I posted this for my tri club and thought I would share here as well for anyone looking at doing this race.
Ironman Cozumel was my fourth full distance race and I am really happy with the outcome. In the days leading up the race the weather was turning out to be less than ideal. We arrived on Thursday night to strong winds, a rough ocean, and a lot of humidity. According to the race schedule, Friday morning was to be the only day allowed for a practice swim. Once I arrived everyone was informed that it had been cancelled due to red flag warnings so I just went back to the hotel and managed to do a short swim just off the beach. Not easy by any means with the currents and swells, but needed to see how a non-wetsuit swim was going to feel. On Saturday the weather was starting to improve and the only thing I needed to do was check in my bike and bags and get body marked. Coolest thing, while I was waiting my turn to get marked I noticed that right in front of me was Rutger Beke. Once we both got inked I was able to say Hi, wish him luck, and get some pictures taken with him. My wife was finicking with the camera and I apologized for holding him up. He just laughed and said "Tomorrow is the only day I need to get somewhere fast". Once he left Teha asked me who he was and I told her that he was the guy who was going to win the race and sure enough he did. Fantastic guy and I have been a fan of his since he ended up walking much of the Hawaii marathon a few years back. When asked why he did it he said it was because he felt it would be inconsiderate to all of the age groupers to just drop out because he was having a bad day. Serious class act and very glad he had such a strong win.
Race morning - Perfect weather. Water was calm, good cloud cover and temps in the 70's. Everyone had to get in the water from the enclosed dolphin enclosure which goes about 50 yards off of the beach and immediately you could feel the current and I needed to swim in place to stay on the bouy line. Once the cannon went off it was clear swimming with minimal contact. The first 500 or so was into the current and it felt like work to me, slow but steady work. Once we made the turn and got the current behind us, I could really feel it pushing me and just worked on finding a draft wherever I could. The thing that was amazing is how clear the water is, no matter how deep it got I could always see the bottom. Lots of fish, coral, stingrays, and divers below at every buoy. Came out of the water in 1:08 which really, really surprised me. I am sure the course had to be short as the current couldn't have helped that much.
Bike - Loved it! The ride consisted of 3 loops around the island with a 10 mile section on each that ran along the north side of the island with crazy cross winds. I saw no drafting on the bike even though there was reports of it. I managed to pass back over 500 people that had beat me out of the swim and felt great the whole ride even though I wasn't able to hold the average I was hoping for going into the day because of the wind. Nutrition was easy. One bottle of Carbopro, 4 enduralytes per hour, and gatorade and water constantly because of the humidity. Interesting thing about the gatorade made in Mexico though, it was the straight version, no Gatorade endurance like we get here. Not sure why, but my teeth really hurt after the ride, almost like they would if you ate to much candy. Crowd support was amazing. Both sides of the streets in town were completely lined with people cheering like crazy. One really cool thing I did was slide the empty water bottles to the mexican kids in town. You would have thought they were winning the lottery or something when they got one as they would jump up and down and have huge smiles all over their faces. Finished the bike in 5:51 which included one pit stop. This was about 15 minutes slower than I would have liked, but just couldn't muscle through the wind any more than I did.
Run - Wow! Didn't realize how hot and humid it really was until I came into transition. The sun was to set at 5 p.m. which reallyhelped quite a bit with the heat. Aid stations were set up at every kilometer instead of miles, so getting water and nutrition was much faster. Once I hit the half way mark I started doing the math in my head and figured I had a shot at breaking 12 hours if I could just keep it together and only walk through the aid stations. I have to admit it took a lot of focus for me to stick to that plan. The humidity was just killing me and there were a lot of people either walking or sitting in the aid station med tents by this point. Luckily I was able to hold it together and ran across the finish line in 11:56 with a marathon time of 4:44.
Aftermath - Ouch!! The med tent was full of athletes getting IV drips, but decided against going inside in favor of trying to get rehydrated myself. Picked up my finisher shirt, medal, pizza, and soda then headed back to the room for a much needed shower. As soon as I get back to the room, who do I see but Rutger Beke again coming out of the condo heading back to race site. We chatted for a few minutes about the race and I congratulated him on his win. Best part was watching him walk down the flight of stairs when he left. Single stepping each one just like me because of the pain in his legs. Glad to see that the pro's hurt just like we do.
Looking at the final results I am really happy with my day. I finished 334 overall which put me in the top 18% of the field. Not quite as fast as my Florida time last year, but the conditions were much harder here and I feel I raced a much more solid race. Would I do this race again? Absolutely! Great course, excellent crowd support, and beautiful vacation spot. Learning spanish would be a definate advantage though as it would be really nice to understand what all the Cozumelaneans are yelling at you as you pass by. If anyone is considering doing this race, let me know and I can answer any questions you might have.
