Ironman Coeur d’ Alene 2006
Mike Nims

What a journey it has been to train, compete and COMPLETE an Ironman. To hear myself, and others call me an Ironman is something that has not totally sunk in and makes me smile just hearing someone say you are an Ironman. I do not think it will ever really sink in the experience is something that seems to just grow with you. The most impressive thing I have found out since finishing the race is that complete strangers or acquaintances that hear that I have finished want to ask questions and want hear about the experience. I was not expecting this response when they heard I did a race over the weekend. Ironman really does have a profound impact on people regardless if they have finished one or not.

Before I begin, it must be remembered throughout the reading of the report that the following people are the support I depended upon to get this far. Without them I would have never been able to even make the start line. First and foremost my wife, Michele and son Charlie without them I would not be writing this report. Without their support and compassion to allow me to train for weekends on end from the early morning until the late afternoons and then be so wasted that I could not do anything or was so crabby from being tired and hungry. To each of them for allowing me to drag them all over the country for a race and then back and forth to the race site over several days. We have a saying in our family, that this is what you do in a herd you support each other. For those of you who have not watched the movie Ice Age the saying comes from that movie. I will always be there for whatever you want to achieve and do.

To my Mom for coming along and providing the support that she always has. To the whole Alfino family, without each of you providing some level of knowledge, understanding, humor and overall friendship I am so in debited to each of you. To my training partners, Doug Beeman, Jonathan Nixon for the long rides we did to train. To Steve Truesdale without your genius and attention to the smallest detail on a bike set up I swear the bike could not have been better. To all the misfits from the potato page and the hours we spent on subjects that were not even related to triathlon. Again to my wife Michele and son Charlie thank you so much I do love you!

Why?

This is an awesome question because why is the first question many people asked then it was always followed by, "you are crazy!" When I signed up for Ironman CDA I did so with the understanding that I would be taken down a path that I had never traveled, personally. I also had a push and I will explain that later. This path is one where you have to find your self and learn to work with yourself in ways you never thought. My coach had me read an out of print book entitled Iron Will by Mike Plant. Mike Plant outlined that for some people an Ironman is a spiritual process, I have to say that is what I turned it into as I trained. This type of process is something that everyone should try to do in his or her life. I have known many people that have spent all their lives looking for "it" and have tried to fill this void up with material objects and other "things" only to find that something new comes along and they must have that. The hyper instant gratification society we live in only adds to this need for finding "it". Many of these people end up chasing pots of gold that are never there or trying to play catch up on whatever they feel they missed. My coach told me 100’s of times, "Nims there is nothing fast about an Ironman, be at peace with what you are doing." With that advice, I stepped up to the start line to find out what I am made of and what it takes to be an Ironman.

I can honestly say that I have a different perspective on health and life and what it takes to be healthy and happy. You have to eliminate the negative people in your life and re-think how you approach all aspects of life and this applies to work, family and friends. You have to stop the negative voice that we all have be trained to listen to from when we are little. I can remember being told you cannot do this or that because the person telling me did not want to take the time or was fearful of the situation. We have a rule in our house, that you cannot use words like Never, Can’t, or Won’t. Think about it. How many times a day, do you say these words? You would be surprised how it changes your perspective when you stop using these types’ words. Finally, it’s not about you. I know people that are so consumed by them selves that they cannot see the forest through the trees. To be an Ironman takes many people around you to support and put up with you while you are training. If you do not take time to remember and appreciate them you will be lost without them.

My Coach:

Pete "Alf" Alfino is a great person overall. His friendship and guidance was something that helped me all throughout the day. You really only come across a person like Pete once in a blue moon. His commitment to his athletes, the knowledge he has and the approach are second to none. I have seen him fly across the country to races just to be there for his athletes. I have seen him stop and listen to his athletes when other coaches would have just fired them on the spot. I have seen him give away coaching advice because the person just needed help in that moment. There are coaches out there that will charge you for every minute you speak with them. Pete is not that type of coach. In my opinion, when one of his athletes steps up to the start line he feels that he is racing. At the race I am not sure who had the bigger smile at the end of the day, him or me. He and his son Nick stood with my family to watch me finish and I came running down the final few 100 yards Nick said, "That is Nims." Pete said "No way, he looks to be in to good of shape, he was a hurting cowboy when I saw him last." Pete knew it was me the second he saw the joy on my face. He was at the finish line with all my families’ stuff that they left on the sidewalk to run with me to the finish line. He is amazing. I could not recommend him more to anyone looking for quality advice and a coach that believes that anything is possible if you are willing to follow the plan and remember, always remember, "HOW YOU TRAIN MAKES THE DIFFERENCE". One final note, Pete is a large part of the reason I signed up for the race. We had lunch before last year’s race and I think he knew then, that this experience would be perfect for me. I can remember the big smile he had on his face when I asked him about being an Ironman and what it was like and his thoughts about me signing up for one. It also helps to have a coach that can sees potential that you have before you see it.

