Ironman Brazil Ilha De Santa Catarina, Brazil Saturday, May 24, 2003 Warning:  This is the novel length version of my Ironman Brazil adventures, you might want to make sure you have plenty of fluids before beginning.  I tend to ramble.  I never met a comma I didn’t like, and I interchange “I” and “we” when talking about the race.  None of the names have been changed, because there are no innocents to protect.  Some of the people will understand all of the report, and all of the people will understand some of the report, but not all of the people will understand all of the report.  Or something like that.  So, without further ado, let’s plunge right in. Pre-Race Notes and Comments The race is advertised as being in Florianopolis on the island, but only a bit of the bike ride actually ventures into the big city, which is kind of in the middle of the island.  Most of the activity takes place at the northern end.  The transition area and the swim course are in Jurere.  Our hotel was a little bit northwest of there, in the town of Canasvieiras.  The hotel was just off the run course, near the 15k/35k mark. There are a bunch of things I could write about that occurred in the days before the race.  Things like the easy workouts.  And the barking dog and cock-a-doodling rooster outside our window.  Seeing old friends and meeting new ones.  The BS sessions and the accompanying laughter.  The line that formed at 6:55 PM waiting for dinner to start.  The nightly trips that Cathy and Bill Taylor took to the corner store for ice cream.  The lack of hot water taps for the kitchen and bathroom sinks and the “electrical” hot water system for the shower that Craig used to try and electrocute himself.  The 22 hours of traveling it took to get “door to door”. Then the day before the race there was the mandatory bike “check” that consisted of some volunteer putting the race number on the bike.  Sitting around with Cathy and Bill, John and Sharon, Nat and Sherri, Martine and Christian and maybe a few others eating ice cream and drinking coffee while waiting to turn in our bikes and our bike gear bags. The race meeting was the evening before the race.  Why they would schedule it at 5 PM continues to baffle me.  I had been told that last year’s affair took three hours.  I certainly wasn’t looking forward to it, but, being in a strange country with some strange racing rules, I figured it was in my best interest to attend.  Somebody would say something in Portuguese.  The English translator would then say it in English.  Finally, the Spanish translator would repeat it in Spanish.  And with close to a dozen people on stage, I could see where it was possibly going to be a long evening.  Renate was taking copious notes so she could give Fern and Craig their own personal meeting afterwards.  There was a major buzz from our little group when it was mentioned that our bike to run gear bag was supposed to be turned in by 8 PM.  We had all expected to be able to bring it with us to the race the next day.  After that was mentioned again, we got a hold of Ken to get some clarification.  He “guaranteed” us that we could bring our bags tomorrow.  The rest of the meeting was tedious, but uneventful.  Fortunately, it ended right around 6:30 PM.  Now it was time to wait for a bus back to the hotel.  Where I had Renate’s leftover pasta lunch waiting to be microwaved for dinner.  Then to bed. Race Day Dawns – Darkness at the edge of night Being the paranoid individual that I am, I had Renate set every alarm she had (watch, palm pilot, cell phone).  As well as scheduling a wake-up call.  (Which was going to be hit or miss since our phone didn’t seem to accept incoming calls.  Craig and Fern couldn’t call us from their room, our line always gave a busy signal, but we did seem to be able to get calls from the front desk.)  I was actually sleeping when the first one went off.  Kind of amazing since I had been woken up several times during the night with the sounds of howling (and I mean big noise making, batten down the hatches, all hell is breaking loose howling) winds.  Yesterday there were thunderstorms and rain that cleared up early and left us with a pretty nice day.  Maybe this morning’s winds would blow over, so to speak, and we’d be left with another nice day in paradise.  And maybe not.  But, I don’t want to get ahead of myself and spoil the story. I crawl out of bed with the obnoxious sound of the cell phone alarm.  Followed quickly by the phone ringing with some guy saying something in Portuguese.  Probably “good morning”, but it could have been “you dumb s%#t”.  It’s 3 AM and race morning activities are under way for me.  I put “breakfast” into a plastic container and shake it up.  Just under a thousand calories of liquid energy.  Followed by the usual morning things.  Renate had called Fern and Craig at 3:15 AM to make sure they were awake.  Now, it’s 4:15 AM and she calls them again to let them know we’re heading down stairs to catch the shuttle bus to the transition area. We meet in the lobby.  Craig has forgotten something and goes back to the room to get it.  He returns.  Fern, Craig, Renate and I get on the shuttle.  We are joined by Andi and Don from Tennessee.  It’s dark out.  It’s windy out.  (We had run in to Ken in the hotel lobby before we got on the shuttle.  He said it didn’t seem to be quite as windy a block or so from the beach.  He lied.)  We drive about 4k of the run course.  It’s deserted, but there are cones out.  We reach the transition area and get out of the shuttle.  It’s dark.  It’s deserted.  It’s windy.  Andi and Don had forgotten something so they stayed on the shuttle and went back to the hotel.  I was wondering if, maybe, they had changed their minds and were going back to bed.  The thought crossed my mind.  But the three members of the Downingtown At Dawn Triathlon Club and their faithful Sherpa head over to body marking. Did I mention that we’re the only athletes around.  It’s a little before 5 AM.  I guess we’re just early and they haven’t actually canceled the race.  There are about a dozen lines set up for body marking.  Fern, Craig and I get into separate lines.  We’re all first in line.  I have two young ladies ready to write their numbers for me.  Oh, wait.  It’s my number they want to write.  It’s 528.  A nice, simple three digit number.  The girl on my left does a fine job, fitting it nicely on my upper arm.  The girl on my right, not so good.  The 2 enters my elbow and the 8 is on my forearm.  Oh, well.  Bigger is better, I suppose.  Now it’s time for the legs.  I wear the same medium length shorts the entire race.  