On Saturday, Nov. 1, I did Ironman Florida for the second time. Here is my race report:

For those of you who read my race report about Ironman Florida 2007, the most important thing you need to know about how IMFL 2008 went for me is this:  This time I did NOT throw up!

I had a much more successful race this time for many reasons. Once I awoke on race morning, I found myself absolutely brimming over with nervous energy. I felt good, I felt ready, and I just wanted to get out there and give it everything I had.

For the swim, I positioned myself on the far right side of the mass swim start, and I started behind the truly eager beavers at that end. Last year I got knocked around a good bit in the washing machine of the mass swim start, so this time my strategy was to minimize my exposure to that. The strategy worked! I did get bumped around a little bit, but not nearly as badly as I did last year.

When I finished the first swim lap, I glanced at my watch and saw that my time was very similar to my time at the same point last year (37 minutes and change). I wanted to do better, so all throughout the second lap the mantra I repeated to myself was: Negative split. Negative split. Negative split. It worked! I finished the swim about three minutes faster than last year.

The wet suit strippers got me out of my suit very quickly but while I was lying on my back one of the other racers stepped on my face. Fortunately it didn’t hurt me, so I just got up and kept going.

The first transition went well, and I got out on the bike and started flying. Last year I rode the bike course conservatively, trying to make sure I had something left for the run. This year I pushed it much harder. This year parts of the bike course were very windy, whereas last year I never noticed the wind.

At one point in the first half of the bike ride I found myself trapped in a big group of riders. I didn’t like being there, so I decided to ride out in front of them and then I pulled over to the right edge of the road. At that point some guy with a British/Australian accent rode up next to me and started yelling at me. Apparently I had done something that he found objectionable, but I don’t really know what it was. He simply suggested that I should … um … have intimate relations with myself. I replied that no, really, he was the one who should be doing that.

In the second half of the bike course, I found myself playing leap frog with a very strong woman named Tammy. This continued for miles and miles, and we chatted with each other as we passed. Later on a third woman entered the mix. About mile 89, the third woman and I were riding some distance ahead of Tammy when a race official on a motorcycle pulled up to me and told me I was drafting, that I would be penalized 4 minutes, and I would have to serve my time at the penalty tent in the transition area at the end of the bike ride.

I’ll admit that I was guilty as charged. The one thing I’ll say in my defense is that I wasn’t intending to draft, but I did allow myself to get to less than four bike lengths from the person in front of me and I stayed there for too long.

At the end of the bike ride, I went to the penalty tent and they handed me a stop watch. At that point I knew I was already at least 20 minutes ahead of my pace from last year, so I wasn’t too upset about the penalty. In fact, I think resting for four minutes before starting the run might have been to my benefit.

When my penalty time was up, I went to the changing tent, put on my running shoes and hat and set out on the run. I felt much, much better than I did at the same point last year. During my first lap I saw the top three women finishers coming towards me, which meant they were just finishing their first lap. Last year I was passed in my first lap by the women who finished something like fourth and fifth, and they were in their second lap when they passed me the first time.

I caught up to Tammy again around mile five or six in the run. At that point I was running faster than she was, so we exchanged pleasantries as I passed and I kept going. Up to that point I ran without doing any walking, but around mile seven I started walking at the aid stations. From that point on my strategy was to run from station to station, walk through the aid stations, then start running again on the other side. I kept this up for several miles, but eventually I started walking between aid stations. Somewhere in there Tammy passed me and I never saw her again.

However, at one point when I was walking a woman named Christine said to me, “Come run with me. I feel just as bad as you do.” So I ran with Christine for about five miles, but at that point I was struggling to keep up with her, so I told her to go ahead without me.

I struggled through the last several miles by alternating between walking and running. I knew when I got to the finish line that I had far exceeded my goal for the race, which was simply to finish in less than 12 hours (last year I finished in 12:10:09). In fact I had beat my time from last year by about 43 minutes!

I finished #716 overall (which is up about 300 places from where I finished last year) out of 2,183 finishers and #133 of 378 in my age/gender group.

Here are my stats, for those who like to see that stuff:

Swim           1:18:59

T1                     5:42

Bike             5:22:11

T2                   06:29

(I think the T2 time includes my drafting penalty.)

Run              4:33:46

Official finish time 11:27:05

Heart rate monitor data

Avg HR: 136

Peak HR: 169

Min HR: 34

(I think numbers above are from the swim only.)
Total number of calories I burned during the race: 8,484

My celebrity triathlete sightings:

I saw Bella Comerford (the women’s winner) and the other top two women three times during the run.