IRONMAN FLORIDA 2010 NOVEMBER 5

Success doesn’t always come from being dealt  the right cards, but playing the bad ones properly.

~Joshua Dool

IRONMAN FLORIDA 2010 NOVEMBER 5

It was the hardest thing I have ever done. Practice swims should have been my first clue. It rained everyday. It finally stopped the day of the race. The wind was howling and the temps. were in the upper 30's low 40's. There were some 5 foot waves. It took me almost 30 minutes to get past the surf. It tossed me back to shore like a rag doll. This was one time I wished I would have been overweight. By the time I got out past the breakers I was exhausted, but the water was much warmer in the deep. 

Race Morning

I did my usual race day routine. Got up and had my race morning breakfast at 3am and some coffee. Went back to bed to rest and visualize the race plan in my head, since everyone knows you probably will not be able to get back to sleep.  

4:30am my race partner and I decide to head out the door and start walking to the transition area. We stayed in a beautiful condo. about 5 buildings down from the host hotel, so it was faster to walk.  The air was 38  degrees. The wind went right through my clothes. I was shaking uncontrollably by the time we got to the race venue. I do not handle cold weather very well. I will take 100 degrees and humid any day. I dropped off my water bottles and nutrition on my bike, aired up my tires, and made a final check that I have everything I needed in the proper gear bags. I couldn’t stop shivering so I went inside the convention center to find a warm spot to put my wetsuit on. I stood inside for about 20 minutes to warm up then went to drop off my morning clothes. I found my training buddy and we made our way to the beach. The sand was so white and crunchy it felt like you were walking in snow. 

The swim

Once the pro wave took off I went in for a warm up swim. My goggles started to leak and never stopped. I seeded myself deeper in the field so everyone else could break the waves and followed closely behind. It saved me time getting out to the deep but worked against me in the long run. I spent the rest of the race fighting to get past people. Everyone seemed to be in clusters so I spent a lot of time treading water and doing breaststroke so much my hamstrings cramped up at the first turn bouy. After holding on to the kayak for about 3 minutes I continued on cautiously. I was very careful to get out of the water and not step too high to prevent cramping again. Felt pretty good. grabbed some water and started my second lap. The field was a little more spread out so I could finally swim, at least for about 2 minutes which is about the interval that I had to keep draining my goggles. Finished the second loop strong with no more problems. I was about 12 minutes off the pace I wanted to do but considering all the mishaps I had, I will take it. Finally out of the water, I hit the showers and got most of the sand out. If you have ever been to a beach you know that you never get all the sand out. I was just hoping I got it out of the “important” areas.

T1

Everyone wanted to walk on the carpet to the changing tent. I already couldn't feel my feet so I chose to run on the pavement and around people. I made up at least 30 places. I grabbed my bike gear bag and headed for the changing tent. It was a mad house. I slowly made my way throught the crowd to the back of the changing area and there was no room to change. I dumped out my gear bag and just changed where I was standing. I was already starting to cool off so I decided to take a little extra time and put on a long sleeved shirt. Glad I did, because I never warmed up. It was a long way to run from the changing tent around the transition area and in to the bike racks. I decided I could run faster if I carried my shoes with me and put them on just as I was getting to my bike. Worked great except that I was too fast for the volunteers I was at the bike out chute waiting for my bike. I finally ran back and took it off the rack myself, which was again frustrating. 

Bike

The chute was narrow and crowded it took a while to get through it. Many people mounted their bikes right away. I figured with all the congestion I was better off walking my bike out to the front of the pack and then mounted. This was a very good move because there was a collision behind  me from people not being able to balance through the congestion. I started off slow and decided to check my speed and heart rate. My monitor was not working. It was like Couere D Alene all over again. At least I still had my speed sensor working. I knew from training I could hold 20mph pretty easy so I decided to keep my speed there and focus on how I felt. Made the first major turn north and turned straight into a  24 mph wind. This made holding my average speed a little more difficult but at the moment I was just trying to keep warm. I passed tons of riders which gave me a confidence boost, but all I could think about was how cold I was. Around mile 20 we turned east. Now we had a crosswind which seemed to be harder than having a head wind. May legs started to feel heavy so I figured I needed to take in more calories. I had been neglecting drinking any calories because I was so cold but knew I had to stay on top of my nutrition. Mile 30 I started to feel a little sick to my stomach. I must have swallowed more sea water than I thought. I slowed down and pulled the side of the rode and began to throw up. I thought this can not be good. I continued on. I tried to make up some of the fluids and calories I lost but kept feeling sick every time I took in anything. This kink totally threw of my nutrition. I decided to go as long as I could without drinking anything. I would notice my speed start to drop and my effort increase. I knew I had to take in more nutrition. I would drink and within 2 minutes felt better and picked up my pace again. About 10 minutes later I felt sick again and would throw up. This cycle continued until about mile 90. My legs finally caught a break here. I turned back to town and had a tailwind. This was a welcome change from constantly cranking against the wind. The course was so flat that you never got a chance to give your legs a break. The end of the bike was getting close. Or so I thought. I didn’t do my usual course recon. I was not aware that the road coming back had been changed and we took a different road until the last few blocks. I thought I was about to turn into the transition area so I took my feet out of my shoes to get some feeling back in them. I pedaled easy and let people pass me. Then I looked at my speedometer and saw that we had about 2 more miles to go. I thought my watch must be wrong. It wasn’t I missed judged the distance to the high rise I thought was the race venue. I lost several minutes here. I thought I will make it up with a good transition. looking at my watch I thought I had a pretty good bike split even with all the problems. 

