Race Report: Ironman Wisconsin.
The center of the race is in downtown Madison, Wisconsin. It's a city where people are nice because they are nice, not because they are getting ready to push you down a flight of stairs like they do in DC. They slow down and stop at intersections to let pedestrians and cyclists pass safely to the other side. In the DMV area, cars slow down so as to maximize their chances of hitting you before you can get to the other side safely. DC, is like 'Nam, you don't make eye contact with motorists. You just do the thoughts and prayer thing as you bike and hope for the best. In Madison, when you make eye contact with motorists, they smile back and wave you through. I didn't know it was possible for humans to do that.
There is a body of water, Lake Monona, right in downtown Madison. It's where the Ironman swim takes place. The water is so clean and nice that people drink from it, instead of tap water, when there is a major rainstorm. In DC, we also have a body of water right in downtown. The Potomac, it's got more dead bodies in it than fish. It makes the sewer system in downtown Saigon look like fresh mountain spring water.
Well, that's my impression of Madison and its people.
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RACE MORNING
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It was 45 degrees race morning, warm enough for the fat Americans to be strutting around the transition area in spandex and swimsuits. I, on the other hand, had enough layers on to crest Mount Everest. Sure, the oxygen mask was a bit over the top, but it was 45 freaken degrees. Back in 'Nam, if it was that cold, we'd drive to Cambodia for free heat. Fortunately, the transition bag areas were inside of a heated convention center. You know what's also inside there? ... flushing toilets. It's about time a first world race has flushing toilets at the start.
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SWIM
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The swim start was self seeded. There were signs, with expected swim times, to allow people to seed themselves accordingly. That's a great plan in theory. In practice, not so much. It's a small blocked off area. Unless you showed up early, there was no way you could line up in your expected finish time due to the number of athletes packed in such a small amount of space. Well, there was probably a way, but I was rocking the Volex (Vietnamese Rolex). That thing only tells you the correct time when it's above 80 degrees, so I showed up late. Anyway, there were some really fast swimmers that wanted to get to the front, but couldn't due to how packed it was. Fortunately for a vertical swimmer like me, lining up way back in the cheap seats section was not really a problem. Well, actually, it was. Lining up with peasants so early in the morning is not my cup of tea.
I came prepared for the swim. I had socks and running shoes on to protect against the cold weather and wet ground prior to the start. Why was the ground wet? Was it raining? No, the savages were peeing in their wetsuits to keep warm and smiling like no one noticed. Why couldn't the fat Americans line up by the body of water to pee into it like us Vietnamese? Anyway, I lined up way in the back, figuring that that would minimize my chances of getting groped. Oh, how I could not have been more wrong.
Because we had a lot of faster swimmers in the back with me due to them not being able to get to their proper area, I can't recall being touched in my naughty place by so many people during the swim. These American IM athletes, they must have an Asian fetish. At first, it started out very romantically. They would gently set the mood by tickling my feet. I'm ticklish, so that kind of kinkiness was a not a welcome gesture. Bring me roses and candies next time, you sons of bitches. Then, they got freaky with it by grabbing me in places that no Vietnamese want to be grabbed. Then, they got S&M on me by going for my neck and head with their elbows and legs. I was like, "baby, can we try the leather straps instead of the elbows next time?" And, that was on the first half of loop 1. Needless to say, it was a very physical swim, more so than a normal Ironman. I yearn for the mass start days when you only got molested at the beginning instead of throughout the race.
My other issue with the swim was the water temperature. The water was 67 degrees. The only time the Mekong ever reaches 67 degrees was when the Cambodians decide to pee into it, on their side of the Mekong, while we were bathing, so it brought back a lot of memories from my childhood. My girlish figure can't handle that kind of water temperature. My 2nd pinky twitches when that happens. On top of that, it was the first time in 3 years that I had worn a wetsuit during a race. Two years ago, the French showed their disdain for Vietnamese people by making IM France non-wetsuit. A year ago, IM Chatt showed their love us Vietnamese by cancelling the swim when I told them that I was coming with the Vietnamese mankini.
