I am blogging at the beach! It is February 4th and after a great Waffle House breakfast, I dropped Alex at the tiny airport for their trip back to Brooklyn. They were my Sherpa for the race and also volunteered for 7 hours at a run aid station; handing out water, electrolytes, ice, and food in the hot (84) Sun.
After resting yesterday I swam for 15 minutes (much rougher than race day) and ran barefoot in the sand for 15 minutes. I also did some Yoga and will have a massage this afternoon so by tomorrow I should be good for the drive to Birmingham on Election Day. Even though I got down here on Monday, I did not find any time to Blog about my road trip before the race on Saturday. Hopefully, I’ll get that done in the next few days, and then I can Blog later about my pre-race time in Panama City Beach. But I want to write about race day while it is fresh in my mind.
I am sorry this is very long but it was a very long day/race. You can read it in pieces if you want.
Here is the GREAT race recap video they played at the Award Ceremony yesterday (amazing that they produced it between midnight and 7 am). 9 minutes in you will see me running from behind with my shark hat and pink flamingo racing kit. But… the official Video is almost 20 minutes long so you might want to read my blog now and when you have time later watch the YouTube video.
On race day I had my alarm set for 5 am but was up before 4. This is not unusual on race day and I had gone to sleep early and slept well and long for several days before the race as I arrived Monday for a Saturday race. Many people don’t come down until Thursday (a few even Friday) which makes things very hectic. As it is the “off” season here (July and August are prime PCB PARTY BEACH time) the condominium I stayed at was virtually deserted on Monday, had a few people on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday and Thursday was maybe half-occupied. It was the one closest to the swim and transition areas.
As I had dropped off and racked my bike and gear bags the day before, all Alex had to carry for me on race day was some personal needs bags for the run and bike (you have access to them halfway through the courses). We left at 5:30 am and It was only a 5-minute walk from our hotel to the bag drop areas and transition. It was so special to me to have Alex travel from Brooklyn for the race. I had told them that if it was too hard with them getting time off work I would be okay but it would have been sad having no one there for support. AND… Alex is an experienced Sherpa (doing double duties in Arizona in 2021 for me and my friend Mark) and a professional photographer so I got lots of photos and videos!
Alex waited outside the fence while I filled my water bottles with Perpetuum (carb/protein/electrolyte blend). I would switch to the “official” race nutrition of Mortal Hydration and Maurten Gels once I used up my initial bottles.
The race was on the Day of the Dead so when I saw some cool orange PCB Day of Dead stickers I bought a few and put one on my car and 2 on my bike (even though the extra weight would slow me down, LOL).
At 11:30 now it is already 82 degrees and I have lost my sliver of shade on the deck, I will have to retreat inside to A/C but I’ll still have the same gorgeous view.
It was easy to find the transition area as it was “behind Margaritaville”.
It was only a 5-minute walk from transition to the beach (but it would be a longer run out of water to the changing tent without the shortcut we used). It was still pretty dark when we got there at 6:15 (the clocks hadn’t turned back yet) but it was light by 6:45 when the swim started.
I tried for the “proud Aztec” pose perfected by Daniel Leon of Puerto Rico.
As I was wearing my Shark earring and would wear my shark hat for the second loop of the run I was VERY excited to see a shark on the beach! I ran over to high-5 him/her and then the video guy asked me to stand still and pretend to be surprised when the shark touched me from behind. I must not have been a good enough actor because it didn’t make the official video. There was also a big white and rainbow-colored blow-up Unicorn in transition and then at the swim exit.
It was cool that families could come right down to the swim start area as we arranged ourselves by the signs for our “estimated” swim times. I chose around 1:20 (and did 1:13) but a LOT of people try to start “earlier” even though EVERYONE has 17 hours exactly to finish from the time you enter the water. I passed many slower swimmers, especially on the second lap but was not passed by many people. Alex gave me a hug and then headed up to the pier at 6:37 to watch (I had purchased a VIP pier pass for $35 for them) so they were one of very few people who got to watch from there.
