Race day started off ok. I wasn’t expecting to get much sleep, but I actually slept pretty well the night before the race. I woke up at 4 AM, fixed my pre-race breakfast and headed down to the race for body marking and to put air in my tires. After that, I headed up to the room and watched TV for about an hour to get my mind off the race. At 6:30, it was time to pack up and head back down there to start the race.
SWIM:
We said a quick prayer, watched the pros start off and then the National Anthem was sung. At 7 AM sharp, the cannon went off and we were off for a 2.4 mile swim. I had done a practice swim in the ocean the 3 days leading up to the race, so I was ready for what it had waiting for me. Wednesday was very rough and would have been a rough day if it had been like that. Thursday was still rough, but not as bad. Friday was like swimming in a lake. The forecast was for there to be less wind than Friday, which would make the waves even better, but it didn’t quite work out that way. They were not horrible, but bad enough to make the swim challenging.
I took off from the far right and went out fast at the first to get out ahead of the crowd. I may have started out too fast because I started feeling it after about 300 yards and had to slow down. Because of the waves, it was hard to see the buoys that identified the course, but I swam along and followed everyone else. It was very congested with a few thousand people all trying to swim in the same piece of water. I had people going every which direction over the top of me, but I just stayed relaxed and kept moving forward. Then, we approached the first turn buoy, which was a mess. I had been warned not to get close to the buoy, so I stayed about 30 feet away from it and it was still congested with everyone trying to cut the corner. I got good at pushing people out of the way so that I could get where I needed to get. I was happy with myself though, I never panicked and kept moving forward.
Eventually, we turned back towards shore and some interesting things happened. First, I was able to meet the fastest swimmer on the course, unfortunately, he swims like I hit a golf ball and was headed back and forth going right over the top of me in the process. I say he was the fastest swimmer because to be able to keep up with me as much as he was going side to side, he had to have been. When I finally shook him, I came up on a girl that had the strongest kick that I have ever seen a triathlete have. Most triathletes don’t kick that hard because they are saving their legs for the rest of the day, but she did and she kicked her feet to the tune of the jaws music when the shark was getting ready to attack. I was just wishing that it was just the kicking and that a shark was not getting ready to come at that point. There was pushing and shoving the entire first lap, but I finally made it to shore and I was dumb enough to get back in the water and do it again.
The second lap was pretty uneventful. It felt like the waves weren’t as bad and I had my own space most of the lap. It took me 5 minutes longer to swim it, but it seemed shorter. When the lap was over, I got out of the water and ran straight to the wetsuit stripper. I had already pulled my arms out of my suit and just flopped on my back and let him pull it off. After that, I ran past my mom, said hi to her and headed to the make shift shower. This was my first lesson learned of the day. I was in a hurry and pushed through the shower, but shortly into the bike I was regretting that decision. My swim time was 1:15:46, which put me in 947th place out of around 2600. When I ran past the bike racks, I was pleased to see that there were a lot of bikes still there, but I was hoping for a swim time less than 1:10.
BIKE:
After a picking up my Bike Gear bag, putting on my helmet and bike shoes and grabbing my bike, it was time to head out on the bike. The first mishap on the bike happened at the mount line. I wanted to get out ahead of everyone trying to mount their bikes, but it was so congested that there was no way around them. I mounted my bike and clipped in to my pedals when the guy in front of me crashed and took out two others. I was able to slam on my breaks and unclip without going down, but that got my heart rate up for a second. When I finally got out on the bike, it was a pretty smooth ride. I had ridden the first 14 miles earlier in the week and knew what to expect. I was focused on keeping my power down to save something for the run. In the process, several guys flew past me going around 20 mph, but I stayed focused and thought they looked cool on the bike, but I kicked their butt on the swim.
On the bike, there were aid stations about every 10 miles. I need to figure out how to get those on my training rides. They have water, sports drinks, bananas, and gels just holding them out so you can grab them on the go. Some of the aid stations were harder than others because they got crowded. I grabbed a bottle of water at every aid station and occasionally a banana. I had my own gel in my back pocket, so I didn’t bother with any of that. The ride was rather flat. There were a few small inclines, but nothing I would call a hill. The toughest part of the bike was on a road around the half way point that was extremely bumpy. There were people losing all sorts of things off their bike on this road, to include one guy that lost a CO2 cartridge that bounced off the ground and came up and hit me in the chest. I was so glad to get off the bike.
I also had an issue with my eyes burning for a good part of the bike. There were times that I couldn't see anything and thought I was going to crash. I stoped at a few aid stations and flushed them with water, but they never stopped burning.
