My Ironman Experience

A Retelling of My First Ironman Race: Ironman Florida 2025

By Taylor Sapp

I have been wanting to write about my Ironman journey for a while now, but I keep getting overwhelmed thinking about it, so I’m going to just start now and write about it in parts.

So let’s start at the beginning. I started doing triathlons about 5 years ago when my friend in high school and I decided one day to randomly sign up for a sprint the summer after our junior year. I had experience with track and cross country and she had experience with soccer, so we trained a bit together and just went for it. It was really fun, but not any sort of miracle or eye opening experience. I enjoyed it, but thought nothing really of it until I graduated high school. Then, when I knew I was going to UF and not going to continue track and field, I looked around for sports clubs to join and found the Trigators. Long story short, I joined the club and have been with them ever since. I have made a lot of new friends through the tri club and it’s really helped me not be so isolated and depressed throughout college. I was VP my sophomore year and President my junior year. Senior year is when I kinda stepped back a bit to focus on my studies and, of course, my Ironman.

I participated in Ironman Florida last November, and it was truly the greatest experience ever. I signed up in January during a really low time in my life. I was just really swamped with school and club responsibilities and my depression reached a high. I needed something to train for. I needed a goal to set my mind on to get me through the rough times. After that rough spring semester, I spent the whole summer training.

Now, I am very privileged to be able to not only sign up for this race, but also not have to work all summer to pay for it. I was able to take the summer off from school and work so that I could really focus on my mental health and on training for this race. My training was nothing too rigorous, but it still took a lot of planning and a lot of time and dedication. Before doing the full distance Ironman, I had done 3 of the 70.3 races over the past few years, so I knew what to expect out of a big race like this, which I think was important, at least for me at my fitness level.

I have always been a pretty athletic person, switching from sport to sport over the years. But while I did pretty well in track, I excelled at field events rather than endurance events. I think a reason why a lot of people hate running or find running really intimidating is because they don’t know how to run slow. Like actually slow, not 9:30 min/mile slow. When you get into triathlons and marathons, you realize that it doesn’t matter how slow you go. It just matters that you’re there and you’re doing it. That was kind of my philosophy behind my training schedule.

When I started truly training in the summer, I just looked up a free training plan online and roughly followed it. I think that if you’re like me and have a relatively athletic background and are just racing for fun, you probably don’t need to pay for a coach. Throughout the summer I tried to stick to two workouts a day, usually combining running in the morning with indoor biking (Zwift) in the afternoon/evening and swimming with weights and strength training (nothing fancy. Just some machines and light free weights). On weekends I did some longer workouts, adding on mileage as I went.

Once school started in the fall, it was a little harder to keep up my training, but I tried to push through, just making sure I did something each day. I think the main elements of training that I did that I would suggest to others are working up to a half marathon of running/walking in about 3 hours, a century (100 miles) of biking at about 15/16 mph, and roughly 2 miles of swimming at a decent pace (idk I’m not really good with swim paces lol). Look up a pace calculator and go from there. If your goal is just to finish like mine was, you’ll be surprised how relaxed you can be while still finishing in time.

So that was the buildup. Sorry if that was all over the place. But let’s get into the weekend of the race itself…

This was literally the first Ironman race where I actually planned ahead and booked a place to stay early so we didn’t have to drive 30 minutes morning of. We stayed at an Airbnb right on the beach and it was the best thing ever. We could literally see the swim course from our balcony and the Ironman village was less than a 10 minute walk away. It worked out so well for my parents, who were able to watch the swim, go back to sleep, workout, shower, and then catch me for the end of the bike and start of the run. We arrived at our place Thursday for the race on Saturday, which worked out amazingly. I just wish I didn’t have school and could have stayed longer after to relax.

I didn’t end up doing much that Thursday besides a shakeout run and some dinner. On Friday, we went to the village in the morning to buy all the good merch. (Don’t ask how much money was spent. That information is between me and my bank account.) After shopping and checking in, we hung around for a little while, getting some lunch at a really good food truck and listening to the athlete briefing. We then went back to our rooms and set up all my bags. It was pretty overwhelming, but it definitely helped that I had a lot of time to get acclimated to the environment around me and get everything organized. The rest of Friday just consisted of resting and eating well. I don’t think I was really nervous at all. I just remember being so excited and that feeling carried me into the morning.

