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Mike Bourquin

Gulf Coast Half Ironman
Written for www.trinewbies.com

Wow, what an experience! I have never experienced such highs and lows all in the same race. I’ll get to all that shortly but first the preliminaries. You have permission to skip this long-winded session and go straight to the race report.

My wife flew in from NC on Wednesday night to join me on the trip to Panama City Beach. As stated earlier, I’m in Jax, FL since being transferred here for work so we’re temporarily living apart. Got into Panama City late Thursday afternoon and was glad to find out there was a time difference so that gave us more, well, time.J Instantly I was mesmerized by all the awesome bikes and serious tri bods. Just a little intimidating. Got checked into the host hotel, picked up registration packet, and then commenced to buy stuff at the expo (best expo I have been to by far). It was like Super Wal-Mart Triathlon store. Had a nice dinner that night with a couple glasses of red wine to settle the nerves.

Got up early Friday morning for the TNO swim. Met up with Big Daddy, Mark in FL, Ironstevie, Eileen from Orlando, Dixie Chick and others that I can’t recall by name but hope to see at future races. Decided to swim without the wetsuit just in case the race is not wetsuit legal. There were some nice breakers near shore which weren’t too bad to maneuver. But out about 50 yards was a sand bar with some more breakers. Got wiped out by one that I didn’t see coming and went tumbling backwards almost losing the Seal Mask. Glad I experienced that before race day! Headed in and then went to the pancake breakfast and talked with some of the above-mentioned TNO’ers.

I then went for a 30 minute bike and 10 minute run and everything checked out fine. I then proceeded to freak out again at the expo, buying every little knick-knack I could get my hands on. Two things I used during the race, a Profile aero water bottle stabilizer and a bike-mounted gel holder; both worked great. Cleaned the bike up real good and proceeded to freak out some more. Let’s just say I was so nervous that my “tummy” was a little upset. Thank God for Immodium!

Had a very nice pasta dinner out by the beach that night and met some more very nice tri folks from all over the country. Holly and I then walked down to the beach to watch the sun set and try to get settled down some. Got to bed about 10:30 and actually slept pretty well (melatonin rules!)

My 14 alarms went off at 3:30 and I was ready to go! Had a bagel with PB, banana, water and coffee. I got to the transition area at about 4:30 and got everything set up, but went back TWICE just to make sure! Holly calls it obsessive-compulsive disorderJ The great thing about staying at the host hotel is you can go back to your room and take care of business, no nasty-arse porto-potties for me!

Got down to the beach and watched the pros start out. Waves and current seemed more severe than the day before. The pros who started on the inside were almost instantly swept to the inside of the buoys. I knew where I was starting, to the back and outside. Some people from later waves abondened the swim entirely when they couldn’t get past the breakers. But one girl was a real inspiration. She started walking/stumbling back to shore obviously upset. But then she stopped and turned around back towards the open water. Everyone on shore starting cheering her on and she put her cap and goggles back on and took off. That was great.

The down and dirty:
SWIM: 55:38 SWIM TO BIKE TRANSITION: 6:05
BIKE: 3:04:24
BIKE TO RUN TRANSITION: 4:43
RUN: 2:14:55
OVERALL TIME: 6:25:43

You may be looking at that swim time and transition times and be thinking “Has this guy actually swum before? What does this guy do, take a nap in transition??” Well there is a good explanation and here it is, finally.

Swim: 950 yards out, 200 yards across, 950 back Felt absolutely great on the way out. Got through the breakers in mackeral-like fashion. Started way on the outside and got pushed right to the turn buoy, meeting up with many others in my group. Question, why do they give us ORANGE caps? Are the little marker buoys not orange also?? Anyway, took the turn and shortly after I started feeling a little nauseous. Turned to head for home and BOOM, the vomitting commenced. It took about 10 minutes longer to swim in than to swim out since I had to stop about every 5 minutes and throw up. This also pushed me way down the beach. This guy and girl on a jet ski kept coming by and telling me to veer to the right. Whatever. My strength was gone. I stumbled to shore, threw up some more and then proceeded to walk/jog the longer-than-should-have-been distance back to transition.

T1:
I just had to sit down for a few minutes while my senses and legs came back. Was not too worried about time at that point.

