Growing up, I was always attracted to television footage of Ironman Hawaii; it really makes for great TV: man vs. man, man vs. nature, and ultimately… man vs. himself. I remember plotting my own race courses from my neighborhood pool and completing them after watching the broadcast: battling the mass swims in the 25 yard pool, riding the Queen K on a state-of-the-art beam bike… or Huffy mountain bike around my neighborhood and running to the end of my street and back pretending that it was close enough to the 26.2 miles of the marathon. Well, it usually took me just about an hour to finish my course, with milk and cookie breaks included of course, which was the length of the broadcast of the Ironman. So I figured, in my pre-teen imagination, that I was tackling the same distance as the racers. Needless to say, I was quite off in what those racers experienced. Ever since those days, I have always had this dream of finishing an Ironman in the back of my mind. Since taking up triathlon about 4 years ago, the dream had started to become reachable. My wife, Anna Lyn, and I were talking one day last summer about things we had wanted to cross off our lists of things to do; she wanted to see Europe and I randomly blurted out that I wanted to do an Ironman. I half expected her to laugh but she accepted it and next thing I knew we were eying races in the UK, Switzerland and France. France seemed to fit our schedules the best and before I knew it, I was on the website filling out my information and hitting the submit button. I was going to France to compete in a race which was more than double, close to triple, of the distance of races I had done before. I also, I’m ashamed to say, had never been out of the country. This was going to be a shock of cultural and physical proportions! Anna Lyn did much of the planning, booking flights, hotels and, with much prodding, kept me in check making sure I had all of my race packing done. With no less than a day before departing, I was picking up a rental bike case from Bonzai Sports and getting a crash course on how to pack a bike for plane transport. The helpful staff sent me on my way, directing me to get some pipe insulation at Home Depot. Ten feet of insulation and a quarter of a roll of masking tape later, the bike was ready to go. Anna Lyn’s dad dropped us off at Dulles and I handed over the bike case and a hefty fee of $115 for oversized luggage and we were checked in and ready to board. The flight over was overnight, 8 or so hours. I slept for maybe 4 of them. Sunrise came quickly and soon we were pulling into Madrid. I tried to remember as much as I could from high school Spanish in order to try to decipher the directions given by the flight staff for our connecting flight. Anna Lyn and I ended up bee lining it to the customer service booth to find an English speaking attendant to figure out our next gate. The whole time, I was worried about the bike case and whether it was making the transfers along with us. I could care less if I had to do the race naked, well that might be overstating it, my saddle isn’t that comfortable, but it was all I could do to keep my mind off of how my bike was fairing in the hands of the baggage couriers. We made the connection to Barcelona, ready to endure a multi-hour layover until the last leg flight to Nice. We got to the gate a little early and could see the smaller jet plane that had pulled up. After an espresso, much needed because we had been awake 18 or so hours at this point, I kept an eye out for the baggage truck. A few minutes before boarding time it showed up and I waited with bated breath as I watched piece of luggage after piece of luggage loaded onto the cargo bin. Finally, I caught sight of the case being pulled up and my heart sunk… one of the buckles on the case was unsnapped! I felt ill. I could see the blue paint of my frame between the two lids of the case and my mind raced over what else could have gone wrong. We boarded the plane after the bin was closed and upon landing I walked over to the crew as they were unloading the plane and, in my best high school Spanish, tried to explain that “the buckle-o was abierto.” I caught a stern look from the shuttle operator as he urged me to board the shuttle for the airport. All of the luggage had arrived at the conveyor belt, the case’s buckle was still “abierto.” We caught a bus to our hotel, Hotel St. Gothard, and checked in. I promptly opened the case when we got to our room and I rummaged through the pieces of the bike to make sure it was all there. The pedals were missing. I freaked. It was Wednesday and the race was 4 days away. I knew I had time to track down a shop and find replacements but I couldn’t keep my mind off of it until the next day when we checked out the race expo. I ended up being goaded out of 130 Euro, almost 200 US dollars for the same pair of Speedplay pedals I paid 99 dollars for. It was a relief but a rather nerve wracking experience. Lesson learned. We hung out on the beach for the next few days, ate lots of panini sandwiches and gelato, and checked into another hotel. I registered for the race, got my bib numbers, transition bags and admission to the pre-race pasta party. We met a couple of Americans and Canadians at the pasta dinner, a welcome relief since there were only 120-ish so Americans in the 2500 entrant field. English was the spoken by most of the competitors but it wasn’t a given. The French were very accommodating, we never encountered any rudeness when we were asking for directions in broken French. We would get a few smiles and laughs after we ended our sentences in prepositions maybe, but at the most we would get answers in French and hand gestures, which to