Background:

This triathlon was my second ever triathlon. My first was a sprint triathlon so this was my first attempt at the 1/2 IM distance. Prior to training for triathlons, I was a couch potato for about eight years. And prior to that, I had swam competitively (as a sprinter) in college and in high school. My first goal was to simply finish the race. My “secret” goal was to finish it in under 6 hours. I figured that was pretty realistic considering my pacing and what not during training.

Pre-Race:

I arrived in Panama City Beach on the Tuesday preceding the race. I wanted to acclimate to the weather because the previous two years the weather had been blistering hot. The first two days I was down here, the weather was perfect for racing. The highs were in the mid-70s and the humidity seemed fairly low. As the race approached however, as mother nature would have it it was looking like things were going to heat up considerably. I usually don’t do well in the heat, so things weren’t shaping up in my favor.

I didn’t stay at the host hotel. I rented a condo down the road directly from the condo’s owner. The condo was really nice and much more spacious than a hotel room. As my girlfriend would remind me though, there was no daily maid service and people to clean up after you. I personally prefer the space, but can see how it might not be for everyone.

The race expo opening up on Thursday and it was really nice compared to the other expos that I’ve been to. My previous races have only been as a spectator at Ironman (TM) events where Inside-Out sports is the only vendor allowed to be there. This expo, however, had maybe five different stores all setup each with their own products that they carried. I just like the fact that there was some variety to choose from.

The pancake breakfast was great. All you can eat pancakes, bagels, etc. and your friends and guests could eat too. It was put on my a local church here in the neighborhood. They handed out little pamphlets about Jesus and who he was and why Christians believe in Him. And there was a guy walking around with a tray passing out seconds for pancakes and bagels and he would ask if he could pray with/for them after he was done. Being a Christian, I thought it was a pretty neat little outreach program. I did see others who didn’t seem so comfortable with the situation.

I didn’t go to the pre-race dinner. We had a bunch of guests with us and at $10 a plate for what I was guessing would be cold pasta and watered down pasta sauce, we opted to just go out to get our own pasta at that price. As a result, I also missed the pre-race meeting, but I heard they just talked about drafting and the course itself. Nothing too important would be missed.

Race Morning:

I had trouble sleeping in that morning. I fell asleep at around 9:30 alright, but my plan to get up at 4:30 on race morning didn’t work so well. I found myself wide awake at 3 and after 45 minutes of rolling around in bed, I decided to get up. My race breakfast consisted of a bagel with peanut butter and some gatorade. I checked email in the morning and the weather conditions. The forecasted high of the day was 88-90 depending on which site you checked. The record high was 89. Of course, the days before and the days after were going to be in the low to mid 80s. Mother nature just didn’t like us, I guess.

I headed to get body marked at 5 with a friend that was also competing. I got there and laid out my stuff for T1 and T2. I personally thought the transition areas were pretty tight, but they’d have to make do. We pumped up our tires, put sun screen on, filled up our water bottles. Before we knew it, it was 6 and the first waves were about to be underway.

We headed to the beach and found our friends who were spectating pretty easily despite the mass of people that had gathered on the beach by this time. The first wave would go off at 6:15 am and we’d be in going off in the ninth wave at 6:55. We chatted a bit, took some pictures, and went to warm up. Really, I went to the water to “use the facilities” more than anything else (the lines for the port-a-pottys in transition were just too way to long to wait there). Before long, our wave was up so we made our way over to the beach start.

Swim:

The swim was one counter clockwise loop in the Gulf of Mexico. The water temperature was 73, if I remember right. Whatever it was, it was wetsuit legal. The water was pretty flat. The conditions were pretty good, in my opinion. With my swimming background, this was the portion of the day that I was the least worried about. Still, it being my first attempt at this distance, I decided to take it out pretty easy.

The swim to the first buoy seemed to last forever. And I found that I was all over the place. I’d put my head down and swim towards the buoy. After a few strokes, I’d pick up my head and find that I had managed to swerve off course quite a bit and would have to regain my bearings. I guess I need to work on my open water swimming a bit.

I caught some people from the wave before us on the first length of our loop. As the swim went on, I started catching more and more people. I eventually found myself swimming through a pack of folks. This made things easier in my opinion. I don’t mind the water being crowded and it actually made it easier to stay on course - instead of looking for buoys, I just followed the masses.

I found myself on the beach. I never really felt like I was pushing myself. I never got any fatigue in my shoulders and probably should have pushed myself a little harder. I was more concerned about staying aerobic and keeping my heart rate down a bit though, so I held back. My swim time - 31 minutes.

T1:

Nothing really much to say. I jogged up the beach. Put on my top (I didn’t want to swim with it), socks, shoes, helmet and sunglasses. I hobbled out with my bike and I was off.

Bike:

My plan for the bike was to take the first half out easy and effortlessly and at the half way mark, I’d reevaluate how I was feeling. I sat on the bike at what felt like that pace and waited for my heart rate to go down. My HR started at 167 and my normal bike range lies in the 130s. Well, even at my nice and easy pace, my heart rate wouldn’t get below 150. I checked my speed and I wasn’t going out exceptionally hard. I also am a pretty good judge of how hard I’m working so I was pretty sure it wasn’t just adrenaline and the excitement of race day. I decided to just go with how hard I felt I was working instead. I turned off my speedometer so I wouldn’t be tempted to maintain a certain speed and went about my way.

