Scott Gibson's Ironman Journey

Last day of rest, tomorrow it’s back to the grind.

Live show on Triathlete.FM tonight.  Broadcasting live from All3Sports!

Another day of rest.  Not going to rush back into the workouts.

I am feeling pretty good after the race yesterday.  Pretty much fully recovered with just a little bit of soreness.

As per the recommendation of my pal JD, I am going to take several days off to fully recover, then it’s back to training for IMF.  Lot’s of outside running to do!

It’s race day!

Before I go into talking about how the event went, I want to puteverything into perspective.  Often times, when talking about being a finisher of an event, the first question that gets asked, mostly by people that do triathlons, is how long it took you.  The important thing to know about my participation in this event, was that it was used as a catalyst for changing my lifestyle….a tool to force me to become a healthy person.  While in time I am sure I will improve on my finish times, the goal for this event (as well as my upcoming full Ironman in Florida) was simply to finish.

It is important to understand that a short 6 months ago, in April of 2009, the following was true:

• According to my BMI of 32, I was officially obese
• I was only able to run at 4.3mph (~14 minute mile) on the treadmill for a max of 30 mins
• The furthest I had ever run in my life was 5k
• I had never ridden a bicycle other than a mountain bike and certainly no further than a couple of miles
• I did a 1 mile swim when I was 15 years old but haven’t swam more than a couple of laps in a pool since.

Now…on to the details!

Waking up at 3am, I felt pretty rested.  I jumped into the shower, grabbed a bite or two of a leftover biscuit from last night’s dinner, and headed out the door with my gear.

I had purchased a parking pass for a lot that wasn’t too terribly close to transition area, but I remembered that there were spots near transition and drove over to see if any were available.  I ended up missing the turn for the road and had to flip around.  Coming back the other way, the GPS showed a small road that appeared to end up at the same place and so I took it.  After a couple of twists and turns, I ended up driving right by transition (and a couple cops watching the bikes) and found a spot as close as you possibly could get.  I got out of the Jeep to walk around a bit and found that the road I had originally planned to take was blocked off.  Apparently, I wasn’t really supposed to be in that parking area but nobody said anything, so I stayed put.

It would seem that I was the first athlete to arrive, which was fine.  I would rather be way early and have a good spot rather than adding to race day nervousness and hunting for a place to park.  I spent about 45 minutes waiting for transition to open up at 5am.

The weather was a little overcast and cool, but luckily no rain.  Perfect!

Once transition was open, I grabbed my stuff and started getting setup.  Pretty much exactly what I was familiar with from sprints, so that was certainly a nice bonus.

The one nuance to this event was that the swim start was a good ways up river, so they were shuttling athletes to the swim start via bus.  To facilitate this process, there was one bag that was provided to allow athletes to change at the swim start.  Basically, you took all of your swim gear with you, changed at the swim start, then put all of clothes and stuff you didn’t need into the provided bag.  This bag was marked with your number so you could retrieve it later.

7:30 rolled around and that was the kick-off for the pros.  It was amazing watching them glide through water and do it with so little effort.  That would be the last time anyone in the event would see a pro.

My wave was 8th to start at 7:58am…which came pretty quick.  It was an in-water start which was actually pretty nice.  The one thing I was focusing on was a slow start.  I knew my swim was going to set the tone for the rest of the race and getting it right was critical.

The swim went way better than I could have hoped.  I started off slow, got my rhythm down and just cruised through the 1.2 miles in about 35 minutes.  I was incredibly pleased and it took a lot of pressure off of me.  Many times I had bad visions of panicking in the water, needing assistance and then getting DQ’d.  It was indeed a good start to the race.

I spent about 5 minutes in transition taking a bit of a breather and making sure everything was set for the bike ride, then I hit the road.

The ride for the most part went as expected.  I jammed through the first part, but the wind and hills picked up a bit for the last third of the ride.  Unlike my sprint tri’s where I am typically passing others, in this event, I was the one getting passed.  Another confirmation that I was in a totally different level of athletic event.

I was pleased that I did the 56 miles pretty much non-stop other than one quick stop to use the facilities.  Riding into transition, I wondered how I was going to do with the run….are those cramps going to kill me?  The ride took me a little over 3 hours and I averaged around 17mph.  Overall, I was pleased with my effort thus far.

Once again, I took a little time in transition for a breather and to make sure I was all set for the run.  I brought my Steelers Terrible Towl for motivation and hit the course.

The run started off a little slow with some periodic walking, but I was happy to see that the cramps didn’t get the best of me.  Picking up the pace a bit, I was still running pretty slow.  I knew at this point I was going to finish, it was just a matter of how quickly.

A couple miles into the race, I was excited to see Dawn and Emma cheering me on.  That provided some much needed motivation to see their faces…I pressed onward.

