Gulf Coast Triathlon - Part 1

Double D taking in the view
This was a 1/2 Ironman distance race (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) held in Panama City, Florida. This race has been around for 26 years which is pretty amazing for such a "young" sport. Many of the triathlon greats have won, and participated in this race including Mark Allen, Dave Scott, Scott Molina and many more!

This was a bit of a homecoming for me since I did this race in 1985, which was the year Mark Allen won...oh brother, that was a long time ago. Myself and Richard Wilson, with whom I ran cross country, decided we should do the race. Richard was 17 and I was 15 at the time, and we swam a couple times in a pool along with a few bike rides before the "big event". Richard won our age group, a good swimmer from a local rival high school who was 17 took 2nd, and I limped past the 4th place finisher in the last mile to take 3rd. I ended up laying on the ground with heat sickness dry heaving all day long...that was fun. I must have looked pretty bad during the race, all the volunteers kept asking me my name and where I was from to see if I was still coherent.

Danny and I arrived on Friday and did a quick swim, run, and bike to make sure everything was working correctly. We stayed at the race hotel/condo complex, and it was really convenient and very nice accommodations. Jennifer and Clair arrived later that day.

The wives arrive...


Twenty three years later I never would have guessed that I would be back to the race labeled the Gulf "Roast" Triathlon due to the heat and high winds...but, there I was with Danny "Double D" Domingo and Greg "Gills" Carr getting ready to run into the Gulf of Mexico, in what turned out to be a choppy swim with some nice swells. The water temperature allowed wetsuits and the race started in age group waves...both of which were much better than the mass start non-wetsuit pummeling I received oh so long ago.

Since our age group was so large we were split into two waves based on our last names. "Carr and Domingo" were in the wave ahead of me, and mine would start 5 minutes later. The swim was a little rough, and it was a bit difficult sighting the buoy's...you would have to wait until you were on top of a swell and then look up to find the next one. It was an out and back swim, and on the way back sighting wasn't difficult if you just used the race condo as a sighting point...for some reason I swam over all kinds of people who didn't grasp this concept. I didn't push too hard on the swim so felt good running out of the water into transition 1. I ran to my bike, which was packed in like a sardine, and threw my wetsuit, goggles, and cap on the grass next to the bike rack...then put on the bike stuff and headed out onto the course. I didn't know at the time, but my swim time was 32:59 (33rd in age group, 152nd overall)...not great, but not bad for the conditions...and my transition 1 time was slow, as usual (3:38, 468th overall!)...I've gotta work on my T1!

I headed out on the course and started going through all the people...which is actually a pretty dangerous process when you start way back in wave 10! There was a tailwind on the way out, and I was doing 27-28 mph, and passing people doing 18-20 mph. I had to keep my head up at all times so I didn't crash into the back of someone! Going into the turn-around I saw Danny about 7 or so minutes up on me, and Greg was about 30 seconds behind him...Danny didn't look like he was feeling good, and normally he would have been further ahead of Greg. There were a lot less people on the way back, and it was a stiff head wind. I passed mile 50 at about 2 hours flat, so knew I was averaging 25 mph which was my target...I had also been holding myself back the whole ride to stay in my target heart rate zones, so was very happy with the speed.

Heading into transition 2 I felt pretty good, changed quickly, and then headed out onto the hot run. I ended the bike with a 2:14:58 (2nd age group, 9th overall) and left T2 5th in our age group and 17th overall. My first mile was 6:40, so I slowed it down and was doing a little over 7:00 for the next couple. At this point I felt great and had visions of a great run and good finish...oh how things can change quickly in this sport! I learned later that Danny and Greg up ahead of me were having some major issues. They had great swim and bike splits heading out onto the run in 5th and 6th overall, but were experiencing major issues on the run. Danny didn't feel that great on the bike, so slowed down quite a bit towards the end, and eventually dropped out between mile 1 and 2 on the run...he was having a bad day compacted by the flair up of his foot injury. Greg mis-judged the nutrition a bit and started throwing up sometime around mile 4...he would also DNF. I kept rolling along, and after mile 5 I started having some issues. I stopped sweating and started getting nauseous, so I had to start dumping water on myself to cool down...I hate doing this because it soaks your shoes, and also starts the blister making process. As I continued to slow down I was getting passed by everyone I passed on the run earlier. I decided just to try and stay within myself as much as possible and finish up the best I could. I started dumping ice down my shorts (thanks for the tip Shawn Burke) to help the cooling process.

I finished in 4:37:19 (10th age group, 36th overall)...and let me tell you, it hurt! Besides the blisters on the bottom of my feet, my body was pretty wrecked. I was happy to finish, but disappointed I lost between 7-10 minutes on the run split (1:44:26, 21st age group, 84th overall). In retrospect the race finished ok, just a bit outside of my expectations...and I learned a few things. One of those is that the 35-39 age group is the toughest of any group outside of the Pro category! With my time, I would have ended up third in the 40-44 age group, which I will be in next year...but only 10th in the 35-39.

(End Part 1)