My favorite part of the bike was all of the signs that people took the time out to put on the side of the road. There were some signs that said things like “don’t poop on yourself” to “don’t you wish you would have taken up bowling.” There were other motivational quotes to lift you up when you don’t want to quit. There were some signs that really touched me with a picture of a kid wearing an Ironman costume that said “Daddy, lets both be an Ironman.” One sign that struck home said, “this sounded like a good idea 364 days ago,” referring to everyone who signed up for the race the day after last year’s race. There were also several people on the side of the road cheering for us, even two guys wearing nothing but a Speedo. The volunteers were also great making sure that we kept our spirits up while we passed by.
By the end of the bike, I was ready to get off that saddle. 112 miles is a long way, regardless of how hilly the course is. I finished the bike in 6:44:44, which was 16.6 mph. It wasn’t as fast as I would have liked, but I was done and it was time to go for a run. The big pick me up was seeing my dad and Brett on the side of the course cheering for me as I was headed in, and Annette was out there about a quarter mile from the finish.
After getting off the bike, I ran into the changing area to change shoes and get ready to head out for a marathon. They had chairs set up in the changing area and sitting on that chair to change shoes felt so good that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get up. Eventually, I had to and I was surprised that I actually felt good. I took off running and looked down at my watch and noticed that I was running an 8 min/mile pace. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep that up for long, so I slowed down to a 9:30 pace and was able to keep that for about 3 miles, only slowing at aid stations, but then the blisters came. I made a huge mistake of running in my race shoes the day before, right before the time that I had to throw them in the bag and turn them in for the race. They were soaked when I put them in the bag and they never dried out, so I started the run with soaked feet. That caused so much friction that my feet were hurting extremely bad and I still had 23 miles to run.
I made a decision to walk a mile and see if it got better, but it didn’t. I tried running several times, but didn’t hold up for very long. A few times, I made it half a mile, sometimes only a tenth, but I tried running several times. I wound up walking the majority of the marathon, but I was walking at a pretty brisk pace on the sides of my feet, which were the only place that was not blistered. It was rough, but I made it through. The run course was a two loop course that gave me the opportunity to see several of my friends and some of the pro women that were finishing up. The first loop was cool and mostly in the day light. When I made the turn around, it had just turned dark, so I had to go at it one more time in complete darkness. They handed out glow sticks so that cars could see us. At the turn around, I grabbed my special needs bag, which had something that was a blessing for about a half a mile, a dry pair of socks. They felt good, but didn’t stay dry for long since my shoes were soaked. I was able to run for about a mile again at that point, but then it was back to my walking routine.
FINISH:
Now for the best part of the day, I was on the last quarter mile of the run where you turn towards the finish line. There were a few people in front of me and I looked back and there was nobody in sight behind me, so I let the people in front of me get a good lead before I started running to the finish because I wanted the finish line to myself. As soon as I could see the finish, I forgot about my feet and took off. I ran to the line and heard the famous words that I was waiting to hear for a long time, “Eric Potter, You are an IRONMAN!!!” It didn’t matter how tired I was, I had the energy to put a big smile on my face, get my finisher’s medal, t-shirt and hat and walk out to a huge hug from Brett. Hannah started to give me one too, but she said I was too sweaty. It was great to finish this and to have my family with me for this great day. Annette walked with me and they were giving out pizza, so I took 4 pieces because I hadn’t eaten anything solid (other than fruit) all day long. I had a goal to finish in less than 14 hours and I didn’t quite meet it, finishing in 14:23:45.
There were many things that totally inspired me during this adventure. People like John Hanna, who 6 weeks ago had a bike wreck that broke his shoulder and would have put most people out of completing a race like this, but John not only did the race, he had a smile on his face the whole time. There were also two firefighters who did the race in a firefighter outfit with an oxygen tank on the back to represent fallen firefighters. One of them passed me as I was headed towards the finish as she was starting her last lap and I had to stop and let her know that she was doing great. I also met a girl in the Ironman store who broke her wrist in a bike crash during the race. She had on a full cast that she had gotten after the race, but she said it wasn’t going to stop her from finishing and she finished the bike and an entire marathon with a broken wrist. That made my blisters seem like nothing.
It is not too late to donate to the cause if you are interested. You can read about the cause and make a donation at http://www.daaa.org/DAAA_ironman.html.
As I get pictures, I will upload some of them to the blog as well.
Thank you guys for hanging with me on this journey.
You are the "TRUE" Ironman! Very inspiring Eric!
ReplyDeletePaul Sieja