Monday, October 7, 2013

IM LAKE TAHOE: WHAT A RACE!

Unhealthy levels of combined smoke from the American and Rim fires forced me down the mountain and dashed my dream of training at altitude for five weeks before the race. About two weeks before the race, the smoke cleared enough to make it worthwhile to return to Squaw. My coach Chris Hauth and a number of his athletes met back up in Tahoe for a final group training weekend on the course two weeks before the race. I felt really good and hoped that I hadn’t peaked too early.



My husband Dennis joined me on Friday night a week before the race, my sister the following Tues., my sister-in-law and brother-in-law on Wed. and my friend and best training buddy Cecile, the day before the race. So my cheering section was set.

I did my last workout on Friday: A one-hour bike during which I tested Zipp 404 race wheels rented from Tri Bike Transport. This last minute decision was fueled by a look at the USAT rankings of my competitors versus mine. Of those with a ranking, I was ranked 6th; podium spots go to 5th place, so I asked myself, “What was there to lose?” My bike felt a little different with the wheels, but it only took about 15 minutes to get used to the feel. On Saturday, it poured rain, the temps dropped, and snow fell above 7000 ft.  Good thing I finished my last scheduled workout on Friday!
IMAGE FROM SQUAW WEB CAN ON DAY BEFORE THE RACE 
Race Morning: At 4:30 am, I drove to Cecile’s place located less than a mile from the swim start and left my car there until the next day. Cecile drove me to the start, took my morning clothes and saw me off before she headed to Squaw to volunteer in the medical tent. 

Even before the start I knew that Ironman Lake Tahoe was going to be a different kind of race. My bike, protected from the rain by plastic bags, was now covered in ice. Even the little puddles of rain water in the dimples of the plastic bags had formed ice cubes and, where the bike wasn’t protected, it needed defrosting in order to tape on my electrolytes. One of the best things I did was put “Hot Hands” inside my gloves before hanging them on my shifters so that they would be warm when I started the ride. As there was not a bike pump to be found, I stood in line in freezing temperatures at the air compressor for my tires to be pumped. After re-racking my bike I headed over to the transition bag area and put toe warmers between my bike shoes and neoprene toe covers.
Swim: By the time I got to the beach most of the competitors were already lined up. I wove through the tight crowd to line up for the swim at the back of the 1 to 1:10 group, thinking I could do the swim in an hour and 15 mins. The sun had just come up and fog was rising off of the warm lake into the 32 degree air. I couldn’t see any of the buoys as we entered the water and started to swim, so I just started following people. With all my effort to not let it happen, my heart rate soared and I actually felt a little panicked as I got pummeled, elbowed in the mouth, and especially when one guy actually put his arm around my waist and pulled himself over me pushing me under to get to the other side of me. My heart was racing until the number five sighting buoy, where I finally managed to get my breathing under control. 

With the course shrouded in fog, I couldn’t see from one buoy to the next and never saw the course from shore. I felt amazed that I was able to execute my plan of swimming to the inside of the sighting buoys and turning tightly around the turn buoys. I felt like I was just surviving on the first lap and couldn’t really concentrate on swimming well. 
On the second lap I was able to stretch out a bit and focus on my stroke.  At this point, every time I drew a breath, I could appreciate the view of snow capped mountains in the distance with trees in the foreground dusted with snow. This alternated with the crystal clear view to the bottom of the lake, which was sometimes obliterated by bubbles from hard kicking around me. I came out of the water thinking it was a pretty slow swim. I couldn’t tell by the clock because we had a rolling start and I didn’t know what time it was when I crossed over the starting mat. I learned after the race that my swim time was 1:20 – I was expecting 1:15 or a little quicker.

