Grab a cup of coffee - this is a bit long!
Friday morning – 7:30 AM – Off to Madison to begin the weekend for my 1st Ironman experience! I caught a ride to Cedar Rapids where I then met Jenny Lorenz (future Hawaii Ironman) for a ride up to the promise land… We had a nice conversation about strategy, fueling for the race, tactics, and oh yes how much we were going to drink the weekend after the Ironman… Ha!
Upon arriving to Madison, WI we went directly to check in… Thank goodness we were both registered USAT triathletes as there was no line for us and about 50 in a line to get USAT registered. From there down the escalators and to packet pickup – I didn’t realize you had to get a stamp in order to get a wristband in order to get a packet, but hey I’ve never done one of these things before - so whatever! The 3rd line we stood in overlooked the swim course so it was nervous for some, for me - just excitement to begin! In an Ironman they put you on a scale & record your weight in case medical has to take you off the course – they then would have a baseline… I weighed in at 175#’s. Actually 1 pound more than I weighted back on Christmas Day 2007 when I began my training! Amazing that I kept my weight on, but guess dating a registered dietician who knows her stuff helped! Thanks Sara!
Got my packet and was ready for a nap. Sara was coming later tonight and we were also going to a friend of Jenny’s for a pasta dinner! Yum – Carb loading time! Dinner was great. Food and company were both excellent, but I was ready for some down time and an early nights rest! Back at the hotel & in bed by 10pm… I didn’t think I would sleep very well the 2 nights leading up to the Ironman, but I was shocked and actually slept great both nights.
Saturday morning came, a large breakfast and then off to Lake Monona for a practice swim. There was quite a bit of excitement in the air that morning… It was so nice out. Sara went for a run, while Jenny, Matt, Bobby Mac & I strolled into the water. You could test out new wetsuits, in fact I considered it since I had a hole in the crotch of mine, but decided that last minute changes were a bad idea so skipped. I swam about 20 minutes nice and easy just to get the blood flowing a bit. During this swim I strategized with Matt Anderson on where to start. I originally thought I would start way on the outside to avoid all the chaos, but Matt convinced me to start in the front on the inside so we wouldn’t have to swim an extra 30-40 meters every corner. I thought he was crazy at first, but the more I thought about swimming the extra distance the more I liked it. So that was the strategy – done I’m ready for tomorrow… now it was about relaxing the rest of the day and conserve as much energy as possible for the race.
After our swim, we decided to drive the bike course just to get an idea of all the corners, hills, turns, etc. It was a good idea and a nice reminder which I later played out in my head before going to bed. After our drive we went back to the hotel and loaded up all the transition bags and our bikes. There’s like 5 bags: 1) Swim to Bike 2) Bike Special Needs 3) Bike to Run 4) Run Special Needs 5) Morning dry clothes Bag… I am the worst packer of all time but for this I had to be right on. Of course I way over packed, but in a race this long you just never know what you might need! Bags all checked in and now my bike off to the rack. Just a word about my bike… One of my best friends, Geoff who owns Geoff’s Bike & Ski just happened to stumble upon a set of Zipp 404’s. This is a very light weight and aero set of wheels. He had me come down to the bike shop about a week ago, said he had a surprise for me… Not only were the wheels a surprise, but he just let me borrow them, VERY SWEET! I loved them. Handled perfect, great up hills, great in the wind, and I felt super fast on the flats. Exactly what I wanted, but didn’t want to pay for. Geoff – what a rock star – I owe him one for that! So anyway, where was I…. Once back at the hotel we met up with my family, had some dinner and was back in bed by 9. Lights out – big day tomorrow. In fact I slept like a baby until about 4am when the realness started to set in!
