Race Report Ironman Coeur d’Alene 2010

I have to admit that I was more anxious prior to this race than normal. The field assembled for the Coeur d’Alene event was of better quality and depth than that of the cancelled Japan event, and presented a greater physical challenge. Additionally, I was a little concerned about the extra costs associated with the CDA event relative to the Japan event, as well as whether I had fully recovered from the stomach bug I had contracted a fortnight prior to race day.

With every cloud though, there is a silver lining, and the better field meant more recognition for a solid performance.

Although I felt below par in training from two days after I contracted the bug up until the Tuesday of race week, it all turned around the following day. I felt good swimming, cycling and running on the Wednesday, and I knew I was going to be fresh and ready to go on race day.

I had already picked out the athletes to watch prior to the race, but it is debatable whether knowing who you are racing will make any difference to the end result – there is no way to control how fast the opposition races. For the record though, the following athletes were the ones I thought were going to be the hardest to beat:

Andy Potts – A 70.3 World Champ and two top ten finishes to his credit in Hawaii. He comfortably accounted for me in the Kansas 70.3 event three weeks prior to CDA.

Luke Bell – top ten Hawaii finisher, multiple Ironman top three finishes, many victories over the 70.3 distance.

Tom Evans – past winner and podium finisher in the CDA event

Michael Lovato – multiple top ten finishes in Hawaii and multiple top three finishes in CDA.

Matt White – I have raced Matt in my previous two Ironman events and he has been solid opposition.

Chris McDonald – Ironman champion and podium finisher

The swim was two loops, with a run around a marker on the beach prior to starting the second loop. The start was in ankle deep water, which is always good, as it eliminates the pack drifting forward of the start line prior to the race start.

I wasn’t 100% sure how my swim would go after a lack of volume in the water in the three weeks leading up to race, but the fact that I felt fresh was definitely a comfort.

I have found that the first 200 – 400 metres of the swim is where any lack of fitness will have the largest impact. It will make the difference between fatiguing and dropping off the feet of the swimmers in front, or hanging on. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the necessary power, on this occasion, to go with lead group, but I managed to swim well enough after recovering from the stress of the starting sprint. In fact, it seemed like the small group I was working with, reduced the deficit to the lead group in the latter part of the swim, and we exited a bit over 90 seconds in arrears.

Lovato, Bell and Evans were in the lead group, while White exited a few seconds behind me and McDonald 2 minutes afterwards. Potts and Flanagan were in another league, leaving the water over 7 minutes before me. I am not sure what can possibly be done about that – either you have a body built for swimming, or you don’t. Unfortunately, Potts seems to be able to cycle and run quite well too!

I had a good transition, and got on the bike ready to go. It is a good thing that I am likely to be changing my bike in the near future, because the current one seems to have had a Matt White magnet secretly installed. As always, there he was, right behind me, as I started the cycle leg. I like to keep it real and, to his credit, he did come to the front on more than one occasion during the first loop of the cycle leg, however, I would score it 66%/33% in my favour, and I was on the front 100% of the final 30k of the loop when there was a headwind to negotiate. We were actually a group of three for the first 90 kilometre loop, as Raul Pereira was present also – his score was 0%.

The cycle lap has three turn around points that offer the opportunity to sight the opposition. The first is at about the 15 kilometre point, and it was obvious that we were going to catch the group of 6 that exited the water immediately in front of us not long after making the first turn. Sure enough, we caught the 6 at about the 20k mark and, as they were going significantly slower than we were and I was feeling comfortable, I, along with Matt, decided to keep it rolling and go straight past. Pereira came with us, and before too long we had established a handy advantage.

It was interesting to hear some comments from my home stay host Kent Eggleston after the race. He and his daughter own and run Bicycle Sales and Service on 4th street in CDA. BS&S were hosting a promotion of a particular brand of bike on the weekend of the race, and one of my opposition, who rides that particular brand of bike, was helping out with the promotion. He also happened to be in the group of 6, and reported to Kent post race that the majority of boys within the group weren’t particularly worried about me, Matt and Pereira, so they “let us go” – strange.

At the second turn around at about 55 kilometres into the loop, after negotiating approximately 80% of the climbs, we had established a lead of about 2 minutes on the group which had been joined by Chris McDonald and Matt Lieto. I think the gap hovered at around 2 minutes for the rest of the first loop.

