Woke up early (4 AM) and I didn’t want to get out of bed and face the cold outside. Had some banana bread, oatmeal…the usual to get going. I definitely was nervous about the day ahead but I tried to remain task oriented always to keep my mind off it.
Got to the transition area as early as possible, I guess it was around 5, and given how cold it was I knew that was a bit of a mistake. Also should have brought the pump with me, had to stand in line for 10 or 15 minutes or maybe more to get the tires pumped up.
SWIM
The 10 minutes between the age group and pro starts felt as though they were half an hour apart to me. I stood there freezing just hoping the cannon would go off soon. Once it did I worked my way up with the top 3 or 4 swimmers quickly and then just sort of hung right behind them to choose which one I would draft off of. I certainly didn’t want to do all the work alone in those waves. I felt really good and wasn’t working all that hard while still putting distance between me and the pack, so I was pretty happy and temporarily forgot about the cold and the jellyfish I ran into. Came out of the water on the first loop somewhere in the top 4-8, I heard them call my name but wasn’t paying exact attention to the order. Took the same strategy on the second loop as I did on the first. Ended up swimming a 53:59, good for 18th overall.
Everything seemed to be going well so far except the cold. It took me 6 minutes in T1 to dry off and get myself situated. I lost a lot of the time I gained on the swim and was not happy about that.
BIKE
The first 7 miles heading out of town were horribly windy and I immediately wished I had a 404 instead of a disc in the back. I could barely take my hand off the bars to grab a drink. After the bridge I settled in to a comfortable pace and tried to really work on keeping up with my nutrition. People were passing me but I expected this because I am a swimmer and I knew I wasn’t going to stay with the top people all day so I didn’t let that affect me much. I also had a horrible cramp in my left ankle that stayed with me for the entire 112 miles but went away when I got off the bike. Rode into the wind all the way through mile 49, got special needs and started feeling a lot better once I turned into the tailwind. The rest of the bike ride was pretty uneventful. It was easy to avoid drafting and I didn’t notice any going on where I was. The roads got a little annoying as we alternated between some decent ones and some really bad ones. Overall time was 5:22:17, avg of 20.9 mph. I was definitely happy with that given the wind at the beginning.
RUN
I felt fine getting off the bike, and the cramp in the ankle went away which I was very worried about while on the bike. I settled into a pace that turned out to be way too fast but I thought I could keep at the time. Inexperience coming into play there. First 7 or 8 miles I was holding 7:20-30 miles and then things started to turn kind of bad for me for a few miles. Once I got special needs and started taking in cola at the aid stations I felt better but the rest of the run was pretty much a roller coaster for me. I felt great for 2 or 3 miles and then hit a wall, and repeated the process a few times. Run ended up at 3:46:03, not what I was shooting for.
Overall time was 10:11:04, which I was very happy with given it was my first ironman. 3rd in my age group, 134th overall. I learned a few minutes later that 2nd in my AG was only 30 seconds in front of me, I think I ran him down by 10 minutes or so on the second loop of the run but just ran out of ground in the end. That was probably the only really disappointing thing I can say about the race.
I learned some important lessons and am trying to plan when my next ironman will be. The experience as a whole I thought was incredible. I had a blast the whole time I was there, despite the cooler weather. I stayed at the Edgewater Beach Resort, about 1.5 miles down the road but I loved it there, and for a third of the cost of the Boardwalk I would recommend it to anyone (dealing with parking at the race site wasn’t much fun though).
