IMTX May 17, 2014 Spectator Report 5/19/14

For the record, this is a race report that does not shed light in becoming an Ironman.  For that, you have to read, our friend, David Smith’s blog.  Thank you, David for mentioning us.  It was once in a lifetime opportunity, but maybe we should not make just once!

Later 2013, when everybody started to plan Ironman races for 2014, David mentioned that he wants to get done with A race with full Ironman distance early in the season and picked IMTX.  David has been a wonderful friend to all of us, always encouraging and generous with his advice.  When I heard it, I jumped on the opportunity that I finally get to meet him in person.  I searched and it was fairly near where we live (Texas is very big and it could be very far) and after checking my academic calendar, it would be after my semester duties were over.  It falls onto Commencement, which falls onto Saturday.  I usually don’t go those and unusual IM race on Saturday should make juggling Tony’s schedule better.  And better yet, it is the timing when we went to Italy last year, Hawaii the year before, when Tony plans summer vacation part one.  However we ended up getting a hotel a lot north, not the same hotel as David was staying.

Tony and I were very excited with this opportunity, but I had plenty concerns regarding the heat.  My very first year in the US was in Southern Vermont and I distinctly recall we had snowstorm in March.  Then when the schoolwork is done around Memorial Day (weird graduate school, I know), there was about a week of spring and rushed into mosquito filled sticky summer.  Mid-May for us is still nice time to ride.  I would say April being best, but any warm weekends throughout the winter months are rideable and even whissy me starts riding outside around March. Until June is golden then July and August become questionable health hazards.    Usually I first turn on the air conditioning in my car around spring break, which David’s neighborhood is still having snowstorm.  David kept sending the Spinervals Team his photos and videos training in basement and he was bundling up, as I never have to as living room athlete. 

But what David mentions a lot in the report is wind.  Texas spring is great as long as it is not stormy.  When it is stormy, it causes tornado and hail, all that dramatic bad stuff, but even calm day, it is windy.  No matter how the day starts, the wind picks up in the afternoon.  Before Texas, I lived in New Mexico for 10 years and New Mexico’s wind in spring could be worse.  We don’t have decent hills in North Texas, so I take the wind as character building training component.

The week leading up to the event was unseasonably cool due to the storm coming from north.  It produced good amount of rain we needed.  I could even get some comfortable run in the morning.  So I was glad that David would have easier race.  David flew to Houston and reassembled the bike quickly and put it on the rack in transition.  He must have been one of the first to do so.  Note to self for next time: With this photo, now I can tell his bike is very close to the middle where athletes walk/run to bike out.  One side is women and the other is men.  I thought I knew how to count, but as you find out, we managed to miss David in T1!

I finished grading, reporting and cleaning out the office and Friday, finally started to frantically start research about the race and location.  Ann Crane sent me the secret spectator guide, which helped IMMENSELY.  Team Flores got on the road and we were lucky to meet David and Alison in a restaurant for dinner.  I thought he was chatty and upbeat.  Alison was super cool, in regular sense cool and calm.  David’s race success comes from her support!  David oriented us on a map how the races goes around and informed us what he is wearing. I learned the swim finishes in the “canal”, which is right outside the restaurant, which I thought was a wanna-be version of San Antonio River Walk.  The water looked solid green and very shallow.  It was super good meeting and wished David good luck. 

I woke up with Tony’s alarm and we quickly went through the document and learned we have to drive directly to the lake for swim start.  Proper protocol is to find parking near the park that serves as transition and walk to the swim start with as athletes do (in the dark).  Luckily we found a spot fairly close and walked to the lake.  Once I see the park, everybody was trying to put wet suit on.  Oh, so wet suit legal!  Soon, we saw the pros start and started to see people getting in the water to get ahead of the mass start. 

Then we saw AG start 10 minutes after.  Unlike pro start, there were so many people and some people came very close to the shore.  And some people were walking.  I remembered in Ann’s document that the lake is shallow.  After seeing the start, we got back to the car and headed back to the Mall area. 

The whole Mall area felt like there is not a single soul that is not involved in the race.  And I should say I saw the biggest concentration of matching clothes in the US.  People had matching T-shirts for team, sometimes with athlete’s name and bib #.  A lot of people had huge cardboard to cheer.  Some people had face cutout.  Anything to be spotted by the athlete, right?  When Tony and I headed out the transition, very first pro male were already leaving on bike.  We scouted around the transition first then looked the area where people went in the water.  We came back to the row that was supposed to be David’s, but at this point, Tony’s phone’s IronTrac was not working and we managed to miss him!  Note to self for next time: Make sure to bring binocular.   We finally moved away from the transition when Alicia posted he is on the bike posting swim and T1 time!  URGH.  We walked and stopped at the mount line.   By this time, I knew fast people were gone, but it was interesting how people were getting on the bike.  Maybe they were tired from the swim already.  Or maybe a lot of them had wrong gear.  Or maybe they didn’t practice this part well.  I thought myself pretty clumsy when I did my Du, but felt like I did better than some. 

