Sarah's Lessons Learned at IMC 2010

If you look at my finish time you would think that the title does not fit this report. 11:09:04 finish, 9th place in AG and a 15 min PR for IMC. Don’t get me wrong, I am still happy with the finish, but there were many things that I should have done differently along the way. I never really understood why Angie does not look at her fastest IM race as her most successful one until now. Sometimes the time does not reflect the execution of the race, and a poorly executed race is just that. If I recall with Angie’s PB, there was only one thing she would have changed........for myself there are several. As a coach writing this report is tough in the sense that I should know better and how I race may be thought to reflect on how I coach or change the views of future potential athletes. That being said, I think it is important to see that we are all human, we make mistakes and if we take the time to learn from them, the better we will be in the end.

Going into the race, I had set myself what I now realize was a very lofty goal. A goal that if the whole day came together perfectly might get me a spot to Kona. With this goal, I knew that I would be laying it on the line and taking the chance to blow up.........I think the first problem of this goal, is that I had picked one goal only, one time, with no range. I had my mind set on this goal, forgetting to take in the fact that race day may not be ideal conditions. I now see the benefit of setting a range based on what the day could present like. Lesson 1. The way that I came up with the goal was in a poor manner, a “top-down” approach. I looked at the time I thought I would need and came up with the splits to make it work. (Since the race I have had a huge learning experience, this being part of it, and I can now see how I should have looked at planning my race goals from a “bottom up” approach. Taking in all of my races and times coming into IMC and then setting a goal.) To be a better coach and athlete I believe we have to be willing to learn from our mistakes and acknowledge when we are wrong.

The start of the day: Had a pretty good sleep, ended up waking up before my alarm with a smile on my face. This was a positive moment for me. Kelvin dropped me off at the race grounds and I got myself sorted out, it felt good to know that I had done this before. I felt much more relaxed down at the race grounds even though I just wanted to keep to myself and try and focus on the day. The morning was calm, beautiful and it looked like it was going to be a good day.

The Swim: I seeded myself in the front on the right, not too far over as it was really rocky. I had a very quick warm up as they were calling people back and I tend to get too cold anyways. The swim was perfect for the most part. There were a couple of times when I got knocked around, but all in all it was great. It felt like when I was getting to close to people I would visualize some space and all of a sudden I found myself with plenty of room. My plan was to slow the swim down a little from last year as the race is not won on the swim. I had a very comfortable pace, felt relaxed, yet ended up with a similar time out of the water. Swim time: 1:00:38, T1 2:35, total time- 1:03:03. My goal was 1:05, I was very happy with this.

The Bike: This is where is gets tough. I started out great, in the end I think I pushed it a little too hard. I had told myself to keep my HR at 155 and kept seeing it at 157, I did slow down at times to fix this but found that it still crawled up there. I feel that a big part of this was due to the amount of pelotons and drafting that was taking place. I really wanted to know that I was riding a clean race and in order to not have to be dropping back all the time I was trying to pass to stay out of a draft zone. This was extremely frustrating as there were some certain men that did not like being passed by a girl......so they insisted to re pass, together I might add, and then slowed down and had a nice little conversation. A little karma came their way when one of the guys got a drafting penalty. I’d also like to mention my dear friend Mathew........who I am sure had a great day as I don’t think I saw him leave the draft zone!! Karma will payback!

I ran into a girl that raced IMAz last year, I only recognised her because her name is Polita, not too many girls on the course with that name. We said hi and to have a great day. She ended up passing me going up Yellow Lake and finished 5th in our AG, nice work!

I felt great up Richter’s as I took it easy going up, fantastic over the roller’s, and then hit the stretch to Keremeos........this is where it all began. The winds had come up quite strong and the pelotons were starting again. Once again, I did my best to stay out of them. This cost me a lot of extra energy. Would it have been better to drop back?? I am not too sure. Before turning on the out and back I saw my Dad and Kelvin cheering me on. I rang my Coffee cup bell to let them know I was doing okay. Onto the out and back, I continued to feel good, I picked up my special needs bag and got my nice cold and mostly frozen still Infinite. I looked at my pace and even with the wind was just over where I wanted to be, which felt great as I did not feel I was chasing a time, but riding clean. I knew that going up Yellow Lake that I would loose some of this pace, but thought it would be okay as I would make it up coming down Yellow Lake into town. Boy, was I wrong!

