Some Lessons Learned

Traveling to Florida to participate in the Iron Man led to many lessons learned, and I am so grateful for each of them. Although I did not complete the course, having finished the bike portion too late to be allowed to run, my first run at Iron Man was a joyous event, and well worth the time, energy, and money. I share them for future first-timers wondering whether they can jump straight into Iron Man and skip all of the small fry stuff such as Triathlons.

First lesson - the one I learned in the Boy Scouts, BE PREPARED.

WETSUIT FIT. I picked up my wetsuit the Monday before the race, never wore it before I got to Florida, and discovered that the Zootsuit was fantastic, but just a little small in the shoulders. This was not apparent until I was swimming, and my shoulder got a fair amount of resistance when I stretched my hand directly over my head. This led to two results that one wants to avoid. First, it pulled the back of the wetsuit up my neck and onto my scalp - resulting in a nasty rope burn when it slid back into place with each stroke. The salt water further aggravated the painful, but minor, injury, and it left about a one inch square scab that is still healing. Second, when I adapted to this situation by not lifting my arm straight over my head, this caused me to lose the ability to swim straight. I became like a plane on auto-pilot, constantly correcting course, but eventually making it to the destination.

Otherwise, I was fine on the swim. The currents, swells, and breaking waves didn't both me as I had done quite a bit of ocean swimming as a child while body surfing and generally being left on my own for hours at a time at the ocean. Primary lesson, just keep on keepin on and never give up, and those swells and currents won't bother you.

Next area in which I found I was unprepared - NUTRITION. For me, at least, gel is the only thing that seems to help. I had mostly used Cliff bars during training, with an occasional gel, but that is because I usually stopped to eat, and wasn't really racing a clock. Since I had not PRACTICED under race conditions, I didn't realize that I would simply refuse to eat the clif bars. Result: I went 40 miles into the bike ride before I realized that gel was available. Had I known I was going to eat strictly gel, I would have brought my own and never had to stop.

Related to nutrition, was LOGISTICS OF FOOD AND WATER ON THE BIKE. I hadn't paid much attention to this, carrying my food and water on the back of my bike during training. The extra weight helped prepared me, and gave me a boost when I shed the basket, but then I didn't have a good system to accept food and water on the course. I just stopped at each aid station, ate and drank my fill, and continued on. While I thought this wouldn't be significant since the Iron Man is primarily an endurance, not a speed, race, when I missed the cut-off all these stops came back to bite me.

Third, CHECK YOUR EQUIPMENT THOROUGHLY. My bike shipped fine to Florida, and my brother was kind enough to send it to a local bike shop for a tune-up. However, I didn't discover until the race was ON that my speedometer didn't work. With no speedometer, there is no good way to pace yourself, and you end up slowing down.

Bottom line, on race day you don't want anything to get in the way of completing the race, especially something that you have complete control over. So take care of the details. Act as if you've been there before a thousand times, which of course means that everything that can go wrong would have gone wrong for you at one time or another, so you would always carefully check each and every aspect of the race logistics, calmly, and without obsession.

Second major lesson learned, is that RACING IS A LOT MORE FUN WITH A GROUP. I mostly trained on my own, though I did a few bike rides and runs with various people, including my brother. My brother, on the other hand, trained this year primarily with a great group of men and women, about a dozen, and 6 or 8 of them entered the race. Their joy not only on race day, but leading up to the race, at the pre-race potluck, the pre-race practice swim, the race itself, and the aftermath, was palpable. Join a group and quadruple your fun!

One woman completed the race after separating her shoulder and undergoing deep bruising after barreling into a traffic barrel. Two others completed the race despite not having been able to train properly. All brought family or friends to the race and this expanded the cheering section, and gave the spectators more to do than merely spectate and speculate about their loved one's progress.

One great guy even proposed marriage to his now-fiance at the finish line! He'd never more drenched in sweat or more exhausted, but his future bride is a triathaloner so she found the sweat quite romantic. Only problem with doing something like that at the finish line is that word quickly gets around, so your friends know you're engaged before you can even get to post it on your Facebook page. The proposal was so cool that it has been included in the 2009 Highlights of the Florida Ironman.

The third thing I took away from the race is CHERISH YOUR FAMILY. My older brother was competing in the race, as was his nephew (the aforementioned groom). There was even a very distant relative with my same last name whom I had never before met. I was thrilled because both my daughters came to the race, as did my future son-in-law, my sister-in-law, nephew, and niece. There simply is no finer group of people on this planet, and I was floating just being in the presence of so many outstanding and loveable people.

