How to fail a full/Ironman distance (140.6 miles) triathlon like a champ

TLDR: I finished the race but missed the cutoff by around 22 minutes and I learned some new things about myself along the way.

I knew I was mentally ready to tackle the big race. I’ve been doing triathlons for a few years and have completed a half-ironman (70.3 miles). A full distance triathlon is 2.4 miles of swimming, followed by 112 miles of cycling and then topped off with a 26.2 mile run (a marathon). You basically take all the popular endurance events and squash them into one big event.

Last year, I made the decision to do the Great Floridian Full Distance Triathlon and signed up for it in advance to save some money. The race is known as the second oldest full distance triathlon in the continental US. The course varies a little over the years, but this time it was a 3 loop .8 mile swim, 3 loop 37.5 mile bike followed by 3 loops of a 8.7 mile run. All these crazy loops come out to 140.6 miles of swimming, biking and running.

I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of loops and prefer out and backs or point to point races. Despite my preferences, I wanted to do a destination race where I could treat my family to a vacation as a little thank you for the support through all the long training hours. Clermont Florida is spitting distance to Kissimmee and Orlando thus Disney World! What family can resist the call of the mouse?

TRAINING

People ask me if I have a coach? I don’t have a have a coach, not because they aren’t beneficial, but because I love the challenge of researching, planning and executing constant improvement. Seeing positive results of something you worked on is an awesome feeling. I knew win or lose, I would enjoy the journey.

For this race, I found a 24 week / 14 hour peak training plan and followed it to the letter.

What did one of the four peak training weeks look like?

On Monday, I would get up at 5:00am and be in the pool by 6:00am to perform a 4000 yard swim.

Tuesday, might be a rest day or a group ride with fellow triathletes. I would try to fight the urge to push it too hard as it would hurt my run the following day.

Wednesdays, was long run day. Wake up at 3:45am to run and be back by 6:30am to quickly shower and see my son off to school.

Thursday was another 4000 yard swim or a speed work session.

Friday would be a 40 minute morning run at race pace or a speed work session.

Saturday would be 3 to 6 hour bike ride followed by a 30 minute run. The biking followed by a run training session is called a “Brick Workout”. The workout got its name from how your feet/legs feel as your try to turn them over on the run. This feeling of heavy legs/feet usually goes away after 15 minutes and for me, by 30 minutes I know if my nutrition/hydration was dialed in properly from the bike.

Sunday was a 2 hour recovery bike ride, followed by a 30/45 minute swim later in the day.

Rinse and repeat.

I had customized my nutrition using Infinite Nutrition and trained with it for months prior to the race. I believe it works and is very efficient.

I had planned to finish the race in around 14 hours. I figured 1.5 hours for the swim, .5/1 hour for the transitions/special needs/bathroom, 6/7 hours for the bike and 5/6 hours for the run.

I was ready.

THE RACE

The race started at 7:30am, I had dropped off my bike, bike bag and run bag the night before. I brought my special needs bags for the bike and run as well as a warm-up bag in the morning.

2.4 Mile Swim:

The water temperature was a barely wet-suit legal 77.8 degrees. I think the USAT official had to look for a pocket of water that was under 78 to make that call as a lot of people wanted to use a wetsuit. I did not.

The event was a mass start, there were around 150 or so racers for this distance so it was the usual washing machine for the first loop.

What is a mass start like? It’s like a free for all where everyone seems to be fighting for the same path in the water. You will be punched, kicked and possibly tugged on. The trick is to not get mad, lose your cool or panic.

By the second loop, the other racers were pretty spread out. It was time to concentrate and enjoy the swim.

If you wonder what kind of thoughts go through your mind when open water lake swimming, these are a few:

• The water felt warm and looked like unsweet tea.
• Hopefully the gators were getting breakfast elsewhere
• Aren’t there flesh melting, brain eating amoebas in this lake?

I finished the swim in 1:22 hours and jogged into transition.

Transition 1:

I grabbed my bike bag, changed into cycling bibs and jersey, grabbed my bike and headed out.