Saturday started a little less chill, but I didn’t run into any major problems. I checked on my bike and dropped off my personal needs bags. The little air nozzle on my bike tire (idk what it’s called) broke off when I was pumping my tires, but the bike mechanic was able to fix it no problem. After checking on my transition stuff, I headed over to the swim start and hung out with my parents while preparing to race. The atmosphere was electric, as it is with most Ironman races, and the swim started without a hitch.

The Swim

I had only done saltwater swims a few times and never for nearly as long as the Ironman swim. Overall, it was difficult, but I enjoyed it. The waves were the first obstacle. We started from shore and while swimming out, the waves would basically make you feel like you weren’t moving. I remember looking at the sand as I kicked and I just wasn’t going anywhere. A little daunting, but I pushed through. The water was clear and beautiful and I saw jellyfish and other little fishes.

The next obstacle was, of course, swallowing saltwater. I was doing pretty well for a while, but the inevitable happened and I got a few mouthfuls of ocean. Luckily, halfway through the swim (it was 2 loops), they had water for us on the beach. Definitely appreciated that.

The last major obstacle I faced during the swim was my wetsuit chafing the back of my neck. I didn’t really notice it until I got out of the water and ran in for my second lap. But the pain was pretty bad. And it didn’t help that I’m stupid and sprayed sunscreen on my neck right after the swim, before starting the bike. Yeah. The sting was not great.

Overall, I did better than I thought I would on the swim. I actually really enjoy swimming, which I know is abnormal for a lot of triathletes. I have a bit of a swimming background and it is probably the event where I fall behind the least. Leaving the water that day was surreal. First part of the Ironman done, just like that!

The Bike

During training and prepping for this race, the bike was probably what I was most dreading. I’ve never really loved biking, just because it’s painful, though it has definitely grown on me since I’ve been doing it a lot. I had done a century in training and it went well, so I knew I’d be able to complete the bike, even if I hated my life the whole time. I made sure I had all my tools and was adept at changing my tire in case of a flat. I put on lots of sunscreen so I wouldn’t be burnt to a crisp. And then I was off.

A few things made my bike experience one of the best rides I’ve had to date, the first being the weather. Now, living in Florida is not for the weak. We get about 5 weeks total of cold weather, if you could even call it that. It was just my luck that November 1st in Panama City fell within the edges of those weeks. It wasn’t too cold nor too hot. It was literally perfect. I could not have possibly asked for better weather. The air was crisp in the morning (but the water was actually pretty warm) and it warmed up a bit during the day before dropping again at night. I rode in a light long sleeve over my tri suit and I felt amazing the whole time.

The next thing that went well during the bike for me was the wind. It was definitely a bit windy, but nowhere near what I was expecting for PCB. If you know me, you know that my least favorite condition is wind. Give me rain or hills before wind any day. This course? Approved.

Last thing that stood out on the bike was the organization, for lack of a better word. They gave us stickers that we could put on our bikes of the course elevation and miles, including where aid stations would be. I’m not sure if they do that for all the full distance races, but they should because it was very helpful. I stopped at each aid station to take a minute to eat and fill my waters. It was perfect. I can truly say that there was no time during the bike (or the race as a whole, actually) where I hated my life.

The Run

I was actually feeling pretty good after the bike and was able to start jogging right out of transition, after taking a good while to go to the bathroom and such. Usually I am too dead and need to start with a walk for a good while. I surprised myself by running almost the entire first half of the marathon. Running was probably where I trained the least, so I knew I would need to take it slow and just enjoy my time out there, no matter what happened.

Along the run, I stopped to walk for a few seconds at each aid station, which gave me a nice little break and allowed me to set short goals for myself. “Okay, I just need to make it one more mile until a cup of coke. I can run one mile no problem.” After halfway, I started to walk a lot more. It was getting a little chilly, so I put on a sweatshirt, but other that that, I felt pretty good. My legs and feet were hurting, of course, but nothing that made me want to stop. Eventually, my mantra became “just run to that tree up there and then you can walk,” and so on. I went past our hotel twice and was able to see my parents.

During the months before the race, I watched all sorts of Ironman videos and always cried when they did when they finished. I thought finishing my own race would make me cry, but I didn’t. I think it was because the race was just so enjoyable all around. Of course I pushed myself, but there was no point where I actually wanted to quit. Finishing just left me feeling really happy and proud.

My time was around 15h16m which was even a little better than I wanted to finish. I got my medal, my shirt, and my food, and then I waited around for my parents to find me which took about 200 years. But eventually we all rejoiced! And then went home and slept.