Duluth…. Running and swimming down memory lane

5 days back in my hometown with 25 days left to go to race day. I was a little nervous to be traveling so close to the race given I have my peak workouts on the road. This is about the last of the time where my training actually can help me improve my race; I am doing my longest workouts and doing my final race simulation at the long distances. AND I AM TRAVELING WHILE DOING IT! Thankfully things have gone well and Duluth had some great moments.

I got in on Saturday night and on Sunday did my first real long run since my injury. I have come to realize that running the full marathon is not going to happen. It’s not that I am doubting my ability, but rather accepting the reality that very accomplished veterans Ironman triathletes walk portions of the marathon. So, why not plan for it?! I decided to do 10 and 1’s for the marathon (run 10 minutes, walk 1, repeat as long as necessary) and went out for my long run to test this out. 1:55:00 running and walking, eating gels, drinking Gatorade and really felt great! No knee or leg pain and felt steady the whole run. I did some math and realized if I can pull this off, I can still run a moderate pace, walk every 10 minutes and not spend 8 hours out on the run course. It’s all about the second half of the run. Those 21k are the ones that are going to test me. Those are the ones that are going to make me ask why the hell I am doing this race. My hope is the 10/1’s put me in a place that I am still feeling relatively good for that last push to Penticton.

Now the run itself was hilarious. I literally ran through my childhood and adolescence over the course of the 2 hours. For any of you not from Duluth, this might be boring, for me, it made me laugh out loud. First stop was my middle school, Woodland, and all the pubescent memories it brought back, silk shirts and rolled pants. Then cruised past Liz’s house and our many conversations came flooding back. Jodie’s house came next and with a nod I was cruising towards Woodland Ave again. A minute later it was the turn off I took regularly to either see Danielle or Sara depending on the era; lots of right turns there and two amazing people to see. Crystal and Jen’s house were up the block next just before I went past my little league baseball field; picture me about a foot shorter, 50 pounds lighter and unable to hit a ball if it was laying on the ground in front of me…that was my little league career. Yes, I laughed at that one. Rounding the corner I came across the spot where some of us had a run in with the cops after a night of TPing; it always looks so easy to get away in the movies! Oh the stupid stuff you do in grade 9, and no, no criminal record with that one. Up Woodland Ave. further and cruised past Joe’s place, the setting of many a good time from grade 8 and on…years of flashbacks came with that one. Then a weird memory of Matt’s house where I watched Thriller for the first time in grade 9, and then cruised past the place I learned to ice skate when I was 9. Up past Piggly Wiggly, the local super market, and was on my way towards my Aunt and Uncle’s old house. I am reaching the edges of town by now only to come across a string of houses that I truthfully had forgotten about. All these friends from back in the day that I hadn’t thought of in years but vivid memories, most cloaked in pubescent adolescence, came flying back. Shannon’s house, Carrie’s house, Julianne’s house, circling back into town was Paul and Liz’s house, even back to Sue’s house where I couldn’t help but see her big white Samoyed puppy from back in the day. Rounded the corner by my old high school, thought through four years of random thoughts, many strangely having to do with the crappy brown Toyota I used to drive and park on that street, and then it was back down 4th st. It is getting long in the run and time to start heading for home, but I had to do one last push up the hill past the corner store where Scott and I met almost daily to buy a bottle of mountain dew and a pack of baseball cards back in 1987. The Twins were hot back then and a Kirby Puckett card or a Mark McGwire rookie card were worth trading your Reese’s peanut butter cups and the free bottle of pop you just won from under your bottle cap. Oh the memories…. The mental flip book was a flying that day. An incredible run and if only Ironman could be as stimulating, I would be so distracted I wouldn’t even know I was working!

Another eventful workout and trip down memory lane came from a swim up at Pike Lake. I needed a long swim and found just what I was looking for. Some friends live about 2500 metres from the public landing. What does that mean? It means instead of dropping in via the driveway, I swam past my dad's old house on the lake, around the lake, up to the dock and knocked on their door dressed in a neoprene wetsuit. The look on their faces was priceless! I took a pit stop, sucked down a gel, some water, a few good stories and it was back to the lake to swim home. 56:00 there and 52:00 home again for a total of 1:48:00 swimming! Pretty damn impressive if I do say so myself!

Thanks Duluth for the trip down memory lane!

Oliver Half Iron Race Report....Past Due

Oliver Half Ironman 6/7/09... Better late than never! Here a few notes I took and never posted from my race in June. I had the goal of 5:45 and with this race met my second goal of the season!