The second loop was where it all happened on the bike. I did the majority of the work in the first 20k of the second loop, where we passed Flanagan, before Matt decided I wasn’t going fast enough and put in a bit of a surge. I have to say that I was starting to get tired at this point and struggled to match him and he got away a bit. I dug deep though, and managed to drag him in before we started the hills at the top end of the course, about 40 kilometres into the second loop.

It seemed at this point that he started to have some trouble with his gearing, specifically; he couldn’t access his front big chain ring. It didn’t seem to slow him down too much on the down hills though, as he was right behind me on each of the first two we negotiated.

When we got to the longest hill on the course, Matt attacked me and created a small gap which I found hard to close down.

The next hill, at about 45 kilometres, was where Luke caught both Matt and me after making a move away from the group early in the second loop. Try as I might, there was no way I could match it with Luke with my hopelessly fatigued quadriceps, and he rode off into the distance, dragging Matt along for the ride.

The rest of the cycle was survival for me, and I fought to hold onto my lead on the group behind, which had been whittled down to four – Evans, Lovato, Lieto and McDonald.

I was faced with a dilemma with about 20 kilometres to go as it was here that there existed about a one kilometre stretch of the course that was designated a no – pass zone. It was no problem on the first loop, but it was now congested with age groupers riding at less than 20 kilometres per hour. We were told at the pro meeting that we must respect the no – pass zone, but I wasn’t sure whether my opposition would do the same. Out of respect to the age groupers and the rules, I chose to respect the no – pass zone, but some of my opposition, at least, chose not to.

I had a spy on course – Jerry Haupt, my home stay host from Arizona – and he happened to be passing through the no – pass zone as the group of four behind me rolled through. Jerry reported that none of them respected the rule, with three of the four passing through on the wrong side of the cones at speed – Lovato stayed on the correct side of the cones, and apologised to each competitor as he went past. Maybe I should have just done the same.

My Spy – Jerry

At the time I couldn’t understand why that group of four caught me with 5 kilometres to cycle after seeing the gap I had at the far turnaround point, but now I know. I must have given away over a minute in that section of the course. In the end it didn’t matter, but if it had affected the result, I would have been bitter.

Instead of starting the run alone in fourth, behind Potts, Bell and White, I was tied fourth with Evans, Lieto, Lovato and McDonald. The gap to Potts was as good as 10 minutes, Bell had close to 6 minutes, and White was 3.5 minutes up the road. I have to say at this point I was concerned that there was a chance I may not finish in the top 5 and come away empty handed. The way I felt when I started running didn’t alleviate my concerns to any degree either.

The good news was that I moved into 5th position relatively early in the run, by passing Chris McDonald at about the 3 kilometre mark. I had dispensed with both Evans and Lieto just out of transition, but Lovato was proving to be a tougher nut to crack. He moved away in the first part of the run and established what seemed like close to a 2 minute advantage at some stage in the first loop, but was never out of reach at any time.

At the far turnaround point, approximately 12 kilometres into the run, it was obvious, barring total melt down, that Potts was out of reach. Bell, White and Lovato all looked good to ok at this point and there seemed to be no challenge whatsoever coming from behind.

I was starting to feel good and decided to reassess at the turnaround point to start the second lap. I was pleased to learn that I had closed the gap to both White and Bell significantly over the first half of the run and, although I was starting to fatigue, this was just the boost I needed to keep pushing forward.

I had White and Bell both within sight by the 25 kilometre mark, and moved past the duo within the next two kilometres to take third place on the road. At this point I felt content with my day, but kept pushing to see what happened.

I first spied Lovato at about the 31 kilometre point of the run and realised I was reducing the deficit very quickly. I was aware that there was a very good chance I would catch him and move into second place, and this was a huge mental boost.

I made the pass to move into second just prior to the far turnaround point with about 9 kilometres to run. I put in a bit of a surge immediately to consolidate my advantage, and then felt comfortable for the rest of the run. I was never able to relax completely though, until I had less than 1 kilometre to the finish.

I was ecstatic running down the finishing straight and haven’t experienced the same sense of satisfaction since I ran to a fourth place finish in my first Ironman event in New Zealand back in 2002. The fact that I had failed to finish the CDA event the two times I had raced previously probably contributed to my sense of elation – I owed this race.

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