The Garrett County Gran Fondo "Diabolical Double" Report - Hills, Hills & More Hills

Dave and I

I completed my first ever Gran Fondo ride this weekend, to be more precise I did the Garrett County Gran Fondo Diabolical Double which is a bike ride that climbs 16,500 over 125 miles.  I knew going in that this was not going to be an easy ride.  Dave, who trained with me last year for Ironman Louisville, had done the ride before and convinced me to sign up with him this year.  He told me on multiple occasions what a b!tch the hills on this ride are. Still, until you actually see some of these monsters for yourself, words just don’t do them justice. I wanted to do this ride ever since I heard about it last year from Dave - at least once.  I don’t know exactly why other than it was a challenge that I wanted to overcome.

I had hoped to get in a number of rides on Virginia’s Skyline Drive to help me prepare for the ride. Skyline made me a much stronger rider last year, and I was convinced it would help me again this year. Alas, time was not on my side with all the races and travel I had going on this year, and I was only able to get out to Skyline once - the week before.  A 110-mile training ride with Dave and a few others turned into just 80 miles for me as my body struggled to overcome jet lag (from Hawaii) and insomnia as I readjusted to the Eastern time zone.  Add in a strenuous week of workouts consisting of a 11-mile run, over 60 miles of riding, over 3500 meters of swimming  and some weight lifting.  When we started the ride, my body was pretty tired and I did not have a strong ride for my one and only trip to Skyline.

After struggling on my training ride, I decided to take the week leading up to the Diabolical Double pretty easy, so I made sure to get plenty of sleep and moderated my workouts. I did 30 miles of riding on Tuesday and 1,000 meters of swimming on Thursday. Another challenge on my Skyline ride was nutrition, so I focused on this before and during the Diabolical Double. With aid stations every 18-25 miles along the ride with food and liquids, this was not to difficult.

The plan was to drive to Deep Creek the Friday before the Gran Fondo.  I originally hoped to leave DC around 2 p.m. but didn’t get away until 5 p.m. Fortunately, traffic wasn’t too bad so I arrived in Deep Creek around 8 p.m. Packet Pickup and the free dinner were open until 9 p.m. so I met up with Dave and some other members of the DC Tri Club to grab our packets and some pasta, salad, and strawberry shortcake.  While Dave and I were staying at Wisp, the other DC Tri Club members (Jason, Brent, Elaine, and Andy) were staying at a nearby cabin for their jaunt on the “Masochistic Metric”, a 62-mile ride climbing 8,000 feet.   

After getting our gear ready for the following morning and watching some Olympic Trials on the television, Dave and I headed for bed so we could get up at 4:45 a.m. for the 6:50 a.m. mountain-top pre-briefing.   We loaded up on coffee, powdered donuts, and Pringles for a calorie-rich breakfast.  

For my nutrition on the bike, I decided to switch from my normal Gatorade to Accelerade sports drink. It’s one of those powders you mix in with water, so I could fill my water bottle and bring extra powder for later in the day. Overall, I think it did a pretty good job of keeping me going. I was using Fruit Punch flavor which doesn’t taste as good as the Gatorade but wasn’t horrid. I also packed a number of Stinger bars and a banana. I’ve decided to give up on Gels. They just don’t sit well with my stomach, so I have to work on finding suitable alternatives.

The weather for the day looked like it was going to be good. The morning started out a little foggy but the temps were decent starting out in the high 50’s to low 60’s and getting into the mid 80’s by later in the day. The sun was out with a mixture of clouds thrown in occasionally to give a break from the rays beating down at various points on the course.

While 1,200 people total were doing the Gran Fondo event this year (up from last year), only 50-100 people were crazy enough to do the 125-mile Diabolical Double. We were the first ones to start with the shorter rides starting in waves after us. By 7 a.m., we crazy few were lined up to begin the long day’s ride. After the National Anthem, we were off. The course starts off downhill for about a mile and a half which is nice, the downside (no pun intended) is this is the same hill you have to come up at the end to finish. Dave and I decided to stay together for the ride, although Dave is a little stronger rider than me so basically he was willing to ride at a slower pace to stay with me. We began our descent as people doing the shorter rides cheered us on while waiting for their wave to start.

