#13 Ironman Austria

Hanging out with the kids before leaving.  Thanks Gray Family

It was an tough departure for me, knowing I wouldn't see Sunny and the kids for 4 weeks.  I can't even imagine how the military and military families do it!  On this trip away I will be racing in Austria, France, Switzerland and wrapping things up in Lake Placid, New York.  The flights to Europe went smooth, until I had a very tight connection in Paris.  I found myself running through the airport, hoping I was going in the right direction to my next gate.  I made the flight with only 3 minutes to spare!  I knew this wouldn't be good news for my bags.  Upon arrival into Switzerland, my fears were confirmed when I heard my name called over the loud speakers.  I was to report to the baggage desk.  Upon checking in, I was informed that my bags were left behind in Paris.  BUT the good news is they would be arriving in about 4 hours on another flight.  With nothing to do, I secured my rental car and toured the good old Zurich Airport.


My bags finally came and I headed east, back to Germany where I left my bike a few weeks ago.  I had wanted to ship my bike to Austria, but later found out that this was going to cost me over $1000 to ship it.  Peter, my original Germany host, was not going to be home when I was scheduled to come by, so her rolled my bike over to the neighbors house for safe keeping and pick-up.  I was majorly delayed by traffic, but finally made it and quickly grabbed my bike.  I said a quick "Hello" to Dieter and his wife before hurrying off to Austria.  I had to get a move on, as I didn't want to arrive too late into Austria.  I had told the Kaiser family (hosts in Austria), that I would be there shortly after dinner.  With my baggage delays and the traffic, I was now scheduled to get there around 11 pm, yikes.

I drove straight to Klagenfurt, encountering only a major rain through the mountains upon crossing the border.  It was dark and my GPS took me close to where I needed to go, but it struggled to find the exact address.  Eventually, I found the house and saw that there was still a light on.  Bishop Kaiser had waited up for me to get there - super nice!  He showed me my room and I quickly fell asleep.

Swim area!

I left Utah on Thursday, arriving in Zurich Friday and driving ALL day to arrive in Austria late late Friday night.  In Europe, you do not need to show up as early to an Ironman event as you do in the US and Canada.  I slept in 'till around 11 on Saturday and drove down to the race site to check in for tomorrows race.  There was no time to adjust to the time zone, just check in, set up and try to sleep the night before the race.  The Kaiser family was close to the race site, which is super nice!  So I don't have to spend so much time driving back and forth.  The expo was huge and I spent a few hours walking around the expo, and then beach area after grabbing my check in bags.  It was hot... I mean really hot.  I needed to start drinking more water if  I was going to stay hydrated for the race in the morning!  I went back to the house and put my things together for in the transition bags and built my bike.  After dropping of my bike at the scheduled time, I returned home to try to get some rest.  Alice (host mom) had made a nice dinner of Alfredo chicken and broccoli.  

Chrissy Wellington was there.  I also gave her a high five on the bike course!

Sunday July 1, 2012 Austria Ironman

I had troubles sleeping, as I was still on Utah time and I had slept in till 11am.  This wasn't the best combo when heading into an Ironman event.  After eating my trusty Rockit Fuel breakfast, I headed down to the race site.  I found a nice close parking spot and got everything ready for race start.  I could not get my computer to sync with my Powertap, but it was syncing with my heart rate, so at least I could monitor that.  I don't care what my power numbers are during this year, but I do want to know what they are in relative nature to my heart rate so I can make sure that all systems are working properly and that I am firing on all cylinders.  It is a good thing that I know the flow of an Ironman event.  I just follow the crowds and go where I need to go, only because I have done it so many times before.  If these races were my first, or only Ironman, I have ever done, I would be completely lost.  Luckily for me, I have done a few and know the drill, regardless of the hosting country's language.

Now these is how do you port o potties.....

