Matt Musiak’s race report for Ironman Louisville
Just some thoughts and strategy for each section of the course.
Swim: My first recommendation in the swim is don’t drink the water, it is murky and warm. On the boat dock where you jump in, there is a sign that states “Don’t Touch The Water, Contains Sewer Effluent”, which I guess is a fancy way of saying there is poo in the water. The time trial start wasn’t too bad, although having that many people go at once leads to choke points, especially at the first turn around, so either be prepared to swing wide and add time, or clobber your way through the mob near the buoy. I showed up to the staging area around 5:50am and was about 1000 people back in the line. People in the front of the line must have been in transition at 4:45 when it opened and down to staging at 5am. The major problem with the time trial start is even though a competitor has 2 hours and 20 minutes to finish the swim, they only have 17 hours for the whole race. This creates a situation where the weak swimmers want to be the first in the water to get the maximum amount of time and the stronger swimmers end up having to pass all of them. I started 30 minutes after the first person in. We had a delay of 7 minutes while one racer made the jump to T3. Unfortunately they didn’t make it, a combination of a heart attack, high exertion, and water temperature (84 deg). My strategy was to stay out of the swim line by swimming just to the left of the buoys, where the people were less numerous. No penalties were being given for being on the wrong side of the buoys, since just about 25% of the field was doing it, although they did get cranky as you got into the last 0.5 miles. I used the Blue Seventy suit for the first time since the water was way too hot for a wetsuit. From a swimmer’s perspective, I found it to be comfortable and didn’t have many rub marks around my neck or arms.
Transition: The run from the swim finish to the changing tent is not short. You have to find your own bag, but the numbering was easy to figure out. I didn’t rush through transition, instead I made sure I was comfortable for the rest of the race.
Bike: The first 10 miles of the course is easy speed. I spent most of this time cramming gels and salt water into myself. The road is smooth, and there wasn’t any wind at that point. After mile 10, the course switches to hilly. It is advertised as rolling, but I define rolling as grades that are less than 2% and are over longer distances than 0.5 miles (I consider RT20 between Westfield and Huntington a rolling course). This was a series of ups and downs that had me constantly in and out of my seat. For the most part they are short, maybe 30 seconds to a minute of 4-5% grade (estimated), but you never get to really settle in to a pace and hold it. Of course coming out of your seat can be a good thing, since on the back side of the second loop, for about 10 miles, the road kicks you between the legs every 5 to 10 seconds to make sure you are still awake. I don’t know if the bumpiness is a result of frost heaves or just bad paving, but there are 3 inch high bumps that go completely across the road over that section of the course. That was the worst part of the bike. My back and shoulders were really sore after going through that twice and extra sore the day after. Plus, I find it demoralizing to have to go through that while dodging people and vehicles at high speed. Other than the bumps, aid stations were set up well, and I was doing a complete flip of my bottle holders every station, usually 2 Performs and one water. Because of the heat, I took about 20 salt doses over the course of the bike and was constantly kicking back fluid. I did run out of energy for the run, but that was a different problem. I calculated I drank about 0.9 to 1 gallon of fluid over the course of the bike. On the last 10 miles when it smoothed back out, I backed off my power, and tried to stay below 200W and spent most of my time drinking and eating gels, which by that point induced mint chocolate flavored anger and disgust in me.
Second Transition: It was kind of a bear to run on the pavement in bike shoes, I would take them off and run barefoot in the future since I was pretty wobbly. T2 had no problems.
Run: The run was interesting. It’s a double out and back, with aid stations every mile. I felt good for the first 5 miles and then ran out of energy, which was a shame. The course goes through good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods. There were cops at every cross street without exception, usually between 3 – 5 of them in the bad sections, 1-2 in the better parts. And they were earning their keep. Within the first 10 miles, they were arresting some guy for being mouthy (I think he was drunk) and threatening another one with a citation for wandering down the middle of the street. He was saying this was his neighborhood and he could walk where he wanted to. Not a good thing to say to a hot, irritated officer, but entertaining for me. I had a couple of other possibly intoxicated individuals cheer me on, which is nice, I appreciated the support even if it was semi-coherent. There was also the smell of raw sewage in the air. Not consistently over the whole course, but enough that when you are trying to gag down another gel definitely doesn’t help.
In closing, I would do this race again. I didn’t have any major problems and I did get a best time which is always nice. There is always the enticement of bourbon and beer if you are into such things. After the race we went to the Bluegrass Brewing Company for beer, I recommend the Bourbon Porter and the Bourbon Stout, which are brewed in old bourbon barrels. We also went to Mark’s Feed Store for BBQ after the race which has good southern cooking. Pre-race meal was Lynn’s Paradise Café for lunch and Blu Italian Restaurant in the Marriot for dinner. Blu’s sucked, over priced and not very good, but Lynn’s Café is a very good pre-race spot and was filled with athlete’s when we went.