Dopey Challenge Race Report (5k and 10k)

5k
The 5k is my favorite of the four races making up Dopey. Not because I love the course (a boring stretch of parking lot followed by a nice run through Epcot), but because it starts at 6 instead of 530, allowing for some extra time to sleep in. Sleep is important during Dopey. As anyone who's done it will tell you, it's not the miles that are the hard part; it's the four early morning alarms. If an Ironman is a bike race with a swim to warm up and a jog to the finish wrapped around an eating contest, Dopey is a few days of running wrapped around a sleep deprivation exercise.

Keels drove us over to the start, getting us a nice space in the lot closest to the corrals. We took our time wandering over to the race, and by the time we did, corral A had already been released to the start line. I ended up in the back few rows of the corral, only a few meters in front of the tape marking the first row of corral B. The race itself was nothing special, though running through World Showcase in the dark was as good as ever. I ran easy, never felt too crowded, took a picture in front of the ball, and finished in 28 minutes.

10k
Just like the 5k, Keels worked her magic parking skills to get us a place in the front lot again, this time in the front row. Our walk to the corrals took maybe five minutes, and this time, we arrived before A had been released. I still ended up in the back, which was fine with me. Having the fast people head out before me meant a relatively open road with not much congestion during the race.

I love the 10k course because you run through World Showcase; around Boardwalk, Yacht Club, and Beach Club; and back into Epcot again on the way to the finish. Lots of nice scenery and things to look at to make up for the time spent on the road and in the parking lot. I stopped for a few pictures, and more importantly, I stopped for a beer. Keels' friends Mercedes and Angela were outside Beach Club with a bag of beer, though they wouldn't give one to me until they checked my name and number on my bib against their records. Good to see them protecting our supply against all the other people looking for a cold IPA at 615 in the morning. I didn't run very hard during this race, obviously, in order to save myself for a proof of time effort on Saturday.

Keels says I need to work on my product placement skills.
If I don't get the label turned towards the camera, no brewery will want to sponsor me

Abu Dhabi ITU Race Report

I signed up for the Abu Dhabi ITU because several of my friends in Doha went last year and told me it was a great event. That might have been true back then, but it sure wasn't the case this year. Parts of the weekend were good, but overall I was very disappointed in what's supposed to be one of the premier races in the region. I won't be going back.

I flew down to Abu Dhabi via Doha on Qatar Airways, a fairly uneventful trip. This was my first experience on their discount arm, and I hope I don't have to fly it again. The seats are pretty uncomfortable, there's no entertainment system, and the legroom is much less than on their normal planes. It's like flying on United, really, and I expect more from QA. After waiting what seemed like eternity for my bike to show up at baggage claim, I hopped in a taxi and was on my way to the hotel to check in and meet up with Alan. He wasn't too hard to find - at the hotel bar of course. We had a few beers, talked about the plan for Friday, and went off to bed at a decent hour.

Friday morning was the practice swim. The race organizers opened part of the course for anyone who wanted to get in to test the water, sight the buoys for the race, and loosen up after traveling. They let us swim the 500 meters the sprint athletes would be tackling the next day. This was good for getting used to the water, but not very helpful for learning where our course would be. The entire marina area was filled with buoys of all shapes, colors, and sizes. One of the race officers had to show me which tall orange buoy was the correct one for the Oly race, and it's a good thing he did. The other tall orange one near that one was for the elite course. Apparently more than a few people went the wrong way on Saturday. I opted not to bring my wet suit for the practice swim. I wanted to see what the water felt like in case it was deemed too warm for wet suits on Saturday. The verdict? Not too bad, definitely doable without a wet suit, but much preferred to have one.

Trying to get into the swim was my first view into how well the event was or was not organized, and it was clear they didn't think things through. In order to be allowed on the dock for the swim, you needed to show your wrist band. In order to get your wrist band, you had to pick up your registration packet. Registration opened at 10am. The swim was from 8-9. Presented with this dilemma, the organizers did not choose option 1 (allow people to swim without the bands) or option 2 (open registration early). No, they chose option 3, open everyone's packet to take out the wrist band and make them come back and stand in line again at 10 to get everything else. Not a huge inconvenience but definitely a bad sign of things to come.

Knowing we couldn't get our packets for over an hour or rack our bikes until noon, we walked back to the hotel to shower and get some breakfast. I think breakfast before race day has become my favorite part of a race. What's not to like about the freedom to eat as many pancakes as desired? Add in the masala omelettes the chef was making to order, and I had one delicious meal.

We met at 1230 to ride our bikes over to registration, which turned out to be not too much of a hassle. The volunteers at registration were able to keep up with the crowds pretty well, and aside from a line to get our bikes inspected before entering transition, things went pretty smoothly. One of the local bike shops was there doing free tune-ups, and not just the basic stuff either. They were tweaking the derailleurs, truing up the wheels and spokes, and cleaning and lubing the drivetrain too. Had I known they were being that thorough, I would've stood in line for one instead of making a mess of myself cleaning my chain while the bike was on the rack.

I spent the rest of the afternoon browsing through the vendors (picked up a nice pair of 2XU bike shorts for half price), visiting with people I knew from my novice tri camp last year (one of whom is doing a full this year like me), and drinking as much water as possible. The high 70s of Friday were forecast to be 80s on Saturday, a bit warmer than usual and not exactly ideal weather coming from Erbil.

With transition opening at 5am, race day came early, and then I got up. One of the very nice things this race does is keep transition open for athletes in later start waves. Rather than have all 2300 people arrive at once to set up, they allow you to enter transition when it's convenient for you, though they did close it at certain periods to let the swimmers from the maxi distance waves that started first exit the water and get out on the bike course free from interference. For all the things they got wrong over the weekend, this is one of the ones they got very right. Being able to show up at 7 for a 750 start sure beats getting there at 530 and sitting around for a few hours.

I used this race as practice for how I want to do things at Galveston next month, one of which was a new way of setting up my bike computer. Rather than having to remember to start it when getting on my bike coming out of T1, I tried turning on the auto-pause functionality, hitting Start, and leaving it sitting there on the bike. This worked like a charm. When I grabbed my bike to head out to the bike course, the unit detected movement and resumed operation. I use my Garmin to record the entire race, but I find it easier to see the bike computer instead of mounting the 920 to the bars and looking at the small screen.