So here it is RACE DAY morning. I’m up at 4am, my alarm was set for 4:30, but heck I’m up just as well stay up. Took a shower, seems funny to do before working out for 11 hours, but it’s something I just do to wake up. So, my race morning plan was to eat the following which I had practiced on a couple of long bike rides prior to the race: 1 Banana, 1 PBJ sandwich, a 350 calorie choc. milk drink, vitamin, 2 endurox tabs, and a bottle of water. Perfect – all in me before 4:30 AM, plenty of time to settle. I then prepare my 2 “Iron-cocktail” water bottles. This is a genius mixture of carbo-pro and cytomax an idea I picked up from Brian Shea – www.personalbestnutrion.com He worked with me to figure out just how many calories I needed to complete the bike and feel fueled for the run. Based on my net body weight, my intended bike speed we figured out my own personal cocktail. I tested it as well and was shocked how good it worked! In a previous workout consisting of an 80 mile bike ride and 6 mile run I had just as much energy at the end as I did when I started… I knew this was the ticket! Thanks Brian! Everything now is packed up and off to the race!
This is getting long so I’ll cut to the specifics… Swim is about to start – a few pre-race jitters, but really not that bad. I know I am perfectly trained for this. I’m confident and know I will finish…just in what time was the question. I find my spot, inside corner all the way at the front. I can’t really believe I’m starting here – the people around me look very serious. National anthem - then I hear the crowd roar… It was so sweet to know that 2 years ago I said, “no freakin’ way you will ever find me out doing an ironman” and now here I am ready to kick some butt and not just finish the ironman, but to go out and beat it up a bit! The announcer says 1 minute to go… I have been treading water for about 10-15 min. by now so I was ready to start swimming. When the 1 minute to go was announced treading water became more and more difficult as people started bunching up. You could no longer use your arms as people were to close… it was all pretty much just flutter kicking to keep your head above water… then I heard it “BOOM” and I thought let the madness begin!
For about the first 5-8 min it was like a washing machine. I was hitting people’s legs ahead of me, people were hitting my legs, bodies were swimming over each other and it was hard to get a solid breath of air as the water was splashing around pretty good. I planned and prepared for this so I swam at about 90% effort until I could get myself over to the left about 10 feet and find some open water. About ½ way down the first straight-away I finally got calmed down and into a smoother rhythm. Thank goodness I practiced sighting and bi-lateral breathing because I used both a ton throughout the entire swim! Other than crowded corners and 1 crazy girl who thought she needed to swim over the top of me I had a great swim! I focused on being calm, relaxed, long, and glided as aero as I could through the water. I even drafted a couple of faster swimmers along the straights. Drafting is legal in the swim, but not the bike – more on that later. Around 6 of the 8 corners and I can’t believe that I’m almost done with the 2.4 mile swim! I could see the finish – so I try to pee. I struggle peeing while in motion, but I manage to get it done just before exiting the water… Good sign to be hydrated going into the bike… I climb out of the water see 1:09:56 on the clock and was completely shocked how good I felt coming out of the water! My goal was under 1:15 and so I was very happy with 1:09! Onto dry land I see my family and Sara --- I was ear to ear smiles to be done with that portion. Some high fives onto the ground for the wet suit strippers and then up to T1. Up to T1 – it’s quite a run. You have to run up a 3 story parking ramp helix I call it. Round and round all the way to the top. Sounds daunting, but in fact it was awesome! People were packed along the edges and yelling all the way to the top. Now into T1, I easily got my bag, a volunteer followed me to a chair. I dumped everything out, put on my helmet, sunglasses, race-belt w/# and then put my socks shoes and helmet under my arm and was ready to go. My volunteer said he would pack the rest of my stuff including my wetsuit back up in my bag and he said – go get em’ and so I did. I ran out the door saw the sunscreen ladies – they quickly lubed me up and I ran to my bike. It was much faster to run bare foot to my bike then to run in my tri-shoes. Once I was close to my bike I hollered out my # and a volunteer un-racked my bike for me. As he was doing that I put on my socks, shoes and arm warmers. Perfect timing – now off to the bike mounting area. I ran the next 100 yards pretty quick passing people right and left. I saw the line to mount your bike, there were like 5-6 people all standing there slowly mounting their bikes… I took one leap and in motion landed on my seat and was off down the 3 story helix on the opposite side of the parking ramp! I bet I passed 30-40 people just in T1. I couldn’t be more excited to be out of transition and on my bike! Down to the bottom and I was on my way to 112 great miles! I saw Sara and then Tyler & Kim – what a surprise to see them there! It was awesome!