A couple miles in, I heard a loud bang. I knew from past experience (see my Kinetic 70.3 race report) that someone had just gotten a flat - fortunately it wasn’t me. A short time later, Dave discovered his back tire was flat. He insisted it wasn’t his tire that made the loud bang, nonetheless he was in need of a new tube.  We had made our way to the front of the pack by this point but soon would be passed by everyone as we made repairs. People were really nice though and kept asking if we needed any help as they rode by. Dave changed his tire but apparently had only packed one spare tube, not too big a deal though because I was carrying three. We got on the road and began to pass people again although we never really caught back up to the lead group again. The stretch between the start and the first aid station was about 18 miles. My plan for this ride was to take it one aid station at a time. I wasn’t going to dwell on the 125 miles rather I would focus on the next 18 miles. This seemed to be a pretty good mental strategy though it didn’t help that Dave kept telling me about the killer hills yet to come; he said he was trying to keep me motivated. The first 18 miles weren’t terribly bad. Certainly it had its share of hills but nothing I would call killer and of course we were still fresh at this point. As we rolled into the first aid station, the remains of that initial lead group were rolling out. This would be the last time we saw them. The first aid station was well stocked with food and drink as well as entertainment. They had a Hawaiian-type kettle band playing which was cool. Dave filled his tire up with real air from a pump opposed to the stuff in the C02 cartridges which never seem to last long and managed to snag a new spare. We both grabbed some grub and drink and refilled our water bottles before hitting the road for the next aid station.

Less than a mile out of aid station #1, we started riding with a group. One of the guys got too close to another rider, hit the back tire of the guy in front of him with his front tire, and took a bit of a tumble. The rest of us stopped to make sure he was alright (he was), but when I went to clip out I managed to pull the clip off my right shoe. So once again, Dave and I pulled off to the side of the road to make repairs, this time to my shoe.

By this time, riders from the 102-mile century length started passing us while we were sidelined.  Once I got my shoe back in working order, we were back on the road and able to quickly catch up to those century riders. It was about at this point where we hit our first really big/long hill. Some people choose to walk up it, but Dave and I kept on riding and we caught back up with Diabolical Double riders by the time we reached our second aid station. This station was the last one serving all riders regardless of distance.  From this point, the people doing the 40- and 60-mile rides would break off in a different direction. For those of us doing the 102- and 125-mile rides, we had our first major challenge ahead of us. The next stretch included “Bowman” and “Killer Miller.” Either of these hills would be a challenge on their own but having them in the same segment made this one of the toughest portions of the course. The only upside was at this point, I was still feeling pretty strong and fresh. Had this segment been at the end of the course, I am not sure I would have made it. Knowing what was ahead, I made sure to take in a fair number of calories. Peanuts, M&M’s, a PB&J and some orange slices were all consumed at this station. After refueling and a stop by the port-a-john, we were back on the road.

Shortly out of the aid station, Dave began to experience problems with his shoe clip. His didn’t come off like mine but it had become really loose, so we pulled off for our third round of repairs. Once back on the road, it didn’t take us very long to reach the first monster hill, Bowman. This thing seemed like it went on forever. Besides the fact that going up these big hills is just plain tiring, they also take forever to get up. Distances that normally take 20 minutes now take an hour, and your mind starts using the extra time to mess with you. You start asking yourself “Why are we doing this?”  Of course when you pedaling up these things, it’s hard to come up with a good answer. It’s as much a mental game as it is a physical one when you do these things.  Once you finally make it to the top, you start to remember why you’re out here at least until you get to the next hill. Once over Bowman, we had get some nice downhills and a little time to recover before taking on Killer Miller.

There is actually a cutoff time to arrive at aid station #3 if you plan to complete the whole 125 miles. We were well within that time limit, but we still had Miller to overcome. Dave yelled out to a group of people on the side of the road asking how far was it to “Killer Miller”.  Their response - around the corner just 300 meters away.  Oh great, so here it comes. Bowman had managed to make a few cracks in my mental barrier, but I wasn’t going to let Miller get me. After all, the next aid station was only a short distance beyond this monster. As we rounded the corner, there was actually a fork in the road and we started to go up the left side. Quickly realizing this was the wrong way, we back tracked and headed down the right side where a couple little girls riding their bikes in their driveway cheered us on.

