› 2005 Auburn International Half Ironman
"A Race by Any Other Name"
by: Barry Holman
Race date: May 21, 2005
Perhaps there isn’t really anything in a name. Then again, when one is browsing bookshelves there’s not much more than the cover to judge by. Shopping for a triathlon can, I suppose, be a bit like buying a book. There’s a name, a date, a location, a description of the course and a few glowing reviews from past participants. Pretty much dust cover fodder. Brad Kearns probably realized that a name like “World’s Toughest Half” might have kept some window shoppers from signing up for his race over the past two years. So he gave his race a neutral name and probably picked up a few newbies to long distance events because of it. I was a bit disappointed that I’d not done the race before the name was changed. Who doesn’t want to brag that they’d finished the World’s Toughest Half?
I was also bummed that the bike course had changed and cut out some climbing. In retrospect I couldn’t care less if the course had changed from its original layout both in preparation for its third running and again in the days leading up to the race because of weather and water hazards. This was by far the most challenging half Ironman course I’ve done.
This race was an opportunity to work on not letting things that are out of one’s control interfere with preparation and race execution. With rapidly increasing temps, the melt from the mountains was very high in the week leading up to the race. This caused the water temp in Lake Clementine to drop 9 degrees in 48 hours, down to a chilly 48. It also brought a lot of debris into the lake and caused a leak in the dam itself. I’m sure is was difficult to pull the plug on the swim because it would cause a wave of panic and confusion among racers and force last minute adjustments to the course but it was the right call. I thought Brad and the staff handled the situation perfectly. They made a fast and firm decision and weren’t apologetic about something outside their control being the cause. And they came up with an equitable alternative (a 3km run replaced the swim). As a relatively new race director I learned a lot from their approach to the monkeywrench. As a racer whose best leg is the swim and who does better the longer the race, I knew having a short first leg and no swim wasn’t going to give me the best opportunity versus the field. Truth is, I really dislike duathlon and had to neutralize my emotional response to the change.
There were a few other unknowns. I broke my bike the week before the race and had just gotten a new bike four days before the race. I’d ridden it twice before race day and the set up and fit weren’t exactly dialed in. I’d also not put in the training volume this spring that I’d done over the past two years. We’d bought a house, remodeled, moved and continued to remodel. I’d also gotten a job offer in DC that despite my best attempts I could not turn down. So our new house was rented out and a move loomed a week after the race. I just generally felt pulled in a million directions at once and not very fit or focused.
Race morning was chilly but very clear and the temps were expected to reach near 90. I packed some extra liquid for the bike and extra salt tabs for the run. One of the things I really dug about this race was the laid back atmosphere. No fencing around the bike racks and staff and volunteers who weren’t ordering athletes around. Everyone was relaxed and having fun milling around. The pros went off 5 minutes before the fauxs on the 3km out and back run. It was down hill out and up back. I wanted to go out strong but with such a long challenging day ahead I knew my best bet was to conserved and try to build for the last 10km of the run. I came in at about 12 minutes, keeping my hr and effort level low. 63rd place.
The bike course reminded me a great deal of the IM Wisconsin course with just a touch of IM Canada thrown in for good measure. There was one long climb of a bit over 2 miles but the majority of the time is was up and down, curvy and swervy with a lot of mental energy needed to make decisions about how to handle the hills. I was generally happy that I’d kept the road set up on my new bike and quite happy to be riding carbon fiber for the first time. The bike handled like butter in the corners and the power transfer to the pedals felt complete. My makeshift aerobar setup didn’t work as well as I’d hoped because the bars from my usual one-piece front end were too short. But my low rent pipe insulation wrapped around the handlebars to get me as low as possible worked better than I expected.
By about mile 10 I’d moved up the field a dozen or so places and was feeling very strong. Then my knees started to really ache -- both of them at the same time. At first I thought it was the hills but then I noticed my back was feeling very stressed too. It finally dawned on me that my seat post was slipping out from underneath me. I was in a bit of a pickle because the last time I traveled by plane I’d thrown my little one-piece multi tool in with my shoes and helmet in my carryon. It was confiscated by the TSA and I hadn’t replaced it. When I realized the night before the race that I was missing a potentially race saving device it was too late. Every minute I’d look down and see another letter on the post disappear into the frame. When the “y”, “e”, and finally “h” in Ritchey were gone I couldn’t sit anymore. I spied a guy with a camelback and bulging pockets that I figured I could catch relatively quickly to return his tool and bummed it from him. He kindly obliged and after a quick stop I was back on my way. By the next climb I had returned the tool and was praying the clamp would hold. It did.
