Race Coverage

A Perfect Ironman Storm

Sunday, 15 September 2013 00:10

ED. Story and photos of today's One Last Tri will post on Tuesday. RESULTS

By Ananda Bates, first Ironman at age 42 in 11:36

This years Ironman Wisconsin saw a huge showing from the Minnesota tri community, both in participants and supporters alike. With 304 MN based triathletes I was one of a group of 8: Karl Adalbert, Mark Evans, Anthony Hirschman, Jmatt Keil (Kona Bound), Joe Langel, Hilary Patzer (Kona bound), and Meghan Quinlan, all trained by former Iowa State track coach Kristy Popp under the Active8-u www.activ8-u.com founded by Moira Petit and Erik Gabrielson....

Having a group to train with under one coach was an amazing relief making it much easier to coordinate going on long rides with people of similar strengths and goals. Our adventure started last fall with Active-8 who gathered a group of 25 or so athletes and professionals who wanted to find an equal balance between Body, Mind and Spirit. We worked together as a team overcoming physical challenges and shared our interpersonal experiences. This was the groundwork we built our fellowship on, and it proved to pay off September 8th at the Ironman.

Come race day we found one another and went through the early morning race rituals as a team: Body marking, stretching, dawning our wetsuits and ultimately keeping each other relaxed yet pumped. I remember being extremely calm that morning, able to eat without nerves interfering with digestion (often an issue.) When it was time to enter the water we gave our final good luck hugs, put our game faces on and filed through the thousands of fellow racers to find our respective places in the highly wavy waters. "This is going to be a tough swim" I heard someone say as we filled our wetsuits with pleasantly cool 72 degree water. I positioned myself near the shore to keep my breathing side (right side) traffic free - a trick I recommend as it ended up working out quite well for the first 1500 meter swim to the first turn buoy. I've never considered myself the strongest swimmer but I can hold my own. "Today," I thought to myself, "is all about strategy." I continuously found faster swimmers to draft off of by swimming side by side but with my head down near their hip. This way I was being pulled by their natural wake. I could tell I was saving up to 30% in effort by this and by the time I exited the water I felt almost as fresh as I was when I started. Amazing!

The bike was another story, I had some technical difficulties which cost me slightly over an hour of waiting for road side assistance from the Sag Wag. My derailer malfunctioned and I was stuck in my big ring (a fate that is worse when you're on a hilly course such as Wisconsin.) After about an hour of humping up hills, standing on my pedals while cursing at the glacially made topography, I discovered I could kick my chain over to my small ring with my heal and if careful, use the mostly useless derailer to get it back onto my big ring after each climb. However more often than not the chain would overshoot and land on my crank, threatening to get caught in my rear wheel during the often 40mph+ decents.

Needless to say I was able to make it safely back to T2. Happy to be done playing footsie with my Javelin, who I think I will now rename Grumpy, I again felt rather fresh - all things considered - and looking forward to my strongest leg of triathlon, the run. My goal was to do a 3:15 to 3:30 depending on all of the unknowns, the biggest being the fact that my whole game plan was upside down after losing an hour watching my competition fly past me on their bikes! And now I was either going to have to hammer and hope I could hold on to a crazy fast pace somewhere around 7:10's and no stopping or try to just stick to the game plan of 7:30's (with waking through every other water stop and a push for the last 10k which ended up exactly what I did to come in at a respectable 3:37 marathon.

But my story would not be nearly complete if I didn't mention the real reason I was able to persevere. And that is because of all of the supporters in friends and family that came out to cheer us all on. I counted well over 50 of you who scattered throughout the course and lifted my spirits up when I needed it most. And of course the wonderful volunteers without whom I would have been a crumpled wreck at the finish line, had I made it that far. I predict that one day - hopefully my next IRONMAN - when all of these factors come together I will be Kona bound just like my good friend and two time qualifier...JMatt! Gotta keep up with the Jones's right!

GO GET'EM Jmatt, Hillary and Kortney Haag in Hawaii 2014. You guys are inspiring, as are all of the athletes who participate in this sport. And again, to all of you who cheered, ran up the hills with us, especially my son Makai and wife Jennifer. If it wasn't for their support and willingness to undergo this journey with me I would not be the IRONMAN I am today. And as it turns out the people capturing the event made a video and posted it on youtube, and guess who's in it! Kinda fun right. Watch it here: http://youtu.be/MmRfZ6dARpc

~Ananda Bates