On-On Indeed

On August 11, 2012 I rolled out of my Hampton Inn bed at 3am and began a long day that included a ferry ride from New York City to New Jersey, swim in the Hudson River, bike tour of Palisades Parkway, and a jog over the George Washington Bridge back to NYC. It all totals up to 140.6 miles powered by nothing but my body and a lot of sugar and caffeine.  The cut-off to be an "official" finisher is 17hrs and some use every minute of that to reach the finish line.  The guys who make a living off doing this can make it under 8hrs.  I'm equally impressed by both extremes.  The natural talent, hard work, and dedication it takes to be an elite professional Ironman is difficult to comprehend.  Likewise, the determination it takes to show up race morning knowing that you will likely be out on the course for over two full work days is amazing. 

Back to my own personal quest, if I cover this 140.6 miles fast enough I earn the right to do it all over again in 2 months - be careful what you ask for.  The Ironman US Championships was my 3rd Ironman.  I raced IM Florida in 2007 and IM Coeur d'Alene in 2009.  Florida was a great first IM and I learned some things from my mistakes.  CdA also went fairly well and I had a particularly good run.  Still, even my 9:34 at IMFL fell short of earning me a slot to the Ironman World Championships in Kailua-Kona, Hawai'i.  Actually, it wasn't even close - 14th in my age group and 103 overall.  NYC is a much tougher course than IMFL and I figured it was going to take something in the 9:45 area to have a good chance at at Kona slot.  I didn't have a specific finish time goal but I felt confident that I was about as prepared as I could be.  You aren't just racing the clock in IM like qualifying for the Boston marathon.  There are limited amount of qualifying slots available at each event and you are competing against the rest of your age group to earn one.  So even the best race of your life - everything perfect - could leave you at home watching the live internet feed of the World Championships in October.

The day started decent enough with a quick swim down the Hudson.  We had a strong tidal current pulling us back to transition and just about everyone there must have had a PR swim.  I've gone 1:03-1:06 but this day it was a 44min swim - insane. Now it's time to get to work - 112 miles in the saddle.  I ran my bike out of T1, jumped on and then...disaster.  Every triathlete's worst nightmare is a flat tire in an important race and THAT - JUST - HAPPENED.  I'll never know what went wrong but somehow between setting up my gear at 6am and grabbing my bike at 8am my rear tire went mostly flat.  Long story short - I struggled through a miserably slow change while hundreds of people streamed out of transition past me but I finally go rolling and had no issues on the bike from there on.  The run was challenging and it got the best of me. I was feeling good through the first 16 miles or so but then the wheels started to fall off and I suffered through the rest of the marathon. Did I mention how challenging the course and conditions were?

My #1 athletic supporter and wife

In the end I crossed the finish line in 9:38:19.  Once everything shook out I ended up 5th out of 330 in the M35-39 age group and 45th overall, including pros.  I honestly never even dreamed of an IM podium finish and certainly didn't feel like things went well enough to be close today.  It was apparently a tough day for everyone and I managed to suffer better than most by just putting one foot in front of the other until I saw the finish line.  That run turned out to be the 33rd fastest on the day, including the pros. And guess what else that 5th place age group podium finish got me - KONA.  The next morning I was at the awards ceremony giving my AMEX a $795 workout with plenty more to come when I booked a week-long trip to Hawai'i. 

I've been working for this for years and finally pulled it off with a little bonus hardware for the trophy shelf at home. I need to thank my wife for understanding my need to be out every weekend riding my bike until noon and making dinner at 9pm most week days because I'm at the pool, or out running, or working on my bike, or logging my training online, or...shaving my legs.  It just so happens that we leave for Kona the day after our 1-year anniversary so she's getting a little reward for being such a great athletic supporter :)

If you have time and want to read the details you can check out my race report post on Slowtwitch.