us would mean “go some number of blocks to the right and then go left for another some number of blocks. When they would answer me in French, I quickly learned the meaning of “Je ne sais pas.” The pasta was very good, they had marinara and another tuna based sauce that I decided not to be adventurous and try. Non-alcoholic beer was served along with soda and water. I know what you’re thinking, non-alcoholic beer makes no sense, but it was quite tasty. The next day was bike check in and body marking, I put all of my stuff for the race in the transition bags and handed them over. I looked over everything one last time as I walked away from the race start area. It was less than 24 hours to d-day. I had a very hard time falling asleep that night; visions of flat tires and blisters danced in my head. A little over five hours of sleep later, I awoke. It was race time. The hotel had put out breakfast early just for the racers, a very welcome gesture. I had a few raisin croissants, an egg, a bowl of cereal and a frothy machine made latte. We, along with the other racers staying in our hotel made the mile or so walk through the freshly cleaned streets of Nice to the race start on the Promenade. I chased everything down with a bottle of Infinit to round out my caloric intake for the morning somewhere in the amount of 800-900 calories. I double checked the air in my tires, loaded up the bike with two concentrated bottles of Infinit, 7 hours worth, and made my usual pre-race jitters run to the port-a-poddy before donning the wetsuit and waiting in line at the race start. The swim was a mass start, all 2500 people slogging into the Mediterranean at the sound of the gun. I got there a few minutes from the start and had to slide into the back of everyone waiting on the rocky shore. There were markers posted where swimmers could seed them selves in different pens according to what they thought their swim time would be. As usual, there were swimmers who over seeded themselves and it was apparent a few minutes after the gun went off. I ended up in the 1h15 pen, thinking I would just coast the 2.4 mile swim, saving my energy for the bike and run. The announcer counted down the final seconds and the race began. I ended up looking for breaks in the pack, leapfrogging from swimmer to swimmer, working my way through the packs. The water was so clear that I could read my heart rate monitor, for the most part it stayed around 135, a nice controlled pace. I got into a good rhythm and quickly found myself to the outside of the main group of swimmers. Before the turn on the first loop I felt a small sting on my arm. Freaking out that I had been stung by a jellyfish, I bee lined it to the pack ahead of me. The first loop done, close to a mile and a half into the swim, I made my way around the carpet on the shore and dove right back into the water for the second loop. I pushed it a little more this time, still keeping my cadence and breathing the same but really focusing on catching and pulling well. I was cruising along when I caught sight of an enormous jellyfish as I was rounding the last buoy for home. It seriously looked like the jellyfish-like characters in the underwater worlds of Super Mario Brothers. I sprinted my way back into a pack of other swimmers, determined that I wasn’t going to be the one to break up any jellyfish stings. Finally, I reached the shore, made way way up the blue carpet and spotted the race clock. It read 59 minutes and change! I was shocked. I had no idea that I would have done that well. I ran up the ramp to the transition area, grabbed my bike bag from the rack and headed to the transition tent. I pulled my wetsuit off, albeit without the aid of any Bodyglide, I had forgotten to pack it in my bags that morning. I quickly became aware of the chafing on my neck when I tried to apply sunscreen to my neck. The volunteer helping me in the tent, loading my swim stuff into my bag as I removed, must have shattered an ear drum as I yelled from the sting of the sunscreen on my raw chafed skin. I donned my helmet, a few curse words and tears later and penguin walked while wearing my bike shoes over to my bike. I spotted my wife through the fence as I trotted the bike out of the transition area and clipped in. It was time to see what the bike course was all about. Whenever I would tell someone I was attempting my first Ironman, I would get a mix of responses, anything from “wow, that’s impressive” to “you’re insane”. I sometimes took the latter as a compliment. Whenever I explained further that I was attempting it in France, those responses all seemed to turn more toward “you’re insane!” The course profile is very hilly. The total change in climbing elevation is 1800 meters. In preparation, I had swapped out my standard crank, for compact gearing, 50×39 with a 12×27 on the back. I could have eaten off of my cassette, the rings were so large. My ultimate goal for this race was to finish, regardless of time and be able to enjoy the rest of our trip, another 10 or so days worth of traveling. The plan was to keep my heart rate low, somewhere in zone 2, briefly going into zone 3 on the steep portions of the climbs. The first 15 or so miles of the course were very flat and I kept to the plan. There was plenty of drafting going on, I don’t think I saw any officials handing out penalties at all. I found myself leapfrogging with a few riders as we approached the first and steepest of the climbs, the Col de la Condamine. All of the people that had zoomed by me from the beginning of the race were now stuck in a traffic jam as everyone was fishtailing up this 10% grade climb for 500 meters. I was more than happy to put the bike into the 39×27 and spin. I