{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "coverImage": {
    "$type": "blob",
    "ref": {
      "$link": "bafkreihahfsoyu246szty272iorfglk2plwxg557hbbi2knzdbzhpcgzmy"
    },
    "mimeType": "image/jpeg",
    "size": 119318
  },
  "description": "“You are almost an Ironman!”",
  "path": "/2024/08/30/race-report-2024-ironman-canada/",
  "publishedAt": "2024-08-30T14:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:vmxpdybfbj3ogs4w6p5pjhhs/site.standard.publication/self",
  "tags": [
    "Ironman",
    "Race Reports",
    "Triathlon"
  ],
  "textContent": "After training for it for the better part of a year, it’s finally time for Ironman Canada, my A race of this year and my second attempt at a full Ironman, following my DNF at Ironman Coeur d’Alene last summer, where despite a good swim and a strong bike leg, things went sideways during the run and I barely made it 16 km before bonking. It’s been a rocky road to get here, so just to recap, I actually signed up for this race last year, almost immediately after returning from Coeur d’Alene. A week before the race, the raging wildfires in British Columbia last summer forced its cancellation, so I accepted a deferral to this year's race. Then, last month Ironman announced that this year’s race would be the last one. I wasn’t surprised; I thought the writing was on the wall when they unveiled another Ironman Canada in Ottawa, but this put additional pressure on me to finish. With this race and Ironman Coeur d’Alene now discontinued, that left me without any other full-distance races a reasonable drive away from my home in Jackson Hole, so I might not have another shot at a full Ironman anytime soon. Complicating things, six weeks ago I sprained my ankle at a trail running race, which derailed my training plan. While the injury ended up not being as serious as I feared, I missed most of my plan’s long runs, so I expected a significant amount of walking during this race. No matter---the very first rule in the run conduct section of the Ironman competition rules states \"Athletes may run, walk, or crawl,” so I made that my motto for this race. I would cross the finish line if I had to crawl through it. And with that, after a year of waiting, I packed my gear in my car and headed out on an excruciatingly long drive from Jackson Hole. Pre-race preparations I arrived in Penticton on Thursday before the race, staying at the Penticton Lakeside Resort, which put me directly next to the Ironman Village and the transition area. After Airbnb’s travel insurance refused to cover my booking when last year’s race got canceled, I sprung for the Nirvana package just to avoid having to deal with them ever again, and I have to say it was worth every penny just for the convenience of being a two-minute walk away from transition. After checking in for the race, I went on a run to scope out the first segment of the run course, a roughly 10 km out-and-back on the Kettle Valley Rail trail alongside Okanagan Lake. I was a little apprehensive about running on a gravel trail after my ankle injury last month; I thought if I was going to sprain my ankle again it would probably happen here, which would have left me with a very long, very painful walk to the finish line. Fortunately, the trail is on fine gravel with an even, flat surface that I didn’t think would give me any trouble on race day. It’s also absolutely gorgeous, surrounded by vineyards and wineries, with stunning views of the lake. Okanagan Lake and Penticton at sunset, from the Kettle Valley Rail trail. The next day I attended the race briefing at the Ironman Village, where I was mostly interested in learning about the logistics of doing a full Ironman at the same time as the 70.3 race. Would the courses, especially the swim one, be confusing to navigate? Not really, the first wave for the 70.3 swim would start after the last one for the full-distance race, and they would only move the turn buoy after the last full-distance swimmer had gone past it, so there wouldn’t be any possibility of making a wrong turn. The bike and run courses would have clear signage where they diverged, so that wasn’t a concern either. The briefing did call out that the timing of the 70.3 swim start meant that the fastest 70.3 swimmers would likely catch up with the slowest full-distance swimmers, so I braced myself for some washing machine action in the final stretch of the swim. That day, the water temperature at the lake was 22ºC, so people asked if it could warm up enough to make the swim not wetsuit legal. The person giving the briefing said he didn’t like to state anything with 100% certainty, but he was 99% certain