I don’t think Miller was quite as steep as Bowman, but it was definitely long with minimal shade. Again, the hardest part of the slow trip up the hill is controlling the little voices in your head asking “Why, oh why are we doing this????” As we approached the top of Miller, we found a timing mat and a group of volunteers screaming “You did it, you’ve made it to the top!” which was music to my ears. Of course, I was still trying to tune out that little voice now saying “Great, but we aren’t even half way yet.” That’s when focus on the next aid station and not the miles left in the entire course is helpful. Fortunately, the next aid station was a short distance ahead.

As we rolled into aid station #3, we could see the course was starting to take its toll on people. This aid station marked the final bail out location for the course. If you decided you didn’t want to or couldn’t do the whole 102- or 125-mile distance, the race officials had mapped out a shorter, more direct route back to the finish line. Of course, people were available to drive riders back if they couldn’t continue or to offer aid in general, but this was a way to return under your own power and still cross the finish line. We still had to go up a pretty big hill as we left the aid station plus the monster hill at the finish line, so I figured we might as well keep moving forward (although there was a small part of me tempted to take the bail out route knowing I still had monster hills similar to Miller and Bowman ahead of me).

The next portion of the course between aid station 3 and 4 was would mark the longest distance between aid stations. Most of the aid stations were about 18 miles apart but the distance between these two was 26 miles. The upside was the absence of monster hills like Miller and Bowman on it. By no means it was a flat segment, no such thing on this ride, just not the killer hills like we had just done. What this segment did incorporate was about a mile and a half of course on a gravel road. The last time I did a ride that took me on a gravel road I ended up with a flat tire, so I wasn’t too thrilled with the prospect of taking my road bike off-roading but as Dave put it - it’s one of the many charms of the ride.

The ride up to the gravel road went smoothly and by the time we reached that spot on the course, we had started riding with another group of three riders. We all started down the gravel road which starts out going downhill. To my surprise, we rode past a pair of people standing on the side of this deserted gravel road playing their banjos. Since we were pretty close to the West Virginia border by this point, I couldn’t help the flashbacks to the movie Deliverance.  I spent most of the downhill segment riding my brakes and trying to avoid any major bumps.  Of course, one of the things you learn on these rides is what goes down inevitably goes back up so about halfway through the gravel portion we started going uphill. This wasn’t a Killer Miller type hill but t wasn’t a small hill either and the gravel made it that much more challenging. About half way up the hill, we started hitting softer dirt.  Because I tend to lean forward with my weight on the front of my bike when going uphill, my back tire started spinning out more and more. It got to the point where I felt like I was going to fall over, so I opted to walk the rest the way up the hill. Dave and the other guys we were riding with managed to ride the whole way up and Dave waited for me at the top. It didn’t take me long to get to the top, as I was able to walk it almost as fast as I was able to ride it and once we got going again we were able to catch up to the other group fairly quickly.

The rest of this segment went by without too many issues and as we approached the fourth aid station, we entered a town which is home to the Westernport Wall, a very steep and pretty well known hill that is part of the Savageman Triathlon. You can actually ride up this hill for the Diabolical Double if you want but most people choose not to.... I thought about it for two seconds and then said Nah!!!!. For those not familiar with the Westernport Wall segment, it is not only a very steep hill but it also is on a horribly maintained segment of road with lots of potholes and such which cause a lot of people who try to go up it to fall over.