T1: I took advantage of the wetsuit strippers, retrieved my transition bag pretty quickly and went into the inadequate changing tent which was packed with women struggling to put on dry clothes. With no chairs available, I dropped my stuff on the ground and put my helmet on right away so it wouldn’t get kicked or stepped on. It was pure chaos as women stepped all over my stuff and I struggled to put my jacket on, so I grabbed everything and went outside. Although it was significantly colder, I had some room which I used to sit down on the ground to get my socks and shoes on.  I put on a stretchy tight jacket, tight fleece vest, knee warmers, socks, a neck gator, shoes, sunglasses, and a headband that covered my ears; plus I stuffed a few Bonk Breaker Bars in my tri jersey pockets.  I had worn arm warmers, a dry fit tee, tri jersey and tri shorts under my wetsuit and kept them on even though they were now wet. My transition time was 12 minutes and 16 seconds. It seemed ridiculously long but was very much in line with many other competitive participants and probably less than the average for this race.
Bike: I felt cold for the first lap of the bike but thanks to the chemical warmers, didn’t have frozen or numb hands or toes. It took a long time for my legs to feel warmed up and on the first two climbs (Martis and Brockway) I wasn’t able to produce Z4 watts or Z4 heart rate very often. At the time I was thinking that I probably went too hard on my three hour Wed. ride earlier in the week. I also thought about what my coach said about just getting over the hills, so I tried not to get mentally hung up on the seeming lack of power. I felt like I took the entire first lap fairly easy. On the second lap, my Garmin turned off in the Comstock area; I turned it back on and saw that the battery was fine and hoped it would stay on.  I kept my eye on power and heart rate, realizing about nine miles later that I hadn’t pressed start! I’m missing data from Truckee to somewhere in the Martis area. On the second loop the Martis climb didn’t feel difficult but the top half of the Brockway climb felt extremely difficult. I enjoyed the final fast descent back to Kings Beach hitting a top speed of 47 mph.  Then came the start of the home stretch, I wished I knew from my computer how much time had lapsed on the bike ride so I would have some idea about how I was doing compared to my pre-race expectations. At the start of the last Dollar Hill climb I noticed two guys squatting off of their bikes; Just as I was wondering what they were doing, my right inner thigh got a major cramp. Ah ha, they were stretching out cramps! I downed the rest of my water bottle, took two salt tabs and tried to emphasize a different part of my pedal stroke and the cramp went away pretty quickly. Which leads me to what I ate and drank on the bike:

On the first loop, the first two Bonk Breaker Bars were almost frozen and it took me a half hour toget through each one. At this rate, I thought I’d be eating constantly during the entire bike ride. Also my bottles were so cold that they were almost impossible to squeeze. All in all, I ate three bonk breaker bars, two gels, and one package of Power Bar Energy Blasts. Plus I had 100 cals of Roctane Energy Formula in one bottle. In total this adds up to approximately 1290 cals on the bike. The bike took 7:08, so this is 187 cals per hour ingested. My target was 200 cals per hour; not perfect but not terrible. Where I fell short was in drinking. I had three bottles on the first loop, all with one Nuun tab in them and one with the addition of the 100 cals of Roctane. I stopped at special needs and picked up an additional bottle with one Nuun tab in it. I took 2 water bottles from aid stations after that and thought that there was another aid station between Carnelian Woods and the turn into Squaw Valley, but there was not. That made the total number of bottles only six, well short of my target of seven to 10.  Since I finished my last bottle at the bottom of the Dollar Hill climb, I entered T2 on the thirsty side but I also needed to pee.

Although I didn’t know it at the time because my computer had malfunctioned, my bike time was 7:08 – just eight minutes over my goal time of seven hours. My average HR was 134 (zone 3) max 155, and my average watts 139 (zone 2).

T2: It was pretty uneventful. I did have to duck into a porta potty before I left T2. My transition time was five minutes and 35 seconds.
Run:  A lot of the run is pretty much a blur to me. There are moments that stand out but mostly I was focused on two recurring mantras: “You don’t get on the podium by walking” and “Don’t let all that training go to waste.” Soon after T2 at the end of the parking lot, just before heading onto the Squaw Valley Road bike path, I thought I should have taken more time in the porta potty. I had to stop again. Fortunately my stomach wasn’t upset.