Race Morning
- Had a decent night’s sleep. No pre race nerves.
- One of three alarms set did the job, the other two didn't go off. 5:45 wake up call
- Quick breakfast of bagel and cream cheese, banana
- Cool over cast morning. Perfect race weather

Set up
- 1100 athletes… it was huge! But got a good spot near the end. Pays to be a keener who registers early and gets a race number under 100
- Porta potty line was ridiculously slow. I had a couple moments of panic but realized “this is something I HAVE TO do so it will take as long as it has to”. Everyone else was doing the same so that just part of morning
- Listened to “That’s the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it in the porta” Weird
- My rack had 20 bikes and close to $100,000 worth of gear. Lots of Cervelo bikes and race wheels. It was hot. This is not a cheap sport if you want to drop the money on gear.
- Had a piper who led the athletes to the beach where Steve King’s voice took over for the day. Second time in three weeks I got to listen to him do his thing. It is a gift

Start
- The start was supposed to happen at 7:30 but the safety boat wasn’t working. Seemed like a valid reason to wait a few moments. By 7:40 we were underway.
- 3 waves, blue, yellow and green, with us males under 45 starting it off. 1,100 people in wet suits on a beach is pretty impressive sight.

Swim
- It was a rough start. Didn’t feel comfortable for the first 10 minutes or so. Even had the “maybe this just isn’t my day” thought.
- Super murky water and you could barely see 2 ft in any direction. Couldn’t tell if you were about to swim over someone else and they didn’t when they were about to swim over you. Awesome.
- Got pretty wavy pretty quick. No white water but more than a few breaths turned into mouthfuls of water.
- Pushed way out to the outside and just found some space. My geometry lessons on the hypotenuse of a triangle started flashing through my head as I tried to figure out how much extra distance I would be swimming by taking the wide path. Figured it wasn’t much further, got an “A” in it in grade 9, so I just took my wide approach to the first turn.
- By the first turn, we were feeling better and smoother.
- Singing “I got soul but I’m not a soldier” by the Killers for most of the swim. Good tempo!
- Started seeing the yellow caps…. Okay so those people are all at least five minutes faster than me. Then the green caps. Damn those people are TEN minutes faster. Just shut up and swim Nathan.
- Found the beach in about 41 minutes. 1 min slower than the plan, but considering my comfort, that was all good.


T1
- Took advantage of the wetsuit strippers. Take this moment to apologize for any urine that was splashed on you all today. Triathletes at the end of the swim are like thoroughbreds at post time. We both pee. Sorry, it’s the truth.
- The run to transition was ridiculous. Best guess would be .4 kilometres. No shoes, No sandals. Concrete roads and side walks that were actually very well swept for all of us, but running bare foot on the road is just no fun. Once in transition, I only had to run….all the way across to the far side. Passed nearly 30 rows of bikes to get to mine. Great part was that I just had to pop out once I had my bike!
- There were 2 other bikes still on the rack so I wasn’t the slowest guy…good feeling… and had plenty of room to get my gear ready.
- Attempted to put on sunscreen but the pump was pretty empty and not working right. This would either be a good choice and save a minute or so, or turn out to be a horrible painful decision a few hours later. We’ll have to wait and see.

Bike
- I was excited to get out and ride. After Shawnigan, I knew I had the legs to push and would be okay afterwards.
- Super smooth roads
- Head wind going down hill and it pushed us back up the hills. Probably the best wind scenario we could have had. Flipped it would have been hell.
- Legs felt really good and it wasn’t long until I was passing some people and finding some room of my own.
- I was never alone. There were always people around and just when you would get in a rut and feeling slow, a wave of 5-10 bikes would come cruising past. From where I don’t know but I jumped on quite a few groups for motivation. Not drafting, just a speed wake up call.
- Stayed aero for 95% of the ride. Felt really comfortable for the most part, and the parts that were a bit off went numb shortly after the discomfort J
- Kept the 31 kph speed a goal and knew if I could hold that I would have my 3:00:00 ride. 93k later… I had it!
- Caught Jenn’s cheers a few times as I rode past. Little beats hearing her voice as I am racing. Immediately I get stronger, faster, and more positive about what is going on.
- Had a brief moment of panic with 15k to go. Just after the aid station, I was trying to put my new bottle in its holder. Poor planning lead me to try and do this as I was rounding a few sharp corners, one shortly after another. The first lap, sans water bottle, I took these turns too fast and nearly went into some ugly dirt/curb/gravel, so slamming on the breaks one handed while fiddling with my bottle holders and launching my full bottle of Gatorade out onto the road where it exploded in a fountain of Lemon Lime fury didn’t make the second lap any less exciting.
- Kicked off the shoes with about a half a kilo to go and road the last with my socks on my shoes. Still not as classy as my friend Cecelia who has this great barefoot picture of the same. What can I say, I have sensitive feet.