Leaving transition on my way to drop off my bag at bag check, I noticed no line at the toilets (the UAE uses portable toilet buildings instead of the plastic ones used everywhere else) and decided to take advantage of the situation while I had the chance. Once inside, I realized why there was no line: there was no water and thus the toilets and sinks didn't work. The ladies toilet building didn't have any water either. How the race organizers botched this one up is beyond me. With a few thousand people entered, you'd think that restroom facilities would be near the top of the list of things to be sure were in place and functioning.

I dropped off my bag, sat down in an empty chair, and delayed stuffing myself into my wet suit for as long as possible. To pass the time, I chatted with a guy across the table from me from Finland. He had flown in for his very first tri, leaving behind sub-zero temperatures for the warmth of Abu Dhabi where it was already in the 70s. Poor guy was already a lot more uncomfortable than I was. Finally, around 730, they called for my wave to report to the dock. The time had come to get into the suit. Thanks to plastic bags on the feet and Body Glide on my wrists and neck, I managed to put my wet suit on, and after a few minutes of rolling the material up my legs to my waist and up my arms to my shoulders, my new friend zipped me up and I was on my way.

They held us on the dock until the wave in front of us made the turn at the first buoy, at which point we were asked to slide into the water and hold on to the dock until the start. Even with a few hundred people in the wave, most of us were able to grab a piece of the dock. The rest put their hand on one of our shoulder's and floated until the horn went off and away we went. I started at the very righthand end of the dock with a straight line to the first buoy that would hopefully keep me out of the scrum in the middle. I took off very quickly. I blame the extra buoyancy from the wet suit and not my inability to pace well during an open water swim. Before too long, I settled into a routine that seemed to work pretty well for me. Swim 3-4 minutes, switch to breaststroke to catch breath and see the buoy, lather, rinse, repeat. I felt I was working hard, maybe too hard, and liked having the 10 second break to calm down and relax. I got pretty mentally discouraged when the buoy I thought was the turn for shore wasn't. I'm not really sure what it was for. It could've been there to guide us along the course to the real turning point, but there were enough people swimming to either side of it that make me question that assumption. Either way, when I realized I wasn't able to turn left and swim hard for the finish, I started doubting whether I'd ever be able to get through an Ironman swim. It felt like I'd been out there forever. Finally, I made the last turn and swam towards the dock. Or as much of the dock as we could see. The arch that we thought was marking the swim exit was off to one side, making it difficult to judge exactly where the exit was until you were close to shore. For evidence of this, look at the nice curve in my path and you'll see almost the exact spot where I figured out the exit was to the right of the arch.

Coming out of the water, I felt tired but good about my swim. I didn't get run over, managed to draft for a while off the people around me, and didn't get caught by anyone in the wave that started behind me. Turns out I had a 30-minute swim, much better than I thought I did, and was 19th out of the water in my age group. Needless to say, I didn't remain in 19th for very long. I took my time in transition to make sure everything was in place and ready to go. I know Mary is going to fuss at me for taking so long, but while I'm still learning how to do this, spending an extra few minutes is worth the peace of mind of knowing I'm ready for the bike.

The bike course was two loops along the Abu Dhabi Corniche. Quite scenic and very flat, though without a lot of shade. The roads were closed to vehicular traffic, so for most of the course, we had plenty of room to ride. There were a few places where it narrowed down to one lane and got fairly congested. It was almost comical listening to people coming up from behind shouting "On your left," and trying to pass in those sections when the riders were already three or four abreast. No collisions occurred between bikes or between bikes and cones, but more than a few "Fuck off and wait" were uttered. As my bike handling skills are barely beyond the novice stage, I simply held my line and let everyone else get wound up.

My instructions from Mary were to keep my hear rate in zone 3 and try for a steady and even ride. I think I managed to accomplish both goals, especially since zone 3 felt way too easy. I was clocking along at 18-20mph and had a mental discussion with myself over slowing down to be in low zone 3 or to keep motoring along in the 3.8-4.0 range. I opted for the latter. I kept up with my fueling the whole time, drinking one bottle of my Powerade and most of one bottle I picked up at the aid station. They planned the course very well to locate the aid station on a slip road so the main course didn't get dangerous with people slowing down and bottles in the road. I ate a piece of Clif bar every 20 minutes, kept my head down out of the wind as best I could, and yes, I took advantage of the draft of some large clumps of riders in a few of those narrow one-lane sections. Technically against the rules, I know, but I wasn't about to intentionally slow down while 15-20 people went by.

The end of the bike course was extremely dangerous - a hairpin u-turn followed by the dismount line 30 yards later. It was too far away to slow around the turn and just coast to a stop. I saw one woman ditch her bike and slide across the line so she didn't crash into the other riders who were braking and getting off their bikes. I nearly did the same thing because it really was a quick slow->u-turn->pedal->speed up->halt kind of sequence. Not very well thought out at all, like a lot of the small but important details during the event.

T2 was another more-leisurely-than-truly-necessary happening. Not all of the wasted time was my fault, though. When I got back to my towel, I saw the guy who was racked on the other side of the bar from me had stuck his bike on top of all my stuff and there was no room for my bike. After trying to find room for mine somewhere near where it belonged, I gave up and stuck it on his side on top of his gear. A few sips of water and a change of shoes later, I was on my way. It was really hot by this point in the morning, and I knew constant fluid intake would be the key to a good 10k run.

My first mile was sub-9, probably a little to fast for the conditions, but I couldn't slow my feet down. The legs just kept turning over rapidly as if they were still on the bike. At each water stop, I walked while drinking a cup or two of water, poured one over my head, stuffed ice down my shirt if they had any, and started running again right away. There was no Powerade, Gatorade, or sports drink at either of the aid stations. They only had Red Bull, helpfully in both the regular and sugar-free varieties. Or not. Needless to say, I didn't see very many people choosing to drink Red Bull in the middle of a race. I held a pretty good pace and routine on the entire first lap and most of the second. The wheels fell off at mile 5 when the aid station ran out of water and ice. The mental letdown of looking forward to a cup of water on your head and then coming up empty was significant. I began walking and ended up run/walking the rest of the course until I got to the finishing area. No walking allowed then; have to look good for the crowds and the photographers. Not that any of my race pictures ever come out with me looking good. I've always got the worst expressions on my face, my form has gone to shit, and I look like I'm dying.

