From Kestrel sponsored Erin Baker's team member Geoff L'Heureux:
Here’s the hot off the press, first-hand account of my date with Coeur d’Alene on June 21, 2009. Race morning is always an experience; part of you is so excited to start you could throw up! The other part of you is so nervous, you could throw up! Its especially true of Ironman, but you’re surrounded by 2200 other athletes feeling the same way, and that puts an amazing energy into the air. All Ironman athletes are out there together and we know how each other feels. After a pep-talk and photo-op with my family and a couple of Erin Baker’s breakfast cookies, I was off to the beach!
BOOM! The cannon goes off and you’re sprinting towards the water(really hoping you don’t trip because if you do you’ll probably be trampled) and after dolphin dive, you’re swimming! Elbow to elbow, feet to face, I tried to keep my pace and remember that I’m a good enough swimmer that I don’t need to sprint off the line. The chop was tough and I’ll admit to swallowing a TON of water. I settled into a pack by the first turn(a real combat zone) and tried to find the fastest feet I could. I felt solid going into the second lap and could see few splashing arms ahead of me already on the second loop. I kept battling and came out of the water in an hour flat and in 77th place! After stripping my wetsuit and donning my bike gear, I sprinted through transition in 2 and a half minutes, probably passing at least of a third of the people who out-swam me! I grabbed my Kestrel Airfoil Special Edition and I was off!
CRANK IT! It’s hard to ride within yourself during the opening miles of the Ironman Coeur d’Alene bike course. The crowds are amazing, even with the cold and windy weather and you find yourself cranking. I ate half an Erin Baker’s Breakfast Peanut Butter Cookie on my way out of town and settled into my pace. My Kestrel Airfoil was feeling fast and comfortable. My SRAM Red was shifting perfectly and my Zipps were rolling like there was no road resistance to be had! I was flying and loving every second of it! Just before the turn around at Higgins point, I could count the number of amateurs ahead of me. Only about fifteen! Yeah! I made a mental note of the jerseys and bikes and told myself they would be examining my butt by the end of the bike section! Jeff and Mo were giving me lots of love heading through town and it was great! The winds were really blowing off the lake and I was pushing over 30mph uphill out of Coeur d’Alene to the hilly Hayden Lake Section. If you’re not familiar with this course, it is tough. The hills aren’t too tremendously large, but they’re steep, often at the end of technical sections, so you can’t carry speed into them, and they’re relentless, one after another, after another, after another…
I hit my first bump in the road at mile 42 when I dropped my chain. After a few F-bombs, I got it back on and proceeded to hop back on and start pushing the pace making up the time I had lost. By the time I had reached town, my dad yelled out to me 4th amateur! I thought, HOLY CRAP, ARE YOU KIDDING? SWEET! By the time I made the second turn around at Higgins Point and the other half of my breakfast cookie, I had moved up to 3rd amateur! At this time, my bike computer quit working and I had no idea how fast I was going, so I tried to ride with the same effort I did until mile 80. At mile 80, I kicked that sucker up to eleven (one higher, so I could rock even harder!) I came off the bike as the 3rd amateur overall with a 5:02:32 bike split, averaging 22.2mph, and having the 16th fastest bike split overall, including the pros!
HOLD YOUR HORSES! The opening miles of the marathon are an exercise in mental discipline. Your legs hurt but you’ve just rocked 114.4 miles and you’re excited! The crowds feed you energy that pushes you to paces that you shouldn’t be able to do and probably will pay for later. That really described me! I ran my first few miles at about a 6:30 pace. Whoops! I made sure to hold on and run within myself. I was passed by the guy who won my age-group at about mile five and told myself there were two possibilities: either he was going too fast and was going to blow, or he was a lot faster than me and I would do more damage trying to run his race instead of mine. I stayed at my pace and let him go. My first mental block hit at mile 7 when I caught a miserable looking Bryan Rhoades. I thought if the course has humbled one of the top pros, how was I going to keep pushing? Miles 9 through 15 were really tough. Everyone who has done Ironman knows especially in the marathon, there are periods of a lot of negative mental talk. It’s not whether or not a person has negative thoughts when they’re competing that measures their mettle as an athlete; the measure of an athlete is whether they can take their negative thoughts and turn them around to strength. I looked at my watch and saw that even if I started doing 10 minute miles, I would still finish under 10 hours (my only other Ironman was in 11 hours and 20 minutes)! I realized at that point that I could keep running and pushed the pace to what my body could do.
Volunteers, spectators, and team mates make Ironman dreams become reality. They give you energy when you need it most. Throughout the course, my Missoula Team Stampede team mates strategically placed themselves in areas where I needed them the most. Chuck was in the water on a kayak in case I needed him. Dean, Mo, and Jeff gave me the extra kick through the neighborhoods on both the bike and run. Mark, Jennifer, and Erik pushed me through the mansions along the lake! Emily and Joel kept my strides solid along the lake! A huge thank you to everyone! Now, back to the race! I saw my friend and teammate Monica LaBarge looking incredibly strong and gave her a high five and I hope it picked her pace up the way it did mine! I came out of my dark period and kept moving towards Sherman Avenue. Up around the last corner, I started my long, victorious stroll down Sherman towards the lights and Mike Reilly’s voice. My Stampede teammates were there to give me high fives and to give me the cowboy hat that lets the Ironman world know another athlete from Missoula, Montana has put the smack down on the Ironman! Seriously, for a little city in the mountains of Montana, we turn out more elite triathletes per capita than the other triathlon meccas around the country! I saw my family in the bleachers in the finish chute and slapped the high-fives and crossed the line in 9 hours, 31 minutes, and 9 seconds, hearing, “Geoff L’Heureux, at 27 years old, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!”
THANK YOU! A huge thank you to every single volunteer on the course. They make Ironman what it is, and that is something special. A gigantic thank you to Steve Harad of Kestrel Bicycles for making sure I was riding the fastest bike on the course this weekend! Thank you to Alex Gallego and Abe from Missoula Bicycle Works for clearing the time in their shop to build my bike up to perfection! Thank you to Erin Baker’s Wholesome Baked Goods and the other sponsors of the team! Erica, you were so awesome to put up with a ton of nervous triathletes in your expo booth and to hook us up with the goodies we all love! My local team, TEAM STAMPEDE, deserves an enormous thank you! When I thought I might have to borrow a bike for the race, no fewer than twenty team members offered me their bikes to use and even offered to make them fit me! Plus, to all the Stampeders on the course, you gave Monica and I that extra oomph to accomplish our dreams of making it to Kona! My coach Elliott Bassett deserves a huge thanks for turning a somewhat average triathlete into a Kona qualifier despite this athlete’s hectic school schedule and a short training period! Finally, to my family: Dad, Mom, Timmy, Jackie, Ashlynn, and Barb(in no particular order), you guys gave me the support to achieve my dreams! You guys were there to send me off, push me on my way, and welcome me home as I reached one of my ultimate goals! Thank you so much! The next stop on this journey is Kona… but the journey doesn’t end there!