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Shot on location during Kelly’s Ironman Louisville 2008 race!

Big thanks to Hunter, Jamie, Matt, Sara, Chris, Mom, Katy, Ron, Erica, Scotty, Jen, Kelly’s sister Cherie, Kelly’s dad Jerry, Tony, Megan, Tony, Keith, Beth, Team Hatton and everyone I forgot to mention who came down to IronMan Louisville on August 31st to cheer Kelly on. It was an amazing end to a year-long odyssey.

(Also much love to Doug for the HD camera, which I took great pains not to break during the day)

KELLY WILSON… YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!!!

Kelly and I would both like to extend a hearty “THANK YOU” to everyone who has supported her through this adventure. I know that many of you didn’t understand just WHAT she was getting herself into, much less understand WHY she was doing it. I hope that having followed her journey, you’ve been gained a little insight into what drives Kelly as well as some inspiration. While Kelly might now be an IRONMAN (which I no doubt will be oft reminded), she is just an average girl. Something in her “switched on” a few years back is all.

In short – I never want to hear “I could NEVER do that” out of any of you! I’m sure the Kelly of many years ago said the same thing… and look what happened to her! All of us are capable of great things.

While Kelly’s been running for the last few years, this Ironman thing is a whole other ball of wax. Did you notice all the of “Team <insert last name here>” shirts out on the course yesterday? That largely doesn’t happen in running. The IronMan demands the love and support of many for the Ironman hopeful, which you all gave without demand. We are forever in your debt for that. And the minute you start YOUR adventure, you know Kelly and I will be there!

Photos

Check out the 2008.08.31 – Kelly’s IronMan Louisville gallery for photos!

More photos @ Flickr tagged as “IronMan Louisville 2008″.

Video
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2008 IronMan Louisville Highlight DVD given to Award Banquet attendees!

WLKY Channel 32 Live Report @ Ironman Louisville 2008

Race Reports

“Team Brazo” IronMan Louisville 2008 Race Report

Update: WLKY32′s John Boel did not fare well at IMLou 2008 – The ‘Ville Voice has the scoop: Boel’s Ironman Ends Badly. I saw him on Southern Parkway, probably around mile 8? or so – I knew he was shooting for a sub-12 hour time (he finished in 12:16 in 2007) and assumed he was in the home stretch – but that wasn’t the case at all. Looks like the bike hurt him much more than last year, and whereas he started the run last year doing something like 9 minute miles, he didn’t this year. View his 2008 results here. I know it’s got to be devastating for him and his family.

Further Boel Update: Boel describes his IronMan in “IronMan beats Boel” over at WLKY’s website. A lot of dehydration going on lately…

Make sure to hit the Kelly’s IronMan Race page for all the latest updates.

Kelly’s been using BeginnerTriathlete.com to help her train for her 2008 Louisville IronMan triathlon. Being the statistic-loving guy I am I went and pulled Kelly’s mileage totals for all of the training she’s logged since mid-April:

2008 totals

Bike:	  1814.42 miles in 122h 30m 46s
Run:	   332.94 miles in 59h 24m 16s
Swim:	    77.50 mi1es (124,865.7 meters) in 43h 16m 45s
Strength:   15h 55m
Canoeing:    2h 00m
Step:	        45m
Walking:     1h 40m

Man, that is far when you put it all together. Far!

On Saturday, I competed in the 28th annual E. P. “Tom” Sawyer Triathlon (sprint-distance). I also ran in last year’s Tom Sawyer triathlon – my first ever! This year, I just wanted to do better.

…and I did!

Last Year: 1 hour 47 minutes 12 seconds

This Year: 1 hour 36 minutes 44 seconds

Woot! A great race, and I really felt the difference that my training made this year – I was much, much stronger than last year, and it showed. I cut nearly 6 minutes off the bike and almost 3 off the run, and my transitions were much faster. Awesome!

