Spectating Ironman Florida

This past weekend I found myself in Panama City Beach, Florida spectating and supporting my buddy, Dave MacNeill, as he competed and completed the Ironman Florida Triathlon. Dave and I work together at LifeWay and over the past couple of years have become pretty good friends. Dave is an Ironman. He has been an Ironman for a number of years and you may recall that back in the Spring, I completed my first triathlon, much to the encouragement of Dave.

An Ironman Triathlon consists of these three sports and distances:
Swimming -2.4 miles
Biking - 112 miles
Running - 26.2 miles
All of those miles add up to 140.6 miles and a pretty tired body evidently.

I had a blast spectating and supporting this triathlon. I really did. I found myself encouraging and supporting
people that I have never seen before and quite possibly, never will see again. But that did not really matter to me. What mattered is that they competed to the best of their ability and I wanted to help them do that by encouraging them to press on. There were all shapes, sizes, ages, colors,statuses (even the prince of Bahrain participated) and levels of natural talent represented. It was incredibly inspirational for me to watch.

The Progression of an Ironman

There were new course records set and three men finished under 8 hours. Watching the winner come down the finish chute was pretty amazing. Another amazing feat to me was accomplished by my friend Dave. His swim time was 1:20:00 which was incredible! His bike time was 6:48:18 with a 20 minute rest time to let his quads sort of recuperate. Both of those were incredibly strong physically, but it was his run that impressed me the most. His time of 7:34 does not reflect his best physical effort of run/walk, but it screams to me outstanding mental strength that he used to push on physically. Dave struggled with extreme nausea from almost the start of the marathon. Without being graphic, it is safe to say that the majority of nutrition that he took in on the run, made its way back up the way it went down very quickly after it went down. He was pretty sick.

I saw him at the half-marathon mark, encouraged him, worried about him and told him he had 5 hours to finish 13 miles. And . . . he did that with time to spare on a nutritionally depleted body. It was a remarkable feat to witness. Way to go Dave! It was awesome to be a part of your support team. Looking forward to competing alongside of you in the future.