Ironman Cozumel Part 1: The Before-math

Oh, where to start? As I was preparing for Ironman Cozumel, I sought out any and all race reports I could find. Motivational race reports, information on logistics, anything I could find. There are plenty of race reports from front and middle of the pack folks, but it was sometimes hard to find info from people like me in the back of the pack.

So this is my attempt to fill that void. Since I’m an engineer, this will probably be wordy and analytical. Hopefully there will be a motivational moment or two. Here goes…

First, let’s just say I was a bit undertrained going into this, my first Ironman race. I quit a job, started a new job, finished remodeling a house, sold a house, and bought a house in the course of about 6 weeks during the core of the summer training season. So there wasn’t a lot of training going on. I bailed on my 70.3 in mid-summer and went in pretty cold to my 70.3 at the beginning of September. So I really only had about 3 months of decent training, with the last month of that spent training indoors. But I’m stubborn and the entry fee and plane tickets were already purchased, so there was no turning back. And because my friend Coop has completed a few Ironman races and was paying close attention, failing to finish was simply not an option.

Barb and I flew into Cozumel on Thursday (Thanksgiving) and things started to get real. We followed the masses through customs and immigration and out to the curb to get ground transportation to the hotel. At the curb they asked for our tickets and I felt a bit like I was riding a zeppelin with Indiana Jones as I heard the driver say “no tickets.” (Hint – take a right after customs to get tickets) We made it to the hotel, hit the expo, packet pickup, and got some Ironman merch. Things went pretty smoothly as far as not standing in line. The only times all week that I spent more than 2-3 minutes in any line were to buy merch (about an hour), and to lighten the load before the start of the race (15 minutes).

The problem was that 3 of the things listed in the athlete guide that we “must” get at packet pickup weren’t in the packets: sandals, athlete wristbands, and timing chips. I was told to come back after 4:00 to get the chip and wristband, and nobody had a clue what I was talking about when I mentioned sandals. Luckily the line to get Ironman branded gear took forever and the timing chips and “wristbands” arrived while I was waiting. Even though the wristbands were our way to get into transition and get our gear back, they were handing them out to anybody that wanted one and without regard to race number. Some athletes’ support crew got them. They weren’t running a very tight ship. Oh, the wristbands were the kind you would get to prove you’re 21 at a bar. You know, the kind designed to stay on for an hour or two, not all week. More on that later.

After picking up my CO2 cartridges, it was back to Hotel Cozumel & Resort to assemble the bike. A quick side note on hotels and transportation in Cozumel: We stayed at one of the host hotels, so we got free bike mechanical support and some free transportation. I would definitely recommend doing this. I didn’t use the bike help other than to “pump up my tires and oil my chain (it’s all about performance).” But the occasional free transportation was handy. We were also walking distance to the finish line, T2, and the grocery store and tourist district.

And if you are considering getting a car, don’t. We never waited more than 2 minutes for a taxi. They are quite literally everywhere. It was $10-12 each way from the finish line area to Chankanaab. Split it with another athlete and it’s really cheap. With the free rides, I think I took a taxi 5 times: to/from swim practice, to/from Chankanaab on a day off, and to the airport.

I got up early Friday morning to make it out to the swim practice. Since I’ve never done more than 1.2 miles and I’ve only done an ocean swim once in my life, I figured I should check out the swim course. Standing at the front of the hotel looking for other athletes to share a taxi with, I asked a gentleman from Kona if he was heading to the swim practice. He said it was cancelled, which was news to me. When I asked how he knew that, he said it was on the Facebook page. Apparently Facebook is the sole means of communication used by Ironman Cozumel. Period. So it was back up to the room to “like” Ironman Cozumel on Facebook and see what else I have missed. This was harder than I thought, as there are about 30 such pages and none seemed to be right. Tip: I found a link hiding at the bottom of the Ironman Cozumel web page, which was the only way I could find the right page along with the only link to the athlete guide. Well, actually my wife found it. I’m an engineer. I expect things to be in the same place they are for every other race. I found it strange that I hadn’t received an email with the athlete guide prior to the race, and that a guide wasn’t posted under the “Athlete” section of the web page. Now I/you know where to find it!

