Ironman Lake Tahoe

If you’ve never read one of my race reports, beware of my logorrhea.

First off, let’s set the record straight on the weather that day. I’ve been hearing stories of water temperatures in the high 50’s, and air temps of 28F at the start of the race. According to my own well-tested thermometer, the lake was 63.9F 12″ deep out on a pier; it was colder near shore, but warmed up once we hit water over 6′ deep. The NWS (National Weather Service) shows the air temp at race time at King’s Beach was 39F, and had made it all the way up to 42 by 8:20, then got stuck there, making it only to 44 an hour later. Even though the high temp was 54 for the day, for the most part, it was under 50 when and where we were riding (air temps usually drop 3-5 deg for every 1000′ in altitude); we spent a lot of time climbing between 6500 and 7200′, a good 1000 above the lake. There was really no wind to speak of, and we were riding in a circle anyway, so the only wind chill was whatever speed we were making at the time. Then, during the run, out of the sun in the late afternoon, we were again facing temps in the 40s. If we had done the race 24 hours earlier, though, I shudder to think how we might have fared. There were brisk morning winds and lake chop at 7AM. Then, both on the downhill from Brockway, and running in Squaw Valley, it was probably snowing and 34F for an hour or more in the mid-late afternoon,

Next, though this was the most scenic of the many races I’ve done, the logistics of the race were nightmarish. Two separate transitions areas, with zero parking at the first one, meant that the day before the race and race morning were worse than congested; it was almost gridlock at times. For those doing the race in the future: if you have no one to drive you to the race start, don’t stay anywhere except in Squaw Valley, where buses left 4:30 to 5:30 for the 30+ minute trip to King’s Beach. And, we rode three times along the main north lakeshore drag, open to traffic both directions. More than once, I spent a fair amount of time drafting in and out of cars during this 10 mile segment.

My race day started smoothly. I chose to put on my wet suit (DeSoto bibjohn, at least) in my condo, to be warm while outdoors doing pre-race duties. Also, I chose not to get body marked (heresy!), figuring: I’m wearing arm warmers and a jacket on the bike, long sleeves on the run, and calf compression sleeves, so who’s gonna know; and, I didn’t want to get black marker smeared all over said clothes. I felt a little illicit, but it saved me getting cold first thing. I first fed my nutrition to my bike, pulled the plastic covers off my drive train, saddle, and aerobars (did I mention it rained A LOT the afternoon before?), and noticed that there was ice coating the steel transition racks and some bike tires (though not mine, for some reason). Then, onto T1 (bike-to-run) bag, to place all my dry clothing in reverse order in which I’d put it on – something I’d never done before at an IM. I figured, along with everyone else, that it would be suicide to wear a race outfit under the wetsuit, and then start riding at 20-25 mph. I did have my DeSoto Forza tribibs on while I swam.

Sunrise over the mountains rimming the Tahoe Basin was a little after 7 AM, so it was getting light as the cannon went off for the pros at 6:30. I did a few jumping jacks to warm up and get my heart rate going. I ran past about 1200 people to get in the middle of the 1:10-1:20 “corral”. I was anticipating a 1:16 swim. Since the water was shallow for about 100 meters into the swim, I felt the run before swimming would be a reasonable substitute for a true swim warm up. I hit the arch/start pad about 2 minutes after the 6:40 start. The beach here is very shallow, almost 100 yards until hitting shin deep water, where I began to splash water with my hands and then up on my face. Ten seconds or so of this, past the sand bar, water hit my thighs, and I started to swim.

In recent years, IM swims have become a madhouse at the start. By grouping us somewhat by anticipated race time, and shuttling us through a narrow chute, this was by far the smoothest and most relaxing beginning to a swim I’ve had since the days we had “only” 16-1700 athletes hitting the water. Also, the dawn light shimmering off of the snow on the peaks rimming the lake, and the surface fog obscuring the buoys had a spiritually calming effect. I took a few quick strokes, noticed it was a bit hard to breathe, and remembered to slow down. Then it was just get down to steady work.

Watching the sun rise, the snow turn from pale white to shining gold, and then the few clouds going through their own rainbow transformation, along with the lack of bumping and slugging, made this one of most enjoyable open water swims I can remember. I had on booties, but just a swim cap, and I never felt either too cold or too warm – just perfect. I was not wearing any watch at all during the swim, I saw “1:28.XX” as I exited, and assumed this meant about 1:16, subtracting 12 minutes from the pro start.