Shortly after getting on the bike path I saw my coach who was also racing and we greeted each other. I immediately thought about my running form. Then I kept thinking he was going to lap me on his second loop and critique me on my running form. The fact that he might run up behind me, kept me concentrated on my form until I passed the second turnaround which was about four or five miles into my first lap. It took about three miles for me to get my legs on the run. They started feeling more normal after I turned the corner at the Resort at Squaw Creek heading back toward Squaw Valley Road. Until I stopped at special needs, which I think was at about mile 15, I ran without walking except for up the short hill behind the resort. At special needs I picked up some gels, a long sleeved shirt and exchanged my Fuel Belt bottle for one filled with Gatorade. Throughout the run I ate a gel every 30 to 40 minutes and drank something to wash each one down. I think I skipped one gel at about the four hour mark. I also took two Endurolytes every hour for the last three or four hours.  I took water at every aid station and after special needs, walked through two or three where I also got Coke.
One of the nice things about the out and back section along the Truckee River was seeing some of my fellow AIMP training friends on the run course. On my way to the first turn-around, I first saw Dora who said, “Brenda, you are awesome!” I retorted, “You are awesome!” and a guy behind me said, “You are both awesome!” This cracked me up. Soon after Dora, I saw Faith and then John. On my way back, I recognized Byron and Rachael in time to give a shout out.

When I headed back into the parking lot after the first loop of the run I stopped in the porta potty again! I felt much better after that, although I was disappointed that I was losing time with three porta potty visits.
My legs felt achy after about 14 miles and I took two Advil. It was dark by the time I turned the corner to head up to the Resort at Squaw Creek for the second time. Again, I allowed myself to walk up the hill behind the resort.  When I turned off of Squaw Creek Road onto the bike path, all I could see was an unending line of racers’ headlamps coming toward me in the darkness. About a mile later, the course took us down a short dirt hill between Hwy 89 and the bike path which I walked down on this second loop.  Although it was well lit, I felt like my quads couldn’t take the steep downhill running. It was only a short distance from there to the second turn around and my spirits lifted once I made that turn. Sortly after the turnaround I had to walk/stagger back up the dirt hill. My legs were feeling pretty uncoordinated for that short climb. At the top of that hill when I started running both the volunteer at the top and the guy running behind me voiced concern that I would stray out into the street, so I must have looked pretty wobbly at that point. From there it was only about 5K to the finish and it felt like I was able to pick up my pace. I was even able to run/shuffle up the hill by the soccer field behind the fire station.

Finish: Finally the finish line! When I distinctly heard Mike Reilly say, “Brenda Bettencourt, you are an Ironman!”, I felt a huge surge of excitement along with a sense of accomplishment and pumped both fists into the air. I was still a little wobbly after the finish and didn’t notice my finish time. My average HR on the run was 142 (Z3) and official run pace averaged 12:34 minute miles.
I hobbled over to the food, skipped the massage, went to my sister’s room in the village and looked up my results, learning I had finished in 2nd place with a time of 14:15:51. That re-energized me and I literally did a happy dance. After wolfing down some chips heaped with delicious guacamole that my sister-in-law made for me, I showered and went back to the finish line with my sister and Cecile. We were there from about 11:30 to midnight, cheering in the final finishers. I was so happy to have Cecile and my sister there with me to enjoy the atmosphere and positive energy that is Ironman.

Monday morning, I found out that by coming in second, I earned an Ironman Kona slot. NOW I CAN DO IT ALL AGAIN! Ironman World Championships, October 2014! I had to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming.
It would be impossible to do an Ironman without a significant support section. In addition to my husband who supports this obsession despite the hours and hours of training on top of my long work days, it takes a village. I appreciate the support of my training partners, new AIMP friends, and those that cheered me on and encouraged me.

Special Thanks to:
My coach – Chris Hauth (AIMP Coaching)
My chiropractor – Dr. Marshall Luck (Rincon Chiropractic)
My nutritionist – Dr. Rich Stagliano (Live Fit Medicine)