Kansas Ironman 70.3: Fawnman

For those who didn't see my previous post ,I almost had to bail out of Kansas Ironman 70.3 due to a strained hamstring. I could still bike and swim but running still strained the leg. Luckly my sister in law, Amber agreed! I was to race the 1.2 mile swim and the 56 mile bike and Amber lent me her legs for the Half Marathon run.

Three days later, Julie, Amber and I loaded up in the Prius and headed out to Lawrence Kansas.... The highlights:

Things we saw on the drive to Kansas
(ordered by number of sightings from most to least.... to none):

9462 Sightings: Dairy Queen
9462: Wendy's
4681: Freddy's Steak Burgers
3000: Fireflies streaking over the car
100: Other people driving to Kansas with sweet Triathlon bikes racked to thier cars. Competitors to team Fawn. Though no verbal dialog was exchanged with these other drivers/racers, there was always a mutual nod of approval at the other athlete's choice of carbon fiber race steed. This was followed by a slight rush of adrenaline in seeing so many other athletes who prepared all winter for this race!
50: Billboards selling the concept of a fantastic "Wizard of Oz" vacation escape in Kansas! Forget Cancun, Vegas, Argentina... Dorothy is all over my vacation this year!
10: Text messages from Amber's friends responding to this question: "If you were eating a Larabar and it was required that a famous person lick the entire perimiter of the larabar before you eat it... what celebrity would you pick"?

1: What appeared to be some soft of thoroughfare used by locals in Topeka.
1: Kansas Landscape that was much prettier than any of us expected...
0: Nicole Drummers. A fellow athlete that my friend Bryan connected me with who was also signed up for the same race. Prior to the race I'd only seen pictures of Nicole (and her red specialized bike) but we'd never met in person. When I saw a car drive by with a very similar red specialized bike, I though for sure it was her so I rolled down my window, started yelling to this other car, flapped my wings until finally, the guy in the back seat opened the window and the car slowed down from 50 miles per hour to 10 so we could communicate. The dialog went as follows:

Me: "Hey man... Is THAT (rudely pointing to the girl in the front seat) Nicole Drummer?"....
Guy in Back Seat: "No"....
Me: "Ok man.. Just wondering... You can speed back up now".
Julie: "My husband is an idiot" (She didn't atually say this but if I were her I would have)

We ate dinner at Noodles and arrived at our hotel after dark while listening to a radio station that was begging for money not to be shut down... They were playing some really weird crap and the DJs basically saying: "Please call in and donate money so we can keep playing weird crap for you".... I am hoping that Amber will post a comment to describe this crap... It was very weird. If she doesn't you'll have to ask her about "want some pie Bob", "Affection" and "Internet Song".. Some real good ones..

A Day of Race Prep:
The race took place Sunday so Saturday is dedicated to setting up all your race gear at the triathlon transition areas. It's a pain in the butt. After Starbucks, Amber and I took the car into town to get ready. Julie met up with her friend Monica (and family) who live in Kansas.

I don't really have much to say about prep day other than that it was very hot and I got to see first hand how quick of a study Amber is! I knew she was smart, but at our frequent family gatherings, we are never really in a situation where we have to figure something out together so I'm content to think to myself at a high level: "Sure, Amber is generally very smart".

If you have never seen an Ironman distance triathlon, it is about as complicated as a race can get. It spans 70 or 140 miles (half vs full), takes you all over town, requires about 347 pieces of gear all placed properly with a crazy system so that you can switch from one set of gear to the other in 10 seconds without forgetting something critical like, say.... food for mile 50! It has strict rules throughout the three sport race. When someone says: "A triathlon is swim-bike-run", it sounds so simple... but it's not! It is almost as mentally taxing as it if physical.. For example: "Oh my legs are cramping because I sweat so much in this humidity... Did I remember salt pills?"