Then, one of the high points of my day. Mike Reilly, who’s called my name more than a few times during and after races, shouted it out again as I exited. But he seemed to suddenly remember me, and after saying somewhat robotically, “Al Truscott, from Gig Harbor Washington”, he then called me out again, with a lot more animation, followed by “64 years young!” Ah, Mike, you DO care! I had my DeSoto top off by that point, and raised both arms to acknowledge. This got the crowd excited, so I gave a one armed wave, and that raised the cheers even more.

Past the wet suit strippers, into the field of blue bags, I found mine on the outside near the end, and ran off to the left of the change tent. I was looking for some sun, and finally found it on a little patch of grass next to the sunscreen appliers (they had very little business that morning). I whipped out my miniature Gatorade towel, and wiped down my arms, calves and feet. Down the towel goes to keep my toes warm, and on go the EN singlet (stepped into and pulled UP, not on over the head), the EN arm warmers (bunched up, not rolled, and helpfully labelled “Right” and “Left”), then the full zip EN jersey, and the full sleeve EN podium jacket. Next, I sit, and on go socks, calf sleeves, and I’m off to the races. By this point, my fingers are starting to numb up, but I’m still able to pull on my beanie, covering my ears, throw on my helmet, grab my shoes (already capped with toe warmers), and run in my socks on the dry pavement the full length of the bike racks. At the far end, I take a porta potti minute, put on my shoes, and grab my bike, then run BACK AGAIN THE FULL LENGTH of the bikes. A good 2+ minutes of running just to get from the change area to the bike out. I go about 10 meters past the mount line, over to the left side, get on, and STILL have someone almost run me down from behind. My gloves are stuck onto the aerobars for 15 minutes before I realise that the numbness I’m feeling is not the usual parasthesia I’ve had in my fingers ever since my spinal cord injury three years ago, but more like real frostbite. By then I can barely move my fingers to get each into the proper slot.

And Here My Troubles Began (Maus II, by Art Spiegleman)

So now’s the time to say that after all this (and another 10 hours) I did not finish the race. I owe myself, and folks who follow my racing, an explanation. My initial assessment, soon after I quit, was: “Not quite sure why, need to review bike power files, but suspect my dysphagia (swallowing problems) inhibits my nutrition on bike, and also motivation (lack thereof) also contributes. Will ponder and share more later in the week”. I was really thinking it was the latter two reasons, which was very disturbing to me. The dysphagia (http://bikrutz.org/triblog/?p=706) is what it is, and I can’t do much about it, so if it is a limiter, that’s scary. And I have always prided myself on being a racer, able to mentally prepare and execute. If I’d lost my mojo, an ephemeral thing to begin with, I really didn’t know where to look for it. And I certainly didn’t want my race to be buggered because I did something stupid with my bike pacing, after telling people for years, “Take care of your nutrition and your pace; your time and place will take care of themselves.”

As I noted above, the start of the bike was COLD, lower 40s at best, and FAST, with a flat to downhill route for the first 25 miles. At the Four Keys talk, Coach Rich spent a good five minutes talking about drafting “packs” and how to race smartly during this section. I was using a functional power threshold (FTP – the power I can maintain for an hour) of 204, based on my sea level FTP of 220. During my 5 weeks training at altitude, including two race rehearsals, I’d been using 200-202 for my FTP, riding at 7500-9000′ for the most part, with most of this race at 5800-6400′, so I felt that was a good figure to base my race pace on.  During the first 15 miles, my intensity was slowly creeping up from 0.65 to 0.7 of my FTP by the time I crested Dollar hill, 7-8 miles in, 200′ gain in 0.6 miles. EN Coaches say we should be doing the first 1-1.5 hours at 0.65. Hmmm.

