Meet The Early's: Ironman Des Moines

It's probably been close to 14-years since I have done a post on here, but the pro thought it would be best if I blogged about my Ironman experience in the first person. Back in January 2019, never in a million years did I think I would complete an Ironman Triathlon. I had hit the heaviest weight I had ever been and was told by my doctor that my cholesterol was high, and I needed to make some life changes or I would be forced to go on meds.

I knew running every day was not going to last, so I decided in February 2019 that 6 days a week I would either run or swim. I steadily increased my distance in both over the next few months and by June, I had lost 40 lbs and was feeling great. For Father's Day, Autumn got me a road bike at the suggestion of my triathlon crazy sister and her husband. Three weeks later, I raced in my first triathlon and I was immediately hooked. I continued to do local races and had signed up for a COVID canceled Half Ironman in Des Moines in 2020 with Allison, Zane and Brad. I eventually was able to race the half Ironman in the pouring rain in Memphis, TN in September 2021. While completing the half was a huge accomplishment, I was left longing for more. As luck would have it, it was announced that in 2022 Des Moines would host a full Ironman. How could I pass up on an opportunity to race 3 hours from home?

For those of you who have completed one, you know that the training is grueling and selfishly time consuming. I tried to minimize the impact on my family by working out early in the morning, and taking time off work for the longer training days, but they felt the impact in other ways, like an always tired and grumpy dad. I was so lucky to have a semi understanding wife, and 4 kids who think triathlons rock and were stoked to see dad do an Ironman. In addition, I had a whole team of family and friends that trained with me and gave me tips along the way. My neighbor Evan has completed three Ironman races and was a huge source of information. My masters swim group at the Jewish Community Center was instrumental in my continued development of my subpar swim stroke. It is also where I met Barry Ogden, a 36x Ironman finisher, 5x Kona qualifier, and all around great guy. While faster than me, Barry was kind enough to let me train with him, as he was planning on racing in Des Moines as well. As it turns out, late in the training, we were both dealing with knee issues that severely hampered our ability to run, so together we focused on strengthening our bike and swim while our knees tried to heel. I spent many a days chasing Barry around the country side doing a lot of bike interval work that was challenging but greatly beneficial. We would trade tips and strategies (mostly one way), and without him, the training and race would have been a lot less fun.

The race was scheduled for Sunday June 12th. We left KC Friday morning and pulled into Des Moines around noon. We went and grabbed some lunch, got checked in for the race, got my swag bag, and then headed to the Ironman store so the kids could get their Ironman gear. We then went and checked into the hotel, and got all of my gear loaded in. Autumn and the kids then headed off to Pella for the night to stay with Kaitlin and Zane. I had an early practice swim on Saturday morning, so I decided to stay in Des Moines for the evening. Barry got into town soon after they left, and we went and had dinner and scoped out a bit of the course. The rest of the night was spent organizing my gear bags and trying to relax.

Saturday morning, Barry and I had a little breakfast at the hotel, went for our practice swim, and then had another breakfast at St. Kilda, which was delicious. My sister Allison had volunteered that afternoon to work the bike checkin, so once she was there, Barry and I headed over with our families to drop off our bikes and transition gear bags. After that, I went back to the hotel, got checked into two additional rooms for family. I kicked my feet up and relaxed for the afternoon. I talked to my neighbor Evan for about 20 minutes, and then after I hung up, I get a text message from him, and its a picture of him and his wife at the Ironman Village, they had surprised me and came to the race to cheer me on. I was super excited to have them there. By that point, Autumn, Briley, Baylor, Alison, Zane, and my parents were all in town. Briley and Baylor had talked about staying in Pella and coming with that group Sunday afternoon, after the bike, but they wanted to see me swim...it made me happy they wanted to support their dad, even if it meant getting up super early in the morning. We went to an early dinner near the hotel and had the restaurant to ourselves. Evan and. Robin joined us for a drink, and then it was time to get to bed. Nerves and anticipation had kicked in and my mind was racing. It was a 5:30am start, so I had to be up at 3 to start getting in my nutrition. I think I slept maybe two hours the entire night.

Early Sunday morning, I get up, take a shower to loosen up, start taking in my nutrition, and then Autumn and I meet up with Barry and his daughter and mom and walk to the Ironman Village, where there are busses to take us to Transition and the swim start. My parents, Zane, Allison, Briley and Baylor came in time for the swim start. Barry and I got into transition to get our bikes ready, and tires aired up. We head over to the swim start where we learn its a wetsuit legal swim, which makes for a faster and easier swim for most people, so it was welcomed news. We put on our wetsuits, and line up according to our estimated finish time. There are over 1,200 racers, so you can imagine how crowded it is. I line up in the 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 min time slot. The pros went off at 5:30, and the age groupers at 5:45. At 5:50, I enter the water and started my long day. The swim was unique, it was a two lap swim with a peninsula that we have to walk across at the halfway point. Since we did not get a warm up swim, I use the first 500m as my warm up. I was one of the early ones in the water, so there was ample space, and I was able to find a clean line to swim. It's still relatively dark so siting the buoys was a little difficult. I complete the first lap, get some cheers from the family as I walk across the peninsula, and then head back in for my second swim. By this point, most of the racers are in the water, including the slower swimmers. This makes for a little more challenging swim, but it was fun. It was kind of like a nascar race, where you are weaving in and out of people. It's much brighter out now so it's easier to site and stay in line with the buoys. I get to the peninsula one last time, walk across it, and then swim for the finish line. Swim was completed in 1 hour and 6 min, so faster than I was anticipating.

