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Ironman Florida 2010

Quick overview of results:

• Swim: 1:28 Took it easy and got out feeling as if the swim was just a warm-up. I’d recommend that approach, unless you are trying to place. Saw a stingray and some jellyfish.
• Bike: 6:13 (18mph avg) PR by 20 minutes.
• Run: 4:43, PR by 33 minutes
• Overall: 12:50. Fifth Ironman finish. Best time yet. Go me.
  

The only redeeming on-course element was the swim. Open-water, in the gulf, with clear water, sugary sand, and marine life along the bottom was awesome. All other North American Ironman swims are in lakes, so I’ll give Florida this: That swim will be tough to beat. After the cannon goes off, the loud speakers cranked out 80s Van Halen, “Panama.” Nice touch. I wasn't the only 30-something doing Air Guitar as he strode into the water.

• However, Ironman Florida is the least scenic and least challenging course with the poorest race management of any of the eight Ironman-sponsored events in which I have participated. Where do I begin my diatribe about how lame Florida is? I recount this tale of ennui in hopes that someone who is considering other 140.6 events will heavily discount Florida and go with another option.

Florida is “The Easy Ironman.” Yes, I wrote that. There is such a thing as an easy Ironman. When the swim is wetsuit-legal at 76 – and you’re already in buoyant sea water – you feel like you’re hovering above the water. The bike course is flat. They’ve apparently re-routed some of the course (more on that later), but it still mostly flat with no significant climbs to cause concern. And the run is even flatter. That’s about the only good thing about Florida: it’s easy. It’s evident that each individual Ironman is run by different race organizers, not by WTC, because Florida sucks compared to others I’ve done. It’s sad that so many people do Florida as their first and probably stop at that. They’re frame of reference is so mundane.

Pre-race check in took two hours. The race requires your attendance three days prior to the race (Thursday, Friday, Saturday. That’s three days.) only to have you stand in line for two hours. Talk about "hurry up and wait." It took two hours to pick up my 1) bibs, 2) bags, and 3) a chip. And sign form after form. And then take those forms over to another table where you can wait in line again to have your form reviewed before you turn it in at another table. It’s not organ donation. Why are there so many “insurance” forms? Why the hell are we signing the same forms we signed when we entered? And if they aren’t the same forms, why are we not completing them when we signed up? Or why isn’t Ironman sending us the forms via e-mail in advance of the race? Lord knows they send us enough spam – why not send us something that can actually speed up the check-in process? But Dear God if you decline to enter your insurance provider name, policy number, how much you weigh, what hotel you are staying at, what their phone number is, who your emergency contact is, that stops down the whole process like you are some deviant. I’m here to race a race – not set up a living trust.

• It really chapped my ass when I finally got to the front of the line and the volunteer had the nerve to tell us, after we’ve been waiting for two hours, that we needed to get out our IDs and USAT cards so we “wouldn’t slow things down, fumbling for things.” Needless to say I was less than motivated to comply with a directive to “hurry up” when they lack all sense of urgency. I didn't pay a $600 entry fee to be berated to HTFU by Old Man River. You’ve got my money. I have my ID. Give me my bib and chip. That’s all we need to do here.

The race HQ sucks. With all apologies to the residents of Panama City Beach – I’m sure they’re fantastic people who are proud of their community – but the race venue is really a dump. The “resort”, and I use that term loosely, is very dated and small. In-season it is clearly a budget “resort.” It’s tiny, hasn’t been updated since the Reagan administration, and has terrible amenities (ie, no real dining, shopping, or entertainment options). If you have visions of palm trees and South Beach style architecture, get that out of your mind. The race finish is along a back-alley street, surrounded by parking lots. It’s a joke. I couldn’t stop thinking, “How the hell does this event get such a following? Ah yes, because it’s easy.” There are nicer, much larger hotels, but it is very apparent that Florida race organizers increase profit margins by negotiating services with a much cheaper option. The Boardwalk Beach Resort is a two-star former Howard Johnson, very much a budget-oriented tourist trap. The race HQ in Madison and Coeur d'Alene - both of which I've completed - were orchestrated at much higher-rated resorts.

The glamorous Howard Johnson, race HQ for your Ironman Florida!

