Ironman Florida from the all3sports corner of Surf Drive

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.

The plan for Friday, is usually pretty similar every year: do some workout in the morning, get breakfast, head to the expo, lunch, relax, dinner, and then setup the tents to stake our claim on the first turn of the run course at about mile 1. This year did not really go as planned and not just for us. After a morning ride, I don’t even remember eating breakfast, I get a strange call from Chance at Blue Competition Cycles. He is down here to compete and I figure we just needed to talk about work or tie some stuff up. As we are now the Official Online Retailer for their bikes and we had some down for demo rides, maybe someone wanted to try one. Anyway, he calls me and says there is a problem. One of his friends called him and their friend’s bike fell off of their car and won’t be able to race. Luckily, we had brought down the one sized Small demo bike we had in the fleet. So no relaxing this year. After several phone calls to organize a meeting, I finally get to see the damage on the bike. It was the weirdest thing. The bike looks completely new, but then you move the bento box over the top tube has a big crack in it. No way it can be ridden in the race. So after a “fitting” session, where I didn’t have any of the correct tools for fitting, I let the bike go and hope that everything will be ok.

Now I stress out every year anyway (will the tents fly away, did I get the right music for the mix, will our team race well, etc.), but this year I have someone on a bike that I had to tune up to a set of race wheels and I just “fit”, 1 hour before check-in closes for the transition area. Let me tell you, dinner did not sit too well this night. So after dinner, Rudy helps me setup the tents and more stress worrying whether some drunk PCB locals will tear them apart or steal them. To try and forget I went out with a bunch of the guys for a drink (this part I will leave out).

So race morning comes around and I miss swim start. Dang it… I hate missing swim start. Oh well, time to see if the tents are still there. Luckily they are and I go to find Morgan who has gone to the swim start to cheer for everyone. I find her with Todd Gollnick from Revolution 3 Triathlon series and Heather Gollnick’s husband. We set out for some Starbuck’s, after wading through bike traffic and seeing Laura Sophiea ride past us and Brett from Team EC, we spend what seems like hours trying to get to Starbuck’s. Ahhh iPhone Navigation.

So after breakfast, it is back to the tent to setup. All the usual folks are setting up too. The closer to the first turn are there again with their microphones and loudspeakers. Damn, this year they are louder than before. Oh well, hopefully my IMFL “inspirational” music mix will hold up. Now if you don’t know me, you would think this is crazy, but I take extreme pride in building a music list for this race and Gulf Coast. I spend about a week looking for music that is upbeat and inspirational (depends on your definition of inspirational) and when there is another group that is louder than my setup it kinda irritates me, plus they have microphones connected so it means we’ll just have to yell louder.

So the day is going like any other typical IMFL, the pro’s start coming through, then some really fast Age Groupers, then we see Kevin Moats and Laura Sophiea. The difference these days is that everyone has an iPhone and you can sort of get real time updates. So there are a lot of people coming through now, but still the woman with the broken bike has not come through yet and I don’t know her last name to check her status.

Some cool things so far, there is a guy carrying a huge American Flag on the run. It looks like those guys that carry the big Falcon’s Flags at the football games after a Touchdown. Well not that big, but you get the idea. Then a woman comes up with her iPhone and says that her son has written a song and recorded it for his dad who is coming around the corner in a little bit and can we play the song for him when he passes. I say sure and we get ready for him to come around. Now here is the interesting thing. Outside of triathlon, would you ever give your iPhone to some complete stranger and walk away? I don’t know if the guy heard the song when I played it for him, but I know the wife and son heard it and it was really cool to be able to do that for them. The song was pretty damn good too.

So in the craziness of the day, you start offering racers a beer. Nobody ever takes one, then there is today. Marc Thompson offers this lady a beer and she says are you serious, is that really beer in there. He says yep and she takes his beer and slugs it down and runs off. On her last lap the same lady comes up and says where’s my beer. We grab her one and she runs off with it to finish her race. Now that is racing.

So the day gets pretty long and now it is getting cold. Morgan and I are hanging out cheering for those last few people. It is about 11PM. This is the difficult stretch. Everyone else has already packed it in or headed to the finish line. Most people taken their stuff down and put it away. This is the lonely time, especially for the people still running and trying to get in before cutoff. So we stay and keep the music on. It is this time of night when I start replaying certain songs for people and try to get them through the last turn and in before cutoff. The last person to make cutoff was a woman who I played Journey’s “Don’t Sop Believing”.

It gets pretty cold at 1 minute before midnight. At midnight we start packing in the flags, but keep the music going. The folks who aren’t here for the race are cursing me because the music is still blasting. Midnight comes and still no police car, sag wagon, medical train that signifies the last runner is coming through. The music plays on. At 12:15, I can see the last guy walking towards us. I stop putting the flags away and start cheering for him. My hands hurt from clapping all day and I can barely feel my throat. I go ballistic when he starts to run a little bit as he passes us and takes the last corner for the finishers chute. He doesn’t get an official time, but he is an Ironman too. I turn off the music and you can only hear the wind and the muffled music coming from the bar across the street. Morgan and I pack up the gear and it is another Ironman Florida in the books.

Sunday morning, pack up and checkout. Got the bike back from the racer (not mentioning names here as I don’t have permission at the time that I am writing this), but I am relieved that she had a good race and a very good time on her bike split. Amazing, given the fact that I was not able to fit her exactly and it was the first time she had ridden the Blue Triad.

I apologize to all the people who I did not recognize on course. I get a little delirious out there.

Thanks to all the customers of all3sports who make it possible for me to keep doing what I do. You keep racing and I’ll keep bringing the music. Until next year.