Nick’s race report for IM St. George
Ironman St. George was the most challenging race for me yet. It was also the most fair race I’ve ever seen and the race I’m most eager to do again (excluding Kona, for obvious reasons!). This is a hard course, and if you chose to do it in the future, don’t expect to set any personal bests. I wouldn’t recommend it to folks worried about making the 17 hour cutoff. But if your the type who likes to rise up under austere conditions, this is the race for you.
My goal for St. George was to qualify for the Ironman World Championships; “Kona”. I was unsure as to the number of slots available for my age group, but I assumed that I would have to at least finish in the top five, possibly the top three.
I cannot say enough good things about the town of St. George and the surrounding area. It was beautiful, clean, and the people were amazingly polite and kind.
I arrived in St. George on Tuesday night / Wednesday morning of race week after four long days of school work. I had to work hard and sacrifice some sleep so that I could have all of race week to focus. Ryan Denner had convinced my Wildflower campmates of the past two years to go in on a vacation home for the week. This paid off huge dividends. The house was awesome and it was great to have a full-sized kitchen/garage to work with.
Race morning started very early. I woke at 3AM and was on the road by 0440 (I enjoy quality time with my coffee in the morning). Since T1 and T2 were not co-located, everybody had to take a shuttle from the finish line to the swim start and T1 at Sand Hollow Reservoir. The water for the swim was a cold 58 degrees. The wind that had been battering us during the week was reasonably calm and the water’s surface was clean. I prefer to swim in a “farmer john” style wetsuit because I feel less constrained but I opted for sleeves on race day. I calmly went through my pre-race routine at T1 and lined up in the water with about four minutes to spare.
The first turn in the swim was a left about 1000m from the start, but I still started a good ways to the right to avoid congestion. I felt strong right away and focused on a high turnover as opposed to the gliding stroke that has been drilled into my by years of age group swimming. I found clear water very quickly. Instead of sighting the turn buoy in the distance, I just kept pace with the pack to my left and gradually moved over to them. I can’t get over how good this swim felt. It was by far the most comfortable of any of my 2.4 miles swims, despite the water temperature. I was even relaxed enough to take in the panoramic views with each breath and ponder the view from the race coverage helicopters overhead. This was the first time I’ve been able to feel like I could build my effort instead of just survive the swim. I was sure that I would best my IM Arizona time of 54 minutes, but I was surprised to hop out of the water after 56 minutes. Since I was two minutes slow, I expected that a large group of my 25-29 competitors were ahead of me. I had no idea I was the third of my age group out of the water!
I got through T1 efficiently, taking time to put on socks and arm warmers (I think it was still below 50).
The bike course was tough. After about 25 miles of rollers you started a 45 mile loop which was to be covered twice. The loop featured a long and gradual stair-stepping ascent and slow asphalt. Two significantly steep climbs (which had to be covered twice) provided ample opportunities to over-exert yourself. Total ascent was around 6300 feet, quite a bit for a triathlon. We rode through lava fields and climbed up and under the summit of two volcanic ash cones. Once above St. George, we plummeted back down to earth over 15 miles of highway descent. I spent large periods time over 40mph and hit 55 on the second lap. While the course was hard, the views continued to be amazing. Everything is big in Utah, the sky, the mountains, the space.
You can look the course profile and all of my data here:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/32204687
I must have quickly ate up the two age groupers in front of me on the on the way out to the loop. After the race I learned that I spent the majority of the bike in first (for my age group) though I never knew it. I even made the Ironman-Live blog at one point. Still, I was passed by many 30 to 45 year-olds during the bike and I assumed that there was a group of my competitors ahead which I never saw.
I was riding a 12/27 which was a good call. At one point I was sitting at 300W and 55 RPM (my targeted climbing threshold was 250W).
I feel like I executed my race plan very well. I was aiming for 210 watts on the flats (which is deceptive, because there really were no flats) and limiting myself to 250 watts on steeper climbs. My heart rate remained right where I wanted it, between 155 and 160 BPM. Nutrition did not go as well. I was sipping Infinite from two water bottles every ten minutes at a caloric rate of 300 calories/hour. I was hitting the water hard to avoid nausea problems, which meant that I had to pee. Often. Very often. Let’s not go there. I was also taking in additional sodium at about 100 mg / hour, putting my total sodium intake at 700 mg/ hour. This went well through 3/4 of the bike leg, when nausea crept up on me despite my efforts with water. I ended taking in about 1200 calories on the bike as opposed to the 1600 to 1800 I had planned for.
I came into T2 feeling a little worried about the nutrition thing and was greeted by very heavy running legs and the feeling that I was running on fumes. This was not really where I wanted to be to start the run. I was in first place in my age group, but I didn’t know it. I was still assuming that a group of my competitors were up the road who I had never seen.
The half mile to the first aid station felt like torture. I had to pee again, so I jumped into a port-a-john. Right after I closed the door behind me and started going about my business I heard the door in the neighboring port-a-john slam shut.
“Hey Nick!”
It was Marty Taylor. My greeting:
“Oh Shit”
Marty has been present at each of my Ironmans and has raced against me in two of them. We have a very healthy rivalry and I have managed to squeeze out a win both times. I usually get out of the water about 10 minutes before him, hold him off on the bike and then put more time into him on the run. Things weren’t going to work out like that today. I just didn’t have any fight in me.
“How you feeling?” he asked as we both started running again.
“Not good.”
“Well, I’ll run with you for a little bit.”
That lasted for about 100 yards, and then Marty was disappearing up the road.