As the swim started, it dawned on me, I can't freaken swim. I don't know how 3:00/100 yards in the pool translate into the open water, but it couldn't be good. The farce was about to get exposed. 100 yards into the swim, when it was too deep to stand, I realized that I should have done more than zero swim, in the last three years, in my wetsuit. Breathing isn't easy when the water is that cold and you're not used to your wetsuit squeezing the Cambodian out of you. I tried to swim as slow as I could, without sinking to the bottom of the lake, to get my heart rate down and swim rhythm stabilized, but it didn't work. After a bit, I decided to swim to a kayaker, hang out, have lunch, and talk Greenbay Packers football with the kayaker to get my heart rate and breathing pattern to calm down. That helped a little bit.
The first 15 minutes of the swim wasn't easy. It was cold. I was hyperventilating. Swimmers were molesting me. Fish were mocking me, etc, etc. After that, it got a lot easier. I had reestablished my rhythm. That was the only explanation that I could come up with to explain why, after I had settled down, that my second loop swim was waaaay slower than the first loop. When a vertical swimmer gets his rhythm back, the earth spins backwards.
Let me tell you what it's like to be a slow swimmer on a 2 loop Ironman swim course. At the end of each loop, you have kayakers separating the slow swimmers from the fast ones. The fast ones, they're like, you can swim towards the finish. We know you know how to swim, so there is no need for you to do a 2nd lap. That's the only explanation that I could come up with for how people were able to lap me on the swim. For the slow vertical swimmers, like me, when you tell the kayakers that that was your 2nd lap, they would respond by telling you to go do a third lap until you learn how to swim ... sons of bitches.
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T-1
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I got out of the water and ran towards the wetsuit strippers. Bambi, Sugar, and Gary were really good at their job. They told me to get down and have a cigar while they took off my wetsuit. After that, as I was running towards the changing room, former PeasantMan War Council member, Amanda C, yelled, "TUAN!!!!!!!!!" It was really cool to see her again. I asked her if I went sub-2. She said, "you did great! You were fast. You did a 1:40!!" You should have seen the way all the people around her were reacting to that comment. They were like, "what is this crackhead saying!" I gave her a brief hug and headed towards the transition area.
Side note: I got a very hateful private message on my Facebook page that said something along, "did you cheat? Did you only do 1 lap?" How is it possible that you pulled off a 1:40 on a two lap swim?" ....well, bite me, you sons of bitches.
IM Wisconsin has a really unique transition area. First, you had to run up a "helix" ramp of a parking garage. We ran up 3 levels of it. Along the way, it was packed with people cheering. Once you finish the helix, you go into a warm heated room inside of a convention center to change. It was lined with volunteers cheering, yelling, and pointing at where you should go. A very neat and enjoyable experience. Back in 'Nam, the only time people are that vocal is when they are trying to tell you that there is a re-education camp dead ahead.
The plan was to wear gloves, double arm warmers, bike jersey over the tri suit, and a piece of cardboard between the bike jersey and tri suit to trap in heat and keep wind out. I wanted to make sure that I was properly dressed for the weather. 50 degrees, while wet and on a bike, is not fun. However, I decided to only go with 1 set of warm warmers, no extra bike jersey, card board, and no gloves.
I was greeted by a volunteer once I got into the men's transition room. I had one of the best volunteer ever. Usually, a volunteer would just hand you your transition bag and just leave for the next athlete. The volunteer I had, opened my transition bag and laid everything out for me. He had my bike socks/shoes, helmet, gloves, nutrition, and etc all neatly laid out and organized like it was at a clothing store. Once I was finished, he just put all of the unused stuff back into the bag and took the bag away for storage. Talk about white glove treatment. I call this "slow priviledge." When you are are dead slow out of the water, you have more volunteers standing around willing to help than athletes to help. Being a vertical swimmer has its privileges.
Once I left the convention center to go to my bike, outdoor, I was like, "this shit is cold!" By that time, it was too late to go back to get the extra layers of clothing. Apparently, I didn't properly digest the fact that it was so comfortable and warm earlier because it was indoor and in a heated room. Once I got outside, it was a holy Jesus moment. Sexy, skinny Vietnamese men don't do well in 50 degrees weather. We just don't. The only savings grace was having my slow privilege continue. When you are a slow swimmer, the only bikes left in the transition area is your own and those that promised god that they would live a righteous life if divine interventions step in to save them during their swim. Being one of the few bikes left in transition, a volunteer was there to unrack my bike and hand it to me. It's like a valet bike service. At IM France, they would, "I don't speak English," to you when you ask them, in French, where your bike was ... sons of bitches.