dodged a few zig-zaggers on the climb and started to hear a popping sound from the crank on bike of the rider to my left. All of a sudden there was a loud pop and screams in a French accent of “No, no, no, no!” He had popped his chain. That’s how steep this climb was. I was singing the praises of compact cranks. The climb was lined with volunteers and locals, urging us on with shouts of “allez!” and “superb!” We reached the summit of the climb and headed into some of the smaller surrounding towns. I had an aero bottle mounted between my aero bars at the front. After, finishing the Infinit from that bottle and a Gu, I approached the first aid station in Gattieres. It was on a bit of a climb and I grabbed a water bottle slowly out of the volunteer’s hand. The plan was to empty a third of the concentrated Infinit into the aero bottle and fill up the rest of the aero bottle with the water, making the appropriate concentration of Infinit drink. I had read online of a tip where someone had suggested using a 55mm lens cap instead of the yellow sponge supplied with the bottle. This had worked well for me in training but it was a different story when I tried it that morning. I squeezed the tabs on the cap, releasing it from the bottle opening ,and the lid flipped vertically between my fingers and, in a Murphy’s Law fashion, jumped from my fingers into the grass on the road’s shoulder. Since there were so many riders slowing at the aid station, I decided not to stop for it. No less than a mile later, after I had filled the bottle, I hit a bump in the road and a wave of Infinit flooded onto my face, chest and legs. It would be this way for the rest of the entire ride. I ended up having to fill the bottle less at each of the other stations to limit the splash but I ended up with a nice sticky sheen on my skin. The next couple of hours were spent riding from small town to small town on the countryside. The locals were out shouting “Allez!” between sips of their espressos. I was cruising along, enjoying the views of the valleys over the non-existent guard rails. The grade after Gattieres came down a bit, probably somewhere around 2 or 3 percent average. I kept my effort low, knowing that ahead lay an hour and a half long climb up the Col de l’Ecre. A few riders leapfrogged with me as we approached the climb and I soon found myself passing riders that had passed me earlier. The compact cranks were well worth it. My heart rate started to spike a bit on the start but settled down as I found my rhythm. We entered a small town and made a sharp right turn where the locals were standing with cowbells and plastic horns. I decided to punch it a bit as I heard a few of them shouting my name, probably not the best move but I think they appreciated it. The col de l’Ecre is definitely the jewel of this bike course. For your long moderate efforts on the climb, you are well rewarded with wide open views of the valleys and small towns. Again, there are no large guard rails so it’s still important to keep your eyes on the road. As you make your way around one of the switchbacks, you can see to your left or the right, the next leg of the climb, riders in multicolored jerseys slogging up the grade on roads cut into the mountain. It is amazing. I had seen similar pictures on the climb of the Tour de France, but to see something similar in person was quite spectacular. Switchback after switchback, I made my way to the special needs area, a welcome respite of the climb at 2% grade. I had packed a raisin croissant from the hotel and an extra tube just in case. I took one bite of the croissant and tossed it. With the Infinit, I really didn’t have the need or appetite for solid food. Finally, I made may way up to the last part of the climb, a 6% grade stretch. Seeing the blue “Sommet” sign at the top was quite a relief; I knew the rest of the ride would be mostly downhill from here. The downhills on this course are definitely over hyped as being technical. I consider myself a strong rider, but not much of a chance taker when it comes to downhills. There were maybe one or two times where I really had to ride my brakes. For the most part, it was like riding a big wheel down a drive way; I was just letting ‘er rip. There were still a few small climbs, which threw me for a loop because I forgot about them. I spotted a few riders who had the great idea of taping the profile to their handlebars. I found one and asked him about the upcoming climbs we had left as we leapfrogged each other; I playing domestique up the hills and he flying past on the ensuing downhills. On one of the last climbs, there were a couple of guys singing “Allez”s to the tune of “Stars and Stripes Forever” in the efforts of urging people on. Since riders had to wear their bibs on the ride, turned to the back, the guys would incorporate the names in their song. “Allez Allez Francois, Allez Allez! Allez Shannon, Allez Didier, Allez Allez! Allez Olivier Allez Allez, Allez Michael (pronounced Mik-a-el) Allez Allllez!” was one of the lines I heard as I went by. That song would be stuck in my head for the rest of the race, and much to my wife’s dismay, our vacation. Navigating the descent was more of a rest than anything, I sat my weight back on my saddle, pushed a big gear in the aerobars, and slalomed my way down to sea level. Riding back past the airport and into Nice, I could see the run course and the pros who were already a few laps into the run course. I rode into transition, took my time in the tent and headed out for the run. With my legs, well rested from the descent, I was able to get my cadence up quickly without my legs feeling like lead. The run course is an out and back 10k, along the Promenade