I have officially had 5 days to decompress, analyze, and recover from the events of last Sunday.  Both mentally and physically.  I will start by saying this, at the time of the race I was happy to compete but wasn’t sure that I would ever do it again.  Five days later, it is taking everything in my being to not sign up for another race immediately!  The rest of 2015 is busy enough; my next 70.3 will have to wait until 2016.  Oh, and I also have to survive Ironman Austria in a little over two months but that is neither here nor there.  The following is a brief description of my first Ironman 70.3 experience.  I will ask Tiff to write her own recollection of events and post that later this week, hopefully.

We left New York on Friday evening, just after work.  We were scheduled to arrive in Orlando around 9 pm but our flight was delayed a little over an hour due to mechanical issues.  We arrived in Orlando and drove to our hotel approximately an hour from the airport.  My first nights sleep wasn’t bad, I think due to the stress of traveling.  We woke up early Saturday morning and headed over to the ironman village to register and have a look around.  We also wanted to take part in the practice swim to get a feel for the water.  No one had mentioned water temperature but we all assumed it would be above 76.1F, making it a non-wetsuit swim.  For anyone who has not trained or competed in a triathlon, the wetsuit is quite an advantage as it gives you some buoyancy and puts you in a much more streamlined position, essentially giving you free speed.  Well, not this weekend, the water was above 80F.  If you were going to finish the swim, it had to be all on your own.  The practice swim went well.  I felt strong, fast, and comfortable.  This was a positive sign after feeling groggy from a cold/allergies the week leading up to the race.  After the practice swim, we sat through an informational session to see if there were any rules or regulations we were unaware of.  At this point I think it really set in how hot and humid the race may actually be.  We were sitting in direct sunlight, 90F+ with 90%+ humidity; I was sweating just because I was breathing, let alone exercising.  We headed home soon after to get some food, rest and get an early start on sleep.  After a few phone calls to family, lights were out, followed by an hour and a half of restlessness before actually falling asleep.

The alarm sounded at 3:50 am. It was pitch black outside but good luck hitting snooze when you have pre-race nerves.  We were up and out of bed for good.  My nutrition plan accounted for three “Ensure” drinks four hours prior to my wave start time.  This gives my body adequate time to absorb the calories so they aren’t just sitting in my stomach.  One final check over our bags, we packed up and headed for the car.  Tiff grabbed a bite to eat from downstairs and by 4:30 am, we were on our way to ironman village.  On the road, there were only ironman competitors.  Many of whom still had their bikes mounted on the back of their cars, which made us happy that we opted for early bike check-in.  After about a 5 min search for parking, we found a spot on the side of the road very close to the main entrance of ironman village.  We carried our bags to transition to begin the setup of our transition area.  This includes setting out things like your helmet, sunglasses, nutrition, bike shoes, socks, running shoes, race belt, race number, hydration, etc.  This was also the first time Tiff and I had been separated and I found myself thinking about how she was feeling.  Truly, I don’t think I wanted to think about how I was feeling.  After taping some nutrition to my bike, I saw that Tiff had finished her set up and had made her way over to my transition spot.  I took down a Vega bar and a banana with about two hours until my wave start time.  I then went up to get my race number written on my arm and my age written on my calf.  One last trip to the car to drop off our extra clothing and we were pretty much ready to go… physically.  For the last hour before my wave start time, I just drank water.  Transition closed at 6:30 am, time to head to the beach and get into our waves.  Tiffs wave start time was approximately 35 mins before mine, so I stayed with her until she lined up on shore to start.  A parting kiss and some words of confidence on both ends and she was off to start this grueling test all on her own.  I watched her until her swim cap disappeared among all the others with a similar color.  Now, my turn.  With 15 minutes until my wave start, I switched to a sports drink to get in some final calories and hydration before the swim.  The next thing I know, I am waste deep in water, surrounded by what I can only describe as the fittest people I think I have ever seen in my life.  If that doesn’t make you second-guess your training, I don’t know what would.  We get a warning when we have 10 seconds until the horn goes off for our wave, the first of two for the “male 30-34” age group.