The girls had me pull the legs up real high so they could write the numbers.  I didn’t say anything.  Later, when I repositioned them, I became number 8.  Wow!  I’m an elite!  Finally it was time for the age group designation on my calf.  I’m 44 for four more months.  They look on their little card and decide I’m an “E”.  They’re done.  I pull up my sweat pants and put my sweat shirt back on.  I leave the area the same way I came in.  Big violation.  A girl with a clipboard comes running over to me.  Five minute penalty for leaving body marking the wrong way.  Just kidding.  She wanted to check me off the master list.  We wait another five minutes for Craig.  He babbles that the girls kept writing the wrong letter on his calf.  I think he’s just trying to set something up for after the race. Now it’s into the transition area to drop off fluids for the bike and the run gear bag.  I’m the first one into transition.  I have a film crew behind me.  I hear the guy say “it’s the first person into transition”.  I do the normal jerky things people do when in that situation.  I raise my hands and yell “I’m in first”.  Fern and Craig are making snide comments in the background.  They’re just jealous that I’m going to be on ESPN and they’re not.  (Fern would get her camera moment later in the morning.)  I turn around and the camera crew is gone.  I put my arms down and quietly go to my bike.  Rita has survived the night fine.  I talk to her a bit and try to keep her calm while putting the water bottles in.  I check the tires.  I have Randy, our bike mechanic, check the tires.  Everything is fine.  I walk to the end of transition to turn in my run bag.  I visit the porta potty.  I walk to the beach to see the water.  It’s dark.  I can’t see anything.  It’s windy. I guess it’s about 5:30 AM by this time.  Renate and I have lost Fern and Craig.  We walk around a little bit.  I’m looking for a place to sit.  We settle near the bank of potties outside the transition area.  I didn’t get the “result” I wanted during my first visit, so I go off on an easy jog to try and loosen things up.  I run into Don and Melanie (from our hotel).  They’ve found a pretty good place to sit.  He’s good.  He’s very good.  I chat very briefly and then leave them alone.  I visit the potty again.  Still no luck.  I have visions of Lake Placid last July where I was having the perfect race through eight miles of the run when my body went south.  I had the same issues before that race.  I put those thoughts out of my mind.  Today is another day and another race. Craig has found us and we sit for a bit.  It’s windy.  And we’re kind of in the open so I say that I’m going to look for a place out of the wind.  Craig is sticking around for a little longer.  Renate and I find shelter behind a little building and sit there.  Craig shows up.  We’re here for about 15 to 20 minutes.  It’s now about 6:15 AM.  Race starts for the pros in 45 minutes.  For the rest of us, ten minutes later.  It’s kind of soon, but we start putting on wetsuits.  Maybe thinking that it will keep us warm.  Game faces have been on for awhile, but it seems to get just a little more tense.  We walk to the beach. It’s now light enough that we can see the water.  It’s rough.  And it’s windy.  Should be entertaining.  Still on the early side, but I decide to go stand in the corral.  I kiss Renate, tell her I love her, and that I’ll see her soon.  I stand near the back, kind of off to myself.  It’s still a bit before race time.  Theresa comes over and asks if I’ve seen Patty.  Theresa had forgotten her swim cap and had to go back to her hotel to get it.  Lots of people forgetting lots of things this morning, I guess.  Anyway, I hadn’t seen Patty and everybody looks alike in a wetsuit and swim cap.  I wished her luck and she went off in search.  I watch some of the other goings on in the corral.  Two guys are holding hands, with the other hand outstretched and the palm turned up.  They’re facing the rising sun, praying, I guess.  I mumble a little something to the saints (Stephen and Sebastian) around my neck.  Two girls are dancing, shimmying all over the place.  The sand is cold and I have to pee.  Race time is getting closer. Finally, the horn goes off and the pros get started.  Ten more minutes of waiting for us.  I move a little closer to the start and a little to the right, away from where the real swimmers will be.  Just kind of killing time.  I’m fairly calm.  I know it’s going to be a long day.  Then the horn for our race and it’s time to get started. The Swim – “and the painted pony goes up and down, we’re captive on a carousel of time” This is a beach start so there’s a little walk to get to the water.  It takes me about a minute before I’m in swimmable water.  I look up to sight and I can’t see anything.  The first leg of the swim is directly into the rising sun.  I mean directly.  It’s not super crowded.  Having only about 800 registered racers cuts down on things.  I focus on the people around me, looking up regularly to make sure I still can’t see anything.  I was told to swim right into the sun, and that’s what I’m doing.  I may go blind in the process, if I look up too often, but that’s just another sacrifice.  (Speaking of blind, there were two blind guys doing the race with seeing-eye partners.  They were tethered to their partners for the swim and, probably, the run, and did the bike on tandems.  They both finished and were honored at the awards lunch.) The water is fairly rough and choppy.  We’re sort of traveling in the direction of the wind, so It’s not as bad as it’s going to be.  I can’t see any buoys or any support personnel.  I can see the people right around me and sort of see swimmers in front.  Those are the ones I sight on, figuring when there’s nobody in front then it’s time to make the left hand turn.  (The course is supposed to be a triangle.  The first leg is diagonally away from the shore.  Then a long leg parallel to the shore.  Finishing with a final leg diagonally back to the shore.  The first and third legs are 1000 meters and the middle leg is 1800 meters.)  It takes a while, but we finally reach a buoy.  I didn’t look at my watch so I don’t know how long it took to get here.  I’m guessing that we’re halfway into the first leg. I’m starting to lose my ability to see clearly.  I think my eyes are getting screwed up by looking into the sun so often and that they’ll clear up after we turn away.  I swim like this for about ten minutes.  Then it dawns on me that maybe my goggles are just fogged up.  I stop and clean them out.  Wow.  “I can see clearly now, the sun is up.  I can see all obstacles in my way.”  That’ll be just about enough of that song. Finally, we reach a big buoy together with a little white triangle buoy.  First turn.  I look at my watch.  Thirty-six minutes.  I’m not a strong swimmer, but 1000 meters should be around twenty minutes.  This next leg is supposed to be 1800 meters.  I’m going to be out here a long time.  We’re more or less swimming directly into the wind.  And the resulting waves.  Sighting in the distance is pretty much impossible.  Again, I resign myself to sighting on the people in front and hope they’re going in the proper direction.  I notice people pretty far off to the right.  I assume they’re temporarily misplaced.  I decide to count stokes to give me something to do while I wait to get seasick.  I’ve already consumed enough salt water to last the day.  I’m going up and crashing back down.  Going up and crashing back down.  Ad nauseam.  Every 15 strokes or so I try to see if I can see anything.  Finally I see a buoy in the distance.  I don’t know how many are on this long stretch, but it appears that I’m swimming the proper line.  I don’t bother to look at my watch since I don’t really know where I am and any time I see would just contribute to the general misery.  I have yet to see a kayak.  Up and down.  Up and down. Another buoy appears.  Although, for all I know, I’ve been swimming in place and it’s the same buoy I saw earlier.  Some guy decides to make a hard right turn directly in front of me.  I have no idea where he’s going, although we might be near Cuba.  The result of me slamming on the brakes is a cramp in my right calf and foot.  I thought I’d have had enough salt in my body that I’d be able to avoid cramps.  I guess I needed a banana or something to go along with the salt.  Anyway, now I have a cramp to deal with.  And still no real idea of where I am on the course.  I guess I might as well keep swimming. And, lo and behold, out of the crashing waves appears a buoy and a kayak.  If this were a desert I’d be thinking mirage.  It’s just the same type buoy I’ve seen randomly, but the kayak person is telling us this is the turn.  So, I make the sharp left turn and take a line for shore.  I didn’t bother to look at my watch.  I’m swimming and I’m noticing that people are scattered all over the place.  I don’t see any buoys and I think I’m swimming the correct direction.  More swimming.  The waves are crashing from the right.  Which is, coincidently, the side I turn to breathe.  A little salt water with your oxygen.  Maybe I should take this opportunity to practice breathing on the left.  I stop to get my bearings.  There’s a guy next to me.  I point to what looks like the finish area way, way, way off in the distance.  He says that we have to go further to the right and then back to shore.  I don’t see any buoys anywhere, but most of the swimmers appear to be headed in that direction.  I didn’t think I cut the corner that sharply, but I made a right turn and headed off.  (I heard after the race that the swim course was “adjusted” a bit and the return leg was not a straight line back to shore.)  Finally I see a buoy and, believe it or not, another one off in the distance.  And what I think is the finish line.  Nothing to do now but finish the swim.  I notice a kayak (for all I know the same one I saw earlier) off on the right trying to herd swimmers.  The swimmer in front of me decides it’s time to do a little breaststroking.  I didn’t notice, or expect, this and get a kick to the goggles for my inattention.  A short pause to readjust them.  The beach is there, I can see it, I just don’t seem to be getting to it.  Put my head down and continue swimming. Finally, and I mean finally, I reach shallow water and I can put my feet down.  I stagger ashore, unzipping my wetsuit as I go along.  Over the timing mat.  Ninety minutes and change. I was hoping for 75 minutes.  Renate yells that the swim is about 15 minutes long for everybody.  It certainly was for me.  Trot along for a bit, get my wetsuit stripped, trot some more, get my bike gear bag, trot a little more, put on bike stuff, trot a short distance, pick up Rita, trot a long distance, jump aboard Rita, hit my watch.  Just over five minutes of transition. The Bike – “all we are is dust in the wind” I don’t recall my mental state at the start of the bike ride.  I’m sure I was probably relieved to be done with the swim (my weakest event) and getting myself ready for a long ride.  I was disappointed with the time and I wasn’t feeling 100%, but I knew Ironman is a long day and things go wrong.  And probably everybody was in more or less the same situation as I. The very first part of the bike course goes through town, with lots of screaming spectators.  Then there’s an out and back section to Daniela Beach.  I had heard that this was going to be the most congested part of the course.  It’s a narrow two lane section of road with a 180 degree turnaround at the end.  There are a couple of things I notice.  First is the wind.  It’s windy.  I also see a marking for 2km with a little bike symbol underneath.  I think that if every kilometer of the bike course is going to be marked, they’re going to use up a boatload of yellow paint.  (This section is also part of the run course, and there are kilometer markings for that, as well.)  At the turnaround there are volunteers yelling out bike numbers and other volunteers writing down the yelled numbers on a notepad.  At the pre-race meeting we were told to yell out our numbers, as well.  Renate has beaten into my head that my number in Portuguese is cinco…dois…oito, but if I say it in either English or Spanish, I will probably be understood.  I probably use a combination of all three languages and hope for the best. Around the turnaround and into a nice tailwind.  Well, I guess you don’t go “into” a tailwind, but you get the idea.  There were a number of bikes around, but with fewer than 800 registered competitors, it was less than half the size of other Ironman races.  So there wasn’t, for me, the usual problem of mass congestion at the start of a bike.  I resolved to ride easily, but steadily.  I told myself that I didn’t have to pass everybody in the first 10km of the ride.  The aero position was uncomfortable because of my seawater filled stomach, but not unbearable.  I was taking in a little bit of water to try and dilute the solution.  After about 20 minutes I started taking in calories.  It wasn’t the perfect feeling, but, again, not unbearable. I’m not a big one for noticing scenery or much of anything else on the bike.  