des Anglais, the main strip in Nice. It runs from the airport at one end, all the way past the finish line, along the beach. They had closed off the road in one direction and redirected traffic to the other side. There were aid stations set up about ever kilometer. It was starting to heat up, the temp was somewhere around 92 degrees, with very little wind. The only shade on the course is at the airport end and even then, it’s only for about 500 meters. We were to do 4 loops, receiving a wristband, or Chou-Chou as the French called it, at the succession of each of the first three loops. I was feeling good on the first loop and collected my first band as I saw Anna Lyn. I figured I had done the first 10k at sub 10 minute miles, quite good for me in a marathon. Things were starting to go south a little of the way into the second loop. I started to get a side stitch and slowed my pace down to a shuffle. I walked through a couple of aid stations, taking in water, powerbar energy drink, and some defizzed coke. I then started to feel the urge to go number 2. I started looking frantically, as I plodded along, for a port-a-poddy. I even asked a volunteer where I could find one to which he responded “toilette? but is a triathlon!” A little after this, an older lady went by me and let a fart rip. After I calmed my inner fifth-grader and stopped chuckling, I decided that wasn’t a half bad idea. I mean if it ended up to be more than just gas, and I ended up with a mess in my shorts who cares? At least I didnt drop out! So I tested the waters, and things were all good. I ended up walking the majority of the second lap. When I saw my wife at the end of the lap, she immediately wondered what happened and told me she had thought I was on one of the ambulances going by. Things were starting to clear up. I gradually calmed my stomach so that I could muster a moderately paced shuffle. The walking had really taken a toll on my legs and it was hard to get them to go faster than this. Plus, I wanted to be able to walk the next day. I ended up walking during each of the aid stations, taking in water or powerade depending on if I felt I was slowing or not. There were quite a few runners, splayed out along the course, sitting in the few shady spots near the airport or even taking naps. This started to look like a great idea, but I didn’t want to worry my wife anymore and I knew I would have a hard time even managing a shuffle after stopping. I finally collected my third band and felt a surge of energy as I knew I only had a 10k left to go. Turning the final out and back, I kept my eyes focused on the yellow Powerbar flags at the end. Entering the finishing chute, my eyes started to water; I had done it, I was going to be an Ironman! The chute was lined with bleachers, most of the people there I assume were looking for their family members. I heard shouts of “Mike, Mike!” from the bleachers and caught sight of my wife. I gave her a high-five, to which she told me later she was expecting a kiss. What can I say, my brain goes numb when I’m exerting myself. All of the cheering seemed to fade into a deafening sound of my footsteps on the blue carpet as I trotted across the ramp to the finishing line. I gave a fist pump as I crossed the line at 13:10.37. I heard the announcer say my name and something to the effect of “You are an Ironman” in French. I collected my medal from one of the volunteers. My neck was still raw from the morning’s swim so I pleaded with her “easy easy” as I pointed to my neck as she put the medal around my head. I later realized that what I said, if interpreted to be French “ici ici,” means “here here.” That explains why she put the medal ight on top of the chafing. Oh well. The weight of the medal was amazing. I was in a state of euphoria as I walked to the finishers area and collected my street clothes and a pint of non-alcoholic Erdinger beer.

I headed to the med tent to get my neck touched up. There was a waiting area where many guys were sitting with their shoes off, feet adorned with blisters, the size of which I hope never to experience. We all watched the other athletes in the tent as they were treated and it seemed that the doctors every time, were injecting something into the feet near the site of the blisters. We all winced at each other each time we caught sight of the needle. I was ready to forgo the visit, wanting to avoid an injection in my neck. Luckily they were done with me in 10 seconds; the doc just rubbed a cream on my neck, numbing the sting and disinfecting the wound. I hobbled over to the massage tent after grabbing another pint of non-alcoholic beer and some pasta and chicken. Having never received a massage after a race or workout, I wasn’t sure how much I would benefit. Let me tell you, this made a world of difference. Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t take away all of the soreness but I could walk with a somewhat uninjured human-like gait. It likely was the reason I was able to walk to the train station the next day. I met up with my wife and we watched a few more finishers crossing the line as the sun started to fade. There were the sounds of ambulances constantly, as it seemed that many of the finishing racers were dropping like flies. I sat there, enjoying my third pint of beer and gnawing on a drumstick as I watched EMTs carry a girl, sitting next to us looking normal just 5 minutes earlier, away on a stretcher. I kept looking at my watch wondering when I was going to drop. I almost flagged down a few of the EMTs just to make sure they were around. Luckily that never happened and I collected all of my stuff and Anna Lyn and I headed back to our hotel, where I crashed promptly on the bed.

