I have been thinking back to September 2009, in Jacksonville,
FL. My friend and co-worker Melissa and
I are going for a run and talking about how she and Alan are getting ready to
do their first Ironman. I remember
thinking; I would never be able to do that!
Thanks to many conversations with Melissa and Alan we can fast forward a
few years and here I am writing this with my Ironman finisher’s medal hanging
next to me.
I feel it is only right to start this race report thanking
the people who helped and supported this journey. First my wife Maggie, step-son Orlando and my
granddaughter Addison; who all had to deal with me being away training or missing
events because I had a race. Especially
Maggie, who puts up with tall grass, cooking for four when it is only us and a
honey-do-list that was barely touched.
There is the overwhelming support of my parents and family,
when you don’t live nearby it sometimes hard to remember the little things,
they do.
Steve Smith, my training buddy and good friend, I twisted
Steve’s arm to sign up for this race. We
trained and raced side by side this year and I have to say that I am as proud
of his success at this race as I am about my own. Also, to Steve’s family for letting me have a
corner of their campsites a few times this year and being so supportive at
every race.
My coach Adam Otstot, his advice, guidance and training
plans constantly put me over the top and help me crush dreams. Adam is in his first year as a pro triathlete
and is a huge inspiration to me. I also need to send a big Thank You, to Mindy
Schulz who told me about Adam and how to connect with him at a Newton event at
the Point2 Running store.
Speaking of Dream Crushers, the Snapple tri team, thank you
to Mindy, Bart and all of the amazing athletes I have had the pleasure to meet
and race with this year. Also a very big
thank you to the Snapple teams amazing sponsors: Xterra wetsuits, Mizuno, HED,
Cliff Bar, Rudy Project; to name a few.
My Master swim coach Steve Hennessy, every time he’s on deck
I get faster and stronger. He really
helps put a lot of this craziness in perspective, in the pool and out.
Mike Shipp at East Coast Bicycles as well as Rod and Chris
at Bike Beat thank you for all your help keeping my bike in great shape. As wells as everyone at Point2 RunningCompany for taking care of my feet.
Not to be forgotten, all my friends and fellow tri nuts, thank
you for your support and making this one amazing sport to be a part of.
So, I guess now would be a good time to actually talk about
the race in this race report.
It all started on Thursday, with a 10 hour ride to Kentucky,
Steve reached out to a friend of his in the area and we both had a great place
to stay. Thank you so much to Jen
McFarland and her three sons for opening their home to us. The following day Steve and I got in a run, checked-in
and attend the athletes meeting.
Saturday arrived with Steve and I heading to the race site to participate
in the practice swim.
 |
| Steve and I before the practice swim |
As nothing can seem to go off without some drama. We are
preparing the bikes to be dropped off at transition and during a test ride, my
baby will not shift right. Will not go
into certain gears and is very jumpy. We
tried to make some changes but it just would not get better. So, I head over to bike service that Ironman
offers and I am told it will be ready after 5, there were 30 bikes ahead of
mine. Problem, bike drop off closes at
5. Panic is now setting in! The mechanic is telling me that as long as I
have my receipt I will be ok but when I go to drop my gear bags off, no one in
transition has a clue what I am talking about.
FREAKING OUT about now. Long
story short, I called the emergency number for Ironman and they take care of
it. Pick up the bike at 6:30 and shortly
after it is dropped off at transition. After
a few hours of chaos things are now slowing down to pure calm and I am starting
to settle into race mode. I grabbed
dinner with my parents and was in bed early.
Race morning
I woke up a little before 4 A.M., had a bagel and an Ensure
followed by the never missed chocolate fudge pop tart 30 minutes later. Got to make sure I get enough calories taken
in. By 5 A.M., we are heading to transition,
there was a little bit of a walk that helped keep the nervous down. Upon reaching transition, I got the bike set-up;
water bottles in place and final checks to make sure everything is
working.
Here is where I think I made rookie mistake #1; I had access
to my gear bags and never went to check them, more on this later. Steve and I meet my parents to hand off some
gear and started the walk to the swim start.
That was maybe just shy of a mile walk and as it would turn out this
walk will also come into play a little later.
Body marking gets done then off for the ever important last porta john
visit. 20 minutes later the line has not
moved, we try another line with the same results. Oh well, better go get on line for the start.
This race is a time trial start which basically means you
get in line, it is first come, first swims.
As we start walking towards the end of the line it hits me that I can’t
see the end. We walked some more, a
little farther, still no end in sight. I
would swear we walked another mile before we found the end. Now is a good point to talk about rookie
mistake #2 and why all that walking comes into play. When we get in line (finally) I bend down to
stretch my back and I find a nice big blister on my right little toe. Haven’t even started the race, are you
kidding me. Turns out the sandals I had
on were rubbing, they had never done this to me before. Great, good thing I put
band aids in my gear bags.
We hear the cannon go off for the start of the Pros. Ten minutes later a second boom and shortly our
line starts moving (slowly). A few porta
johns come into view, Steve and I looked at each other and both decided we
better go use them. Heck, we are already
this far back, right! That done and back
on line, it was maybe a 20-30 minute march to the start.