The Training:

I looked at the final numbers that I logged to train for this race. I swam 141 miles, biked 2,573 miles and ran 601 miles. I trained for 10 months straight for a total of 388 hours. I trained mostly in the early morning or on my lunch hour during the week. On the weekends I trained any where from 1 hour to 7 hours on Saturday and Sunday and many of these days I trained alone. I learned to incorporate this level of training into my daily routine and I have to say I miss it when I am not training. This is really the only way you can train for this type of event. It has to become apart of you and your daily life. I told friends and family that I cannot make many events. If I did come, I had to make sure that it worked out so that when I was not training it did not impact my family time. Was that enough training? Should I have done more? I think I was very prepared and had an awesome day as a result. Would I change anything? Sure, you always have to be looking at ways to improve and use the knowledge that have gained. I also spent a great deal of time learning how to eat well. I have a long list of things that I cannot eat any longer. If I eat or drink the items on this list, it will start up my appetite up and I will eat the house down. I am referred to as the "Black hole" at home because I would eat everything in site if given the chance. I can eat more in one sitting that most people eat all day and not gain anything. In fact some days I lost weight. I love to train and will more than likely continue to train in the same manner as I was, just at a reduced level.

The Race:

We arrived in Coeur d’ Alene on the Wednesday before the race and got settled in. The Ironman Village was still being worked on when we went down there for the first time. I noticed right way that there was a lot of nervous energy swirling around and people telling their stories about the previous races. My coach told me to get in and get out. Stay away from the athlete’s village, it’s a circus and will mess with your head. He was 100% right. I tried to only be down around the race site when I had to be, the rest of the time I spent it with my family. I made the decision that I would keep to myself and not get all fired up about anything or party it up with friends that were at the race. This paid off during the race when I need it. I was so at peace all week and very quite with everything. The morning of the race I ran through my typical routine and we all left and made our way to the race site. Michele set up camp and had a great location for the swim and we were all standing there talking and very relaxed, when a local reporter came up and wanted to know why I was so relaxed compared to other people she was interviewing. I told her I was just happy to be here and there was nothing to get fired up about. I think all the talks and email I had with Pete about being at peace with your self paid off. Nothing was going to rock my world I was ready. The final note is the weather forecast was record heat and humidity. It turned out to be 95 degrees with 30 to 40% humidity wind out of the SW at 10 mph without one single cloud in the sky.

The Swim:

Ok I will just say this is my most favorite part of a triathlon. Call me crazy but I love the swimming part. The best way to recap the swim was guerilla warfare total and complete hand-to- hand combat. Another analogy I read was it was a bar fight and you have no friends helping you out. Standing on the beach with 2200 people is surreal. I was very calm and just enjoying standing around and taking it all in. I never once thought about what I was going to be doing in a few minutes. I was just very happy and smiling about where I was and at peace with everything it was the perfect place to be. I had talked with my coach about where I should start. His confidence in me is amazing because I changed my whole swim strategy about where to start from because of a conservation we had about my race strategy. I was originally going to start in the very back of the pack and to the far far right and let the crazy people battle it out. Instead I moved just left of center closer to the stronger swimmers. When I looked around I felt this was a better place to start because there were not very many people around me. I was about 15 to 20 yards off the waters edge. At 7:00am the cannon sounded and the day started. WHOOOHOOOO!!!! I calmly walked down and into the water and started swimming. Right away, I knew this was going to be a rough start. The washing machine was instant. Picture your self in the washing machine that is exactly what it looks and feels like on a mass start. I knew I could handle it, no big whoop. About 500 meters in it got real crazy, all people that were right of me started coming into the buoy line and from the amount of hand-to-hand combat it was the whole freaking field swimming into me! Feet, hands, bubbles, people and white water everywhere I kept saying just keep swimming. I was bumped, punched, pushed and kicked it was a blast!!!

