Ironman Florida 2021
When I started competing in triathlons, it never crossed my mind to do an Ironman. I had read Iron Wars by Matt Fitzgerald and seen the video of Julie Moss crawl across the finish line at the 1982 Ironman in Kona, but the combination of distances and disciplines seemed beyond anything I could or would want to do.
Seven years later, as the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccines was reopening the world, and I was starting my training for the Aquabike World Championship in Almere, Netherlands, the club priority email for Ironman Florida showed up in my in-box. The date was two months after the full course aquabike race, so I would be fully trained for the swim and the bike. I would just have to get my legs in shape to make it 26.2 miles. I figured if I could complete the swim and bike in seven and a half hours, I would have nine and a half to finish the run. I slapped down my credit card and signed away all my training time for the fall.
Luckily, I was finally fully vaccinated in late April, which meant I could race at Unbound Gravel in June and in the local shorter course triathlons in Florida. Our outdoor pools had opened in the summer of 2020, so I had been able to train for the swim for a year, and of course, as anyone who know me knows, whenever the weather is decent, I am probably out on a bike.
I began to run again in June with the hopes of being able to start building some serious miles following my trip to Almere. I started with a run/walk of 1:1 minutes and eventually built to 3:30 run to 1:00 walk. Why did I stop at 3:30 minutes as opposed to going to 4:1 like a normal person? I don’t know. I got to that point, it felt comfortable, so there I stayed.
Traveling to Almere with TeamUSA was an amazing experience, but the race was less than spectacular. My swim was sufficient, but the bike was miserable by the end. My advice: don’t rent a bike for a long course race. The fit wasn’t bad, but it was different than my bike at home. After about 60 miles, I was suffering. I was very happy to get home to my bike again.
Once back, I reassessed the running schedule. I have arthritis in my big toe joints which has led to a smattering of bone spurs along the head of the first metatarsals of both feet. This started about ten years ago, but with careful management, I have managed to run two marathons, multiple half-marathons, a handful of trail races, and a bunch of triathlons. The fact that the pain moves between feet and to different parts of the joints causes me to adjust my gait in ways that lead to other issues, IT band soreness and lots of blisters. Shoes that work great in one race kill me in the next race, so it’s always a crap shoot as to what strategy will work on a given day. Thus, my plan to have enough time to walk the whole thing if necessary.
Trails are always easier on my feet than the road, so I did all my long runs on the trails. My plan called for building up to thirteen miles and culminating in the Gate2Gate 25K trail race as my last long run. Everything was going as planned and I was starting to feel good about my run. I started the Gate2Gate with a lot of confidence … which, along with my legs, held up for ten miles. At ten miles, my IT bands started squawking and by 12 miles, they were screaming, so I had to walk the last three miles … slowly. This really gave me pause. Could I walk 16.2 miles with that kind of pain? I had not followed my run/walk plan for the Gate2Gate because it was difficult to do on single track and I felt good, so I threw it out the window. Good lesson for IMFL: stick to the plan!
Two weeks later, I was packing up what felt like was everything I owned and putting it into Barbara’s car to the trip to Panama City Beach.
We arrived on Wednesday in time to meet our G3 teammates at check-in so that we could rack together. This is a great feature that Ironman has added in the past year. We picked up our registration packets and headed to the Ironman store to buy all the things. Okay, I just got a t-shirt and a kit, but it felt like more.
The next morning we met at 9:00 am for a swim. It was chilly, but the water felt great. As luck and gulf coast weather would have it, the water was flat and warm. The saltwater and wetsuit made for a really fast and easy swim to the end of the pier and back. This gave me a lot of confidence that I would be able to complete the swim in less than an hour and twenty minutes on race day. I should have known better.
The group met for dinner at Margaritaville. We spent the evening discussing race strategy, Natalie and I quizzing John and Barbara about all aspects of the race. One change they had announced was that we would set up our transition at our bikes instead of in a tent like prior years. This may have been a nod to Covid or perhaps an issue with getting enough volunteers to man a tent. I did not find this disconcerting since most triathlons I have done operate this way.
One fun thing at dinner is that I noted Eric Gilsenan (announcer at Escape from Alcatraz and the latest speaker at our triathlon club meeting) at the next table. He was sitting with famed Ironman announcer, Mike Reilly, who would be announcing this race. Although Mike Reilly published his schedule, I had not realized until that moment that he would be the one calling out finishers at the end of the race. This was a big boost to my race excitement.
Friday morning, I woke up early and walked to the donut shop to get a cinnamon roll, which Natalie had declared the best she’d ever had. The weather had definitely turned. It was cold and windy with a smattering of rain. Luckily, I had brought my puffy down coat, which looks ridiculous in Florida except on days like this when everyone looks at me with envy. I did make it to the donut shop where I found not only the cinnamon rolls, but also blueberry cake donuts which are my favorite.