the swim would be wetsuit legal. After the briefing, I went on a run to scope out the next segment of the run course, another roughly 10 km out-and-back, this time on Main Street and Skaha Lake Road. I had planned on going for a swim afterwards, but the forecast called for a storm and it was already starting to rain at the end of my run, so I called it a day and headed back to my room. A guy who was coming back from a swim got in the elevator with me, so I asked him how the water was and he said it was “surprisingly warm.” I was looking forward to a pleasant wetsuit-legal swim on Sunday. The forecast for Saturday, the day before the race, called for rain all day, with a high of 14ºC. I didn’t want to check in my bike and gear early just to leave it sitting out in the rain, so I waited until the last possible minute to do that and in the meantime hung out in my hotel room organizing my gear, preparing my bottles of Maurten, and watching TV. Unfortunately, this hotel had the worst channel selection I’ve ever seen, with only one channel that wasn’t news or sports, and it only had three movies on repeat, so I ended up watching The Scorpion King, 47 Ronin, and The Huntsman: Winter’s War twice each. I should have brought a book. At 4:30 PM, the rain finally started tapering off, so I grabbed my gear and headed over to transition to check it in and collect my timing chip. I racked my bike, left my run gear bag under it, cinching it tight to make it as waterproof as possible in case it rained some more, and then hung my bike gear bag from the wire fence in my spot, which was labeled with my bib number. I liked that; unlike at Ironman Coeur d’Alene, finding my bike gear in transition would be easy. My run gear bag was ripped and the only thing I had to patch it up was KT tape 🙃 Sure beats leaving these bags scattered on the ground. Afterwards, I walked the area between the swim exit and my bike to memorize the location of my bike gear bag and where I needed to go. I saw a guy coming out of the water near the swim exit, so I asked him how it was. He replied “it’s freezing,” but I chalked it up to him perhaps having a lower tolerance to the cold, and it was chilly that day after all, so I didn’t think too much about it. By then it had started drizzling again, so I headed back to my hotel room to have dinner, watch 47 Ronin for the third time, and ponder how not even Hiroyuki Sanada could salvage that wreck. Race day I woke up at 3:00 AM on race morning as usual, rested and energized after several good nights of sleep (I think I finally cracked the secret to getting good sleep before my races: a good quality sleep mask). I had my usual breakfast of a plain bagel with jam and coffee while I waited for the result of my COVID test, and left shortly after transition opened at 5:00 AM. After dropping off my personal needs bags in Gyro Park across the street, I arrived in transition just in time to hear an announcement that the start for the age groups would be delayed to 7:45 AM, and that the swim had been shortened to 900 m. I asked a race official why, and she said the water temperature had dropped to 13ºC. I was dumbfounded, I couldn’t make sense of that number. Sure, it had rained all day the day before, so it wasn’t surprising that the water temperature dropped, but nine degrees? Just two days before, people were wondering if the swim would be wetsuit optional, and suddenly it was wetsuit mandatory. I couldn’t believe it. I later learned that it’s a phenomenon called lake turnover, in which the water in the lake is mixed by the wind, and the warmer water near the surface is replaced by colder water from the bottom. In any case, the nervous energy in transition was palpable. Officials were recommending wearing neoprene hats and booties, which nobody seemed to have. I heard the announcer asking for anybody who had a spare wetsuit to come forward; people who didn’t bring one were out of luck since they were now mandatory. Talk about a lesson learned---I’m never leaving my neoprene hat and booties behind again. I had only brought a sleeveless wetsuit, so I planned to do a quick warmup in the lake right before the start and see if I could at least get the cold shock out of my system quickly. After setting up my bike I went back to my hotel room since it seemed like a better idea to wait there rather than stay in transition shivering in the 10ºC air. Others seemed to have the same idea; the hotel lobby was packed with athletes sheltering from the cold. Shortly before 7:00 AM, I had just finished putting on my wetsuit when a notification from Ironman popped up on my phone, announcing that the swim had been