I spent 10 minutes in transition, with most of that time spent responding to the hateful FB messages that I mentioned above. To all of the purists out there, no, I didn't have a phone on me. I was responding to them in my head.
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Bike
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The one good testicle I had left, after a season of IM training, dropped off somewhere during the first 10 miles of the bike course. It was cracks and potholes throughout those 10 miles. I kept telling myself during those miles, "don't flat, don't flat. Richard is not around to change your tires for you." I don't think you could have gone more than 5 yards without crossing a crack or pothole in the road. Those first 10 mies were like riding one of those mechanical bulls at a cowboy bar. On top of that, you were either on narrow roads or trail paths for those first 10-ish miles.
After that, the heavens open up and the roads became good/decent. That was one of the things that I had worried about. People had talked a lot about the potholes and poor road conditions of the course, but other than those first/last 10 miles, it was a non-issue for me. I really like the bike course once we got out to the boonies. I read about how tough the hills were on the course. I didn't find them to be particularly tough. There were two climbs of significance, that you did 2x, where you had to grind a little bit to get up, but you had people there cheering and yelling at you to get on top of them. They also chalked the wazoo out of the road. Very TDF-like. That made it more fun and easy.
I saw Bryan F twice out on one of those hills, dressed like Santa Claus or a dinosaur or something like that, yelling at me as I was climbing. It's always good to see a friendly face out there. I had asked him to push me. In return, I think he threw a bunch of F-bombs at me. I took a page from the French and told him, "I don't speak English."
The bike was 2 loop course. The first loop, the weather was calm and a little bit chilly for me. The second loop, the temperature got warmer/perfect but with that came with significant wind. I didn't feel any wind on that first loop. One the second loop, it was definitely noticeable. It seemed like it was all headwind. I kept wondering when I was going to hit a tailwind. I never got that answer. Crazy about this was that I didn't feel any freaken wind on the run.
I tried something new for this Ironman that I've never tired before in a race or training. I had a bottle of Vietnamese ice coffee in my special needs bag. First, I rarely ever use/pack a special needs bag. Only peasants do that. For this race, I was like, "I think I need some Vietnamese ice coffee at the midway point," so I packed for one. When I got there, I drank some of it and had some left. There are hungry people all over the world, so I didn't want to just throw away the excess nutrition. I decided to pour what was left into my aero bottle.
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Now, I know what most of you are thinking. You are thinking, "so, how long did you spend in the port-a-john at mile 60?" First, as you all know, I don't do port-a-johns. It's pee on the bike or DNF yourself. Only the weak use port-a-johns. Second, the off-the-cuff Vietnamese ice coffee nutrition plan actually worked out well. It gave me the caffeine that I wanted. Caffeine in gels don't taste like caffeine from ice coffee. It's like taking a pill for protein vs eating a steak for protein. I wanted steak. I need that coffee smell and taste to make the caffeine more effective. More importantly, it changed up the flavor of the fluids in my aero bottle to be coffee flavored. I think I will do this with my future races.
Bike time 6:10, 18.2 mph. Not sure what my min speed was, but my Garmin said max speed was 46 mph. That was surprising since the only good clavicle I have left usually goes into spasm when I descend faster than 30 mph. It didn't twitch during the entire ride. I knew that there was a really fast downhill stretch where I was cranking at a good click. Had I known it was 46 mph fast, I would have slowed down, walk, pray, pee on my bike, or something, but I didn't.
Not sure what the true elevation of the bike course is. My Garmin showed 6.093 ft. Folks on the IM Wisconsin FB page reported somewhere between 6.000 ft - 7,000+ ft. Whatever it was, there were only a few small places that you actually felt those elevations. Not a PR bike course, but not as bad as the official profile/elevation.
