Race Report - 2013 Ironman Florida

I wanted to share the Ironman Florida race report I wrote back in November 2013. Several of the my blog posts cover parts of the story below. The first half of the race report was the basis for my very first post, titled Hello World!. Detailed information on my race day nutrition can be found in my post titled Ironman Nutrition for a Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) Triathlete. OK, my race report...

Ironman Florida 2013 Race Report 
My journey from being FatMas to being IronMas...
November 2013

Before I started writing this report, I was thinking about not writing too much about race day itself since it was a long journey for me to become an Ironman. However, what’s a race report if you don’t cover the details of a race like Ironman, especially since it was my first full Ironman race?!?! I did a little of both and the story got way too long. So, I reduced it but it is still a very long report/story…

In mid-2007, I was 265 pounds, pessimistic about life in general and unhappy most of the time. That summer, I lost about 10 pounds and kept it off but I was not doing any serious diet or anything. I just cut down on some of the crappy way I ate. Late 2007, my marriage of 15+ years fell apart and I lost another 20 pounds over a couple of months due to stress, lack of appetite, and lack of sleep. Early 2008, I was starting to get depressed and became concerned with the situation since I looked like I was starting to spiral downward and worried how all this would impact my two kiddos. Most of my life I was unhappy with life. I wasn’t living life, I was just, well, there. I went to therapy and one of the first questions was what did I like to do. My answer was I don’t know. I never lived my life for me. I tried to be what everyone wanted me to be. After a few months, I was improving and during that time I joined a gym in May of 2008 for the first time in my life. Throughout these months, I cleaned up my eating but I still wasn’t eating as healthy as I do today but it was better than what I was doing most of my life. So life got better once I was going to the gym several days a week. Plus I was feeling better and looking better. I was starting to feel alive and was enjoying the pains/soreness/gains I got from working out. I kept losing weight, was building muscle, and people were telling me I looked fit. However, I didn’t feel fit and I wasn’t even close to the image of myself I always envisioned myself to be. So I was still overall unhappy but I was in a better place in life. I wanted to be lean and toned but more importantly, not only look fit but BE fit. I started running and, boy, I was just dying after just a mile or so. But over the next two years, I concentrated on becoming a better runner and getting fit via running.

During this time I overheard someone in the gym talking about triathlons and it peaked my interest. However, I didn’t do much about it right away. I did go buy a $150 heavy-as-heck mountain bike and started riding it more and more. I wanted to start swimming but I was afraid of the water so I kept putting it off. By early 2009, I had lost 50+ pounds but I struggled to keep the weight off with my weight yo-yoing. Early 2010, I got my first road bike and my running was improving. I started running harder in hopes to do well at the CCC10K, rode my bike more and more, I started P90X, started watching/cutting calorie intake, and other life stressors were pretty high at the time. Well, it is pretty obvious what happened! A week or two after I ran the CCC10K, I landed in the emergency room with a fake heart attack as I like to call it. It was only a panic attack that included an ambulance ride, an overnight stay in the hospital, and $3,000 out of pocket expense! An expensive lesson but a life lesson nonetheless! With all that craziness, I was now down 70 pounds but I still continued to struggle keeping the weight off through the end of 2012!  

I started to get more into endurance sports throughout 2010 and 2011 but never doing anything of significant distance as compared to today. I was also starting to enjoy life more, really getting into all of this endurance stuff, and meeting more and more endurance athletes. I was also working on being more positive about life by eliminating as much negativity out of my life. I’m more optimistic these days but I can, from time to time, revert to the old Tomas. My run distances for training and racing was steadily increasing where I did my first marathon in early 2012. Cycling training was getting longer and longer since I was training with friends and teammates doing Ironman Florida in November 2012. I finally started getting swim lessons but I was really picking it up very slowly. In July 2012, I did my first ever sprint triathlon where I just totally freaked out in the water due to my fear of water but especially due to my fear of swimming in open waters. However, I fought through it and finished the race. Later that year, I volunteered at Ironman Florida to cheer friends doing the race but I didn’t think I was going to go through with registering for this year’s race. How could I register for a full ironman when I had only completed two short/sprint triathlons and my swim was just awful?!?!? It was a scary challenge but I wanted to attempt it. At the end of 2012 I started training for my 2nd marathon and strained my calves pretty good and I could not run for weeks. During this time, I quickly gained 10 pounds back even with eating healthy as we are all lead to believe. I started implementing a very high fat and low carb lifestyle and the weight started to just melt away...

2013 has been just an amazing year and I’m planning on 2014 being even better! I dedicated this year to becoming an Ironman. With the way I changed my eating habits, I lost 20+ pounds with doing significantly less exercise. I was down to 172 pounds (net loss of 93 pounds!) and today I stay at or near that weight without much effort. Changing the way I eat helped me in more ways than I could have ever imagined, including athletically. I feel better, stronger, recover quicker, and, most days, I feel like I’m on a natural high! I won’t go much more about this in this report since I posted so much about this on Facebook already (so if you are not on Facebook, sorry…).  

