I have some family in Florida so I decided to take a week and go back for a visit. I also decided to schedule it in December and get in one more 70.3 this year. Haines City was this last Sunday and I’m posting this now because I only got home a couple days ago and I’m just getting caught up from all the travel and returning to work.
So this was my fourth 70.3 I’ve entered. Prior to this, I am 2/3 in 70.3 finishes. Florida worried me because of the possibility of heat. I do not do well in the heat. Combine heat and humidity and it’s murder for me. I hoped that being in December it wouldn’t be too oppressive, and if I got lucky, it might even be somewhat cool. More on that later. If you’re ever considering this race, read on for my take.
I got there around mid morning on Saturday to check in to registration and set up my gear. Even before noon it was pretty busy and Haines City is not exactly a metropolis. We were practically tripping over each other. I’m not complaining about Haines City. They were doing everything they could to be accommodating. It was just that over 1000 athletes plus another 1000 or so family and friends packed into an area that might normally only see five or six hundred on a busy day. But the staff and volunteers did a really good job keeping everything moving.
Mom came along as support. I appreciate it but the reality is she is simply getting too old to actually be much help. Nevertheless, she shared driving duties and helped the best she could. We got a hotel about 15 miles away so after I got checked in and checked out the village, we found our hotel and then found a nice hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant that turned out to be a nice little find, Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and called it an early evening.
I actually got decent sleep but got up about 4:30 so I could eat a little breakfast before we had to leave. It was only about a 15 mile drive so we left the hotel about a quarter to 6 and got there a few minutes after. Already pretty heavy traffic but traffic control was doing a good job keeping everything moving. Got all my morning gear set up and made my way down to the lake.
Normally, I’m a middle of the pack swimmer. And by “middle of the pack” I mean I’m somewhere in that big cluster. Not one of the fish finishing early and not a straggler. I self staged in the 40-43 minute group, which may be a little optimistic but not unreasonable. Race officials stated water temp was right about 65* so I was glad I had my wet suit. I had heard earlier somewhere that water temp was 71 so I had considered not even bringing it. But at 65 I’m definitely glad I had it.
The swim deserves its own detailed description. This lake is pretty shallow and for a considerable amount, there is growth very near the water surface. The officials do what they can to get the distance in, and that requires them to make the course in the shape of an M. I didn’t get the significance of that at first but it didn’t take long to figure it out. The problem with that design is it provides a more confined channel in which to swim. It was practically a melee out there. I got hit in the face hard enough I have a bruise on the bridge of my nose but I didn’t know it was just a bruise at the time, stopped to make sure I wasn’t bleeding. I had my goggles hit twice, the second time caused the strap to come loose. That cost me several minutes as I had to get out of the swim channel and hang on to a kayak while I fixed the strap. That doesn’t even count the dozens of times I had my arms and legs slapped and kicked. Add in all the plant growth we were swimming through most of the way and it slowed me down considerably. Ended up with a 52+minute swim, far worse than I had hoped. Frustrating as it was, I was happy just to get out of that swim.
The bike segment was pretty uneventful besides saying I think Ironman looked for, and found, every hill there is in central Florida. None were really bad except the bike I keep out there just isn’t geared for hills. I actually keep a separate bike at mom’s house specifically for when I come to visit. It’s an older aluminum Cervelo, like the P2 but I don’t think that’s the actual model. I think my climbing gears on this bike are something like a 38-28. Might even be a 38-26, I don’t recall. Either way, the few hills they had, it was a bit of a slog. If it had been geared better, the few hills wouldn’t have been nearly that noticeable. Beyond that, the pavement was pretty good overall and they did a good job marking any serious road hazards. I was just under 3:20 for the ride. I had hoped for a <3:15 but I’m OK with that time.
The run is my worst event. Throw in a little heat and some hills and I get really slow really fast. This course was a two lap course and most of the hills were within the first 2 miles. After that, I don’t know if I would even call them hills so much as just rises and dips. On the first lap, my worst fears were materializing. We had all the humidity and it was beginning to get warm. Mercifully though, about the time of my second lap, a good breeze started to kick up. Another life saver is they had a lot of volunteer support at the aid stations with plenty of water and ice. I was stuffing ice everywhere I could. That helped a bunch. (This is where Ironman really fell short in St. George. A lot of my failure there was on me, but they ran out of ice and had too few aid stations at the worst time of the event) I managed to finish the entire race maintaining an actual run pace excepted for where and when I had planned to walk. And no cramping during the race, which was a first for me.
I took a lot of time in transition, about 15 minutes each, but that was part of my strategy going in. I finished in just under 8 hours. Hardly an impressive finish but it was a solid finish for me. I think if it had been a bit cooler on the run, I might have been able to maintain a better pace. And had I not gotten caught up in the melee in the swim, I could have certainly shaved a few more minutes off that. Under better conditions (mainly just cooler), I think I could realistically finish that in 7.5 hours.
I’ll never be a contender but I’m just happy for a finish within time. It’s unlikely I will ever do this one again. Not because there was anything inherently bad with this race, I’m just getting done with the long courses. It was actually one of the better ones I’ve done.