That said, I think Amber could have presented the rules at the race briefing never having seen a traithlon in person before. She had read the rule book before we got there, and used logic to fill in the gaps and she was all over every detail! I had no doubt in my mind that she'd be in the right place at the right time for our bike to run handoff. I also had no doubt that she'd help Julie figure out how the race worked the following day while I was on the course.

I also met the real Nicole Drummer at the race briefing. We discussed alternative plans should the lake be too warm for wetsuits the following day. Water temp was right on the brink of being "too warm".

That night we met Julie and her friends Monica, Darren and children at Whole Foods for our pre-race meal. I had only met Monica and Darren at our wedding and it was really nice to see them in a more relaxed atmosphere. They are so nice and have a very cute family!

After dinner Julie led us in some group aero-helmet-yoga... Dancer (Julie) and Aero-Utkatasana (me)

Game On:
Alarm went off at 4AM. We made Oatmeal in the hotel coffee maker, had some fruit and we were off. The relay division is the last heat to leave the starting line of about 20 heats departing every 5 minutes. Because of this we got to watch all the pros start and finish the swim. There were some incredible athletes here including the 2007,8,9 women's world champion, Chrissie Wellington and the 2007 half Ironman world champion, Andy Potts. Both of them train in Boulder.

While the pros were setting an amazing pace in Clinton Lake, Amber and I were preparing on the side with our team manager:

Putting the wetsuit on...

Water had cooled overnight so suits were permitted!

.

My swim went much slower than I had expected. I think it's because I swam some extra distance by not truly swimming a straight line. Oh well.. I'm always really dizzy when I get out of the water. I think it had to do with blood rushing to my head after being in a flat swimming position. In either case, this guy next to me looks about as dizzy as I felt!

Time to rip off the wetsuit and hit the bike..

Julie and Amber were waiting at the swim line to get pictures of me in transition and at the bike start . They didn't get a chance! Although my swim was slower than normal, my transition time was smokin'!! I beat them both running from the swim exit to the bike start (about 100 meters) while at the same time taking off the wetsuit, putting on bike shoes, glasses, aero helmet, race number and grabbing my food. I cut my my transition time from previous races in half! yeah baby! At least I made up some of the squirly swimming time.

The bike went smooth-ish.. A guy with Bolder triathlon club gear and I took turns beating the crap out of each other as the terrain changed. I could pass him on the climbs and on any turns that required nimble bike skills.. He smoked me on every long, straight flat section. Since the course had all types of terrain we exchanged these knockout blows on every hill and flat passing hundreds of riders together. It was fun!

Dismounting the bike - time to transition to Amber for the run.. I felt pretty good averaging 22 mph on the bike on a challenging course with 3000 feet of climbing.

After getting off the bike I gave the timing chip to Amber and she was off for the run.

She made it look quite effortless! this was the longest run Amber had done in

an injury laden 5 years.. Way to go cunada!

Amber on her first Ironman Finishing shoot.. Sweet!

(they had it decorated as the yellow brick road)

Monica brought two of her children to watch. So nice.. Group shot!

Annabelle was very excited about the swimming.

She had just done her first dive off a diving board the day before at the pool.

Evan was excited about 2000 sweet bikes! Maybe I'll have to watch out for them in 10-15 years ;)

Doing the triathlon as a relay was a really fun way to go! I'd recommend it to anybody who likes any of these disciplines, but not all of them! Pretty fun to hand the baton off and watch your friend go!

While I was racing Amber had time to meet the runners from all of the other relay teams (there were about 30 teams). We were racing against armed forces teams (army, air force), some collegiate teams (CU brought a team of athletes) and other friend/family teams. Pretty cool! Thanks so much for doing this Amber! It's the only way I could have competed and probably ended up being more fun than my original plan!

On the ride back Amber and I agreed we could eat anything we wanted for the day.. We hit all the fast food and Dairy Queen we wanted and sang 80s hip hop and modified Garth Brooks (papa's rear end) on the way home :)