I trained by heart rate for the first time since I decided that 2013 would be more about building a strong aerobic base so the coming years I can continue to improve quickly. I did not do a lot of speed work this year so I could become a lean mean fat burning machine. I no longer use sugars as my primary fuel during exercise! Even with minimal or no speed work, I was getting faster in all three sports with lower and lower heart rates, especially on the bike and run. However, lack of speed work in the pool may not have been a good idea (more in the race report section below). Ironman training is tough but I was enjoying it immensely! I can’t get enough of this endurance stuff! Yes, I’m an endurance freak now! Ironman training requires a lot of time so you need to stay focused for a very long time. I had great friends, teammates, and family support me throughout entire year! My two kids were very understanding and supportive since I did not have the time to be there as much as in the past. They understood I wanted to reach this goal badly and they helped me immensely to achieve it.

Ok, finally the race report…

After my peak training week, I was so ready for the three week taper leading up the Ironman Florida. My body was tired and I had already been cutting out or reducing some of the shorter training stuff during the week since I need the rest - I’m 47, I’m old! I’m pretty methodical about following my training plan but I listened to my body and gave it rest when I saw I was not having good long weekend sessions or just had very low energy. I got to train with TONS of triathletes this year. Not many people were doing Ironman Florida this year as compared to last year so I trained all year with many athletes from my tri team (VMR) and other teams. It was amazing how teams don’t really matter as we all cheer for and support each other. It is a lifestyle and the tri community is amazing! It’s almost like a family! Many of them joined me for all of, or portions of, my long weekend training days. Several joined me on weekdays on some of the fun shorter stuff like the double brick Tuesdays! I made lots of new friends and became even closer friends with others. I will never forget this year’s training! It was incredible experience and I enjoyed every bit of it!

Overall, I stayed injury free all year but the 1st week of taper I started getting pain and swelling in my calves. I had to get therapy and I was concerned that this would impact Ironman. Therapy quickly took the pain away but the swelling was coming and going. During the second week of taper, I was getting just a little nervous but not about finishing the race.  I was more concerned about the weather and if my calves would hold up. The week leading up to the race, I was surprised how calm and confident I was that I would finish the race.  

I drove to Panama City Beach, Florida on Thursday and checked in at the race early that afternoon. The next morning, I decided to sign up for the 2014 race so I headed to the expo and $742 later, I registered to do my second full ironman even before I completed my first ironman! I went back to the condo and I packed all of the gear and special needs bags. I went back to the expo/transition area and turned in my bike and gear bags around lunch time since weather was deteriorating quickly. A storm was coming through early that afternoon. Thursday and Friday were overall relaxing days for me except that I was stressing a little with watching the weather closely. With the high winds we were experiencing, the surf was looking scarier and scarier but I was still confident I would finish! Luckily, the storm came through quickly and the wind direction changed helping to calm the seas down just a little.

Race morning was the first day I can say I was somewhat nervous. Can I actually finish the race? 140.6 miles in one freaking day! Really?!? Will my calves hold up? Will I get a flat?? I was nervous about getting a flat since I realized I didn’t change out the tire tubes before driving to Florida. I left the condo at 5:30am and headed to the transition area to get my body markings. A teammate, Caity, was volunteering for that and I couldn’t find her so I got someone else to mark me. I walked over to the special needs bag drop off area and as I was walking back to the transition area, I was getting very nervous. I then saw my friends and fellow triathletes, Caity and Charlotte, who both volunteered to do body marking. When I saw them my nervousness went totally away! I was calm, confident, and fired up ready to go!  

Standing by the beach I was excited. I got to see my friends Vince and Marty at the start; both had incredible races. I'm not a strong swimmer but I thought I was going to have a good swim and that I was going to hit my target race finish time of 12:25 that I had projected 3 months before the race. I had my projected times printed out and taped to my office computer, bathroom mirror, and refrigerator! The waves were worse than I expected but I was not nervous. Ultimately, my swim was slow; real slow. But my 2nd swim loop took me about the same amount of time as my 1st 1.2 mile loop. I actually swam 2.7 miles since I swim in a patent pending zigzag fashion -- swimming straight for 2.4 miles is just boring… Honestly, I did not do as much open water swim training as I should have. I did no speed work or drills in the pool. When I swam in a pool, I worked mainly on endurance. Lesson learned but the endurance training worked since after 1 hour 58 minutes in the water, I came out mad, relaxed and not a bit tired!!! I know I’m a better swimmer and I was some 13 minutes over what I thought I would do in a worst case condition. I’ll get it right next year! Out the water, I run over to the wetsuit strippers to find my friends and training buddies, Art and Beth. They strip the wetsuit off me but I didn’t say much to them accept that my swim sucked. I run to transition and put the swim behind me. I told myself that I was ok since the 12:25 finish time really didn’t matter, finishing the race mattered! I put on my bike gear, start heading to my bike, and I run into JB (another friend and triathlete) who was volunteering!