The bike ride ended up with athletes riding up the helix. I didn't like the idea of going up another hill at the end, but riding up the helix is a unique experience that was kinda cool. The goal was 6 hours, but given the road conditions, wind, and my abilities to come up with excuses and whine on the 2nd lap, I wasn't too disappointed.
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RUN
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When I saw the run profile, I was like, "well, this is going to be a painful run." The run profile was all up and down for the entire 26.2 miles. I don't think the run profile map had one flat section on there. It was up and down, up and down. However, after having ran on it, I really like the run course, not as difficult as what the profile had suggested. Had this been a standalone marathon, I think I would do well on it. It's probably one of my more favorite Ironman runs. The climbs were a lot more gradual in real life than on paper. I was expecting a lot worse. Other than 1 small section on a pedestrian walkway, the elevation was a non-factor for me. All of the climbs were gradual and a welcome change to the flat and downhill sections before them. The run course had a lot of spectators, especially as you go into the downtown portion. It felt more like a standalone marathon crowd than an Ironman crowd. It was nicely packed.
The other nice part of the run was the portion that allowed us to run on the field of the Wisconsin Badgers football stadium. We were literally running a loop along the sidelines of the football field before exiting. It'd be more cool had they allowed us to do that while the game was going on :) Running through campus was also a nice bonus. There were students out there cheering for us, drinking their latte, and just walking around like any other day.
As of note, I saw a few DCTri folks out there during the run. Bryan F and Justin S was all over that run course cheering and doing stuff that didn't involve giving me food, foot massages, and winning PowerBall numbers. There was a DCTri female athlete that I had crossed paths a bunch of times with on the few out and back portions run course. She was in front of me for most of the day. By the time I caught up to her at mile 23-ish, I gave her a pat on the back and said, "almost there." I don't think she knows who I was because I saw her calling ICE after I gave her that pat in the back.
I didn't have my Garmin turned on during the run, but the athlete's tracker said that on one section, I was cranking at a 6:30 min/mile pace. Ummm, uhh, no. I haven't ran that pace since the fall of Saigon. And, I only ran that fast then because well, well ....
Final run time was 3:59:07. Any day I can go under 4 hours at an Ironman marathon is a good day.
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FINAL THOUGHTS
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I like the swag this year. The backpack, I give it an 8 out of 10. The tech hoodie finisher's long sleeve shirt, I'd give it a 10 when compared to other IM finisher's shirts that I have been given in the past. The medal, my gosh that thing is huge. You can use it as a large pizza plate. I thought the IM World Championship Nice, France medal that I got was big. This thing would make Mr. T and Liberace jealous.
This is the Ironman Wisconsin medal size relative to my first Ironman medal and the Ironman World Championship medal - Nice, France
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1194 of 1318 out of the water, 74th in AG
After the bike: 337th out of 1318, 22nd in AG
After the run: 269 out of 1318, 12th in AG
Picking off people after the swim is a sport I excel at :)
FINAL TIME: 12 hours, 12 minutes, 24 seconds. Not my fastest, not my slowest, but after doing an Ironman a year over the past 17 years, just being able to pee on the bike without getting arrested, have holy water thrown on me, or sent to the old people's home is win for me. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to do this. I love sucking on Richard's wheels on long rides every Sunday. I love the long runs on any given Saturdays. I love/hate the daily grind of the short stuff. Racing an Ironman is physically/mentally tough. You hear a lot of voices throughout the day telling you to Uber back to transition. Half the battle is telling the voices that you're broke and can't afford Uber. In the middle of every IM swim, in the middle of every IM bike, and at the beginning of every IM run, I tell myself that this will be the last one. I have no more testicles left to give to the gods. Then, the offseason comes around and the gods bless me with 3 replacement testicles. Shit happens every year. The vicious cycle does not end. There will come a day when I will really hang it up. Today was not that day, but tomorrow may be ;)
Not sure if I've said it yet, but IM racing is really tough on the body. I should hire someone to do this for me next time. I am only writing this race report because the stairs can't hurt me anymore. I am now off to the motherland, with an immune system weaken by IM racing, to maximize my chances of catching some exotic homeland bacteria or virus.
Great report! IM Wisconsin was my first back in 08, I remember bombing down that downhill passing people who were riding their breaks, 46mph doesn't surprise me! Gratz on another successful year.
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