Anyway, I crossed the line in 3:01, barely missing my goal of coming in under three hours. Those lazy transitions killed me. Once across the line, I expected to be given a medal (nope), some water (nope), and maybe a snack (nope). There was nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, for the finishers. They had run out of everything and no one was taking the initiative to ask for more supplies. "Go to the registration tent," was the default answer of every person there, including the race officials with the formal ITU passes. Like any of us were in the mood to walk all the way through transition and back to the registration area to get a medal and some water. I ended up talking to the very friendly guy who was announcing people coming across the line, and he was able to reach someone who showed up about 10 minutes later with a shopping cart full of medals. It really shouldn't be that hard to have all of the boxes of medals stored at or near the finish line along with several hundred cases of water too.

My next trip was back to the tent where we had dropped out bags off before the swim. I figured I'd pick up my bag, go back to transition and pack everything up, and head to the hotel to shower, change, and have a beer before the pros started their race two hours later. Good plan, right? Too bad it didn't work out that way. The bag drop tent was woefully understaffed by people who had clearly never organized numbered bags before, and the line to get into the tent had a 45 minute wait because they couldn't figure out how to efficiently retrieve people's bags. I decided not to wait around because in a surprise turn of events, the race announcer began telling people that everything had to be out of transition, except the bikes, by noon. So much for the race program telling us that transition will be open for our use from when we finished until 6pm. Once again, their desire to cater to the pros made things complicated and difficult for the rest of us.

Carrying my wet suit, bike shoes, and other gear along with my bike wasn't easy, but I managed to get it all sorted and out of the area with 15 minutes to spare. By this point, the line for bag drop had decreased to a 25-minute wait. Still a long time to be standing around in the sun, but better than it was before. Finally, I made it into the tent and understood exactly why things were taking so long. The woman at the table looked at my number, pointed to a pile of bags, and said "yours is over there. Go and get it." Fortunately, my bag was a grey transition bag and was very easy to find. The participants trying to find their blue race-provided bag amongst the sea of blue race-provided bags weren't so fortunate.

All told, I had a really good time seeing my friends from Doha and Dubai, and with the actual race  segments themselves. The organization surrounding the race was abysmal, though, and I'll never do this event again. I doubt I'll be living here a year from now, but if I am, I'll go race at TriYas which got glowing reviews from everyone who had been there the weekend before the ITU race.

Rocketman Race Report

This was my first attempt at a half-ironman distance triathlon. Holly made me promise to do one with her since she had run Comrades back to back with me. I thought that was a fair trade, and we started looking around for a race to do together. I looked at a few in the Philippines figuring that would be a nice place for a destination race, but most of them were either sold out or had rather hilly bike courses. For the most part, I've got nothing against hills but they're really tough to train for on a turbo trainer in my living room. Unless I upgrade my trainer. The fancier ones have an electronic mechanism that apparently will adjust the resistance of the trainer to simulate climbing hills. Food for thought if I continue this triathlon adventure beyond the end of next year and am assigned to another garden spot. Anyway, back to the search for races...Holly found one in Croatia with no date attached other than TBD 2016. Finally, at some point after Comrades this summer, while going up and down various Internet rabbit holes, I stumbled across a race called Rocketman. After a quick read of their web site, I knew this was our race. It's small, flat, and only 25 minutes from Heather's house in Florida at a time when I already had tickets to go visit. Plus it's held at the freaking Kennedy Space Center and has rockets for medals! What's not to like?

With the entry fee paid, it was time to get started on the training. With recovery from Comrades plus my general post-major-event-laziness coupled with a dive trip to Indonesia in July, it was probably early August before I began training again. Thanks to an email or two from Mary expressing her concern for my ability to finish, I got my ass in gear and got serious. Erbil was a pretty crappy place to train for Comrades because all of my runs were on a treadmill, but it's not quite as bad for tri training. The pool is designed for splashing around, but it's 20m long and not bad for lap swimming early in the morning. As mentioned above, my bike is on a trainer in the living room, so while I don't improve my bike handling skills any, I also don't fall off and get to watch lots of movies and TV shows. The treadmill is still the treadmill, but I can handle a two hours on one much better than the three or three-plus hours that Comrades required.

Over the next few months, I realized why people (usually spouses, I think) complain how expensive this sport is. Not that I spent a ton of money, but a little bit here on a front-mounted water bottle (the best purchase I made since I have minimal control of the bike on the road when I try to pull a bottle out of a cage), a little bit there for a set of Flo wheels, and a new top and shorts all made it look like Christmas when I arrived in Florida 10 days before the race. Side note: on the subject of traveling home, Emirates now has a flight direct to Orlando from Dubai, making life so much easier. Too bad they didn't start that flight four years ago when we first moved to the Gulf.

One of the race sponsors is Bob's Bicycle Shop in Indian Harbor, about 20 minutes south of Heather. I brought my bike in the day after I arrived so they could install my new wheels and race tires, give it a tune-up, and have it ready for the race. Really nice little shop with great service. They had the bike ready the next day, giving me over a week to practice out on the road.

Doesn't it look nice all cleaned up with new race kit?

I got in a 50-mile ride the weekend before the race and a couple of shorter rides during the week, enough time to make me not confident in my biking skills - that's a long way off - but at least semi-comfortable that I could make it through the race without hurting myself or anyone else. I also learned that cranking up your heart rate the last 20-30 minutes before getting off the bike and going for a run does not lead to a very successful or enjoyable run. In my defense, I was trying to hit 50 miles in the time Mary gave me for my workout because I'd never gone that far in one ride before.

Holly flew in on Friday from Houston, and after she put her bike together that night, we dug into our favorite end-of-the-week meal: pizza and champagne. It's a tradition that began when Heather and I would go visit her in Dubai. We'd stop in duty free on the way out of the airport to buy wine and champagne for her (it's the cheapest place in Dubai to get it) and always end up having a bottle or two with a pizza for dinner that night. We've been doing ever since. It might not be the most nutritious meal, but it works.