cancelled in accordance with World Triathlon and Triathlon BC regulations. World Triathlon regulations for air and water temperatures. | Source: World Triathlon My heart dropped. After all that work and all that training, I would not be an Ironman today. For a moment I was tempted to call it a day and go back to bed, but the thought of watching the same three fucking movies again snapped me out of it, so I took off my wetsuit and went back to transition to get ready for the bike start. Just to state it for the record: I believe Ironman and TriBC officials made the right call in cancelling the swim. Even with the shortened distance, the idea of swimming in 13ºC water and then hopping on a bike in 10ºC weather seemed miserable at best, and a recipe for hypothermia at worst. I’m gutted that I didn’t get to race a full Ironman, but I don’t want to risk my life or anybody else’s to do that. I appreciate them prioritizing people’s safety. The bike With the swim canceled, the bike leg started in a time trial format, with two participants starting every five seconds, in bib order, just like at Ironman 70.3 Arizona two years ago. After that race, where having a low bib number proved to be beneficial, I’ve made a point of checking in as early as possible, precisely in case this happened again. This time I didn’t check in as early as I would have liked, so my 542 bib put me towards the middle of the field, but that still beat starting way at the back. My race started at 8:32 AM. “Run, Shadowfax, show us the meaning of haste.” | Credit: FinisherPix Since my goal was simply to finish and I had never run a marathon, I had originally set up a very conservative pacing plan in my bike computer, targeting an intensity of just 64% to make sure I had plenty left in the tank for the run. With the swim canceled, I bumped that to 70%. I figured without the exertion of the swim I could handle some more intensity and I wanted to at least feel like I gave it everything I got. Last year I thought I could have finished the Coeur d’Alene bike leg in under six hours if I had felt better, so I wanted to see if I could do that here, even though this course had more elevation gain. The bike course consisted of a single lap through the Okanagan Valley, leaving Penticton and heading south on Highway 97 through Oliver and Osoyoos, before heading back north through Keremeos, with a short out-and-back to Willowbrook along the way. The 70.3 race followed a similar course, splitting off in Oliver before rejoining near Willowbrook. View this course in Garmin Connect or Strava. It’s a very hilly course, with 1,854 m of elevation gain. After racing in St. George and Coeur d’Alene, I’m not averse to big climbs, and in fact enjoy them, but I was surprised by how challenging this course was. Unlike Coeur d’Alene, which had several long, sustained climbs, this course only had three categorized climbs listed in Garmin’s ClimbPro feature; the rest of the elevation gain came from short but steep hills peppered through the course, some of them with 13% grades or more, which sometimes caught me off-guard on the wrong gear. On the upside, they provided plenty of opportunities to take a break from the aero position, and I certainly needed them---my neck and shoulders were painfully sore after a while. If there’s one takeaway from this bike leg for me, it’s that I need to spend a lot more time training in aero. I was concerned at first that outside of Penticton, very little of the course was on closed roads; only the passing lanes on the climbs and the out-and-back section near Willowbrook were closed to cars. This turned out not to be a problem; drivers gave us plenty of space, and at no point I felt like I was in danger of getting hit by a car. I’m grateful for the patience, respect and courtesy of every driver I encountered along the way; locals in general were awesome at this race and it’s one of the reasons I’m sad there won’t be another one. Just outside of Penticton, with Skaha Lake in the background. | Credit: FinisherPix The bike leg was uneventful but enjoyable. The pavement was smooth, and in many parts, brand new. The weather was gorgeous, with a high of 23ºC and very little wind. Even the descents were fun, although I took the last few ones with caution; by then I was tired and I didn’t want a lapse in my attention to cause me to crash. I will say this about this bike course: it’s the most beautiful one I’ve raced so far, and I’ve raced in St. George, so my bar is high. The Okanagan is breathtaking and I regret not staying longer to do some sightseeing. On the out-and-back near Willowbrook. | Credit: FinisherPix My bike performed