Swim: 1:04:42
Finally reaching the swim start we still had to make our way
down to the pier to jump in. On the way,
Steve noticed my parents were there.
What a boost to see them, my nervous really calmed down and my mind just
went to game on mode.
.jpg) |
| From the swim start (Courtesy of the Tri Lunatics FB page) |
It was pretty cool to jog down and jump in, no running/dolphin
diving in or treading water and having to fight for position or deal with big
crowds. Silly newbie that changed pretty
soon. I found a good rhythm and kept the pace down until I ran (literally) into
the first group. Two kicks to the head, one to the chest, made me decided that
picking the pace up was not a bad idea.
This type of thing went on for most of the way to the first turn buoy. After the turn I felt like I was flying. A few times I would be slowed by small groups
or literally swimming over someone but before I knew it there was at the first
bridge. Then the second and next thing I
knew I was staring at the transition tent and the swim finish. This swim was amazing, I was a little faster than
expected and I felt awesome coming out of the water.
Transition 1: 6:34
After a short run from the swim finish, I hit the transition
area, yelled out my number and was handed my gear bag. Nice!
Running to the tent I saw a bunch of people outside the tent seated getting
their gear changed but I wanted to get inside the tent and to a chair. Finding a seat, I dumped my gear bag and
started changing. Every freaking time I
bent over to grab something, someone running by would hit me in the head. Bad choice of real estate I guess and very
annoying.
Shoes on, helmet on, race belt/bib on but something is not
right. The belt was twisted (mistake
#3), I should of check it when I put the bib on the belt and also why I should have
checked my gear bags after setting up my bike.
Lesson learned.
I ran out of the tent and over to the sunblock tent (So
freaking cool!), a nice young lady put a ton of sun block on my shoulders and
arms. Then I was on my way to the mount
line. As I got there I saw my family,
hearing them cheering got me so pumped to get moving.
Bike: 5:34:24
My race plan was to start slow and keep the watts low, treat
it like a warm-up. That part of the
plan, executed! Next hydration and
nutrition, use bonk breaker bars while I used my first bottle of EFS
drink. Next bottle I would use was an
EFS drink/EFS Liquid shot mix, followed by using Ironman Perform and Liquid
Shot, using water in between and salt pills every hour. Executed with minor adjustments.
The first 15 miles were pretty good, other than having to
stop to adjust my front brakes which were rubbing. One thing that stood out to me was how
crowded the course was from the start.
It was flat out impossible to keep 4 bike lengths between anyone, hope
there are no race officials around! Another
point that stood out, was having a fellow Snapple teammate Eric Retinger, go
riding past while saying, Go Snapple, Go Snapple, Go Snapple.
Within the first 20 miles came with it a big concern, an out
and back that included a hairy descent and even longer climb. This hill was mentioned in the athlete
meeting to keep it slow and that NO ONE wins the race there. Seems not too many people listened! On the way out, there was a rider down from
an unfortunate accident with another rider, the medical staff was already attending
to him. What got me, was how riders
coming down the hill refused to slow down and also how many almost slammed into
the medical crew attending to the downed rider.
Once I finished that spur, there were two loops to complete
that would get me just past the 90 mile mark before heading back to transition. There were some crazy rolling hills and as
with the Rev3 race, I was climbing like a champ. Timing things perfect, spinning up hills and
passing people like crazy while climbing (Thank you Steve for the advice to
spin up hills). One highlight from the
loops was in the town of La Grange, there was a section lined with gates and
banners where spectators were gathered.
They were cheering like crazy as every rider came through, what an
amazing cheering section and energy boost.
You could not help but speed up and feel amazing, what a great positive
vibe. The vibe was a little tarnished by
two thing shortly after that area. A
jerk who decided today was a good day to tow his big ass boat down the road at
10 miles an hour and a nice police officer who looks directly at me coming down
a hill and lets a car go directly in front of me, thanks @$$! Other than that the ride was going as plan,
nutrition and hydration still were spot on, watts in range and feeling
good.
 |
| Heading back to T2 |
About mile 80, I was pleasantly surprised to see Steve had
caught up to me. This was not surprising,
he is an amazing climber and we were less than a minute apart out of the water
from each other and had close transition times.
The next 25 miles we pretty much rode together, it was like a training
day back home. My plan allowed me to
increase the watts and pace if I felt good at mile 80 but after mile 100, the
afterburners kicked in. This was not
part of the plan and mistake #4! I would
not realize this mistake until transition 2.
Transition 2: 9:32
Ironman transitions have this awesome feature of volunteers
taking your bike after you dismount. It
made running on numb toes a bit easier since I didn't have the bike to worry
about tripping on or over. I got my gear
bag, made it to the tent and finally my toes were starting to regain
feeling. Upon grabbing a seat, a MUCH
better spot than transition 1. I quickly
noticed two things; one Steve was right across from me and two my upper legs
were burning, mistake #4! Damn, I had pushed
those last 15 miles way to hard. Oh
well!