Pro tip, I had a bottle of water in my bag to clean my feet from sand/rocks/mud prior to putting on socks and shoes. I usually don’t race with socks, but I figured for this race, the extra comfort would be worth it. The transition took less than 10 minutes.

112 Mile Bike:

I drove the bike course the day before the race to get a feel for it. I was told there would be hills, but these really impressed me. There were about 6 climbs including the dreaded sugarloaf mountain that I would have to do 3 times.

Sugarloaf mountain is the apparently the highest point in Florida. The photo doesn’t really do it justice, it’s pretty steep.

Lap 1 — I felt great! So what did I do? I rode it like I do other races, pushing a little harder than I trained and just go by feel, but nothing too crazy. I train using heart-rate and it has served me well. I trained to ride the 112 mile bike in zone 2/3 but I completed the first lap in zone 4. Tackled all the climbs no problem and finished it a little over 2 hours.

Lap 2 — I realized that trying to do this entire ride in zone 4 was a stupid so I backed it down, but it wasn’t enough. By the time I had hit the 4th big hill, my hip flexors and adductors were starting to cramp. This was not a good sign, so I tried to back it down even more. As you can see from the heart-rate graph, I brought it back down to zone 2/3 but the damage had already been done.

Lap 3 — This lap was suffer fest. The temperature was unseasonably hot. On this lap, the temperatures were hitting close to 97 degrees! I completed 5 of the 6 hills, experiencing cramps on all of them. I made it about 33% up sugarloaf mountain until my legs decided to lock. I hopped off the bike before I could fall, stretched out my legs and walked up to the top. I took a little 5 minute break and finished the last lap.

I tried hotshot to stop the cramps, but it didn’t seem to help. I had done brick workouts with my legs having experienced cramps on the bike and was fine. I was concerned about the cramps, but was optimistic they wouldn’t affect my run.

The bike took me 7:46 hours. Definitely over what I planned, but that was fine, the goal was to finish strong. I figured I made a tactical mistake on the first lap and paid for it on laps 2 and 3 with a slower time.

Transition 2:

I handed off my bike, and picked up my run bag. I changed into some running shorts and decided to keep my jersey for the run. I downed a hotshot for good measure. I took less than 10 minutes in the changing tent and headed out to finish the race.

26.2 Mile Run (The Marathon):

I started the run like I had trained, a slow jog at around 11 min/mile pace and waited for my legs to come around. Instead of coming around, they started to cramp. It started with a hamstring cramp at about a mile in. This was definitely not good. I started a walk-run and noticed that I was making about a 15 min/mile pace. Definitely not ideal, but what-ever, I would finish. I was still optimistic that my legs would come back and I would be able to run the easy 9/10 min mile that I trained to run.

That didn’t happen.

What did happen was at mile 5 during a walk portion of my walk-run, my legs locked hard and I collapsed on the run course. This was not new to me, it happened to me during a 70.3 about 10 miles into the 13.1 mile run. Then, I was able to stretch it out, walk a bit and then run in the last 2 miles and feel fine.

That didn’t happen this time.

While on the ground, someone had stopped to help me straighten out my locked calves. I thanked him, sat on the ground for a bit and then got up and continued the race.

That 6th mile took me 36 minutes and my Garmin was telling me that my battery was getting low. My brain was now busy computing if I would make the cutoff, I had 20 miles to go and it took me 36 minutes to finish the last mile? Not good at all.

This is when the first seeds of doubt about not finishing started to creep into my mind.

I decided to stop tracking on my Garmin to conserve battery and instead put up a 5:30 hour timer that would signal the cutoff time. I was in full survival mode and was wrestling with the fact that I might not make the cutoff if each mile was going to take 30 minutes.

Unfortunately, the pattern of cramping, locking and collapsing became a regular occurrence.

Maybe it was the pitch black darkness, the pain or the bird-sized mosquitos eating me? But after the fourth or perhaps the fifth time this happened, I wanted to quit.

