This year was my first dance on the Big Island. There was just something about this race that always mesmerized me. The wind, the heat. There was always something about it that I was drawn to even years before I started racing triathlon myself. After completing my first IM in 2013, I knew I wanted to race Kona and set the goal that I wanted to qualify. I did IM Lake Tahoe in 2013, IM Boulder in 2015, IM Cozumel in 2017 and IM Maryland last year. IM Cozumel was the first time I went sub-10 (9:48), finishing 11th in my AG, and it was then I legitimately thought I had a shot a qualifying. I achieved that at IM Maryland and it was one of the proudest moments of my athletic career, although, admittedly, my list of athletic accomplishments is nothing to brag about.
I put a lot of pressure on myself going into IM Maryland to qualify. Coming into Kona though, the hard part was done as far as I was concerned – just getting here. I still wanted to push myself, put down a solid time and see what I can do against the world’s best triathletes. But my first priority was to take in and enjoy the experience of racing this legendary course (at least as much enjoyment of subjecting oneself to riding a bike into hot headwinds and running on a highway in scorching humidity). To me, this race was the reward for the work I put in over the last seven years of racing long-course triathlon starting with my first 70.3 in 2012.
This course has a reputation of chewing up even the most seasoned athletes and I really wanted to have an awesome experience here. My coach and I put a game plan together to throw down an solid marathon. So rather than having an overall race goal, we set a marathon goal of 3:10. My marathon PR was 3:20, which is what I ran at IMMD last year. To knock off 10 minutes on this course was pretty audacious, but I’ve been running well all year and felt like I was in the best shape of my life (which is a pretty rad thing to say at 40 years old). So the plan was to get through the swim (I’m not a strong swimmer), back off on the bike a bit and save the legs for the marathon.
I arrived in Kona on Tuesday morning. Driving down Palani Road towards Kailua Bay was like an M-Dot explosion. It was quite a scene already. I’ve been watching this race for well over a decade (even before I started racing myself). Walking up to Kailua Bay for the first time was a pretty surreal feeling. This was the first time I really took in the moment of getting here and laying eyes on the water that produced some of the most iconic images of endurance racing. The week was super cool – walking around Ali’i Drive, doing an interview with 303Triathlon, chatting with athletes from Belgium, France, Italy, Germany among others. But you can tell this atmosphere is different than any other IM.
The night before the race, I felt pretty calm. Normal pre-race jitters were there but that night relaxing and laughing with some of my favorite people in the world helped take my mind off the race. A nice glass of Makers Mark and ginger also helped calm the nerves.
Race morning was just like any other race morning. Alarm went off at 3:30 am, I questioned why I participate in a sport that makes me get up at 3:30 am, rolled out of bed and threw on the Boulder Racing kit. Grabbed a bagel and my water bottles and left for town. Getting through the morning process (body marking and transition setup) went super smooth, almost to point that I felt like it was too easy. Left transition and met up with the family. At this point, I usually have quite a bit of pent-up energy, but this morning I was extremely calm, which felt a bit weird considering the significance of this race and the eyes on it. I guess it was because I wasn’t putting any real pressure on myself with this race. I know I’m a good triathlete and wanted to do well. I know I earned the right to race here on this day, against the world’s best. But I had no expectations that I was going to end up on the podium.
I alluded before that I wanted to take in the atmosphere of this race and the years of work it took to get here. I was towards the back of our age group in the staging area. When our age group was called to get in the water, that’s when it hit me that I was really doing this…I am about to race the IRONMAN World Championship, the most coveted start line in endurance sports. We had a short swim out to the start line and as I was treading water, I turned around and took in a moment I’ll never forget as long as I live – looking at the thousands of spectators lining every square inch of wall surrounding Kailua Bay and the helicopters hovering above. I thought to myself, “This is wild man…” and the biggest smile that I can remember came across my face. The odd part was that it really did feel just like any other race, despite the dichotomy of my thoughts versus reality because this race is anything but any other race.
The conch sounded and we were off. I’m an average swimmer at best. In this race, back of the pack. So I was just hoping to find a group to swim with and maybe some feet to hook onto. I did and just before the first turn, those feet grazed the side of my head and caught my goggles. Had to pull over to fix them. A few minutes later, my googles started to leak. I grabbed onto a paddle board and the awesome volunteer commented that this was the roughest he’s seen the water all week. Awesome. Got swimming again but my goggles ended up leaking two more times before I was done. Not the end of the world. Probably cost me maybe 2 minutes. But whatever. It’s part of the sport. Finished the swim in 1:16, which even though is slow (especially for this race), I was happy with. The bay was pretty rough that day so I thought I would come in more like 1:20. So coming into T1, I was happy with where I was at.