The water temperature was hot enough that we were not allowed to wear wetsuits.  It is not a big deal, as I have enough open water experience that it doesn't worry me.  It just adds to the time I will be in the water;)  The way I look at it, and hopefully the way most people should look at it, is you do most all of your swim practice for an Ironman without your wetsuit on.  So really, it shouldn't be too big of a deal to swim the race without one.  In a 12 hour race, if I lose 10 minutes in the first 1 or so, it isn't going to make or break my day.

Perfect water in Austria!  I have plans of getting in after the race too!

There was a big dock in the middle of the swim area and the athletes were instructed to line up on the beach on either side of the doc.  The dock stretched out into the water and was lined with people.  I breath and sight on my left, so I decided to line myself up on the left side, of the right group, so I could just sight off of the doc for the first 100-200 meters.  The gun goes off and my plan was perfect.  Amongst 2700 plus athletes, I manged to stay untouched for the longest time.  I found this big gap between the right and left groups where I had nice water all to myself.  I was swimming well and just kept on swimming.  I made first and second turn buoys and started heading back to shore, where we would then enter a narrow canal for the last 1100 meters of the swim.  The whole way back, I latched on to someones feet with pink calf sleeves.  I didn't sight the whole way back and just trusted that she (or he) was holding a good line.  I bet I could have gone faster, but I was content to slow down just a little bit to not have to sight or worry about it.  Once in the canal I left my pink calved friends and used the shore of the canal to sight off of.  The canal was shallow and the mud from the bottom had been stirred up from the mass amount of swimmers.  From time to time, I would pull weeds off of my shoulders of face.  Not the cleanest swim once in the canal, but I was fun none the less.  I exited the water with a less than stellar, but controlled swim time of 1:23:36 :(

Swim channel.  The calm before the storm!

I ran into transition and right up to the large rack of bags.  My transition time for T1 was also stellar.  A time of 12:00 minutes flat!!!  Here is why, I stood there for a second and my mind was completely blank.  I had no idea what my race number was!  Getting a new set of numbers every week made it hard for me to pull the right number out of the air.  I looked in a few bags, in hopes I guessed the right number but no.  At some of the races this year they didn't do body marking, so I couldn't just look on my shoulder.... I knew where my bike was, so I took off running through the massive transition area.  Once at my bike, I could see the number on it and ran all the way back through transition to the bag racks.  I grabbed my bag and went into the change tent.  I calmly changed, not at all caring about how long things were taking me.  I left the change tent in hopes of seeing a sunscreen station, so that I didn't get fried out on the ride out there.  I made it all the way back to my bike, but didn't come across a sunscreen table, so back to the change tents I went, thinking that maybe I missed it in there.  Obviously I wasn't thinking straight, so it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that I missed it the first time.  I wasn't delusional and once again didn't find any in the tents.  I asked a volunteer but she didn't speak English.  I another athlete overheard my plea for sunscreen and offered up some of his.  I gladly took it and headed BACK to where my bike was.  And there you have, a T1 disaster!!

Tried to "tan" my upper thigh.... huge mistake and I'm still paying for it.

Once on the bike I settled into a great pace.  The course started out nice and fast.  It was along the waters edge and had some great views.  The middle part of the bike loop had a bunch of climbing, so I just settled in and went about my business.  Legs felt good, heart felt good and the stomach felt good.  All good signs that things were headed in the right direction.  The crowds on climbs were great, full of energy yelling and yelling things at me... for all I know they were calling me a stupid smelly American.  I headed out on the second loop, feeling better than I had on the first.  A few weeks ago, I faded pretty hard in Germany and struggled in the later stages of the ride.  Today felt better and I managed to stay strong throughout the entire ride.  I drank a few more bottles than I normally would have, because of the heat.  I lowered the concentration amount in my EFS drink and made sure I drank more.  This helped my stay hydrated and didn't overload my body with too much nutrition... it is a fine balance of too much or too little.... I mustered up a bike time of 5:49:40!  I know this isn't flying, but remember I am racing every week right now and I have to go slow.... so stop hatting on my times ;)

Just happy to be still going strong this year!

Love the scenery!