The run from the swim to the bike was a long one, around a half mile. They hand me my bike gear bag, and I head into the changing tent to get ready for the bike. 10 minutes after exiting the water, I am on my bike and headed out on a single loop 112 mile bike ride. Shortly into my bike, I notice that my rear gear indexing on my bike is off, as I am jumping and skipping gears. I am still able to keep a good speed, its just more of an annoyance. I decide to deal with it, and I will fix it when I stop to get my special needs bag at mile 56. The weather for the bike was perfect, 60's and very little wind. The course was challenging, but fun. There were a lot of big rollers, so big downhills followed by big up hills. I had planned at riding around 185-190 wats but I was able to keep the speed I wanted at 175-180 watts so I made the decision to stay in that range and try to save my legs for the run. Because of some knee issues, I had really not ran much in the prior 7 weeks, so I knew I would need all the energy I could muster to survive it. My family cheered me on at around mile 50 of the bike, and our friends Evan and Robin seemed to be at every turn; it was such a huge spirit lifter to have those supporters out there during such a long ride. While I would pass someone every now and then, and someone would pass me, I was amazed at how lonely the bike ride felt. With 1,200 racers, you would think it would be a crowded course, but that was not the case. I stopped at the 56 mile mark, got new water bottles, more nutrition, a Snickers bar (nice mental pick me up) and I re-indexed my gears, which took all of 30 seconds and made the ride so much better (should have done it right off the bat). The last half of the ride did not have as many hills as the first half, but it was challenging in its own way. The wind had picked up and was coming out of the east, which was the way we were heading, so we were essentially going into a headwind most of the way back. I finished the bike in 5 hours and 29 minutes, so right where I wanted to be. The bike had 4,000 feet of climb, and Barry said it was one of the more challenging Ironman bikes he had done. I handed off my bike, grabbed my run bag, and headed to the changing tent to change for the run. I remember it felt like a sauna in the changing tent, and it was a foretelling of what was to come.

I knew the temps were rising that afternoon, just in time for me to start my run. With a relatively cool spring, there was no chance to acclimate to the heat, so everyone knew we were in for a challenging day. It was a 3 loop run course, starting at Grays Lake, going out and back on a path behind the lake, looping around the rest of the lake, before running downtown, coming within 100 ft of the finish line, doing a U turn, and going back out again twice. Given that I was short on run fitness due to the knee injury (which was still impacting me), I decided to take it slow out of the gate at an 8:30 to 9 min pace. The first 9 miles of the run felt decent with some knee issues, but those subsided with time. I thought the downtown portion was going to be the hottest, but it ended up being the best portion. You had a breeze through the buildings, and you had tons of fans cheering you on. I had my family at one restaurant cheering me on while my kids and nieces and nephews ran along side me. Then I had Robin and Evan at a brewery cheering me on, along with the entire patio chanting my name. The lake was another story, there was no shade, no breeze, and no fans to cheer you on. With a heat index of 100deg, it was turning into a death march. Barry said out of his 36 Ironman's, this was the hottest run. I would say, 90% of the racers were walking or shuffling. At about the 12-13 mile mark, as a result of favoring my right leg because of my left knee, my right hip started bothering me, and the heat was also taking its toll. I started to walk the aid stations and any hills. Then I went to also walking if I came across some shade. After making my way through downtown and heading out on my third and final loop, my buddy Evan told me that the next 8 miles will be the hardest of my life, and to just keep moving forward. Throughout the bike and run, I had managed to stay on top of my hydration, sodium and nutrition, so from that aspect I was feeling good, it's just that my leg muscles were done, and I had to keep pushing through. I started to play mind games with myself, challenging myself to run to that light pole, run to that tent, try to see how far past the tent you can keep running. Eventually I made it over the bridge and back downtown for one last mile. I got a bump of adrenaline as I jogged past the brewery where Evan and Robyn were, and the restaurant were my family was...they were no longer there, which meant there were at the finish line waiting on me. I picked up my pace and decided I would get one last drink at the aid station that was .75 miles from the finish. However, when I got to the aid station, I saw Briley there waiting on me. She was going to run with me to the finish line, so I just kept running, and she was able to make me pick up the pace a bit. As I got to the final corner, Baylor, Finley, Atticus, Owen and Lola where there, and they all ran with me to the finishing chute. Running into that chute, instead of having to do the U turn, was an amazing feeling. Nobody else turned in with me, so I had the entire chute to myself. As I sprinted to the finish, I gave Evan and high five as he told me to soak it in, I completely missed Autumn, let out a scream, did a couple of fist pumps into the air, followed by another scream, and ran across the line with my hands in the air as Mike Riley, the voice of Ironman, shouted, "Andy Early, you are an Ironman!" 11 hours and 55 minutes. What a moment. I hugged my family and my friends who had supported me the entire day and just tried to soak it all it. With my finishers medal around my neck and my finishers shirt and hat in my hand, I was a man on cloud 9. I wanted to finish an hour earlier than I had, but with my knee issues and the heat, I was more than happy with my time. My friend Barry had finished an hour ahead of me and got 4th in his age group, qualifying for Kona for the 6th time...such an inspiration and such a deserving guy. That is where I want to be, and who knows if I will get there, but I will keep working and striving to be better. That is what I love most about this sport, the process of getting better. I came in 27th place in my age group out of 115 finishers, and 194th overall, out of 900 finishers. For my first one, that is a job well done in my book. I could not have done it without my amazing wife and kids, and my amazing family and friends. As much as Autumn had hoped this would be the end, I am afraid its only the beginning, as I am already looking for my next Ironman race!