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Ironman Florida - TriathlonFull Ironman


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Panama City Beach, Florida
United States
World Triathlon Corporation
Total Time = 10h 32m 56s
Overall Rank = /
Age Group = 30-34
Age Group Rank = 3/88
Swim
  • 1h 08m 5s
  • 4156 yards
  • 01m 27s / 100 yards
Comments:

Swim- looking at times beforehand, I thought that below 1:10 was a reasonable expectation for me, given my current swim ability . Yes, I swam faster at Lou, but I used the current to my advantage, got a great start, and found some good feet. That was the plan for this one, but it didn’t happen exactly right. I was a bit nervous about the mass start. Then, I got behind some slower swimmers and failed to be aggressive enough to get the start that would enable me to find faster feet. By the time I was able to actually swim, I was surrounded by slower swimmers, so it was an obstacle course I navigated alone. There were lots of little pieces of jellyfish in the water and I felt several small stings on my face, but I tried to ignore them. It was hard to ignore the MASSIVE dinner-plate-sized ones you could see all over, just a few arms lengths below the water, though. After the first loop, I checked my watch and it was right at 32 minutes. Okay, not too bad, I’m still on track.

Then I made the mistake of starting too far to the left and had to swim against the current. The second time around I was able to swim a bit more, though I was not among swimmers who were good drafting candidates. Live and learn! Next time I will start closer to the front and farther to the right for sure.

Overall , I am very fit in the pool.. I need a technique breakthrough to make progress. My max speed needs to increase to move forward. I think I am on the verge of one from a gem I got from Kelley. I need to practice it more and see how it affects my times. This will be a focus in the winter.

Got out of the water and saw the clock in the high 1:07s so by the time I crossed the might I was at 1:08. Ran up to the t1 bag area . It was SOOO crowded. Another reason I need to swim faster is so I can have some space. I saw a video later of a girl who swam in the 50s and her bag etc. was ready and waiting .. wouldn’t that be sweet! Afraid of the crowd in the changing area, I dumped my stuff outside in the little hall for which a volunteer berated me. “I’m sorry, “ I said. “I already dumped it out!” I had packed enough cold weather gear for a blizzard, and already pre- packed my jacket pockets but decided to just go w/ the arm warmers. It is hard to get stuff on when you’re wet! T1 was 8ish minutes.

Transition 1
  • 00m
Bike
  • 5h 42m
  • 112 miles
  • 19.65 mile/hr
Comments:

Bike- I have been working very hard on my bike and the entire emphasis since KY has been cycling. My coach has been killing me, and it has been all indoor torture for the last few weeks. Getting on, I felt better already than I had at Louisville. My goal was to push 5-10 watts higher than my Lou bike and so I got out at a good clip. I only displayed my 3 second power, average power, and time on my Garmin. I don’t like to be distracted my seeing the mileage and trying to “make up time” on the bike, that is usually a losing scenario. Bad headwind on the first hour and then there were the draft packs.
Slight rant: I try to give the benefit of the doubt to people with drafting. The truth is, if you’re not at the very front or back of the field on the bike, or if you’re not a terrible swimmer/great biker combo who’s moving up in the field the entire bike, there are going to be times when the bike course is crowded, especially on a super flat course. BUT, this was the worst drafting I had seen. When you see people sitting four wide across the road and ten plus deep (and not in the midst of changing position) there is really no other explanation for what’s going on. And the thing that pissed me off most about these particular draft packs is the ones blocking me weren’t really going that fast. Come on, guys! If you’re wheel sucking the whole time and have a below average bike time anyways, you really need to reassess, k?
These packs were messing w my flow bc I’d come up on them and I knew I couldn’t pass the whole pack, yet I also wanted to go harder than they were going. So my only solution was to spin at a legal distance behind until a draft marshal or aid station came to break them up. I was getting frustrated because I was trying to keep my watts steady and instead it was surge, spin, surge, spin.