Saturday, we went out for a quick ride and run before heading up to the race site to pick up our packets and check in our bikes. All the lines were short except for the one to purchase a one-day membership for the national triathlon organization. People had been waiting in that one for ages because the race organizers couldn't find the forms. I gave up after 15 minutes, whipped out my phone, and paid for the full year membership online. Score one for modern technology, although it still irks me that I had to pay anything at all. One more reason to prefer running: there's no individual fee to a nebulous national body. The rest of the day was spent having a beer or two while watching college football, checking lists and packing everything into a bag for the race, and having a light pasta, pesto, and garlic bread dinner. I'm sure there was a salad in there too. Unlike me, Holly has a salad with dinner almost every night. I get mine at lunch at the restaurant at work.

Of course, as is common before a big race, I had a hard time getting to sleep. I wasn't nervous like I was before Comrades, but I did wonder in the back of my mind how I was going to do. I knew I'd be able to finish one way to another, and felt fairly sure I'd be under the stated time limit of seven hours. I think I was mostly questioning my ability to swim the 1.2 miles. I've swum that distance or more in the pool quite often, but in open water during an event? Never.

Hanging out in transition before the start

Like with most races, Dublin and Stockholm excepted, the alarm went off way too early. I straggled out of bed and wandered into the kitchen to eat a Clif bar. Mary wants me to eat something three hours before a big race, but a Clif bar when I wake up is about all I can handle. I have a hard time eating first thing in the morning. I did manage to follow my liquid fueling plan and sipped on a bottle of Powerade Zero while driving to the race. We arrived at 535 and found a parking spot with no trouble at all. We seemed to have arrived right after the early birds and right before the masses because there was no line at body marking or chip pick-up either. With both of those activities out of the way, I set about pumping my tires and setting up my gear. I hit the porta potty, talked with my parents, and stalled as long as I could before stuffing myself into my wetsuit. Wetsuits are never flattering in the base case, ones designed for tri swims even less so, and the extra pounds I was carrying didn't help matters either. Good thing Holly and my dad were there to help with the zipper. Before too long, we heard the call for the half distance people to line up for the swim, and off we went.

The entrance to the swim was down a narrow set of stairs to the water. There were only three waves for the half (men under 45, men over 45, and all women), less than 250 people in total, starting four minutes apart. In order to alleviate crowding on the stairs, they sent the first wave into the water, kept us on the stairs, and had the women wait at the top until we went into the water.

One of those green caps is me

Finally, the first wave started and they let us into the water. I began the walk out to the start buoy with the water barely getting over my knees. The river was much shallower than I expected. We could walk for a good portion of the swim (and had to in several areas where you'd touch bottom with your hand while swimming) and touch our feet down to catch our breath if we needed to. Which I did once or twice. The swim was missing the argy bargy kicking and hitting that are common in larger races. We were able to spread out easily, and I had no real issues with being kicked or hit by other people. With 15-20 knot winds, the chop was pretty stiff and not something I was prepared for. I swallowed a lot of water heading out to the first buoy. The second leg was better as we were a a less severe angle to the waves, and third leg was a fast combination of swimming and body surfing back to shore. Glancing at my watch as I reached the shallows and could walk faster than swim, the numbers looking back at me were 19:xx. I'm a decent swimmer, but I am nowhere near that fast. I chalked it up to good fortune and went on my way up the stairs to the wetsuit strippers and T1.

When I reached my bike, I took my time to make sure I went through things calmly and carefully. I washed the dirt off my feet to make sure there was nothing under my sock that would cause blisters later, put on some sunscreen (missed more than a few places I found out later in the shower), and prepared to head out. I kept checking to see if Holly was close behind so we could bike together. With the course being shorter than expected and the four minute gap between our starts, it would've been hard for her to catch up, so off I went.

Heading out of T1

The bike course was in the Merritt Island Nature Preserve and on the ground of the Kennedy Space Center. Aside from a small drawbridge and a few on and off ramps, it was about as flat as you can get. I really, really liked the bike leg. I know, I know, I'm not a cyclist and never will be, but it really was a blast. Not a huge fan of the wind, though. Zooming along at 25-30 mph in the tailwind was great fun. Crawling along at 14 in the headwind? Not so much. I especially enjoyed the benefits of an aerodynamic tri bike. Blowing past people upwind and downwind sure kept me motivated the whole way around.

Right after leaving transition. Not entirely comfortable on the road.

The guy I enjoyed passing the most was on a bike with 90mm rims in front and a disc wheel in the back. I'm sure he would've dusted me in calm weather, but in the wind, he didn't stand a chance of keeping his bike under control. I wonder why he didn't change to rims with less windage. It's not like the breeze was a surprise. It was blowing all day on Friday and Saturday, and the forecast wasn't any better for Sunday. Anyway, we had a good chat as we approached one of the u-turns together, and then I was gone.

Taken about 6 miles after the first one.
I almost look like I know what I'm doing.

I started in with fluids at 15 min as per Mary's plan. My bike was loaded with three bottles filled with a mix of Powerade and Powerade Zero, and I emptied all of them by the time I was done. I grabbed a bottle of Gatorade at mile 48 and drank maybe 1/4 of it too. There was supposed to be an initial bottle exchange at mile 14, but I never saw it. I did see the guys from Bob's out there helping people fix flats and deal with other mechanical issues. Really nice of them to spend the day riding around to make sure we all made it back in one piece.

I ate 1/4 of a Clif bar (thanks to Holly for the great idea to cut them into little pieces the night before) at each of my feeding times. About 20 minutes before I got off the bike, I had two Clif bloks to get ready for the run since I was tired of the bars. I also swallowed a salt tab every hour. I probably should have had more had I bothered to look at how much salt was accumulating on my shorts and sleeves. The temperature was not all that hot, thankfully, or things could have been a lot worse.

I only nearly killed myself once or twice during the 56 miles, usually when I was trying to wipe the sweat off my face or grab one of the bottles out of its cage. Damn twitchy tri bikes. Otherwise, my bike handling was decent. I stayed in aero the whole time except for when I sat up to open the bag and get something to eat. Parts of the course were so extremely rough, I felt like my fillings were going to fall out. The out and back to the north gate of the KSC was the worst. Carbon bikes with race tires do not seem to be very forgiving. My wrists, neck, and shoulders really got sore from being so tense on that stretch of road. Biking through the rest of the Space Center was really fun, though. I loved seeing the assembly building, the Space-X building, and all the other NASA stuff they have on site there. I even managed to look at the camera for the iconic race picture.

