Rocketman Race Report

This was my first attempt at a half-ironman distance triathlon. Holly made me promise to do one with her since she had run Comrades back to back with me. I thought that was a fair trade, and we started looking around for a race to do together. I looked at a few in the Philippines figuring that would be a nice place for a destination race, but most of them were either sold out or had rather hilly bike courses. For the most part, I've got nothing against hills but they're really tough to train for on a turbo trainer in my living room. Unless I upgrade my trainer. The fancier ones have an electronic mechanism that apparently will adjust the resistance of the trainer to simulate climbing hills. Food for thought if I continue this triathlon adventure beyond the end of next year and am assigned to another garden spot. Anyway, back to the search for races...Holly found one in Croatia with no date attached other than TBD 2016. Finally, at some point after Comrades this summer, while going up and down various Internet rabbit holes, I stumbled across a race called Rocketman. After a quick read of their web site, I knew this was our race. It's small, flat, and only 25 minutes from Heather's house in Florida at a time when I already had tickets to go visit. Plus it's held at the freaking Kennedy Space Center and has rockets for medals! What's not to like?

With the entry fee paid, it was time to get started on the training. With recovery from Comrades plus my general post-major-event-laziness coupled with a dive trip to Indonesia in July, it was probably early August before I began training again. Thanks to an email or two from Mary expressing her concern for my ability to finish, I got my ass in gear and got serious. Erbil was a pretty crappy place to train for Comrades because all of my runs were on a treadmill, but it's not quite as bad for tri training. The pool is designed for splashing around, but it's 20m long and not bad for lap swimming early in the morning. As mentioned above, my bike is on a trainer in the living room, so while I don't improve my bike handling skills any, I also don't fall off and get to watch lots of movies and TV shows. The treadmill is still the treadmill, but I can handle a two hours on one much better than the three or three-plus hours that Comrades required.

Over the next few months, I realized why people (usually spouses, I think) complain how expensive this sport is. Not that I spent a ton of money, but a little bit here on a front-mounted water bottle (the best purchase I made since I have minimal control of the bike on the road when I try to pull a bottle out of a cage), a little bit there for a set of Flo wheels, and a new top and shorts all made it look like Christmas when I arrived in Florida 10 days before the race. Side note: on the subject of traveling home, Emirates now has a flight direct to Orlando from Dubai, making life so much easier. Too bad they didn't start that flight four years ago when we first moved to the Gulf.

One of the race sponsors is Bob's Bicycle Shop in Indian Harbor, about 20 minutes south of Heather. I brought my bike in the day after I arrived so they could install my new wheels and race tires, give it a tune-up, and have it ready for the race. Really nice little shop with great service. They had the bike ready the next day, giving me over a week to practice out on the road.

Doesn't it look nice all cleaned up with new race kit?

I got in a 50-mile ride the weekend before the race and a couple of shorter rides during the week, enough time to make me not confident in my biking skills - that's a long way off - but at least semi-comfortable that I could make it through the race without hurting myself or anyone else. I also learned that cranking up your heart rate the last 20-30 minutes before getting off the bike and going for a run does not lead to a very successful or enjoyable run. In my defense, I was trying to hit 50 miles in the time Mary gave me for my workout because I'd never gone that far in one ride before.

Holly flew in on Friday from Houston, and after she put her bike together that night, we dug into our favorite end-of-the-week meal: pizza and champagne. It's a tradition that began when Heather and I would go visit her in Dubai. We'd stop in duty free on the way out of the airport to buy wine and champagne for her (it's the cheapest place in Dubai to get it) and always end up having a bottle or two with a pizza for dinner that night. We've been doing ever since. It might not be the most nutritious meal, but it works.

Saturday, we went out for a quick ride and run before heading up to the race site to pick up our packets and check in our bikes. All the lines were short except for the one to purchase a one-day membership for the national triathlon organization. People had been waiting in that one for ages because the race organizers couldn't find the forms. I gave up after 15 minutes, whipped out my phone, and paid for the full year membership online. Score one for modern technology, although it still irks me that I had to pay anything at all. One more reason to prefer running: there's no individual fee to a nebulous national body. The rest of the day was spent having a beer or two while watching college football, checking lists and packing everything into a bag for the race, and having a light pasta, pesto, and garlic bread dinner. I'm sure there was a salad in there too. Unlike me, Holly has a salad with dinner almost every night. I get mine at lunch at the restaurant at work.

Of course, as is common before a big race, I had a hard time getting to sleep. I wasn't nervous like I was before Comrades, but I did wonder in the back of my mind how I was going to do. I knew I'd be able to finish one way to another, and felt fairly sure I'd be under the stated time limit of seven hours. I think I was mostly questioning my ability to swim the 1.2 miles. I've swum that distance or more in the pool quite often, but in open water during an event? Never.