At one point I came up on two guys with one wheel -sucking about two inches behind the other, sporting the kit of one of our own Atlanta multisport stores. I couldn’t let that go. “You know this is a non-drafting race, right?” I said, to which he replied with what I can only describe as a guilty-evil smirk. Fortunately, he didn’t try to run me off the road after that! Rant over.
So for nutrition this go –round I tried something different. I really just like to have coke so I went with EFS vanilla, coke that I put in my behind the seat bottle, and one double shot caffeinated gel that I was saving for a low point. I hit the low point about mile 80 or whenever the really bumpy road started. All the sudden, I couldn’t keep my watts up and they were going down in a hurry. My legs were hurting from the constant pedaling with no breaks that a flat terrain requires. I had to take more and more micro-breaks where I would have to shift around and stop pedaling. Also, my right hip was starting to hurt.
My hip is what had really messed with my IM KY bike. I ended up having to sit up to pedal for two hours, and my shot at a KQ time was over with my resulting bike split. I was a little fearful about this happening at FL and I REALLY laid off the bike and upped the PT the last week plus prior. There was no time if not then for the double shot, so I took that along with another coke I left at special needs and immediately started to feel better.
I have to admit that in the back of my mind, I was also thinking about Jared and Joseph catching me on the bike. By this time I was almost at mile 90, and I had avoided being caught by any ATCers thus far. I knew they couldn’t be far behind and I really really didn’t want to let that happen. Turns out that they were within a minute at one point!
I had been keeping rough track of my time versus mile markers, relative to the easily divisible 20mph standard. When we turned to go back into town I started catching back up my projections and feeling better to boot. When we got to the windy section, I realized that I may still be able to bike sub 5:45, which is what I wanted.. with 5:40 as my stretch goal. I knew if I got close to 5:40 on the bike, I could be on the run around 7:00 total time, which is what I needed to be on track.
I saw my parents and John’s dad several times on the bike which was soo awesome every time. I don’t know how my dad got around to so many places, with it being a one loop course, but he did great. Spectators don’t really realize what a HUGE boost it is to see a friendly face when you start to feel bad. Coming back into town I saw Todd Lappi and yelled out his name. I started smiling then because he told m before the race (being encouraging) that he thought I could get 10:55. Of course I couldn’t help but think to myself, “I think I can beat that!” I had a huge grin on my face because I knew h e would be doing the math when he saw me and be surprised.
When we turned back into the very windy part, I felt renewed and really pushed it the last few miles in. I had gotten this far, there was NO WAY I was letting Joseph and Jared catch me now! I saw Jerome and Dave M on a scooter too, which was pretty cool. Overall, interestingly, my watts were lower than I wanted and I didn’t make my wattage goal for the bike. I think it has to do with the terrain, you get a lot of breaks on a rolling course, and two “hills” in a 112 miles sucks for breaks.

Overall, I still felt like I had a better bike than at IM KY. I have improved a lot over the last two years and it won’t get better overnight. The bike will be my other focus over the winter and I gradually hope to keep taking time off.

Getting back into transition, I jumped off the bike and saw that the race clock was under 7 hours. I remembered at WI I came off at over 8 hours and 7:25 at Lou. I was absolutely elated knowing that I was so far “ahead” and just burned through transition and out onto the run course.

Transition 2
  • 00m
Run
  • 3h 32m
  • 26.2 miles
  • 08m 05s  min/mile
Comments:

The Run- Now for the run, my coach and I had a very different strategy than the others. We both felt that I had been too conservative on the run and that I needed to go out hard to see what I could really do. The specific instructions were to take the first three miles easy then go out hard basically knowing I could blow up as at mile 18. This strategy was very exciting to me. I guess that’s a little weird.

Anyways, I got going and felt Good. I glanced at my Garmin and couldn’t seem to slow under 7:30s. Oh well, I just decided to go with it. I felt great for the first ten miles, then it started to get harder. I had my average pace up and was determined to keep it sub 8 as long as I could. There was definitely no singing and laughing and joking, this sucker started to HURT A LOT as soon as mile 13ish. Due to my finicky calves, my longest run since KY was only 1.5 hours, which I realize is Insane. I was trying to keep this out of my mind. Also, I had read this quote that helped me a lot. Something someone said about once you put your body through the wringer a few times, you’d be surprised at what it can do.