The wind at the end of the out and back was quite strong and then got even worse going up Yellow Lake. I could feel the fatigue set into my quads so I tried a salt tab to see if that would help. The rain started to come down quite hard as I was on the false flats leading towards the climb and I could feel the cold setting in. I put my arm warmers back on and continued the climb. I have to say I was quite impressed by the number of spectators that were still out along the roads in the rain, thank you for that!! I felt like a snail crawling up Yellow Lake and was being passed like I was standing still (only by one girl though.....) I would try to stand and climb but my quads were frozen and aching. I wonder here, how much of this is from the cold weather, the passing the pelotons, or did I really go out too fast?? Lesson 3?? As I reached the top the rain had settled for a moment and I knew we had the decent. Then the skies opened up!!! It was pouring rain and there was light hail. I was shaking and shivering sooooooo bad and could barley feel my hands on the breaks. I tried to take my time descending as there were marshals on the course telling people to slow down due to the conditions. There were ambulances all over the roads, sag vehicles picking people up and other riders standing on the side of the road shivering and not knowing what to do. This was NOT in my perfect day race plan!! I could feel my left quad and adductor start to cramp up, so I slowed down to try to shake it out and warm it up. This was a positive as I was addressing things as they came up before they became a problem.
As I came into town, I got passed by 3 girls in my AG. At this point I was not too concerned as I was just thankful for making it down the hill and knew I would be able to warm up soon. I was excited to be getting out on the run. Bike Time: 5:55:25, 15 minutes slower than my goal time. I was a little disappointed, but glad to be alive. I knew here that my goal was out of reach. What I forgot to remind myself was that it was likely the same for everyone. Lesson 4.

The Run: I felt great as soon as I had my shoes on and headed out on the course. I was on the lookout for the closest porta potty as I could not pee on my bike! Lesson 5- need to practice this. I had to stop twice for this. Right away I had passed a girl in my AG, this gave me some motivation. I looked at my pace and saw that I was going faster than I needed too. Was I chasing time, or settling into an RPE pace? I would say a little of both. Since I raced GWN at a RPE and had such a great race, I thought why not just continue? Lesson 6. I saw Angie and Rena by Cherry Lane mall and let them know that I was doing okay. I felt relatively strong on the first half of the run, but my stomach started to feel heavy. I ran into a gal from Calgary in the 25-29 group who trains with Critical Speed and she was at a good pace, I regret not staying with her and using her as my “Rena”. She was much more talkative than me though and the thought of carrying on a conversation was just too much. At the half way point I saw , my best cheerleaders, Kelvin and my dad again (they were also at several other places on the course), I tossed them my fuel belt and continued on my way. Half way time: 1:55:31, I thought it was faster, but that is with 2 pee stops. I didn’t actually know what I had run until I looked it up online. Lesson 7- should have clicked the lap time, this could have been motivating. The second half of the run was just painful! I have never walked sooooo much in a race. I also struggled to motivate myself at all. I tried to count steps to 100, I would bargain with myself to run to a certain place and then I would walk, I told myself I could walk the hills, I tried it all! I think that knowing my goal was out of reach was starting to get to me. I think the hypothermia that I likely had on the bike was catching up with me. I think that having to push a little harder on the bike to stay out of the drafts was catching up with me. I think that starting out a little fast on the run was catching up to me. So many lessons learned. I was happy to see so many of our TTL athletes doing so well on the course and knowing that they were all going to be an Ironman! Thank you to all of you for your kind words along the way. I had one girl in my AG pass me, then we would go back and forth, but she took me in the end. Then there was one more who caught me in the last 5-7km to go. I saw Lyle at 7 km left to go and he tried everything to keep me going, he said I could easily make it in before 11 hours if I was running. I saw Rena with 5km left to go, she too tried her best to motivate me and made me feel a little better. From here, I ran almost the rest of the way. Thank you to everyone who tried to kick my butt into gear. My head was just not in the game. The last 2km were painful, but I continued with the support of all of the spectators including Richelle and Annie. Second half: 2:12:09, Total run: 4:07:40. Ironically my best run time yet in an IM even with all of the walking. Final time: 11:09:04.

So many emotions, so many highs and lows. Another race with several lessons learned. Thank you for all of you who have supported me in this journey yet again! I am sorry that I did not mention everyone that I saw along the way.