For about the 1st mile there is a no passing zone so you can’t really go out and kill it right away on your bike. It was actually nice because it gave you time to get all settled in. I decided I didn’t need my arm warmers as it was warm enough. I left them on my wrist and eventually took them off around mile 20 or so. Finally off the trail and on my way to Verona. I was watching my heart rate and was basing my speed off that. Crazy thing was I was able to hold 23-26mph on the flats and my heart rate was in the mid 130’s. I was trying to tell myself to pace it - slow down, but since my heart rate was so low I decided to keep pushing it! I did this all day… pushing as hard as I could until my heart rate would hit about 145-148 then I would slow down a bit. I also hit the hills pretty hard. Small chain ring, and spin it out. I think I passed about 200 people in the first 20 miles… That felt weird as some of the people I passed looked pretty serious, but I stuck to my plan. I consumed my 2 ironman cocktail bottles, 2 GU’s, 2 Odwalla bars and about 7-8 bottles of water. I stopped and peed in the ditch 5 times. Once every hour. I figured this cost me about 10 minutes, but at the time it seemed better to do that than pee on myself. Gonna have to work on that one as 10 min’s is just too much time to waste! I stayed pretty focused throughout the entire bike. Aero as possible, efficient as could be, and only grabbing water in the transition areas - that was my plan. Around mile 80 I saw my friends Ben & Loren out yelling at people up the hill. I also saw Sara, Tyler, Kim, my dad and brother in law Ron. It was a nice surprise as I wasn’t expecting them there. A big smile and again I was thinking – I feel great! I was so pleased with how my race was going at this point, I just decided to keep my head down and let it go for the last 32 miles into Madison. Once I took a left turn out of Verona there was a nice tail wind 75% of the way home. It was great! Averaging around 27-28 mph and feeling great, I couldn’t believe it! All in all the 112 miles on the bike went by very fast! I looked forward to the hills as I passed so many people up them. Hours seem like minutes and before you knew it I could see the capital back in Madison. Then came the penalty… Yep I got docked with a drafting penalty about 100 yards from the bike finish. It really pissed me off! I was legit all day and now this freakin’ official was docking me with an un-called for penalty?!?! There was 4 of us grouped up on this narrow road, nowhere to go all slowing down plus in a no passing zone and this official on a motorcycle pulls up next to us and says the back 3 of us all are being docked with a drafting penalty. I looked at the official and said you have got to be kidding me! Where the hell do you want me to go? He said, “do you want an unsportsmanlike penalty as well?” I said no and rode up the helix to transition. Once there I entered the penalty booth and sat there for 4 minutes taking my penalty. It sucked, I watched all these people I passed coming in and was just in awe how something so stupid could be happening to me! Just then the official that gave me the penalty showed up and said, “do you still have a problem with the penalty?” I said, “HELL YES I do but what can I do about it now? I’ve already sat here for 3 min, I have 1 min. left and so I’m just going to keep my mouth shut and take it.” I turned my back to him and just stared the opposite direction and then my time was up and I raced into T2. I again dumped my bag on the floor, put on my running shoes, visor, fuel belt and I had the volunteer pack all my stuff up. I was gone! What should have been a 2 min. transition was now a 6:48 transition due to a penalty I still don’t think I deserved. Oh well – live and learn! Total time on the bike 5:39:23. Average speed 19.8 mph. Without the pee breaks I averaged 20.5 mph so I was very pleased with that.
