I meet Ann a year after moving to GA at the 2017 Alien Half Marathon. In 2020, when all the pools were closed, I taught her 5 and 8 year old how to swim at Redtop Mountain State Park. We built a friendship. She has previous coaching and understand what she wanted and did not want with a coach to guide her to finish her first Ironman at Panama City Beach, Florida, 2022. I was grateful for that opportunity.

I have a collaborative style of coaching, we worked to gather to determine the best plan to fit into her busy schedule with kids/family, volunteer work and hobbies. I was able to view her previous training, past experiences and race results. Ann had battled some hip and hammy injuries so it was important she sought out therapy and I analyzed her run technique. A highlight of coaching her was the ability to meet in person for running and swim technique. I also educated her along the way with a slow progression of training duration and intensity, the importance of regular mobility, solid nutrition and recovery. She kept a detailed log in training peaks and we communicated via text, phone, and in person about how she was feeling to ensure she remained injury free pre, during and post Ironman!!

Her race report / review below

Yesterday I heard Mike Reilly “The voice of Ironman” announce that I was an Ironman in PCB, Florida! This was an amazing experience! I completed a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and 26.2 miles running for a total of 140.6 miles.

It took a long time to get here. I deferred the race last year and did a 100 mile gravel race due to severe back pain that hurt 5 minutes into riding my Tri bike or an hour into running. I had a lot of support from my friends and family from the long hours swimming, biking, and running to everyone who helped watch the kids this week, and the encouragement to keep moving forwards.

After swimming, I could have gone for a third lap. After biking I only wanted off my bike to eat a big meal and get back on and ride more. After mile 3 on the run I was done and would have told you never again, I hate running. Today I’m dreaming of the next one…

Ironman Florida 2022

What Worked Well?

• Checking my swim time half way let me not stress about making the cutoff.  
• Safety pinning my timing chip.  Some races I skip doing this and I would have lost it in my wetsuit.  
• Food instead of gels on the bike and the run.
• I applied sunscreen on the bike every two hours and didn’t end up with a sunburn.

What are you proud of?

• I got in the water without trouble even with the waves.
• I didn’t panic in the water even after 3 jellyfish stings.  I jogged for the second loop of the swim instead of walking.  
• I hit my goal time for the swim
• Holding my easy watts for the first half of the bike ride instead of pushing hard.
• I never wanted to quit.  I knew I was going to finish, just wasn’t sure if I was going to hit my time goals.
• I didn’t walk an entire mile, even my slowest mile had some running in it.

What are areas of growth areas?

• Swimming with sideways waves.
• Transition, my times are alway so slow.  I mostly walked in transition.  
• Holding 20 watts more on the second half of the bike ride.
• Running longer, less walking towards the end

What were your thoughts and feelings during the swim, bike and run?

• On the swim I was excited.  I was proud of myself for no initial panic.  I enjoyed watching all the jellyfish under me.  
• After my porta potty visit I enjoyed biking.  I only wanted to get off my bike because I was hungry and wanted a big meal.  My legs couldn’t hold the watts, but I was still happy to be on the bike and passing people.
• I was bummed that I wasn’t going to make my goal pace of 17.5 mph, but I thought I was going to hit 17’s because my bike computer auto pauses for stops and I stopped a bunch – 2 porta potty trips that I also grabbed bottles and 1 more bottle stop.
• On the run I tried singing the songs that I heard that I liked.  I was uncomfortable with people cheering me on and telling me good pace when I knew it was so slow.  I wanted to be on a trail with no people cheering and watching.  I did appreciate other athletes cheering me on and I did the same.  

What was or was not effective about your mental game?

• Wind, especially headwind usually brings my mood down.  There was a long time of mild headwind and some crosswind, but I knew going into this race to expect it.  I didn’t enjoy it, but it also didn’t sour my mood.  
• Later in the race when I started walking I would look at my pace and my miles left and I would think, “either I can walk for another 4 hours or run for less than 2 hours.”   That was enough to get me running to the next aid station.

What was your fueling and hydration strategy? Did it work?

• I had a banana before the swim started.  I drank water in between laps. 
• I had a gel coming out of t1 and fig bars every 45 minutes. Fueling was great, spot on and made me happy.  Hydration was another story.  I drank way more than I expected.  I didn’t know if I needed to make up for the missed electrolytes and I had to stop to pee a lot.  I think I drank 8 or 9 bottles in 6:40. 
• I had water over ice and base salts at every aid station and chicken broth when it came out. I poured a serving of liquid iv into my ice water every hour.  I ate a fig bar every 4 miles so I was happy to get to walk a little longer at miles 4, 8, 12, and 16 before I was walking more in general.  At mile 22 & 23 I had a soda for the quick hit of sugar to finish.

