It was a perfect day for a race. The weather in the morning was in the upper 50's, the water temperature was 63F and there wasn't a cloud in the sky as sun snuck up over the horizon. We all stayed about 3 miles from the race start at the HGI to get a good nights rest. We got up at about 4AM and left the hotel around 5:15AM.
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| Dropping off Bike Bags |
The bike area was a busy place at 5:30AM. Both Timmy and I got our tires pumped with air and made the last adjustments to our bikes, nutrition and hydration needs for the day before making our way down to the water for the swim.
The swim took place in Tempe Town Lake, a stretch of brown water that is only about 200 yards wide which made for a crowded, body slapping 2.4 miles. Timmy kicked ass on the swim finishing in 1:00 or 11th out of the water, a pretty damn good start to the day. I came out in 1:26 which I considered a good performance, one upon which I will build. I need to take about 10 minutes off of that time for Texas, Louisville and Placid in 2013. My T-1 transition time was 10 minutes, not great but not terrible. I have 2 minutes that I need to shave off of that with a little more focus and preparation.
The pre-race dinner the athletes gathered in the park to load up on carbs and listen to the IM host introduce a number of athletes and announce some statistics. One of those statistics was the out of the 2,500 competitors approximately 950 were first time ironman athletes. When they made this announcement and leaned over to Timmy and told him that this meant that we need to be careful on the bike, due to the number of rookies on the course, words that would come back to haunt me.
Out of the T1 transition I saw Carla who told me that I was 28 minutes behind Timmy, which I had projected to give up 30 minutes so I was pretty pleased. I knew that I could make up time on the bike and cut this lead by at least 10-15 minutes. Plans are good, but execution is what really matters. As a result of coming out of the water in the bottom 40% of the pack and being a stronger cyclist I usually have a lot of fun passing people on the bike. Conversely, Timmy being a strong swimmer and not as strong on the bike ends up getting passed. For the first 14 miles I was sling shotting around a ton of cyclists that had beat me out of the water but couldn't match that performance on the bike. At mile 15 as I was attempting to pass a string of competitors a newby in the passing lane reached back to grab his water bottle (why? because he was a rookie) lost control and took out one bike that skidded into the passing lane while he laid his bike down and the racer in front of me attempting to pass as well hit the two downed bikes. I was last to the pile up in aero position hitting the group at about 18-20MPH.
Upon hitting the cluster of bikes and bodies I jack-knifed over the top and hit the pavement head and right shoulder first and then getting body slammed into the pavement knocking the wind out of me. At initial impact I heard a crunching sound thinking, damn is that my head? Fortunately it was my helmet that took the impact from the blow. I need to write to the engineers that designed that helmet because it worked and did its job. My right should didn't fair quite as well. I had previously separated my right shoulder, fractured my right scapula and cracked 2 ribs on that side. As a police officer sat me up to help me take inventory of my injuries a bike mechanic was looking over my bike. On my left forearm I had a contusion sticking up at least an inch and a half, which looked bad. The police officer told me it was broken, I told him it was just a "monkey bump" and It was fine. My left wrist got jammed and sprained. My right shoulder had a nice scrape on it where the initial impact was absorbed. It was immediately swollen and a knot had formed where it bone lifted up from the shoulder socket. It was most likely a class 2 separation. My scapula and ribs posterior 2 through 5 hurt a lot.
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| Bike Crash....... |
After being helped up I made my way out of the middle of the rode to the guard rail on the side of the rode, where the bike mechanic was looking over my bike. Unfortunately my bike was fine, eliminating my excuse for not being able to finish the race. So with a 97 miles to go on the bike and a marathon to run I clipped into my bike and told the medics that had just arrived in the ambulance to cart off the 3rd cyclist (due to a gash in his quad) that I was fine and had a 26 year old nephew to catch. As you can see from my splits below the adrenaline must've been pumping as i made up the 10 minutes lost from the crash and finished in 6:06, the same time as my nephew, so no time lost or gained on this segment. In the back of my mind I knew that running was going to be an issue with my injuries but held out hope that Timmy was going to bonk on the run and if I just held a steady pace that I would catch him. Neither of that happened.
T2 transition was 6 minutes. That's 4 minutes worse than my average T2 transition times. I couldn't reach down to take off my bike shoes or sneakers. I had a hard time pulling off my bike shorts and putting on my running shorts during T2. This left me with about a 28 minute deficit as I left for the first lap of 3. The afternoon sun was hot, but felt good. After lap 1 I had cut 6 minutes from Timmy's lead which was now 22 minutes, still manageable. I wasn't feeling good at all going into lap 2 and decided to slow it down a bit and load up on nutrition and hydration in preparing for a final lap, which I was still hoping for a bonk from Timmy. As I approached Carla and Heather before the last lap they told me that I was now 24 minutes behind and more importantly that Timmy was looking strong. With 8.5 miles to go I would have to run a 7 min/mile to catch Timmy which in a 1/2 IM I could muster up but not the full distance and a jacked up shoulder and ribs. Timmy ran a great race and I was very proud of his performance.