Once at the fourth aid station, we spent time resting, eating, drinking and trying to physch ourselves up for the next segment which was quite possibly the hardest segment of the entire course.  On this segment , we headed out of town, crossed the border into West Virginia, and immediately start pedaling up. It’s not a super steep climb but it is long and continuous. Something like seven miles of just going uphill not to mention much of it is in the direct sun.  After that, we had some ups and downs to about the 4-mile mark from the next aid station where we found another incredibly steep and long hill. We were so close to the aid station only to be foiled by this neverending hill that after each turn just seems to go on forever. On top of that, we were by no means fresh like when we took on Miller and Bowman. This hill really pushed me to my limits. At this point, Dave had broken away from me and I was on the course by myself. Finally when I got to the top of the hill, an officer sitting in a cop car was waiting to tell me the aid station was just down below in the next little town. It was all downhill. Thank god.  As I got to the town, I didn’t see any sign of a aid station so I kept riding and began to start riding up a hill again. At first, I thought the cop had lied to me but I kept riding. I was to the point distance-wise where I should be seeing an aid station. At this point, another rider had caught up to me and was having similar thoughts. We kept riding for a bit longer. With still no aid station in sight, I decided to stop. The other guy kept going. I was faced with a dilemma. I could keep going up this hill and hope there was an aid station ahead, or I could go back down the hill to see if I already passed it.  However if I hadn’t passed it then I would have to ride all the way up this hill again, which I REALLY didn’t want to have to do. I had just decided to head back down when I came upon another rider. I asked him if he had seen an aid station below, which he hadn’t. He tried to call his buddy who was ahead of him to ask him but only got a voicemail. By this time, the first rider who had ridden ahead came back after still not seeing any aid station. I decided to head back down the hill and the other two followed. As we got to the bottom of the hill, we discovered we had missed a turn arrow and were supposed to turn left. It’s a good thing we had all been desperate to find the aid station because the hill we had been riding up not only didn’t have an aid station, it wasn’t even part of the course.

After making the left turn, we were quickly at the fifth aid station and the 100-mile mark of the course. Dave was waiting for me there where he asked what took me so long. I explained having missed the turn and all. After resting for a bit and refueling, we started out to the final aid station of the course. This one was only 11 miles away. We started out going up a hill - not a monster hill but at this point any and all hills were taking their toll. My left knee was starting to bother me on the hills and I was just flat out tired both mentally and physically. I was starting to tell myself things like “I’ve already ridden over 100 miles on a super hard course. I can walk away and still be proud of my accomplishment, right?????” The 11-mile segment to the final aid station was wearing because it was constant up and down, but I was determined to get to the last aid station. Like the segment before, Dave had pulled out ahead and would wait for me at the aid station. About five miles out from the aid station, I was joined by a group of four riders. I think everyone was having similar thoughts to myself and that was “Where the hell is that aid station?” About one mile out, one of the guys ended up getting a flat but opted to ride it in to the aid station. We arrived at about 6:30 p.m.  Dave was sitting there waiting for me along with a few other riders.  This aid station not only had comfortable chairs but also had lots of ice and cold drinks which was really nice.

We were down to the final 14 miles of the course and most of it was actually fairly easy with rolling hills. The kicker was that nasty 1.5 mile stretch of uphill we started out on going down. Under normal circumstances, 11 miles would be nothing but we all knew that hill was waiting for us at the end and would do everything it could to try and stop us from crossing the finish line. The hotel we were staying at was even at the bottom of the hill, so there was the added temptation of just stopping and calling it a day. Dave wasn’t going to let me quit though, we had made it this far and we would get this 11 miles done together. He said we would ride the whole last segment together which we did. We started out and made our way down the road. Like I mentioned before, most of this segment was not bad at all so by around 7:10 p.m. we made it to that final hill. By this point, I was determined to finish the whole thing. I had played with the idea of bailing at the hotel (at this point, I could really care less about getting my finisher shirt and the free thing of French Fries) but by the time we got to the hill I was ready to beat it.

We began to ride up it and my knee started bothering me again, but I kept going. We made it past the Team Z cheering section, and my knee was really hurting. I looked down at my Garmin which was telling me I had already ridden over 125 miles thanks to that extra hill I rode up when I got lost, so I decided I was entitled to walk. I told Dave I would see him at the top and got off the bike and started to walk. It was really only a short distance before I arrived at a stop sign and a bit of a flat area in the hill. I didn’t really want to walk over the finish line, so I decided I would ride the rest of the way in. Dave actually waited for me before crossing and we rode over that final timing mat together, which was a really cool thing for him to do.

I can’t tell you how many times during the ride I asked myself why I was doing this ride and why I didn’t just quit. There was no finishing medal, this wasn’t even a race. In the end, just like with the Ironman, it’s about pushing yourself to your limit and then exceeding it. When you do that, there aren’t many other things in life I have found that give you that sense of gratitude.  I don’t know if I will ever do the Diabolical Double again, but I am definitely glad I did it once and can proudly say I did the entire thing.