I was off to the run. I tried to not let what just happen bug me, but it did for about 3-4 miles. I then got my mind straight and focused at the task at hand – RUN! The first 8 or so miles seemed fast, and then they began slowing down. I really wanted to run a 3:30 or 3:45 marathon, but when I clocked the first ½ marathon at 1:58 I knew I wasn’t going to run a negative split and so I just tried to shoot for as close to 4 hours as possible. The run course was so cool! I had friends and family in many different spots cheering me on. Once I knew where to look for them it really helped as I looked forward to those sections! To be honest I always ran much faster leading up to where they would be. The hardest miles were the sections right after you saw your support crew! The great thing about Wisconsin Ironman is that the crowds are so loud and are everywhere on the course! It’s such an amazing feeling when complete strangers are yelling “Come on Jeremy – you look great – keep going you can do it!” Every time I heard that I would repeat it in my mind… Dang I do look good, I’m running so fast, and your damn right I can do this! So here’s what I had on the run course… 6 half bananas, 2 half powerbars, 5 orange slices, couple handfuls of grapes, cup of water at every transition, 2 half cups of Gatorade, handful of pretzels, 10 half cups of chicken broth, 5 half cups of coke, and about 5-6 sponges on the head. I did stop and pee twice on the run. Once I stood in the port-o-john and just leaned my head against the side wall while I was peeing… I was so tired!
Around mile 4 I saw the lead pro guy heading back in for his victory. I couldn’t believe how fast he was running. I later saw some of the others as well as the pro women. Something else to run that fast after all we had just done. Looking at the results I later found that I beat one pro male and one pro female overall. Not sure what happened during their day, but they must have not been feeling it. Either way, I guess I can say I beat a pro-triathlete in Ironman Wisconsin! HA.
So mile maker 20, then 21, by this point I’m convincing myself to just run ½ mile at a time. My stomach was not feeling very good, but the chicken broth soup & coke did help settle it down. I also am beginning to crap in both of my legs. One speed is all I have now. Any faster and I’d collapse, any slower and I would have to walk and that didn’t sound like much fun either so I kept it dialed in at the one speed I had remaining. I could see mile marker 25, from there I had just 1.2 miles to go… It started to occur to me that I was so close to completing my first ever Ironman Triathlon. I thought the goose bumps and excitement would start to kick in, but they really didn’t until about the last two blocks. Once I could hear the crowd and announcer at the finish line then the excitement began for me. I picked up the pace and turned the corner with 1 block to go! Sara was leaning way over the fence with her arms out… I gave her a big high five, passed her, passed my family on the right and then raised my arms in joy as I crossed over the finish line! Finally I could call myself and Ironman. I heard the announcer say, “ Jeremy Schwertfeger – congratulations you are in IRONMAN!” What an awesome feeling. Surreal at first, but then proud and well deserved after all the training I had put in! A 4:11:55 marathon, 9:37 pace… Not what I had wanted, but with having to walk through about 5 aid stations to get some soup and coke in me, 2 bathroom stops, I was pleased. My goal for the day was to break 12 hours; I had just finished in 11:14:38. A penalty and 6 bathroom stops away from going sub-11 hours, but hey – not to darn bad for my 1st Ironman, I’ll take it!
Champagne, hugs, smiles, pictures, it was all so much fun! An almost perfect day of racing! I couldn’t ask for a better day. The weather was perfect, high 60’s/low 70’s. I felt strong and healthy all day. I had the best cheering crew with me all day, and all the hard work I put in finally paid off! I instantly had a thought when can I do this again! Ok- so maybe it wasn’t right at the finish, but it wasn’t much later that night I had already started thinking about doing Coeur d’Alene 2010.
I’ll let this soak in a bit longer before making any crazy decisions like that, but maybe; just maybe I’ll be back at one for another shot at Ironman Triathlon – one of the coolest and most rewarding events I’ve ever partaken in!
If you made it to the end congrats – you probably feel like you just did an ironman reading this. I hope to have some new pictures on the blog in the next week or so. Stop back… I’ll also give an update on our bike fundraiser www.140milesforsmiles.com The bike give-a-way is this Sunday! Should be another great day!
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