2013 Great Floridian Race Report
It's a full Iron distance event, consisting of 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run.
I finished in
13:35:57 and placed 34th out of 117 finishers.
Was a very trough day for me. Temps hovering around 90 and a very hilly course.
I’ve raced down there (about 25 miles west of Orlando) years ago and have made a few training rides too, but I seem to have forgotten how big the hills and how many there are. I kept telling myself they were mainly rolling hills with just two or three steep ones. Wrong!
So here goes:
Swim: Water was too warm for wetsuits to be legal. That’s only the 2nd time in twenty-something years that it’s been like that. I’m not a great swimmer, so my time was pretty crappy. 1:21:31. I didn’t have any issues, so I guess that was good.
Bike: A three-loop course with plenty of hills. Right out of transition, you’re in the granny gears going 8 mph. I knew it was going to be a log day before I finished the first loop too. I was already beat after the 2nd loop, wondering how I was going to survive the last loop and actually be able to run at all later.
I discovered I really suck at down-shifting when going into a hill. I’d shift the rear derailleur towards the larger rings, then decide I needed to down-shift the front as well. By then, the chain is cockeyed from big ring in the back, to big ring in the front and when I’d shift the front derailleur the tension on the chain would pull so much that it would jump over the small chain ring. I realized why It was happening after about the third time, but would forget about it and it would happen again for a total of five times. One time, it occurred right where another guy was having problems too. I was able to fix my problem quickly, but felt obligated to give him a hand, so I lost a good ten minutes on that stop alone.
Again, the temperature was hovering around 90, so I was stopping at just about every water station from the 2nd loop onwards. They were spaced out about ten miles apart so I was drinking 20-30oz of fluids about every 35-40 minutes
Two or three minutes rest at each one of those too, just to give my legs a quick rest.
I finally finished the bike in just over 7 hours.
Run: Three loop course on a paved bike trail. A couple hills here and there with one big one that I walked up each time.
My stomach was teetering on being upset starting around mile 80 on the bike and got a little worse on the run, so I did a lot of walking and very slow running until mile 10. I tried a pretzel stick and that seemed to help, so I started running well from then on to mile 21-ish, when I started to bonk. I’m certain the bonk was because of very limited nutrition. I did the entire marathon on a total of two half-packets of Gu and about six pretzel sticks (lots of Ice and water though) and a little bit of Gatorade. The Gatorade was so sweet, so I diluted it a lot when I did even take some. I like Gu, but it was awful too by then and I was suspicious of it upsetting my stomach, so I tried to stay away from it. So, the last five mile were extremely difficult. All I wanted was the thing to be over, so I could lay down somewhere. I finished the run in 4:55:00.
Total time was 13:35:57
Post-Race: I really wondered if I was taking enough fluids as it warmed up. I often felt dry mouth and my arms and face were dry as the day progressed. Since my stomach was iffy, I was fearful that I would be in trouble. I guess I played it very smartly on the run by easing up to prevent myself from deteriorating and not being able to take anything at all. Again, I got lots of water/ice on the run so by the time I made it to the hotel, my pee was a normal color as if I'd not trained that day at all.
I was sun burned in a few places, had some chafing and sore feet, so the next day was difficult sitting, lying down, standing, it didn’t matter.
