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John Hirsch's IMLP Race Report
By John Hirsch
7/30/2010 |
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When you live by ultra distance racing, sometimes you die by it as well. That is, you only get 1-2 shots a year to get it right. Last year was a great season with a trip to Clearwater as a pro and 4 wins but at my ironman big risks resulted in a death march and so I was left feeling less then pleased in my result. I tend to put a lot of weight on the "big day" so when I lined up at Ironman Lake Placid I felt I had something to prove. It had been 2 years since my top 10 at Ironman Louisville. In those 2 years pro racing had gotten much tougher as our sport continues to grow on every level. Fields are deeper and faster. More athletes from more corners of the world and new home-grown bad ass men continue to fill pro fields and ironman lake placid was the biggest deepest I have ever seen with 32 strong male pros looking to rip each others legs off.
Straight away Bryan Rhodes was looking to rip our arms off before we even used our legs. The ironman gods smiled on him warming the water just a touch over wetsuit legal for the pros. He has so much swim talent that without the form correcting help of a wetsuit the pro field gets dropped by a big margin.
I came out 4 and a half minutes off my course pr because of the lack of a wetsuit. But for my Xterra skin suit and I would have lost even more time.
The good news is all the pros swam slower without wetsuits and I swam great compared to them and I was stoked to hear I was 11th out of T1. Team Continuum athlete, Grant Aidner, was at the first aid station (so he could get in for imlp 2011) and gave me a split and bottle and I knew I was right in the thick of things as we climbed the 5 miles out of town. The big downhill at Ironman Lake Placid is not for the faint of heart on a good day, and this was NOT a good day. Rain and wind conspired with rough roads, turns and steep downward pitches to make for 7 miles of white knuckling and a bravery testing. Lucky for me I train with the pro KOM winner of the Killington Stage Race at www.stronglikebulltraining.com in Spain and he can fly down hill like he is el falcon so my downward bravery is high. By the bottom I was catching people.
The only bad part of a good swim and speedy T1 is that there are normally some people that are bent on passing you. Some for good, others are on a suicide mission. With wind, hills and a marathon to go, its hard to tell 15 miles in who is who.
My coach Jim Ortel of www.blockislandsport.com told me "race your race". To confirm this my team wrote it on a shovel covered in fake blood. That makes a strong impression in your minds eye and you tend to take advice given to you in such a manor seriously. Not wanting to be struck by a blow up or bonk, then a shovel, I road my race and paced as I saw fit.
At one point a ref gave me a red card and told me I had to serve a 4 minute penalty. I though this was in error since I wasn't drafting as no one was near me. The ref said it was for drifting off the right side of the road. I plead my case at 200+ watts. My part time day job is as a lawyer and until this moment that has never helped me in this sport (except for understanding poorly written usat and wtc rules governing pro racing). Yet my trial skills came through and when my case went to the appeal court of head ref and former pro Jimmy Rictotello it was overturned. When I hit the penalty box he was there and said it was a yellow card, a stop and go violation. I started lap two like a dog that just got adopted off of a pounds death row.
The second lap of the bike was more wind and more Hammer Nutrition products. At this point fueling is critical so I grabbed a full bag from special needs so I could use only Hammer stuff which works awesome for me. I kept the pace up and at mile 90 with 22 miles left, almost all uphill, people started coming back to me. I caught and dropped 4 people from miles 90 to 112 but had been passed by even more so I started the run in maybe 18th place.
Another fast transition as I run in Puma Street Racers which have a felt like liner meaning no sock is needed and off I was for a marathon. I am coaching a great team called Team Continuum (www.teamcontinuum.net) and we have charity spots for the NYC marathon. A major goal for some of our runners is to qualify for Boston. I reset my watch out of T2 and ran with that as my own goal. If you were picking a race to qualify you wouldn't pick this one. Its super hilly and you run in mid summer and middle of the day. But my legs felt good and I once again thought of the shovel: "race your own race" (or else!). The first laps miles ticked off and I held a nice even pace. The hills did a lot of my work for me and people were blowing up as if the run course was littered with land minds.
On the second lap my carefree running turned to pain and I just dug deep. I passed people until mile 22 when I finally was in 12th and no one was coming back to me. Sadly people I passed were chasing and 3 guys were very close. I was kind of struggling at this point when I saw my girlfriend and health counselor Christine Lynch (www.liveandeatbetter.com) who was flying down hill on her way to a comfortable 13 hour first ironman. It was just the pick me up I needed and I found my way to the finish.
As I entered the oval I zipped up my Champion Systems skin suit, smiled wide for the cameras with my arms bent and raised, a salute to my 4 month old nephew, Gavin, who sleeps like that. After I crossed the line I balled like him too, though to be fair he doesn't cry that much. I felt so vindicated and validated after the trials of the prior years ironman. To beat 20 strong pros and to be in the top dozen filled me with a sense of pride and thanks. Anyone who does ironman knows you don't do it alone and I felt so much gratitude to the CREW who were there including Grant from Team Continuum and Phil and Kate Lavoie of theytri.com who gave me a room of their house so I could train and introduced me to my girlfriend Christine. Also thanks to Miss Murder who soldiered on through another ironman finish, and Ironman Bobby of www.ironmanbobby.com who will have a great podcast of the weekend and Bill who took care of things after the race. Not to mention my dad who came adding book ends to Lake Placid for me as he was here 10 years ago for my first finish.
Also thanks to my sponsors Cannondale, Profile-Design, 53x11 Coffee, Block Island Sport Shop, Champion System, Fuel Belt, Just Socks, Puma, Rudy Project, Strong Like Bull Training Camps, Team Continuum, and Xterra Wetsuits.
John Hirsch is a Pro Triathlete and coach. He is currently the head coach for Team Continuum a charity that fund raises for those fighting cancer. For free coaching and a spot into the NYC Marathon please visit www.Teamcontinuum.net or email him at hyctn (at) aol (dot com.
Photos courtesy of www.theytri.com, for and by supporters of those who tri. Check out their complete spectator guide to Ironman Lake Placid.
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