Withrow - IMFL, 2012 - "I got my One Thing!"
I wrote the below RR with a "Non-EN" audience in mind. I wrote it partly for some of my friends and donors to my charity who have never experienced an Ironman. I wrote it partly for myself to read 20+ yrs from now. I wrote it partly just in case my kids might ask me someday what the Ironman was like and I could give this to them to read just in case I might forget the details of the day by then. Warning, It is looooong... So with that disclaimer in mind, here goes my IMFL 2012 RR...
=====================================================================================================
Ironman Florida – John Withrow’s Race Report - 10:52:19
| OVERALL | GENDER | DIVISION | TIME | PACE | Overall Passed | OVERALL PLACE | ||
| # ATHLETES | 2582 | 1913 | 355 | |||||
| Swim | Place | 723 | 585 | 115 | 1:12:46 | 1:54/100m | 1859 | 723 |
| Swim | Rank | 28.0% | 30.6% | 32.4% | ||||
| T1 | Place | 289 | 214 | 35 | 0:05:45 | 117 | 606 | |
| T1 | Rank | 11.2% | 11.2% | 9.9% | ||||
| Bike | Place | 198 | 180 | 30 | 5:04:40 | 22.1 mph | 369 | 237 |
| Bike | Rank | 7.7% | 9.4% | 8.5% | ||||
| T2 | Place | 261 | 202 | 36 | 0:03:23 | 6 | 231 | |
| T2 | Rank | 10.1% | 10.6% | 10.1% | ||||
| Run | Place | 567 | 458 | 107 | 4:25:47 | 10:08 per mi | (91) | 322 |
| Run | Rank | 22.0% | 23.9% | 30.1% | ||||
| TOTAL | Place | 322 | 278 | 51 | 10:52:19 | 2260 | 322 | |
| TOTAL | Rank | 12.5% | 14.5% | 14.4% | ||||
Originally I had a work meeting on the Thursday before the race so my plan was for my parents to drive to NJ and stay with our kids at our house and Jess and I were going to fly out on Friday morning, to arrive in PCB early afternoon. This would have been cutting it really close to get a special late check-in to the race, get my bike from TBT, fill my gear bags, then go to bed...
As luck would have it, Hurricane Sandy had different plans... We lost power on Monday night and our town in Central NJ looked like a war zone. It was obvious we would be without power for at least a week and as luck would have it, my 'Important' meeting at work got cancelled. It was still unclear when the NYC area airports would be re-opened, so we quickly created a plan B. On Wednesday we packed up the family and drove to Pittsburgh to leave our kids with my parents and caught a 6 AM flight out of Pittsburgh on Thursday morning.
This Plan B had many race related benefits. I had plenty of time to register and get my gear bags all taped up and filled. I was also able to attend the EN team dinner which was awesome to get to meet everyone on the team that I felt like I already knew. I was also able to do a swim in the Gulf and attend the 4 Keys talk. I got to have a massive Waffle House brunch and relaxed Friday afternoon and good night's sleep. Jess was an AWESOME Sherpa the whole weekend. She even went to Walmart on Friday to buy me a new pillow and gave me a massage before bed, which led to my best ever 'night before Ironman' sleep.
I woke up around 1:30 AM to go to the bathroom and, even though it was a little earlier than planned, I drank the Ensure Plus that was next to my bed and went right back to sleep. I woke up at 4:15AM and ate my breakfast of: Bagel with peanut butter and jelly, an Ensure Plus, a banana, 3 oz of applesauce, a bite of a Powerbar and a 20oz Gatorade. I carried another Gatorade with me and sipped it in the morning on the way to the race. After I got all my morning stuff taken care of I wandered over and watched the pros start the swim then got ready to rock!
Swim 2.4 miles
Expected time: 1:10:xx-1:15:xx
Actual: 1:12:46 (34:06, 38:40)
723 out of 2,582 (Top 28%, 2% lower than my best IM swim)
I passed 1,859 people on the swim
I have done 2 Ironman's before this one, but they were both "time-trial" starts. There is something much different about a mass start swim with 2,582 of my closest friends all swimming at the same time and aiming for the same spot.
The swim at IMFL is a two loop swim in the gulf of Mexico. It is a rectangle shaped swim that is about a half mile straight out, a 90 degree left turn, then a couple hundreds yards parallel to the shore, then another 90 degree left turn and a half mile back to the shore. When you exit the water on your first loop, you run up the beach and across a timing mat then run down the beach and re-enter the water to do it all again. The current was coming at the shore diagonally from right to left. Many people were lined up right on the buoy line and many people were about 50 yds to the right. I entered the water about 20 yds to the right of the buoy line and there were surprisingly few people around me. Everyone was wading out into the water before the cannon went off so I waded in as well, I was literally in the front row of swimmers at about the spot where the waves were breaking when the cannon fired. I put my head down and started swimming. Well at least what I was doing could be loosely interpreted as swimming. There were so many people around that I literally forgot how to swim. My normal Total Immersion swimming position of head down in the water and nice relaxed glide was impossible. I had to keep my head up out of the water and my back was bent. Luckily it didn't last long, and within a few minutes I was swimming normally and actually was thinking to myself that a mass start wasn't nearly as bad as I would have expected. I was a wrestler in college and played Rugby in Business School so I guess I was somewhat prepared for the scrum...
