Internal Mono(b)log

Wow!  Just wow!

Ok, but really, what a great event.  It’s now 2 days after the race and I’m still buzzing with excitement… So 1st…

Rick Yazwinski, from Toronto, Ontario.  You… Are.. An… Ironman!  

I crossed the line at 12:15, feeling strong, happy and a bit overwhelmed.  The buzz at the finish line was more than I’d ever experienced and was the perfect culmination of months of preparation.

The village of Mont Tremblant, the resort and the surrounding towns all embraced us athletes and really made us feel welcome and at home for our stay.  There were almost 4000 volunteers supporting the race plus thousands of people lining the streets and cheering us on.  It was pretty incredible and the volunteers were totally amazing.  “Amazing?” you ask.  Yea! Amazing.  For example, running through an aide station and looking for ice but none was ready, to have a volunteer sprint up to you on the course with a cup full of ice is, well, amazing (at least in my experience).

The weather was nearly picture perfect: The day started a bit cool with no wind and sunny for the swim.  Into the bike we had partial cloud and for the 1st 3 hours on the bike had minimal wind.  About 3hrs into the bike a slight wind kicked up, but nothing insane.  The temperature high for the day only reached 22C, which was so comfortable for the event.

In my 1st loop of the run we had a short rainfall (more than a shower, less than a storm), just enough to cool us down and drop the air temp a bit.  In special needs I had dry socks and was happy to get to them shortly after the rain stopped.  About 10k from the end of the run, we had a thunderstorm roll through with some torrential rainfall, like rivers in the streets rain.  I was now running on heavy wet sponges with tired legs.  At this point I could have focused on “the suck” and become really grumpy or kept the vibe, smiled and pushed on… well, I started singing.  First, “Raindrops are Falling On My Head”, and then when I got tired of that “Inky Dinky Spider”, and then finally “Tomorrow” (the sun’ll come out… tomorrow.. etc..).  I was joking with volunteers, dancing to music at the aide stations, and generally goofing around, while continuing to run.   Then there it was… a massive double rainbow, horizon to horizon, ending at the finish line.  The rain stopped, I could hear the crowd at the finish and hear the announcer.  I had about 3k to go, told myself “Rick, you run more than 3k to the washroom every night… non-stop run now!” and off I went.

As I entered the chute I saw Ian at the side.  He cheered me in and told me to savour it.  It was quite the feeling.  Emotional, strong, proud.  Totally high on life and wanting more.

From a nutrition plan perspective I kept pretty much to my plan:

Pre-swim:

• 2 planned rocktain gels (thought I’d grabbed caffeinated ones but didn’t – didn’t seem to matter)
• 1 efs drink
• 1 hornet juice

on the bike:

• 16 of planned 20 energy bites
• 2.5 of 4 planned flasks of EFS liquid shot
• 4 of 4 planned bottles of EFS drink
• 5 unplanned honey stinger waffles
• 3 bottles of water

in the run:

• 8 of 20 planned energy bites (needed to have more flavour variety, the single flavour started to get to be too much)
• 1 of 2 planned EFS drink
• 1/2 of 2 planned EFS liquid shot (started being too sweet/flavour overload)
• unplanned on course 2ish bananas, some orange slices, some pretzels, and chicken broth

Ian had mentioned to go for the chicken broth if it was on course and he was so right.  I’d have never guessed, but the warm, not sweet, salty, slightly fatty broth was exactly what I wanted when it showed up.  I think, in the future, I’m not going to carry anything into the run except for maybe some dried fruit and nuts.  The course nutrition was fine and after I ditched my running belt at the 50% mark, I felt so much lighter.

I also had a “secret weapon” for this race that treated me really well:  Biestboosters!  These little chaulky pucks are great pick-me-ups.  I had 1 at the bike 1/2 way mark, the beginning and 1/2 way on the run.  I definitely felt them put the pep back in my legs.

I was hoping to beat 12 hrs, and I think I would have, except for 1 problem I had during the day.  On Saturday night I had some papaya.  I eat papaya somewhat regularly and never have a problem with it; however, this papaya was a little underripe.  I ate about 1/2 of it before deciding it wasn’t ripe enough and putting the rest aside.  Unfortunately (and news to me) underripe papaya is really unsafe to eat.  It contains a lot of latex and can cause abdominal cramping, diarrhoea, gas, etc.  Well it certainly can… I must have stopped at least 5 times at port-o-johns on course.  My T1 was 13+ minutes, because I stopped between the change-tent and bike for 5 minutes… on the bike I had to stop once for a similar delay… on the run there were several stops, none quick.

All that said, I’m still super-happy with 12:15.  I’ve now set a bar for myself, a bar I know I’ll beat in the future, but one that’s high enough that I’ll have to work to beat it 🙂  Now.. If I could get my time down to 10h, I could qualify for Kona… now there’s something to work towards! 🙂

Next up:

• The Toronto Waterfront Marathon (yea a marathon without a 4k swim or 180k bike ride, who’d a thunk?) for my birthday 🙂 (Oct 14th)
• a 50k trail ultra in December in San Fran
• April 2013: Leadman Epic 125 in Tempe, Arizona
• Fall 2013: Leadman Epic 250 in Bend, Oregon
  • Though I’m torn about this now… the Epic 250 plays to my strengths more (bike over run), but doing Tremblant again to better my time on the same course has draw as well.  Tremblant would also be cheaper and easier from a logistics perspective.  Need to decide soon because I’m sure Tremblant will sell out for 2013.