We decided to dress up our last post-race report of the 2009 season! (original had been in various color fonts but I'm not that familiar with posting on forums so use your imaginations!
)First and foremost, Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends and family. We are very thankful for our health and family. We are thankful that we have found in each other a life partner who has the same thirst for life and adventure.
IM Arizona took place on November 22, 2009. With a tri-season that started April 5 in New Orleans, this was the longest race year for either of us. We pushed (and dared) each other when we registered for two half Ironmen and two full Ironmen! But this was the year we both aged-up to 55 and 60. Who else besides triathletes don’t mind these milestone birthdays? We refuse to count the days down to retirement and Social Security, although Gail announced that these would be her swan-song Ironmen races just to negate two prior DNFs [tr.: “did not finish”]. We look instead at how many weeks of training do we have before the next race. Yes, we are nuts! Yes, we are crazy! But yes, we are exceptional grand master (aka senior citizen) triathletes.
We arrived for IM Arizona in Tempe looking forward to the special camaraderie we’d be experiencing. We signed up for this race with two of Lou’s clients from Florida – Diane and Brandon – who have become good friends of ours and engaged to each other (what a gene pool!). Our son Jay was also able to join us for a long weekend of warm weather and long spectating (more on that later). And we have a cycling buddy-friend in the Phoenix environs – Russ – which makes a far-away race feel like home.
Tempe is the home of ASU and for those who have lived there a long time (i.e., Russ), part of a growing sprawl that one day will cause Tucson to merge with Phoenix. We had some great meals together and also found time to go to the Zoo. We laughed at the monkeys and orangutans almost as much as they laughed at us and themselves. This zoo is an easy place to visit and highly recommended. We only wish we could have stayed for their holiday light show. Our other great “find” was MoJo Yogurt – a great and unique serve-yourself dessert place. Over 20 flavors of true (fat free, active cultures) frozen yogurt that you dispense yourself and then a toppings bar that included fruits as well as more sinful stuff for only $0.39/oz. Yum! Definitely on Coach Lou’s nutrition plan!!
The weather was picture perfect all week. Can one ever get tired of mid-70s in November? What caught us by surprise was that the temperatures cooled immediately when the sun went down. Who would have thought that we didn’t need to pack shorts!? Also, in spite of forewarning, it was still a shocker (literally and figuratively) to jump into the Tempe Town Lake with water temperature of 62°. What happened to all that great solar 120° radiant heating?!!?
Prior to the race, we all biked some of the bike course and then road the rest in the car so we knew what to expect. With the exception of certain tri-folks from Florida who think a hill is any road that a marble would roll down, most of us thought this course was very different and much easier than the rolling hills of Wisconsin, Coeur D’Alene or Louisville, or the mountains of Lake Placid or Penticton. Better yet, IM Arizona is probably the most spectator-friendly Ironman race on the circuit. The bike is an 18 mile out-and-back course that the racers do three times. With fewer than 7 turns per leg on wide, well-maintained roads, it wasn’t as crowded as one might have thought possible as 2500 cyclists took to the same roads. The road has a 2-3 mile upgrade at the far end but an equal downgrade on the way back. On the first loop, the headwinds made that upgrade harder but there was actually a great tailwind coming back into town. On later loops, the winds became less direct and defined but continued to swirl in decreasing speeds.
The run course is best described as a figure-eight. Each of the three loops was about 8.5 miles over a lot of concrete sidewalks and some dirt paths connecting three parallel bridges. We can’t say that the surfaces were a plus but because of the loops it also was great for fan support. Jay had recruited strangers to cheer us on which anyone could do because our race numbers also display first names but when you hear someone shouting out a certain nickname, you know they were put up to it! Gail also had the bonus of Rockin’ Russ (a former party DJ) using a boom box to play a few requested tracks to keep her feet motivated.
