IRONMAN 70.3 SYRACUSE race report : Jim is an Ironman!

Finish. Don’t Be Last. These have been my only rules for first time races at a particular distance. On Sunday September 19, I passed the test. Now that doesn’t mean that I didn’t have a goal race time. A realistic assessment of my skills set that finish time for my first Half Ironman at anything less than 6:45, which not coincidentally was the qualifying time for 2011 HalfMax national championships. I admit I was a bit intimidated by the Cville Tri Club race reports trumpeting way faster times by so many club members, but there was nothing I could do about that, so I set my goals and trained to meet them. IM Syracuse was my focus race for the 2010 season, and I chose it because I have good friends in Syracuse, and it was not too far to drive from my home in North Haven, CT. Of course, when I registered last December, I knew nothing of the job opportunity I would accept at the JAG school in Charlottesville. That decision changed the drive from four to eight hours. I drove up Friday, arriving around 10pm. Saturday was packet pick-up, race meeting (well, not quite: they had only one at a decent time, and I missed it while signing in), and a trip 15 or 20 miles to the race site. I had driven the race course back in the fall, but then M-Dot changed it, twice, in the month before the event. I only had seen about 60% of it. I also drove the run course, discovering that it was not a sight-seers delight. That evening, my family (2 daughters, my wife Nancy, and one daughter’s boyfriend) began to arrive. All had driven at least 250 miles to cheer me on. I needed them on race day.
    You would think that at my age, I would have learned to believe nothing the weatherman told me, but No! why be that sensible? After all, I was driving, so taking an extra shirt or maybe a long sleeve wetsuit would be soooo difficult! Well the advertised 74 degree temperatures and 70 degree water both  turned out to be off by a lot, and I paid for it by being poorly prepared.
    Race day: at 5:20am when I arrived at Jamesville Beach State Park, the water was 62°, and the air 55°. And it was raining. Hard. (I think this is a consequence of membership in Cville Tri Club: it seems like lots of members have been racing in the rain.) Fortunately, by race time, the rain had backed off to a drizzle, and most of the race itself was pretty dry, with just occasional showers. Transition, however, had some really swampy areas.
    The genuises at IM failed to anticipate the traffic problems of a 2-lane country road with a difficult in-town traffic pattern, so the 7am start was delayed by 15 minutes. I was in Wave 15, so my start was exactly an hour later. At least we were allowed to spend the waiting time anywhere we wanted except transition. (At Nation’s Tri in 2008, I waited 1:38 in a holding pen as temperatures rachetted up to 93 degrees). In Syracuse, I was able to hang out with my cheering section, dressed in my wetsuit and a heavy sweatshirt while I waited. Nancy had brought the sweatshirt for me, with a graphic of a “Deer Crossing” roadsign with a red slash & circle across it.   Being able to chat with family was pleasant and distracting, so I did not get too tense about the approaching start.
    For all my criticism of M-Dot organizers (repeated at the end of this from an earlier e-mail), the course management was outstanding, beginning with a well-designed and excellently marked swim course. There even was a place for each wave to get into the water just before wave start, to loosen up, without interfering with those already racing.
    SWIM: The water was COLD. I have regularly swum in 62 degree (or less, down to 52) in New England, but I was always wearing a full wetsuit. The moment I plunged into the water 2 minutes before my wave start, I knew that the dumb decision to leave that suit at home was a big mistake. I swim efficiently (little energy loss) but slowly. I had planned on a swim of 40-45 minutes, and that turned out to be accurate (45:57). But by the time I turned the corner for the final half mile, I knew I was in trouble, with hypothermia a real possibility. There were just too many places for cold water to replace warm with the open sleeves. As I came out of the water, I was shivering badly, and running the 1/4 mile of asphalt to transition with a confused brain, and solely on muscle memory. I do remember slapping palms with my older daughter Katie, but little else other than the knowledge that I had better warm up quickly. Fortunately, my hypothermia was relatively mild, and my brain was working by the time I reached T1, even if my body was a little retarded: I knew I had to take corrective action.
    What followed was a 9:11 T1 time, as I forced calories into my body, and dragged all the clothing I could out of my bag at transition. Normally, I would have expected this T1 to be 3:30-4:00, but I needed this time to be sure I was recovered enough for the Bike. Transition was beautifully laid out & well marked, so I was able to find my stuff, and get the bike moving.
    BIKE: One fellow racer opined that this course was more difficult than Lake Placid, which she had completed twice. I wouldn’t know. But it definitely had a bunch of serious hills. The course is a beautiful, one loop ride through farmlands and small towns. The weather was variable, with one sharp, heavy shower, and frequent mist that kept me wiping down my clear glasses. But the roads were not slippery , there was very little traffic, and nearly every intersection was protected by law enforcement. No day can be all bad if it includes a bike ride, and I needed some time on the bike. I was wearing my tri suit, a long sleeve jersey, and my gore-tex rain jacket, and I was never too warm. I was, however, comfortable, and my foggy mind started to clear at about the 5 mile mark. The hills slowed  us all down, but there were some great downhills, all with good run-out that let me pour it on (max speed 43mph), and plenty of shallow up hills where I could keep moving pretty quickly. For me, this means any speed at or above 20mph. I managed my fuel really well, I think. I was careful to get 300-350 cal./hr, which for me is a combo of PB&J half-sandwiches and Powerbar Smoothie bars. Gatorade Endurance was my liquid of choice, as the race had it available at 3 bottle exchange locations throughout the course (I used only 2, as I carry an Aerobottle in front, & 2 normal bottles behind my seat).  I concentrated on taking in about 24 oz./hr. of liquid, even though it was so cool. My plan was to keep my effort just below the level at which I felt lactic acid building up, and I think I did that. Controlling my natural competitiveness, I rode the race I had trained for, ignoring those around me (mostly). Given the hilly course, and the hypothermic beginning, I was thrilled when I saw I would finish the bike in under my max target time of 3:30 (3:20:52). It helped that the biggest climb ended at mile 49, and was followed by 7 miles almost entirely  downhill to transition. Although it may seem slow for the superstars in the Club, the 16.7mph average was right where I had hoped to be in planning the race. 