It’s kind of a get in a zone and pedal.  Concentrating on the road, how I feel, and the people in front of me.  Trying to stay relaxed and on top of my nutrition.  Trying not to go too hard on the first lap (always my nemesis). After the out and back section at Daniela Beach we ride on a two lane road with wide shoulders.  We get the road, the cars get the shoulder.  It’s disconcerting to have cars pass on the right.  None of the little bridges we come to have shoulders.  So the police (who, from my perspective, did an excellent job) would stop traffic just before the bridge until there was a suitable gap between bikers for some cars to go.  That frequently caused a traffic backup.  And the limited emissions controls contributed to some bad air.  The steadily blowing wind didn’t seem to dissipate the smog any.  I don’t recall any major hills on this section, nor do I recall how long it was. But, after awhile, we merge onto a major divided highway.  We get the left lane, traffic gets the right lane.  Traffic includes big smog spewing buses and trucks moving quickly.  We’re separated by cones.  And then there are draft marshals traveling on motorcycles passing on our left.  (As a side note, I saw exponentially more draft officials on motorcycles during the bike than I saw lifeguard people on kayaks during the swim.)  Did I mention that it was also windy.  Staying aero was a nerve-wracking experience on more than one occasion.  There were some hills, but nothing that I thought to be overly difficult.  Normally.  The wind increased the hill factor by a tad.  And downhill into a headwind is just mean. Anyway, we’re kind of into Florianopolis by this point, right along the Baia Norte (North Bay).  There are whitecaps on the water.  Things a surfer would be happy with.  I guess it’s more of a side wind at this point.  Still annoying and still noisy.  (That’s one of the annoying factors with wind, it’s just so darn loud all the time.  I can hardly hear myself singing bad songs badly.)  Road conditions for the most part were excellent, but in the city there were some small, deep potholes on the right hand edge of our lane.  I vaguely remember three or four lanes in each direction here, so traffic was not a problem.  Not many spectators, either.  Some people out walking around the water, but no real cheering.  Other than from the aid station volunteers.  Who were great.  And plentiful.  And around all the aid stations were little kids pleading, screaming actually, for discarded water bottles.  I didn’t toss any their way on the first lap, figuring there might not be an overabundance of water bottles and some would be necessary for the second lap.  But, on the second lap I would randomly toss one and watch the kids almost break out into fights over them. We make a bit of a right turn, directly into the wind, and head towards the big bridge connecting the island to the mainland.  We do a turnaround before it.  I yell five…dois…ocho and hope somebody writes that down.  A bit of riding towards the University and another turnaround.  Then back on the main highway headed in a northerly direction.  There are random kilometer markings on the road.  And I do mean random.  I’m sure I don’t recall these exactly, but things like 29km and 37km.  The ones I think I liked the best though, were 45km followed immediately by 46km.  (After that it might have been 60km and 80km.  But, again, I don’t recall exactly.) We make a turn off the main highway into a section with a few hills.  It’s going east to start, so a tailwind.  Then, maybe the weirdest part of the course.  We make a sharp right turn.  Go maybe a quarter mile.  Do the 180 degree turnaround.  Ride past where we entered for maybe a half mile.  Do another 180 degree turnaround.  Ride back to the big road and make a sharp right turn onto it.  On the race map it looks like a little handle.  Just a couple more times to yell out my number to the number writers.  After that little section, we’re heading back into the wind and uphill. The rest of the lap I remember as being uneventful.  Mostly because I don’t remember anything about it.  We get back into town and the cheering spectators.  My odometer says 54 miles.  I hit my watch and see 2:41 and change.  I’m pretty surprised about that.  And mildly concerned.  I was wondering if I did my usual of riding the first lap too hard.  I never really felt like I was pushing too much, but I was kind of hoping to be closer to 2:50 for the first lap.  Well, let’s take a positive frame of mind and go out for the second lap. Which, in my humble opinion, was much windier than the first.  Before getting on the main highway, there’s a wide open section with a bunch of toll booths.  There’s an aid station here.  Riding through on the second lap I was actually getting sandblasted.  I wondered how the volunteers were doing, but I didn’t stop to ask.  Later in the ride, when I was on the main highway, I got blown into one of the traffic cones separating us from traffic.  I managed to just hit it with the side of my foot and send it skittering into traffic.  Fortunately, none was around at the time.  I had earlier seen motorcycle marshals stop and rearrange other cones so I figured it would be restored to it’s original position eventually. I tried to keep on top of nutrition.  I did fairly well, although my stomach was bothering me a bit more.  That made it a little uncomfortable in the aero position.  As well as getting to me mentally a little bit.  It was pretty much a grind it out lap.  Just trying to get through it with as little damage as possible.  Ticking off the miles as I went along.  Dealing with that second lap sense of déjà vu all over again.  I didn’t bother calling out my number at the turnarounds.  For the most part, competitors had become widely spaced and I could hear the volunteers calling my number as I went around. Finally, and again I mean finally, it was back into town.  A slightly different route at the end, along the same road as runners.  And there were a lot of them out.  I guess I wasn’t first into transition this time.  Stop at the big yellow line.  Hit my split button.  See a 2:56 and change.  ( I couldn’t do the math at the time, but it ends up being a 5:37:46 bike split.)  Give my bike to a volunteer.  Take off my bike shoes for the trip through transition. And, it was a long walk down to the gear bags.  Randy, our bike mechanic, asks me how I’m doing.  I’m not very upbeat.  The outside of my right foot was killing me for some reason.  Something new for me.  My stomach was bothering me.  I was thirty minutes behind where I wanted to be.  