BOULDER, Colo., - Last month, Capt. Robert Killian's time in the Boulder Half-Marathon qualified him to fill the lone Army slot in the World Championship Ironman race to be held in Kona, Hawaii, Oct. 9.
The Colorado Guardsman completed the 70.3-mile race in four hours and 10 minutes finishing 18th overall. He was the seventh amateur to finish.
To convince the Army that he had what it took to compete, Killian, who is from 2nd Battalion, 135th General Support Aviation, actually paid his own way to compete in last year’s world Ironman championship. He ended up beating the Army’s competitor by a few minutes.
The big race in Hawaii only has two slots per service, one male, one female, so Guard, reserve and active component athletes alike compete for these two slots.
Killian is 28-year-old Signal Corps officer originally from Charleston, S.C., and a graduate of the Citadel. He has only been competing in Ironman triathlons for less than three years. He has been a long distance runner since high school and has been competing in road races for a number of years. He competed in his first triathlon in 2007.
His training consists of switching up long runs one day, a long bike the other and a long swim once a week.
The Boulder race consisted of a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride ride, and 13.1-mile run for a total of 70.3 miles, half the distance of a full Ironman.
Killian said the swim is his weakest event. He was a full 10 minutes behind the race winner. By comparison, his run time was only six minutes slower, and his bike time seven minutes slower than the race winner.
“I start out as far front as I can and then I try to draft in the water and stay as close to the buoys as I can," he said.
Drafting in the water is often referred to as tickling the feet. Something Killian said he felt the whole swim. Not only does this technique reduce your drag, it lets you know where you are without having to look. “Also I try to use just my arms, to save my legs for the run and the bike,” he said.
Immediately after the swim, the athletes make a slow 100-yard dash in the deep Boulder Reservoir sand to the transition point. From there competitors find their bikes among another 1,600. Here competitors get out of their wetsuits, dry off, don socks and biking shoes and down a snack before they start their 56 mile bike ride.
Each athlete’s bike is located in a specific area based on their bib number. However that doesn’t stop a few disoriented athletes from heading to the wrong location first. If you were to add a few three-wheelers to this frantic mass of runners and riders crisscrossing each other it would resemble rush hour traffic in Bangkok.
Once on the road, Killian did nothing but pass and no one ever passed him. With wave starts an athlete never knows for sure if the guy at his heals is really behind him or ahead of him in time. So he has to ignore that and race his own race. The race is about endurance and maintaining the best pace you can. He knew what pace he was capable of and maintained it throughout the entire bike race disregarded the athletes around him.
Killian admits that in a mass start, with everyone starting at the same time, there is a psychological effect knowing that the guy that just passed you is ahead of you. But you still have to concentrate on running your own pace.
Determining and maintaining the best pace possible is the key to a good finish. Like a NASCAR driver has to account for fuel economy, tire wear and pit stops to win a race so does the endurance athlete. It’s an issue of exerting the most amount of energy possible without over fatiguing yourself.
The byproduct of exerting your muscles is Lactate Acid. If your muscles produce more acid than can be processed your muscles fatigue, if you are not pushing your muscles to the limit you’re not being competitive. Sprint athletes worry about processing that acid after the race.
Endurance racers don’t have that luxury. They have to manage food intake, hydration, processing lactate acid and the byproduct of hydration shall we say – something that has its own techniques all while continuing to race.
Keeping your muscles just under that edge is where endurance racers try to be. Racers can use a heart rate monitor or a power meter attached to their bike to ensure that they are maintaining the most out of their muscles without over fatiguing them.
The power meters are the most accurate but also the most expensive. Like a pilot has to trust his instruments and ignore the seat of the pants feel, endurance athletes must trust their instruments to know if they are over or under exerting themselves.
A top level athlete can spend upwards of $10,000 on a road bike with all of the accessories, power meters, and lightweight materials to be the most competitive.
Killian entered the transition area with his best bike time. It was a full eight minutes faster than his previous best. “When I finished the bike I knew I was going to Kona,” he said. “Anything can go wrong on the bike; you could have mechanical problems, a crash, anything.”
The last event was the run. By this time it was 75 degrees and the sun was beating down on the competitors without a single cloud in the sky.
Killian finished the 13.1-mile run in ine hour and 22 minutes. The lack of shade and warm sun weren’t a hindrance to him. He started the run high on adrenaline knowing that he was going to Kona, that this was one of his best times so far and it was at altitude, thousands of feet above the sea-level course of Kona. This adrenaline carried him through the run on cruise control maintaining a 6 1/4 minute per mile pace.
He will compete as a team in Kona with his female partner, Capt. Erica Chabalko, an active-duty soldier from Delta Company 187 at Fort Sam Houston. Together they will make up the Army team.