Smiling for the camera while plodding upwind.
Small improvement in bike handling skills.

The last few hundred meters of the bike got a little interesting. We had to make a sharp lefthand turn across the road where the runners were heading out for their last leg. I wanted to keep a decent speed so they could get back to running (they were held up while we crossed), but I also wanted to slow down enough to be able to dismount without falling over or crossing the dismount line on my bike. Fortunately, I survived and had no issues, but I bet there's a huge spike on my HR monitor at that point in time.

Once in T2, I was a man possessed. I racked my bike, changed my shoes, grabbed my number belt, put on my visor, and left as fast as I could. No, this wasn't because I was racing. I had to pee. Bad. Those three bottles of fluid and the brackish swim water went right through me. I really really had to go while on the bike but wasn't going to stop. Thankfully, there was a bank of porta potties right before the timing mat that starts the run with no line. Two minutes and half my transition time later, I was on my way.

The first mile or two of the run were good. My legs felt like jelly but were turning over a good quick pace. I ate a gel after 20 minutes or so, and that's when my day started going downhill. My stomach wasn't thrilled with that, and I didn't have anything else except fluids the rest of the run. I ran between the water stops, and walked for a bit after each one. I hoped by doing this that I would a) start feeling better, and b) let Holly catch up so we could run together. I began to feel better once I stopped drinking Gatorade and used just ice water. Thankfully, the aid stations between miles 5 and 9 had Coke so I drank a cup at each one. That really made me feel better. The pain of chafing in places that should never chafe prompted me to take two salt tabs at the mile 7 water stop. Apparently the water I'd been pouring over my head coupled with the ice melting down my shirt mixed with the large amount of salt dried on my shorts to create a really uncomfortable mess.

Holly caught up at mile 10 and we ran the rest of the way together. She knew my first half was rough when we saw each other on the out & back and ran faster so she'd reach me. She's a great running spouse.

Overall, I had a great time. I still can't believe how much I enjoyed the bike. Maybe that's because I loved passing people. Tri bikes sure do make a difference. I am sure I could've gone faster on the bike and pushed more during the run, but my main goal was to finish upright and happy. Mission accomplished.

The medal is a miniature Saturn V rocket!

Results:
Swim:  19:23
T1:  4:10
Bike:  3:10
T2:  5:19
Run:  2:25
Total:  6:04



Postscript: Thanks to my parents for some of these pictures and for volunteering during the event. It was pretty funny to hear the race announcer say "John Senger, hurry up and finish. Your mother is looking for you." as I approached the line. Turns out they had missed seeing me come in on the bike and weren't sure where I was. Mom was the person holding back the runners as we crossed in front of them and Dad stood at the dismount line so we knew where to stop. How all three of us missed seeing each other is beyond me.

P.P.S. I'm really glad I have this picture of Holly and me at the finish. It came in handy on my way back to Iraq. Due to a flight cancellation by Emirates, I had to fly from Dubai to Amman to get a Royal Jordanian flight to Erbil. While going through transit security, my medal was confiscated by one of the officers. He tried to tell me it was forbidden because it looked like a weapon. I think he just wanted to take it home for himself or his kids. I protested and argued and pleaded my case with him and four other people, using up over twenty minutes of my one hour connection time. Finally, when talking to the head guy who came out from the central office at the other side of the airport, I explained again what the medal was from and showed him this picture of us at the end of the race. He relented, handed me the ribbon, and I was on my way straight to the gate. The race sent out an email the other day offering to let finishers buy one of the leftover medals. If I knew how to reach the guy who first grabbed my medal, I'd forward him the email and offer to bring one back for him.

Comrades 2015 Race Report

Ange, one of my coaches, asked me to write a race report again this year. This one won't be as involved or as long as last year's, but I'll provide as much detail and color commentary as I can. First, before we get to race day, let's have a look at what was in store for us.

That's pretty much a marathon straight uphill followed by a marathon on seriously rolling hills followed by a few kilometers of down and up to the finish. And of course, the cartoon profile provided by Comrades doesn't really show you how steep and nasty all those climbs really are. Here's the chart from my Garmin for comparison. 

But that's getting ahead of ourselves. Let's turn back time to the day after last year's race. There we were, hanging out at Joe Cool's in Durban, having a few beers (okay, more than a few) to celebrate having conquered Comrades. Everything was all fun and games until our South African friends heard us expressing our relief at being able to cross the race off the bucket list. "Not so fast," they said. "You haven't really done Comrades until you've done it back to back in both directions. It really is a different race going down vs up." And with that, the seed was planted. By the time registration opened a few months later, there was no real question about if we were going to run again or not. Erin was certainly going to be back so she could get revenge on the course after finishing but not making the cutoff in 2014. Holly and I knew that since she was going, we were too, and Holly even managed to talk Desiree, one of her friends in Houston, into coming along as well. I was the last one to sign up, I think, mostly because I had some reservations about being able to train properly while living in Erbil. I hate treadmills in the base case and was not at all looking forward to having to do all my training indoors.

Fast forward a few months, and training wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, mostly because I got to spend time in Dubai instead of Erbil. I did have a few months of hours-long runs on a treadmill on both weekend days, though, and that certainly wasn't any fun. I only made it through by watching episodes of Game of Thrones. I'd watch one, stop to change my shirt and refuel, watch another, etc., etc. Thankfully, I managed to schedule a business trip to Houston at the end of April that allowed me to get my last three weekends of back-to-back long runs done outside and with other people. The peak weekend of 24 and 16 would've been really tough to do in the gym at the Divan.

About three weeks before the race, the race organizers (the Comrades Marathon Association) announced that due to road construction in Pinetown, the course would be 877 meters longer than the usual up-run course. Personally, I don't see much difference in running 86.9 km and 87.7 km, but I was clearly in the minority. The online moaning and wailing and gnashing of teeth was astounding. People were panicking about not being able to pace properly, how the extra distance would impact their strategy, and even going to far as to ask the CMA to extend the time limit for the race beyond 12 hours. All that fussing over an extra 8 seconds per mile. That's nothing more than a few minutes more running and less walking over the course of a 12-hour day. Nothing for us mere mortals to worry about, though it did cost the female winner a few hundred thousand dollars. She missed the course record by three minutes. 