T2

I had a perfect dismount on the run. I made my way to the gear area. I couldn’t feel my feet and my legs were bricks.  I picked up my bag and ran or rather jogged to the tent changed so fast that I realized my shorts were on backwards. Oh well, so much for a fast transition. Grabbed my fuel belt, hat, gloves, and sunglasses. Off for a little 26.2 mile run.

Run

My legs were so heavy it took me until about mile 3 before I got my stride. My stomach still felt nausea. Then an old injury appeared. I stopped and stretched my calf, walked a minute, then began running again. Every few minutes I had to stop to stretch and massage my calf. This was very frustrating I started to see people that I was 20 minutes ahead of begin to  pass me. I thought “suck it up and run”. The pain was so awful I thought about pulling out of the race instead of risking re-injury. I walked for a little bit and remembered I had students tracking me. I decided it was better to finish even if I had to walk the rest of the way instead of quitting. My next thought was, “this is going to be a very long marathon if I have to walk the rest of this thing”. My leg started feeling better so I decided to run again easy. “Feels good. Keep running”. Made the turn around for the first loop and my stomach started feeling better. Finishing the first loop feeling pretty good. I finally saw Michele just before the special needs station. This was a mental  boost. I decide to dump some gear off with here that I wasn’t using, such as my heart rate strap. I wasn't running fast enough to need to monitor my HR. Stopping was a big mistake. It was hard to get going again. Made the turn around picked up my goodies from my special needs bag, changed into some fresh socks, and started the second loop. 13.1 miles down 13.1 more to go. I felt much better now than I did during the first loop. This is my chance to make up some time and pull back some of the people that passed me. The sun started to set and temperature plummeted. I put on my gloves and long sleeved shirt to try and keep warm but I was so cold any water I drank went right through me. I stopped at every aid station for a potty break. I remembered the race officials saying that the police here had been ordered to arrest anyone using the restroom in public. So I had to wait many times to use the port-a-potty. I think I lost maybe close to an hour due to bodily functions. The national park, which is the turn around is a lonely place when the sun goes down. Pitch black and many strange animal sounds. Luckily I brought a running lamp. I immediately made 10 new friends, to which I said “if an alligator decides to make one of us dinner one of you has to sacrifice yourself because I have the only light source for another mile”. My running group broke up as soon as there was light again. It was about mile 18 that I think all the constant pedaling on the bike finally got to me because my knees began to ache to the point where I had to walk. This is very out of the ordinary. I never have knee problems on the run. I did a walk a minute run as long as you can routine the rest of the run. I saw my buddy Rob again. We both did not look or feel good at this point. We encouraged each other and kept going. The finish line seemed to keep moving farther away but eventually I could hear the crowds. I thought I would walk and rest up one last time so I could have enough left to run in without looking like a weenie. Time was no longer my concern. Finishing was. If I knew I was so close to 12 hours I probably would have run a little faster.  It still wasn’t the 11 hours I was shooting for but at least I would have felt a little better about it. I finally crossed the finish line in 13 hours 11 minutes. I saw Michele and Leia at the finish line and was so happy to see them. I took a picture with them and was so happy to be finished I didn’t even hear if they called me an ironman. 

Post race

I grabbed a slice of pizza and some water and headed for the massage tent to warm up.  As soon I stopped running I began to shiver uncontrollably. I sat in the tent and had some hot chicken broth until I was warm enough to walk again. I found my wife and left for the condo which was about another mile away. The next day I didn’t feel to bad. Probably because I wasn’t able to go at hard as I would have liked. Oh well, I finished and there were no injuries in the process.

 I look at each race as a learning opportunity; a chance to get better and improve on things that have given me trouble in past races. Of course every race is different with different scenarios and obstacles. I think it sometimes takes a stronger person to cope with the unfortunate circumstances that the day throws at you. A good athlete deals with adversity and keeps going. Even if it takes 2 hours longer than planned. It is easy to quit when things turn south. It is these challenges that build character and make you the person you are. If you quit on yourself you will always wonder, “what if I could have finished”. You will never know if you quit. Luckily, I am already singed up for another ironman in May. Time to take the lessons learned and apply them to training. The good thing about having a bad race is that you can do better next time. One other note I forgot to mention. Two days after the race before we left Florida. I was wearing my Ironman finishers t-shirt and playing with my 1 year old daughter. She pointed to the M-dot on my shirt and said “Da-Da”. Suddenly     the disappointment in myself no longer mattered. It put things into perspective and reminded me of what really matters. It made me realize that for all the sacrifices I made, this is after all only a race. To her I am an ironman and she looks up to me and making her proud to say “that is my daddy and he is an ironman’, that is all that matters to me.