Ironman Florida - TriathlonFull Ironman

I started about 1 person back from the front. I must have ran and dolphin dived slowly because by the time I got past the sand bar and started swimming there was plenty of people in front of me. Lots of traffic on the first 750 meters. I had a few people swim up on my legs during the traffic jams. I would give them a few seconds and if they were still on my legs I started kicking. They got the point. There is no excuse for swimming up on top of someone when visibility is that good in the water. If you get kicked in the face you deserve it. After the first buoy the congestion was hit or miss for the rest of the race. I kept my stroke nice and long and easy with good bilateral-breathing. I managed not to get hit in the head at all during the entire swim. The chop/waves were pretty annoying. Plenty of jelly fish to look at while swimming.

Nothing.

Took my sweet time. I used the wetsuit strippers who were nice and quick. They were pretty slow in fetching my T1 bag.

Put suncreen on before the race instead of during T1.

Nice head wind out of the east while heading east cause my HR to be to high for about an 27 miles. I paid for the high heart rate during my run. The road surfaces were pretty good except for a couple spots where there was a annoying crack in the road about every 20 feet which would cause a nice thump every time you hit one. I was eating a bite of clif bar every 5 miles and drank 2 bottles of infinit in the first 50 miles. My was starting to feel bloated so I cut out the clif bars after mile 50. I stopped at the special needs station at mile 50 to pickup my infinit drink mix. Much to my dismay they did not have water at the bike special needs station. I had to stop 10 miles later at the next aid station to fill up my bottles. Never took a piss during the during the entire ride.

Do more 100+ mile rides in training.

Took my sweet time again. Got some more sun tan lotion put on by the volunteers who caked it on and didn't cover a lot of areas. I spent a little time rubbing in the lotion some and I also stopped to take a piss.

I started off the run feeling good for about the first 5 miles then my HR started spiking and my ham string cramped up a little bit. I knew at this point I wasn't going to be able to keep up the pace I started at so I kicked it into easy gear. I wasn't going to risk pushing to hard and not finishing. At the special needs station I ditched my garmin. I was tired of it telling me how slow I was going :) At about mile 15 I had a good looking girl pass me that I figured I could keep up with. From then on I managed to trot from aid station to aid station with a little extra walking past the aid stations. I kept this trot/walk routine up till the finish. I was quite relieved to be finished with the race and training for the season. I realized after the race that I was taking in to much sodium. During the run I was getting this thirsty feeling even though I was drinking quite a bit of gatorade at every aid station. I probably started the day by drinking to much of the ocean water which didn't help my sodium levels. My black shorts were caked in salt. I only took one pee during the run which put my grand total at 2 pees during the entire race. I think I need to drink a little more water instead of gatorade next time I do an ironman. My goal time was 12 hours so I guess I am happy with my first ironman performance. I just wish I didn't walk as much during the run.

Push a little harder on the run now that I know I can finish with no problem.

Walked to get my pics taken. Ate half a slice of pizza. Even though I was pretty worn out I actually didn't feel that bad for just completing such a long race. Picked up my race bike and road it back to the condo. I had a nice egg and bacon dinner that night which really hit the spot. Muscle soreness was surprisingly completely gone after 2 days. After the last marathon I could hardly walk for 5 days my muscles were so sore. I guess since my run was so pathetically slow during the ironman it really didn't take much of a toll on my muscles.


More 20+ mile runs during training.


This race is about as easy as Ironman courses get. The weather was awesome except for the slight wind on the bike. I really like panama city beach this time of year. The weather was is great for working out and sitting on the beach. I am probably going back to panama city beach next year at the same time even though I am not doing the race again just because I liked the area and the price and quality of accommodations so much.