admirably; as usual, a big thank you to the folks at Open Range Cycles for the last minute servicing before the race. For nutrition, I carried five bottles with six packets of Maurten Drink Mix 320 (one between the aerobars, two in the frame, two behind my saddle), for about 80 g/h of carbs. I also had two Maurten 160 gels in my bike’s bento box as a backup in case I dropped a bottle, which thankfully didn’t happen (although my nutrition timing was slightly off---I had about a third of a bottle left by the end, so I took one of those gels in T2 to make up for it). I felt a little bloated at times from drinking all that liquid, but my stomach felt great otherwise and I didn’t have a recurrence of the stomach cramps I’ve had before. Since the swim was cancelled, this reinforces my belief that the source of my problems is air and water ingestion during the swim; I’ll have to put that to the test at my next race. I was pleased when I rolled into T2 in 146th place overall, with a time of 5:50:09, and a final intensity of 68%. It was surreal to arrive to an almost empty transition area, the only upside of a canceled swim; I doubt I’ll see that again anytime soon. In any case, I accomplished my impromptu sub-six goal and did a pretty good job of pacing---this is the closest I’ve ever been to my target intensity during a race. Not bad! T2 I learned from my experience trying to use the toilet in a one-piece trisuit last year at Coeur d’Alene, so this time I packed a change of clothes in my run gear bag. I hesitated for a moment in the changing tent, though; there are advantages to a trisuit and my stomach felt fine, so I might have been okay wearing it, but ultimately decided not to take any chances and changed into Tracksmith running tights and a Hoka Glide t-shirt. I did make a small mistake in transition---with all the drama with the swim, I neglected to note the location of the porta-potties before the race. My bike was at the very end of the rack on row E, almost next to the changing tent, and it was only after I racked my bike that I realized that the porta-potties were on the opposite side, so I had to run all the way across transition to pee, and then run across again to grab my run bag and head to the tent, which cost me a few minutes. I spent a total of 14:52 in T2. The run The run course for this race starts with an about 500 m segment on Vancouver Avenue at an average grade of about 6%, which is a hell of a way to start an Ironman marathon, before the “jelly legs” feeling has even had a chance to wear off. This is followed by the roughly 10 km out-and-back segment on the Kettle Valley Rail trail, which is only done once, with a cutoff at 7:15 PM. The rest of the course consists of two laps with a 10.6 km out-and-back on Main Street and Skaha Lake Road followed by a 5.3 km section along Lakeshore Drive and side streets; the final cutoff is at the start of the second lap, at 9:50 PM. The 70.3 race followed the same course, except it was just one lap, with the turnaround point just before Main Street turns into Skaha Lake Road. View this course in Garmin Connect or Strava. I started the run feeling great, despite the steep climb right out of the gate, and hit the KVR trail trying to not get overzealous with my pace. It felt warmer than the forecast indicated, although the views from the trail and the breeze coming from the lake were invigorating. Thanks to the run I had done a couple days before, I knew what to expect, so I wasn’t too worried about injuring my ankle. I taped it up as best I could with some KT tape just in case, but other than having to stop for a moment at the end to get some gravel out of my shoes, this first section of the run went smoothly. With that out of the way, I started the out-and-back on Main Street. I felt good and strong through the KVR section and was energized by the spectators downtown, but once I hit the pavement, I really started to suffer. By the 16 km mark every bone, every joint in my body was hurting and my toes felt like they had been smashed with hammers. On the Lakeshore Drive section, with about 3 km left on the first lap, I was in pure agony, my entire body hurt; I couldn’t take it anymore and slowed down to a walk. I still had about 20 km left in the race, and started having serious doubts that I could finish. I tried to look at the positives: I was in pain, but I wasn’t injured, and my ankle was holding up; my stomach was behaving and I was fueling properly, so I wasn’t in danger of bonking; and I was going to make the last cutoff with hours to spare, in fact I had enough time to walk the entire rest of the way if it came to that. I made a deal