Kelly had the rare opportunity to watch me run a race while she spectated, and she took all the photos you’ll see here, including this one – a real gem:

During the last 50 yards of the run, I saw a guy coming up on my right side and when I looked back he was just behind me, so I took off on a sprint. He responded with “OK, boss!” and took off after me. He wasn’t in my age group and thanks to the seeded swim start, it’s impossible to know what time the other guy is at – but it was great fun and we had a good laugh over it. (Update: that guy is Kevin Maynard, and he finished in 1:32:44)

I’m also turning 30 this year – so I moved into the Men’s 30-34 age group, which helps my age group ranking a bit – 9th out of 22. Last year I was 2nd to last in the Men’s 25-29 age group. Though, had I stayed in the Men’s 25-29, I would have been 10th out of 13th. Age groups are a funny thing though – the race and your locality all play into it making it all a bit of a crapshoot. Though I do prefer to be in a crapshoot of which I finish squarely in the middle.

Being the stat nerd that I am, I took the results that you can find on HeadFirstPerformance.com (2008, 2007) and put them into a readable, sortable Google Spreadsheet you can view online:

2008 E. P. “Tom” Sawyer Triathlon Results (view in browser)

2008 E. P. “Tom” Sawyer Triathlon Results (Excel)

More photos in the 2008.08.02 – E. P. “Tom” Sawyer Triathlon gallery.

On Saturday, Kelly and I rode 100 miles on our bicycles along the 2008 Louisville IronMan route. I had originally only intended to do 80, which Kelly amended to 87. And if I’m going to be spending 6 hours on a bike saddle then I might as well make it worthwhile and go 100, right?

New, previously unexplored thresholds of pain and exhaustion were met and exceeded. That was the longest time I had ever been on a bike or constantly moving in my entire life. According to MapMyRun, a man for my height/weight/age running at a 16 MPH pace for 100 miles would burn in excess of 5000 calories. 5000!  That’s 9 Big Macs or nearly 32 cans of soda. I ate 3 PowerBars, 3 Gu Roctane packets, one bottle of Ale-8-One and one 12oz can of Coca-Cola. This adds up to a calorie deficit of somewhere between 3000-4000 calories. Insane!

The course we followed was essentially the IronMan course that Kelly will be riding for some 7-8 hours at the end of August. It was extremely hilly for the first 50 miles, with a combination of steep climbs, screaming downhills and a heinous grade on KY-393 that just goes on and on and on.  The last 30 miles back to Louisville along US42 is rolling, but generally downhill.  As I predicted to Kelly the week prior “I will be able to keep up with you up until mile 50 or 60, and then please just don’t leave me out on the course”. I hit 60 miles on the nose and was just wiped. All climbs were painful and punctuated with my muttering a single, choice curse word at the top of each hill. Recovering on the downhill only to repeat multiple times.

You can check out the course on MapMyRun’s nifty course widget:

There was a group of maybe two dozen out-of-state IronMan trainees there to ride the course on Saturday, and we had a number of pleasant chats here and there. We stopped at the mini-marts along the course and made sure to spend a little dough at each store on water and such. We didn’t have many problems with the auto traffic, but we did have an SUV full of kids throw a beer at us while on the return trip down US42. Seriously, license plate KY 163-GDV?

Along that save vein, Todd Heady over at HeadFirstPerformance.com has written a thought-provoking article on “Cycling Problems“. Timely as he talks about road-closures, the people who live and work and own businesses along road courses and the relationship between them and those who bike on the courses. Todd’s a certifiably insane athlete, but when it comes to organizing races or giving his opinion on tough matters he’s pretty darn reasonable.

And then, the next day….

2008 AMA/LSF Soaring Nationals Handlaunch

I awoke at 5:00am to drive back up to beautiful Muncie, IN for the 2008 AMA/LSF Soaring Nationals to compete in the handlaunch competition!  Much to my surprise I was ambulatory and did pretty well at the competition until the last two rounds, as is my custom at the NATS.  I placed 6th out of 22 and returned home with a plaque (“getting wood” as it’s known in the hobby).  You can read up on my exploits here in the AMA’s NATSNews coverage for July 28th.

