Reflecting Back on 25 Ironmans: #2 Great Floridian ’97

This blog entry the second of a series of articles that began with my first race, Ironman Canada and will ultimately end with my 25th Ironman-distance triathlon at ChesapeakeMan this past October.

After I crossed the line at Ironman Canada, I felt a sense of euphoria that lasted a week. Like an addict, I was hooked on the Ironman-distance and craved that euphoric feeling again. I now knew that I could finish the race. I had made some mistakes, yet still narrowly missed a coveted Hawaii entry slot bya few minutes. Now, I wanted to do it faster. Hawaii was not an option for me but there was another Ironman-distance race coming up in October in Clermont, Florida, called the Great Floridian Triathlon, that my friends told me about. I reckoned my fitness was good and I wanted to relive the feeling of euphoria so I signed up.

When I raced at Great Floridian, I did not have a faster race that I thought I might have. In fact, I finished about 30 minutes slower than Canada in a time of 10:42. I attribute this mainly to two factors:

1. I lost my training partner and
2. It was the end of a long triathlon season and I was tired.

Lesson Learned: Train with a dedicated, compatible friend. I lost Phil. He was done after Canada so I trained mostly by myself, piecing together the latter portions of the workouts we had followed for Canada. I missed the camaraderie, the accountability and the peer pressure to keep up. My workouts lost their “fun factor” and became more of a chore.

Lesson Learned: End of Season Burnout Happens. I was tired. I had begun racing in June with the Eagleman Half-Ironman, trained through the summer for Canada and was now extending my training season another two months until the end of October. I would experience end of season burnout again and again in the future.

A finish at GFT was still finish, but I fell short of my own expectations of what I thought I should be able to do. I had wanted to break 10 hours. I had heard about another Ironman race in California that was at the time an Ironman Hawaii qualifier: Vineman in Santa Rosa, CA.

You can read more about my experiences at Great Floridian in my book, Full Time and Sub-Nine

This article series will be continued with race #3: Vineman Full in August 1998.

Live life richly and boldly!

David

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David B. Glover
Experiential Writer, Elite Athlete, Coach and Race Director
Author of Full Time and Sub-Nine: Fitting Iron Distance Training into Everyday Life
Blog: davidglover.net
Web: enduranceworks.net

©2008 David B. Glover