As race day approached, I was much more scared and nervous than I was last year. I knew what was coming (see those lovely course maps above) and also knew I wasn't as well prepared as last year. I had done all my workouts, but my overall mileage was down and I didn't have Heather's yoga classes to build my core and leg strength, two things absolutely critical for running uphill. Holly hadn't trained too well either thanks to a stress fracture in her foot that kept her from running most of the spring, though she got plenty of swimming and biking in to make up for it. Sitting on the plane from Dubai to Durban, I had some doubts as I whether I'd make it the whole way or not. I was most worried about getting to the top of Field's Hill and then to the halfway point. Three out of the five big and named hills are in the first half of the race, and I was afraid they'd suck so much energy out of me that I wouldn't have anything left for the rest. Thankfully, copious amounts of champagne banished those thoughts to another day.

Friday morning, we all met up for our traditional 5k run along the water in Durban followed by breakfast at Circus Circus. While taking pictures after we ate, we were approached by a team from the local paper asking us if we were running on Sunday and if they could ask us a few questions and take some pictures. The next day, we woke up to our smiling faces on the front page of the paper!

After breakfast, the expo beckoned. We grabbed our packets, did some shopping, found our names on the wall of entrants, and hung out for a little while in the International area. I felt bad for the poor security volunteers who had to keep kicking one of the local running clubs out of the area. They certainly knew better but kept coming back in over and over again. I'm sure all they wanted was a place to sit down and to have some coffee, coke, or water. Lots of the people running Comrades can barely afford the entry fee and a place to stay the nights before the race, so we left most of the stuff from our goodie bags on the table for them. They need the granola bars and energy drink powders and other stuff much more than we do.

Hanging out with Holly, Erin, and Desiree at the apartment after the expo made me feel much better about the race. None of us felt completely confident, but as a group, we were all certain we'd get to the starting line and find a way to finish. Nerves and anxiety were giving way to the normal pre-race excitement and anticipation. We talked about our plan for the hills (run/walk at 3 minute/1 minute intervals), our fueling (bring on the salted potatoes!), and our bio breaks (when one stops, we all stop). There wasn't much talk about the weather because we knew it was going to be warm and sunny. We didn't do much on Saturday either - pancake breakfast at Circus Circus (along with dozens of other runners), lounging around the apartment, and one last dinner of pizza and pasta before heading to our room in Durban for the night. Staying in Durban the night before the race was one of Holly's more brilliant decisions this year. Being able to sleep in a few extra minutes and simply walk to the start sure beats having to drive in and deal with traffic.

I woke up Sunday morning not feeling very rested. Desiree says I slept pretty well, but it sure didn't seem that way to me. After a Clif bar for a snack, some Powerade to wash it down, and half a dozen trips to the bathroom, it was time to get moving. I put on my racing outfit, threw a Qatar Airways PJ top over my head to keep warm on the walk to the start, grabbed my fuel belt and drop bag, and away we went. Ten minutes later, we arrived at bag drop just outside the corrals. Holly and I had the purple numbers signifying that we were international runners (foreign runners get their own tent and bag check area at the finish), but somehow Kim, Erin, and Desiree never got them at the expo. The guys at the truck handed them yellow numbers, and no matter how much he claimed otherwise, we knew their bags were going to end up in the general tent and not the international one. Not much we could do about it at that point, so we handed over the bags and entered our corral.

Kim and I opted for the first visit to the porta-potty while the others stayed behind and watched our stuff. When we got back, the other three left while we kept an eye on everything and kept people from crowding into our spot. With a strict 12-hour gun-to-gun cutoff time, there's a strong desire to get as close to the front of your corral as possible, and people will squeeze into whatever space is available. Somehow through the noise of the crowd, I heard Holly yelling for me from outside the fence. Kim and I grabbed all of our belts and belongings and ran over to see what the problem was. "They won't let us in the gate! Security won't let us in!" Holly was a little panicked, as were the rest of us, and it didn't help that right at the moment, they dropped the ropes between the corrals and thousands of people surged forward like at a general admission rock concert. Fortunately, she was able to pry apart two sections of the fence, and they all squeezed in next to us. Some calming breaths later, we shuffled forward with the crowd and began to look forward to the pomp and circumstance of the start. Even after experiencing it last year, the singing of the national anthem and Shosholoza, the playing of Chariots of Fire, and the recording of the cock crows still gave me goosebumps. By far the best atmosphere at the start of any race I've ever done. You can see for yourself in this video starting around the 30:00 mark.

Bang! And we were off. Okay, not exactly off because we still had to make our way to the line, but our watches were running. Four minutes later, we were running! Another four minutes later, we were not running, as the 12,000 people in front of us ground to a halt. The roads in Durban are much wider than those in PMB, but we sure seemed to do a lot more stopping and starting this year. In order to keep an eye on each other, we quickly fell into a system where you'd raise your hand over your head if you wanted to find out where everyone else was. Empty hands while dodging around people or spreading out on the hills, full hands with water sachets to pass back and forth - this worked really well all day. 

The first few miles were really crowded. The hills were just steep enough to keep people from running too fast but not steep enough yet to separate the runners from the run/walkers from the walkers. We held ourselves in check (not much choice, really) and ran along mostly in silence. We'd laugh at something here and there, but most of what we said was "are we all together?" and "do we have everyone?" I felt okay, not a really good sign this early in such a long race. By the time we passed over the top of Cowie's Hill, the first of the big five, I could already tell that the hills were going to wear me out. Thankfully, one of us needed a nature break heading through Pinetown shortly thereafter and I was able to catch my breath for a few minutes.

After turning the corner to begin the long climb up Field's Hill, Desiree and Kim steadily moved ahead of us. They were off to a great start so we wished them well and sent them on their way. Their training had obviously been better than ours, and it wouldn't be fair to hold them back. Erin, Holly, and I kept on plugging away and eventually reached the top. This was one of the big milestones I had in my mind since it's the longest climb in the race, but the mental boost I expected never materialized. Just the opposite happened. I began to lose confidence and get depressed thinking about how much farther we had to go and how much energy I'd already felt drain away. I was exhausted and still had 40 miles to go. Seeing Erin and Holly out in front of me didn't help any either. Not that I wanted to beat them. I'm as competitive as they come, but I do have my limits. No, this was more of a realization that I was struggling and they weren't, and that just made me feel worse. A few more miles of this seemed to take forever. I knew I had to do something or else I wasn't going to make it to the end. I grabbed Holly and told her that she absolutely had to stay with me, right on my shoulder, until I came out of my funk. She agreed without hesitation and reminded me that we were in this together no matter what. I'd like to say that hearing this from my running spouse was all it took to snap me back to normal, but that'd be a lie. Another hour or so passed before I was happy and cheerful once again.