Ironman 70.3 Hawaii - My First DNF, But Oh What A Feeling

Kona Airport

As I begin my final day in paradise, I decided it was time to reflect back over the last two weeks here in Kona, Hawaii and update this blog with my Ironman 70.3 race report. If you are someone who follows me on Facebook or Twitter then you already know that this race didn’t go exactly as planned and that I suffered my first DNF (Did Not Finish).

Now before I go into details on how this DNF happened, let me first go back two weeks to when I first arrived in Hawaii and start from there.

The trip started with me, my wife, and my bike flying out of Dulles airport. This was the first time I had ever taken my bike on a long-distance non-driving trip. I had originally hoped to ship my bike to Hawaii via Tri-Bike transport, but unfortunately they weren’t offering any pick-up locations on the east coast for this particular race, so that left me with the option of shipping it myself or just taking it on the airplane. I ended up renting a bike box from Bonzai and bringing it on the plane with me. The airline charged an additional $100 for an oversized piece of luggage so it seemed the best route to go.  Lugging a big bike box around the airport was a little challenging but all-in-all it went pretty smoothly checking it in. From there we boarded our first flight from Dulles to Denver and then from Denver to Kona. We left around 7AM ET and got to Hawaii at around 3:30PM Hawaiian time. There is a 6 hour difference between time zones, so it was a long day.

As we arrived in Kona and disembarked off the airplane, I was immediately struck with how different things are here. First of all, it was the first time I had ever been in what was essentially an outdoor airport. Everything was open with sidewalks to get from one section to the next. The different section had roofs but no walls to speak of. The weather was humid but gorgeous. My wife, Kara went over to pick up our rental vehicle (Jeep Wrangler) while I waited for our luggage to be offloaded and brought to the luggage claim area. After some wait all four bags arrived but no sign of my bike. Immediately panic began to set in, but I managed to stay outwardly calm. I went over to the help desk of the baggage claim area where only one person worked the desk, and he was already trying to help someone else find their missing luggage. One of the first things I had to get used to was the laid-back attitude towards “Hawai’i time” which meant patience (not one of my strengths) especially when I’m trying to find out where my $4,000 bike is. After some time waiting, it was finally my turn to be helped. I proceeded to ask the gentleman if he had my bike in the back by chance, which of course it was not. The gentleman told me he had offloaded three bike boxes, two of which I had seen while gathering the rest of my luggage. The third one was nowhere to be seen. The gentleman took my baggage claim number for the bike along with my personal information, told me he would begin the process of finding my bike, assured me that it would be found, then sent me on my way. At this point, all I could do was wait and hope.

As we left the airport and headed to the house we would be staying at for the next two weeks (awesome accommodations provided for us by our friends Tricia Totten and Al Denbleyker), I tried to put aside my worries about the bike and enjoy myself - after all we were in Hawaii. Driving down the Queen K, one of the main roads in Kona and a well known landmark to triathletes, I couldn’t help but notice how different the island looked from what I was expecting. For those not that familiar with the “Big Island”, it is essentially a landmass made up by multiple large volcanoes, and the Kona side of the island contains a large number of lava fields which are essentially areas of large rocky terrains. I know that doesn’t necessarily sound appealing, but when you mix in all the mountains to the one side and the ocean to the other it really does make for some very unique and breathtaking scenery. At times, it almost seems like you are on another planet.

View from the house

After arriving at the house, we unpacked and got settled in. Our hosts wouldn’t be joining us until the following day, so for the first night we explored the island on our own.  We headed for town which was five minutes away looking for a good place to eat. By this time it was 5 p.m. Hawaiian time, but our internal clocks where still on Eastern time which meant for us it was 11 p.m. We soon found a nice little seafood place near the water and enjoyed a great meal while looking out at the Pacific Ocean. After dinner, we headed back to the house and soon to bed. This was probably the first time in a very long time I had gone to bed at 8 p.m. at night but again for us it was really 2 a.m. 