After about 6 miles, I started to feel a lot of pain in my hips and feet.  All I could think about was the recommendation from friends and family to do more running outside.  The significant majority of my running has been on a treadmill and it was the downfall to my run.  My body was clearly not used to the pounding of the pavement vs. the nice cushy treadmill.  Add to that, I hadn’t run further than 10 miles in my life and doing a career long 13.1 miles after a swim and bike ride wasn’t really setting me up for success.  Definitely a poor training strategy all around

The way the course was setup through downtown Augusta, I got to pass Dawn and Emma a couple more times and it was great to see them.  Even with their support, I was still not doing that great during the run.  The funny thing was that I wasn’t too tired or fatigued, it was just the discomfort that held me back.  Clearly a lesson learned and as such, all of my running will be outside from now on!

The last 1/2 mile was effortless though.  All of the pain was gone once I heard the crowd and the music as I neared the finish line.  I rounded a short turn and there was Dawn and Emma cheering me right to the finish line.  I had actually done it!

Admittedly, I got a little choked up crossing the finish line but no tears…not this time.  I doubt I will be as successful holding back the tears for Ironman Florida, but that remains to be seen.

My run was pretty disappointing as it took me over 3 hours to complete, which gave me a total finish time of just under 7 hours.  I am a very competitive person and my initial feeling was that I should have done better.  But, then I look at where I was 6 months ago and I have to realize that it is a great accomplishment to come as far as I have.

My goal for the event was 7 hours and I achieved that…just barely.  Completing this event has given me a lot of confidence going into Ironman Florida and I now feel that I can definitely achieve that goal as well.  There is no doubt in my mind that I can keep the same paces that I had in Augusta, and that means a 14 hour finish…which is fine by me!

I am really proud of myself and what I have accomplished thus far.  Of course, I have to say thanks to my family for helping me do this…without Dawn, Hannah and Emma and their support and encouragement, I could have never done it.  Thank you.

Next stop, Ironman Florida 2009.

I made my way to Augusta today, and it was a fun filled day of pre-race excitement.

The day began with the drive kicking off around 9am and arriving in Augusta a little before noon.  I decided to head right for check-in since I really didn’t know how long that was going to take and wanted to have plenty of time to get my biked checked in and get back to the hotel to meet Dawn and Emma.  Hannah stayed back with friends so she wouldn’t miss her soccer game.

Upon arriving to the conference center at the hotel I quickly noticed it was already buzzing with hundreds of athletes.  My first thought was how amazingly in shape everyone was…much more so than a sprint tri.  It was obvious that I was going to be participating in this event with people in much better condition than I was.

Before you are allowed to check-in, you have to attend a mandatory race briefing which unfortunately didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know, but it was still mandatory.  I did have a ‘celebrity’ sighting at the briefing: Tara Costa from last season’s Biggest Loser was there and apparently planned to participate.

After the briefing, I headed over to get my race packet and goodie bag.  Once the necessary waivers were signed, I was handed my race packet and it was official…I was all set to participate.

I decided to head over to the hotel and get checked in there so I could go through the race packet and get my bike all setup for drop-off in transition.  Bikes had to be in transition by 8pm the night before the race.

In the hotel room, I dumped out my race packet and was surprised that Ididn’t see any of the famous ‘transition’ bags or ‘special needs’ bags.  Instantly, I started worrying and thinking “what the hell!”.  I called my buddy JD and he thought that it was a little odd too so that didn’t help calm the nerves.

I just put the missing bags behind me for the time being and figured I could go back to check-in and get them after I dropped my bike off. With the bike all setup and checked out, I headed out to drop it off.

Shortly after arriving at transition, I asked another athlete that looked experienced and found out that the half is handled much like a sprint tri in that everything is just staged in transition…no bags.  Crisis averted!

The bike was nestled in its new home for the night and I headed back to the hotel to get my bag packed for the morning and to wait for Dawn and Emma.  I must have checked my gear 5 times to make sure I had everything I needed.

After that, it was a pretty relaxing evening.  We went to Cracker Barrel because it was close and I wanted chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner.  The meal really hit the spot!  We made our way back to the room where I cleaned up and slipped into bed around 7:30pm.  I knew I wasn’t going to fall asleep, but I just wanted do my best to get as close to sleeping as possible.  Oddly, I think I did drift to sleep around 10pm and slept pretty well until the alarm went off around 3am.

Well, I am all packed ready to head out to Augusta first thing tomorrow AM.  I made a great checklist to ensure that I didn’t forget anything…well, I won’t forget anything that’s on the list anyway.

I think what makes me the most nervous is getting ready for the process and procedures rather than the actual event.  Getting the transition bags ready, getting checked in properly, making pre-race meetings…it’s all new and the unknown for me.

The last thing I want to do is screw up anything that will prevent me from participating or completing the race.

Taking another day of rest.  I have tomorrow off from work to get all packed up for the weekend.  Probably do a light workout just to get the blood flowing and definitely get some stretching in.

Spent the night doing show #2 for Triathlete.FM.  Our second effort went much better than the first.  Sound issues were resolved and we were much more comfortable.

Had a live guest not be able to make the show so JD and I had to improvise for an extra 30 mins…pretty funny last minute recovery but I think we did pretty good!

Taking a couple days of rest and taking it easy.

As planned, fairly easy 3 mile run tonight followed up by some stretching.  I felt like I almost wasn’t working out at all, but I have this huge fear of getting hurt before the event on Sunday.

I would rather fall short than note be able to test myself at all because of injury.