The three of us soldiered on up Botha's Hill (one of the steepest climbs of the day) and down into the halfway point at Drummond. We managed to pick up our pace pretty well on the first real downhill stretch of the race thus far. Once again, it was a huge success that we crossed halfway (5:29) before the winner finished the race (5:38).  Our excitement and enjoyment of the easy running was short-lived, though. Inchanga starts not even half a mile later and is a bitch of a climb (2 miles at 6%) even when you don't already have a marathon on your legs. By this point, we'd given up on our strict run/walk intervals and had moved to "run when we can and walk when we must," as Holly put it. For Inchanga, that meant mostly walking with some slow running (me) and power walking (Holly). Finally, with 30 miles behind us, we reached the top, and I knew I was going to finish. I'd told myself before we started that if we could get to the top of Inchanga in under 6:30, we'd have 5:30 to make it through the last 25 miles with nearly all of the climbing behind us. We crested in 5:56.

We cruised down the back and made our way to Harrison Flats. Don't let the name fool you. Harrison Flats is not flat. It's rolling hills that felt as much uphill this year as they did last year. About this point in the race, we got passed by a huge 11:30 bus (they call the pace groups over here "buses") and fell in behind them for a little while. They had a nice routine of running a few minutes followed by a short walk break, but they were going way too fast for their expected finish time. We fell back and let them go, as did a lot of other people around us. Either our math was wrong (after last year's debacle that wasn't entirely out of the question) or theirs was, and it wasn't worth the risk to find out. [side note: they were way off and finished in 11:12. I'm sure a lot of people blew up and had trouble even coming in under 12 because of that.]

Running along towards Cato Ridge, Erin began drifting back slightly and then catching up to us as we slowed down to wait for her. Like last year, she was having a hard time getting a full deep breath. Holly and I started to have the conversation that no one running with their friends likes to have - how long do we stay back with Erin before leaving her and running our own race? Knowing how she didn't make the cutoff time last year and not wanting to see her miss out again made our decision all that more difficult, but in the end, we knew we had to move on. To her credit, Erin knew what we were thinking and asked us if we wanted to keep going before we could bring it up. I gave her a huge hug, cried a little, and told her we'd see her at the finish. 

Holly and I settled into an easy pace as the miles ticked by. By the time we hit the Lion Park timing mat, we knew we weren't going to be sub-11 but were certainly going to be sub-12. We crossed in 9:03, leaving us just under three hours to travel the last 11 miles. Not wanting to cut it quite that close, we decided to try to keep ourselves under 14 min/mile so we had plenty of time to spare if the wheels completely fell off down the road. No problems with math this year.

About half an hour later, approaching the chicken farms, we ran into James's friend Carl. He was struggling a bit running by himself and was more than happy to join us for the last bit to PMB. With the pressure of chasing sub-11 long gone, we ran and walked and talked and enjoyed ourselves as best we could. Finally, we hit Little Polly's. It's not one of the big five named hills, but rather gets its name from the fact that people often mistake it for the real Polly Shortts. Polly's is steeper, longer, and closer to the end, making Little Polly's just a teaser for what's left to come. There were some terrific spectators along this stretch. Not that the ones we saw during the previous 50 miles weren't good too, but one group here really was wonderful. I stopped to ask them if they had any sunblock I could use, and instead of having me stand there and wait while they found it, they told me to keep going and they'd bring it to me. "You need to keep moving. No wasting time!" they said. Sure enough, about 20 seconds later, one of the women came running up to me with a bottle and sprayed some in my hands and on my face. Now that's the spirit of Comrades that people always talk about.

At last it was time to tackle Polly's. It's not the biggest hill in the race, but it sure is the most difficult. Climbing 400 feet in barely more than a mile when you've already run 50 miles is just awful. Holly was the only one of the three of us to be thankful to be going uphill. She developed a huge blister on her toe coming down Little Polly's and going up took the pressure off of it for a little while. Coming down the other side wasn't too enjoyable for her, requiring her to tread gently and take it easy. We had plenty of time to spare, so going slowly wasn't a concern. We had to, really, since the last five miles have a lot more up and down in them than we thought. At the top of one little bump, we could see big banks of lights up ahead and started looking forward to seeing the stadium. How wrong we were. Those lights were for the rugby field about two miles out of town. 

Finally, we made the last big right turn into Pietermaritzburg and knew we were almost there. A quick left brought us right to the stadium with cheering fans lining the road the whole way. This was a much more enjoyable finishing stretch than coming into Durban on the highway and running through the commercial center. That was pretty empty, but the people in PMB turned out in force. We stopped walking and started running as soon as we approached the stadium. I have a personal rule to always run the last mile of a race, or in the case of this Comrades, the last half mile. Coming through the tunnel and onto the grass wasn't as emotional a moment for me as it was last year. I was just happy to have beaten the damn course and made it to the end. It was Holly's turn to tear up a bit as she waved to her parents and we made the final turn to the line. Fists pumping and arms raised in celebration, we crossed the line in 11:21. You can see the video here.  

We hobbled over to the international tent, got our bags, and collapsed on the ground. I was absolutely freezing, shaking so hard I threw up a few times. Lovely, I know. I'm really glad Holly's parents were there to help us with food and drinks because I wasn't going anywhere for a while.

I stopped feeling sick and cold once I saw Erin come "walking" up. She made it! One of her friends from Doha grabbed her along the way and wouldn't let her not finish. She was as happy as I've ever seen someone at the end of a race, tears of joy running down her face. She also had really bad leg cramps and had to be taken to the medical tent, but let's focus on the positive, shall we? 

Getting the medal for finishing was great, of course, but getting that extra medal for going back to back is what made it all worthwhile. Now I've done it both ways and never have to do it again. I'll certainly never do it again while I'm living in Erbil. There's no way to get the proper training in when  I'm not allowed outside. 