The next morning I woke up very early. I actually first woke up at 3 a.m. which for me was really 9 a.m., but managed to go back to sleep until around 5:30 a.m. After getting up, I decided the first thing I would do was go for a run. The house we were staying at was up on a mountain. You could see the ocean from the front of the house which made for an awesome view, but to get down to the water and the town you had to go downhill. Not being the familiar with my location, I decided to just start running towards the ocean which meant downhill. I ran for about five miles, two of which was downhill with the remaining three on Ali'i Drive, the main oceanfront road that goes through town. The morning often starts out a bit overcast which was good because it meant I could run without having to deal with the full brunt of the sun bearing down on me. As I ran I couldn’t help but notice all the different flowers growing everywhere. My nose was immediately bombarded with all different scents, it was literally like running through a florist. I also was greeted by some of the island’s wildlife, like a family of turkeys walking down the road (there is something you don’t see everyday back home). After running out five miles, I decided it was time to turn around and head back. Of course, this meant I would now have to run uphill. If you ever thought of Hawaii as flat, you are wrong.  There are some stretches of flatness, mainly along the Queen K highway, but for the most part the terrain here is very hilly.

Once I got back to the house, I decided it was time to call the airport and find out what the status of my bike was. I ended up calling a main number for the airline opposed to a local one and they were finally able to tell me that my bike for some reason got diverted to San Francisco but was now on its way to Kona and should arrive later in the day. Hearing this was a tremendous relief. After a nice Brunch at a place called Lava Java and some more exploring, we picked up my bike and proceeded to the local bike shop called Bike Works to have the bike reassembled. We also rented a bike for Kara so she could ride during the next two weeks. She has signed up to do a small triathlon in July with her sister and has begun training for it, so we wanted to make sure she had some wheels to ride while here.

Now that I had my bike, I was anxious to get out and ride. That next morning, I headed out on the Queen K towards Hapuna Beach which is where the swim portion of the 70.3 race would take place. The distance from the house to Hapuna is about 35 miles and the plan was for me to ride out and have Kara meet me there in the Jeep where we would spend the day at the beach relaxing and also getting a feel for the swim course.

Energy Lab Center

Riding the Queen K was an awesome experience. After all this was the road where the Ironman Championship takes place, and I was riding along the same course as many great Ironman Champs like MACCA and Chrissie Wellington had rode. I rode past the Natural Energy Lab, another well known Ironman landmark and continued on through the lava fields past the airport. At this point in the ride, I first got to experience the legendary Kona headwinds. The road is fairly flat but the headwinds were like nothing I had ever experienced before. We are talking about gusts of wind up to 35-40 mph hitting you head on or even worse from the side. I can tell you that when this happens just staying upright on the bike becomes a real challenge. It took me about an hour and 50 minutes to get out to Hapuna with the last five miles of the ride being a huge challenge. I was really hoping that come race day the wind would not be as bad. Once at the beach, I waited for Kara to arrive and watched as the wind whipped the water around. It would seem the wind would not only present a challenge on the bike but on the swim as well.

Going into this race, I was somewhat nervous about the swim portion. I hadn’t thought about the wind, but this was going to be my first ocean swim race and with no wetsuit allowed I was concerned about whether I would be able to complete the race within the allotted 1 hour and 15 minute cut off time. After swimming for a bit, I quickly realized that it was true what people had told me - the salt water makes you really buoyant and makes up for a lack of wetsuit. This made me feel a bit more confident about the swim, but still I would have to deal with the waves and this swim would also be a mass start, as opposed to a wave start, so I would be starting out with 1600 competitors all at the same time.

On Thursday, I did another 20 mile bike ride with Tricia and Al who were also racing on Saturday, this time starting out from Hapuna and doing about 10 miles out and back of the 70.3 course. It was still windy but not quite as bad as when I had biked on Monday. I also did another swim of around 900 yards. Swimming out was fine but coming back in, we were hit with some really choppy waves. I can tell you this was not particularly fun, however I felt if this was the worst I would have to deal with in the race, I was feeling much more confident about completing the swim in time.

Greg Welch Swim Clinic

On Friday morning, we attended a swim clinic out at Hapuna put on by Ironman Champion Greg Welch. The buoys for the race had been put out in the water and we had a chance to swim some of the course. I also had a chance to try on a TYR skinsuit. These are suits that look very much like a basic tri-suit but are said to help you swim a little faster. They don’t have Neoprene in them like a wetsuit, but they are made with a material that is said to help trap air between yourself and the suit that I guess gives you that little extra float. I figured I needed all the help I could get so I got one for the race, and they do seem to work.