Water, coke, water, coke at every aid station. Just get to mile 13 under 1:45 and you will be on track. Just get to mile 18 and you can slow and save some for the end . Of course none of the slowing is really voluntary but you can tell yourself things to keep it moving whether it’s true or not. I had heard from a few people that John had been about 10 minutes ahead at the start of the run and I figured I was running about a minute per mile faster, so I thought I would catch him about mile ten. Sure enough , saw him right at mile ten… snuck up and smacked him in the rear. His reaction was so sweet and something I won’t forget. He said something along the lines of “Oh, I’m so glad you caught up.. I was worried you weren’t having a good race!” I said I felt good and congratulated him because he was doing a lot better than his personal prediction for himself. Then I kept running my pace and he his, and I slowly pulled away. After the turnaround I was thinking “just make it to the park. Just make it to the park” For some reason, I looked forward to the empty desolate state park bc I knew if I could make it through that I would be in the home stretch. The park is hell in the heat of may, but oddly comforting in cool October.

Got through the park the second time and my splits were starting to look not-so-good. Lots of high eights and even a niner. I was really really hurting and felt like my legs were on the verge of cramping up. I decided to walk through a few aid stations which I have never done before. If nothing else it was something short term to look forward to, if I convinced myself it would make me run faster afterwards. About this time, I also started to notice that the women that I came up on were in contention if you know what I mean. I could somehow tell by looking at them and by spectators yelling their position in their divisions. I started to thinking “Hey, maybe I actually have a chance!”

I had asked my mom and Todd L when I saw them at the turnaround to look online and see where I was at. They told me fifth or sixth when I saw them so I knew I had a shot at top five. Prior to the race, I had athlinks’d the girls in my division and had a vague idea of who my main competition would be. I came up on a girl with a 31 on her calf and a last name on her butt that I vaguely recognized the name as being who I anticipated as strong competition. She was walking an aid station and I passed her. Next aid station I walked and she passed me back. Her pace wasn’t that good though, and I knew I needed to cut the 10 second breaks and pass her definitively .

Mile 24 and I clicked over on my Garmin so I could see the time of day. Holy crap, I was going to do it! I had visualized a 10:36 and a 3:30 marathon as being the perfect day for my current ability. Somehow even though my legs were in horrible pain I managed to pick it up. I didn’t want to give up a second of my hard-earned time. My face must have looked particularly grotesque because the camera guy on the motorcycle started filming me and stayed on for about a minute. Hopefully nothing too embarrassing shows up on the broadcast!

Passing the ATCers again was just the boost I needed. I was so happy I was crying and yelling the last mile, then I would have trouble breathing so I would have to stop. I saw the clock ahead and ran and felt SOOO ALIVE even though my body was about to shut down. It was one of the best moments ever. I crossed in under 10:33 and my mom was there and telling me that I got third in 30-34. I did it!! Even if it ended up that there were only two spots, I did it as far as I was concerned. I was so thankful and felt so blessed that I could have such a good day doing what I really love and have Such a passion for.

I stuck around at the finish line for a few minutes.. Ted and Stacey were there too and he had finished in an awesome 9:49. My dad had called to say that John would be crossing soon. I really wanted to see him finish, especially since I missed it at WI. We all recognized his stride as the clock was still at 10:52. I was soo happy because though I thought he could do sub 11, he was outperforming his own prediction by a lot.
I got back around to congratulate him and we both teared up and I was so touched by how happy he was for me. I was really proud of him and happy this IM experience had been good for him, he had questioned whether he even wanted to do it so many times.

After the massage, getting food, showering, we came back to watch the rest of the ATCers. I was SO proud of how well everyone did. A lot of people exceeded their times goals and the ones who didn’t showed extreme determination despite things not going well.