Cheating is rampant. We've all have seen the drafting videos on youtube, so I’ll just confirm that yes, drafting is common. But triathletes don't know how to draft so it's not as bad as you think. But if you look at the course, how could you not? I somewhat put this on the race organizers. Yes, it is the racer’s responsibility to adhere to the rules, but if you’ve got a course that is this flat, has no turns and nearly 2,500 people, what do you expect to happen? It’s like the legal concept of entrapment: Leave a wallet on the lunch counter with cash falling out of it and see how many people steal it. So with the drafting videos and Fin Man previoulsy at Florida, there's something about Florida that attracts the person who wants to take short cuts. But what was more surprising was the cheating on the swim. First time I’ve seen that. Swimmers really weren’t too interested in actually going around the corner turn buoys. I’m not talking about the intermittent sight buoys. I mean the big ol’ red buoys that mark the turns. We’ve all seen the salmon trying to swim upstream (ie, make a right-angle turn), but at Florida, many swimmers said, “Yeah, that’s alright. I don’t want any part of that. I’ll stay inside the buoys and feign an attempt at a legal turn and just get close to it.” I’ll call it a “half-assed, good enough for government work” turn. They’d get maybe 10m away from the inside of the buoy and then make a bee line for the next turn. Swim marshals were right on top, but they didn’t do anything.

Runners had their own little rabbits on the course. Personal pacers at Ironman Florida must be really popular. I’m not talking about Mother Dearest running alongside her spawn for 50meters while wearing Mom Jeans. I mean some little tri tart with her BFF all decked-out in full-on marathon gear, running alongside, chatting away about how her friends Facebook page is blowing up with people commenting on how awesome she’s doing at her first Ironman. “Your finish photo is going to make a great profile pic.” Gag. Newsflash to those who use pacers: It’s obvious who is not actually in the race. Your little assistant is recently quaffed; is not piss-, snot-, and sweat-caked; and has no body markings, bib, or chip. You stand-out like a Kenyan at a Turkey Trot.

• How and/or why does this happen? Race announcements made such a big deal about how many first-timers participated. I suspect that race officials don’t enforce rules that would make Ironman Florida too hard (ie, like a “real” Ironman). They want to keep their reputation as being “The Easy Ironman”, so they’re not too concerned about drafting, actually swimming the course as laid out, or having personal pacers help you along. They’ve cultivated the reputation of being a race where everyone can finish, and if you need to take some shortcuts, that’s fine too.

T1 and T2 are cramped. Race organizers took an already small convention center hall and cut it in half – one side for men, one for women. Which doesn’t make sense when 75% of your participants are men. I’m all for gender equity, but equity doesn’t mean 50/50. Equity means fair - be fair in how you distribute space. They do not have to devote 50% of T1 to women when only 25% of the entrants are women. Exactly why would a smaller field need as much room as the much larger contingent? If three-quarters of entrants are of a particular gender, then three-quarters of the square footage should be devoted to that gender. Wouldn’t it be odd if at one of the Nike women’s marathon if they segregated the (few) men and women, but gave them equally small corrals? For those of y’all who have seen T1 and T2 at Wisconsin, that’s how you do transitions in a ballroom. Madison had caverns. Florida had truck stop bathrooms.

• So in the men’s side of T1 what you get it is inches from sweaty asses and poorly manscaped chamois regions, with no chairs and tumped-over T1 bags ("tumped" is Texan for "tip" and "dump"). Everyone sprawled out on the floor and fighting for space. This lack of consideration was evident all weekend. Ironman Florida offers very poor services because they can. In other words, they don’t have to pay attention to detail because they know come Sunday morning, people will be lining up and throwing money at them to race it the next year.

The bike course is unholy boring. After riding along a flat, turnless course with unchanging scenery of straight roads and pines trees, I wanted to scream: “Please, someone lobotomize me!” Look at the queue sheet: It has 13 turns - 13 turns for a 112 mile ride! That’s it. 112 miles, one loop. 13 turns. Terrible. Some of the sections were probably 20 miles per section with zero distinguishing features. If you can sit in an aero position for 5hrs, then you’ll do great. But really, you’ll be pedaling in the same gear, in the same position the entire time. So if the course is windy or you get sore, you are in trouble because there’s really no reason or opportunity to change positions. Also, given that it is 112 miles long, there might be eight people along the course watching. Once you leave T1, you’re all alone out there. It’s sad.