The Swim course was shaped like a large “M” with a long distance swim out to the top of the M, a swim of half the distance back, half the distance out again, ending with a long straight swim back to the swim exit.  The swim course covered 1.2 miles.  I can’t say that I am disappointed with my swim; it was just so different than anything you do in training that you have to adapt to a whole new situation.  I was completing this distance in approximately 32-34 mins in the pool.  I finished in a little over 40 mins in the open water.  Swimming in a straight line is incredibly important in open water, which requires sighting (lifting your head above water to look forward and make sure you are on track).  If you are not practicing this in the pool, you are dead in the water.  It drops the efficiency of your stroke 2-fold or more depending on how often you need to sight.  My sighting felt great but I could tell with the added anxiety of open water and loads of people around me, my feet were dragging low and acted like anchors.  Instead of feeling like long and graceful strokes, they were short and panic ridden.  As your swim progresses, you notice many people holding onto mile marker buoys, paddle boards, or kayaks just to catch their breath.  As long as they aren’t getting assistance with any forward movement, this is completely legal. After hitting the midpoint of the “M” my fuel gauge was getting low and I was tired.  I let the unpleasant thought of “I still have to bike 56 miles and run a half marathon after this without stopping” enter my head.  Don’t ever think about the entirety of the race at once, if anything, break it down into disciplines but even better, break it down by smaller segments so you feel good every time you pass one of those landmarks.  If triathlon training has taught me anything, it has been to calculate fractions much faster than I could in elementary school.  “I only have 63/64ths of the race to go, ok now 38/39ths of the way”.   The final stretch of the M is where I finally hit my grove and got my pace back.  I was pressing my head and chest down and my feet came back up under me.  I was able to pass a handful of people before getting to my feet and attempting to run up the swim exit shoot.  I was a little disappointed as to how much energy I had already spent.

Running up the shoot and into transition, there is only one thing on your mind.  “Where the hell is my bike”.  The answer is that it is hidden in perfect camouflage, among 2000 other bikes.  Always have a landmark to tell you which row your bike is in.  I found my bike relatively quickly, threw on my socks, shoes, and helmet, followed by a final quick stop at the “sunblock volunteers”.  I was off to the races, part II.  As soon as I passed the bike mount line, I threw my leg over the bar, clipped in and was off with more grace than I typically show (which, granted, is not very much).  I got my legs turning for the first mile and began to take in some calories via a slightly watered down sports drink.  At mile 5, I took in my first “GU” that contained caffeine.  I hadn’t consumed any caffeine for three weeks prior to the race.  I did this to make sure I would reap all the benefits.  Caffeine has its maximal effects 1 hr after consumption and it should last 5-6 hours (maybe less with a lot of exercise).  With that in mind, I took the “GU” with the highest Caffeine content first to get that hit an hour into the bike.  Around 6 miles into the bike, I took a corner a little too hot (apparently the caffeine hit me a lot faster than expected), I tried to feather my breaks but was going way too fast.  My back tire locked up and I immediately began to skid.  I let go of the breaks before my bike went out from under me.  This opened up my wheel and I took a wide corner, which put me into the grass.  I won’t repeat what another competitor said to me, but he seemed to share my surprise that I was still upright and on my bike.  After that, I am happy to report, there were no more close calls.  Around 7 miles in, I saw a familiar face, which gave me an added push in energy.  I passed my smiling fiancée and knew that she had conquered one of her biggest fears, an open water swim.  Pride, I have learned, is a feeling that goes along with love and boy did I love that girl a lot in that moment we were looking at each other.  My nutrition plan began to fall apart around mile 10 but I don’t think it came with a lot of consequences.  I had planed to take in approximately 300-400 calories per hour in the first two hours of the bike via sports bars, GU’s and sports drinks.  I think I managed 150-200 primarily via GU and Sports drinks.  They are just easier to consume and easier to digest, as long as you keep up your water intake.  The beginning of the bike course was beautiful with rolling hills and smooth road but by mile 25, I started to see some larger, intimidating hills.  I stayed in the saddle for the entire race because my biggest fear was running out of energy during the run.  This being my first full race, pacing was a big issue.  The second half of the bike can be summarized by saying there was a consistent power output and I was watching the mile markers tick by in 5 mile increments.  At this point I was pretty aware of the fact that I was going to need the restroom sooner than later but just kept focusing on "5 more miles".  Contrary to horror stories you may have heard, people (for the most part) do not urinate while biking.  It is illegal and you will be disqualified if seen by police or officials, and there are a lot of them.  I will say, the final six miles seemed to take especially long.  There was a pretty consistent head wind for the entire bike, which made the temperature bearable, but I knew that I had lost a lot of sweat.  I took a salt tablet to replenish some of my sodium and finished off whatever water I had left before unclipping and dismounting at the line coming into transition.

