Smith Sports Blog

Wow...what an amazing day! After being sick for the past week and not being able to train, I managed to PR with a 12:05.17! That's 38 minutes faster than by best...granted that was from IM WI, which is insanely hilly, but still! Wow, it was a pretty exciting day to say the least! But before I get into that, I have to give a shout out to the Posse. Dave, Chris, Jen and Audrey came up to watch the race and not only did they watch, but they took turns running with my during the marathon. I couldn't have done it without them! I'm extremely fortunate to have the best friends you could hope for!

Now, onto the good stuff...the nitty, gritty details of the day. The cannon went off at 7 am so we were up at 4:30 am...actually we were awake at midnight when I apparently had a little issue with the alarm clock in the condo and it went off at 12:00, but minor details. After some yogurt and granola and rounding up the trips, we were off to the transition area to get Scott, my bike, fueled up for the long ride ahead and get bodymarked with my number and age. Of course we still had an hour left after this was all done, so we headed into the Convention Center which was slightly warmer than the 50 degree weather that was going on outside. A little bit of chatting, a little bit of stretching, 2 trips to the restroom, and we were ready to suit up. Let me just say right now, I hate wetsuits. Not only are they a pain to put on...as you'll see from the pictures of my yanking it up, and yes with my hands down my pants (thanks Audrey), but I get so freaking hot and they are so confining. But I suck it up and get it on. By this time, we're ready to hit the beach. After a final pep talk from the gang and hugs all around, Dad and I are making our way over the timing mat into the corral. There appears to be a lot of room behind us as we wait at waters edge, but once the pros start (10 mins. before us regular folks) and the age groupers are cleared out of the water, it was looking a bit tight. All I knew was when that cannon went off, I was running into the water and not looking back.

The swim was a 2 loop course that required you to get out of the water after the first loop, run through a timing mat and then diagonal back out to, what I thought, was the first buoy. It would only make sense, right? Then do your 2nd lap and exit up to transition. Well, here's how it actually went. The race started and we all went charging into the water, I actually felt great at the start and had a bit of space around me, unlike WI which is a deep water start and I feel like I'm getting pummeled from the get-go. We started about 3/4 of the way down in the starting corral so as to avoid the line huggers. This was definitely a good plan because it was a bit less congested, until you got to the red buoy which was roughly 800 meters out. The buoys are always a cluster-you-know-what. But I made it around and tried to maintain that wide angle. It was a short distance along the backside, but we were swimming directly into the sun and for those of you that remember be swimming the Ludington Triathlon, you know how much I suck at sighting into the sun. My eyes were not happy! But at least here I could just follow the crowd and before I knew it, we were angling around the next red buoy and swimming for shore, another 800 meters back in. There was a tall condo building just to the right of the buoys, so I would sight every 6-8 strokes, if that and keep heading for it. It seemed to work out well, but it seemed to have gotten a bit more congested. People were swimming crooked, one guy swam over me, I had someone hitting my feet until I gave a few hard kicks and they backed off. The usual stuff. As we neared the shore, I continued swimming until my fingers scraped the bottom. I stood up and did as much of a jog as I could up on the beach and through the semi-circle fencing over the timing mat before trudging back into the water. Now, this is where things get interesting. As I'm attempting to jog into the water, I'm watching all the people ahead of walking out on an angle, not in the direction of the first buoy. Most of them weren't even close to aiming for the 2nd buoy. I guess I missed the announcement about buoys being optional! I had even made sure I looked at the map beforehand because the whole out of the water thing was new to me and it definitely showed up angling toward the 1st one. So I start swimming towards the 1st buoy and as I neared it I realized I was 1 of 3 people that were trying to be fair. We sort of collectively said screw it, and veered just to the left of it and then took the rest of the buoys at our left. While the rest of the field seemed to decide the 2nd one was not importantly either. After that, I'm not really sure what people did. I guess they just figured they had to stay to the left of the red one on the end. I was irritated and stopped paying attention to everyone else at this point. The back side of the swim and the final turn were a mess again, but knowing we were almost out of there, I attempted to kick it in and get the heck out of there. I came out of the water in 1:09.02. I knew it would be slower than WI since that's in a lake and this is the Gulf, so I wasn't too disheartened, but I do wonder how much time I could have shaved off if I followed the pack. I've never been very good at that though. :)

