About a month ago, I wrote this Rolling Stone-esque piece on how Mark was leaving the Ironman Wisconsin Band because of a torn bicep. The Fab 5 would move forward as the Fab 4. But a few weeks later, after input from several big time doctors, he decided to put his hat back in the ring and do the the race. He actually proved that in major fashion this past weekend by knocking out the Muncie Half.
Mark has been a major trooper through all of our training. He’s battled through several injuries and now appears to be gelling at the right time, despite a bad rotator cuff, a double hernia, and a torn bicep.
Initially the bicep seemed to warrant a sure trip to surgery, but here’s how he explained his situation to me in an email a few weeks ago.
After talking to the first surgeon that wouldn’t be the guy that does my shoulder surgery. He said that I needed surgery immediately and it couldn’t wait due to continued deterioration of my bicep tendon down into my arm.
After I got the MRI and went to see the actual surgeon doing the procedure, he said I had a partially torn long head bicep tendon that could have been repaired before it actually snapped all the way. Funny thing is that I was going to a physical therapist that continued to work that area saying it was my rotator cuff all along being a partially torn bicep tendon.
Once it completely ruptured, the tendon sucked down into my arm causing the bulging bicep unfortunately the shoulder surgeon said that the only thing that could be done would require a incision from shoulder to bicep (leaving a huge scar) to find the tendon then pull it back through my arm to reattach it to my shoulder for no more strength benefit.
Thus I’m Back!
Mark
So, he has more or less stayed the course and it is paying off. He did Muncie in 5:55:48, including a 19 mph bike, and a 9:22/mile run. His legs are strong and as his upper body and core injuries heal, he will only get faster in his swim.
I looked up ways to figure out how a half ironman time may translate into a full Ironman using multipliers based on individual races. The comparison closest to what I need will for Ironman Wisconsin uses the Racine 70.3. In looking at the times and course elevations, etc. for Racine, it seems pretty similar to Muncie.
So, I found
this multiplier chart to use for predicting Mark’s time at Wisconsin (based on Muncie times):
It says you should multiply the time in the:
Swim by 1.78
Bike by 2.22
Run by 2.25
In Mark’s case that would be approximately:
47:35 x 1.78 = 1:25 for Swim
2:57 x 2.22 = 6:20 for bike
2:02:46 x 2.25 = 4:40 for Run
Based on his Muncie times, Mark’s loosely based prediction for Wisconsin (using
this handy split time calculator) including 7 minute transitions, would be right around:
12:40.
The way he’s been training I have no doubt he can hit that goal, and certainly keep that number under 13 hours. It’s been inspirational to watch him persevere through injuries that would put many people on the shelf.
Welcome back, man!