I was not dealing well mentally with the situation.  And I had a marathon to get through.  Somehow.  Someway. I get my gear bag from the volunteer and stroll into the change tent.  I dump everything on the ground and look at it.  Bummer.  I remembered to put my running shoes in the bag.  There goes that excuse.  Actually, I’m exaggerating a bit.  I was, indeed, a little fried, but I had no intentions of not doing the run to the best of my ability.  I changed my socks.  The guy stuffing things back in the bag for me commented on the little winged feet on my running socks.  He told me I was going to fly through the run.  If only . . .  I change my shirt and pick up my fuel belt.  And then hop into the porta-potty to try and get rid of some things. Just a lot of gas which I should have saved for propulsion on the run.  But, I was feeling just a tad better.  I made it to the timing mat for the start of the run, punched my watch (a nice 10:25 second transition) and started on the third leg of today’s journey. The Run – “the road goes on forever and the party never ends” My goal at the start of the day was to run a 3:30 marathon.  Heading out on the run I knew that would get me a sub eleven hour finish.  I knew a 3:30 marathon was basically five minutes per kilometer.  Let’s give it a go and see what happens. The run starts of with about a three kilometer total out and back section.  There’s an aid station at the turnaround.  I grab some water.  It’s in a little cup safety sealed for my protection.  I can’t pull back the piece of foil protecting the water from me.  I try pulling with my teeth.  I think I’m going to die of thirst if I can’t open any water containers for the whole run.  A volunteer sees me struggling.  He puts a hole in the foil with his finger.  Now, why didn’t I think of that.  Probably because it’s going on eight hours and I’ve lost what little brain function I started the day with.  (Which was limited to begin with, as Renate would say.)  At least now I know that I’ll be able to drink during the run. All the run kilometers are marked and I glance at my watch as I go.  I’m going to take actual splits at each 5km, but it’s good for me to know my pace.  The first couple are right under five minutes.  Hot damn!  And I’m actually feeling decent.  We go past the transition area.  I hear, but don’t see, Renate.  I have my gel flask and my plan is to take a good healthy hit every four kilometers.  The first swig tastes pretty good.  I wash it down with some water.  At this point we’re on the same out and back to Daniela Beach that we did on the bike.  But now there’s traffic.  Runners on both sides of the road and traffic going in both directions.  Fortunately, the traffic is kind of limited, but a big bus is a big bus nonetheless.  And it generates big smog. I take a split at the 5km mark.  24:14.  I can even do the math.  It’s about a 4:50 per kilometer pace.  That would have surprised the crap out of me, but, as I found out in T2, I didn’t have any in me.  And I’m really feeling pretty good.  No unusual aches and pains.  My stomach is still bothering me a bit, but it doesn’t seem to be hindering my pace any.  Maybe it’s time to start racing my fellow Dragons. There were two other members of the Downingtown At Dawn Triathlon Club here, Fern and Craig.  I figured they were both up by about 30 minutes on me after the swim, since both of them know how and I don’t.  I expected Craig to maintain that gap as we’re similar on the bike.  I was reasonably surprised that I hadn’t caught Fern on the bike.  I remember thinking that she must be having a killer day.  Little did I know that she was. And now I deviate from my report for just a bit.  Fern is an excellent swimmer and had gotten in the lead pack of amateurs right from the beginning.  There were no kayaks or support people with this lead pack and they ended up making a wrong turn.  The group made the turn back to shore at what they thought was the next turn buoy.  Fern and the others in the group, almost 20 all together I was told, hit the timing mat in about 33 minutes.  Quite a swim.  Heck, they even beat the pros who had a ten minute head start.  (You may remember that I hit the turn buoy in about 36 minutes.)  She knew that her day was over, but she went out and finished the entire race anyway.  She actually had the ESPN cameras on her for the first bit of the bike ride.  And Minnesota Rod, who we met at our hotel during the week, was in the same swim group and was the lead male on the course for awhile.  As he would say, “gnarly, dude” and then do something strange with his hand.  Something else strange was that there were some swimmers who also finished the swim obscenely early, but were sent back into the water.  From Renate’s point of view on shore, it looked like they went out to the buoy and treaded water until some other swimmers arrived and then came back in.  I give Fern a tremendous amount of credit for finishing the bike and the run knowing that she was “disqualficado”.  So, anyway, that’s why I didn’t catch her on the bike.  She actually had an hour on me after the swim. Now, back to my story.  I’ve gotten my 10km split (23:05) and I’m pretty stunned.  I remember wondering if maybe the course is miss-marked.  I can’t be running this well.  I’m chugging back into town.  And for some unknown reason, a spectating girl on a bike just standing there, decides to put it in gear and pedal right in front of me.  I’m literally on top of her.  I put my hands on her and try and push myself to the side.  She mumbles something in Portuguese and does a dead stop.  Then she wants to back up.  The whole thing doesn’t take long, but it seems to.  I finally get clear and take a second or two to make sure my legs aren’t going to cramp up after the little bit of jig-stepping I just did.  Fortunately there are no problems and I’m able to resume running at my original pace.  I make the right turn past the cheering spectators, again hearing but not seeing Renate, and head out for the main portion of the run. We go out from about 12km to a little over 23km.  Then there’s a little three kilometer loop that we called the lollipop.  At least I called it that.  People would look at me strangely, but I was used to those looks.  Then the run goes back over the same course from about 27km to 38 km.  I figured if I didn’t see Craig during this main out and back section that he would be in the lollipop and, therefore, just a few km in front of me.  Then I knew I could catch him.  But, I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Between about 13km and 15km are some nasty hills.  