Jade
Ironman Cozumel was my fourth full distance race and I am really happy with the outcome. In the days leading up the race the weather was turning out to be less than ideal. We arrived on Thursday night to strong winds, a rough ocean, and a lot of humidity. According to the race schedule, Friday morning was to be the only day allowed for a practice swim. Once I arrived everyone was informed that it had been cancelled due to red flag warnings so I just went back to the hotel and managed to do a short swim just off the beach. Not easy by any means with the currents and swells, but needed to see how a non-wetsuit swim was going to feel. On Saturday the weather was starting to improve and the only thing I needed to do was check in my bike and bags and get body marked. Coolest thing, while I was waiting my turn to get marked I noticed that right in front of me was Rutger Beke. Once we both got inked I was able to say Hi, wish him luck, and get some pictures taken with him. My wife was finicking with the camera and I apologized for holding him up. He just laughed and said "Tomorrow is the only day I need to get somewhere fast". Once he left Teha asked me who he was and I told her that he was the guy who was going to win the race and sure enough he did. Fantastic guy and I have been a fan of his since he ended up walking much of the Hawaii marathon a few years back. When asked why he did it he said it was because he felt it would be inconsiderate to all of the age groupers to just drop out because he was having a bad day. Serious class act and very glad he had such a strong win.
Race morning - Perfect weather. Water was calm, good cloud cover and temps in the 70's. Everyone had to get in the water from the enclosed dolphin enclosure which goes about 50 yards off of the beach and immediately you could feel the current and I needed to swim in place to stay on the bouy line. Once the cannon went off it was clear swimming with minimal contact. The first 500 or so was into the current and it felt like work to me, slow but steady work. Once we made the turn and got the current behind us, I could really feel it pushing me and just worked on finding a draft wherever I could. The thing that was amazing is how clear the water is, no matter how deep it got I could always see the bottom. Lots of fish, coral, stingrays, and divers below at every buoy. Came out of the water in 1:08 which really, really surprised me. I am sure the course had to be short as the current couldn't have helped that much.
Bike - Loved it! The ride consisted of 3 loops around the island with a 10 mile section on each that ran along the north side of the island with crazy cross winds. I saw no drafting on the bike even though there was reports of it. I managed to pass back over 500 people that had beat me out of the swim and felt great the whole ride even though I wasn't able to hold the average I was hoping for going into the day because of the wind. Nutrition was easy. One bottle of Carbopro, 4 enduralytes per hour, and gatorade and water constantly because of the humidity. Interesting thing about the gatorade made in Mexico though, it was the straight version, no Gatorade endurance like we get here. Not sure why, but my teeth really hurt after the ride, almost like they would if you ate to much candy. Crowd support was amazing. Both sides of the streets in town were completely lined with people cheering like crazy. One really cool thing I did was slide the empty water bottles to the mexican kids in town. You would have thought they were winning the lottery or something when they got one as they would jump up and down and have huge smiles all over their faces. Finished the bike in 5:51 which included one pit stop. This was about 15 minutes slower than I would have liked, but just couldn't muscle through the wind any more than I did.
Run - Wow! Didn't realize how hot and humid it really was until I came into transition. The sun was to set at 5 p.m. which reallyhelped quite a bit with the heat. Aid stations were set up at every kilometer instead of miles, so getting water and nutrition was much faster. Once I hit the half way mark I started doing the math in my head and figured I had a shot at breaking 12 hours if I could just keep it together and only walk through the aid stations. I have to admit it took a lot of focus for me to stick to that plan. The humidity was just killing me and there were a lot of people either walking or sitting in the aid station med tents by this point. Luckily I was able to hold it together and ran across the finish line in 11:56 with a marathon time of 4:44.
Aftermath - Ouch!! The med tent was full of athletes getting IV drips, but decided against going inside in favor of trying to get rehydrated myself. Picked up my finisher shirt, medal, pizza, and soda then headed back to the room for a much needed shower. As soon as I get back to the room, who do I see but Rutger Beke again coming out of the condo heading back to race site. We chatted for a few minutes about the race and I congratulated him on his win. Best part was watching him walk down the flight of stairs when he left. Single stepping each one just like me because of the pain in his legs. Glad to see that the pro's hurt just like we do.
Looking at the final results I am really happy with my day. I finished 334 overall which put me in the top 18% of the field. Not quite as fast as my Florida time last year, but the conditions were much harder here and I feel I raced a much more solid race. Would I do this race again? Absolutely! Great course, excellent crowd support, and beautiful vacation spot. Learning spanish would be a definate advantage though as it would be really nice to understand what all the Cozumelaneans are yelling at you as you pass by. If anyone is considering doing this race, let me know and I can answer any questions you might have.
Jade