Aside from that and bike check-in, we didn’t leave the condo all day. We had talked about another practice swim and a short ride, but the weather discouraged this behavior, so the day was spent fussing with our gear. We made a trip to Walmart to pick up some men’s tube socks for throwaway arm warmers and Hot Hands warmers that could be stuffed in our bike shoes so they would be warm when we returned. We spent a lot of time debating what gear we would need to stay warm, but not get too hot on the bike and the run. Finally, Barbara and I hit the sack early, not even able to stay awake for Sharon’s arrival at 8:15 pm.
Bright and early, we were up to eat and head over to transition. We were there at 5:00 am with the idea that we would set up our gear, then come back to the condo to stay as warm as possible for as long as possible. It was 43º with steady wind of 8 mph out of the NNW, but it felt much colder.
Back in the condo, we came up with the brilliant idea of wearing the remaining tube socks on our hands and feet to keep them warm while we were standing on the beach. At first it didn’t seem like it was working, but when we took them off right before race start, we realized how much they had actually helped. We found John and Natalie and set ourselves in the front of the 1:10-1:20 finish group. The pros went off, then the age groupers started in around 7:00 am.
It was a time trial start, which I prefer because it’s less of a scrum in the water. The water was cold near the beach, but warmed up as soon as we got into deeper water. This was a relief as I could feel my hands and feet defrosting. I felt great moving through the salt water, whipping along at a fast 1:39/100 yds. The buoys passed by one-by-one, although I noticed it getting foggier and harder to see the next buoy. Finally, I realized it wasn’t the weather, but condensation on the inside of my goggles. I flipped over, rinsed them out, and kept going with now completely clear sight.
Thank goodness I did that before the first turn buoy because the minute I rounded it, I was hit with the strong current that was running eastward along the beach. My speed immediately dropped to 3:04/100 yds as I pushed against the current to make it to the next buoy. I just focused on my breathing, reaching out to grab as much water as possible, and pulling through to move myself forward. I felt major relief at the second turn buoy until I came around it and realized that the next buoy was still to the west of us. During the athletes’ briefing, we were very clearly told that we had to keep ALL of the buoys on the right. Given that this was to be my one and only Ironman race, I decided that I would stick to the rules laid down by the race director regardless of what others were doing. I dug in and continued pulling to the next buoy. Once I rounded that and started back to the beach, it was much easier (2:14/100 yds), although still tough to make it around the buoys as we came in.
At the beach, I clamored out and check my watch: 46 minutes. I was so disappointed that it was so much slower than I expected. Then a voice came up behind me, “Hey Caroline!”
It was John. I immediately felt so much better. First, it was great to see a friendly face during the swim and second, he is a stronger swimmer than I am, so if he completed it in the same time, then I didn’t do so bad after all. We walked under the pier and chatted a little bit about the current, then high fived and back in the water we went.
This lap was much easier. Recognizing that the current was pulling east, I used the easy leg out to relax and swim west of the buoys (1:42/100 yds). I hit the turn buoy spot on and was ready for the current this time. The leg between the turn buoys had a slower time (3:29/100 yds), but that was primarily because I stopped to help call a kayak over for a distressed swimmer. On my Garmin map, I can see that I drifted backwards a little while not swimming.
The final leg wasn’t too bad because I was so excited to be within sight of swim finish. It was still a battle to keep the buoys on the right and this time a lot more swimmers had clearly given up trying and were just swimming straight in. As I struggled to get around one, some guy came down with his fist and slammed right into my cheek bone as I was taking a breath to the left. I called the guy an a$$hole and he heard me because he did say sorry. Then as I watched him struggle off into the waves, I realized that he was swimming with his arms bent and his hands in loose fists and probably was on his first lap and getting nowhere, so I felt bad that I had called him a name. The last thing he needed was to worry that he had punched some woman in the face.
Another few strokes and I was relieved to find the beach again for a total swim time of 1:45:15. I semi-trotted the bazillion miles to transition. At some point, my feet were so cold, I couldn’t feel the pavement, which was probably for the best. I was delighted to find John and Barbara both in transition as well. It was fun to see them, but they were both off on their bikes quickly. I took my time to put on the extra clothes that had been added to my ensemble, ate a gel, and climbed on my bike.
I was having problems getting my bike computer and watch started, so I have some lovely pictures coming out of transition messing with my equipment. After finally getting them started, I settled into a long ride of normalized power of high zone 2/low zone 3.