One is particularly nasty.  When we were taking the shuttle from the airport to the hotel at the beginning of the trip we saw it for the first time.  It’s basically straight up.  Not overly long, just the steepest thing I’ve ever run.  Actually walked, since I didn’t want to kill myself running up it.  When my split time for the 11km to 15km section (which included the big hills) was 24:29 I kind of thought that maybe I’d have a good day after all.  Now it was an eight kilometer cruise to the lollipop.  Hoping not to see Craig coming back and wondering where the hell Fern was. Another five kilometer split, this time it was 24:45.  Things are going way too well.  I glanced at my watch at the 21km mark, halfway through the marathon.  It read just over nine hours.  I was still, surprisingly, able to do some math and I calculated that I had done about a 1:41 half marathon.  Figuring the normal, for me, slowdown, I still had a reasonable shot at sub eleven hours. Then I saw Craig.  It was the 22km mark for me and the 28km mark for him.  He was six kilometers ahead and he only had 14 to go.  For some reason that I can’t explain that took the wind out of my sails, so to speak.  And things started to snowball downhill.  At the beginning of the lollipop are a couple of easy to moderate hills.  I did some walking here.  Either my stomach started bothering me more, or I suddenly became aware of it when I lost focus.  I was having a little difficulty with my nutrition.  It was the beginning of the death march to the finish line. Special needs for the run was towards the end of the lollipop, at about the 26km mark.  As, it seemed, was half the local beach, having blown across the road during the day.  I took my extra gel flask hoping that I would somehow find a way to get it into my system during the last 16km.  And now we were running back into the wind.  It didn’t register at the time, but the tailwind while running in an easterly direction on the way out probably helped with my 5km splits.  I don’t recall the wind as being a major factor for my run.  I do remember it as being helpful as far as keeping me cool. Also on the back side of the lollipop, the sun starts to disappear behind the buildings.  It’s still plenty light out, but I take off my sunglasses and carry them.  So, I have my gel flask and sunglasses in one hand and, often, a cup of water in the other.  I mention this to bring up something else I want to comment on.  The aid station volunteers on the run were very aggressive as far as giving things out.  They would descend like locusts on anyone entering “the zone”, thrusting their offerings almost violently in our direction.  Gatorade, coke, agua, bananas, and assorted other stuff.  It didn’t matter that my hands were full.  I was expected to take something.  And, heaven forbid, that I started walking while consuming some of the stuff.  Guys would get right on top of me and yell something in Portuguese that I couldn’t understand, but took to be “run you weenie”.  I really don’t want this to seem negative.  The volunteers were very enthusiastic.  It was just that it was 9.5 hours into the day and I was a tad fried and feeling less than perfect.  I didn’t want to have to run the gauntlet when I didn’t need anything. And, now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.  One of my, many, Ironman difficulties is my inability to run slow or to walk fast.  I seem to have one general gear for running, right around the 5:00 per kilometer range, plus or minus a little bit (which is right around 8:00 per mile pace).  And I have one gear for walking, super slow.  And I’m kind of doing a mixture of both.  Then, up in the distance, I see “Zolina” on the back of a shirt.  Finally a Fern sighting.  This is about the 30km mark.  Man, she’s having a great day.  I catch up to her and tell her so.  Then she says that she is “disqualificado” and she describes her swim adventures a little bit and that she did the whole bike ride before being “officially” told and that she decided to do the marathon because that’s what she signed up to do.  I told her I’d buy her a beer for her efforts and I headed off towards the finish line. There’s a little over ten kilometers to go, and I realize that sub eleven just isn’t going to happen today.  I had told myself on the bike that the swim probably added 15 minutes to my day and the bike did the same.  I thought I was in 10:30 shape coming into Brazil, but a 10:45 would still be a PR.  That sort of meant to me that if I did 11:15 or less it would be a pseudo-PR.  So even though I wasn’t going to break eleven hours I could still beat 11:15 and that became my goal for the last bit of the run.  And then I got to the two kilometer hilly section.  Which meant a bit of walking.  I didn’t actually walk down the super steep hill, but it wasn’t a real run, either.  I am a fairly good downhill runner, but on this hill at this stage of the day, I didn’t want to risk face-planting.  So I kind of shuffled down. It’s dark now, but the streetlights make it bright.  No glow sticks necessary.  Before I know it, I’m back into town with cheering spectators.  This is the 39km mark.  The finish line is on the left.  Right there.  I can see it.  But, as a cruel twist, I have to do the three kilometer out and back that started the run.  It’s not as bad as it might have been.  I pass somebody in my age group.  I make sure to keep up the pace when I hear him trying to keep up.  He doesn’t.  A small victory.  Through the last aid station.  And there are less than two kilometers to go. Finally, yes it’s finally final, I run through the finish chute of about 150 meters.  Touching hands with the kids lining both sides.  I see the clock turn over to 11:10.  I cross the timing mat.  I see the photographer fumbling with his camera.  I stop and wait for my picture.  I’m done.  The results on the Internet say I actually finished in 11:09:53, with a 3:45:44 marathon.  That meant my back half was about  2:05.  I get my medal and t-shirt.  Somebody asks how I feel.  I’m fairly disappointed, but I’m fine.  I don’t want a massage.  Food would be fine.  I’m forcefully led by my elbow to the food section.  The guy wants me to sit down.  I don’t want to.  He gives me some water.  I don’t want any.  I insist that I’m fine and he leaves.  A girl asks if I’d like some soup.  You know, that sounds good.  She’s back very quickly with a cup of soup.  She gets me a coke.  “I’m really fine, I can take care of myself, thank you.”  I finish my soup and get another coke. This was my tenth Ironman.  