The Venue: Grand Coulee, WA
The Race: Grand Columbian ironman-distance realy
I asked my sister over a year ago if she had any desire to do the swim portion of an ironman race. I would ride and we'd find a runner. She was completely into the idea and when my cousin said he would run, we had a team. We were "Team SPT" (splash / pedal / trot)!! I picked the venue of the Grand Columbian because, well actually, I'm not 100% sure why anymore. It's a small, independent race and had a similar vibe to Silverman (except even smaller!) and they offered a relay division so that was it. And later I found out it was on my cousin's b-day so it was meant to be.
I had done some course review from the info on-line and the bike course really didn't look all that bad to me. The site had the course mapped out at 3,967' climbing. My long rides in San Diego mostly consist of 5,000' or more of climbing, so I figured I was good with hill training. So for the months leading up to the race, I made my own make-shift bike training plan (note to self: you're no good at creating your own training plans...). I did long rides on the weekend, and did indoor trainer rides during the week. I wasn't swimming due to my injured shoulder and I was running only 30 minutes at a time 4-5 days / week. I was actually enjoying life and going out and having fun. Woe is me!
The race was on a Saturday and on Thursday we all got emails that the wild fires in the area were threatening to force the race director to cancel the event. A decision would be made Friday. On Friday, we got another email saying things were generally OK and we were good to go. I drove the bike course Friday with my mom and sister. And my thoughts of "this won't be too bad" diminished in the first 10 miles of the ride. There's a long 2 mile climb from T1 out to the main road. No big problems there, just starting out slow. Then at about mile 5 there's basically a cliff you have to ride over to get to where most of the ride takes place. It's about 3-4 miles, grades ranging from 6% to 10% with some switchbacks. After that, you do about 70 miles of rolling hills, false flats, headwinds and the only thing to look at is fields of wheat. But at mile 80 you hit the scenic part of the ride and go north along Banks Lake and it's mostly flat.... oh except a headwind is guaranteed and then finally at mile 110 you hit the fun descent to the base of the Grand Coulee dam.
Friday afternoon we met up with my cousin and family and got our race logistics down. We went to the grocery store to get food to make our own pre-race dinner in the "motel". Chef Jenny took chargeon the food front. I proceeded to get flu like symptoms (fever and achy) and wonder why I seem to be 2 for 2 on getting sick the day before the race. I hit the sack around 7:30 PM.
Saturday we woke up early and thankfully I felt much better. Let's do this, y'all! I said goodbye's to Jenny as she wandered down to the lake to get ready. I hung out at transition and tried to keep warm and do some stretching. The swim was two loops, so my mom said she'd come tell me when Jenny was starting her 2nd loop so I'd know when to be ready. Well, she was done in about 30 minutes. Crikey - guess I better be ready! Nothing like doing your first ironman-distance swim in an hour! I saw Jenny run up towards transition and we hugged, exchanged the chip, took some pics and I was off. I made it out on the main road and up and over the "cliff" (which turned out wasn't *too* bad. Made it through the miles and miles of rolling fields of wheat. One thing I noticed was my Garmin registered 3,900' of climbing right around mile 40. WTF - I've got 70 miles left to ride and I know it's not all flat! Oh well, carry on.
My mom, sis and cousins were waiting for me at strategic places for photo ops and cheering. Thank God because the race was even more desolate than anything I've ever done before - and I've done some lonely rides.....). I got to mile 80-ish all happy to finally get to some scenery and flat road, but the headwind kept me from going very fast. And also every little hump of a hill felt like a freaking mountain because of all the climbing so early in the race. But Mile 110 was ahead and I could finally descend the long curvy road to T2. I rolled in right around 6hrs 25 min later. Might I mention that from about mile 50 to the end of the ride all I kept thinking was how happy I was I didn't have to run after this. How I ever trained for Ironman, I have no idea... At any rate, chip exchange with my cousin, more photos and I was finally on vacation! Matt went out for his run and we tried to
watch / cheer. But most of the run was in a secure area of the Grand Coulee dam and people weren't allowed down there. So, that sort of...sucked. But we manged to get in some strategic places for cheering and bring him in for the finish! Team SPT was in just under 12 1/2 hours. Woooooo!
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