The bike ride was incredible except for the first 20 to 30 miles heading due North into heavy headwinds. I couldn’t get my heart rate under control and was wondering if I was just stupid for signing up for the race for next year and it was tough going so far this race. Once I turned West, the rest of the ride was fun! Since I was slow in the water, I was passing so many on the bike (just under 850 people). At mile 70-ish, I wanted off the bike (no seat cushion!) but my legs were still strong and I was feeling amazingly strong. The last 20 to 30 mile portion of the bike was extremely fast since those earlier nasty headwinds were now a fun and fast tailwind. I was cruising and my legs still felt great. I wasn’t feeling hungry so my nutrition worked perfectly. I used a mixture of Generation UCAN with MCT Oil every hour and had a packet of Almond Butter at the 3 hour mark. I was also taking electrolytes during the ride but perhaps not enough based on what happened on the run. During the last 8 miles along the beach road heading back to the transition area, I started to tear up.Yeah, yeah, I was getting emotional... My legs felt so strong when my legs typically felt like spaghetti during long training rides. I teared up 3 or 4 times since I knew I was going to finish this race; I knew I was going to be an Ironman! Nothing was going to stop me since I felt so good and running is my thang! It truly felt like the 112 miles I rode took 2 to 3 hours and not the 5 hour 54 minutes actually took me. Into transition I go, feeling strong, feeling confident, and yes, wiping tears off my face! I changed into my run gear and off I went for the marathon.

Just a little into the run, I see the VMR and Hard Inc. tri teams cheering me on. A couple of quick turns and I see TLRC and Team WTF tri teams cheering me on. Because of the run route, I was able to see all of them four times! I was so pumped each time I passed them! It only took me about 2 miles to get my heart rate under control. I was running better than I thought but at the 1 hour mark I had my first problem. I drank the same nutrition I had taken on the bike and brother, my body didn’t want it. I had to collect myself so I didn’t puke. At the water station just ahead, I asked for a cup of water and they handed me a cup of Ironman Perform. I drank some and I was about to puke again! That stuff is just down right awful! I had to stop and really try to collect myself. I was just standing there for a minute or two! Somehow I kept everything down and started running again. At the start of the 2nd loop, I saw Art and Beth cheering me on. Then at the 2 hour mark, I sipped on my nutrition again and no way was I going to drink more. I then tried the sugary stuff (Infinit Nutrition) that I used exclusively last year and tested it during my long training days this year. No way Jose; my body rejected it!  My backup plan was not going to work today so I kept running. Somewhere after mile 14, my ears start popping (like when in an airplane).  This is the first sign of dehydration for me. I discovered this during training in extremely hot days!! My next stage of dehydration is that I tend to see flashes of light (I like to call my paparazzi moment). I didn’t want to see paparazzi today so I start walking. I start to wonder if I didn’t take enough electrolytes during the bike or run. I followed my plan so I don’t know what went wrong. For next 12 or so miles, my ears pop, I walk; they unpop, I start running. For nutrition, I would alternate chicken broth, biting into oranges/drinking water, and drinking a cup or two of cola at each water station. The first time I had chicken broth, it was HEAVENLY. It settled my stomach and felt as I’d eaten due to the flavor of chicken.

Because of my bad swim, I was not paying attention to the total race time plus I was passing people left and right. I passed just under 700 people even with all the walking I did. About 2 miles from the finish, I realized I could probably beat my 12:25 projected time. I was perplexed; a bad swim, lots of walking, and I still can beat it. Wow! I picked up the pace and see Art and Beth in the finishers chute cheering me on. I slowed down just before crossing the finish line to hear the words I had been waiting to hear for one year. “Tomas Orihuela, YOU are an Ironman!!!” I cross the finish line at 12:23:51. I was surprised I didn’t tear up at the finish; perhaps I didn’t since I had my emotional time(s) at the end of the bike ride. Even with all the walking I did, I still ran a 4 hour 15 minute marathon. As I walked through the finish area, I see yet another friend, Ryan, who gives me my finisher’s metal.

The day was just amazing and it truly did not feel like it was 12.5 hours! Never once did I ever think I was not going to finish.  It was an experience I will never forget. This journey has not ended; it is just starting... I expect 2014 to be as good or even more rewarding since I get to do this again next year and this time there are even more New Orleans peeps doing the race with me!

Verbosely Yours,
IronMas :)
(Formerly known as Tomas Orihuela)