with myself: I would allow myself to walk the remainder of the first lap, but after stopping at the personal needs station and starting the second lap, I would run again and not stop until I crossed that finish line. “Personal needs” is a special type of aid station placed about halfway through both the bike and the run course on full-distance Ironman races. Before the race you get two bags labeled “bike personal needs” and “run personal needs” and in them you can put whatever you might want or need halfway through the race (as long as it’s not something of value, since most races don’t return those bags at the end). Some people put a motivational note from a loved one, others put a special food or treat. I know someone who put a burrito in theirs---obviously you wouldn’t eat an entire burrito in the middle of a marathon, but when you’ve been subsisting on liquid carbs and gels for the better part of a day, sometimes a bite or two of real food can fix you right up. I put one thing and one thing only in mine: a pill container with two Excedrin. I don’t like to take pain killers in general, and especially not during exercise given the health risks associated with them, but I really didn’t think I had a choice this time; I housed those pills with a bottle of water and kept going. By the time I got back on Main Street I felt like new. The pain and aches were gone, so I held up the other end of my own deal---I sent it. My pace for the rest of the race was faster than on the first half: 5:41 min/km vs. 6:10 min/km, the first time in my life I’ve pulled off a negative split during a race. I slowed down only at the aid stations, where I stuck to the same nutrition plan I used at Ironman 70.3 Coeur d’Alene a couple months ago: water at every aid station and a Maurten 100 gel roughly every 30 minutes, so about every two aid stations. I kept that up for the first lap, but my long walk threw off my plan and I was pretty tired of the gels anyway, so I switched to the Maurten Solid 160 bars, which the volunteers had helpfully cut in half to make them easier to eat in one chomp. They’re surprisingly tasty and easy to eat, so I might incorporate them into my fueling plans from now on. (I swear this isn’t a Maurten sponsored post, I just like their stuff.) Towards the end of my second time on the Main Street out-and-back, the pain in my legs and toes started coming back, but with less than 10 km to go I wasn’t about to stop; if that meant losing a few toenails, then so be it. I completely ignored the last two aid stations, thinking I might not be able to run again if I slowed down. Instead, I stepped on the gas after the last turnaround on Riverside Drive and kept pushing the pace until the very end, out of sheer force of will. My pace in the last kilometer was 4:47 min/km, and after one last sprint through the chute, I crossed the finish line in 4:24:14 for a total time of 10:29:13. I finished 23rd in my age group, out of 86, and 198th overall, out of 924. I probably could have finished in the top 20 in my age group if I hadn’t walked the end of the first lap, but I’m pretty happy with this time for my first marathon, especially after biking 180 km. “You are almost an Ironman!” | Credit: FinisherPix After collecting my medal, finisher’s hat and shirt, and my gear from transition, I grabbed some pizza and a beer at the food tent and headed back to my hotel room, where I fell asleep watching The Chronicles of Riddick on the “10% on Rotten Tomatoes” movie channel. This is a bittersweet result. Yes, I finished the race. Yes, I over-performed on the bike, and arguably on the run too, since I expected to walk a lot more than I did. Yes, 23rd is my best placement to date in an Ironman-branded race. Yes, running a marathon after a 180 km bike ride is nothing to sneeze at. By all accounts I should feel proud of what I accomplished, and yet… it all feels a little hollow without the swim. At the end of the day I didn’t finish a full Ironman, so I’m not an Ironman. Unlike last year, without another full-distance race to look forward to, the post-race blues are hitting me hard. At least I got a pretty medal to show for it. If nothing else, between Coeur d’Alene and Penticton, now I know I can swim 3.8 km, bike 180 km, run 42.2 km, and do any two of those things together. I just need another chance to do them all in one shot; maybe the third time will be the charm, but I wish I knew when that’ll be. For now, though, I still have plenty of 70.3s to keep me busy, starting with Ironman 70.3 Washington Tri-Cities next month. Onwards!",
  "title": "Race Report: 2024 Ironman Canada",
  "updatedAt": "2025-08-19T22:52:46.624Z"
}