About 20 minutes into the race, I went to take a shot of hammer gel. I took one swig and put my gel bottle back in its cage and it fell out the side and onto the road. Great. There went half of my bike nutrition! I thought about stopping to get it. I instinctively pressed on my brakes, but decided to just go on without it. They would have stuff at the aid stations if I needed it. I felt bad about littering and was worried that someone had seen me drop it and I’d get penalized. By then, that gel bottle was so far back it was pointless to give it anymore thought. I kept on.

I saw my friend at the 12 mile mark on the bike. I’m a faster swimmer than he is, but he’s a much faster biker and runner than I was. As he’s passing me, he says, “Already?” He wasn’t expecting to pass me until about half way through the bike. I tell him to have a good race and he kept on rolling.

The course itself was managed very well. There were stretches of road that you had to share with traffic which made passing folks pretty challenging. The roads were a little beat up at some points. At one point where I was tending to my water bottles and not really paying attention to the roads, I hit a HUGE pothole. I lost control and thought I was going down for sure, but I luckily managed to recover. A guy behind me even rode up beside me saying, “That was a hard hit! Are you ok?” I was a bit shaken, but was ok and told him thanks for asking.

There were bunches of people and I saw a lot of drafting going on - some that probably wasn’t intentional and just due to the course bunching up and others that were obviously intentional. There were a few guys that would suck someone’s wheel and only passed to find someone a new persons wheel to suck. But whatever. They’d get what was coming to them if a course official caught them doing it.

I got to the half way point and still felt really strong. My plan to ride the first half light and easy was successful was a success and I still felt strong (despite my HR telling me otherwise - it was high all day, but maybe it was just the heat?). I decided to turn it up just a notch. It was partially that and partially that we had the wind at our backs coming back, but I flew the last half of the bike leg. I pushed strong all the way to the end of the course. My bike time - 2:41. I anticipated just under 3 hours, so I was really happy and surprised with that effort.

T2:

By now, I had to pee like a race horse. I actually had to go about an hour before I’d arrive at T2, but wasn’t about to stop. I was happy that I had to go. I was absorbing fluids which on a hot day was critical to getting through the day. I was just about to head out on the run course when I remember that my Polar 720 was still on my bike. Crap. I had to run back to get my HR monitor which extended my T2 time. I thought about running without it since it was showing me high numbers all day, but I decided to get it and am glad I did. I’d have had no idea about my run pace without it.

Run:

By now, the day had heated up quite a bit. Temperatures were getting up there and there was virtually no wind on the way out. My plan for the run was to take it out easy and to reevaluate where I was at the half way mark. Do you see a pattern here? :) I had read all about how it generally takes three miles until you get your legs back from the bike, but oddly enough, my legs were right there from the start of the run. Had I taken it too easy on the bike?

I figured I’d be running 10 minute miles at this stage in the game so I was a little surprised when I came up at the first mile mark at 9 minutes. It felt pretty easy, so I just chugged along. I ran shoulder to shoulder with another guy all the way through mile 4. Not a word was said to each other until around mile 3. We finally saw our first piece of shade on the course and joked about that a bit. We chatted for a little bit but he had to hit an port-o-john so I said good luck to him and went on my way.

Right as I was entering St. Andrews park where the turn around was, I saw my friend again. He was on he way out. I cheered him on and he did the same. The run through the park was long and the loop seemed to go on forever. I saw the run course race photographer out there and was deciding if I should run through or give him some cheesy pose. I opted for the latter and gave him a peace sign and smiled.

I stopped at every aid station to at least get some ice to put under my hat. I was taking my salt supplements religiously, but my hydration and refueling strategy was just kind of a crap shoot. Oh, did I mention that this was the first time that I’d have ever run 13.1 before? :) I did a long slow training run of two hours just once. All my previous long runs were shorter than two hours. I didn’t see a mile marker from mile 5 to mile 11, but was happy to see that I was almost done. I’m guessing that at mile 9 or so was when my legs started to really feel fatigued. It was the first real pain that I had experienced all day. I told myself it was only a couple more miles and I’d be all done. “Just out to Noble and back” I told myself, as that’s a two mile section of road near my house that I run all the time. It was hot and I was suffering, but despite the pain, I was happy that I hadn’t pushed any harder than I did on the bike. I came upon the finish line to be greeted by the finish line crowd and my friends. My run time - 2:04.

Final Thoughts:

I was done! I had just finished a 1/2 IM! My total time was 5:26. Far better than the six hours that I thought I’d end up finishing in! In nine months, I went from being a couch potato to being a 1/2 IM finisher. Previously, I wasn’t able to run more than a mile straight. I could barely hold 17 mph on my training rides. I was a good 20 pounds heavier. Not to say that the journey was an easy one. The hours training were many and at times seemed very pointless and monotonous. I had to adhere to a pretty strict diet to get down to the weight that I wanted to get to. But I’d do it all again in a heart beat. I just turned 30, but am in better shape than I’ve ever been in my life.

Next on my journey - Ironman Wisconsin! I ended up getting one of the 10 IM-Moo spots that they handed out here at the post race party. Hope to see some of you folks out there! :)