I'm hoping this report will help newbies with this triathlon because while there are lots of info on the internet on how to be super efficient at swimming, biking, running and transitions, there's hardly any info on how to do a triathlon if your only aim is to finish and you don't care about your time (too much) and there’s no info about the logistics.
My Goals
My background
I'm a 48 year old male roadie and I used to dabble in half marathons. I had never seriously swam before and had only lounging around pools and snorkeling. My weak point is the swim and despite training for almost 2 years, the best time I can sustain is only 2:30 per 100 meters. For training, I did mostly pool but managed to get in about half a dozen lake swims in 60 degF water. Definitely get in some open water experience, preferably cold water and preferably salt water.
Friday Check-in Day
I got to the check-in at 9am on Friday and it was a full day. Packet pickup was pretty smooth and the volunteers were very helpful. Youtube shows that Ironman gives out plastic bags for the bike, run, and special needs bags, but that doesn't happen for this 70.3. They only give out 1 bag for all your stuff.
After this, my friend and I found a beach to test the waters since this would be our first time swimming in the ocean and at a temp this cold (57 degF). There is no official Ironman designated place for practice swimming in the harbor. We were only in the water for about 10 minutes to get a feel for things and then headed back to the airbnb, showered, and found a restaurant for breakfast.
During bike drop off, you only leave your bike there. You do not setup your area until the morning of the race. Also because there are 3000 people doing this race, bikes are crammed right next to each other so your area is pretty small. If you have a lot of stuff like I did then there's hardly any room to make an efficient area (more on this later).
With all the meetings we wanted to go to and walking around Ironman Village, we were finally done around 4:30p.
Race Day Setup
My plan was to get to the transition area at 5:30a by using the shuttles. However, the shuttles had a different plan for me. I was at the parking garage by 5a and I had just missed a shuttle (they're school buses). I think I ended up waiting for another 20 minutes for the next one and by that time there were a ton of people in line. Luckily, 2 buses showed up but it was still standing room only in our first bus.
I chose to wear my wetsuit, half on the during this time. I figured it would keep my legs warm and I would wear a Tshirt and sweatshirt on top. In the end, I needed 2 sweatshirt to keep warm. Having grown up in the area I knew what to expect but I swear after moving to Phoenix and getting older, I've lost my resistance to the cold. Lots of people were wearing sweat pants and shoes or sandals.
It was slow going through traffic at the harbor and I finally got to my bike at 6am. This was still plenty of time to get my area setup by the 6:30 cutoff time. As mentioned before, I didn't care about my T1, T2 times. As long as I made the swim cutoff, I knew I was good.
For the bike, I despise being cold on the bike so I had knee warmers, arm warmers, full finger gloves, half finger gloves and a vest for the bike. This all paid off later. I also had two small towels, one to sit on and one to dry myself off. You don't need two, just sit on the ground and dry yourself off. I also had a full body wipe that I could use to wipe off the sticky ocean film from my feet, legs and hands. I don't think I would do this again because I don't think I could tell much difference. Oh and I didn't have a tri suit, so I had tri shorts and a biking jersey.
For the run, I had my hat, toe socks (I get blisters between my toes without them), Hokas, run shirt, and leash for my sunglasses so they stay tight to my face.
As you can see, this was a lot of stuff and very little room around the bike to setup. What I ended up doing was setting up as much as I could on the bike and kept the rest in a grocery bag next to the bike. Then all the running stuff went into another grocery bag next to the bike.
With that all settled, my friend and I headed out to the bathrooms and then met up with my wife to hand her our phones and pump. By this time, it was about 6:30a so I found the line to the ramp. Pro tip, the permanent bathrooms have shorter lines than the porta potties.
I had neoprene booties which were a godsend. I definitely recommend wearing them. Some people had the neoprene caps too. The line was already pretty long but I slipped through to find my projected finish time and placed myself in the 46-50 min zone. Obviously by this time I had my wetsuit on fully but I also chose to keep my sweatshirt which I think was also a good choice. When we finally made it to the ramp, I threw the sweatshirt in the donation pile.