For the past week the water temperature had been bouncing between 75 and 77 degrees. Anything over 76.1 is NOT wetsuit legal. Wetsuits make you swim faster (once you train in them and get used to it). I get about 2 minutes per mile faster. On race day at 4 am the Ironman app alerted that the official water temperature was 75.8 so everyone was happy except for the few really good swimmers who don’t wear wetsuits even in races.
When I got to about 50 feet from the start chute (the sent 3 people at a time every 5 seconds or so) I spotted Alex on the pier. Even though it was a good distance there so few people there it was easy to recognize their outfit and hair. The first people started at 6:45 but I didn’t enter the water until 7:08 and the last people not until around 7:30.
I started waving and yelling (I had told them to look for the orance on the ends of my sleeves), two volunteers also started yelling “ALEX” but they couldn’t hear over the crashing waves. But after I crossed the timing mat I took a few more seconds of trying to catch their eye and they waved and got this great video!!!
Alex followed “me” around the swim course (it was two loops with an “aussie exit” on the sand between loops).
I swam every day from Tuesday to Friday to practice. Tuesday and Friday in my wetsuit and the other days just in my tri kit in case the water was too warm on race day. I felt totally comfortable on the swim as it was calmer than any of my practice swims. Even with some chop and swells it was easy to sight the buoys being so buoyant in salt water and wetsuit. The current did push me off course a little, but I think I did better on the way in each time than going out. And I tried not to swim too close to the buoys where it was more crowded.
The fastest swimmers were already done with their second loop as I exited my first one but they had started 25 minutes before me.
I was totally happy with my swim and felt good, I ran on the sand between loops (a lot of people walked) and ate a gel I had tucked in my wetsuit with the water they had in cups on the beach. I also ran up the beach and along the boardwalk. For the first time in a triathlon I laid down on the ground and let the wetsuit “peelers” yank it off me. Since it was a long run to transition I knew I would run faster without the wetsuit on. They had some showers on the street and I washed some of the salt water off my head and body. A volunteer handed me my bike bag and in the changing tent I just needed to put on my socks and bike shoes and glasses and helmet and bike gloves as I was already wearing my tri kit under my wetsuit. In previous races I changed into real bike shorts and shirt and later into running shorts and a shirt but I wanted to be more efficient this time. I had done my 120 mile training ride in my tri kit so I knew it was as comfortable for me as thicker bike shorts.
Sorry for the non-triathletes out there if this is getting too technical but….
Please just at least look at the rest of the photos if you don’t have the time or inclination to keep reading.
Despite being perfectly positioned Alex missed my bike start somehow. I think I did transition much faster than they expected. I was the only one on the course with a pink helmet so I was hard to miss.
I tried to smile for the photographers 🙂
I felt great heading off on the bike course. I had not forgotten anything and my bike computer, power meter pedals, Heart monitor, etc. were all working. I made sure to NOT bike too fast as it would be a long hot day out there. I knew that on my longest training ride of 120 miles, I had averaged 126 Watts of power. But that was not after a long swim and before a marathon run, or on so hot a day, so I tried to stay at about 110 Watts. By being very consistent and in control on the bike I was able to run the whole marathon versus all the people who overdid it on the bike and then walked the whole 26 miles.
Being Florida of course the course was flat but it did have some small hills here and there. The winds were less than 10 mph and not a big issue except on the out-and-back 10-mile stretch between miles 60 and 70. It was directly into the wind and ALSO the worst section of road, so bumpy that I was only doing about 14 mph, and even with the wind at back on the 70-80 mile segment speed was not great. I thought that anyone tracking me would be thinking “uh oh, Dave is bonking”. I took in a huge amount of fluids and about 2000 calories on the bike. I pushed the high electrolyte mortal fluid and had a pickle juice shot at mile 50.
At the end of the bike, there was a nice segment of a few miles on a bike path through a forest. For most of the race, we did not have our own lane like at Lake Placid or Arizona. Even when it had 2 lanes in EACH direction cars were allowed in our lane. Some places had a big shoulder or bike lanes but most did not and there were a lot of rumble strips and reflectors in the pavement. Here are some bike course photos Alex took on the way to the airport along the course.