After the clinic, it was time to go pick up our packets and drop off our bikes to be racked. The race had two different transition areas. T1 was located at Hapuna Beach and T2 was located about five miles down the road at a hotel resort. You had to go to the resort to pick up your packet and attend the pre-race briefings and then take your bike over to Hapuna to be racked. The only thing that sucked about this was that the parking at the resort was a mile away from the actual building, and you had to either walk or take a shuttle from your car to the resort area then do the same to get back to your car. In other words, it took most of the afternoon to get the race packet then rack the bike.  Another strange thing with this race was that you had to bring your T2 stuff with you because they wanted you to drop off your T2 bag that day opposed to bringing it with you on race day.

70.3 Hawaii Event Center

After spending the afternoon doing all of this, we returned home for a nice spaghetti pasta dinner and soon got ready for bed. Because my body’s internal clock was still used to eastern time, I actually was able to go to bed fairly early and got a really good night sleep. We went to bed around 9 p.m. and woke up at 3 a.m.

After having some eggs for breakfast, we headed out to transition which opened at 5 a.m. Once again, we parked at the resort and took a shuttle over to Hapuna. We got to T1 around 5:30 a.m. After checking my bike, making sure my tires where inflated, and finding Tricia and Al who had arrived a little sooner than me and Kara, we proceeded down to the area where they were doing body markings. This was the first race I had done where they did the stamp markings opposed to just writing your number on you with a marker. The girl who did my markings must of thought I was an idiot because I kept messing up my number. You see my number was 969 which is the number I first told her to put on me, however I looked at the wristband I had been given the day before just to verify the number I had given her was correct and saw it as 696. Not fully thinking, I said, “Oh wait, I am sorry my number is 696 not 969”. So she wiped off the numbers and started again, until I realized I had in fact been correct the first time and that my number was 969. So for second time, she had to clean the numbers off my arm and start again. I felt like an idiot, but she was completely cool about it.

Getting Ready To Swim

After getting body marked, I headed back up to where my bike was to finish getting ready for the race. I decided I needed to hit the port-a-john before the race started so I went over and started standing in the long line. Finally, I was only four people back in line when I heard the loud speaker, “Athlete 969, your back tire has blown out on your bike. Jay Cochran, you have a blown out back tire, please report to your bike.” My first thought was, “Are you kidding me?” I bailed out of line and ran over to my bike where a volunteer was standing to tell me I had a flat. When I was riding the course earlier in the week, I had gotten a cava seed stuck in my tire which gave me a flat, and I am guessing when I changed the tube I might have pinched it, so when I inflated my tire it caused a blowout. Anyway, I didn’t want to risk messing up another tire changing it myself so I ran over to a bike tech (which was a nice thing about this race, there were plenty of bike techs around) and had them change the tire for me. About 15 minutes later, I was back in action with my bike remounted, and I proceeded to once again try to use the bathroom. Fortunately, the line was shorter now and I didn’t have to wait long.

After making sure everything was completely set up for T1, I headed down to the beach to get ready to begin my swim. As I mentioned before, this would be a mass start swim. The pros would begin first with a foghorn followed by a cannon shot to start the 1,600 age groupers from an in-the-water start. You could stay closer to shore and stand in the water, or swim out and tread water if you preferred. My plan had been to hang out towards the back of the back and stand until the cannon sounded. The course was basically a triangle shape with the first leg along the left side of the triangle for about 900 yards followed by a turn to swim left to right along the back side and a turn to come into to the swim out from the right side. The first leg of the swim went very smoothly. Hanging out towards the back of the pack seemed to have worked as I didn’t have to waste a lot of energy fighting off other swimmers or getting hit by them. I made pretty good time as I turned the first buoy. It wasn’t until I made the turn around the second buoy to begin the swim along the back stretch of the triangle that I began to run into problems. By this time, the sun had come up enough and was hitting off the water at an angle that essentially blinded the swimmers. I had planned to use a hotel building on land as a sight point for this stretch of the course, but the sun nullified that plan. Another problem was that the wind had begun to pick up to 15 mph gusts which started churning the water.

