Florida International Triathlon

Florida International Triathlon

Sarasota, FL

So this was a big one for me, my first International/Olympic distance triathlon and my first ocean (well Gulf) swim. Was up at 3:00 AM, before many people were probably asleep after a Friday night. I ate some breakfast, finalized all my stuff, and hopped in the car en route to Sarasota. This was a big race, the most competitors of any triathlon I've been to thus far and I was ready to show them what I could do.

After transition and everything was set up I got a little warm up jog in and headed down to the water. There was a fair bit of chop, more then everyone was expecting when I was warming up. But I figured I could handle it, I had done swim workouts in the ocean before, just never a race. Male 39 and under was the first wave and it was a beach start so we had to run into the water and dolphin dive until it was deep enough to swim. Only minutes in, like a bad dream, I got kicked HARD square in the face. It broke my goggles and made me lose my nose plug. I continued on and within 2-3 minutes I was seriously questioning continuing the race. Salt water was burning my eyes and throat and I was barely to the first turn. A two hour drive (each way), a high entry fee, along with my grandfather and sister coming to see me race gave me that answer and I pushed on. A few more minutes in and we turned around and it got bad. The waves were coming right at my face now, so more swallowed water, more sighting difficulties, and more survival breastroke. Normally when I'm racing I can make it through any kind of discomfort knowing that it will go away, that's how I am able to run through any kind of cramp or unexpected soreness but this lasted the entire swim. What I expected to be a 26-28 minute swim leg, for 1500 meters, took 43 minutes! But when I stood up on the sand, my race was just beginning.

I hit T1 ready to make up for what just happen, which could hardly be called a swim, I clocked the 2nd fastest T1 of the day and was out on the bike course; two 13 mile laps of flat streets. I was holding 25 pretty comfortably and it seemed as though I would have a nice bike split coming around mile 5-6. I began to try and take it some nutrition and fluids and was having a real hard time stomaching any fluids. I now know that it is due to swallowing so much water during the swim, its still water. Not being able to take in nutrition I eased off the pace a bit, for seeing a bonk if I kept up. Then my competitive nature kicked in. This race had an international distance race, which I was in, along with a sprint race of half the distances that started 40 minutes (or so) later. So not everyone out on the bike course was doing 2 laps and running a 10k afterwards, so not everyone had to pace themselves as much. Someone came and passed me, which doesn't happen too often, so I took notice. I stuck with him, legal distance of course, until he pulled off for the end of his single loop. Then the wind picked up.

There is something strange about doing something twice in a short span of time, and it being completely different from one time to the next. A street that I had just cruised down at 25 mph with no problems now would not let my bike computer hit 20 thanks to a lovely headwind. I got low and pushed through it as best I could til mile 20 or so when I turned around to have it at my back and rode it in nice and fast to T2. Final bike split 1:06:xx. T2 was slower then it should've been because someones bike had fallen on my rack leaving very little space for the other 6 bikes that had to fit and no one wants to add time to there race picking it up. Out onto the run course I was feeling good, real good.... too good. My first mile was around 6:20 then I saw my garmin reading like 6:50 for mile 2, I tried to pick it up but 6:50 was where it wanted to stay. Mile 2 finished, then mile 3 and I was taking in as much water as I could at the aid stations to counter the insane Florida heat. It was just a bit after mile 3 that the run left the sidewalk and went onto the sand. Soft sand is difficult to run on because your fit sink in after each step. So I got as close to the water as I could and stayed on the hard sand, but its just nothing compared to running on cement in terms of speed. As I hit mile 5 I really picked up and tried to put it all out there. This was not the race I came here to make happen, but it was the best I could make of a bad situation. A little bit of soft sand before the finishing shoot and that was that, final time 2:39:xx winning time 2:11:xx. It was a great race put on by the storm tri club down in Sarasota and I look forward to bringing my A game next time around.