Well, that’s it for the race. Thanks for sticking out the long read. I’ll try to post again shortly on the rest of our trip to Florence, Vernazza and Paris!

With all of the low-intensity training, I had been itching to get a good hard effort in so I checked out bikereg.com to see if there were any local time trials coming up and found one in Suffolk, VA, the Dismal Dash Time Trial, within 10 minutes from where my sister-in-law lives. Anna Lyn had been planning on visiting her that weekend anyway, so I got the green light to sign up for it. It was a “C” priority race of course, I just wanted to go out and have fun and get a good hard effort in. We got down there Saturday afternoon, after I taught my weekly Spinning class where we, by coincidence, had a “race day” profile for the purposes of testing and determining heart rate zones. I was scheduled to go off at 9:28 AM, Sunday morning, so I went to bed early enough to get in a good 8 hours of sleep. I got down to the race site early Sunday morning to allow time for eating a quick breakfast, checking in and getting in a good warmup. The race used a chip timing system, which I had never seen in a time trial before and proved to be a source of panic at the race start. I picked up my things, set up my trainer and got in a good warmup with a few race efforts mixed in. I cranked the iPod up as I turned the pedals and ended up repeating “Lose Yourself” by Eminem about 5 times. I was in such a zone that I looked down at my watch and saw that the time was 9:26. I clipped the bike out of the trainer and rolled down to the start with heart rate up and eager to roll out. Once I got to the starting tent, the starting official asked me if I had my chip. I had forgotten to put it on my front skewer! Thank God my niece and nephew weren’t showing up to the race til I was expected to finish because I let out a few curse words in my panic. I rolled back to my car, fussed with the skewer and attached the chip. I rolled back to the start, not looking at my watch but knowing I was late for my start time. I put my foot down at the start line and I was off. My goal for this race was to maintain a good steady effort throughout, not going to hard in the beginning that I would suffer at the end and also finish the race with everything left on the road. This was my first race using my new compact cranks and I was flying down the road using a higher than normal cadence. I managed to pass quite a few people over the first half of the race, averaging around 25 MPH on the flat course. I rounded the turn at the halfway point and encountered my second snafu of the day, I dropped my chain. I knew my front dérailleur needed a bit of adjustment but I didn’t want to fiddle with it that morning . I had to stop for about a minute to untangled the chain and get it back on my big ring. Infuriated, I hammered the next few miles, passing the rider that had just passed me while I was taking care of my mishap. The last 10 miles or so, I realized that on the way down, the course was slightly downhill and we were riding with the wind at our back. I watched the grass next to me and confirmed I was riding into a headwind. I tried to stay low and tucked in my aerobars. I maintained my speed around 20 as I focused on keeping my pedal stroke round, not mashing the pedals. I passed a few more riders and watched the miles tick off my clock. I had one rider pass me, with a little over a mile left. I tried to crank harder to catch him after he got a few yards ahead of me , but wasn’t able to catch him before I rolled over the finish line. Anna Lyn was there with Sara, her sister, and husband JP and their kids, Page and Jackson. Page yelled, “Go, Uncle Mike!” as I passed them and rolled into the parking lot. My vision was cloudy and I felt a little bit dizzy, all signs that I had pushed as hard as possible. By my clock, I went 1:06 for the 40k course. Because of my starting mishap, I ended with 1:08 by the official timing system, good enough for 11th out of the 50+ person Cat 5 field. For a “C”priority race, one that I had not really dedicated my training to, this was a great result for me. I met up with another teammate of mine from the DC Triathlon Club, Zack. We had competed for the club on relay teams last summer at Savageman. He’s a hell of a runner. He is evidently a very strong cyclist too because he had a great showing for his first ever time trial. We grabbed some post-race food at IHOP and Zack headed back to DC while I met up with Anna Lyn and her sister’s family. I enjoyed the rest of my weekend, spending time playing with my niece Page and attending one of her dance classes; this two-year old girl is quite talented. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see Page on Dancing with the Stars some day.

Sorry for the long post, but I had to make up for the past week. Here’s the data from my time trial at motionbased.com:

See you on the trails!