About 5 minutes into the swim I got kicked in the left hand. Yes, the left hand and my wedding ring fell right off to the bottom of the gulf. My wedding ring has only been off of my hand about 5 times in the last 10.5 yrs and now I had the next 10.5 hrs to think about it being missing. Many people have asked why I was even wearing it, but I have done at least 20 triathlons of various distances (including 2 previous Ironmans) with it on and have never had a problem... It is literally never off of my finger.
I made the turn buoy with no other issues but it felt like I was working much harder than usual. I made it back to shore to finish the first loop and prior to the race I had every intention of running on the beach. No way. I was a bit disoriented and dizzy from hard swimming in the waves and the sand was soft and it was super crowded. I crossed the timing mat and headed back towards the water. Entering the water was actually a bit difficult as the waves had gotten bigger and I had to fight my way through the breakers and the current. As I made it about half-way through the 2nd loop, swimming through all of the waves started to get me a bit seasick. To be clear, these weren't, big monster waves, but they were just big enough that the constant up and down made me a little nauseous.
One nice thing about the mass start is that by time I got past the breakers on the 2nd loop, everybody around me was basically swimming the same pace as I was. I drafted where I could and didn't have to sight much. As long as I could see swimmers to my left and to my right, I figured I was in the right place and didn't worry much about proper sighting. Just after I made the final turn buoy to head back to shore I got kicked in the head. The kick wasn't super hard, but hard enough to dislodge my goggles and let a bit of salt water into them. I stopped briefly to let the water out and fix them and was on my way again. During this last section, as I started to get bored of swimming, I started thinking about how salty my mouth tasted. I actually laughed thinking I wouldn't need my first couple of salt pills on the bike because I already ingested enough salt the 'natural' way... I got into a little rhythm and then body surfed the last few waves before the shore and it was over. I limped up the shore and tried to keep my balance when I came to the wetsuit strippers. I laid down on the sand and he yanked off my wetsuit. A word of advice to those of you who might do this race in the future, skip the wetsuit strippers. It was nice to have it off quickly, but it sucked to be covered in sand for the rest of the day. If I could do it over again, I would wait until the change room to take off my wetsuit.
T1
Expected time: 9:00
Actual time: 5:44
289 Out of 2,582 (Top 11.2%)
I passed 117 people in T1
T1 at IMFL is very long and looking at previous years results is why I expected around 9:00. You have to run up the beach and through an archway of the host hotel and into a parking lot to grab your gear bag. Then you run the length of the parking lot and into the hotel to the changing area. Then you change and run all the way back out and around the parking lot to grab your bike, then out to the mount line. All told, I would estimate 1/3 to 1/2 a mile of running in T1. Since I was a late entry into the race, I was bib number 3072. I think there were only 10 bib numbers higher than mine in the whole race. Therefore, my bags and my bike were always the furthest away possible... I must say, the volunteers in the change tent were awesome, I dumped my bag and the guy handed me things as I needed them, then as I ran out he put my wetsuit and other stuff back in my bag for me. I ran the whole time through transition and could tell I was passing a ton of people. I glanced at my watch just before I got to the bike mount line and saw 1:18:xx. I figured I had swum around a 1:10:00 and had about an 8 minute transition. Right on target...
Bike – 112 miles
Expected time: 5:15:x
Comments
John - awesome exection of your race...you are Ninja. Congrats on "10-handle".. Well done. Great report too. I could envision everything you were describing.
Sorry about your ring..
John,
Great report and nice job on the 10:XX. I've though about giving my ring to my wife as well, lesson learned and she will be holding it in Lake Placid.
Gordon
Boy, you were ready for THAT race. VERY IMPRESSIVE run of 4:26 from a VDOT of 46 after a bike of 5:04, in those temps. Bask in the glory a bit longer, brother.
@Sukhi- very nice to meet you and yes, I will "try" to emulate your finishing chute experience at IMUSA next yr (but I would rather copy the 26.15 miles you ran before that)!
@Al- I was smiling from ear to ear when I read your comment, the single biggest compliment I have ever received in regards to multisport!
@Nemo- That's my normal "after race" look... If I dodn't look like that then I didn't go hard enough!
Thank for the great race report!
Congrats on a great race. Nice meeting you and Jess and the Mellow Mushroom post-race.
Great Race Report - Very cool that you were able to hit your goal - a 5:04 bike....I can only dream of a time like that - and then a very solid run. Good to hear you were in better shape than IMNYC! But what's most impressive to me is all the effort and commitment you give to Reserve Aid and your family. That's leadership and being a good family man!
Let's grab a drink soon!