Bike:
I really started feeling good on the bike early on. I was able to start drinking water and gatorade almost immediately. I was averaging 21-23 for the first several miles and then it happened. I’m approaching an intersection where we take a hard left. I see a cop waving cars through and then I see him frantically waving his hands at a car. I then see this car with it’s brakes locked up and tires smoking so I take the turn pretty tight because I think this lady is gonna be in the intersection. Well, a guy comes flying up on the inside and slams into me, sending me sprawling across the pavement. My first thought was “how bad is this?” I was dazed and confused (classic movie) and then saw a bunch of people standing over me, including the guy that hit me. They helped me up and the nicest volunteer (an elderly man) helped me to the ambulance which just happened to be parked right there at the ambulance station! They asked me a bunch of questions because they said my helmet really hit hard, though it appears okay to me. I then proceed to check myself out and man am I skinned up. All down the left side of my body are intermittent scrapes. My hip was hurting especially. Well, I proceed to get a little emotional because I’m sure my day and my first half are done. I’m about to ask the emergency worker to call my wife’s cell phone but then I get this idea: Maybe my bike isn’t destroyed afterall. I get bandaged up and ask if I can continue. They said to go for it as long as I didn’t feel like my brains were scrambled. I got to my bike and the guy who ran into me had set it upright and was still standing there, though he didn’t actually crash. He apologized and said it was his fault but I told him that it wasn’t his fault since I cut my turn a little bit. I told him to please not worry about it and to get back on the course and that hopefully I’d see him out there a little later. Well, my handle/aerobars were turned to the left and my chain was off but everything else seemed okay. I started off, sore but racing. I gradually started feeling better and better and then a funny thing happened. I just started laughing, out loud. One dude looked at me while he passed, checked out my arm and torn up shirt and asked why in hell was I laughing. I just said because I can’t imagine what will be happening to me next. I kept thinking of things like a deer running into me, or taking a wrong turn, or the aid stations refusing to serve me. What the hell else could go wrong? I actually started catching some people in my age group late in the bike and felt very good, considering. You know, the wind did not even bother me. I was just so thankful that I wasn’t sitting in an emergency room. Holly saw me come into T2 and was like, “Um, what the hell happened to YOU??!!” Told her I’d explain later.

T2:
Had to take my time as my hip really hurt when I got off the bike. Walked around a little, hit the dreaded porto-pottie, put on more sunscreen,and SLOWLY shuffled off.

Run:
Man, it was freakin’ HOT. And Panama City Beach ain’t got NO shade. Both hamstrings cramped within the first mile but I was able to work that out. The run became a mission to get from one aid-station to the next. I walked each aid-station and ate/drank considerably. The volunteers were awesome. And there were lots of folks on their front lawns spraying water on us. But what was really awesome was seeing Holly up ahead in our Yukon at about mile 9 blasting my favorite on the stereo…PHISH!! Her and the music really picked me up and I actually ended up running negative splits, even running through the last aid station. I was very happy to be steadily catching guys in my age group. But mostly, I was just happy to be out there.

I got a little choked up when I saw Holly at the finish though I don’t think she noticed. I guess it’s just hard on you mentally when you have to go through all that stuff out on the course by yourself. But if you look around out there, you’ll see inspiration all over the place and that’s what I tried to concentrate on.

Nutrition:
Pre-race: bagel with peanut butter, banana, water, gatorade, gel
Swim: saltwater, gave back breakfast
Bike: 6-7 bottles of water, 3-4 bottles of gatorade (and I didn’t even pee), pretzels, 5 servings of Hammer Gel, couple bananas, Bakers Breakfast cookie
Run: water, gatorade, orange slices, Fig Newtons, pretzels, Clif bar pieces at almost every stop.

Question: Why the hell do people wear solid black in a triathlon when it is sunny and 90 degrees? I mean, there could be a good reason but I just don’t understand.

Post-race: Very quickly!!
Fueled up on food, water, and my favorite carbohydrate source, BEER! Had a great time at Spinnaker’s post-race party where I met Steve the navy guy from Ft. Lauderdale, and a bunch of the TNO folks I met earlier. Missed Big Daddy as I guess he ate and took off but I did get to see him finish his race which was fantastic.

Thoughts:
I’m lucky (even though I hurt like crazy today). I was hoping to break 6 hours and I think that this race shows that I’m capable of it if the stars align themselves properly. The “blue-collared” triathletes like us are a great group of people.

If you finished reading this report, thanks. The only one that will be this long in the future is if I ever do an iron-distance event.

Oh, and my own Holly has signed up for her first triathlon!

Mike in Jax

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