12/12/2008

letter from a friend

A good friend and training partner, a super swimmer in NCAA sent me his Ironman Az race report, so i thought i would post it and share is experience. He tried to get back at me on my birthday, but it didnt work. This is what Dave Mcmanic wrote, i hope you enjoy!

IMAZ Race Report

Before Leaving

I was planning on leaving for Tempe on wed. after work. However, I had been having a problem with some unwelcome tenants who had decided to move into my apartment the weekend before. Waking up at 2 AM Monday morning to go to the bathroom, I flipped on the light and found a dead rat who had fallen into the toilet and drowned in the water. Talk about being woken up in a hurry. Anyway, as this one rodent was not the only one who had taken up occupancy in my tiny apartment I decided to spend a few days at my parents house in Southlake while I waited for the apartment complex to bring in an exterminator.

I left without a hitch wed after work and made it to Midland, TX where I spent the night and continued the rest of the way Thursday.

Friday

Friday morning I woke up and went down to the race site to register. No major problems. After registering I took a drive along the bike course to see what I was getting myself into. I spent the rest of the day getting my stuff together and packing it in the bags. I also made a couple trips to pick up some last minute things. I went to the banquet that evening and sat with a guy from Canada named Bernard and his daughter. He was a cool guy and after chatting he told me he was doing his 18th ironman.

Saturday

I woke up early and went and took a swim. While swimming is my background, and I have done several open water 5K swims, I had never done one in a wetsuit. So this was a good chance to try out the wetsuit Yates gave me. I must say that I don’t like swimming in the wetsuit because I can’t feel my body position in the water. However, with a water temp of 63F I was certainly glad I had one. By the time I got back to the hotel, Mark, my best friend from high school had just arrived from San Francisco. The rest of the day we hung out and watched a movie and got a good dinner. It was to bed early for me as I had the alarm set for 4:45 AM the next morning. Mark stayed up and waited on my other friends who were driving in from LA.

In the middle of the night I woke up to go to the bathroom and I see my friends from LA have arrived. They had brought a blow up mattress and an electric pump to blow it up with, however they did not want to wake me up and were attempting to blow it up in the hallway (keep in mind it is about 1 AM). I tell them to bring it into the room and blow it up inside so we aren’t kicked out of the hotel.

Race Day
Alarm went off and got to race site without any problems. I got all of my gear ready and dropped off the special needs bags. Otherwise I just relaxed and chatted with a few other competitors. Finally got the wetsuit on and to the start line.

Swim

I treaded water and pushed myself to the front of the pack since I knew I would be in the top of the swim. When the gun went off I went hard for the first several minutes before I got some separation for the 2,500 people behind me. After a while I settled in on someone’s hip and drafted off of him for the rest of the swim.

Bike

I got out on the bike with no major problems. Transition was a little long but whatever. I started my nutrition plan and just sat down for a long time in the saddle. There was a bit of a head wind going out on the bike but not too bad. I made it to the turn around where there was an aid station. This one was probably my favorite aid station because of the cute girls in santa hats and short green skirts. Each loop I debated on faking a medical injury just to hang out with them. My biggest fear on the bike was getting a flight and luckily I made it through with out that. My friends were there and drove out to different points of the bike course to see me go by and were definitely loud, just what I like. By the third loop I knew I was well behind my goal pace and wasn’t having a great day. But, I just continued on and figured there was a lot of race left to make up some time.

Run

I knew starting the run that there was no way I would be able to make my goal time. This got me bummed for a few minutes, but then I thought, today I am going to be an ironman. I knew I could walk 26.2 miles and still be able to finish well under the 17 hour cut off. This gave me a little motivation for the first half of the run loop. Also, during this point the top 3 pro males went flying past me all within about 20-30 seconds of each other. Raelert, the eventual winner, was in third when he past but you could tell was moving significantly faster than the two guys ahead of him. The first loop went by and I was able to run most of it, except for the aid stations and started out on the second loop. My friends were awesome the entire time and were moving around to different parts of the course to cheer. At one point they were running alongside me while I was crossing a bridge. Two of them were falling behind me, while the third looks back at them and says, “He’s raced like 130 miles so far and you’re going to let him drop you?” Definitely cheered me up and made me laugh. I finished the rest of the run/walk and met some nice people along the way. Of course with a mile left I start to pick up the pace and ran down the finishing line listening to Mike Reilly say, “David McManic from Fort Worth, TX, you are an ironman.” Definitely was cool. Immediately after the finish two girls pulled me to the side and ushered me out of the way to the food tent. I know we talked but have no idea about what. Hopefully I was witty.

Post Race

After I had a little time to recover my friends and I decide the perfect post race meal would be at the hooters down the street. I don’t really remember much of the meal probably because I fell asleep while sitting at the table. We went back to the hotel and I got a good shower and good nights sleep.


All in all it was a great experience and hopefully I will get a chance to do another one. I must thank Brent, Brian, and Yates who did a lot of training with me. Also, my friends for coming out and watching the race.

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