Above the fold news – I got my first Ironman podium this past weekend at the Ironman South American Champs in Florianopolis, Brazil, placing 3rd behind Brent McMahon and Tim Don. Also, I scored A WINDFALL of points towards qualification for the Ironman World Championship in Kona this October. All in all, a good weekend in South America. Race report below if you’re into that sort of thing.
Quoting Jesse Thomas after he won Ironman Lanzarote, the Ironman distance “is really freaking crazy.” This is what was going through my head as I neared the 180k mark of the bike course. “I have to run a marathon now. This really is CRAZY.” But between Jesse’s win and Tim Reed winning Ironman Australia, and knowing my training lead up was very similar to theirs (we have the same coach Matt Dixon), I knew it was time to trust the legs. Using my lessons learned from Ironman Arizona last year (more on that later) I was able to knock five minutes off my IMAZ run time (Strava file). And despite a lot of things going wrong on the bike, racing more aggressively compared to IMAZ put me in better position going into the marathon (i.e. not 26 minutes behind the leader).
Onto the race itself – I can’t seem to catch a break on the weather front. Ironman Arizona – rain. Uruguay – high winds/canceled swim. Monterrey – rain. St. George – rain. So of course this past weekend at Ironman Brazil it was raining. As much as I hate it, though, I seem to go well when it’s wet so I shouldn’t complain. The forecast called for thunderstorms and heavy rain all day, so when I woke up to cloudy skies and no rain I was quite happy! It stayed this way all the way up to the race start so off we went in to the Atlantic ocean, seeking out barely visible turn buoys. A current pushing left made the swim even more difficult – here is an approximate map of our route around the swim course (or at least this is how it felt to me):
I exited the swim right at the front of the race and was greeted by a full-on Amazon rainforest downpour. I jumped on my bike in the pouring rain and within 10 kilometers the main swim group had become just six athletes – myself, Brent, Tim, Igor Amorelli, Paul Matthews and Will. My effort was WAY above Ironman effort and the variability in power was making me uncomfortable about what would happen for the rest of this very long race. Over the course of the first 70k things continued to blow apart – First Will made the decision to ride his own race, then Brent rode off by himself like a man possessed. Igor dropped out, and Paul fell off the pace, leaving myself and Tim riding together in 2nd/3rd for the rest of the day. Well, almost the rest of the day – Tim dropped me at 170k. At first I thought it was my legs going bad but in fact so much dirt had caked up on my rear brake that it was frozen solid rubbing on my rear wheel. My suspicions were confirmed when I was passed by a visibly overweight age group athlete on his first lap. I wasn’t confident in my ability to get off and fix it, so I hobbled into T2 still getting good power out of my legs but going noticeably slower. I was happy to hand in my bike to a volunteer at T2 get my running shoes on, hitting the run course 3rd behind Brent and Tim.
If there is one lesson that stuck with me from Ironman Arizona it’s that you can eat a lot when it’s cold and wet. The rain had stopped but a thick fog was hanging about and the temperature wasn’t too hot so I burned through three flasks of slightly watered-down First Endurance Liquid Shot (infused with a scoop of Pre-Race – my first encounter with caffeine besides my early AM cup of instant coffee) AND two flasks of Ultragen (half-servings). It was 1200 calories in total that kept me running strong and sustained the whole marathon (compared with just 750 cals in Arizona last year that yielded some significant low points).
Paul Matthews kept me honest in fourth place, literally running the exact same pace as me. At 35k I started to get reports that Tim was fading up ahead. The gap was 5 minutes, then 4, then 3, then 2, and then I could see him up ahead of me no more than 1 minute up. I gave it all I had to catch him but he pulled himself together and held onto second place. Brent absolutely demolished us and I was happy to share the podium with these two in my second attempt at the distance. Kona will be my third and if things do come in threes and it rains on the Big Island this October I won’t complain.
Thanks to my sponsors for the amazing support – Ventum who has already found a new option for the rear brake and sent it to me, HOKA One One – the new Clayton was amazing for the marathon distance, Shimano, ISM Saddles, First Endurance, The New York Athletic Club, blueseventy, as well as Fusion Sports who printed and shipped a new race kit for me before I left for Brazil so I could look good doing this!
And last but not least thanks to the man with the plan at purplepatch, Matt Dixon – it’s been a fun journey so far and of course we’re just getting started!
