Ironman Coeur d’Alene 2009 Race Report, Part 1

This race report on Ironman Coeur d’Alene 2009 will probably reveal the conflict I felt throughout the training for the race, during the trip to Idaho with my family, and even a little in the event itself. While many people find ways to make triathlon into a life-changing event—raising money for charity, overcoming addiction, implementing big lifestyle shifts—for me, it’s simply an enjoyable hobby. That’s not to say I don’t find meaning in triathlon; I do. But I think I could find the same life lessons in other pursuits: birding, say, or baking, or bowling. The intention and attitude with which one approaches the activity are the key. The activity itself is less important.

The success I had in training for and racing this event was completely contingent on my intention for the process: to see what it was like. To observe. To note the positives and negatives of the training, to watch the highs and lows of the day. I gathered information on the process to serve my coaching clients, and one day, my experience may be parlayed into a book. This is the root of my report and my message to you: while there are so many details to manage, especially in a race of this scope, you must have a very clear reason for the undertaking. If you are committed to that reason, you’re most of the way there.

My intention for this report: to share what worked, and what I’d do differently if there were a next time, for the benefit of those who might do this race one day, or who wonder what it’s like.

Training

You can visit my blog for a few reports on my training (click the links that follow). The positives were many:

• My experience in the Big Sit and opportunities to find correlations between the internal and the external
• Masters swim training (in the course of IM training, I set a PR best 100-yard time, 1:19). Thanks to Coach Griff for the pointers, and to my yoga student and pro triathlete Alex McDonald for feeding me swim workouts (I can’t stand to prescribe my own).
• Discovery of some “real swimmer” goggles that worked for me—the Speedo Vanquishers—and that neither leaked nor fogged over the entire 2.4-mile swim
• Many long rides that taught me valuable lessons, like orienteering, dog handling, and how to make it through over four straight hours on the trainer. Here, my athlete Katy B. and our training partner Susan K. were more helpful than they knew. I look forward to repaying the favor—if I can get fast enough to keep up.
• Enjoyable races done at less-than-full speed, including a 15-miler in Valle Crucis, the White Lake Half Ironman, and an Olympic-distance trip Over the Mountain
• Finding that a splinted hand is a surefire way to stay aero on a century ride

The time commitment and level of fatigue I constantly carried were the negatives. Training left me tired much of the time. While I have the luxury of a super supportive husband and understanding family, combined with a flexible schedule, I often felt that anyone committing to such an endeavor who didn’t have the same resources was probably making some bad choices about what’s important.

The only secret weapon in my training was my daily meditation practice. I didn’t do that for purposes of the race, though. I did it for its own see-what-it’s-like reason. In hindsight, it was much more powerful than I thought.

The weak link in my training—apart from the stitches that derailed my swim by keeping me out of the water just as I should have been hitting some very long-yardage weeks—was my bike. It’s always my bike. This was a question of priorities for me. I couldn’t justify the time to add a fourth ride most weeks, so I got by on teaching two cycling classes, often padding them a little, and doing my long ride. Hence my slow, slow time in the race. But I think the slow bike time allowed me to capitalize on my running endurance, as you’ll see.

The Trip

The town of Coeur d’Alene, way up in the panhandle of northern Idaho, does a wonderful job supporting the race. We felt consistently welcome and supported. My mother read in a local paper that so many locals volunteer, it’s hard to find slots for them all. Compare this to Ironman Florida, the article said, where only 900 volunteers work the race. At IM CdA, there are 3,000 volunteers for just over 2,000 athletes. Logistics were very clear; it was easy to get around, despite never seeing a map of the transition area and expo (that would have been welcome in the otherwise helpful prerace packet). It helped that my friend Josh, who did the race last year, talked me through the logistics step by step.

Wes and I traveled with our daughters and my parents, so we chose to stay out of town, in Hayden Lake, and we rented a lovely house far from the nervous crowd of overfit people in Coeur d’Alene. This put us close to my parents’ friends’ home right on the bike course, and while it meant we had to travel each day to and from the downtown race site, it was serene and convenient.

There were a lot of cars like this up and down U.S. 95 and Government Way, the main drags through town.

I felt the same preternatural calm leading up to the race that had perplexed me during the taper. Wasn’t I supposed to be freaking out? Friday was spent at packet pickup and previewing the course; Saturday was bag and bike check-in. I’d used Inside-Out Sports’ bike-transport services, which were great. I drove my bike the twenty miles to Cary and handed it in, along with a suitcase full of gear—wetsuit, helmet, bike shoes, food, CO2 canisters. Lawrence Garcia then drove it cross-country. Thanks, Lawrence! This was vastly superior to disassembling the bike and having to fly with it. We rented a sexy Toyota Siena minivan, which held my parents, the kids, and my bike quite nicely. The girls loved the automatically sliding doors and decreed the minivan “fancy.”

A bag for everything, and everything in its bag.

My only evidence of prerace nerves was the pressing need to interrupt my parents’ visit with their friends to insist that I really, really did need my night-before dinner as soon as possible. One of the benefits of being an East Coaster on PST was being able to wake up bright and early every day. And by bright and early, I mean it was getting bright really early at that latitude: dawn began at 4:15 a.m.

Part 2 | Part 3