Marathon Me

I left the transition area with an empty bladder and got hit by the sunscreen ladies. They covered my face and arms in sunscreen and I started out.

The run is my favorite part, in case you didn’t know. In triathlons I need at least a half Ironman so that I can level the playing field. The shorter races are too heavily weighted towards the swim and the bike for my ability. So lengthening the run lets me be somewhat more competitive. Coming out of the water, I was in 1678th place; on the bike I moved up to 1271st; and after the run I moved up even further, to 758th. So, from the bottom 20% I’d get back into the top third or so by the time I finished. Now maybe if they made it an ultra-marathon at the end …

The first 3 miles I felt really good and just ran by feel. I was knocking out roughly 7:30 miles or so.

0-1 7:18
1-2 7:24
2-3 7:31

Then I started trying to do the math and figured if I could keep it in the 9-10 minute range I’d still break 12:30, and that I had virtually no shot of breaking 12:00, so I decided that there wasn’t any real reason to push it. I dialed it back a little, and then a little bit more.

3-4 8:13
4-5 7:57
5-6 8:26
6-7 9:02

Somewhere along the way I saw Tricia Murphy and she looked solid - she didn’t even look like she had broken a sweat yet. I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t walk at all during the run, and not even through the aid stations. Which, with my new plan to take it easy, I would start to do. I didn’t want to miss any cookies or candy bars or any other goodness that might be at these stations.

7-8 10:16
8-9 9:20
9-10 9:20
10-11 9:31
11-12 9:32
12-13 9:14

Heading back into town to complete the first lap, I saw Corey May, who looked pretty good. He was about 35 minutes ahead of me at the time and I didn’t think I’d be able to catch him. I knew I’d beat his run time which would close some of the gap, but he’d crushed my bike time by so much I didn’t expect to see him again. In the end I’d beat his marathon time by about 33-34 minutes (but he beat by bike time by almost 40). Advantage: Corey May.

13-14 9:46
14-15 9:59
15-16 9:39
16-17 10:03

My first ten-minute mile came as I saw Marty. Marty would go on to crush the course in all phases (finishing with an 11:19:49) and I would soon be cursing his name like I’d cursed Tricia so many hours before. Marty does some weird things - like actually train. It seems to work for him. Not sure it would work for me, so I’ll continuing to avoid it just in case.

Some more math, which, granted, after 10 hours may not be the best, led me to believe all I had to do is run 10-minute miles to break 12:30. So I figured that was in the bag and went back on auto-pilot.

17-18 10:00
18-19 10:08
19-20 10:12
20-21 10:20

Then I was getting tired of being out there. I wanted to finish sooner, but I am still fundamentally lazy and didn’t want to push too hard. I dropped down to about 9:30s figuring I could save 2 or 3 minutes and get to a beer sooner.

21-22 9:25
22-23 9:25
23-24 9:22
24-25 9:12

I had forgotten to wear nipple band-aids or put body glide on so I had taken my jersey off so as not to grate my nipples off.

This is apparently a big no-no and not really allowed. As I got to mile 25 a nice volunteer told me to put my jersey back on before the finish so I didn’t get disqualified. Smartly I listened to his advice. I can’t even imagine how mad I’d be if I got disqualified for something like that. I knew my son would be waiting for me somewhere in the last mile, but I wasn’t sure where. The sun was right in my eyes and I couldn’t see very far ahead of me and I was worried I’d miss him. Finishing with him was something I was really looking forward to, as was Christopher. The night before as we talked about it our conversation went something like this:

Christopher: Do you think, when I finish with you, they’ll think I did the whole Ironman?!
Me: They might. What do you think about that?
Christopher: They’ll think that I am, like, one of the fastest kids ever. Most kids can’t do an Ironman like I can, you know.
Me: Probably not.

I found Christopher and we settled into a nice spot so we could break the tape and get a good photo. As we were trying to make it so we got to break the tape, these ass-hats kept sprinting in front of us to take our tape. We kind of stopped and tried to wait it out but after 3 ass-hats we finally decided to just finish without the tape. Apparently some people really, really, really needed to shave 3 seconds off their time.

Here is one such ass-hat:

and another shot:

By bravely cutting in front of a six year old, he was able to get pretty much exactly the same time as we did. Christopher asked why that guy had to cut us off, and I somehow refrained from telling him that he was just an ass-hat and said something about him wanting to try really hard all the way to the end. Christopher said “well it was kinda rude”. Couldn’t agree more. Mr Asshat, it’s not like you were about to break a meaningful time barrier, say 12:00 or even 12:30. The few seconds wouldn’t really matter. Also I’m pretty sure that after 12 hours and 20 minutes none of us was in danger of getting a spot to Kona, so relax and enjoy your finish.

The last 1.2 miles was pass in 11:37 giving me a total marathon time of 4:01:50 and an overall time of 12:24:40.

In short (hahaha) this was a really fun experience and I was very glad I got to finish with my son. Hopefully someday soon he will do his first kids’ triathlon. He has already logged a few 5ks. Even if he doesn’t get as into it as I am, I hope he grows up with an appreciation of fitness and an active lifestyle.

I don’t know if I will do another Ironman race anytime soon. If I do another one, I really would like to train for it, but I don’t know if I can motivate myself. Maybe after I’m done with running a marathon in all 50 states the goals will shift.

I also feel like these races are way too expensive. Next year’s Ironman Coeur d’Alene will cost over $500. My first Ironman cost $275 and that was only 4 years ago. When you factor in increased hotel and rental car places, and minimum stays, you are talking about thousands and thousands of dollars and I’m just not sure its worth it.

If I do another one, I think I will go with an off-brand Ironman Distance race and not have to pay all the extra just for the name. I’m not trying to make it to Kona, so having the logo on the shirt doesn’t mean anything to me.

Until next time.

Frank

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Tags: Ironman, Race Reports //