And, anything else you want to share 

I got up at 4 am, ate my oatmeal and drank a hot tea.  It was chilly outside.  I had put my wetsuit on early for the warmth.  I also teased my husband I should pee myself for the added warmth. I had two swim caps on.  Someone posted a video of how to swim in choppy water to the Ironman FL facebook group and he recommended a normal swim cap, then your googles, then the race swim cap. That way you will not have a wave crash into you and push them off.  I know nothing new on race day, but I went for it.  On my practice Friday a wave pushed my goggles off my eyes and onto my forehead and I didn’t want to lose them during the race!
I lined up where my goal time was to finish 1:21-1:30.  The waves were bigger than Thursday and maybe Friday.  I was the most nervous about getting my head in the water with the waves and not swallowing all the sea water.  

Mike Reilly was there in the starting corral giving high fives and hugs while announcing.  They were metering us at the start.  3 beeps then the 4th was louder and they sent us off.  The line was 3 or 4 people across every 4 or 5 seconds.  When there were 2 people ahead of me in my line, the marshall (not sure what he is called) told them to stop.  We waited for a good minute or two until he felt the beginning of the water was clear enough of people.  Then the beeping started back again.  All my 70.3’s I’ve done, I jumped in the water off a dock.  This time I ran in from the shore.  I kept running until the water was waist high, said “after this wave I’m going” and then dove in.  It worked well.  I didn’t get hit by a wave in the face nor did I swallow sea water accidentally like I had done the 2 days of practicing.  I didn’t panic in the water.  Not once.  In the two days of practice I would scream at things that showed up under me.  In the lakes I practiced all season in, I never saw what was under me. 

Many people swam over me at the beginning.  I would push people on my right side over so that I wasn’t sandwiched between people.  In the fast current swims of my 70.3’s I would see very few people.  At this race, there were always people.  People next to me.  People swimming over me.  People I swam over.  I was never alone.  Very early on I got stung by a jellyfish in my hand.  I felt a short jolt and then some itching.  It was very mild and amused me instead of making me panic.  The sideways waves pushed us away from the buoys and I had trouble at several spots staying close to them.  One time I saw a jetski heading my way and I thought, “you are not telling me I’m off course this time” and I pulled my head up to sight better and swam diagonally towards the next buoy that was so far away.  When I started it was still dark and hard to spot the buoys in my dark goggles.  I especially had trouble seeing the turn buoy’s color the first turn, but followed the crowd.  If the leader was going the wrong way, a bunch of us were going the wrong way.  After the first turn buoy it was light enough to see the different colors.  I drafted some, but most of the time, if I found feet to draft I was swimming over them shortly after.  I got stung very mildly on my right cheek from another jellyfish, then shortly after a giant jellyfish got me on my right foot.  That one hurt and itched for a while, but was gone by the time I did my second loop.

Getting out of the water was easier than I expected.  And I jogged in the sand to start the second lap.  Most people around me were walking, but I had a goal:  the water table.  I grabbed a cup and cleaned my mouth out, then swallowed the fresh water.  Then I checked my watch and saw I was a couple minutes earlier than my goal time.  There was a lot of relief that I didn’t have to worry about making the cutoff time.   One of my fears was having a crap swim and knowing that I had to repeat it a second time.  For the most part I enjoyed the swim and was ready to go again.  The waves were a lot bigger on the second lap and more people were struggling against them.  I watched the waves for a second and used that to start peeing, in my wetsuit.  I know, I’m gross!  I was more careful about staying near the buoys that time; I only had to adjust once.  There were no jellyfish stings that go round, but I could see groups of them under me.  My neck hurt on the last part of the second loop and despite a good amount of body glide, I got a large area chaffed.  

I ran to a wetsuit stripper who almost got my timing chip off.  If I hadn’t safety pinned it on then it would have disappeared in my wetsuit!  Then I ran to the shower.  The shower was more of a mist and got my face good, but not my shorts as much as I wanted.  And it was so crowded, there were volunteers telling us to keep moving.  We slowly walked through the rectangular misting area then I walked since I was already walking to get my bag.  

A volunteer grabbed my bike bag and I ran to the womens tent.  Since the weather was warm enough I didn’t plan on changing my clothes.  I put sunscreen on, then my helmet, chamois cream, socks, shoes, and stuffed my food in my back pockets.  I walked out the tent with a cup of water, a gel in my mouth, and my bag full of swim gear.  I found and grabbed my bike easily and walked to the mount line.  I HATE running in my road cycling shoes.

