Ironman part I

Wow… Ironman Florida actually happened. This weekend was about as meaty as Chef Boyardee ravioli so it is going to take multiple posts to convey how it unfolded… I know you all have short attention spans so it makes sense to cut it up. First up are 6 reasons to continue reading

1. You like triathlon and are indifferent to the actual specifics so long as it relates to triathlon
2. You are interested in how a most epic day panned out for yours truly
3. You gleefully hope something bad happened to me and I blew apart
4. You are bored at work and have a weird man pony-tail (probably will only make sense to one of you)
5. You want to hear about an IronWar between three MSU Spartans that was nearly as exciting as watching Macca and Raleart duel at the end of Kona
6. You are my mom
7. You are stalking me. You should be ashamed of yourself, pervert. I forgive you though. In this modern age, it is pretty easy to casually stalk someone and if forbes made a list of 500 most stalkable people, I would be probably in the mid 200's.

I digress.

Here is part 1

Race week started out by getting to the apartment where I was rooming with a ton of my good friends from MSU. Matt, Greg, Eric, and Anthony were all racing. It was a reunion of Ironman Wisconsin. Also, it was basically a foul-mouthed, euchre and South Park fest with very little thought of the race for the first couple days.

The weather was horrible. It was rainy and getting progressively colder but the forecast was good for race day, especially for the exceptionally thick individuals of the MSU tri team. We like the cold mainly because it freezes the other manorexic triathletes.

Race night came and I could barely sleep. There was so much build up that was finally going to be realized. I rarely struggle sleeping but this was one night that beat me up. I woke up at 3:30 thinking it was 4:30… I went back to bed and an hour later rolled out of bed and groggily made coffee and got my crap together. We all headed out and got into transition to set things up. It was in the high 40’s and I have to imagine that was in peoples’ heads. I love the fact that most triathletes are giant head cases… they just over think everything and freak themselves out of races. It’s almost like the only time people want to race is 70 degrees, no wind, and a course with no hills. I used to think like this but finally realized it never happens. Today was pretty windy and cold which is absolutely ideal for me.

I made my way over to the swim start and I was shocked to see my dad! He hadn’t told me he was coming and had jumped a plane 2 days prior. I was blown away and completely stoked. He put me on the phone with my mom and she had a few words for me. It was incredible. I had such awesome support from my sister, Caitlin, the MSU crew and now my dad. They got me through some majorly rough spots and the support on the course was huge.

Anyway, I lined up to the far left to give myself a super clean line and the cannon went off. I blasted the first 500 to get clear water and settled in. The current was strong but I hit the first turn buoy and started riding the waves. I came out of the water on the first loop feeling good. It was a tale of two loops and I struggled to find a rhythm on the second go around. I fought the waves rather than using them and just had a garbage back half of the swim. 1^st loop was 26:35

2^nd was 30:00. Rough. I was happy to be out of the water and got into T1 with a major purpose of blasting the first hour of the bike to catch my buddy, Matt Inch. He and I go at each other in every race we do together and I wanted to set the tone by catching him early to get in his head. Each race we do together, we have a prize for the winner. It is a half zip MSU tri shirt that we both covet. Whoever wins gets the shirt til the next race. He has had it for a while and I wanted my damn shirt back.

Split- 56:35