I arrived in Florianapolis the Wednesday before the race. It took me almost a full 24 hours to get there from New York because I missed a connection in Sao Paulo and was rebooked on a later flight. The weather in Florianapolis was perfect when I arrived but the weather reports were pointing toward a rainy race day. I got to check out the swim course and parts of the run and bike courses after getting to Florianapolis. The day before the race, it had rained most of the day. When I checked the weather report on race morning, the rain percentage was low to start the day but was forecast to increase as the day went on. I was hoping for the best and that I would still be able to actually race instead of having to be cautious, especially on the bike.
The swim was an Age Group start and my age group was the second to last wave to go off. The course is an M-shape in the Atlantic Ocean, although we were in a cove and swam to the north. This was my first triathlon swim in the ocean so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I did a practice swim a few days before and it seemed like I was swimming a little slower with the waves and currents.
I got off to a pretty good start considering there were 335
athletes in my age group. I jumped through a few waves before I got out to
calmer water. I started catching up to slower swimmers from the previous wave
before I got to the first marker buoy
and faster swimmers from the wave after mine started catching up to me by the
second marker buoy. The first turn buoy is almost 1 Km from the beach and it
seemed like it took forever to get there. Once I finally got there, it was very
congested with swimmers. As I went around the next turn buoy and started
heading back to the beach, I was able to get to the outside and swim without running
into other swimmers. Once I reached the beach, it was a short run along the beach and then headed back out to start the
second part of the swim course. I was actually feeling pretty good as I went
out and started to pick up my pace. Again, it got crowded around the turn buoys
and into the final stretch. The kayaks started pushing the swimmers back to the
middle as we got closer to the Swim Exit. That bunched things up again and I was
at a standstill in the water with 20 other swimmers at one point. I was able to
work my way around it and finally reached the Swim Exit. I glanced at my watch and saw
it was 1:04-ish and was pleasantly surprised at how fast the swim went for me.
My official time when I hit the mat was 1:05:14. That was a nice improvement
from my Lake Placid swim time of 1:11:15. Things were off to a good start.
T1
I knew that I had an opportunity to improve my transition
times here against my Lake Placid T1 time of 10:15. It seemed like a shorter
run to the transition tent (and no pouring rain like Lake Placid) and I found
my stuff quickly and got to the changing tent. I got my clothes on quickly but
as I put my tri top on, I dropped a sandwich out of the shirt pocket that I wanted
to eat on the bike. I did not realize this until I was just about out of
transition and did not want to go back for it. I got out of the tent and
grabbed my bike quickly and started out on the bike course. I kept my
transition under six minutes with a time of 5:56.
Bike
I knew the rain was going to start later in the morning so I
wanted to get done the bike course as quickly as possible. We were fortunate
that the winds were very light as we traversed the course which runs mostly
north-south on the west side of the island. The roads were still wet from all
of the rain on Saturday and Sunday morning so I had to be cautious and pay attention while I was riding.
I also got off to a good start on the bike. I was hoping to
average 20 mph on the bike and the course sets up well for it as it is mostly
flat with three hills that need to be climbed twice on each lap so a total of
12 climbs. Riding through the downtown area of Florianapolis along the
shoreline was really a nice sight. The rain did start before I finished my
first lap, but I was already soaked from the spray off other riders tires.
Fortunately, it was a little humid to make it comfortable with temps in the high 60's rather than cold so I
didn’t mind riding wet.
I was hoping to find the Special Needs area to retrieve food
that I had packed in my bag since I lost my sandwich in T1. The Special Needs
area was around Km 45 on the first loop and Km 135 on the second lap. The
course wasn’t marked with distance signs and I missed the Special Needs area on
my first lap. I was feasting on Gu gels on the first lap but was starting to
get hungry on the second lap so I paid close attention to the location of
Special Needs and was able to stop and retrieve my food and a much needed
bathroom break.
My goal for the bike was not to have any incidents like a
crash or flat and I was able to ride without any issues. The conditions,
although not ideal, were fine enough where I could push myself on the bike. I
was able to complete the bike course in 5:29:37 which averaged 20.4 mph. I was
pleased with my bike time and started running various run times in my head to
try to project my final time. My total race time off the bike was approximately
6:45:00, so I figured I had a good shot to be under 11 hours and possibly
closer to 10:30 depending on how the run went. Things were going well and I was ahead of where I expected.
T2
I had a pretty smooth transition in T2 and was out on the
run quickly. I improved on my Lake Placid T2 time of 8:15 down to 4:56 in
Florianapolis. The momentum was on my side and I was excited to get going on
the marathon to get the Ironman finished.
Run
The run course starts out with an out and back along the coastline and then finishes with three loops. There are two hills on the out and back portion and the one hill was a pretty steep grade. After that the course is pretty flat and actually kind of boring.
The run course starts out with an out and back along the coastline and then finishes with three loops. There are two hills on the out and back portion and the one hill was a pretty steep grade. After that the course is pretty flat and actually kind of boring.
I made sure to start out the run at an easy pace that I was
hoping to hold for the entire marathon. I certainly didn’t think I came out too
hard or fast. I was hoping to average 7 mph for the first two hours and then
slightly less for the remainder of the race. Although I wasn’t quite sure what
my pace was, I don’t think I was quite at 7 mph for the first hour because I was a
little slower than expected with the hills on the out and back. I thought that I could make
it up in the second hour. I wasn’t not quite sure where I was, but as the second
hour completed, I think I was just over halfway through the marathon so I was
behind the pace that I wanted. As I was going along, I finally started to
see the distance markers, in kilometers, were painted on the streets.
Then things started to go south quickly after the second
hour. I noticed the outside of me left knee was starting to hurt and the top of
my left foot. I knew at some point, I would need to do a run/walk strategy and
I was going to try to run for 8-10 minutes and then walk for a minute. Even
when I was running, it was an incredibly slow pace. The monotony of the three
loops was really setting in along with the rain that had started again while the
course fell into darkness after sunset. As I started out on my third loop, I
knew a sub-11 was slipping out of reach. My knee was throbbing and my energy
was low. I tried to minimize my run/walks as much as possible to keep going but
there was not much left in the tank. As reached the final stretch, I didn’t
know how long the final straight away was. I pushed what I had left and thought
the finish line was closer than it really was. I watched the seconds tick
towards 11 hours and knew that it wasn’t going to be possible with over 100
meters left. In Lake Placid, I really tried to soak up the moment as I went
down the shoot to the finish line. This time was much different and I really
just wanted to finish so I didn’t notice the crowds as I was coming down the
shoot.
My run time was a big disappointment of 4:15:53 and was only
a few seconds slower than my Lake Placid run time. I feel like I wasted a great
swim and bike only to be let down by my run, which is usually my best sport,
but turned out to be the worst of the three in Florianapolis. My final time was still pretty solid and close to what I expected, but the run really left a bad taste in my mouth.
