Ironman Florida: The Run

9 minute miles felt like a pretty easy pace at the start, but I sort of figured it was too fast. I tried to actively slow myself down, but it didn't happen for a couple miles. It was pretty clear I didn't have the raw endurance I'm used to for IM races, and the pace started getting pretty difficult right away.

The run course at Florida reminded me a bit of Louisville; essentially a dead flat out and back on city roads, snaking through residential and downtown commercial buildings, and boring as snot. I knew enough about the course to know that there's a loop through St. Andrew's State Park right at the end of the out-and-back, and that I should fear it very, very much. So, step one is to simply get there and scope it out.

It didn't take long for my pace to slide. It took probably a mile to get my HR up to race pace, then I progressively slowed over the next few. By mile 4, I was ready to start walking. I didn't walk, didn't even allow allotted walking breaks, but I couldn't help but wonder if I'd end up clocking a new slowest marathon ever.

It didn't help things that I was feeling pretty crappy right out of the gate. The nausea that usually doesn't join the party until lap 2 of the run, started ruining my good time within the 2nd mile marker. Such a situation caused me to realize something for the first time: I don't really NEED gels out there. I mean, let's consider this: I'm of the opinion that I don't get enough water in me to fully digest the gels on the run; that I'm always running dehydrated and not allowing my body to absorb the calories I'm taking in. Why, then, would I want to use gels? Why not just stick to IM Perform? Well, let's try it, huh? I threw back a cup of water and a cup of Perform at each of the first 9 aids stations and a miraculous thing happened.

My nausea calmed down.
I began to feel less tired.
And
-surprisingly-
I'm peeing again!

Of course, the Perform doesn't last forever; it's pretty vile stuff that late in the day. But my problems were delayed a few hours, and I was happy for that.

I was really taken aback by how boring the run was. Maybe there's not much you can really look at in Panama City (besides the ocean, and we've seen plenty of that), but man it was boring. We just wove in and out of side streets that all looked alike. I was looking for the entrance to the park and not seeing anything I was looking for. I waste away the first out section in such a state, and finally reach the entrance around mile 5.5. I lap my Garmin and see how long it will take to get through it. The park, for all the warnings I got about it, was actually my favorite part of the course. Something about the tall, weird shaped trees reminded me of a lion or tiger exhibit at the zoo; one of those REALLY big ones you navigate by car. So I was running along wondering what kind of exotic creatures may be lurking in the bushes. The things we do for entertainment.

I complete the 2 mile park section in about 21 minutes, and keep that in the back of my mind for the second lap. Not too long out of the park, I have what I immediately swear to myself is my last sip of Perform; we're switching to coke at mile 10. 4 GU packets still jingle-jangle in my pockets in case I get in trouble, but coke has never steered me wrong. Well, except at CdA when I choked on my Pepto tab, but I can't blame the coke for that.

The last 5 miles back into town went from me thinking I could run the whole thing, to me being pretty damn sure I can't even run the whole 5 miles. I do a little shuffling as I make it back into town, but mostly running. I want to run the first loop in 2:30 and let the second loop fall where it may. Whatever, this is a fun race. I make it back to Special Needs FINALLY and begin dressing warm. I kind of anticipated needing some warmer clothes for a slower back half, and after not having it at CdA I knew enough that it was worth packing some extras. I added a long sleeve shirt, some gloves and changed shoes. The shoe change was because it's not comfortable, or good for your legs, to walk in Newtons. I didn't plan on running the last bit, so I put on some flatter Saucony's. I can still run in them if it comes to that, but more than likely I'll be walking. Which is fine.

I decide to go ahead and pop my energy drink and take some pepto tabs before I head back out. I decide I'm going to run 5 minutes and walk 5 minutes. If I can run an 11 min pace and walk a sub 20 min pace, then I can still shuffle in to around a 6 hour marathon and around another PR. So off I run onto my first 5 minute jog section. 5 minutes seems like an awful long time both on the running and the walking sections. The running section got spoiled pretty early on by puking. I don't know what it is about taking pepto tabs my body finds so offensive; like it takes it personally that I don't let it take care of the nausea on its terms. This time, though, I decide that I'm going to keep running after throwing up. I've bonked doing that before, but I have gels. No worries; let's blaze a new path.

