Category: Travel
Ironman Canada
Penticton, British Columbia
August 29, 2010
2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run
Going into this race, I was feeling sluggish, not super confident, injured, and did I say sluggish?
The swim started off with roughly 2800 people spread out across a quarter of a mile with plans to meet at the first buoy. I thought that since we would all be meeting there, I would at least get to the front of the line and have people pass me instead of the other way around. This idea popped into my head after speaking with a bunch of other better swimmers and it turned out only 1161 people beat me out of the water. This could have been due partially to my strategy of swimming in a zig zag pattern. Straight lines are over rated and I was very happy with my 1:11 swim which was a 7 minute PR from IM New Zealand and a 5 minute PR from Aquabike in July.
The bike is something that I have gotten progressively stronger on but multitasking is tough which has resulted in nutrition issues, cramping, throwing up… in previous races. I decided this time around to stay in Zone 2/3 (aerobic) so that I would have good legs to run the marathon. Riding conservatively was a very hard thing to do but I stuck to my plan even when people were passing me. That is until the rain started. I was really trying to keep taking in nutrition but when the rain/hail started with about 25 miles to go, I got so cold that I couldn’t stop shivering and was therefore unable to grab my water bottles to drink. Plus all my focus was on staying alive as I went down the backside of Yellow Lake at 30 mph in the wind and rain with both brakes fully engaged. Seeing 3 ambulances at the bottom of the hill wasn’t very comforting. I was hoping to ride at least a 5:30 but was happy to be off the bike in 5:39 and made up a lot of positions, 1162 to 407 and 131 to 54 in my age group.
When I ran into the transition tent, I wasn’t able to put my socks and shoes on by myself because my hands were frozen. Thank goodness for the volunteers! I was nervous starting the run since my legs started to tighten during the end of the bike but decided to just stick with the plan of running a sub 8 pace and walking each aid station. For the most part it worked on the first half with me crossing the ½ way point in 1:46. I quickly realized that the return trip started out with a hill and what felt like a nonstop headwind. My pace slowed a bit but I tried to just focus on drafting anybody who passed me. This worked perfectly as everybody I drafted, I ended up passing J I didn’t manage to keep up a 8 minute pace for the return portion but was happy with a 3:44 time which shot me up 140 spots to finish in 267th place out of 3029. I passed 14 guys in my age group to sit finish in 40th out of 247.
Overall, it was a great day with many friends finishing their first Ironman and others pulling of awesome finishes on a difficult day.
Bike Breakdown.
Run Breakdown. You can see how often I had to go to the bathroom… lots of stops
Getting directions can be difficult in Japan as there really aren’t street names…
While in Okinawa I’ll be taking pictures and videos of my time here. I will be uploading them to my flickr and facebook page. Here’s a couple from my first day.
No idea what this stuff does but I’m guessing it’s a dietary supplement.
Ra-yu- is apparently a very popular topping on rice.
LOVE TUNA!
Yumeno would write a letter in hiragana and I would say what it was. I would write a letter in English and she would say it. Then Yuzuki came and wanted to play with my video camera
Here’s the video of the day before the race.
California 70.3
I basically go snowboarding once every 10 years. This time around I met up with a bunch of college buddies, mostly fraternity brothers. It was a great time, once Bos and I finally got there. Our plane had to take an unexpected diversion into Salt Lake City, which ended with the flight getting canceled. So we got put up in hotels for the night and took another flight the next morning.
Just renewed my passport and I didn’t know that you get your old one back. Looking through the old one (2000-2010) and I’m pretty happy with my travels in my 20’s. Even had to get pages added before getting it renewed. Most of them are Japanese stamps but there are some other countries mixed in such as Thailand, Malaysia, India, Taiwan, New Zealand, Philippines, and Canada. I received a total of 61 stamps in it.
I wonder what the next 10 years will bring.