There’s a lot I could write about the bike course. Most of the time it felt less like a tri course and more like a road race. I was having fun with the speed and decision making and hurting just a bit too. It’s definitely a course where some very race specific prep and course recon would be beneficial. I found myself braking for corners I didn’t need to and nearly missing a few corners all together. But overall it was tough and fun.
The run was an adventure and I immediately was wishing I hadn’t worn my racing flats. The single track trails were rutted out and littered with little boulders. Again, some race specific prep for downhill running would be very beneficial for this course. I watched my hr closely on the run. For the first four miles I felt pretty poor but I knew things could come back to me if I just kept plugging along and ran my own race. Two hills were long, pretty steep and required some decision-making. I hit the dam wall climb and watched my hr jack up above LT. With more than half the race to go I knew I couldn’t spare that many heartbeats so I did something that just seems wrong to me. I walked. But I walked with the admonition from Bobby McGee in my head, “You can always choose to move with perfect form, whether walking or running.” Bobby had also told me that he believed someone will go under 2:30 for an Ironman run by using a combination of fast running and fast walking. So I walked with my very best form. Short quick steps, arms close in and swinging freely, chin tucked and body leaned way forward. I tried to imagine a rope attached to my spine pulling me up like a puppet on a string. I was moving ahead well, my heartrate was dropping appropriately and I was passing guys who were killing themselves to run and then having to stop and stumble around. When the hill offered some relief I’d run again but when my hr got to a beat or two below LT, I’d go back to the walk. There was one pretty young looking strong guy who was suffering from his jackrabbit efforts on the hill who I tried to offer some encouragement. I should have kept my mouth shut because every time I’d tell him not to give up he’d pull himself together and pass me and then blow up again, stop, hunch over and look like death was at his heels. We repeated this a half dozen times or so and then he finally found some form and ended up coming in a minute or so ahead of me. Actually I was really happy to see him finish so well.
A funny and frustrating thing happened as I went out for the second lap. The course around the finish line and transition area went around a parking lot and we had to run on sidewalk for a short distance. On one side were parked cars and on the other were porta potties. The toilet doors, I learned, opened directly into the path of the runner. It forced me to slam on the brakes and pile into the door nearly knocking down the poor lady who was exiting. It also resulted in simultaneous massive hamstring cramps in both legs that required lying down to get worked out. Note to race directors: having toilets near the course is great. Having them in the course, not so great.
I survived the toilet incident and cramps and had the strength to be able to run the cardiac bypass hill. First you run down, down, down and then do a 180 and run up, up, up. It’s a long steep out and back that hurts both ways. I’d passed a few walkers just before the descent and about halfway down crossed paths with the lead women. I also marked a couple of guys who looked to be suffering pretty good going up that I thought I might reel in by the finish. The climb out wasn’t so bad and I ran right at LT figuring with only 3 miles to go I could hack it. The tough part was the hard left off the pavement at the supposed top that was really just the base to a nasty steep little section of rutted out single track. I was running with the 5th place woman now and she was really suffering, breathing very heavy and working so hard. I feeling great and wishing the run were another five miles because I knew I had more in the tank than some of the guys ahead of me but that there wasn’t enough real estate left to catch too many of them. So I ran the last two miles for fun and had a blast jumping over roots and rocks feeling really loose and strong. I tried of be encouraging to the woman tucked in behind me and enjoyed passing two of the guys I’d marked a bit earlier.
I finished the race in just under 5 hours, 4:57 and change. 35th out of 400 or so and I think 6th in my AG, continuing my streak of just off the podium finishes from last year. But I’m really happy with my effort and with how much base I have. I felt as though I could have kept going at that pace for a few more hours and had almost no soreness in the days following the race. The name of the race may have changed but from my experience, this race is the toughest. Which also makes it one of the most rewarding.
return to main race reports page!
