Ironman Florida - Triathlon

3-5 foot waves made for a difficult start, not sure why people insisted on turning around and letting the wave crash into their backs pushed them back, dive through the wave people, dive through. Once I got through the waves, the water was pretty good, unfortunately there was not a ton of swimming happening for the first 200-300m due to the massive amount of people in the water. It was hard to get clear water, like all others say, I was hit, kicked, swam over, and under. It's unbelievable to me how many people were swimming perpendicular to the buoy line. After the first loop I ran the beach to the buoy line and had great water most of the second lap. As rough as the sea was, and considering the first loop was full contact wrestling type swimming I had an absolute blast!

I would have lined up earlier and more to the front of the mass to avoid the people who don't know how to get through a wave.

Had to grab my own bag but I knew right where it was so it was not a big deal. I've heard the stories about the changing area and how crowded it is so I opted to change outside in the parking lot. I swam in my tri shorts so changing was really just putting on a bike jersey and bike gear. That turned out to be a great decision because I still had to run through the changing area and it was busy and full of naked-ness, for god sakes put some clothes on man! I closed my eyes and ran as fast as I could to get out of there.

try to do it faster, being my first Ironman I didn't want to forget anything.

Course was flat and fast, it felt like there was a head wind for the first 80 miles but not too bad, miles 65-80 being the worse which may be why the entire field seemed to be in a pelaton. For the first 25 miles it was impossible to avoid drafting or blocking, if you had a gap between you and the bike in front of you it would soon be filled with one of the packs of riders coming by. For the most part I rode to the left passing what was a solid line of athletes for the first 15+ miles. Through out the day I tried my best to ride legal, course marshals were out but I didn't see any penalties handed out and for the most part the penalty tents were empty when I went by them. Miles 50-60 is the worse stretch of road, I didn't think it was that bad, but there were tubes, CO2, bottles, and all kinds of other stuff laying on the road, not sure how these people secured these items to their bike but I had no issues. Nutrition and hydration seemed to be good until mile 95 when my stomach started to cramp a bit and the legs got tight. Nothing serious, just a few small reminders that I had been on the bike for over 5 hours.

spend more time training nutrition.

After the bike I knew my time was better then I had anticipated so I tried to hurry it up a bit and in the process left my Garmin tracker in my jersey pocket so my friends could not track me on the run. That sucked for them, but i couldn't go back considering i didn't realize it until mile 1 on the run.

slow down a bit and make sure i have everything.

Off the bike the legs felt tight and my stomach was cramping, this held true the entire run. What started as a stitch in my side turned into light stomach ache. No serious cramping, but it affected my nutrition intake from mile 1. I tried infinite and GU (what I trained with) but it was not helping my stomach. I switched to ice water and GU from mile 5 to 13 but still had a stomach ache. At special needs I sat down to change my socks and that's when I though my race was over, my quads locked up and cramped so bad I couldn't stand. Thanks to the two volunteers who put my socks and shoes back on and helped get me moving again. I ate a peanut butter, nutella, banana, and almond wrap knowing I had to get some nutrition in my system. I stretched my legs the best I could and started my slow jog back on the course. On the second loop I switched to cola and water and eventually chicken broth, and cola. The stomach issues never fully settled down and I fought them then entire run. Same with the leg cramps, although they cramped at mile 13, the rest of the run they were just sore enough to let me know they were there, but never cramped again. I believe the stomach and the legs kept each other in check and allowed me to continue to run. At mile 18 I was expecting to hit "the wall" but it never appeared. I got to the turn around and the mile 20 sign and went into calculation mode. My goal was to do a sub 12 hour race, I left T2 and the race clock said 7:29 so I know I had 4:30 to complete my run. With 6 miles left I could slow down to 11 minute miles and still make my time. I ran steady for the next 2 miles and overheard a guy tell the girl behind me that if she ran 10:18s she would hit 11:45. This made me realize that my T2 clock was the pro time and I had 10 minutes in the bank. Knowing this information I changed my goal to 11:45. At my current pace I could hit 11:45 but I had 4 more miles to maintain this pace. I shortened my walks through the aid stations and kept my pace consistent. As the last 4 miles ticked down I was able to maintain my pace and grew increasingly happy to know I was going to shatter my original goal time. The last mile was truly awesome, there was still a good amount of people out cheering and it felt great to be so close. When you enter the finish chute the electricity was amazing, everyone was cheering and you basically float to the finish line. I was so excited to be done, I can honestly tell you that I didn't see my finish time on the clock, and I did not hear those magical words YOU ARE AN IRONMAN! Good thing my wife videoed me in the chute and continued to roll so I could hear the words, Mike Weiss from Oxford Michigan, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN.

Nothing considering my cramping issues.

Soak it all in and get a massage.


Stomach cramps and leg cramps coming off the bike.


Ironman events are second to none!