And what is great for the spectator is also great for the participant. Friends, family and total strangers can cheer you on over and over and over again. For Gail, having her son Jay there was a wonderful plus. It meant soooooooo much to her to have the people she loves there to support her and egg her on. Sara was there in spirit but physically up to her elbows in her holiday chocolate season (please go to
www.sarandipity.ca to shop online!) so she had to “settle” for joining us in Hawaii as a consolation. Courtney and Nick had that similar pleasure in ’05. If it wasn’t for the fact that Gail said she was retiring after this last Ironman, Sara would have future opportunities to see her Mom tackle 140.6 miles. Hmmm, maybe it will be her fault if Gail comes out of retirement! Jay was a phenomenal IronFan for both of us. Jay not only was there for a wet, cold hug as Gail ran up the ramp out of the lake but at so many turn-arounds on the bike and bends in the marathon. Gee, if it wasn’t for him posing her for photos, she might have broken 15 hours!
Speaking of which, it’s time for a little de_script_ion of our actual races. With the race clock approaching 7:00 a.m., Gail shed a few tears mostly from the intimidation factor of the lake’s cold water. But with an announcer telling all us Ironwimps to get in the lake already, we gave each other a good luck/farewell kiss for what would be a long day on our own…and that’s how an Ironman is undertaken. Coming out of the water, like many of the swimmers Gail found it was difficult to feel her feet or hands, let alone use any of those appendages to get out of a wetsuit. Luckily, volunteers help the racers peel off all that neoprene. (And we should add – the race volunteers here were the best at any race we’ve been to!!) But under the watchful eye of some medical supervisors concerned about athletes with hypothermia, Gail and many others were cloaked in blankets and taken into a warming tent. Eager to get the rest of the race underway (did she say “eager”!?) Gail excused herself and started to run up the grass transition lane only to realize that she had left her wetsuit behind. So she ran back, picked it up and retraced her steps. Finding time to plant a wet one on Jay’s cheek, she proceeded into the women’s change tent for T1 to transition from swim to bike gear. The headwind on the first leg out of town was discouraging and made her think that it was going to be a very long day. Then instead of heading back into what sometimes feel like square headwinds when on a bike, there was a true tailwind. Woo hoo! Gail screamed past a lot of cyclists with a smile on her face saying and thinking “ok, this could be fun!”
Gail focused on the next two loops just one leg at a time. For her, this course was a good mental layout – bite-sized pieces to knock off one at a time without letting herself think about what is yet to come. The bike went smoothly as the time passed with the only concern being that some sun blindness settled into her eyes for the last 10 miles even though her eyes were averted the whole time as she rode the aerobars. Tears and glare made seeing difficult or at least weird so she just followed the path of cyclists ahead of her into T2. Another medical check (damn, the clock is running!), headache? no; peripheral vision intact? yes; ok, cleared to continue. And hey, the sun was going to set soon anyway. Those first few yards are always tough but seeing Jay and Russ again (and again) helped. Gail was determined to prove to herself that a super-slow marathon with lots of walking was not her destiny, her Achilles tri-heel, and was not the most she could wring out of this split of the triathlon. She feels that it was her mental attitude that was holding her back (“Boo hoo, it hurts to run”….. “Yea, and it hurts to walk too after such a long day so move those legs, girl!”) So Gail ran almost the entire distance, sometimes at a faster pace, sometimes at a shuffle, but walked only through the aid stations or for a while with a couple of people who seemed to need the company.
In the end, Gail put together a 15:14:03 finish with a 1:33:31 swim, 6:50:06 bike and 6:21:16 run. There were two especially wonderful moments to that finish time. One, when she recognized it as exactly one hour faster than her first IM finish 5 years ago in Wisconsin with most of that difference being in her marathon time and not the contrasting bike courses. So sometimes you don’t get slower as you get older! Two, when Lou found her in the massage tent and the first words out of his mouth were: “You’re in trouble (when am I not?!)! I’m mad at you! You finished too fast and I couldn’t get down in time to watch you!” Hmmm, maybe this wasn’t as hard as it seemed during the race….with a little more speed work, etc., maybe a 14-hour breakthrough if she comes out of retirement.
Lou had a different journey to this last race of the year. With the first races being star material – 1st place in New Orleans and Columbia, 3rd at Eagleman, 2nd at Louisville and a qualifying spot to Kona, it was hard to stay that primed. Also, at the same time that Louisville was wrapping up, Lou was given the opportunity to start working full-time with Lifetime Fitness as a personal trainer and endurance coach. That job was a dream but it also has been a time-drain. Between Louisville and the Hawaiian World Championships and then that race and Arizona, Lou had little time to recover, train, or even get enough sleep. With having earned an All-American USAT ranking in his third consecutive age group (50-54, 55-59 and now 60-64), it was also hard for him to “get up” for the third Ironman in three months, especially when the last race was the World Championships in Hawaii. And then there’s the knee…or lack thereof. But Ironman don’t whine about obstacles, they “suck-it-up” and do it.
