Tri-ing to stay young!

Swimming, especially over a longer distance can be quite boring so I usually spend my time thinking about some odd thing or another. My thoughts for this race were about feet, something that I had never noticed in the past, probably because I always spent my time at the back of the pack. But this time …. as I MOVED UP in the pack, I found that I would be hitting peoples feet, so … I began counting feet as I raced +1 for every person that I touched as I moved up and -1 for every time someone touched my feet as they passed me. I was up a bunch on the out leg but got beat up pretty badly (passed often) on the return leg (so I quit counting!) Anyway, from here on in, I will be judging my swim pace by feet.
Now on to the serious topic of Ironman:
The water was smooth as glass for the race. Ed and I got to the venue at about 5:30 so we had plenty of time to sit around and second guess ourselves - which we did several times; did I pack everything? - go through the bike bag - go through the run bag - go through the bike bag again. We all hit the water about 10 minutes before start, swim about 200 metres to the start line and treaded water waiting for the start. It was an incredible experience being one of about 2700 people treading enmass. The water is definitely brown. I could not see my hand in front of me and certainly couldn’t see any swimmers after the start. My sighting was a bit off again. I figure that I completed about 4Km during the race as I went from the canoes at one side of the course to the sea wall on the other side 3 times. The width of the course was about 75m. I finished the swim in 1:46. Another interesting thought; I find it difficult to keep track f time during a race. It seems to go so slow during the swim and so fast during the run.
Arizona is definitely a bikers dream course. It is straight and wide with loads of room to pass 2 and even 3 wide. Other than for the turnarounds, there was no place on the curse where you could not pass. Because it was 3 laps, you got to see just how fast a pro can go and I’m here to tell you that they do go fast. A down side to the bike course is the constant wind. The first 2 laps saw a fairly brisk head wind on the one leg with a welcoming tail wind on the home leg. The wind changed direction on the final leg so many of us had to endure a head wind both ways. As for the pros speed, there was one point in the home leg where I got up to 50kph when a series of pros passed me like I was standing still (I estimate that they were going 65 to 70kph or more) .. and that is on a near flat! Any way I finished the bike sometime around 4:30, or 9.5 hours into the race. I didn’t feel bad but I almost collapsed when I got off the bike, something that has never happened before. My brother Ed was waiting for me in the change tent and helped to re-orient me and get me out for the run. I’ll tell you his story later in the article.
The run was a 3-loop affair through town. The course was slightly hilly (and all hills seem huge to me after 9 hours) it is very spectator friendly with both volunteers and fans lining almost the entire race route. As for the volunteers - They were incredible. I was impressed with IMC but the Tempe people really get into the race; most of the aide station were themed. My favorite was one at mile 3 of the second loop where they dressed in a western theme; their Penalty Tent was a hangman’s scaffold complete with noose! My run time with a 15:11 finish was slow, which expected due to the lack of training, but I was ticked with myself as I know that I had had the 11minutes in me to finish under 15 hours.
Now back to Ed. He had whiplash from the bike crash but decided to compete. His swim was 2:03 and timed out on the bike. The most incredible part of his race was that he had no strength in his neck muscles and had to ride holding his head up with one hand while riding with the other. That is a true competitor! Ed missed the 3rd loop cut-off by 5 minutes.
I’m off the catch the plane home so I’ll write more about the race and Tempe tomorrow fro Victoria.
Bye for now; Bill
The run