I enjoyed being around such an accomplished group - a teacher with a Master's Degree, two counselors each with a Master's degree, and two grad students, not to mention a CPA. But even more I enjoyed being around such a fun and loving group. Small acts of kindness, laughter, working together, and the obvious love and high regard for one another filled the weekend.

I learn its not as easy as it looks

My brother is an Iron Man! Hurrah!

The sum total of my "competitive" running experience is now one sprint triathlon, one Olympic Distance triathlon, one Marathon (Surf City), and one partially completed Iron Man competition. Can the Wheaties box cover be far behind?

Ok. So experience DOES count for something. Finishing all the pressing matters I could at the office, I finally began packing for the race trip about 4 a.m. before making the mad dash to LAX for my early flight to Florida. In the 20 minutes I had to pack I managed to get all my Iron Man gear, and little else, into my carry-on bags. To save space, I wore my running shoes.

Having arrived a few days before the race, I quickly wished that I had also packed some clothes to wear on the non-race days. The night before the race, the competitors (in my case, participants) had to put their running gear into a bag to be held in the transition area from the ride to the run. Oops. Now I had no shoes to wear. Quick trip to Walmart and I was gellin with some Dr. Scholl's trail shoes.

First up. The 2.4 mile swim into the Gulf of Mexico. To avoid getting my face kicked in by one of 2,499 other swimmers, I waited a minute or two to allow the others to dive in and, hopefully, clear the area of jelly fish. Moving just fast enough to keep from sinking, I finished 16 minutes off of my target goal. I saw my family cheering encouragement, relieved that I had not drowned.

The panic I felt when three men threw me to the ground and quickly stripped me of my wetsuit soon gave way to joy and relief as they helped me up without any further assault and I was allowed to stand under the showers to wash off the sand for as long as my heart desired.

Some time later, I continued on to the changing area and was soon on my bicycle. I'd had the tires changed at the last minute before shipping my bike. Since it could take me hours to change a flat tire, I went with Armadillo tires - impervious to normal road hazards. Though I felt like I was riding on tank treads, I consoled myself that at least I wouldn't have to stop to change a flat tire. Imagine my surprise when I heard the night before that "This year, for a change, we swept the entire course free of glass." Even with the slow tires, I didn't seem to be moving as fast as I had trained. I wasn't too worried though. Several of the more experienced competitors I'd met had warned against going out too fast on the bike course and burning too much energy. One thing I didn't have after that swim was energy to burn.

Could it be the lack of food in my system? Had I really burned that many calories out there in the Gulf? Forty miles into the race I finally realized that all those Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts on the course were trying to offer me instant energy - gel food quickly consumed. When they asked me whether I wanted Strawberry or Chocolate, I couldn't resist, even though I had been taught never to take food from strangers. Somehow the other riders managed to eat, drink and ride at the same time. Since my only accident had occurred in training while I was chewing gum and riding, I stopped at every aid station to eat and drink.

Soon, my speed had picked up by what seemed like several miles an hour. I checked my bike computer to see how fast I was traveling. Oops. Note to self. Check to make sure all equipment is working BEFORE the race, not in the middle of it.

As I approached the end of the 112 mile bike course, the sun also approached the ends of its course for the day. The sun reached its destination over the horizon a few minutes before I reached mine. I missed the cut-off by 11 minutes and was not allowed to run the marathon.

After walking to the infamous Andy's Motel, showering, changing, eating dinner, and hanging out with friends and family, I made it to the finish line in time to see my older brother sprint across the finish line, confirming what I'd always known, he is a true Iron Man. As for me, I have not yet begun to rust!

Iron Man or just too much lead paint in the brain?

My wonderful brother convinced me to attempt an Iron Man in November of 2009. It looked easy enough while I was cheering for him in the Louisville Ironman race last Labor Day.

Even though I was exhausted from driving around in the 93 degree weather, cheering for the 2,500 participants, and standing in one spot cheering for hours at a time, what they were doing didn't seem all that difficult. After all, we were both exhausted, sweaty, hungry, and having the time of our lives.

So far, I've lost 10 pounds, gotten to know my local gym better than I thought I ever would, realize I need to learn to swim, and bought a really cool, light, bicycle. I've also watched Rocky I several times. . . .