Ironman 70.3 Florida - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Finally, it was time to start. Martin was first to go. Jeff went 2 waves after Martin, and I went right after Jeff. The swim was really pretty good. I picked a back right starting location as I don't particularly like the scrum associated with swim starts. Boy, was the water warm! The announcer said the water was 84 degrees. It might have been a little warmer than that! I breast stroked to the first buoy to warm up and then settled in with a nice easy freestyle. I didn't have any trouble finding clean water, and really didn't encounter too many folks blocking or swimming over me. I felt really good the whole way, and exited the water in :46:27. This was about a minute faster than my last swim here. I came out of the water :14 seconds sooner than Jeff (my only bragging opportunity relating to Jeff is that I had a faster swim than him).

not much. Felt great

The run from the swim exit to transition seems like it is half a mile. It's not really that far, but it's much longer than most other races I've done. As a result, my transition time was really slow...7:40. After the swim, I was in 1263rd place and 219 in my AG.

The route one takes to exit transition and get to the mount line at this race is to take a very narrow path for about 100 yards until you get to a service road. The path is about the width of a sidewalk, and is bordered by fencing (to keep out the spectators, I guess). The only problem with this set-up is when you have someone in front of you that is either much slower than you want to go..or in my case, stops completely in front of you and blocks the path with his bike. Some guy was having problems with his bike, and just STOPPED! Needless to say, he ticked off about 10 other racers until he finally got out of the way.

As I mentioned before, the course at IMFL 70.3 is essentially flat. For non-Floridians, it's pancake flat. Generally, it's a fast course, except when it's windy. Luckily, Saturday wasn't too windy. There were sections of the course that had a little headwind, but nothing too drastic. For me, my pacing was right where I wanted it at first - about 20mph. The really discouraging thing for me about racing here (and for that matter, at any WTC race in Florida) is the fact that packs form on the bike and there are typically insufficient race officials to penalize the offenders. I was passed by several large packs in the first 25 miles of the ride. Most of them came from younger age groups (30-35 seemed to be the most prevalent). I only saw one official during the ride, and never saw anyone in a penalty tent. I thought triathlon was an individual sport?!

The bike was really going well. My nutrition plan was working nicely - I had set my Garmin to beep every 7 minutes to remind me to hydrate. I was alternating between water and First Endurance. I was taking a hit off my Liquid Shot every 45 minutes. I felt great!

Then, at mile 40, the wheels came off (re-insert foreboding music from Saturday dinner)! Right after mile 40, there's a very small hill. Nothing too major, but big enough that most people, including me, will want to shift down to an easier gear. I shifted down, and my chain over shifted, jumped off my cassette, and got wedged in between my cassette and spokes. This stopped my rear wheel right in its tracks. As I skidded from 20mph to zero, I tried, to no avail, to unclip. Alas, I was unable to get undone and toppled over off the side of the road. I took a quick look at my chain, and thought, "no big deal, get it undone and let's go." Not so fast. When I said the chain was wedged, I mean it was WEDGED. Stuck. Hard. I pulled and pulled. Spun the wheel backwards to try to get unstuck. Tried taking the wheel off. I couldn't get the chain undone. I'm not sure that the Incredible Hulk could have gotten it undone. Finally, after 20 minutes, I got it out and back on the cassette. I hopped on the bike and proceeded to ride up the rest of the hill.

Unfortunately, my chain did not agree with that concept. It kept skipping and hopping, so at the top of the hill, I stopped and started messing with it again. I was right near a police officer, and he called for tech support for me. Turns out that when my chain hopped off, it bent a link. I waited and waited for tech support to show up. 25 minutes later, the dude showed up, took a look at my chain and went and got his...you guessed it...chain tool. He broke my chain and took out the kinked link, gave me a little air, and sent me on my way. Perhaps a coincidence that I had just teased Jeff about him taking a multi-tool with him everywhere...perhaps bad karma...I'm not sure yet. In either case, had i had the tool myself, I could have saved some of the 45 minutes lost. To compound things, I noticed (of course after I had re-started riding) that my front wheel was now out of true and kept rubbing my brakes. I stopped again, opened up the quick release on my brakes as far as it would go - but my wheel was still so far out of true that if I spun it it still wouldn't make one full revolution without stopping. CRAP! So, I finished the last 16 miles of the ride by running with my brakes engaged and with a headwind. I couldn't hardly muster more than 15mph the rest of the way. Talk about a bummer - took a really good ride (probably a 2:45 ride) and turned it into a really pedestrian 3:33 ride. 15.7mph average. This sank me to 335th in my AG and 1904 overall.


DAMN CHAIN!!!

I finally hit transition! I had a speedier transition this year than my prior race at Disney. Hit the port-a-potty, donned the Fasttwich 4's, hit a gel, grabbed my Trakkers visor, and I was off. 4:34. Slow by comparison, but I was OK with it.


Nothing

The run course at this race consists of three loops, about half of which are on paved roads or sidewalks; the other half are on what I'll refer to here as the "African Grasslands". At this point, it's probably appropriate that I comment on the weather. Sunday was a typical May day in Florida. Hot. Sunny. Humid. The air temp was close to 95 degrees. I don't know what the humidity level was, but suffice it to say that the air was thick enough to make you think you were in the middle of a jungle. I'm sure the heat index was north of 100 degrees. On the African Grasslands part of the course, there is no shade. Trees lining the course block the wind. It's brutal out there.

Given the fact that I wasn't starting my run until 11:30 or so (thanks, Mr. Shimano for my lovely chain), I scrapped my run plan pretty quickly. My original plan was to run the first lap at about a 10 minute pace, and then aim to negative split if possible. If not, I was going to step down to walking aid stations and maintain my pace. Knowing how hot I was already when I started, I knew I wouldn't be able to complete that plan, so I made an on-the-fly adjustment. During IMFL last November, I employed a run-walk method. I ran for 2 minutes and walked for 2 minutes for the entire marathon. Sunday, I did something similar; I ran for 3 minutes and walked for 3 minutes. While this took my pace to a much slower pace than I had wanted, it also prevented me from crashing and burning. There were a LOT of racers that were hit hard on the run. I saw two racers literally passed out - an ambulance came and took one guy away. There were TONS of folks walking. In fact, I think there were more folks walking this year than when I did the race two years ago. My overall time on the run: according to WTC it was 3:01. My Garmin had me a little faster, but whatever. 13.52/mile. Overall time for the race 7:34.26. I finished 308 out of 348 in my AG and 1775 out of 1947 finishers.

run more, hydrate more. Bring a portable air conditioner with me

ate crummy post race pizza.


DAMN CHAIN. Jungle heat


Certainly not my best race ever, but I take solace in knowing that I could have been at least 45 minutes faster without the mechanical problem on the bike.