Did I mention it was cold? I felt so much better biking with an heart rate of 116 (mid-zone 1 for me), I was getting sucked into riding a touch faster than I should. And I didn’t click into a new interval on my Joule at mile 10 like I should have. I spent about 90 minutes this morning diving real deep into my power files, looking at various segments of the ride, trying to discover if I really did make a pacing mistake in the first 25 miles. Here’s what I found. Miles 15-25 are a gradual downhill, with a very slight tail wind, on a very smooth road. I found myself getting whipsawed by a small pack of riders, who would flow by, then soft pedal once they got into the wind, and I tried to stay in front of them. After about ten minutes, I finally succeeded, but at what cost? Here’s the grim story the watt meter tells:

Miles 14.7-19.7       Miles19.7-24.7
24.94 mph               24.54 mph
IF 0.79                   IF 0.67
12:00 minutes         12:10 minutes
-307 (elevation loss) -235

Bottom line: ten seconds gained by biking at 0.79 instead of 0.67 like I should have been doing. My IF for those first 20 miles was 0.73, with the damage really being done during those 12 minutes I was playing inside the drafting pack, and the 5 minutes I rode up Dollar hill @ 0.8. The next 23 miles was 0.69, just where I should have been, once I realised what I’d been doing. But the damage was already done, especially considering all the climbing I had to do after that. The rest of my bike ride numbers were just fine – between 0.7 and 0.75 on the long climbs, overall under 0.69 when downhills were included.

Now a word about this bike ride. It does have a LOT of climbing. My total elevation gain was about 9000′, as measured by the Joule’s barometer, which is nearly twice what Coeur d’Alene or Kona have. It’s reasonable to add an hour or so from a CDA time to get a Lake Tahoe bike time. But as long as one climbs within one’s limits it shouldn’t be “hard”,  just “long”.

Anyway, I finished the bike ride without having had any “down” spots – just trying to execute as best I could, considering my Joule was in my pocket for the last 80 miles of the ride (the mount loosened about 35 miles in, and I had to stop and get a spectator to put it in my back pocket, that’s how cold my fingers till were), and I was using my wrist mounted Garmin 310XT to tell me my current watts. I rode strong the third time along the lake and up into Squaw, passing everyone, yet staying at 0.68 IF for this portion. My T2  (bike-to-run) was a model of efficiency, @ about 3:38 including a potti stop. I think my overall transition time of 13 minutes may have been swiftest in my AG.

My sea level long run pace is 9:07. We’re supposed to run the first six miles at 30 seconds slower than this, and maybe add 20-30 seconds for the altitude. So I was figuring 9:45-10:00. I’d been able to do this with no problems while training at altitude in race reharsals. My first 5 miles were: 9:41, 11:06 (the only steep hill on the course), 9:18 (back down), 10:06, 10:44 (starting “up” the Truckee River). My HR, which I wanted to keep under 120 during the first 6 miles, was 119 (123 up the hill).

Just before the start of the hill, I almost got “doored” by someone flying out of a porta potti. Dino Sarti! Hey, how’s it going? We ran together for a bit, but he seemed a touch slower, so I just kept toddling along.

Then, for some reason, my body stopped running and I couldn’t get it started again. I was walking 13-14 minute miles, but each attempt at running brought a brusque refusal from the part of my brain that actually controls my racing. This is the part that usually flogs me on to keep running at a steady pace when I really don’t want to. It confused me, and I began to wonder if my hydration had been an issue. Nope, I peed 4 times on the bike, once each in transition, and again (just to make sure things weren’t going south) at about mile 7 of the run. I wondered if I’d just lost my basic motivation to race, if I had come to the end of my Ironman career. By the time I hit mile 11, I’d decided to pull the plug. If I wasn’t going to run, I was not willing to walk another 3.5 hours just to say I’d finished this thing. Been there, done that, no fun at all, and I don’t want the T shirt. The first aid station I tried had no drivers, so it was mile 13 where I handed in my chip.

During my 6.5 decades, I’ve learned to rely on a few of my personality traits that have served me well: optimism, prudence, analysis, and a poetic sense of story. While I feel pretty stupid for once again letting the early part of the bike mess me up (had a similar experience in opposite weather with a draft pack in 2009), I am so relieved my analysis revealed a fixable mistake, rather than something physical (swallowing problems) or mental (lost mojo) that would be much harder to deal with.

My optimism tells me that I have a revenge IM already scheduled in 8 weeks at my favorite course in Tempe. And my sense of story reminds me that I am at the top of my AG this year, and my plan has always been to roll three years of post-injury training (2011-13) into a Big Year in 2014 when I turn 65.

So, score: Lake Tahoe 1, Al zero. As a team mate said, implying I’m going back to even the score? Yes, but probably not next year. I want to keep with the long term plan, which has been aiming for gold @ IM Arizona in 2014. I know how to race this course now, and I want to show it a thing or two. Maybe in ’15?