Lou had a solid swim with no goggle leaks for a change and not too much banging from the other 2500 folks in the water. When he came out, he was in 10th place in his age group. Lou also had an awesome bike – 4th best among men 60-64. Not bad considering this was the first time he rode his bike (with the exception of the thirty minute tune-up ride two days before the race) since Hawaii six weeks earlier. He was able to spot and shout out to Gail three times on the course – another advantage to multiple laps. Lou’s bike was uneventful except for the last 15-20 miles when the knee started to hurt, but the fact that he made it that far without any major problems, brought on by lack of training, was a pleasant surprise. For all of you who looked at the results page and saw a 13:13 T-2 time for Lou he can explain. No, he wasn’t drying his hair; he wore his knee brace for the first time in a race and had other “issues.” None of you better have a T-2 time like that or you will get yelled at.
Gail wasn’t the only one treated to Jay’s cheerleading abilities and heard people encouraging him that he had no idea were on his side. But with the run came the struggle with the inevitable and severe knee pain and foot pain. His first loop was at a relatively normal pace but he had to slow to a walk on the second loop. By the time he had passed Jay another time and then Gail when he was at mile 22 and she was at mile 16, the message was the same: “The pain is so bad that I’m nauseous.” L In the end, Lou could not claim a podium spot but had the guts to finish his 10th Ironman in 13:45:13. His swim was 1:19:09; his bike was 5:35:10 (20.0 mph) and his run a smidgen slower than Gail at 6:27:33. Lou knew going into this race that he was not going to have a good time, which didn’t matter. This race was important because it was the last corporate Ironman in the U.S. he hadn’t completed (at least until they add a new one in Utah next year! Oy vey, we will never retire!!) So Lou is 10 finishes for 10 starts – zero DNFs and with more top-10 and podium awards than most other triathletes can even dream of.
We are back to reality now and Lou has just found out that all that left leg pain from the knee might have been compounded by a stress fracture in his left foot!? A discomfort he noticed when we were at the zoo, and is making no sense right now. (Lou thinks Gail hit his foot while he was sleeping so that she could have a faster marathon than him) But it is just an obstacle that we will get through together. As we stated at the top, we are thankful to have each other on this journey. While some friends and family may not understand why any of us do these races, we like to challenge ourselves. Only by pushing ourselves to the limit can we truly discover who we are and what we are capable of. We learn about our limits and our non-limits through this sport – long or short distance events. As Lou says, the race is the “reward” that keeps us motivated to slog it out at the gym on a regular basis. This keeps us young of body and mind regardless what the calendar says. And in spite of other people’s genuine concern for us and the occasional injury, we are healthy, happy and full of vim and vigor for whatever life brings us! We look forward to next year and many more years in this sport – training, competing, mentoring, coaching, sharing, volunteering.
Gail’s early New Year’s Resolutions for 2010 are to continue to improve her health by fine-tuning her weight and re-learning how to get a good night’s sleep; to work on fitness issues of core and leg strength and upper body muscle definition and reducing that always present monkey-on-the-back of stress. While Lou shouts the mantra of balance-bosu ball-balance-bosu ball at Gail, he will also be working on achieving for himself a better life-balance of work, play, recovery, fun and home.
Lou will be shooting for a top finish at Ironman Lake Placid in July 2010. Gail will play “Iron Sherpa” and volunteer on the course. Pain management with the knee will be the key but he loves that race course (the bike course goes by our retirement property). We will let the Kona cards fall wherever they might. Gail will return to some shorter distances with Lou’s coaching, encouragement and company. She’ll try to cheat the age-gods again by making Eagleman 70.3 her “A” race and challenge herself to return to her times from a few years ago. She also has a goal of completing a half-marathon in 2:20 this spring. With two weddings this spring – Lou’s son Nick and Jodi and Diane and Brandon – Michelle Obama ain’t going to be the only one with toned arms!
And we hope everyone finds their own form of joy and health in the New Year….better yet, tomorrow!
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