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| Yep!!! |
Swim: 2.4 miles (1:10:09)
The gun was set to go off at 7am for the age groupers...that's me!!! The pro's had a 15min head start as some would say, not that I was attempting to chase them down. I immediately made my way to the water shortly after the pro's went off. I found a good spot to tread water for 10 min, but as usual your personal bubble is quickly invaded by other swimmers. I think I did more jostling and bumping around during this time then any other segment in the swim. I even accidentally kicked someone in the gut, and made them short of breath about 2min before the gun...SOrry!!!! For those unaware exactly what an Ironman swim consist of, imagine 1700+ athletes all vying for position going in the same direction. Its like 5 O'clock traffic, besides the white lines, break lights and insurance claims after swimming over somebody. Mad Chaos!!!
Once the gun went off I found myself plenty of open water in front of me and was feeling absolutely amazing for the first 10min or so. Shortly after taking our first left turn around the buoy I felt a few rolling waves pass by. First thing I thought was "where's the D@&# boat", so eventually I looked up in search of that boat but spotted nothing, only more waves. I didn't think much of it until we made our next left turn directly into the waves. Immediately we were pummeled by 4-5ft waves, winds up to 40mph and gusts up to 60mph. The ugly part was that we had roughly 1.2 miles to go directly into the waves until our next buoy where we would eventually turn towards the finish. At most I was only able to find about a handful of competitors near me during the remainder of the swim, and for a moment I thought I was in the movie Castaway, looking for Wilson!!!! I told myself the only way out of this is to keep swimming. I thought about the rest of the swimmers, and only feared for there safety. Turns out that over 200 swimmers were pulled from the swim, not only did they have to be rescued but of the 60 kayaks and lifeguards on SUP boards, 57 had to be rescued themselves......you might wanna read that again.
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| My reaction shortly after the swim. |
Bike: 112 miles (6:26:22)
The swim threw everyone off there game, but it was the bike that everyone had previously feared coming into this race. This course has a little over 6,000 feet of climbing, so about 70% of the ride was uphill or a least at an incline. But add to the equation 40mph headwinds, being sand blasted multiple times and dodging random tumble weeds, and it makes for a wickedly tough ride. I knew right away that it was everyone for themselves, pure survival mode.
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| 2 Loops, Elevation anyone??? |
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| If you had a chance these were the views you could take in while on the bike. |
The main goal on the first loop was to stay in control, I knew it was gonna be a long day, so there was no need to push hard and fight the wind. At times I was only going about 6mph into the wind, then up to 50mph with the wind at our back on a down hill section of the 2 loop course. A little over half way into the bike I began to feel nauseous, with this feeling I had to force my nutrition down and back off my pace. Just looking at my bike time is a very good indicator that something went south. Not sure what happened here but its something that I'm looking deeply into as this feeling carried with me onto the run. So the last half of the bike I was in some very dark places, I came out of this "dark place" with about 15 miles to go on the bike. Luckily the last 15 miles were all down hill, I tried to put down as much nutrition as I could without overdoing it in preparation for the run.
Run: 26.2 miles (3:49:56)
Not only was that my first time riding 112miles but I was now on my way to run my first 26.2 miles.
The run course included more hills, you were either going up or down. It consisted of 3 loops, in what they call a "very spectator friendly" course. So there was much support out there to see your friends and loved ones. The first few miles of the run I felt like a new man since my "dark episode" on the bike. My legs were in full stride, I felt so good that I pulled back my pace to conserve energy for the miles ahead. It wasn't until after the first loop I began to feel nauseous, yet again. I knew I was in a huge calorie deficit, and with only half of the run done I tried hard to put down some sort of calories. I relied mostly on ice and coke. Once I got going my pace was solid but my gut was pulling the best of me. I pulled over to the side multiple times in attempt to emit what might have been causing this, but nothing was coming up. This was the most frustrating part of the race, knowing you're capable of a solid run time, but running and the feeling of being nauseous don't mix very well.
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| All Smiles!!! |
The run course gave everyone a good look to just how much carnage was dealt to us that day. I knew I wasn't the only athlete that had it bad after seeing almost every athlete including professionals walking the course, even pulling out of the race. One female professional in particular was being assisted with an IV as she laid motionless on the side of the run course. The day was long but I knew the fastest way to the finish was to keep pressing, so I pressed forward onto the finish.
Many are recording this race as the "toughest" Ironman to date, its also recorded as the slowest times ever in an Ironman, including the pro's. This race had a 29% DNF rate, the highest ever in an Ironman. Many athletes who have completed multiple Ironman's including Kona will tell you that his was by far the hardest one they've done. So its nice to know that my first Ironman would be "considered" the toughest, so I'm assuming that they can only get easier from here!!??? We'll see about that.
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Its Past Possible!!!!!
