This was my second GFT and 3rd IM distance event with the other being IM Florida in 2005. Headed out on Thursday with my pregnant wife, 5 year old son and my in-laws to beautifull central FLA. We stayed at Disney World to make life easier with the kid. We hit the parks until 10:00 pm Thursday night. Got up early on friday with plans to do Kevins practice swim but my entourage had other plans. Since we had only one vehicle I had to take them to Sea World which didnt open till 9:00 so I didnt get to Clermont until 10:00. Got a quick massage at the expo, registered and sat through the meeting. I saw a couple of people swimming so I grabbed my suit and jumped in. Water was extra brown! Got out and did a 20 min run around the lake which brought back memories of the last time I shuffled around it. Left the race and decided to drive the course as last time I got a little off track on the second loop. I drove about 50 miles of it and saw that Fred had it really well marked so I headed back to Sea World. Went back to the room, had a good dinner, packed my gear bags and was asleep by 10:00.
Saturday morning I was up at 5:00, had a good breakfast and headed out to the race. Had to stop at the McDonalds on 27 to make a deposit. Right when we arrived the rain started falling. My wife lloked at me and asked if I would be mad if she didnt stay for the start. I said "hell no" so she dropped me off at transition and went back to DW. Transition was a soggy mess. My powertap was so wet it wasnt working. Dried it off and it came back to life. Put on my wetsuit and headed to the start. We went off about 9:00 minutes late by my watch which was no big deal considering everyone had to weigh in before you could get into transition.
Swim was pretty uneventfull. Much calmer than the fiasco of a m-dot mass start. Finished first loop right on target and was out of the water in 1:12:52. 2 minutes slower than I planned but ok.
T1 5:51
Bike: Wanted to average 180 watts. The short steeps right after T1 made for a nice warm-up. Wished I had put on the 27 when I got to suggarloaf. Luckilly I overcame my fear of going downhill which I aquired about a year ago from a bike with severe death wobbles. Never got over 35 mph but for me that was huge. Got to the flats and the wind kicked up. 220 watts and 17 mph on flats sucks. My lower back started to hurt which tells me Im going too hard. Got to special needs and grabbed my Coppenhagen ( my reward for making it this far). finished the bike in 5:49:18. Avg watts 175. Close enough. Loved the new course.
T2 5:40
Run: Left transition with another guy and held pace with him. He was doing 8:30s according to my garmin. Was able to hang on for 3 miles but lost him at an aid station and decided to trim it back. Almost got run over by a car making a left while the cop who was supposed to be watching the intersection was leaning on his car. At mile 10 my quads started to burn and by mile 12 they were on fire. Everything else felt good, heart rate was 125, but quads hurt like hell. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to take a handfull of enduralites to fix it. Needless to say I ended up with severe upset stomache and couldnt eat or drink from mile 16 on.Finally saw my wife at the end of my second loop. I was walking. She told me to HTFU because she was hungry ( note to self: leave pregnant wife home next time). Last loop was extra ugly. Came around final curve and saw the clock at 12:02. Kinda pissed I couldnt break 12 but happy it was over. 4:49:33 run time.
Not too bad considering my first Gft was 13:40 and I was 3 years younger. Thank you Rich Nixon for getting me prepared. I swear I will train harder next time.
Thank you volunteers, you were awesome as usual.
Thank you to my wife ... wait .... scratch that.
final time 12:03:12