I tried to get a band aid on the blister on that little toe
(remember mistake 2), this did not go so well as the end of the band aid crimped
and I could not get it right. Screw it,
I was hoping this decision would not come back to haunt me. Getting everything else on, I grabbed my
flask of Liquid shot, ran out to the sunblock tent then hit the porta
john. All this combined with having to
stop to fix my left shoe and roll my compression sleeve up over my timing chip
(just to make sure it didn't block the signal and as it turned out to be mistake
#5), lead to this ridiculous long transition.
 |
| On my way out to the run course |
Run: 4:51:00
Now it is time to just run a marathon. That’s right JUST run, HA! As I started to run out of transition I could
not believe the condition my legs were in.
My coach Adam did mention this and most of our long run were on tired
legs, but HOLY CRAP! Just as I got
towards the end of the chute, I heard my wife’s voice boom out “GO FRAGER”. I looked over to see her, my parents as well
as Steve’s family. His son Gavin yelled,
“Go catch my Dad!” I wish I could buddy.
All this gave me a boost and after a half mile I started to feel better
and my pace became a little faster than planned. Last long this will not, into the pain cave I
must go.
So by mile 3.4 exactly, enter that cave I did as my calves
started to kill me. I am pretty sure
Yoda would tell me; “that place is strong with the dark side of the force. A
domain of evil it is. In you must go.”
In I went, to fight this evil Adam’s words came to mind. “Set goals and
adjust as needed”. Running to the next
aid station, worked pretty well at first.
Then my left ankle started to bother me and the calves just go worse.
Okay, walk to the next block and run to the next aid station. Every run would be cut shorter and shorter,
run to the next block then walk 2, run to the next light pole then walk to the
aid station. Every time I started to
run, new pains would set in and when I started into the pain cave one little
bit of info slipped my mind, nutrition.
By mile 7, I was getting dizzy and figured the heat got me. This was the one time in the run, I was
worried I would not finish and it hit me that I was holding a full flask of
Liquid shot and it should have been hit twice by now. Taking a swig and grabbing an orange slice at
the next aid station, I started feeling better almost immediately.
The end of the first loop was a bit torturous, passing so
close to the finishing line. I did run
the entire time, I didn't want my family to see me walking but I did stop for
my special needs bag to re-fill my bottles of EFS drink and grab a new flask of
Liquid shot. The next few miles were a
mixed bag of pain and aid stations. By
mile 18, I saw a young lady wearing a DC Tri singlet, a companion club to
Snapple. We walked together talking, she
was on her first lap and was worried she would not finish. I hoped I helped her as much as she helped me. Shortly after I was able to run a little
longer then before and those distances got longer and longer. At mile 23, a guy stopped next to me saying
“man, I am so close to the finish and I can’t physically run”. Told him I was in the same boat and we agreed
to try to go ahead together to the next aid station. I made it a few hundred feet and had to stop,
everything from the hips down hurt and I told him to go on. Hitting the last aid station I decided it was
time to bring this home, I didn't care anymore about pain, I wanted to run and
run all the way to finish line. I
shuffled to the mile 25 marker and something clicked or maybe snapped inside me. The pain went away, my form returned, I shortened
my stride and I was back to my planned run pace.
After the turn onto 4th street I caught the guy who
stopped next to me. We ran together but
he encouraged me to go on. Soon I was
right in front of the homeland and tell you what, seeing the lights and the
finishing chute, a tidal wave of emotions came over me. As I crossed onto the rug with all those
lovely Ironman logos, I threw my arms up and the crowd erupted. I am getting chills thinking about it. I pumped my fist, threw my arms up again, I
was only feet from hearing the words I have waited so long to hear.
Right as I crossed under the timing clock it
happened, “Adam Frager, from Newport News, Virginia…. (he freaking paused,
LOL)….YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!” I let all that emotion go in one big fist pump,
slapped the hand of the volunteer who gave me my medal and the next few minutes
are nothing but a blur of joy.
Finished 11:46:12
My original goal for this race was to be under 12 hours. I
meet that goal. My swim goal was 1:07:00,
I beat that goal. My bike goal was 5:35:00 - 5:45:00, I meet that goal. My run
goal was 3:45:00 - 3:55:00 or under 4 hours, I was nowhere close to this goal
and could care less.
Never underestimate the power of seeing friends on the
course, it was inspiring to see Rachel, Brian and Shane during the run,
congrats to all of you on a great race. The
thought of my granddaughter Addison brought light to some of the darkest parts
of the cave. Remembering my Grandfather Ernie,
inspired me to never give up. To say I
could feel all the support from my family and friends sounds silly but I could
and it lifted me up.
From the day I registered until the moment I posted this, I
could not have asked for a more memorable and amazing journey. Now it is time to get my tattoo, enjoy some
rest and start focusing and training on the next adventure. Sorry to tell you
dear Maggie but this has made me hungrier to do more Ironman’s and go faster!