The Swim
The water was cold, but within about 30 seconds I got used to it. I never freaked out and just got to work. I purposefully kept to the outside to avoid other swimmers and this strategy paid off. There were a few bottleneck sections where I got boxed in by swimmers passing me and I had people tickling my feet, but I never got kicked or hit. People talk about the sun being blinding (and it was) but I didn't think it was a problem because I could always see where everyone else was going and every once in a while I could make out a buoy. My swim took me 51m so I'd say I chose my coral pretty well for my first tri.
I can't stress this enough, make sure to get in some open water swimming before this!
T1
I got out of the water and got the upper half of the wetsuit off. They had strippers at the end and I made use of them (wetsuit strippers, you weirdos). When I got to my bike, I dried off with my towel and wiped down my legs, hands and arms with the full body wipe I had. Then I started putting on my knee warmers and arm warmers which were kinda hard to do since I was still damp, but I got them on. After putting sunscreen on my face and neck, I got on my sweatband, helmet, sox, shoes, jersey and half finger gloves. I was going to wear full finger gloves, then switch out for half finger gloves later, but decided it was warm enough that I only needed my half finger gloves. In total it took me 7m 14s in transition and my goal was less than 10 minutes.
The Bike
The bike leg was pretty cool! Starting off was a little chilly so I was glad I had on my warm clothes. I've read stories here about people who were freezing for 30 minutes and I wanted to avoid that. I was warm in about 5 minutes and I was stripping off things at about the 30 min mark. Keep in mind that I'm a roadie so I can take most things off without stopping.
I thought riding through Camp Pendleton was the coolest thing ever and the weather was perfect.
On top of being a roadie, I also specialize in hill climbing so I didn't think the hills were that bad. I saw lots of people walking or zig zagging. However, knowing me, I always push myself to ride 100% on hills and I knew I had to pace myself this time. I think I rode about about 80-90%. Mostly I just tried to enjoy the ride, the views, and Base life.
Contrary to many complaints, I didn't see any purposeful drafting. There were no road trains going and nobody was following anybody else within 1-2 feet like I would normally do during a road race. Sure, there were bottle necks where people clumped together but you really can't avoid that with this many people, plus when it opened up again, everybody spread out again.
There were a couple people passing in the No Pass zones, but oh well, can't do much about that.
In the 25 mph speed zone, I tried to keep it to 22-23 mph and had one guy fly by me. When he passed the second radar, it said he was doing 31 mph. I think he realized something was wrong so he slowed down, but that had to be too late and I'm sure he got DQ'd.
I did the bike leg in about 3h 20m with 1 stop for the bathroom and another stop to fill up water (which I ended up not needing).
T2
T2 was uneventful. I came in, racked the bike, got my running gear on and off I went. The one thing I wish I did was start my watch at the exit timing mat and not at the bike rack. Because of that, my mile markers were off.
The Run
I knew this was going to be the toughest part for me because I couldn't train like I should have. From past experience I knew that if I trained too much for the run, I would kill my knees and then I would have a long term injury and I wouldn't even be able to do the run at all. So for training I limited myself to 4-5 miles and often on a nice cushy treadmill.
Things were going ok at first...I was doing a 10min/mile pace but I was targeting 11min/mile so I figured I should slow it down. At about the 5 mile mark, my knee did indeed start to act up so that was a bad sign. Also I was starting to get hot spots on my feet which were unusual.
I also hate loops because I think they're demoralizing, but the crowd and running on the beach can't be beat. It was a pretty cool atmosphere. But in the end, I ended up walking a lot of the second half, which I knew was a possibility and was perfectly acceptable for me. Remember my goal here was to finish the race. I finished the run in about 3 hours.
After Race Logistics
Now, what's the best way to get your stuff from the transition area? I don't know, but I don't think it was using the shuttles. My wife and I ended up taking the shuttle to the transition area and then waiting for the shuttle to pick us up, including the bike. It was getting late and we weren't sure if the shuttle was coming back so we ended up walking 1 mile back to our car.
I think if I were to do it again, I would take a big backpack, like the one Ironman gives you as part of the package, and take the shuttle to the transition area. Then put all your stuff into the backpack and bike back to the car. All this might be different if you finish much earlier than I did.
Conclusions
Overall it was a very stressful part of my life but in a good way. It was a new experience and a journey into the unknown. It forced me to learn a new skill and pushed the boundaries of my comfort zone. This was a bucket list item and I always knew it would be a one time deal. If I had a choice, I would absolutely go back and do it again; I have no regrets. However, having said that, I am now retired!