A Mass Start

At this point, finding anything substantial to sight was not going to happen since you had waves hitting you in the face and the glare of the sun blinding you. I was still seeing some swimmers off to the right side of me so I tried to follow them. It was at this point when one of the volunteers on a paddle board came up to me and indicated I was swimming too far in and needed to head out some, so taking her word for it I started heading out. At this point, I was blind as a bat and just swimming hoping I was going the right way. After some time had passed, I couldn’t help but notice I didn’t seem to be passing any more buoys, and another volunteer on a paddle board came up beside me to tell me I was swimming too far out. I looked to where he was pointing but still could not see anything. I continued to swim in but was getting really frustrated. I stopped several times to try to see where I was but could not see any buoys in front of me. I could see some behind me and saw how far out I had gone but still had nothing in front of me to really sight. Finally, I just started to aim for the central point of glare from the sun and used that to sight. Finally, I got back to the last turn buoy but looking at my watch I now had less than 10 minutes to finish the last stretch of the race and get to the swim out before the 1 hour and 15 minute cutoff. Refusing to give up, I headed for the finish and just hoped I could eke it out. As I made it to the shore, I realized I had missed the cutoff. The last stretch of the race was the shortest, but it was also against the current and it just took a little longer than I had to do it. I was out of the water at about the 1:19 mark so I had missed the cutoff time by about 4 minutes. According to my Garmin I swam 2653 yards. What was surprising was there was still a fair amount of people on the beach cheering me on and congratulating me on completing the swim. Part of me appreciated the sentiment but part of me wanted to yell why are you congratulating me, I just DNF’d. I’m a goddamn Ironman and I wasn’t able to finish this 70.3 race. I managed to bury that frustrated side of me and thanked people as I walked by who were congratulating me. Then the race director came up and collected my chip and swim cap, again I thanked him but at the same time was trying very hard to control my disappointment mainly in myself. Even then I knew this had not been a easy swim and in fact should be proud I never gave up and finished the whole thing including the extra 600+ yards I swam, but part of me also knew I failed in the overall goal of finishing the entire race. I then went up to T1 to see if Kara was there because I didn’t see her at the beach. Turns out, she didn’t know if or when I had come out of the water and was up at T1 looking for me there.  At this point, the volunteers had begun the process of closing down T1. They had to gather up all the T1 bags and take them over to T2 for when people finished the race. There were several other athletes there who had also not finished the swim in time gathering their bike and things. By the time, I go to my bike the volunteers had already grabbed my T1 bag and thrown it in a truck with all the other bags. This bag of course had my bike shoes in it so without the bag I wasn’t going to be able to ride my bike over to the T2 area. The volunteers where nice though and we ended up putting my bike in the back of the truck and I rode over with the driver to the T2 area. Kara took a shuttle over because there wasn’t enough room in the truck for both of us.

Lance Armstrong

Once over at T2, I met back up with Kara at the car and we loaded the bike in then headed back to the race area to cheer our friends Tricia and Al on who were still in the race. I got to see Lance Armstrong who won the race in a record breaking time of 3:50:58. My friends Tricia and Al also finished the race. Tricia came in 5th place for her age group and got cool Kona bowl as a trophy.

I found out later that the swim had caused problems for lots of people. Apparently the winds had gotten so strong that some of the volunteers on the paddle boards got carried out to sea and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard.  A possibility of why it took so long for a volunteer to come tell me I had swum out too far. The wind also caused one of the buoys to break loose during the race although I don’t know which one, and I also learned the lead pack of age groupers got confused and ended up turning in towards the finish line too early and once they got to the finish they were told they had to turn around and swim the entire course.

For those who made it out of the water in time, they had to face quite a few challenges on the bike and run. Wind guests by this point had gotten up to 35 mph on the bike course, and I heard there where a number of accidents. My friend Al saw one lady do a face plant on the pavement, and for the run the sun was out in full force on a course with no shade. Part of me would have liked to face those challenges because that is in fact what part of doing these races is all about, but I will be honest there was also a part of me that wasn’t too upset that I missed out on that.

Trish & Al

Though disappointed I got a DNF for this race, I have had an awesome time here on the Big Island both with fun and leisure stuff and with training on the same course that the Ironman Championships use. I have already decided that I am coming back next year to redeem myself on this race, and I also know I come away with some great experiences here that will help me on my races to come. I now know first hand why the Kona course is so challenging, it’s not the course itself but the elements and uncertainty they can throw at you. Racing here really is like racing no other place I’ve been to. It wows you with its beauty and can crush you with its temperament.

A big thanks to Trish and Al for letting us crash with them for 2 weeks.