The run course at St. George was similar to the bike in that it was never flat. We ran a gentle slope out of town, climbed a brutal section to get above St. George, and then ran on rollers to the turnaround at 6.5 miles. Then we turned around, and re-traced our footsteps. Then we repeated the 13 miles again. There was a strange “nub” in the course at each end that was covered each time you passed, four in all. The “nub” at the bottom of the course had a steep but short climb and the “nub” at the top rolled and winded through a small park.
I was immediately walking each aid station and running slow. When the course got steep, I walked. I was nauseas, exhausted and not happy. I needed calories desperately but couldn’t stomach anything at the aid stations.
I slogged through the first six miles, and after a while I was really only running on the descents. Several guys from my age group passed me, and I figured I was in 15th place at best. On my way back to town on the first lap I was in a deep mental hole. I assumed that qualifying for Kona was out of reach. I thought about quitting, but quickly realized that there were well over a thousand people behind me, many of whom would keep moving until well into the night. I had plenty of time to finish, and so I pushed the thought of quitting out of my head and kept moving forward.
I finished the first half of the marathon in a miserable two hours, but my luck was about to turn. As I was passing the aid station where Marty had greeted me I spotted I tray of sandwiches in the back. They were the first thing I had seen on the course that looked appetizing.
“Can I get one of those?” I asked the volunteers.
“Sure! Its Jimmy Johns!” a polite lady answered as she offered me a third of a sub.
That sandwich was the single best thing I have ever eaten. Bar-none. Period. It may have even been lunch for the volunteers, but God bless the Mormons and their inability to turn away a struggling triathlete.
I was licking my fingers as I started slogging up the road again. In less than five minutes, my attitude changed. I felt so much better with food in my stomach. I think my blood sugar rose and I know my energy returned. My feet got lighter and I found my pace. I was able to run again!
I would do so until my heart rate rose above 165, usually on only the steepest parts of the course. At this point I could almost feel my body switch the fuel it was using and start screaming at me. I would start walking. When walking, I would play the “walk one cone, run two” game I learned at Kona last year. I leaned forward on descents and made the most of them.
While I was still on my way out of town for the second time, my buddy Greg (a spectator for the day) spotted me and yelled:
“Hey Nick! You’re in third!”
Greg was getting updates from Ironman.com on his phone. I didn’t believe him for a second, but for some reason that comment bolstered my morale. (After the race we figured out that he was probably looking at information that was 45 minutes to an hour old).
Now I was excited. I didn’t think I was actually in third, but I was going to catch somebody who was having a worse day than me. I got my fight back.
And I did pass people. Lots of people. Lots of people who had passed me earlier in the race. The carnage was way worse out on the course now. And I fed off of it. I was feeling better by the minute, and some of my competitors were crashing. I was devastating the aid stations now, taking in fistfuls of pretzels, potato chips and cookies. I was downing cola and water.
Thanks to compression socks, I wasn’t sure what age group everybody was in. But I did catch one person with a 25 or a 26 marked on their calf. He looked terrible. I moved past him fast and he didn’t respond.
I finished the second half marathon ten minutes faster than the first. I crossed the line smiling with my hands in the air. I still figured that I had placed somewhere between 10th and 15th and that Kona was out of the question.
Before I continue, there is one other event from the run that I have to write about:
The “nub” at the bottom of the course was one of the most painful parts of the course. It was here that we ran through a parking lot for an Elks Lodge. There were several old men sitting in lawn chairs watching the race. The first time I went by them I was walking, probably with my head down. One old man yelled:
“Come-on Navy! Get to it! Hup, two three four! Don’t they teach you how to run in the Navy!”
“Tell me your an old Marine” I replied, to which they all slapped their knees and started howling with laughter. I smiled, started running and they cheered. I passed them three more times and each time they had a smart-ass comment for me. Once they busted into “Anchors Away”. The last time I passed them I was close to the finish and feeling great. I waved to them, called them the “best peanut gallery ever” and thanked them for their encouragement.
Moments after I had finished, I was astonished to find out that I had placed fourth. After reviewing the results, I think I fell from 1st to 6th during the first half of the marathon, and then fought my way back to forth thanks to Jimmy Johns. But I still didn’t know if that was going to be good enough to get me to Kona.
Minutes after I finished, my stomach turned on me again. I took up my usual place in the medical tent, until some nausea meds fixed my stomach and I could enjoy some post race pizza and beer, courtesy of Marty Taylor (He had a great race and I never did catch him, but we will race again !)
The next morning was an exercise in math for my friends and I. Based on the total number of entrants, the number of competitors in my age group and the number of slots available we estimated that there were 3.8 slots for my age group. But we didn’t know what Ironman did with remainders. Did they round up? Do they lump them all together and give more slots to the biggest age group? To the smallest age group?
Marty had to go in to claim his slot, and I went along to check on my fate. When I saw the results posted with “4 qualifying slots” scribbled next to my age group I …..well…..I got a bit emotional.
So that’s that. A cold, relaxing swim; A tough bike and a brutal 26.2 miles. I finished in 10:32, stood atop the podium in 4th for my age group and qualified for Kona! The people and town of St. George were great. The race was well organized and went off without a hitch. Thanks to Greg and Pat for showing up and supporting Myself, Marty, Erin, Daemeon, Ryan and Michelle. Thanks to Matt Simpson for showing up to cheer on all his friends. Thanks to Liz, Melinda, Ed, Joe, Kathy, Sarah, Little Felipe (Fred), Elaine and the rest of the breakaway crew for all the support. Thanks to Jenny and CDR Lagerquist for feeding me the night before the race. And finally thanks to everybody who was wishing me well from home.