You might remember that I covered the 2007 Soaring NATS last year, writing the NATSNews coverage each day. Unfortunately I couldn’t do it this year partially because of our Fall ’07 trip to Barcelona, but also because I wanted to be around to help Kelly train for her IronMan race.

Did I mention that I’ve got the 2008 E. P. Tom Sawyer Triathlon coming up this Saturday? Yeah, ’cause I do. Oh, and Power Creative has a softball game on Sunday versus the delightfully-named Got Balls? softball team.

Gnoam Chompskee represents!

Well, the 2008 Muncie Endurathon triathlon is in the bag, and boy was it a doozie! By far the largest triathlon event Kelly or I had ever participated in. Also very well run and in a great location (the Prairie Creek Reservoir in southeast Muncie). For those of you who are blinking your eyes and wonder “what is a triathlon?” let me explain (after the jump)

(more…)

Update: Check out my 2008 Muncie Endurathon Wrap-Up race report!

This weekend, Kelly and I will be heading up to Muncie, Indiana – and not for a soaring event like the NATS! Shocking! (I am going to the NATS for only one day this year) But back to the event at hand – the Muncie Endurathon, a half-Ironman distance race that Kelly is using as a tune-up for the full-sized Louisville Ironman. Me? I’m doing the little, tiny, itty-bitty “sprint” distance triathlon. Let’s compare, shall we?

       Half Ironman   Sprint

Swim   1.2 mi         0.3 mi

Bike  56.0 mi        12.3 mi

Run   13.1 mi         3.1 mi

Total 70.3 mi        15.7 mi

So, as you can see… Kelly is both stronger and crazier than me.

The good news is that I’ve been doing most of my swim training for an 800 meter distance (which is what the E.P. Tom Sawyer Sprint triathlon demands), and even stretching those workouts to 1600 meters.  Couple that with me actually training for the bike this year on a *real* road bike that fits me. I actually rode the bike distance yesterday and averaged well over 17 MPH for the entire course, which included Dog Hill, Hogan’s Fountain and the Seneca Golf Course hill in Cherokee Park. Feelin’ good about that. And the run? Uh… well, yeah I haven’t put on my running shoes in a couple of months. I’ll be OK, though. I can do 3 miles.

The last event I did like this was last year’s E.P. Tom Sawyer triathlon, in which I placed 12th out of 13 in my age group. I did the 800m swim/14 mi bike/5k run in 1:47. The bike I did in 51 minutes or so – and it nearly killed me, adding some 3 1/2 minutes to my 5k time. That works out to be some 11 MPH average or something horrible. I should do better this time round. Also, it helps that at least at EP that the 30-34 age group is slower than the 25-29 age group. Yay.

Check out my results from last year’s EP Tom Sawyer at Headfirst Performance. (Search for Ben Wilson)

Hopefully some photos and junk this weekend!

While you’re at it, go and read Kelly’s triathlon training blog, Wanna Tri Some?. The last few posts have been really great.

Kelly ran her first-ever triathlon today. Each year since 1981, the E. P. Tom Sawyer State Park Triathlon has been run (not surprisingly) at lovely E. P. Tom Saywer Park. The first leg is the swim, which was 800 meters. The registration required an estimation of how fast you could swim this to “seed” you and give you a start time. Kelly said “24 minutes”. What she actually did in the pool this morning was something closer to 15 or 16 minutes! Crazy. She was passing people left and right.

After the swim is a 14 mile bike ride, and Kelly’s toughest leg, at least she thought it would be. Turns out she was wrong on that, too! She finished that in just about an hour, with no mishaps, spills, or terrible accidents causing her feet to be permanently trapped in her toe-clips.

The final leg was a 5k (3.1 mile) run, which she completed smiling and “feeling great”. Total time: 1 hour 50 minutes. Not bad for her first ever! She’s hyped for future triathlons. “I wish I would have started this stuff sooner,” she says.

Needless to say, I’m terribly proud of my lil’ Kelly. Despite all her fears, she really kicked ass out there today. If you’d like to see pictures, I suggest you check the 2004.08.07 – Triathlon gallery.