Normally, I am riding harder than that for races. For short races, I can push into high zone 3 for the whole race and still run afterward. For the aquabikes, there is no run, so the bike ride is the race. For this race, I knew I had to be very conservative to make sure I would be able to finish the marathon that was to come.
What I did not take into account was that this would be boring. The roads were boring, the scenery was boring, and mile after mile of taking it easy is boring.
Nevertheless, I managed to keep to the plan. I had fed into Best Bike Split my target power and the weather and it predicted an average pace of 19.17 mph. My actual average was 19.02 mph. I account for the difference by two aid stations stops and a potty break. I came off the bike feeling very happy and ready for the run.
Normally, bike to run transition is easy: shoes, hat, glasses, number, and you are gone. I, however, had been doing aquabikes for so long that I was out of practice. I came out of transition, ran out past the announcing booth and onto the course. I was a little miffed that they had not announced me coming out of transition as they were clearly announcing others. I headed through the special needs area and as I came out the other side, I saw a runner coming the other way and wondered if he was a pro, so I looked at his number which had a name on it. I didn’t remember seeing my name on mine, so I looked down at it … and it wasn’t there. I freaked out and turned around to go back to get it.
As I got back to the announcer’s booth, I asked a volunteer if I could go back into transition to get it. I remember being relieved that he had a captain’s badge on, so he would actually have some authority. He asked my number and told me to turn around and keep running, he would have it for me when I came back for the second loop. I was so relieved I didn’t have to add any more mileage to my run, I immediately turned around and headed off in the right direction ... and worried for the next two and a half hours that he wouldn’t be there.
I was feeling pretty good, although I felt like I was shuffling along as people kept running past me. Every time I looked at my watch, it would say 9:30-10:00 minute miles, which was faster than I meant to be going. I was executing my 3:30/1:00 run/walk to the letter and feeling pretty good. I held a 12 minute/mile average pace for the first half and was relieved to see the volunteer clutching my race belt and clearly keeping his eye out for me. I was so grateful and spent the rest of the race thinking about how wonderful the folks who volunteer are. Everyone was kind and supportive and really wanted us to have the best race possible. I had also just seen Keith and Bob, who had come up to volunteer and take pictures which was also a big boost.
This kept me going for another couple miles, but around 16 miles, I ducked into a portapotty to pee. It took a while because I had added a layer from my special needs bag and basically had to strip down to pee. I think this stop did me in. After that, I just couldn’t get much rhythm going on my runs and it hurt my feet to walk. I could feel blisters forming and on the whole, they just hurt. I made the decision that once I hit the turnaround for the last 6.2 miles, I would just run the rest of the way. My hips and IT bands, which often give me trouble running, were feeling fine.
Also, by this point, I wasn’t able to stomach food anymore. I could still eat grapes, but that is not a normal running food for me and I was worried that they would cause some GI distress. So at every aid station, I took in a few sips of water and tried to get in a few calories: a grape here and there, a sip of Coke, or a few sips of chicken broth.
I was so happy to hit the turnaround and know that I was on the way back. I did run/shuffle for most of the way back, but there were a couple interludes of walking when I just couldn’t muster the energy to run. At that point, a lot of people were walking or shuffling, so I felt like I was in good company. As I got to mile 25, I could hear the music and Mike Reilly calling people’s names. Turning into the last stretch, I was able to pick up the pace a little and look like I was running. I took my time going down the carpet to soak in the cheering and music and fireworks.
As I came across the finish line, Sharon Byun was waiting with my finisher’s medal and a hug. There is nothing like being medaled by a friend. It makes the experience so much more meaningful. She took me over to say hi to Keith, a few pictures and I was ready to get my bike and go take a shower. Luckily, she was able to take a break and help me collect my belongs and get them back to the condo.
I showered, fully intending on going back down to the finish line to cheer on Barbara, Natalie, and Dylan as they came in, but I couldn’t seem to get warmed up and couldn’t imagine going back into the cold again. I was so thankful that Sharon could head back down to greet Barbara as she finished. They were back up pretty quickly and we shared our war stories, ate a little, and retired to our beds for a well-deserved sleep.
I am proud of my accomplishment and glad that I was able to complete the run without injury. I would have liked to compete with more run training, but I just didn’t have the time. One thing I have realized is that I can complete this distance without getting in a full training load; however, to really have a successful race with my best time, I would have to completely commit to the training. That means no gravel grinders, trail races, aquabike races, weekend group rides, mountain biking, or ultra racing. All my focus would be towards training for this distance and this discipline.
I have too much fun doing all those other things and am not ready to give them up. I am not a professional and am not paid to win races. My goal is to have fun and try as many new experiences as I can. I now have experienced an Ironman and know that I can do it. I am looking forward to cheering on my friends as they accomplish their goals. And luckily, I only have to do one to be an Ironman.