For those that aren’t familiar with the bike course, it’s notoriously hot and windy. I was told by many people that it’s like riding into a large blow dryer for 112 miles. Got onto the bike course. I was cruising along at 24-25 miles an hour with very little wind. Got past Waikoloa and started to think ‘maybe we got a nice day here’ and was optimistic I might put down a fast bike split. Around mile 35, I hit a wall of hot headwind and thought to myself, “oh shit, here we go…”. The next 70 miles, sans a stretch or two after the turnaround in Hawi back towards Kawaihae, we were riding into hot head and cross winds. At one point here, I was pedaling downhill at 19 mph. I was expecting this though so I just hunkered down, kept telling myself to get my nutrition down, save those legs for the run. I saying to myself ‘3:10. 3:10. 3:10’. So I continued to pedal efficiently, reminding myself to drink and get calories and sodium down. I’ve ridden hard courses before (I still have not-so-fond memories of the IM Lake Tahoe bike course), but this one was unrelenting. This is when I truly appreciated how hard this course really is. The climbs back up the Queen K back towards Kona were slow and hot. Got done in 5:11. Definitely slower than I was hoping but I know I conserved my legs for the run and stuck to my nutrition plan to a T.
I felt a little overheated in T2, so I hung out an extra couple minutes with a cold, wet towel over my head. But once leaving transition, I felt in good shape. The game plan was to run around a 7:20 pace for the first 10 miles and see how things were going. The first three miles were all good. Nice and smooth. I felt I could run faster but didn’t want to get greedy. Then a cramp in my left ab started to set in. It reminded me of IM Boulder in 2015 when I started cramping at mile 3 of the run and really labored through that one. So at the next aid station, I walked through and got a bunch of liquids down. The cramp subsided a bit. It didn’t go away, just keep saying ‘I’m still here dude…”, so I continued to walk through aid stations to keep it at bay, getting 3 or 4 cups of liquid down. Running through town though was awesome. The energy from crowd is unbelievable. And I saw my crew a few times on my way out of town which gave me another shot of energy. Once on the Queen K, the heat started to kick in and I really started to feel like I was overheating again. The cold sponges at each aid station are friggin awesome. Around mile 9, I felt the cramp go away and I was ‘ok’ let’s kick it up. About a minute later, my abs basically said “haha, I don’t think so, sucka…” and came back in a vengeance. So dialed it back down a bit and still walked through every aid station to get 3 or 4 cups of liquid down. I was still running 7:30ish but knew it was going to be tough to come back and run a 3:10. I did NOT want to be forced to walk any part of this run course so I keep my pace consistent. In the energy lab, the cramp kicked in more so I sat down on a rock for a couple minutes to let my system settle down. I did this during the run at IM Maryland last year and it made a huge difference. At this point, I knew 3:10 wasn’t going to happen but I realized I still had a shot to go sub-10. When I got out of the Energy Lab and back onto the Queen K, I felt pretty good. I only had 7 miles to go so at this point I figured to just let the legs run and for a few miles I was running around a 7:00 pace but just couldn’t keep that pace going. Had to walk through a few more aid stations. Making the right turn on Palani was a tremendous feeling though and I started to slow the pace to take in the last mile. A huge smile came on my face when I made the right turn onto Ali’i Drive. The crowd was amazing and I tried to slap any had I saw sticking out over the fence. Saw my dad and buddy Brandon along the way. Crossed the finish line in 10:04:42. Not quite the race I was hoping, but I had a solid marathon, a sufficient amount of type 2 fun and an awesome experience.
After crossing the finish line, I saw my mom who was volunteering in the finish area, gave her a hug. It was pretty special to share that moment with her. One of my running buddies, Jeff, was also volunteering and he took me back to the finishers area. I found a piece of grass, sat down and didn’t get up for about an hour. My feet and legs were shot and I just had to sit there for about an hour before finding the energy to get up and meet my family and friends. But as I sat there, I thought about my journey to get to this point, the day I just had and after over a dozen years of being mesmerized by this race, appreciated this journey. And that’s why we get up at 3:30am to do this amazing sport.
Looking forward to my next dance with the winds and heat of the Big Island.