The 5 on/5 off is too long, so I switch to 3/3. This is plenty fine for the next 5 miles to the park. I'm still drinking coke and water and still have not bonked, nor dipped into my gels. I start to feel kind of better again as I near the park and decide to go for it. The loudest piece of advice I got prior to this race told me to GET OUT OF THE PARK ON THE SECOND LOOP! If you start walking in the park, it feels like you never leave. The park really got into some people's heads. Regardless, it made me fear it, and made me strategize around it. I decided to run as much as I could when I got there. This was an interesting endeavor; I hadn't really willed myself to run that far that late in an Ironman before. The closest I'd come was running mile 14.5-15.5 at CdA; this was running mile 18.5-20.5 through a lion enclosure. I kept going, kept up the pace and almost made it! I couldn't go anymore around mile 20, but soon found myself out of the park and counting down the miles to go. I've earned a nice walk break before I start the shuffle again.

But then it happened. Something that's never happened before. I was passed by a racer coming out of the park running about the same pace as I (when I was running). He said "if we can manage a 12-13 min/mi pace, we can break 14 hours." My first thought was "what? No we can't!" Then I got to thinking about it for a second. Idk, maybe we could, if I ran the whole way. But the whole last 10k? Impossible. No thank you. My shuffle is getting me there just fine.

And that was the end of the conversation...

For a little while...

About a half mile, in fact. I took a bit of time to really digest that notion. I felt like I could run more; the park proved I could. I was only 5 miles from the finish line, which would only take an hour to run it. This was my last race for a while; it's not like I had to be cautious. In fact, I'd never really finished an Ironman running before. Why is that? What do I have against finishing one of these strong? Why do I think it's so impossible?

So I make a very loud prayer to keep me safe and keep me strong over the last little bit. I have no idea if this is possible or if trying will leave me face down in the dirt like it did last June. But I'm going to try it. I'm going to air it out and see where it got me.

And off I run.

I'm still stopping at the aid stations to grab coke; I've pretty much given up on water and I'm throwing away my gels. With all the running, I'd long since taken off my gloves and long sleeve shirt and put them away. It's so like my luck: when I need them, I don't have them; when I have them, I don't need them because I'm running at mile 22 of the marathon. I make it about 2.5 miles before stopping for a walk. It didn't seem necessary to pound myself continuously for another 3 miles, so I took a few minutes, got in some more coke and picked it up again at mile 24. It became increasingly obvious to me that I was going to go sub 14, which was unbelievable after shooting for 14:50 a few hours ago. The sub 14 pace soon became too easy, and for a time I went for 13:45. That didn't last for long, as the numbers didn't make sense in the closing miles. So I took a walk break here and there, stopped to pee once. Had only I'd known what my final finish time would have been.

The finish line at Florida was a big buzzkill. Well, not the line specifically as the lead into the line. I figured I was in the home stretch when I turned onto Front Beach Rd at mile 25.5, but by the time you backtracked to Thomas Dr, they make you circumnavigate a restaurant and file in the back way. So at mile mark 26, you run out of the neon lights, out of the wall of spectators, out of the noise and the faint glow of the finish line and out into some stupid pitch-dark back road with a construction site on one side and a parking lot on the left. Not cool, race organizers.

The finish chute, once you get there, was pretty par for the course. I never really have the capacity to fully enjoy and appreciate the final 100 feet as much as I feel I deserve to, but I point to the sky, pump my arms and smile like a guy who just took 1:10 off his PR. I'm the happiest I've been since my first IM finish as I get shuttled through the chute. I get the standard medal -> shirt -> hat, none of which I have grand plans for, but start to worry my finish line catcher with a hacking cough I can't seem to control. Did I mention I have a cold? That I've had a cold for 2 weeks? Maybe I should have pointed that out earlier. Like I needed one more thing working against me today.

Run time: 5:26:24
My marathon PR is 5:07:XX, if you can believe it. And I've never ran a sub 6 hr IM marathon.

Total time: 13:47:53; A PR by 1:11:56

For the first time in my Ironman life, I finished early enough to go home, shower, change clothes and come back for the late night finishers. This is the best news of the day. I won't make a big deal about how hard it was to get back to the condo in such a late state of exhaustion >.<

What's important is that I had a great race. Definitely the only Ironman I can truly say I'm happy the way it panned out. Let's bookend this blog with Facebook updates.

"has NEVER gone that deep (into the pain cave), and for the first time avoided "worst case scenario." Not a perfect race, but a pretty damn good one! So satisfied!"