And I would say the conditions were the worst of any.  Although for only the third time that I can remember, it didn’t rain.  I heard later that the wind gusts were up to 50 mph.  But, to me, it was the unrelenting nature of the wind.  Continuous and hard for the duration of the race.  But, I’m done, I’ve survived and I’m ready for the next one.  I suppose I should try and find Renate. Turn Out The Lights, The Race Is Over We get together near the massage tent.  Little Craigie is getting a massage.  Renate gets my dry clothes bag from Ken’s Endurance Sports Travel group.  Actually, his daughter.  I find a chair and start getting changed.  Fern arrives.  She says she’s fine, but I can tell she’s a little bummed.  Sherpa Renate gets Ferns clothes then goes off in search of beer and returns with four bottles.  Cheers, or whatever they say in Brazil.  Little Craigie has disappeared.  Minnesota Rod shows up looking fresh as a daisy.  He didn’t do the run.  Which might have been a good thing since he had a bit of a hip injury.  He gets Craig’s beer.  Sympathy beer, we joke.  He seems to be doing fine with his “disqualificado”.  “Gnarly, dude.” I’m semi-hungry and I want some more beer.  Renate and I decide to head back to the hotel.  The long hike back to the transition area to get my gear bags and Rita.  (I had kept two Ironman Brazil water bottles at the end of the bike ride and they were left on Rita.  When I got back to my bike to leave, someone had decided that I only needed one and had taken the other.  Inconsequential, I suppose, but not very nice.)  Then the wait for the shuttle back to the hotel.  Driving along the run course.  I don’t recall seeing anyone on their way out.  And, truth be told, I don’t remember much else about the night.  I’m sure I had a shower.  I vaguely remember eating mashed potatoes and fish stick type things.  I had a couple of beers.  I don’t know if we talked with anybody.  And then to bed.  As far as I know, the post-race party in Fern’s room didn’t happen. The Day After – “welcome back my friends to the show that never ends” I get up at 6 AM, just because I can’t sleep any more.  I dump out my gear bags and take my wetsuit into the shower with me.  Later, it’s breakfast and chatting and then time to head to the roll down meeting.  Renate had checked results on the Internet and found that I placed 18th in my age group.  There were five slots for Hawaii.  I didn’t expect to see one, but you never know.  So we went to roll down. Which was supposed to start at exactly 9 AM.  There were some problems.  We go shopping for more Ironman Brazil things.  We come back.  Today is as windy as yesterday was.  And it’s cold in the shade.  But everybody is hanging around.  Then the process begins.  At Brazil, unlike other races I’ve done, there is no two hour window at the beginning of the day for people that would automatically get the slot to sign up.  Here everything starts at once.  They start with the girls.  And the lowest age group, 18 to 24.  And they call the first place finisher.  If she isn’t present, or she doesn’t want the slot, they call the second place finisher.  And down the list until all the slots for a particular age group have been awarded.  Then on to the next age group.  The females pretty much just had one slot per age group.  One of our friends, Patty, had finished third in her group.  She was on pins and needles.  She knew the first place girl wasn’t going to take the slot.  The second place girl was the wild card.  That name is called.  Nobody answers.  Patty’s name is called.  Shrieks.  She’s going to Hawaii.  Congratulations, Patty.  The girls are finished.  Now it’s on to the guys. Craig was 35th in his age group so he didn’t have a chance.  We’re not paying a whole lot of attention until they get to my age group.  And let me diverge for just a second.  There are two halves to the place where the roll down meeting is being held.  All the officials are on one side and the hopefuls are on the other.  There is a floor to ceiling chain link fence separating the halves.  We called the other side “the cage”.  When your name was called you got to go into the cage.  The goal was to get in the cage.  I made it into the cage for about a minute.  Which, I suppose, calls for a bit of explanation. The Brazilian race director is calling names for my age group.  I need a boatload of no-shows.  First person called.  No answer.  Second person called.  Again, no answer.  Things are improving.  Third name called.  No answer.  The name, like the previous ones, is repeated.  Craig is sure they’re calling my name.  I was 18th, not 3rd.  The guy says Estados Unidos.  Everybody yells for Ken to come over and read the name.  He says “Steve Noone”.  Ok.  I know there’s something wrong.  I walk up and tell them I was 18th.  Ken shakes my hand and asks if I have the money (you needed $407 in US cash or traveler’s checks).  I said I did and I get in line.  I’m in the cage.  My head is spinning.  The thought that the first 15 in my age group were somehow “disqualificado” comes to me.  I really don’t know what to think.  They call two more names in the age group.  One is present and joins me in the cage.  Then some guy who actually finished in the top five wonders why his name has not been called.  The officials confer.  I know my cage time is going to be very short.  I know I’m an imposter.  I try to hide.  No luck.  The first 15 names for my age group were at the bottom of the page of the previous age group.  The guy reading names started at the top of the next page, with 16th place.  So, I came in 3rd place on my page, but not quite good enough to stay in the cage.  I left gracefully.  My moment of fame was over. And that pretty much sums up Ironman Brazil. Epilogue – And you thought this would never end This has pretty much gone on longer than the race, but I want to share a few more notes and some acknowledgements. First and foremost, obviously, thanks and love to my beautiful wife, Renate.  Even if she didn’t want to go dancing Sunday night.  Her Sherpa abilities are unmatched.  I think she ended up knowing and cheering for 15 of us.  Calling out names when she could remember them and states if she couldn’t.  “Go Tennessee!” Ken Glah and his entire Endurance Sports Travel group did an amazing job.  Sure, there were hitches and things that didn’t go just right, but from the time we were picked up at the airport when we arrived in Florianopolis until we were dropped off ten days later everything was done to the best of their abilities.  