Hanging out in transition before the start

Like with most races, Dublin and Stockholm excepted, the alarm went off way too early. I straggled out of bed and wandered into the kitchen to eat a Clif bar. Mary wants me to eat something three hours before a big race, but a Clif bar when I wake up is about all I can handle. I have a hard time eating first thing in the morning. I did manage to follow my liquid fueling plan and sipped on a bottle of Powerade Zero while driving to the race. We arrived at 535 and found a parking spot with no trouble at all. We seemed to have arrived right after the early birds and right before the masses because there was no line at body marking or chip pick-up either. With both of those activities out of the way, I set about pumping my tires and setting up my gear. I hit the porta potty, talked with my parents, and stalled as long as I could before stuffing myself into my wetsuit. Wetsuits are never flattering in the base case, ones designed for tri swims even less so, and the extra pounds I was carrying didn't help matters either. Good thing Holly and my dad were there to help with the zipper. Before too long, we heard the call for the half distance people to line up for the swim, and off we went.

The entrance to the swim was down a narrow set of stairs to the water. There were only three waves for the half (men under 45, men over 45, and all women), less than 250 people in total, starting four minutes apart. In order to alleviate crowding on the stairs, they sent the first wave into the water, kept us on the stairs, and had the women wait at the top until we went into the water.

One of those green caps is me

Finally, the first wave started and they let us into the water. I began the walk out to the start buoy with the water barely getting over my knees. The river was much shallower than I expected. We could walk for a good portion of the swim (and had to in several areas where you'd touch bottom with your hand while swimming) and touch our feet down to catch our breath if we needed to. Which I did once or twice. The swim was missing the argy bargy kicking and hitting that are common in larger races. We were able to spread out easily, and I had no real issues with being kicked or hit by other people. With 15-20 knot winds, the chop was pretty stiff and not something I was prepared for. I swallowed a lot of water heading out to the first buoy. The second leg was better as we were a a less severe angle to the waves, and third leg was a fast combination of swimming and body surfing back to shore. Glancing at my watch as I reached the shallows and could walk faster than swim, the numbers looking back at me were 19:xx. I'm a decent swimmer, but I am nowhere near that fast. I chalked it up to good fortune and went on my way up the stairs to the wetsuit strippers and T1.

When I reached my bike, I took my time to make sure I went through things calmly and carefully. I washed the dirt off my feet to make sure there was nothing under my sock that would cause blisters later, put on some sunscreen (missed more than a few places I found out later in the shower), and prepared to head out. I kept checking to see if Holly was close behind so we could bike together. With the course being shorter than expected and the four minute gap between our starts, it would've been hard for her to catch up, so off I went.

Heading out of T1

The bike course was in the Merritt Island Nature Preserve and on the ground of the Kennedy Space Center. Aside from a small drawbridge and a few on and off ramps, it was about as flat as you can get. I really, really liked the bike leg. I know, I know, I'm not a cyclist and never will be, but it really was a blast. Not a huge fan of the wind, though. Zooming along at 25-30 mph in the tailwind was great fun. Crawling along at 14 in the headwind? Not so much. I especially enjoyed the benefits of an aerodynamic tri bike. Blowing past people upwind and downwind sure kept me motivated the whole way around.

Right after leaving transition. Not entirely comfortable on the road.

The guy I enjoyed passing the most was on a bike with 90mm rims in front and a disc wheel in the back. I'm sure he would've dusted me in calm weather, but in the wind, he didn't stand a chance of keeping his bike under control. I wonder why he didn't change to rims with less windage. It's not like the breeze was a surprise. It was blowing all day on Friday and Saturday, and the forecast wasn't any better for Sunday. Anyway, we had a good chat as we approached one of the u-turns together, and then I was gone.

Taken about 6 miles after the first one.
I almost look like I know what I'm doing.

I started in with fluids at 15 min as per Mary's plan. My bike was loaded with three bottles filled with a mix of Powerade and Powerade Zero, and I emptied all of them by the time I was done. I grabbed a bottle of Gatorade at mile 48 and drank maybe 1/4 of it too. There was supposed to be an initial bottle exchange at mile 14, but I never saw it. I did see the guys from Bob's out there helping people fix flats and deal with other mechanical issues. Really nice of them to spend the day riding around to make sure we all made it back in one piece.