This was the time frame super Sherpa Alison said she would go back to the hotel and nap, so we went back to ours, too.  Our hotel was maybe 5 miles away from the mall, but we could tell our neighbors were all Ironman racers.  We caught the finish of Giro stage that day and followed Alison and took a nap.  Tony’s phone was finally loaded with IronTrac.  We got up and searched Whataburger for lunch and pros were already running!  We walked along the run course and I was so surprised there are no barricades like bike course here.  Spectators as well as regular sightseeing people are crowding up the racecourse!  Some going the same direction, some going the opposite direction.  Often with huge boxes of pizza and glasses of booze!  We waited right outside of the restaurant we met the night before.  We were not quite sure exactly what mileage point and one point IronTrac was acting up.  Sherpa posted and then we spotted David on the other side of the river.  Felt like it was a long time, but we didn’t know how the course goes.  Then when David came, HE spotted us!  He stopped for us for a while and Tony gave him a hug and he went on.

Tony did the quick calculation and we sat in the bar for a while.  Then we were lucky to catch the Tour of California on TV.  We went to Ironman Official store and picked up some goodies.  I wanted the same backpack David picked up earlier and I saw people with it everywhere, but they no longer didn’t seem to have it.  So I picked a different one, bigger and extremely colorful.  I think it is a transition bag.  There are pockets in funky size everywhere and I think one is meant for helmet, another is for wet suit and so on.  Tony picked up a red visor and I picked up a white mesh hat with IM Texas 2014 reference.  I thought I need to protect my head for run from now and the mesh will help keep the head cooler. 

We waited almost at the same spot and the Sherpa report was David was struggling.  Felt like it took longer than Tony’s estimate.  At this point, we figured out the bib has name on it, so we started cheering for everybody.  There were a lot of Spanish speaking people; mainly Mexicans and Puerto Ricans and they are the loud ones.  David spotted us one more time and said, “I have to do one more lap.”  We went up to the same bar and had dinner.  Tony figured out we are on the wrong side of the river to see him third time, so we moved ourselves right by the tunnel.  Third time, David said, “see you at the finish line!” 

We quickly got ourselves upper level on the bridge and I started to see people with finisher medals.  Bridge is not very wide and because it is blocked off, it was even narrower and difficult to walk.  We saw a HUGE screen to project the finish line, but moved on.  The finishers had to go down the street downhill and make U-turn to slight uphill to the finish.  This meant I could spot David on the other side and know exactly when he is coming.  It was amazing how FAST people were running at this stage.  Finally David came and people who were closer to the barricade said we could take up their space when David comes around.  He was touching hands with everybody.  I yelled so many times and he noticed me, too.  Then I knew all my Spinervals Team would see him at the finish line streaming video.  Congratulations, David!

We walked back, passed the finish line and looked for David.  Finishers were wrapped around in metallic blanket appropriately as the temperature was dipping down.  Then looked like the finisher photo area to go through and then out the area.  We waited for David for a while thinking it takes a while to go through all that process, but yet one more time, he spotted us.  He said everything hurts and all he wants to do is close his eyes and rest.  We still had to fight the traffic on the bridge for David and Alison to the hotel and us to the car.  I heard an athlete was down on the bridge.  We got a little roomy spot and Alison took a super photo of three of us. David told us he is staying an extra night to get some rest and we departed. 

Tony and I kept walking by the river.  Some were still running.  It meant they had still have to do full loop AND more.  And it was getting darker.  We passed the transition and I would say almost half the bikes were still there.  Super Sherpa Alison got David’s already.  What an emotional moment!  If you want to feel like you achieved something in your life, not many can be better than this.  Of course, we know the sacrifice, dedication and hard work involved.  I was so happy to be part of the experience.  Overall, the race was extremely spectator friendly and weather felt comfortable all day.  I should have done more homework in advance.  Both Tony and I were wearing bike jersey and we got “Good job!” and “Well done”, too!  THANK YOU, David and super Sherpa Alison for this experience.  And Spinervals Team online to keep us updated.  What an unforgettable day!