I told some person who had helped me stretch out my legs that they should notify someone at the next aid station to have someone come get me.

I believed I had accepted the fact that I was done when a woman came jogging by.. she asked if I was ok, I told her that I was cramping bad and I thought I was going to quit. I remember her saying… “You didn’t climb sugarloaf three times to quit did you?”. That got me thinking and she was right. I didn’t train this hard, take time away from being with my family to give up. I still had 4 or so hours left. What else was I going to do with that time? I resolved to keep going until I finished or got swept off the race course. Since I had this time, I decided I would play a little science experiment on myself and try to figure out the cramping situation. But first, I needed to get up and start moving again.

I figured out that when I started to feel a cramp coming on, I could shift my walk/shuffle to avoid locking up. Next, I started to think about the cramps. Hotshot wasn’t helping, so I went back to basics, electrolytes. I started downing gels that were high in salt and potassium. Then, I found some table salt at an aid station, I put about 4 tablespoons in a cup, grabbed some water and started eating it and washing it down with water. It was helping. I was starting to walk with less cramping and didn’t have to rotate walking /shuffling patterns as frequently to avoid a lock up.

As I was just about to start lap 2, I saw my family. I told them that there was a good possibility that I would not finish before the cutoff but that I didn’t want to give up. My wife gave me my cell phone so that I could call her if I lost the ability to move. She told me she was proud of me and I kept on going.

About halfway into lap 2, the aid stations started serving chicken broth. I ditched the table salt and filled up a 20 oz bottle with chicken broth and simply sipped on it as I continued walking, refilling it when it got low.

The wonderful volunteers at the aid stations started to recognize me and knew what I wanted when I came by and would know that I either needed more broth or gels. They were all really great (station #4 got my vote for the best) and I attribute their support to helping me continue.

Around mile 20 with 1.5 hours left until the cutoff, I noticed that I was shuffling/walking faster. Why not try to run? I tried it and it felt good. I was in pain, but no cramps. The folks at the aid stations were amazed and were all cheering me on. It felt great to see that support. I started to think that if I kept this up, I would finish under the cutoff!

Unfortunately it was too good to last.

At around mile 24, my legs locked up again and I hit the deck. I was eventually able to stretch it out, steady myself and get up but now my walking/shuffling pace was even slower. It was then that I pulled my phone out and posted on Facebook that I wasn’t going to make the cutoff.

I had 2.2 miles to go and less than 23 minutes to make it under the cutoff.

I asked one of the police officers if the race officials would come by and sweep me, and they said they weren’t sure, and offered to give me a ride back to the finish. I told them no thank you and they told me to “go do your thing” and finish.

From about mile 24, it took me another 40 minutes to finish.

I had missed the cutoff by around 22 minutes.

Maybe the race director had heard about me or saw me falling out there and getting back up, but when I crossed the finish line he personally congratulated me and even gave me a medal telling me that I earned it for finishing despite the cutoff. It was an awesome thing to do and I really appreciated it.

What did I learn?

• Stick to your race plan. Had I gone easier on the first lap of the bike, the result probably would have been completely different.
• Slow down if the environmental conditions are bad. In my case, my severe cramping was probably a combo of muscle fatigue and electrolyte imbalance due to the heat
• I’ve leveled up in fortitude and the ability to cope with physical suffering. I’ve never experience pain like that and now I have something to compare all other pain and suffering events that my come in my life.
• You can endure more pain and suffering then you initially believe possible
• Unless you are doing harm to yourself or others, never give up
• When in really dark areas both mentally and physically, it’s the little things that keep you going. Your family, friends and even random strangers who encourage or challenge you. I met a lot people on the race course who saw what I was dealing with and who told me they were proud that I didn’t quit.

I’ve watched the NBC Ironman World Championships and how they would show the age-group athletes shuffling and hobbling in the dark toward the finish. I never imagined I would be one of those people. I have renewed respect for anyone who attempts the distance and who have completed it.

This journey may have ended in failure, but it is simply the beginning of another.