A few quick words on fueling and hydration because I know Mary and Ange want to hear about it. I used much the same approach as last year - fuel every hour, salt tab every hour, and water as often as I felt I needed it. I started out with gels and bloks for the first few hours until salted potatoes started being handed out by the race or by the spectators. I only had to take one or two more gels the rest of the way because there were enough potato stops to get me through. I drank a lot of water this year, much more than last year. Even drinking two or three sachets at each water stop, I could feel myself getting dehydrated around mile 25 and was thankful to get back to a better level a few hours later. It's never good to feel goosebumps on your legs when you're running in warm sunny weather. I didn't have any of the Energade sports drink available at the aid stations. To me, the stuff tastes foul, so I got my electrolytes from the salt tabs. I also drank a lot of Coke. Holly made me start drinking it when I was feeling nauseous and didn't want to eat anything. It might be horrible for you, but it sure is great ultra fuel, even if it wasn't flat like I've had in the past.

Comrades - Training, Pacing, and Fueling

Training
My training plan was developed by my friend and coach Mary Holt-Wilson of TriMoxie. She blended the plan from Hal Higdon that I used when I ran the Rocky Raccoon 50-mile trail run in 2006 with the official one from the Comrades web site, and added her own ideas to create one that suited me and my schedule. The primary focus was using back-to-back long runs on the weekend to build endurance and get me used too running on tired legs. Mileage built from 40 miles a week for most of January, February and March to 50-55 miles a week in April and early May, with the long runs typically 2.5-3.5 hours on Friday and 2-3 hours on Saturday. My peak long run week was the first week of May and culminated with 2 hours on Thursday and 4 hours on Friday. Monday and Wednesday were usually easy runs of an hour or so, Tuesday was up to an hour and a half including 30-40 minutes of hill repeats, and Sunday and Thursday were rest days.

Three races formed an important part of my training. First up was the Dubai marathon in January. I used that as my official qualifier for Comrades (everyone must run a marathon under five hours in order to be an official Comrades entrant), and while I didn't hit the 3:45 I was hoping for, my time of 4:05 is still pretty good. Next up was the Wadi Bih 50k run in early February, 25 km up a mountain in Oman and then back down. Great practice for fueling, running on rolling terrain, and climbing and ascending steep hills, not to mention getting accustomed to running long distances. The third race was a 50k night race here in Doha in early March. It was 10 laps of a 5 km loop on cobblestones, only good for fueling, mental toughness, and running long distances when tired, which, really, are things you need to be good at when doing something like Comrades.

My monthly mileage was:
Jan - 128
Feb - 105
Mar - 143 (including ten days of no running while on vacation)
Apr - 205
May - 146

Another key component of my training was yoga. I took classes several times a week, the most important ones of which were my wife Heather's on Monday and Wednesday nights. She develops a new lesson plan for each class and always incorporates a lot of core work and hip flexibility/stretching poses, two things that were absolutely critical for me a) getting to the starting line injury-free, and b) getting across the finish line without having that feeling of total exhaustion, the one that comes when your core gets overworked and tired, at any point during the race.

Pacing
My plan for the race was pretty simple: run at a comfortable pace whenever possible, walk or power walk the steeper hills when necessary, and be gentle on the downhills to protect my quads for later. The plan worked beyond my wildest dreams. I never felt exhausted, never hit the kind of low points that I did during Two Oceans last year, and ran a very strong second half of the race. Here are my placings at the timing mats during the race. I'm thrilled with how steady I stayed while much of the field was slowing down around me. Nice to see that I ran all of the second half intervals faster than the many of the people who finished in front of me. Being conservative at the beginning paid huge dividends at the end. I'm also extremely proud of the basically even split for the race. 5:17 for the first half and 5:23 for the second is pretty damn good. Most of those 426 people I passed in the last 7 km were in the 11-hour bus.

location	time	speed	o/a	sex	cat	split	speed	o/a	sex	cat	time of day
17,50 km Lion Park	2:00:18	6:53 min/km	8128	7158	2639	2:00:18	6:53 min/km	8263	7265	2680	07:30:19
44,97 km Halfway	5:17:23	7:04 min/km	8754	7530	2770	3:17:06	7:11 min/km	9181	7716	2819	10:47:24
58,27 km Winston Park	6:58:07	7:11 min/km	7786	6679	2452	1:40:44	7:35 min/km	5628	4710	1718	12:28:07
71,00 km Cowies Hill	8:25:30	7:08 min/km	6797	5837	2130	1:27:24	6:52 min/km	3946	3356	1201	13:55:31
82,28 km Mayville	9:52:01	7:12 min/km	6414	5471	2020	1:26:31	7:41 min/km	4645	3803	1421	15:22:01
89,28 km Durban	10:40:14	7:11 min/km	5988	5113	1899	48:14	6:54 min/km	3677	3087	1149	16:10:15

Fueling
I began to focus on my fueling a week before the race, slowly reducing my intake of the spicy foods I love to eat and replacing them with bland and easy to digest carbs. Friday was a big breakfast after our easy morning run; chicken enchilada and rice for lunch; Italian for dinner (foccacia, calimari, ham, pasta, pesto, etc.).
Saturday - huge breakfast of pancakes, bacon, sausage, and toast. Light-ish dinner of pasta and potatoes. Lots of water and Powerade all day. Two tablets of high-test Imodium in the latter half of the day.
Sunday - Clif bar and half a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast at 3am, along with one last Imodium. I sipped Powerade until getting in the shuttle at 4. I started out with a gel and a salt tab every hour. 1-2 sachets of water at each water stop starting around 10-15 km. Only 1-2 sachets of Energade the whole race (it’s pretty foul compared to Powerade and Gatorade). I grabbed salted potatoes whenever I found them being offered by the aid stations or by the spectators along the route. 2-3 water sachets per water stop the second half of the race (stops along the entire route were ~2 km apart). I took another salt tab and a gel or 3 bloks if an hour had gone by without any potatoes. I had to stop to pee twice (10-15 km in and maybe 70 km in) and use the porta-potty once (at 30 km or so). Along with my conservative pacing strategy, my fueling plan helped keep me strong through the end of the race. I was tired, of course, but never felt like I had run out of energy in my body, mind, or legs.