If there were a World Swimming Federation I would seriously consider joining. There is nothing quite like fighting it out with 2200 of your closest friends. At the 750-meter mark I really noticed that the whole field was now on the same line and it was totally insane that amount of people and bumping that was going on. You have to really have steady nerves and trust your ability to hang in there. I looked up at this point and noticed that even if I wanted help there was nothing anyone could do to help me. So I just kept swimming. Each time the field had to merge it was mass chaos. There were so many people at the first turn that I could no longer swim. So I did the next best thing, I hosted my self up onto two swimmers backs that were on either side of me and rode them around the buoy. I probably looked like I was riding dolphins and after I got around the first buoy marker I knew that at each turn it would be the same insane situation. So I just rolled with it and kept swimming and fighting my way through the field. I came into the first lap in 32:38. Smoking, several minutes ahead of schedule! When I got up on the beach I looked back at the field and I noticed that I was way up front. As we were swimming out to the second loop I could see the frog men on the bottom of the lake that was very fun to see. On the second loop the hand-to-hand combat was still intense. At each turn it was crazy. I finished the swim in 1:08:29. Well under the goal of 1:15. I knew right at that moment that this was my day and whatever was put in front of me I would conquer. When I got up out of the water and saw Michele screaming 1:08 and then I saw Alf screaming "NIMS 1:08!!!!!!" I was so happy what an awesome experience. I had the biggest smile on my face and it was awesome! I found out later that this was a very rough swim and more intense that previous Ironman swims. I will say one thing; you need to be prepared for this experience because until they start reducing the number of entries for an Ironman the swims are going to be more and more like this.

T1:

I saw Michele, Charlie and Mom all screaming and jumping down about my time. I was so happy and screamed WHOOHOO!!!! I saw a few people scoffing because I do not think I was in the majority opinion about the swim being a total blast. I focused on being relaxed and taking my time in T1. On my way out I saw the Alfino family again and they were screaming go NIMS you had a 1:08 swim!!!!! As I was leaving Michele had run around the transition area to where my bike was a wished me well and I was off on the bike.

The Bike:

The first loop of the bike was exactly what I was expecting. We had reviewed the bike course two days prior and I was not concerned about the course. It was just like roads that I had trained on all year. I focused on keeping my HR down and not blowing up on the bike. I kept saying save it from the run. In hindsight this was prefect advice and I would not change it. What I would change is that I will train harder on the bike because I feel that this is an area I could really improve on. I started to notice around mile 50 that the heat was picking up and that I need to start listening to my body that if I did not I would be a mess on the second loop. By mile 82 I had just finished the last big hill and the heat was in full force, 95 degrees, humdity and not one cloud. I started to see people drop at this point and I also noticed that I was starting to have adbominal gas. The lesson I learned was that my nutrition plan that I had practiced with and tested for months ended up being my Achilles heel and forced me to change strategy for the final 30 miles and for the whole run. After the fact I have learned that I over did it with the energy drink and Gatorade plus everything was hot. There is nothing like drinking a hot protein energy drink. I was consuming too many calories and the mixture of simple sugars from the Gatorade and protein from my energy drink caused my body to generate gas as it could not break things down in a normal fashion. By mile 95 I could no longer stay aero because the gas was pushing up on my diaphragm and I was not able to get ride of it. At this point, I stopped drinking Gatorade and my energy drink. I was concerned that I was not ready for the run because I thought I had not consumed enough calories. I now know I was more than ready. I was looking for a 6 to 6:30 bike and rolled a 6:50. Given how I felt and the heat I was not complaining one bit. I will train harder in this area for sure.

T2:

I was a slower in this transition mostly due to my adbomnial gas pains and I wanted to just sit for a minute. I got over to my transition bag and got into the tent. As I got changed I was fully aware that I was not right. I knew that I need to get rid of this gas and I thought from the past that a slow run would do the trick. I could rip them out while running. Final check before I left T2. Legs ready, check. Brain ready, check. And I was out onto the course I went.

The Run:

I ran about 100 yards and my gut stood right up and said "YOU ARE NOT GOING TO RUN." Holy cow this is not good. I have a sub 13 time locked up and now this. Crap. This is where all my training and discussion with Pete paid off. Some of the best advice I got was remember you will have to deal with things you never thought about and this is what defines you and your Ironman. I saw Michele, Charlie and Mom and they all knew I was in bad shape. All I said was I have gas and it hurts. I just kept moving. All I could think about is how to get rid of the gas. As I was approaching mile 2 a great friend came up from behind me and put his arm around me and said how are you? I took one look at Doug and all I could think to say was "Dude, do you have any tums?" At that moment I had made his day and I think he will never forget that moment as well. He walked with me for a few minutes and gave me as much positive vibes as he could and told me that when he ran into Pete that he would let him know what was up. At mile 3.7 Pete was waiting for me and walked with me for a few. He asked me how I was and reminded me of what we had talked about and then he asked, the dreaded question, "are you ok?" I knew what he meant and I told me with as much strength in my voice that I could muster I will finish and I am not quitting!!!! He told me to stop and wait for a few minutes at each aid station to settle my stomach. At the next aid station and great idea came into mind. Use the potty. I have to say that I become connoisseur of every potty on the run course so much so that I knew which ones had toilet paper and which ones did not. By mile 9 I had come to the conclusion the broth, cola, Gatorade and water were all killing me, could not take in any more fluids, they just wrecked my stomach. I was very concerned at this point that I needed to keep going and figure something out. So the next aid station I just took ice and that was it. PREFECTION, ice was the trick. If I ate ice my stomach would settle down and I could run. By mile 14 I noticed that the ice was starting to not work. Crap, now what. Pretzels. Eat some pretzels and ice. This worked for more 2 miles. Then the pretzels start up the gas again. At mile 16 I was in full problem solving mode. No fluids, pretzels or solid food, just ice. So what now? Then it came to me, do not drink the melted ice only solid ice goes down. So I had this ingenious system for eating ice and I was set for the rest of the run. Stomach was calm enough that I was able to run the last 10 miles for the most part. The run course is a two-loop course and it was now dark. Along the shore line of the lake was mile 25. These two ladies where sitting there cheering us on. When I came to the marker I yelled out 1.2 miles to go! They started laughing and said you are closer than that its mis marked. Now I am not sure this that was correct or not but my pace picked up. I wanted to have a 4:30 to 5 hour marathon. I know at this moment I have that in me. I know I have a faster one. However, Lady Ironman will always have something else in store for you. For me I had to deal with several abdominal gas pains and figure out how to fight through this and finish strong. The run defined my race and everything I worked for to get to this point. In the moments of severe pain I wanted to stop and cry because at times the pain was too much. However, I emptied my mind and only thought about the next 20 feet or the next aid station. I never once thought I need to quit that this is too much to handle. To be an Ironman means that you have to at one point in the day battle your daemons both mentally and physically. I did and I am a stronger person as a result. I will solve this problem and at the next Ironman race I will be able to run the whole marathon. That is unless lady Ironman decides to throw me another curve. If she does, I am cool with it. 6:18 was my final run time.

The Finish:

At mile 22 I knew I would be an Ironman nothing would stop me from making it the rest of the way. However, at mile 25 the young ladies changed everything. I started saying to my self you have done it you are an IRONMAN! Each time I said it out loud and louder each time I knew it was real. By this time the people along the course were coming out onto the run course and cheering me on and throwing high 5’s. I cannot remember how many kids were throwing me high 5’s but I tried to get everyone of them. I was running faster with each step. I round the final corner and a restaurant called Zipps was at the top of the final approach. I thanked every volunteer and police officers I could and I kept yelling out loud I was an IRONMAN. More and more people were coming out on the course and cheer me on. I was on cloud nine and running faster. I ran up over this little hill and my stomach start to act up. I said "STOMACH YOU ARE NOT GOING TO STOP THIS!" I threw down my ice cup and really got into it. The crowd was awesome. I had people cheering me on the whole way in. As I approached the red carpet I saw Michele, Charlie, Mom, Nick Alfino and Pete Alfino. I found out later that Nick Alfino spotted me working the crowd and told everyone that it was me. And no one believed it until I almost ran right past them. I also found out later, Charlie who never naps, ever, had just woken up from a two hour nap on a sidewalk no else. He must have known I was coming. Both Michele and Charlie jumped onto the course with me and we ran to the finish line together. I wanted to share this experience with the two people that supported me the most. Then I heard it. Those magically words everyone is waiting to hear, "Mike Nims # 804 from Castle Rock Colorado you are an IRONMAN." 14:31:58.

Final thoughts:

This was a wonderful experience and I will do it again. To truly understand what it takes and how to work with yourself and to stay clam in the face of pain and agony is something that I will always remember and use in life now. Pete told me later that his son Nick thought my finish was the highlight of his weekend. I can only be humbled by that, as I did not realize the impact I would have on the people watching. I have a few things I need to work to make the next race better. I never thought once of quitting only how to work the problem and not let the problem work you. I have spent considerable time researching the reasons why my body reacted to the Gatorade the way it did and possible solutions to solve this. This is something I will have to practice much more aggressively for the next one. I will take 2007 off from training for an Ironman and in 2008 I will start and finish the next one. I am looking forward to training for a marathon this fall, then focusing on next season and then the future.