T2
- Popped in. Since my rack was right there, I was free of the bike very quickly.
- Felt like I had a fast transition
- Loaded up on some fresh gels, changed shoes, my Wildflower visor and we were off


Run
- Had "the voice" give me a shout out as I start out on the run “Here comes Nathan Geroggensen from Victoria, a veteran at the Half Iron distance but is coming back for Ironman this summer for the first time. He’s a teacher out in Victoria. Have fun out there Nathan!” (cue fist pump here!)
- At about the 15k mark, I couldn’t remember if this was 21k or 22k race. Second guessing myself after my poor race time plan of last summer where I forgot one kilometer.
- Had the floppy legs for the first 15 minutes or so. Tried to just go slow, but “slow” ended up being about 5:10/k which is a pretty good clip. Weird.
- I can now feel my body digesting all the race food. Gels, Gatorade, water. They all feel a bit different and I can tell now when I need what and can tell how long it will take for them to get into my system. Pretty cool to know your body this well.
- Was very steady the whole run. My thought was a little extra effort every kilometer means I don’t have to hammer away really hard at the end to try and reach my goal. A little always versus a lot all at once. I hung out just under 5:30/k all day long

- Weird sprinkle came and went through the run. It was sunny and at first I thought it was a runner near me who was splashing sweat around. He was going for it pretty hard and swinging the arms. Sure it’s a gross idea at any other time, but it was impressive at the time. Impressive until I felt him splashing sweat at me from 100 metres away. That WOULD have been impressive. Silly rain playing tricks on me.
- Just before the halfway turn around, I saw Jenn snapping pictures and managed to sneak in a kiss as I went past her again. This was the first race I knew my legs would start up again after stopping to lay one on her. I got a “Hey! There’s no kissing in triathlon!” and I guess she got a “I hope you know that guy!”

Finish
- With 1 kilometre to go, I went for it. Long long strides and just tried to maintain a tall posture. I could see the crowd that was formed near the finish line and the loudspeaker was getting louder and louder. I knew I had my goal time by this point, but I still wanted to finish strong. I was as fast as I could carry myself, legs whipping past, arms pumping, smile broadening. There was a sharp turn down hill to the finish line and it was everything I could do just to stay upright. Cue finish line fist pump here!
- Mother to her 5-6 year old daughter, “Now honey, we need to remember that Daddy’s been exercising since we had our cereal this morning. We need to take it really slow with him.”
- Plopped down on the first thing I could find to sit on. I think it was for the volunteers to take our timing chips off, but at that time I just didn’t care. It was flat, it wasn’t moving, and I could sit on it. It was barely a foot and a half off the ground so getting up was tough, but I was blissful for that moment.


Final Times
2k Swim - 41:51
T1 - 4:47 (there was about a .5k run to transition!)
93k Bike - 2:58:08
T2 - 2:13
21k Run - 1:56:02
Total - 5:42:59

Yellow Lake Shmellow Lake

I did it! I finally got out and rode the rest of the ironman bike course! I had ridden Richter Pass a few times, a 9-10k climb out of Osoyoos that intimidated the hell out of me at first. I had ridden the rollers a few times, a set of 7 hills that you cruise up and over, nothing too crazy but a challenge if you don't like hills. I had never ridden the Yellow Lake climb, the second of two "mountain passes" on the Ironman course. I use parentheses here because after my ride Wednesday...I have no fear anymore!

I rode 110k/68m from Osoyoos back to Penticton following the bike course for Ironman. 4 hours. 2 Cliff bars. 4 gels. 4 bottles of Endurox. 0 problems.

This was a huge milestone for me in my training. I always had this part of the ride built up in my head as a killer. An ugly beast waiting to kick me between the legs and knock me down before the marathon starts. Now I am not saying the ride is going to be easy, but I will say I am ready now. I have seen it, ridden it, got to the top and literally said out loud "That was it!?" Again I am not getting cocky, although I feel a little fired up about it, but I know it is more the placement of Yellow Lake on the course, not necessarily the climb itself. It shows up after 140-150k on the bike. Your butt is sore, your legs are sore, your feet hurt, your thighs burn, salty sweat drips to your lips, your hands are sticky from lemon lime Gatorade and strawberry banana gels mixed together, its hot....really hot, the bugs are stuck in the vents of your bike helmet, your sunglasses are glazed over with a mix of sweat and tears, did I mention your legs hurt, and then....Yellow Lake shows up. I know it is going to be hard, but I now know I can do it. And truthfully, that is the most important part.

I also figured out my nutrition for the bike ride. I drink Endurox, a carb/protein mix, every 15 minutes or more (my alarm is set to go off every 15 minutes to remind me). It's fruit punch flavour and is actually quite tasty. Then on the half hours, I eat a half a Cliff bar, and at the top of the hour I eat one gel (I am loving the Carb Boom and Hammer Gels at the moment).



I tried this system out a few times and have felt so strong even after long rides. This past ride, the 110k-4:00:00 ride, finished and I felt incredible. Even with the climbing my legs felt strong and loose. I went out last week and accidentally abandoned my nutrition. Needless to say, the end of that ride sucked. No gas going in means no energy going out. Lesson learned and I am a slave to my food now, and it is working!

