IMAZ First Timers (Tips and Suggestions from April.)

My only advice is, get comfortable with the swim distance. If that goes bad, the rest of the day goes with it. Most of the people I know that DNF, have had bad swims. I know lots of people who recovered from bad bikes, but few from the swim.

Just my .02

Well, I had a great swim, but a bad bike and did not recover.

My advise is to have a back up plan to the back up plan.

See my log for April 13th and this thread for what went wrong:

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=111873&posts=9&start=1

If it's going to be hot, don't sodium load prior to the race unless you've raced with that product and in that amount before.  Quite possibly what knocked me out of the race.

I have been thinking about this.

 1.  Pack special needs bags before going to race (excluding fresh food, but leave a note in the bag as to what to add).  I was organized and clear headed the day before when packing, but I still forgot my re-supply of gels for the run. 

2.  Include ziplock bags - snack sizes for supplements, pint sizes for ice, even gallon sizes.  I used one gallon bag to pack everything I wanted to put into my pocket of my jersey (supplements, lip balm, sample chamois cream etc) that way in the transition area I didn't have to pull individual items out and wonder what I was planning on doing with them.

 3.  Practice sighting more while swimming.  I got a really bad cramp from pulling my head up to sight, I don't think my muscles were used to  that additional strain.

And the best advice I got was to smile for all the cameras.  I've already forgotten the pain, and now I've got great pics from my day.

 Good luck,

Wendi

There's not enough room on my screen for all of the things I did wrong, but here are a few things I learned...most of them the hard way.  These are not necessarily in order of importance.

1. As was stated previously have a plan and several back up plans.  However the key to this is to prioritize the elements of your plan.  For example it's fine to establish some sort of baseline nutrition plan like 1 Gatorade, 1 water, 1 gel every hour or whatever, and this should be based on training experience.  Priority 1 might be proper hydration/electrolyte intake.  Priority 2 might be some sort of plan on calorie intake, priority 3 might be some sort of pacing strategy, etc.  The key is to make sure that you are not over doing priorities 2 or 3 to the detriment of #1.  You can be pretty sure that the race will quickly throw a few unexpected twists at you.  Having a well thought out list of priorities will help you narrow down the things to focus on...once priority 1 is OK, move to 2 then 3, etc  Go way easy on the lower priority items until you get the higher priority ones dialed in.

2. If you're not a speedy swimmer, start near the middle in the back.  I watched a few youtube videos of previous race starts, and it appears that most people bunch up at either the outside or inside.  I was scared of the swim, but really didn't find it bad at all.  Also on the way back in, don't hug the buoy line, because it makes a curve left to right, and you can cut the tangent pretty easily.

3. Expect wind, but don't expect to know which direction it will be coming.  This year the ride out was tough, I understand that last year the winds were worse but coming from the opposite direction.  Also, it shouldn't be as hot as it was in April the record for Nov 23 is 87.   Be ready for anything from downright chilly to moderate heat.  http://www.weather.com/weather/climatology/daily/USAZ0166?climoMonth=11

4. If you are dumping water on yourself to keep cool on the run try to lean over to keep your feet dry and prevent blisters.

5. Pringles taste great on the bike.  I'm going to devise some sort of dispenser like a PEZ dispenser for chips.

6.  They give you two race numbers one has your first name and the other your last.  I didn't really think about it and used the one with my last name.  I hadn't had so many people call me by my last name since my college frat days.  For some reason it really started to annoy me on the run, even though it's obviously my own fault.

7. Don't use fancy carbon water bottle cages.  The cheap aluminum ones seem to hold the water and Gatorade better and you can bend them a bit to tighten/loosen as needed.

8. Put your cel phone in your morning warm clothes bag so you can get it shortly after you finish if you have trouble finding friends, family, etc.

9. SUNSCREEN.  Apply early and often.  I bought 3 cans of the aerosol spray, put one in each transition bag and put a small one on my bike.  The race sunscreen volunteers are pretty good if your not leaving transition at the peak time, but I wouldn't rely on race-supplied sunscreen only.  I also stopped at the half way point on the bike to re-apply.  Also used DeSoto cooler wings and cooler beanie both of which are awesome products.