I re-racked my bike, unclipped my helmet and switched it for a hat, removed my bike shoes and replaced them with running shoes, and finally threw on my race number.  A quick stop in a port-a-potty and a last run through the sunscreen volunteers.  I was off for the last leg.  Only, I had no legs to run on.  I don’t know how many of you have ever tried to run after a 40 minute swim and ~3 hours of a strong power bike ride, but its not easy.  The run course consisted of three, 4.5 mile loops.  Before the race, I wasn’t a big fan of this layout because I thought that I would need a change of scenery.  Boy was I was wrong.  This allowed me to break down my run into three segments.  Segment 1 – Deal with the heat and pain and get my legs moving at a higher cadence again.  I also wanted to take in only liquid calories and have another salt tab because my leg muscles were cramping, badly.  The first 2 miles contained three hills that felt like mountains (we were in central Florida, they were far from mountains).  I want to take this time to thank all of the Haines City residents who took their morning/early afternoon off to spray all of us with hoses; you honestly can’t understand how much that meant.  So, thank-you.  The second loop, I felt a lot stronger.  The salt tabs were kicking in and the liquid calories were doing their job, I focused on standing tall and relaxed.  Form is everything.  I also took this time to take in everything I could about the run loop, this way I could plan when to pull back and when to hammer the gas for my final sprint on the third loop.  Coming around the start of the loop for the third time, I knew that I would finish but the question had become “when” would I finish.  I still felt strong, well as strong as you can feel after nearly 5 hours of relatively intense exercise.  This third loop, I just ran on adrenaline.  One foot in front of the other.  After I passed the three daunting hills, I grabbed a few sips of one last sports drink from an aid station and dumped two cups of ice water over my head.  I ground down into my soul to find the energy to finish strong.  I saw the 11 mile marker, the 12 mile marker and I was nearly 12.7 miles when I saw her again.  Tiff lit up and asked me how I was doing, she was still going strong with a steady jog.  I’m so thankful that I saw her because it gave me the last kick I needed.  With a smile on our faces we said some words of motivation and I found that higher gear to bring in the finish.  I ended up hitting a sprint where I could barely feel my legs, if I had to keep it up any longer, I would have ended up on my face.  I crossed the line and heard my name announced.  What a feeling; 5h32m02s

Of all the things that transpired that day, finishing 30 minutes faster than I had hoped, putting up a solid run pace in 93F heat with 95% humidity, placing in the top 25% of athletes, not dying… there was one thing that made me happier than all else.  I got to watch Tiffany cross the finish line.  After all of the mental and physical effort I had seen her go through for months, worrying about the open water, worrying about the bike, and worrying about the distance.  To see her cross that finish line and the look of accomplishment on her face put a lump in my throat.  I love that girl and to be able to complete something like this along side her is something I will never be able to put into words… But I don’t need to… because I can feel it and she can feel it.  The true scope of the event didn’t really set in until later that day.  To be honest, 5 days later, I look back and think that it wasn’t that bad.  The mind is a funny thing, sometimes it lies to you. One thing is for sure; this isn’t the end of my long distance triathlon career.  I saw a lot of areas where I can improve and improve I will.  I am hooked.  Bring it on Austria.