I raced the Vineman iron-distance triathlon this past weekend. Race report below. As a quick summary, I made some bad choices with regards to pacing and nutrition on the bike and had to make the decision to drop out on the run.

Swim: 1:18:16
The first swim started on time at 6:30AM. Water temperature was perfect and had some steam rising from it when it met the cold air. To make it more interesting, it was foggy and I was wearing mirrored goggles, which made it even darker. It was kind of a eerie feeling.

My swim was uneventful. I’ve spent a lot of time working with a coach this season working on stroke mechanics and flotation. Based on my pool times and a swim the previous week, I was aiming for 1:10 - 1:15. It was a little crowded at parts (narrow river) and I was stuck behind other swimmers part of the way. I got out the water in 1:18:16, a time I was completely happy with, and a big improvement from past times.

T1: 00:04:42
T1 was a bit unusual. Usually in transition areas, everyone covers the same distance from the entrance to the exit. Not here. The way it was set up, athletes with low bib numbers (me) were racked at the far far end of the transition. After the swim start, we had to run ~100 yards to our bike racks, then run 100 yards back the other way to exit. Not a big deal since the day had just started. I didn’t spend much time lingering around here. Made sure I had everything, put my wetsuit into the big, and ran off to the exit.

Bike: 6:40:33
The Vineman bike course is two loops, rolling along numerous wineries and farm animals. Very gentle rolling hills, with a longer (.5 miles?) Chalk Hill somewhere at mile 45 and again at 90.

I had a goal time for the bike. I finished the first 56 mile loop exactly on target in 3:05 at 18mph. Simple math will show what my goal time was. Unfortunately it was too aggressive. At the special needs station, I dreaded doing the loop again. My legs were fatigued from the effort on the first loop. I continued on, only to go through power fluctuations the entire way. Chalk Hill, which sounded cute on the website, wasn’t too adorable the 2nd time.

My bike average slowly dropped from 18mph to 17mph by the end of the second loop. 1mph might not seem much. To put a time perspective on it, my second loop time was 3:30. To have a 25 minute differential between the first and second loop was not a good sign I knew. I tried not to think too much of it, knowing I had a decent running base this year, with many long runs and an ultra-marathon in my inventory, and could hopefully hang on for the marathon.

T2: 00:03:47
Some time was wasted here. We had to drop off our T2 gear the day before. Afraid it would get windy and get blown away, I tied/buckled everything together and it took a while to separate them.

Run:
The run course is a three loop course, about 8.7 miles each loop with a few rolling hills. I ran out of T2 laughing, talking to other runners, making jokes, waving at some spectators, feeling great. The first two miles went by quick and I was holding a decent pace.

At exactly mile 2, I started having stomach issues. I visited a porta-potty and knew I had diarrhea. My stomach had shut down and my body wasn’t processing calories. My legs became very heavy. I started walking. Over the next 10 miles, I tried everything to make the situation better. I switched to solid foods, eating the tortilla chips which wasn’t as sugary as the Oreos. I tried salt tablets. I tried soda. I sat for a while at an aid station massaging my legs to no avail. I stretched. Nothing worked, nor did I expect it to.

Eventually walking became difficult. I had trouble walking in a straight line and up hills. I continued on slowly however. I was 1 mile from the end of my second loop and had one more 8.5 mile loop to go. I would have walked the rest of it, except my body started getting cold. When it’s 80 degrees outside and you’re shivering, something is wrong. I did not pack anything warm in my T2 bag and didn’t want outside assistance.

Because of the above factors, I decided to call it a day. I walked to an intersection where my friend Arul was a course marshal volunteer and told him I was done. He flagged down a race volunteer in a car who drove me to the finish. I went straight to the medical tent, where they gave me cream for my legs, and Gatorade. I put on some dry clothes, ate some warm foods, but my body was still cold. I went back to medical to get wrapped in a foil blanket and snuggle with a bag of hot water.

Conclusion:
The decision to drop out wasn’t as difficult to make as I had imagined. I have never dropped out before in six years. However, I promised myself when I started this sport in 2003 that if I was in a situation where moving forward could potentially risk injury, I would stop with no regrets or questions asked. I finally fulfilled that promise.

As endurance athletes, we invest hundreds of hours every year into the sport we love. If and when we need to make a decision to drop out, something has gone horribly wrong, and I believe that was my situation. The benefits of dropping out, minimizing injury, recovering for my next training block, and figuring out my nutrition far outweighed walking 10 more miles in the dark with deteriorating physical conditions.

I’m not disappointed at all. This was a great learning lesson. There are some things I need to figure out about nutrition and why I keep getting stomach issues during iron-distance races. It’s something I have never recreated in long training days. I have a strong theory after today, and will find out soon if I’m correct.

More importantly, two friends who I trained with a lot this year, Abhijit and Doug, both had great days and are now part of the Ironman family. Rajeev also fought off an ITB issue enroute to his 9th Ironman finish. Tandy and Tony had a very solid relay finish, and Anil (multi 100-mile ultramarathoner finisher) had a good relay day also.

Also a big thanks to all my friends who came out to watch that day, and who took time following me to the medical tent and check on me and take care of all my gear. It was too kind and I will forever be in debt to you all.