Also at around mile 110 for no reason, the course went through a small park along the Intercostal. Parts were paved but there were also boardwalks and plastic boarding on top of sandy sections. We went slowly in a single file and were all careful on the turns. The last stretch was a few miles east on the beachfront road. With a mile to go, I stopped my bike computer so I could save the data before a volunteer took away the bike after my dismount. I did NOT like the run on the pavement in my bike shoes after the first transition so this time I used the pro trick of taking my feet out of my bike shoes and then riding the last half mile with my socked feet on top of the shoes. It felt glorious running to the changing tent in my socks while other people slowly walked in their stiff bike shoes.
I did a super quick transition into clean socks, running shoes, race number belt, and hat and felt GREAT running onto the course through the cheering crowds. I had set a “fast alert” on my watch for a 9:30 pace and for the first few miles, I had to make an effort to slow myself. But after a few miles, the heat, my lack of run training, and my mild ankle pain slowed me to between a 10 and 11-minute pace.
Alex had signed up for the mile 1/14 run aid station but ended up at the mile 13 one so I only got a distant wave at them at the start of my run but took the time for a sweaty hug after my first lap on the run.
I saw NO photographers on the course. Usually, there are a few or at least a mounted overhead video camera to wave at. I think the one official photo was taken by someone on a motorcycle following one of the “featured” athletes. It was probably about mile 10 and I looked so happy as by then I realized that I would likely beat 13 hours. Before my ankle injury, my goal was to beat 13 hours (I had done Lake Placid and Arizona in between 13 and 13.5 hours). After the ankle injury, my goal was just to finish and get a spot to go to the World Championships in Nice next year (assuming they took ANYBODY who finished as they had for both the men and women at Lake Placid the last 2 years).
I walk through all aid stations for marathons and triathlons because it is impossible to drink a full cup of liquid while running. And with the 84-degree heat and sun, I drank 2 or 3 of the cups of Mortal hydration, put ice in my shirt, poured water over my head at EVERY rest stop, and ate a Maurten gel at almost every mile. I took in around 2000 calories on the run.
At the run special needs, mile 13, I put on the shark hat I had worn when I ran the NYC Marathon last year with Alex. It made me run a little faster whenever someone yelled “go sharkie”, “great hat”, or sang the “baby shark” song.
This is a screenshot from the official video. It was probably about mile 16 of the run. The run was a two loop out and back so basically four 6.5 mile segments. We only had that small bit of shoulder to run on which got crowded when there were lots of walkers. There were 3 Waffle Houses on the 6.5 mile piece of road so 12 times I remembered that I wanted to take Alex there. There was also one Hooters and one strip club.
I felt good on the run except for the mild constant ankle pain. I got no blisters despite the soggy socks from all the ice and water I dumped in/on my clothes. Occasionally my quads and hamstrings threatened to cramp, I think more from the heat than lack of electrolytes. At mile 21 though I really slowed down a lot, my legs felt very heavy and my pace slowed to over 12 minutes per mile. I had to push to keep it at 11 and started to worry I wouldn’t make it to the finish line by 8:10 (I thought I had started the swim at 7:10, actually it was 7:08). This was surely due to my very abbreviated and limited run training and the fact that my longest brick (bike-run-ick) run off the bike had been just 3-miles and my longest training run a 3 hour, 18-mile one. But when I hit mile 23 I perked up a lot mentally and started to push my pace hard. I got back under 10 minute miles for a few miles but then slowed down again although of course, I sprinted the last few hundred yards. I made sure to NOT look down at my watch for my finisher photo!
Alex was waiting for me at the finish line to shoot this video while screaming in excitement.
I felt very good and strong at the end. I didn’t need to lean on a volunteer for support or sit down.
I just grabbed one slice of pizza and a coke and rushed out of the athlete food area to hug Alex. They helped me get my bike and gear and we walked back to the condo.
There was a high DNF (did not finish) rate (it is usually 5-8% for most IM races) and very high for my age group.
Back at the condo I had a quick shower, and changed into my clean backup race kit (I was planning to go back to the finish line to see the last finishers from 11-12 pm but Alex was wiped after being on their feet all day as opposed to me having out of control endorphins surging). I enjoyed a massage by my Normateks while we watched a few episodes of “The Regular Show” (our official current Dad/Kid show) and then went to sleep at 10:30 pm.
