2004 Ironman Coeur d’Alene Triathlon

ByMike Byrd

Originally Written July 2004

Well, it’s hard to believe it’s been two weeks since I completed Ironman Coeur D’Alene on June 27, 2004. I just wanted to take a minute and say thanks for all of the well wishes and support. I also wanted to give everyone a rundown of what the day was like.

Leading up to the race, I was pretty nervous. I felt better after two workouts prior to the race… a 97 mile ride in the mountains with 10000′ of climbing and a long workout with my buddy Matthew (who also raced CDA).  We swam 2.5 miles, rode 60 and followed that up with a 7.5 mile run.  That’s when i started thinking I might be in pretty good shape.

I was pretty nervous leading up to the race. I arrived in CDA on Thursday and swam the first loop of the swim course on Friday morning. The water was smooth and I had a good swim. It’s when I finally started feeling good. Matthew and I got massages after than and then just relaxed for the next two days. Tried to keep my feet up as much as possible and eat as much good food (ie carbs) as I could.

Race morning seemed to take forever to arrive. Finally, it was June 27 and I was up at about 4:45am and headed down to the start around 6am. We had a perfect day weather wise, sun was shining and the temp never went above 85 degrees. I did a quick check on my bike, filled my water bottle and headed down to the swim start. My friend Hallie sent me a good luck card and said to try to remember as much as I could about the race. The first thing I remember thinking was, boy, the water sure feels colder than it did on Friday. Everyone was out of the water with about 5 minutes till the start of the race and it seemed to take forever. For some reason, about a minute before the start, the nerves relaxed and I was ready to go.

The gun went of at 7am and 1800 people jumped into the lake at one time.

Nothing like a small army of people swimming towards the same buoy. I didn’t get too beat up in the start, but did get dunked a few times and actually got a little angry at one guy. He grabbed my shoulder and basically pulled himself up over me. I thought about giving him a nice elbow, but just concentrated on getting through the swim. It seemed to
take a while to get to the first buoy but after that, things went pretty well. On the second lap of the swim, I managed to get my goggles knocked off. Figures, on the 2nd lap, right? The second loop after that was much smoother. I was able to get into a grove and hold a decent pace.

One thing I do remember about the swim was the taste of Jet Fuel. There was a float plane docked on the left side of the race course! Maybe the Jet Fuel helped out on the bike?

2.4 miles swim – 1:04:21 First Leg Completed

As I was running from the Swim to bike transition, I realized how good I felt. After the “strippers” helped me out of my wetsuit, I ran into the changing tent, and then out to my bike.

My bike went great. I tried to remember as much as I could (per Hallie’s instructions) and here’s what I remember:

1. A colt laying in the grass on a farm.
2. Riding around a paved Greyhound track- .
3. Two accidents.
4. The great volunteers.
5. Seeing the pros heading out for their second loop well before I had
made it to the halfway point. Those boys are fast!!

I had a great bike ride. I never felt tired or uncomfortable on the bike – hard to believe considering the seats on bikes these days. Only stopped once as the turn around to get some stuff out of my special needs bag. I didn’t think about getting off the bike until about mile 106.

112 mile bike – 5:44 – Second Leg completed.

So finally the dreaded run started. It went pretty well for the first 6 or 7 miles. The only problem that I had was that I developed a blister on my right foot at about mile 3. I think it started on my bike from my shoes being wet (don’t ask why they were wet…that’s another story that “us triathletes” will understand 😉 It was pretty painful and I knew it was there throughout the marathon. I finished the first half of the marathon in about 2:05 and thought I would be able to duplicate that on the second half. Wrong. It took me about 2:35 to finish the second half of the run. I also developed some crazy pains in my ankles. Kind of feltlike shin splints on the front of my ankle. I’m not sure what the pain was from, but it sure hurt. But I was able to get through it.

Since the run was a 2 loop course, I was able to see several of my friends while on the run. I don’t remember a whole lot of the run except for the last 3 miles. My friend JT completed Ironman Brazil in 11:45 and was joking that I wouldn’t beat it. Well, I calculated that if I ran 10 minute miles, I would beat his time. So I tried to pick it up as much as I
could. It was hard. i had to walk almost every little incline. But I kept going the best I could.

The last half mile was awesome. We made a left turn onto the finishing stretch and it was packed with people. Since we had our names on our numbers, people were yelling my name and saying way to go. Coming into the finish, there were hundreds of kids probably between the 8-14 giving high fives to the racers. It was so cool. The crowd was cheering and I remember just smiling, pumping my arm a couple times, not feeling any pain as I finished, and finally, hearing the announcer say my Name and that I was now an Ironman. Pretty cool.

26.2 Mile Run – 4:40

Overall time: 11:40:28

I felt surprisingly good after the race. The only thing that hurt was my ankles and my foot from the blister. So I got lucky and had a good day.

On Monday, it was mostly relaxing. We took a boat tour of the lake and celebrated with a couple beers. I also ended up having lunch with Dennis Erickson – the coach of the San Francisco 49ers. He has a summer place in CDA. Matthew and I had lunch at a local hamburger joint and he set down right next to me and asked if we did the Ironman race. He seemed really impressed. I asked him a couple questions and then asked about Terrel Owens and he confirmed that he is actually WORSE than all of the negative publicity he has received. “Coach” said he had never been happier that TO was off his team and that the reason he didn’t want to play for Baltimore was because Ray Lewis would have put him in his place.

Overall, the trip to CDA and the Ironman experience lived up to everything I hoped it would. I’m not sure what my next adventure is going to be, there’s some planning right now to participate in a 24HR mtn bike race in Moab. And I’m racing again locally this weekend at Camp Pendleton so I am staying busy.

Once again, thanks for all the well wishes and support.

Sincerely,

Mike
Bib #219

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Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the Internet. My name is Mike Byrd and this is my website. I enjoy sports, being outside, new challenges, marketing and anything that comes my way. I am the author of the blog posts on thebikeracer.com. I enjoy writing about cycling, poiltics, coffee and anything else that fits in the "My World" category. Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter to say up to date on anything new that gets posted to thebikeracer.com.

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