There was a crowd at the mount line and I walked my bike a couple feet past it to get out of the way and have a clear shot to go.  My hydration tasted so good compared to the salt water.  So good in fact, I messed up my drinking plan.  The goal was 2 hours for my front hydration and I have 2 more bottles so I was carrying 4 hours of water.  In the first 1.5 hours I drank the entire front hydration and a second bottle.  I needed to pee by the first aid station, but the porta potties had a line so I decided to wait 18 more miles for the next one.  Riding aero with a full bladder was no fun.  I was worried that peeing on my bike would cause issues and I didn’t want to cause issues that early on so I held it.  At the second aid station around mile 32 there was a horrible crash.  A man was on the ground with a bloody face and was crying.  Since I’ve had a bad bike crash, seeing them can be triggering for me.  I pulled over, racked my bike, and peed.  I peed for years.  While doing that I also fixed my timing chip that was driving me crazy and spinning around.  It was being held on by the safety pin alone and not the velcro.  I tried to not think of the man on the ground and walked over to the lady giving water handoffs and took two for my front hydration.  I worried about taking in a lot of water without extra electrolytes.  I had 1 extra pack in my back pocket and instead of pouring it into a bottle or my front hydration I tried pouring it in my mouth.  Then it made me cough and eventually it got stuck, like if you lick a pixie stick.  

The rest of the bike was uneventful. There was a bike lane for a good part of it.  Five annoying miles had rumble track separating out the bike lane from the car lane and everytime I passed people I had to go over it.   I had a goal power for the first 56 miles and then 20 more watts of power for the second 56 miles.  But unfortunately on the last half I would bump up my power to the goal and then pay attention to something else and be way too low on my power.  I ate 1 fig bar every 45 min.  I enjoyed counting the time to the next bar or counting down the time.  I also applied sunscreen every two hours so I would count down the time for that too.  Simple math is my goto fun on long races.  One guy came up to my left and asked, “Do you know how many miles the bike leg is?”  I just laughed in return.  But he said, “I know how many kilometers it is, but my bike computer started in miles and I don’t know.”  So I told him and told him and told him we were already past halfway.  I had a spare co2 and an extra tube in my bike special needs bag as well as 1 liquid iv, but I didn’t stop for them.  I stopped for bottles a total of 3 times and stopped for them each time.  I’ve done a bottle handoff before while riding, but it had been a while and I was nervous with the crowd at the aid stations since I saw the guy on the ground.  I stopped again around mile 82 to pee.  At mile 90 I had my pickle juice and felt perked up from it.  I stopped a good foot before the dismount line and walked my bike into a bike catcher.  

I took my cycling shoes off and my helmet and carried them.  I walked to my bag area and a volunteer handed me my bag and I walked to the women’s tent. I tried to put my race belt on while carrying everything but that didn’t work. Everyone around me was walking, had they been jogging I would have jogged too.  I put more sunscreen on in the tent and then put it in the bag.  The sun was going to be setting soon and I wasn’t going to need it on the run.  I changed my socks, put my run shoes on, my visor on, and packed all my food in my back pocket.  I started jogging, but everyone ahead of me was walking and I thought, “well I already have 26 more miles of running, I can walk to the run start.”  

My plan was to walk the aid stations for base salt, water, and ice, then walk a little longer every fourth mile to eat my fig bars.  I never poured ice on my head like I do in 70.3’s and my socks stayed dry which I enjoyed.  I stopped at mile 10 to pee.  I have done several half marathons before and I wasn’t going to let myself walk extra before 13 miles.  When I started working on mile 14 I walked some extra before and after the aid stations. I took a cup of chicken broth from every aid station that was available.  There were no spots on the course that needed an extra light.   As the night went on, I walked more and ran less. My hips hurt a lot.  My hamstrings were bothering me.  Last time my hamstrings bothered me, my knees started to hurt and my right knee continued hurting for a week.  One of my worries coming into this race was that my right knee was going to take me out of finishing, but it never hurt me.  I was chaffing from my heart rate strap and had seen vaseline at aid stations early on in the run, but by the time I started asking for it, none of the aid stations I asked had some.  Later in the race when I started walking I would look at my pace and my miles left and I would think, “either I can walk for another 4 hours or run for less than 2 hours.”   That was enough to get me to the next aid station.  I could start running even though I was walking. Which makes me think back, why did I start walking in the first place.  I wanted to be done for a hot meal, but I never wanted to quit.

By mile 20 I didn’t want my food anymore so I took a gel and it was the last thing I ate until I finished.  I had my second pickle juice at mile 21.  At mile 22 & 23 I had a flat coke for the sugar hit to get me to the end.  

The red carpet at the end was long and filled with people.  They were saying lots to me.  “You worked hard all these months for this, enjoy it.”  “Today was long, but worth it.”  “Way to go Ironman.”  I started to tear up.  I didn’t want to start crying in front of these strangers.  I heard Mike Reilly announce my name and I smiled big and threw my arms up to go under the timing area.  Then I put my arms down and all the camera flashes went off, oops!  I felt good to be done.  I felt good to be able to move.  Most importantly I felt good to get some hot food and enjoy my accomplishment!