I walked for 5 of the 8.5 miles of the last lap with a few other competitors. I decided to run with about 3 miles to go when the oldest guy in the race, a 78 year old, shuffled past me. That was simply too much for me to take so I picked up the pace and ran the last few miles in. The finishing chute at IM AZ was pretty lame compared to the previous 5 that I've run down. Normally the chute is about 1/4 mile long with people lining it. This chute was probably 75-100 yards at best, but it did have a lot of people cheering us on. I saw Carla in the crowd near the finish line snapping photos. It was a long day for both of us. There is no better feeling than coming down the finisher chute at the end of the race. This was number six on my journey for twelve and an entry into Kona. I must say, doing another IM was a thought that I couldn't even begin to entertain right then. However, its been 6 days post race and I am signed up for IM Lake Placid, IM Louisville and thinking about IM Texas in May. In addition, I signed up for the Leadman in Tempe on April 14, 2013. A 1.5M swim, 68 mile bike, 7 mile run, good training fro IM Texas and a rematch.........
Cheers!
Rank: 132
Overall Rank: 1149
| BIB: | 422 |
| Division: | M45-49 |
| Age: | 45 |
| State: | Brentwood TN |
| Country: | USA |
| Profession: | Business Owner |
| Swim: | 1:26:23 |
| Bike: | 6:06:33 |
| Run: | 5:01:24 |
| Overall: | 12:51:11 |
CONGRATULATIONS, PHILLIP, ON YOUR FINISH!
| Split Name | Distance | Split Time | Race Time | Pace | Div. Rank | Overall Rank | Gender Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 2.4 mi | 1:26:23 | 1:26:23 | 2:14/100m | 169 | 1511 | 1195 |
| Split Name | Distance | Split Time | Race Time | Pace | Div. Rank | Overall Rank | Gender Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9.4 mi | 9.4 mi | 31:53 | 2:08:32 | 17.76 mi/h | |||
| 18.8 mi | 9.3 mi | 37:48 | 2:46:20 | 14.78 mi/h | |||
| 28.1 mi | 9.3 mi | 21:58 | 3:08:18 | 25.43 mi/h | |||
| 37.4 mi | 9.3 mi | 25:40 | 3:33:58 | 21.76 mi/h | |||
| 46.7 mi | 9.3 mi | 29:40 | 4:03:38 | 18.85 mi/h | |||
| 56 mi | 9.3 mi | 31:04 | 4:34:42 | 17.98 mi/h | |||
| 65.3 mi | 9.3 mi | 32:09 | 5:06:51 | 17.37 mi/h | |||
| 74.6 mi | 9.3 mi | 28:06 | 5:34:57 | 19.90 mi/h | |||
| 83.9 mi | 9.3 mi | 30:55 | 6:05:52 | 18.07 mi/h | |||
| 93.3 mi | 9.3 mi | 33:24 | 6:39:16 | 16.72 mi/h | |||
| 102.6 mi | 9.3 mi | 32:23 | 7:11:39 | 17.25 mi/h | |||
| 112 mi | 9.4 mi | 31:33 | 7:43:12 | 17.95 mi/h | |||
| Total | 112 mi | 6:06:33 | 7:43:12 | 18.33 mi/h | 146 | 1282 | 1055 |
| Split Name | Distance | Split Time | Race Time | Pace | Div. Rank | Overall Rank | Gender Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.5 mi | 1.5 mi | 12:05 | 8:01:52 | 8:09/mi | |||
| 3.1 mi | 1.6 mi | 15:01 | 8:16:53 | 9:30/mi | |||
| 4.6 mi | 1.6 mi | 15:47 | 8:32:40 | 10:07/mi | |||
| 5.9 mi | 1.3 mi | 15:38 | 8:48:18 | 11:50/mi | |||
| 7 mi | 1.1 mi | 10:36 | 8:58:54 | 9:43/mi | |||
| 8.6 mi | 1.6 mi | 16:06 | 9:15:00 | 9:59/mi | |||
| 10.1 mi | 1.5 mi | 13:08 | 9:28:08 | 8:52/mi | |||
| 11.7 mi | 1.6 mi | 16:40 | 9:44:48 | 10:28/mi | |||
| 13.3 mi | 1.6 mi | 18:02 | 10:02:50 | 11:38/mi | |||
| 14.6 mi | 1.3 mi | 16:23 | 10:19:13 | 12:24/mi | |||
| 15.7 mi | 1.1 mi | 9:50 | 10:29:03 | 9:01/mi | |||
| 17.3 mi | 1.6 mi | 19:41 | 10:48:44 | 12:13/mi | |||
| 18.8 mi | 1.5 mi | 22:15 | 11:10:59 | 15:02/mi | |||
| 20.4 mi | 1.6 mi | 26:38 | 11:37:37 | 16:45/mi | |||
| 21.9 mi | 1.6 mi | 23:33 | 12:01:10 | 15:11/mi | |||
| 23.2 mi | 1.3 mi | 16:59 | 12:18:09 | 12:51/mi | |||
| 24.3 mi | 1.1 mi | 11:43 | 12:29:52 | 10:39/mi | |||
| 26.2 mi | 1.9 mi | 21:19 | 12:51:11 | 11:20/mi | |||
| Total | 26.2 mi | 5:01:24 | 12:51:11 | 11:30/mi | 132 | 1149 | 927 |
| T1: SWIM-TO-BIKE | 10:16 |
| T2: BIKE-TO-RUN | 6:35 |
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