    T2 was uneventful. It had not warmed up much, but I shed the rain jacket, keeping my long sleeves, and got out on the run (my weakest link) in 2:58.
    RUN: Prior to this race, I had trained at relatively long distances, but had run 13.1 miles exactly once in my life, in early September. I run long distances with a Fuel Belt, because I just can’t hydrate from paper cups. The added weight is worth it for me, because it also gives me a place to carry my Gu gels, and I don’t have to walk the water stops. I am not a fast runner. I thought my pre-race goal of10 minute miles was overly optimistic, but I had hope. I managed to maintain a very steady rhythm at just about that pace, along what has to be about the ugliest run in all triathlon.  Advertised as a “downhill” run, this was anything but. Sure the finish in the City of Syracuse is 380 feet lower than the start at Jamesville State Park, but the downhills are steep, and the uphills shallow and long. The run is past lovely fast food restaurants and car dealerships, along the inside (left) lane of an 8-lane multi-stoplight boulevard. So, we were running with a concrete median to our left, with four lanes of traffic on the left side of the median, but also with three lanes of traffic to our right. Talk about poor air to breathe! After a few miles out in the country, we moved into about 6-8 miles of this concrete wasteland, before finishing with a long shallow uphill through the Little Italy section of Syracuse at miles 11-12.
But, there was my cheering section right at the halfway point, dancing & cheering on the median, and telling me what a good pace I was maintaining. Got a real boost out of that one. By mile 10, I was regularly passing walking & shuffling racers, and it was here that I had to mentally resist the pull of “how nice it would be to walk for just a little while. I didn’t walk. My fueling again went as planned. My Fuel Belt has four 8 oz. containers. As I sucked down the last of my Gatorade just before dismounting the bike, I planned to empty one of those bottles each 3 miles, saving enough to hydrate a gel at 3, 6, 9 & 11 miles. I refilled one bottle at the 10 mile water stop, but all else worked as planned. While I was leg-tired, I never felt like I was close to bonking for lack of calories. After the long hill at 11-12, we came to the only gift downhill: the final ½ mile dropped pretty sharply down to the finish line at a lonely concrete park near the “inner harbor” of Syracuse. It sits there, with no town-like neighborhood around it. The City has hopes to make it an in-town hotspot, but my local friends tell me it is little used and the water badly polluted. Sigh. In the end, my run was 2:09.12, or 9:52m/mile. I am thrilled with that pace, and it more than compensated for the 9+ minute T1 in my final time.
    There were a goodly number of people at the park cheering us in, including my personal group, and I managed a decent kick & something of a smile & raised arms at the finish line. I was thrilled to finish under 6:30, a time which qualified for the 2011 HalfMax championships. Time: 6:28:09. Age Group: 15/25. High AG finishes get harder at each increased distance, I’ve found (obviously b/c you cannot do a HIM without serious training, something not true of a sprint). The fastest racer of my M60-64 group was #115 Overall out of 1608 finishers! I was #1175, ahead of just 27% of the finishers.
    I was thrilled with my time, proud to be an Ironman, and satisfied that all the training was worth it. The course was 2/3rds beautiful (swim & bike), and 1/3 ugly. The on-course organization was excellent. Everything else about the organization was minimalist and not very athlete friendly. The post race food was so poorly distributed, that most of us purchased food so we could refuel without standing in a 20 minute line for minimal selection. But my family and friend were there, and I finished with my tri season on a very positive note.
–Jim Clark

RANT FOLLOWS:
The owners of Ironman brand have become incredibly arrogant, and at least in Syracuse did almost nothing that seemed calculated to make the athlete's lives easier. Examples: post-race food: one tent, one table, resulting in long lines at a time when people really need to re-fuel. Many of us resorted to buying food. I've been to sprint races that had better food, and an efficient set-up. (2) Race meeting on Saturday. Registration opened at 10am, only morning race meeting at 11, no other one until 2pm. But transition was 15 miles from the meeting, and we had to have bikes there on Sat., starting at 2pm, swim practice only 2-4pm. Made going to the 2pm race meeting a trade-off with Saturday warmup. Meeting organizers rude & unwilling to answer questions post-meeting. (3) Three major changes to the bike route since it was first announced, the final one traveling over 2 sets of oblique RR tracks, which were not in the previous versions. Two late changes to the run route, including more hills in a route advertised as "downhill".
The course management, however, was excellent. Plenty of traffic control, wet-suit strippers (THAT was cool), and sensible transition area.
Bottom line: if you know a non-branded race is athlete-friendly, my recommendation  is to choose that. The little things can make such a difference in overall enjoyment. IM 70.3 Syracuse did the little things very poorly, and did not seem to care. It was more as if they were doing us a favor by letting us participate in an M-Dot event.