Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Ironman Louisville: Observations, Comments and Personal Reflection by Rick Greif

Ironman Louisville 2013 turned out to be a bit of a challenge for me personally, but more on that later. Let’s take a look at the venue and how the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) has changed since I have previously done one of their “official” M-dot races. First of all, I must say that WTC has stepped their game up significantly which I believe is due mostly to the growing REV-3 series. Ain’t competition great? Swag was significant; a nice Tech T, hat, and super cool, high quality Ironman Louisville backpack. Athlete check-in was very smooth with minimal “line” time and very well organized. The race venue was really nice with lots of hotels within walking distance to choose from. We opted for Econo Lodge only about 4 blocks from the race site. The room was great with everything we needed for $109/night. Eating in the area was phenomenal.

Personal attention to the athletes was evident everywhere. At bike check in the day before the race, as each athlete entered transition, they were issued their own guide. They walked each of us individually through transition, helped carry bags, showed us where to rack our bikes, then walked us through the transition flow from beginning to end so there would be no surprises on race day. VERY IMPRESSIVE indeed!

Race morning issued what I consider to be a huge bump… The time trial start! Picture a line down a sidewalk with 3,000 athletes standing there waiting for the start, FOR 2 HOURS! There’s no telling what time the first 1,000 got there… Obviously there are numerous insights as to how to handle this congestion. Most everyone had folding chairs with them. You could have your friends, spouses or what have you there, they just had to be on the other side of the sidewalk from you. So in reality it’s like two parallel lines. One with 3,000 athletes, the other with much more than that in support crews. Then there was the port-o-can lines. I stood in one for 30 minutes. This entire line and waiting thing ironically affected my spirit for the whole day. While I was counting off the waiting time, I said to myself I would never do this race again for this very reason. I think that mentally hurt me for the day.

Anyhow, once 0700 hrs came, the line became a quickly moving procession down to the docks where we were jumping off something like 4-5 docks approximately 6 at a time from each dock. I had expected the standard timers there telling you “go”, “go” etc. Nope, by the time you got to your dock you were at a run then kept running down the dock till you saw a clearing and jumped for it. All in all, this was very strange to me. We swam upstream in the Ohio for about 1/3 of the swim, then turned and headed downstream. The crowd in the water was well dispersed and the swim was easy (though in my case very slow).
On to the bike course. The first 30+ miles of the bike was very crowded until the hills started separating everyone out.

Three comments on the bike course.
  1. Unbelievably scenic ride! Horse farms, rolling pastures, fancy subdivisions, quite a feast for the eyes.
  2. The course in my opinion was reasonably tough as far as hills. It had lots of rolling hills. No climbs, just rollers, quite fun actually. One minute you were screaming down a hill at 30+, then dropped to 10 as you worked your way out.
  3. About half of the course was over fairly rough roads. I hate riding rough roads, ‘nuff said.
Now for the run. This was a two loop run course, very flat, lots of support along the way and lots of spectators along the whole run. I’m not 100% sure of what happened to me on the run. I got off the bike, which I was very happy with, then started out at a painful 10:20 pace for the first two miles. I think between my bad attitude (and yes, I know better than that), and maybe not having enough running miles in for my training, I just …(it’s almost as hard to type it as it was to do it)… walked! I would guess I probably walked a good ½ of that marathon. It just wasn’t happening for me on that day. This is all proof positive to me that you can put in the training, you can know and follow your nutrition plan, you can have everything just right, then on race day someone rearranges your deck of cards and it all comes apart. Yes, I was, of course disappointed in my time. However, I do consider myself very blessed to be able to finish, and having a good woman waiting for me at the finish line to get me home.

On an aside. I have NEVER seen so many ambulances running back and forth, not to mention runners scattered along the road, lying down with Paramedics, EMS, Police and such attending to them. I think I know why this Ironman race takes so long to fill up. Personally I’m ready to get back to racing at the beach (where triathlon was birthed) and stop with the dirty river swims, and enjoying a little bit cooler temps.
See you all at Ironman Florida!!!