Ironman Brazil

Andrea and I slept as best we could at the Montevideo airport on Thursday night, a first for both of us. Our flight to Porto Alegre, Brazil was scheduled for a 7am departure, arriving at 8:45am. We both fell asleep as soon as we took off and when we woke up we expected to be descending so we could catch our next flight to Florianopolis. Little did we know that our 1:45 flight would turn into over 4 hours – we spent 2.5 hours circling the airport due to heavy fog. The pilot’s last resort was to fly to Florianopolis to refuel and we were doing a silent dance hoping that would happen and they would let us off the plane. Unfortunately, the fog cleared just before the fuel emergency and we safely landed in Porto Alegre. Andrea felt like we were in Die Hard 3 without Bruce Willis!! The departure backlog at the airport was expected and we finally made it to Florianopolis, although 2 hours late.

Five hours of flying and three buses later we were in Canasvieiras in the north of Santa Catarina Island where Ironman Brazil takes place. We lucked out on VRBO and rented an ocean front apartment for far less than we expected. There are some seriously nice houses in this part of Brazil, and a serious amount of Reais to go with them, so we were pleased with our very late $400 booking for 6 nights.

We were so glad we weren’t in Anita or Joe’s shoes as the nerves the day or so before an Ironman distance race can be overwhelming, and the two of us were just glad to have familiar faces around for a few days and to receive our new toys. It was just like Christmas, with a new laptop, camera battery, trail shoes, hard American Dollars, and M&M’s. Now I don’t have to bug the crap out of Andrea every time I want to use the laptop during her work day!

This was to be Joe’s 6th Ironman and Anita’s 3rd, making us feel completely inadequate right now regarding fitness levels. This is one of the major downfalls when travelling, at least for us. The desire to stay fit is only coming back now that we see all the superfit athletes around us, and the days of being slobs are dwindling! I’m signing up again for the 3 day La Ruta mountain bike race in Costa Rica taking place at the end of October and Andrea is searching for a half marathon to enter around the same time.

Getting up at 5.15am on race day was not exactly fun for us, but that’s what friends do, right? We ran the 4 miles to the race start and watched the usual chaos of a mass Ironman swim start – the day they change this is the day that Ironman becomes Wussman, and that’s coming from someone who hates those swim starts with a vengeance. The ocean was super calm and the weather looked to be perfect, making for some fast finish times from our race veterans.

A flat swim, a mostly flat bike and a couple of hills on the run, one short but steep hill, and the race was over. Sounds easy! We stood and watched many of the runners, or walkers at this point, on the steepest hill and they were making it look very difficult. On their return was a beautiful view of Jurere beach and a great feeling knowing that they were almost half way through the run. The finish line was the usual hectic ending, but without Mike Reilly (the voice of Ironman) chanting to every finisher… “You are an Ironman”. Our friends both finished in the 12:30 timeframe, 4:30 before the midnight cutoff. Congrats!

Watching the finishers was not good for me as it’s been 2 years since racing an Ironman and the excitement came flooding back. Maybe Western Australia will be the next venue in December 2014. Just watch this space..