I ate 1/4 of a Clif bar (thanks to Holly for the great idea to cut them into little pieces the night before) at each of my feeding times. About 20 minutes before I got off the bike, I had two Clif bloks to get ready for the run since I was tired of the bars. I also swallowed a salt tab every hour. I probably should have had more had I bothered to look at how much salt was accumulating on my shorts and sleeves. The temperature was not all that hot, thankfully, or things could have been a lot worse.

I only nearly killed myself once or twice during the 56 miles, usually when I was trying to wipe the sweat off my face or grab one of the bottles out of its cage. Damn twitchy tri bikes. Otherwise, my bike handling was decent. I stayed in aero the whole time except for when I sat up to open the bag and get something to eat. Parts of the course were so extremely rough, I felt like my fillings were going to fall out. The out and back to the north gate of the KSC was the worst. Carbon bikes with race tires do not seem to be very forgiving. My wrists, neck, and shoulders really got sore from being so tense on that stretch of road. Biking through the rest of the Space Center was really fun, though. I loved seeing the assembly building, the Space-X building, and all the other NASA stuff they have on site there. I even managed to look at the camera for the iconic race picture.

Smiling for the camera while plodding upwind.
Small improvement in bike handling skills.

The last few hundred meters of the bike got a little interesting. We had to make a sharp lefthand turn across the road where the runners were heading out for their last leg. I wanted to keep a decent speed so they could get back to running (they were held up while we crossed), but I also wanted to slow down enough to be able to dismount without falling over or crossing the dismount line on my bike. Fortunately, I survived and had no issues, but I bet there's a huge spike on my HR monitor at that point in time.

Once in T2, I was a man possessed. I racked my bike, changed my shoes, grabbed my number belt, put on my visor, and left as fast as I could. No, this wasn't because I was racing. I had to pee. Bad. Those three bottles of fluid and the brackish swim water went right through me. I really really had to go while on the bike but wasn't going to stop. Thankfully, there was a bank of porta potties right before the timing mat that starts the run with no line. Two minutes and half my transition time later, I was on my way.

The first mile or two of the run were good. My legs felt like jelly but were turning over a good quick pace. I ate a gel after 20 minutes or so, and that's when my day started going downhill. My stomach wasn't thrilled with that, and I didn't have anything else except fluids the rest of the run. I ran between the water stops, and walked for a bit after each one. I hoped by doing this that I would a) start feeling better, and b) let Holly catch up so we could run together. I began to feel better once I stopped drinking Gatorade and used just ice water. Thankfully, the aid stations between miles 5 and 9 had Coke so I drank a cup at each one. That really made me feel better. The pain of chafing in places that should never chafe prompted me to take two salt tabs at the mile 7 water stop. Apparently the water I'd been pouring over my head coupled with the ice melting down my shirt mixed with the large amount of salt dried on my shorts to create a really uncomfortable mess.

Holly caught up at mile 10 and we ran the rest of the way together. She knew my first half was rough when we saw each other on the out & back and ran faster so she'd reach me. She's a great running spouse.

Overall, I had a great time. I still can't believe how much I enjoyed the bike. Maybe that's because I loved passing people. Tri bikes sure do make a difference. I am sure I could've gone faster on the bike and pushed more during the run, but my main goal was to finish upright and happy. Mission accomplished.

The medal is a miniature Saturn V rocket!

Results:
Swim:  19:23
T1:  4:10
Bike:  3:10
T2:  5:19
Run:  2:25
Total:  6:04



Postscript: Thanks to my parents for some of these pictures and for volunteering during the event. It was pretty funny to hear the race announcer say "John Senger, hurry up and finish. Your mother is looking for you." as I approached the line. Turns out they had missed seeing me come in on the bike and weren't sure where I was. Mom was the person holding back the runners as we crossed in front of them and Dad stood at the dismount line so we knew where to stop. How all three of us missed seeing each other is beyond me.

P.P.S. I'm really glad I have this picture of Holly and me at the finish. It came in handy on my way back to Iraq. Due to a flight cancellation by Emirates, I had to fly from Dubai to Amman to get a Royal Jordanian flight to Erbil. While going through transit security, my medal was confiscated by one of the officers. He tried to tell me it was forbidden because it looked like a weapon. I think he just wanted to take it home for himself or his kids. I protested and argued and pleaded my case with him and four other people, using up over twenty minutes of my one hour connection time. Finally, when talking to the head guy who came out from the central office at the other side of the airport, I explained again what the medal was from and showed him this picture of us at the end of the race. He relented, handed me the ribbon, and I was on my way straight to the gate. The race sent out an email the other day offering to let finishers buy one of the leftover medals. If I knew how to reach the guy who first grabbed my medal, I'd forward him the email and offer to bring one back for him.