Yesterday I did the Las Vegas Silverman triathlon – this is known as the toughest Ironman in North America. Talk about suffering. Whoever dreamt up this course is a sick puppy.
The 112 mile bike course involved over 9,700 feet of climbing, which is just over a third of the way up Mount Everest! The 26.2 mile run course involved over 2,000 feet of climbing.
To boot it was really windy during the swim and the bike. This made the 2.4 mile swim in Lake Mead very choppy – my most difficult swim ever. And the first 50 miles of biking were into something like a 15 mile per hour headwind – my most difficult biking ever. Good thing I did not try this race on my mountain bike, as I once did in an Ironman; otherwise, I could still be out there.
The swim took me 1 hour 29 minutes. The bike took another 7 hours 18 minutes. This means after getting into my running gear I had already been racing for nearly 9 hours. No better time to start a marathon run, huh? Well, the run took me just over 5 hours.
The funny thing about these events is that you get progressively dumber as the day goes on. On the bike I attempted to simply count cyclists I was passing. Not possible – it just took too much concentration to perform this mathematical feat. Then on the run I distinctly remember hearing that it was 6pm and given that the race started at 6:30am, one would think computing the total number of elapsed hours would be easy. Computing the 11 hours and 30 minutes of elapsed time in my head was exceedingly difficult – in fact, I gave up at least twice before deciding to try one more time!
At about 13 hours into the race, I turned left into a dead end dirt lot with a fence. I saw another athlete coming straight on and politely asked if he was lost. He said "No". As I was concluding that he was simply dazed and confused I looked up to see I was running into a fence. Turns out I was the one off course. So I blurted out … "I guess I am lost!"
The whole race took me 14 hours and 10 minutes.
Well, it is the day after. My legs hurt. It is hard to walk. I’m tired. Still thirsty. And still am suffering from an IQ deficiency.
Jeff, congratulations on completing the Silverman. Finishing in the top half is a great accomplishment, expecially in such difficult conditions. I ran my first marathon last year...I can't imagine doing the swim and cycling on top of that.
Posted by: Michael Sullivan | November 15, 2006 at 09:04 AM
"An idea is nothing but a mere abstraction of a concrete undertaking." Ricky J. Fico
"Worry not, the I.Q. will always find a way to peddle its own race and more often than not, overcome the most strenuous of exercises." Ricky J. Fico
Posted by: ricky J. Fico | November 15, 2006 at 11:47 AM
Hey Jeff,
My name is Thomas Miner, and I am the guy who you assumed was lost during the Marathon. I was randomly searching for info about the race and I ran across your article. Typically I wouldn't read random articles by people that I don't know, however yours caught my attention. Then when I started to read the part about the wrong turn, I started cracking up, because I realized it was me. I thought there was something wrong when I saw you make that turn, but at the same time I thought to myself, "maybe we go that way after the turn around?" So, don't feel too bad, because although I was not physically lost, I was definetly in another world mentally. This was my first attempt at an Ironman, and I had only been training for about 9 months, so THE MOST GRUELING COURSE IN THE U.S. came as quite a shock to me!!! Anyway, it's over, I have a finishing medal, and if I forget how bad it hurt within the next couple of weeks, I might register for next year. Well, I wish you the best in all of your future endevours, and maybe I will run into again sometime.
Posted by: Thomas Miner | November 16, 2006 at 06:37 PM
Hello, Jeff:
Loved your commentary on last year's Silverman. I am thinking about doing the Silverman in several weeks. Why? Because yesterday I did started the Clermont Florida Iron Distance Race and my bike tore up at mile 105. So....I am not totally whipped because of did not do the run. I want to do an Iron before year end.
Your story was funny. Give me a baseline, Jeff. What type of Iron or marathon times do you do on an average course? If you are a 9 hour iron guy and Silverman spanked you with 14 hours, then I am not a candidate !
At Clermont, I did the swim in 1:08, averaged 18.5 on the bike and felt fine. So do I jump in and do the Silverman or what?
Posted by: John | October 21, 2007 at 03:57 PM