I would highly recommend Ken and his travel group to anyone contemplating doing Ironman Brazil in the future. It was great to meet some Tri-Deads and, as they say, put faces to names.  I met Cathy and Bill Taylor on the shuttle from the airport the first day. Renate and I spent quite a bit of time talking with Cathy and Bill at breakfast and dinner at the hotel.  I met John Faith a little later.  And Steve Blum at the pre-race meeting.  I had actually seen Steve in the Sao Paulo airport on the way down and he was on the same plane to Florianopolis, but, as he was engaged in conversation with someone else, I didn’t talk to him.  Cathy had a good comment after she finished the swim (in 2:13:02).  She said to Renate, “that was just awful”.  I pretty much said the same thing to myself after the swim, but I used a few choice adjectives. Craig and Fern from the Downingtown At Dawn Triathlon Club were kind enough not to lose me on our pre-race swims.  Fern even hit me a few times to get me used to the violence of the swim start.  Hmm.  I wonder if that’s how I got the hole in my wetsuit.  On one of the morning swims I noticed I had a little hole in my suit at my butt.  I couldn’t tell how large it was so I would bend over and Fern, Craig and Renate would take turns looking at my butt.  They assured me the hole wasn’t large.  And it’s location was not going to affect my swimming.  I got a piece of duct tape from Randy the bike mechanic and used that to good success.  I was bummed that it was a piece of black tape.  I wanted the silver duct tape.  If I was going to put duct tape on my wetsuit, I wanted everybody to know. Don and Melanie, Nat and Sherri, Mike, Lee from Maui, Minnesota Rod and all the others at our hotel that we spent time with.  This was the most “social” Ironman for me.  I especially enjoyed talking with Don and hearing his ideas on training and racing.  By the way, Don (and Stuart if you’re reading), Renate says that I can sign up for Ultraman if I can do an Ironman swim in under 65 minutes. The last Hawaii slot for my age group ended up at 10th place.  I missed by about thirty minutes.  Now, it’s on to Lake Placid.  And, I guess, that’s finally it.  Hope you’ve somewhat enjoyed my report. Miscellaneous Recollections and Remembrances Number One Monday (5/19) at lunchtime I did an easy bike ride.  I rode the run course from the 15km mark out around the little 23.5km to 26.5 km loop (which I did three times) and then back to the 35km mark.  I was on my way back, maybe about the 32km mark when I was passed by this third world pickup truck.  You know, the type with all kinds of things thrown in the back and tied down with flimsy string.  No problem.  Except the driver slows down and the passenger is waving out the window for me to come up alongside.  Now, this was a two lane road with no shoulders and a fair amount of traffic.  And some local is waving for me.  And he’s holding something out the window.  I get next to him and see it’s a little photo album and the picture he’s showing is a bunch of tri-bikes leaned against the wall.  There was no intersection between my Portuguese and his English so I had no idea what he was talking about.  Maybe they were for sale.  Meanwhile, I’m trying to ride on the little strip of white paint separating the road from the dirt.  And there are lots of cars and trucks stacking up behind us.  And we’re coming to a traffic circle.  I ended up riding in the dirt for a bit until things cleared out and I could finish my ride.  Welcome to pre-race bike training in Brazil. Number Two It’s three days ride from Bakersfield and I don’t know why I came.  I guess I came to keep from payin’ dues. So instead I’ve got a bottle and a girl who’s just fourteen.  And a damn good case of the Mexicali Blues.  Da do doot . . . da do doot . . . da do do do do do doot doot Little Craigie and I were doing an easy training ride on Wednesday (5/21).  We did the same loop that I had done on Monday, but we only did the lollipop twice.  While we were riding we saw lots of guys with birds in cages.  Guys walking with birds.  Guys riding bikes with birds.  Guys riding motorcycles with birds.  They looked like little, tiny birds.  Were was Alfred Hitchcock?  We came to the conclusion that this was the “canary in the mineshaft” early warning system.  When the birds keeled over, it was time to leave the island. Cherish well your thoughts, keep a tight grip on your booze, ‘cause thinkin’ and drinkin’ are all I have today.  Da do doot . . . da do doot . . . da do do do do do doot doot On that same ride we saw a bull in a field.  Big bull.  Big horns.  Actually I called it a cow.  Craig asked if I was sure.  I told him that I didn’t look that closely to see if it was a bull or a cow.  On race day, with all the runners going by, the cow/bull was tied up.  Craig didn’t even notice. She said her name was Billy Jean and she was fresh in town.  I didn’t know a stage line ran from Hell. She had raven hair, a ruffled dress, a necklace made of gold.  And all the French perfume you’d care to smell.  Da do doot . . . da do doot . . . da do do do do do doot doot Now, you’re probably wondering why the song lyrics interspersed.  I was singing, well, singing is not the true description, this song, Mexicali Blues from the Grateful Dead, to Craig.  Just to give him something to think about.  I told him that when I passed him on the run during Ironman I would give him the horn chorus (da do doot . . . da do doot . . . da do do do do do doot doot).  I didn’t catch him so I didn’t have the opportunity to da do doot . . . Number Three It’s Sunday (5/25), the day after the race, and after the roll down meeting.  I have some time to kill, so I start taking Rita apart and putting her in the bike box.  I remember Bill Taylor mentioning that the Indy 500 is on channel something-or-other.  I turn on the TV and start surfing.  I find it.  There are about 15 laps to go.  It’s in Portuguese.  I don’t understand a thing.  I turn up the volume.  Now the announcers are yelling at me.  I still can’t understand a thing, but I feel better.  I continue working on my bike.  Suddenly, the announcers are getting all excited.  I look up.  There’s a car going down the track wheels side up.  Funny.  A car crash sounds just about the same in Portuguese as it does in English.  I sit down to watch the last ten laps.  Gil de Ferran beats Helio Castroneuvas, a Brazilian.  There’s an interview with Roger Penske, team owner.  It’s in English.  I turn the volume down.  I open another beer and go back to putting Rita away.

Thanks, everybody, for reading.  Hope you had a good time. Return to Noone's Saloone & Golf Club.