T1 didn't go as smooth as I had hoped. I began running up the beach, stripping off my wetsuit to my waist before reaching the wetsuit peelers. Yes, there are actually volunteers who strip off your wetsuit for you, it's so great! I dropped to my bum, put my feet up, and woosh, it was off. I hopped up and continued the trek up the sand, under the fresh water sprayers, and onto the boardwalk which lead into the resorts parking lot/transition area. First, you have to pick up your "Swim to Bike" bag and then head into the change tent. Again, they have volunteers to assist you...in getting dressed. It's actually quite nice. I wasn't changing, but I had to get on my HR strap, watch, socks, bike shoes, gloves, sunglasses, helmet, and the most difficult arm warmers. Yes, try putting on arm warmers when your arms are wet. It was a fight but between the two of us, we finally got them pulled up far enough. After a quick stop in the port-a-potty and a whole lot of nose blowing, I grabbed Scott and was running for the transition exit. The whole ordeal took 7:21, not as fast as I was hoping, but I was heading on the bike and focused on a 6 hr ride now.

The bike was a single loop, which I wasn't familiar with either. WI has you going out of town 16 miles and then doing a double loop before returning. It's kind of bitter sweet that way...knowing what lies ahead the 2nd time. All I knew was FL was a whole lot flatter than WI, so I was ready to go. After 10 miles of paralleling the shoreline we headed north onto a highway. It was an open course, which had me a bit nervous at the start, but it turned out to not be an issue even with all the highway riding we ended up doing. Since it wasn't even 9 am yet, it was still cold, probably in the mid to upper 50's by this point. The sun was just coming up, but we weren't feeling it yet. I was so cold and my nose was running like crazy. That's always a fun experience while you're biking. If there would have been a competition for blowing snot rockets and spitting lugies, I so would have won. It wasn't pretty, but it was necessary! I knew if I averaged 18.66 mph, that was a 6 hr ride, so I tried to stay in the upper 18's to 19. I was doing great for the 1st 20 or so miles...and then we turned...into the wind. It was pretty brutal, but I never train without it and that's what I kept telling myself. So I managed to hold my speed for the most part. I was passing some and getting passed my tons...that's what happens when you're a better swimmer. :) At the dinner and meeting Thursday night, the bike course official really got on us about drafting. You're supposed to be 4 bike lengths behind the person in front of you and if you want to pass, you need to do it within 20 secs. Now 4 bike lengths is a LONG way. Nobody really does that, but I try to have at least 2 in between. However, there were times when I was getting passed my groups of 20-25 riders! It was insane! After it happened twice, I passed a girl who I had been playing cat and mouse with for some time and told her I missed the memo about the 112 mile group ride! Oh well, all I could do was hope the officials on motorcycles would see them and do their job. After what felt like forever, we finally turned south and I was able to crank it up a bit. I was feeling good, drinking my Heed/Carbo-Pro mix every 5-10 minutes and taking a bite of a Powerbar every 20-30 mins. It seemed to be working well for me. Another turn and we were no longer on a highway, but a country road that was cracked every 50 feet it seemed. Not fun! Of all the roads in the area, they couldn't have found a better road than this? It soon turned north and then east on the out and back, which meant into the wind again! This was between 60 and 70 miles and I was hitting the wall. I backed off a little, regrouped, ate and drank some more and at the turn around I was ready to go. This is the point where I just start counting down the miles 10 at a time. It's all a mental game and you have to have some way of beating it. But I must say the 2nd to best feeling on the bike is when you hit 100 miles. On this course it was at the top of an overpass heading back into town and you could see the tall beach condo buildings ahead. I let out a "Woot, woot" and picked up the speed. I knew it was going to be close to the 6 hr mark. The last 6 or so miles were heading east along the shoreline, same as when we went out. Only this time, we were going directly into the wind. How cruel at the end of the race! As we made the final turn, I saw our condo and knew it wasn't even a 1/2 mile left. I was just at 6 hrs at that point. At the dismount line, my clock read 6:03! I'll definitely take that! This is the best part of the bike...getting off! And even though I love Scott and he's been good to me, I needed to hand him off to the volunteers and start running!

