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Ironman Florida Race Report – 11/7/09
Jeff Caplan
At the end of a long distance race, it is usually pretty easy to come up with a list of what went right and what did not at the end of the day. This race definitely fell into that category:
The Good News:
- Finished my 11th Ironman in my second fastest time (12:22).
- PR’d the bike (5:20). There are other great bike setups out there, but I have a hard time picturing how anything could work better for me on race day than my Cervelo P2C, Zipp 606 wheelset, and Giro Advantage aero helmet.
- New nutritional plan worked well – slightly less calories, and kept focus on the plan.
- Had a great weekend with friends in PCB, and all of the friends who were first-timers did AWESOME.
- Got cheered on by the all3sports.com tent (Morgan, Marc and Alex made me feel like a superstar!)
- Saw a school of a dozen stingrays on the swim (very cool “Wild Kingdom: moment).
Things that could have gone better:
- Doing an Ironman race with a sinus infection can lead to a very long and unpleasant day. There were literally no points in time during the race that I felt well, and a larger percentage of the time I felt outright lousy.
- I love Ironman Florida, but the new transition layout definitely takes more time to navigate than the old transition area.
- The conditions were much more like ‘traditional’ Florida conditions than last years’ PR weather. This year featured warm and windy conditions on the bike with a choppy swim. However it did lead to perfect temps for the run.
This season had its ups and downs, but I had a lot of fun at the races and turned in (for me) some performances of which I was proud. The support I got from all3sports along the way was amazing, and in some cases it literally meant the difference between doing and not doing a race. In particular I wanted to send a huge thanks to Greg and Bill for their willingness to lend that last minute mechanical assistance that I always seem to need. When I got to races like Ironman Florida or Lake Placid and wear the all3sports colors, I always have someone come up to me and share a story about the great experience that they had with all3sports – I couldn’t agree more!
Written by Alex Poon
So after years of going down to yell and scream for the racers of Ironman Florida, I’ve decided to write my own race report. Warning: This is a bit long. For those who don’t want to read it, I’ll summarize: To the customers of of all3sports, thank you for allowing me to be a part of your racing.
The plan is always to leave Thursday morning, early, so that I can get down to PCB before dark and actually get checked into the Gulf Crest Condos, unloaded and have some dinner. As always, something always breaks with one of the computers about 10 minutes before I need to leave and that sets me back by about 1-2 hours. All in all, the drive down is not bad and I get there with some light in the sky. Rudy and Lauren C. showed up and then Morgan shortly after and we all went to dinner. This year I decided that I would actually do some training and brought bike and trainer. Unfortunately, I ate too much at dinner and almost lost it on the trainer ride I did on the balcony. Tip #1, don’t do one of Coach Dan’s workouts on a full stomach. Read the rest of this entry »
First of all, congrats to all the racers who competed and completed the race. We saw many old friends and made some new ones as well.
Cheers to Laura Sophiea, Kevin Moats, Lauren Cortjens, and Jeff Caplan.
Laura and Kevin came off of strong finishes at Kona World Championships to recover at Florida. Are you kidding?!? These guys dominated the course and both won their Age Groups in outstanding fashion. Kevin missed a sub 10 hour race time by only 6 seconds, at 10:00:05. Laura dominated her Age Group from the start, having the fastest swim, bike, and run in her division and finishing with a 10:27:25. This earns her another trip to Kona.
Some interesting facts on the race and these two athletes:
Out of 2423 participants -
| |
Laura |
Kevin |
| Placing Overall |
252 |
160 |
| Swim Placing Overall |
221 |
98 |
| Bike Placing Overall |
383 |
83 |
| Run Placing Overall |
332 |
296 |
Lauren and Jeff did some very fine racing of their own. Lauren’s first 140.6 distance race - 11:13:17, 9th in Age Group. Jeff almost PR’s this race, 12:22:09, after doing a PR at South Carolina Half.
Great job guys!
Check out the non-racer’s race report below.
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