in 8:24. This year I just couldn’t run. Ack! I didn’t lose any equipment this year!
My right toenail is black. I know I am going to lose it. I just finished growing out from last year.
It was quite a while before another runner came in. But then they start trickling. Soon all the runners were in except for one. Big Al. The sweep had passed him at mile 10. Another girl saw him about the halfway point. The last runners in saw him probably around mile 22 and said he looked tired. I was starting to get worried about him. He had the GPS waypoints for the trail in his GPS. But what if his GPS died. What if he was injured. What if he bonked and was just sitting on the side of the trail.
I asked Jim how long they wait. He said all night. (They are camping there).
I decided to drive up the road to where the trail hits the main dirt road. Helen came with me. We got up the road a bit, and there was Al. He said the weight of his lumbar pack had hurt his back. We threw his pack in to the car. Helen drove back to finish line, and I ran with Al. I was wearing regular denim shorts, and everyday shoes now. But I actually felt pretty good. As we crossed the dam, RDJim waved me to the side so Al could cross alone. So I veered off and let Al cross by himself.
RDJim handed me a tee-shirt form last years race and said I had redeemed myself. Way cool!
I am sure there is lots of stuff I forgot to write about.
When I got home, I crashed. Then I slept in this morning, and took a mid-morning nap.
Lessons learned (maybe): I think my training could have been better. I played with heart rate monitor training. I will go back to the first program. I should have drank gatorade earlier on, and not ran out of water. I should started taking gels sooner, and more regularly. I need an mp3 that will last longer. And I want to get gaiters.
I had fun, but my performance kind of sucked.
Here are pictures from both my camera and my wifes:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=63s6442n.btcf0duv&x=0&y=-2zkinj&localeid=en_US
Here is the data from my Garmin 305:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6298297
I went to the pool last night to swim some laps. This was the first time I went swimming since I finished my swimming lessons last week. I managed to swim a little over 1/3 of a mile (13 times down and back in a 25 yard pool). I could have swam more, but crappy swimming form, was getting crappier, so I decided to stop. I am able to swim down and back now before having to stop and cacth my breath. I was concentrating on keeping my head down in the water to keep my feet up, and stay more balanced. I worked on reaching and extending my stroke. I worked on slowing my stroke down and relaxing. I worked on breathing. I am slowly getting better at breathing ever third stroke. I really need to work on keeping my head down in the the water more. When I don’t think about it, it comes up, and my feet go down.
I definatly need to work on my swimming endurance. I need to be able to swim more laps continuously. Right now I am lucky to make it across the 25 yard pool twice without having to stop and catch my breath. I am doing better though. Soon I might be able to make it across three times, then four. I just need to relax more, and be more comfortable in the water. I am slowly getting there.
The ear plugs seem to be working. I didn’t get dizzy or nauseous last night at all.
I still suck at swimming, but I am sucking just a little but less than before.