"OMG! He's riding a road bike! What a moron! Doesn't he know if he had a sperm-shaped helmet and plastic aero down tubes he'd totally get to Kona?! What a noob."

They don’t close the bike course to traffic - anywhere. It’s all two- and four-lane highways and you’re expected to either ride on the shoulder or take a lane of 55mph traffic. I’m not putting in the training and incurring the expense to ride on the shoulder and flat. Sorry, I’m taking a lane I paid for and am entitled to by law. So what you’re left with is to cruise along, dodge cars, and compete for space.

Screen grab of a video of the bike course. Note the traffic - Speed limit 55 - one lane over. Sweet.

The run course is really shabby. After we left the, ahem, “resort,” we headed through a construction site. Race organizers added a classy touch of laying down sheets of plywood over the chewed-up roads. You couldn’t help but notice you were running alongside excavation pics and next to earth moving equipment. At least the smell of diesel distracted you from sweet mixture of pee and sweat. Did I mention that if you thought this would be like South Beach, you’d be way off? Race organizers knew in advance that the city (or whomever authorizes major construction) would be working on the roads used by the course. This is not a surprise. It’s not like front-end loaders showed up Saturday morning and said, “I see you have a race here. We need to dig. Won’t be long. Don’t mind us.” Florida either knew that the finish area would be consumed by a construction site and chose not to find an alternate hotel, or they knew about it and didn’t care. Neither is excusable.

After the little jaunt through a hard-hat area weaving through constructions barrels, you wind through a residential neighborhood of rather mundane summer rental properties. I have no intention of deriding someone’s residence, so the lackluster lodging is not a reflection of the residents. Rather, Ironman’s only option was to choose a less-than-glamorous route because it is adjacent to a run-down “resort.” And again, the road is open to traffic, both auto and bike. You’ll be running along and car will come up and pass you on the left, or another car will be coming toward you and you’ll move out of the way. The volunteers would actually instruct, “Watch out for the car. Move to the side of the road.” Or someone will ride along the course with their race. Nice. I paid how much to do this and you won’t close the course.

• My point is not that Ironman should close all roads so I can run on them. I’m not that self-absorbed. My point is that if they can’t close certain roads, they shouldn’t route the course through it. And they should keep non-participant bikes off it. Not hard. See that guy riding a beach cruiser on the run course, wearing khakis? Good chance he’s not in the race. Ask him nicely to get off the course so I don’t have to navigate around him when stops with his Honey Bunny at an aid station. The on-course patrols by volunteers was very revealing too. The official volunteers in their snazzy Ironman t-shirts patrolled the run course on bicycles. With no helmets. That kind of double-standard really gets irritating. I realize in the whole scheme of things that it doesn’t impact me if the “pointer” rides out to his or her spot on the course without a helmet, but after 10hrs of racing, hypocrisy like that is more irritating than bloody nipples. Freak out if I don’t buckley my chin strap, but helmet rules doesn’t apply to Ironman race staff.

The finish area was acceptable at best but it pales in comparison to the other finish spectacles I’ve seen. The last 100m are basically in a parking lot, lined with those large, orange, reflective-striped construction barrels. A few hundred people, the typical Ford schwag all over the place, but that’s it. Add in some rock music and some sodium lights and you’ve got inspiriation! It’s OK, I guess, which is sad: You shouldn’t have to describe your Ironman finish as “OK.”

Day before the race, walking along the finish chute. Nothing but traffic, construction cones, and temp buildings. So scenic, so idylic.

Overall, I would say Ironman Florida is The Easy Ironman. The bike course is boring and relentlessly unchallenging. The run is ugly and the finish area of enemic. It fills-up so quickly because Ironman Florida is low-hanging fruit. People want to call themselves Ironman so badly - but with little effort - they want the path of least resistance. St. George? Wisconsin? Too hard. Just go to Florida. You’ll be underwhelmed but you’ll finish and you can call yourself an Ironman. Congratulations? I guess.

Me, underwhelmed, even though it's nearly an hour PR:

"Meh."

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