With the swim cancelled (just like almost every year before), it was off to preview the bike course. I decided to do the full loop (~39 miles) to see what the other side of the island had in store for me. To be honest, this was about my third longest training ride. Not exactly a perfect taper, but I did it at a really low heart rate so I felt it was okay. I also wanted to see which cassette I would use on race day. Coming from Colorado I don’t have a good concept of what gears are even needed for flat roads (for me, compact up front and 11-23 in the back). The loop started out downwind. It was a bit hard to tell, but the fact that I was doing 20 mph while soft pedaling was a pretty good indication that I had a bit of help. After rounding the corner at Punta Sur, the wind started to make itself known. Granted it wasn’t bad wind (especially compared to some of the wind we have to deal with in Colorado), just moderate and constant. There is no hiding on this side of the island. No trees, no buildings, nothing. It’s just you and the wind. And on this day, I only saw one other rider on this side of the island; so it was truly just me and the wind. But the wind was exactly as I had read in every other race report. What I didn’t expect were the false flats. The loop around the island really isn’t flat. There are plenty of very slight inclines and declines. It was a bit disheartening to watch the speedometer drop to 12mph on the upwind inclines. Once or twice on these I thought I would use another gear if I had it. But I decided 12mph was slow enough, and I would just put on my big kid pants if I ran out of gears. At least I knew what to expect on race day.

The mandatory athlete meeting was later Friday afternoon. Most of it was just reading the athlete guide to us, but there was some additional information and it was presented very well. Since it was just across the pool from my hotel room, it was well worth my time. I stopped by the massage place right next to the meeting room and scheduled a massage for Monday. I thought I might need it.

I laid out all of my gear for each bag on Friday night. I’m sure I overpacked, but since this was my first race that didn’t have a single transition area, I figure that wasn’t the worst thing. Note that when you’re packing your special needs bags, you will not get anything back that you put in there. I only put nutrition and some chamois cream in my bike special needs bag. I put nutrition, body glide, and a dry pair of socks in my run special needs bag just in case we had to deal with rain. I had originally planned to put a dry pair of shoes in my run special needs bag, but I kind of wanted to keep them.

I got up early on Saturday, checked the Facebook page, and then headed to the lobby to catch a taxi to the swim practice. There was another athlete there, so it was only 6 bucks to get to the swim venue. We all got in the water near the swim exit, swam up current (the opposite direction of what we would swim on race day), then headed back down current like we would during the race. Just about every race report I read mentioned little stinging no-see-ums in the water. I didn’t get any of that this day.

I was curious how the current would affect my speed, so I timed a couple hundred meters going up current, then a couple hundred meters going down current. Normally I swim about 2:00/100yds in the pool, and my watch was showing about 2:30/100yds up current and 1:40/100yds down current. This meant that if things went well, I should swim about a 1:10 swim split on race day! Pretty decent for an adult onset swimmer at the back of the pack. I quite literally couldn’t swim to save my life two years ago. Thanks Theresa, Crystal, Chad and mostly Brad!

By the time I got out of the water, my wristband was gone. It came off in the ocean along with the wristbands of half the other swimmers. It was basically Ironman sponsored littering.

I split a taxi back to the hotel, got in a quick run, and dropped off the bike and bike bag at T1 (free bus ride) and the run bag at T2. It was a bit of a hassle having to go two different places for these two bags, and more of a hassle to have to do it the day before the race. I know this has to be done, but being my first Ironman, it added to the hassle. I didn’t have to wait in line to check in my bike, because athletes had certain time slots based on bib numbers. That worked out well. I finally got my sandals when dropping off the bike, but I’m still not sure how they had run out of human-sized sandals by bib number 656, when there were about 1700 people still behind me.

Figuring out how to do my nutrition for this race was a bit of a challenge because we had to drop off bags the day before. I have used Hammer Perpetuem and Endurolytes Fizz for a long time. They sit well with my stomach, and I did a 206 mile, 13-hour bike race using them a few years ago and didn’t have any problems. The problem is that Perpetuem spoils after 4-5 hours in the heat. Some people recommend preparing things the night before and throwing them in the freezer. While I could get to my bike bag on Sunday morning, my run bag was off limits – and my hotel room didn’t have a freezer. I usually use Perpetuem as a paste and put it in a 4oz bottle. I mix it with minimal water in a plastic bag and squeeze it into the bottle. Since I couldn’t premix it, I decided to put 5-hours worth of powder in a 24oz bottle in my bike bag and in my bike special needs bag. I would add water to this when I got on the course. I put 3-hours worth of powder in my run bag and my run special needs bag that I’d add to a 10oz bottle on my run belt. For the bike I would add Fizz and water I got on course into my between the arms bottle. On the run I added Endurolytes powder to the Perpetuem mix, since it would be hard to add fizz to my 10oz bottles, and I was likely to just drink the course water straight from the cup (yes, they used cups this year and not the bags they have used in the past).

With all of the logistics taken care of, I headed off to bed at 8:30pm. The alarm was set for 3:45 to catch the athlete breakfast at 4:00 (another perk of staying at a host hotel). I spent about two hours in and out of consciousness, so I really got to sleep at 10:30.

I woke up in the morning to light peeking through the curtains of the hotel room window! Since I should have already been to T1 and on a bus to the start by daylight, this was a bit alarming! It turns out there was just a bright light outside, but my 3:15am brain couldn’t process that until I was wide awake after a grand total of less than 5 hours of sleep. That’s not how I wanted to start this very long day.