I was happiest today with the nutrition aspect of this ride.  My last experience in the heat was in Texas and that didn't go so well.  I wasn't looking for a repeat performance of what happened there in Marble Falls.  I knew the run was going to be a challenge with the temperature still on the rise.  It was about 98 degrees, which was a little lower than they had predicted the day before.  I had forgotten my Garmin at the house, so I took off my heart rate monitor before heading out.  I was going to do the run based off of feel.  It would be nice to monitor my heart rate as I progressed through the run, but I was confident enough with just going by feel at this point.  There we people with hoses and there were hoses at every aid station where people were soaking themselves with water to keep themselves cool.  I avoided these people like the plague.  After every aid station, I would be running beside someone and all I could hear was swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.  This was the sound of wet feet sloshing around in wet socks, in wet shoes.  This is a recipe for huge blisters and very sore feet.  To keep myself cool, I would grab the first batch of sponges and squeeze them over my head.  When I did this, I would be bent over so that the water washed over my head and onto the ground and NOT into my shoes.  Then, when exiting the aid station, I would take ice when possible and carry the ice in my hands till it melted away.  The blood in my body runs through my hands and the to other parts of my body.  So, if I could get my hands cold enough, it would cool the blood running through my hands taking it to the rest of my body cooling me down.  It may not be scientific, but it works and I don't have blisters or sore feet ;)

The run was an out an back in both direction, bringing us past the central finish line many times.  The run just kept getting hotter and hotter.  There we lots of people walking, sitting, and laying down in the shade on the course.  I ran past a few people that were not having a good day, they had pulled over and were throwing up in the bushes.  At the right side of the run course, we ran through a small section of old downtown.  Narrow cobblestone streets lined with people and an outside plaza.  They had a big bell hanging down with a string.  I jumped up and rang the bell each time I passed it.  On the second half of the second lap, the heat of the day started to catch up with me and I could feel my body getting really tired and wanting to stop.  My body was also exhausted from the travel and time zone change!  I just kept telling myself to keep running and to put one foot in front of the other.  I kept my breathing under controlled.  I knew I was close and knew I could hold on for a few more k's.  I did the best I could with my nutrition and took in two full flasks of First Endurance liquid shots.  Each time, being sure to chase it with water.  Coke was also always welcome!

Thanks for the new shirts Golden Goose!

I rounded the few last corners and ran (slowly), but ran all the way to the finish.  I don't think I smiled when I crossed the finish line, a fist pump was all I could muster up.  I remember counting to 13 with my fingers, get my finishers metal and walked off to take a shower and get my massage.... I didn't feel too hot.  I ended up running pretty consistent splits and ran a 4:28:23 marathon.  I was pumped with that time, in the heat, under the current situation.  Many people did not have the same good luck I had on the day!  Number 13 was in the books baby!

In my few races here in Europe, they have showers set up at the race site and you can't get a massage till you have a shower.  This time I went straight to the showers before getting in the massage line.  I learned this the hard way in Germany.  They had these magnet therapy beds you could lay in for 15 minutes before you had a massage.  Not exactly sure what it does, but I laid there for 15 minutes before a great massage!  I headed to grab some food in the athlete tent and right as I was about to sit down and eat some food, I started to get really dizzy and feel sick.  I started to sweat and get really hot.  I put my food and bags down and found a volunteer.  She noticed my condition and took me over to medical.  They hooked me up to an IV and pumped in some fluids.  The room was packed with struggling athletes from today's conditions.  I laid there for about 30 minutes and then left feeling refreshed (well refreshed from when I came in, but still not ready to head out and do another Ironman)....not for a few more days anyways.  I ate a few bites of food, then headed home to check in with Sunny and the kids.  I never know if the timing system is working right online, so I try to check in as soon as possible when I can.  Total finish time was 11:58:54.... just under 12 hours!

Chip inside bike sticker synced with chip in wrist band - no bikes go missing in Austria!

This is a video of the last 1000 meters of so of the swim.... It looked a lot different with all the athletes in it!  What a fun swim!!!!!