10. Prepare yourself mentally for the possibility that you might get an upset stomach and might even throw up.  I knew it might happen late in the race, but hadn't really thought about it happening relatively early on the bike.  It's probably not something you will replicate in training, but just be mentally ready for the possibility.  Because I wasn't prepared for it, I went into panic mode and further compounded my problems.  If it happens again I hope to calmly try to manage it as one more scenario that I had planned for.

After 2 IM's here are my lessons learned:

1.  Go into your first IM with the only expectation of finishing.  You have 17 hours.  Anything less is a bonus.  Enjoy EVERY moment of that first experience and document it all.

2.  Nutrition is the fourth discipline.  Train for as hard, if not harder than the swim, bike and run.  Keep track of what you take, when you take it and under what conditions in training.  My mistake in Arizona was training in winter weather (Texas) and having a nutrion plan with calories/hour that I thought I needed to stick too in Arizona.  When the temperatures reached 96 (14 degrees above any training day), I did NOT change my plan and ended up taking in too many calories for the conditions.  Tip:  decrease calorie intake as the temperature increases.

3.  Start slow on the bike (first 30 miles) and then build to the finish.  Start slow on the run (first 4 miles), then run when you can the rest of the way.  You will not feel any better than you do after the first 4 miles so don't hold back waiting to"feel better".

4.  At the last aid station before the finish, clean up, zip up and remove all reflective items from your hat, shirt and shoes.  The reflective tape shine in the flash of your finisher photo.  You only get once chance at a first IM finisher photo!

5.  Thank ALL the volunteers along the way.  Without them, you would be carrying all your nutrition for the day on your bike and run

Training
Do the training. It could mean the difference between finishing and not. If you train hard and stay focused you will find that focus will come in the race. If you make excuses not to train or to miss workouts you'll find your brain can switch into that excuse mode in the race. The mentally tough workouts in training are what will pay off on race day. So get out there and train when it's "too hot," "too windy," etc.

Packing
A few weeks before the race I started making packing lists for each bag and each phase of the race. Those lists got taped to the outside of grocery bags, and I packed all my race stuff in those bags. Then on race week when I got the official bags, it was easy to transfer everything and cross it off the list. No worries about forgetting the little things. You might want to do something to your bag to make it stand out in 2000 other bags. Sort of like airline luggage.

Stay Calm
Things will go wrong on race day. There's 17 hours available for things to go wrong. Stay calm, don't panic. Do what you need to do to survive, even if it means doing something new that you didn't do in training. For example, I lost a water bottle on a bump and the next aid station 10 miles later was out of water. I picked up a bottle I found in the road later on. You don't think about who drank out of it and where it's been. You drink it. When you've puked your guts out a few times on the run and the only thing that stays down is Coke, you drink nothing but Coke for 3 hours. No, I didn't do that in training first, yes, I survived. 

Post-Race
This is the best thing I planned for. I had my husband bring a small backpack with stuff that I wanted right after the race. It had stuff like my flip-flops and recovery drink in a bottle, already mixed up. I wanted nothing more than to take my evil running shoes off, and the flip-flops were SO nice. They didn't have much at the finish line for food (water, Coke, and cold pizza), so my recovery drink that I've used lots in the past was awesome. This was great because I didn't have to wait until we got back to the hotel.

Good luck and have fun!

#1 - You've got to train to be able to ride 100+ miles, knowing you have what it takes to run a marathon afterwards.  This means that at the end of a century ride, you have to feel like you did at mile 1 of that century ride.  And if this means you have to ride 2-3, even 4 mph slower than you normally ride, then that's what you have to do.  If you start an IM marathon unprepared, it's going to eat you alive.

#2 - You've got to be mentally prepared for the worst.  The race is much more of a mental challenge than it is physical.  When crossing the half-marathon mark, you'll have more things roll through your mind than you could ever imagine, and 90% of them will be negative.  Fight thru the negative, and think about what it's going to feel like when you hear Mike Reilly call your name as an Ironman!

#3 - Be prepared for hiccups in training.  The most difficult part of Ironman is trying to lead a "normal" life while finding time to still work, manage your social life, and just plain deal with all the hassles that life brings.  Every problem that comes at you is going to be magnified twice over, and you'll really feel stressed.  You really have to learn how to manage your time efficiently, and maximize your time for training.

Best wishes in November!