The next day I woke up at 7 and felt anxious about getting to the Kona slot allocation. I had done the math and pretty much figured there would only be two spots, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to just GO at nine to make sure. I could barely talk to anyone that morning I was so keyed up about it. I walked down to the tent with my parents I and the staff member told me there were three slots. I DID IT!!! I couldn’t believe it! I made her show me on the computer to be sure, and I was still pinching myself until they actually took my money!

I’m going to KONA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Post race



Last updated: 2011-11-07 12:00 AM
Swimming
01:08:05 | 4156 yards | 01m 27s / 100yards
Age Group: 20/88
Overall: 0/
Performance:
Suit:
Course:
Start type: Plus:
Water temp: 0F / 0C Current:
200M Perf. Remainder:
Breathing: Drafting:
Waves: Navigation:
Rounding:
T1
Time: 00:00
Performance:
Cap removal: Helmet on/
Suit off:
Wetsuit stuck? Run with bike:
Jump on bike:
Getting up to speed:
Biking
05:42:00 | 112 miles | 19.65 mile/hr
Age Group: 0/88
Overall: 0/
Performance:
Wind:
Course:
Road:   Cadence:
Turns: Cornering:
Gear changes: Hills:
Race pace: Drinks:
T2
Time: 00:00
Overall:
Riding w/ feet on shoes
Jumping off bike
Running with bike
Racking bike
Shoe and helmet removal
Running
03:32:00 | 26.2 miles | 08m 05s  min/mile
Age Group: 0/88
Overall: 0/
Performance:
Course:
Keeping cool Drinking
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall:
Mental exertion [1-5]
Physical exertion [1-5]
Good race?
Evaluation
Course challenge
Organized?
Events on-time?
Lots of volunteers?
Plenty of drinks?
Post race activities:
Race evaluation [1-5]

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2011-11-07 7:06 PM

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Extreme Veteran
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Subject: Ironman Florida


2011-11-07 7:11 PM
in reply to: #3893421

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Regular
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Subject: RE: Ironman Florida
Congrats on ur race and Kona spot.

tom
2011-11-07 7:11 PM
in reply to: #3893421

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Regular
389
100100100252525
Subject: RE: Ironman Florida
Congrats on ur race and Kona spot.

tom
2011-11-07 7:22 PM
in reply to: #3893421

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Expert
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Alexandria, MN
Subject: RE: Ironman Florida
That was an awesome race report, thanks for posting it and congrats on the race, and Kona slot!
2011-11-08 12:06 PM
in reply to: #3893421

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Extreme Veteran
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Lakeland
Subject: RE: Ironman Florida
Great Job!! Picked this one at random, picked a good one nice report.
2011-11-08 1:21 PM
in reply to: #3893421

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Austin, Texas
Subject: RE: Ironman Florida
What a great RR and congrats to an awesome day of racing .......oh yeah, and FOR QUALIFYING FOR KONA!


2011-11-08 1:21 PM
in reply to: #3893421

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Champion
7704
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Williamston, Michigan
Subject: RE: Ironman Florida
WOW fantastic race and congrats on the KQ!!
2011-11-08 8:36 PM
in reply to: #3893421

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Extreme Veteran
617
500100
Subject: RE: Ironman Florida
Thanks, guy! I am very excited!
2011-11-09 8:45 PM
in reply to: #3893421

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Veteran
106
100
Gloucestershire, England
Subject: RE: Ironman Florida

Fantastic race.  And congratulations on the Kona slot !! 

You must have blasted by me on the run.  Next time shout out and I'll try to latch on to you (some hope !)

Congratulations again

Adrian

2011-11-10 8:16 AM
in reply to: #3893421

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Master
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Atlanta, Georgia
Gold member
Subject: RE: Ironman Florida
Just awesome. Way to represent..

Congratulations, big-time.
2011-11-12 10:43 PM
in reply to: #3893421

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Elite
3683
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Whispering Pines, North Carolina
Subject: RE: Ironman Florida

KONA!

All that hard work has paid off! Big time! Congrats! SUPERSTAR!



2011-11-19 12:21 PM
in reply to: #3893421

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Extreme Veteran
617
500100
Subject: RE: Ironman Florida
Will do, Adrian! Thanks again, guys!
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