T2 is my favorite because it's short and sweet. Grab your bag, run into the tent, throw on running shoes and a visor, grab my gels and go! Well...after another stop at the port-a-potty with a lot of nose blowing...then go! I came flying out of transition and down the road knowing the posse was just up ahead. Jen and Audrey were going to run the 1st lap with me and I thought Dave and Chris were going to run the 2nd lap. I got out onto the main road and across from the campground was Nan, Dave and Chris. There was a lot of cheering and I remember yelling "6:03 baby!" and I was off with Chris hollering behind me that Audrey and Jen would be up ahead. I wanted to maintain a 9:30-9:45 from the start because if I went out to hard (like usual), I knew I wouldn't be able to hold on, especially after pushing hard on the bike. I made the 1st turn, checked my watch and saw 9:00. Slow down Ali. Luckily Jen and Audrey were about a mile up the road so they jumped in and I let them know the plan. Audrey set the pace and Jen stuck by my side. It was perfect. We ran through some neighborhoods on the way out which required us to run over speed bumps...not so fun when you can barely pick up your legs on the 2nd loop. The course led us out to the state park, all the way through, turned around and headed back along the same way. About a mile after the turn you hit the Ford motivational section which contains a giant message board that displays a message when you cross a mat triggering your number. Audrey entered a message at the expo the day before. We crossed the mat and just before we passed the board "Smith Sports Posse" came up in lights! I loved it! It starts me thinking about all the amazing people I train with, work with and train! They are an extraordinary group and, whether they know it or not, they got me through a lot of this race mentally! We exited the park and about a mile up I spotted Chris and Dave. That was a nice surprise! They had started running a little while after I had gone by, caught Poncho, turned to run with him about a mile and a half, then turned back and ran to meet us. So we had the whole gang together for awhile. With about 3 miles left to the turnaround we saw Ponch heading out for his last loop so Chris turned and joined him. Dave ran another 1-2 miles and stopped to wait for me to come back around. He was going to run me to Chris who, I was hoping, would finish up the last lap with me. So Audrey led the way and her and Jen jumped off the course at the campground while I went up and made the turn around. I love going through the corral, even if it's not for the actual finish yet. Everyone is so excited, cheering and giving out high fives! I try and soak in the energy and excitement as much as possible. I came back around to the campground and Jen jumped back in with me with my water bottle of Heed and Carbo-Pro. We met up with Dave and the two of them ran me to Chris and Dad. At that point they all did a switch, Chris joined me and Dave and Jen joined Dad. Apparently Dad was flying...at the end of the marathon...no, no...at the end of the Ironman, him and Dave took off running 7:30's for the last 3 miles! He's amazing! Chris was my saving grace on that last lap. He just hung right by me and gave me a little ego boost when I needed it. Coming out of the state park it started to get dark and it seemed like it went pitch black within a matter of minutes! Good thing I still had my arm warmers on and pulled down around my wrist because I didn't grab my shirt from Jen when she turned around. I yanked up the arm warmers and felt good. At that point, it was about 5 miles left and I knew it was time to shut off the mind and let auto-pilot take over. It was going to be close to 12 hours, probably a bit over, but I wanted to see what I could do. I didn't look at the watch, but I tried picking it up. I haven't checked the Garmin yet, but my last 6.55 miles was almost as fast as my 1st 6.55 miles and Chris said we definitely took it up a notch. With about a mile and a half to go you could hear Mike Riley telling people they were an Ironman. It was a blur after that. All I know is we got to the start of the corral and Chris veered off to the left and I had a big smile plastered across my face as I tried to hold back the tears. Not so much from finishing even though the 1st time I heard "Allison Smith, you are an Ironman" it was incredibly emotional, but this time it was tears of joy and thankfulness for the incredible friends I have. Not only did they come to watch and support me, but they got me through an entire marathon and then stood at the finish line with signs they made cheering me all the way across! What a great end to the day!

And yes, seeing 12:05 wasn't what I had originally hoped for, but I'll take the extra 5 minutes! After attempting to walk around for a bit, scarfing down a piece of pizza and then getting a shower, I told Dave no matter what I say, don't let me do an Ironman next year. 2 in 2 months was a little much for me and I think my body needs a little recovery. Especially seeing as how in 2 weeks we are running across Florida for Ragnar Relays. Next year, I'm all about the Half IMs! But wow, what a sense of accomplishment! Just another checkmark on the list!