31 days and we are feeling more and more ready!

34 Days...

I have been a blog slacker and haven't written for awhile. Part I have been private, part lazy, part guilty and feeling like I needed to update this will EVERYTHING I had been doing to do justice to the blog world. Finally I had to say screw it and just get going again. And with less than 7 weeks to go, it is about time.

We are leaving on our "Not Road Trip 2009" tomorrow to spend some time in Regina and I will get to Duluth to see family as well. Of course there will be some training along the way. Tomorrow will be another stop to swim in Okanagan Lake and then Wednesday I will be doing the second half of the Ironman course, the ugly section from Osoyoos back up to Penticton. I have climbed Richter Pass a couple times before, but I have yet to ride the Yellow Lake climb which I have heard can be pretty ugly. Nothing like throwing another mountain at you after 140k on the bike. It shouldn't be too bad this week since I am skipping a bit, but I want to know what I am getting myself into before the big day. I will be back in two weeks to do the whole thing. I am so excited to climb the pass and also pretty fired up to see what the downhill is like on the other side. I have heard people get up to 90kph/55mph....white knuckles here I come!

Training has been going fairly well as of late. Great swimming, good biking and I am finally getting over a knee/IT Band funk that happened a couple weeks back. I have been attacking it with physio (Rob Hasagawa is a god!), massage therapy (Ian and Cook St. something or other is also pretty damn impressive), and I have a new daily routine of stretches and moves to keep everything rocking and in the right place. So far so good. A week ago I couldn't run 15 minutes without a bit of pain; yesterday was up to an hour so we are doing something right.

All in all I have been learning some very valuable lessons in nutrition (gotta feed the machine regularly to keep it running), pacing (I am now realizing I want to finish the marathon section strong. I had been planning for the swim, realizing what the bike would take, and then just hoping I would have the strength to finish the run. Bad plan. I have re framed it all so that the last grain of sand falls through the hourglass hopefully nearer the finish line and less at the halfway point of the marathon.) and fun (everyone I talk to says "Remember to have fun!" as advice to a first timer. I am a pretty up person anyway so this could be quite the epic day!).

Thanks to all of you on the support crew and especially to all of you who I have been neglecting with phone calls, emails, and most other forms of communication. Just because I haven't contacted you doesn't mean I am not thinking of you often...these rides are nearing 6 hours long, that's a long time to think and all of you get some air time on the "Georgesen's mental riding Rolodex".

Please drop me a line during the next couple weeks. I am looking for as many of the "Wow, I am so excited for you. You are going to do soooo well!" types and less of the "Holy Sh*# man I can't believe you are doing this! Good luck out there and don't die" type. As much as I appreciate the concern for my continued existence on the planet, the freakishly positive confident "of course you are going to rock it" support goes much further!

34 days.... off to Penticton in the morning!

Penticton... Oliver HIM prep

Just went out for a ride as a warm up for the race tomorrow. Rode half of the marathon course for Ironman and couldn't believe how beautiful it is here. We are currently staying at the same hotel we will be for Ironman, getting the lay of the land for Ironman, kind of do a dress run for the big show. It feels amazing.

The ride this morning was amazing. Went out just to "spin the legs", but before I knew it was cruising at 50 kph without really working. Feels pretty amazing to be moving that fast without having to work. I know my legs are getting stronger, I am faster now, but I just didn't realize the massive tailwind I had....didn't realize it I had to turn around. The way back had a wall of wind slapping me in the face and I had to work a bit to get back. Even with the wind though, I pulled off a 30 kph average and a 91 rpm average cadence. Exactly where I want to be for tomorrow.

The rest of the day has been filled with checking out the bike course (it's going to be fast, real fast), a little wine tasting (smelling on my part, Jenn got to enjoy some of the great Okanagan wine), geeking out setting up my spot in transition and attending the race meeting. There are over 1,100 athletes racing tomorrow and the transition area could be a photo shot for a bike porn magazine. So many beautiful bikes. So much carbon fibre. Rediculous amounts of Zipp race wheels. But, for the first time I feel like I can hold my own with my bike. My bike might not be the centerfold, but it's close :)

The race tomorrow should be a blast. Here's the goal:

Swim: 40:00
T1: 5:00 (there is literally a .5k run from the lake through to the other side of transition...this is going to be crazy!)
Bike: 3:00:00 (it's a great fairly flat course with some really smooth roads. It's going to be fast)
T2: 4:00
Run: 2:00:00 (where going to let it all hang out!)
Total: 5:49:00

I want it in under 5:50:00 so hopefully that one minute to spare can give me some wiggle room. I feel good. I feel fast. I feel ready. It's 9:45, so it's time to go to bed.

Keep your fingers crossed!