I had done a :27 minute swim at a half Ironman in June so I was anticipating that I could go around 1:03 but the waves and the beating that I took on the swim really slowed me down. My goal was to not get kicked in the face so I pretty much swam the first 800 yards with my face out of the water. I tried to just stay calm, unlike everyone else, and just swim from hole to hole in the crowd. At one point a guy repeatedly swam over my back pushing me down in the water. He stopped once I nailed him with an elbow to the side of the face. I can't complain too much about my time because the swim is really hard for a lot of people but this was by far the hardest swim I have ever done in my 21 years of competitive swimming.

Start right on the front and try to just get away from the crowd from the gun. We started near the front but not on the front line and we got clobbered.

Had no trouble finding my bag because I had marked it with some bright colored duct tape. I had a great volunteer but I told him to move on because he was trying to rush me and I was in no hurry to get out of there. I wanted to make sure that I did everything that I needed to do since I was going to be on the bike for a while.

I knew that the course was taxing on the legs and I am not great on the downhill portions of the course so I decided to go my pace and not worry about the other riders. Got settled into a nice pace about 10 miles into the course and was super surprised to see some of my friends cheering at mile 16 as we crossed a bike path. Saw them again out on the hills which were AMAZING. You barely felt the pain as you watched the fans cheer and run up the hill with you. I was actually looking forward to them as the race went on.

I ran into some of my racing buddies as we went along and saw my family as I finished the first lap after I stopped for a bathroom break. The second lap started to get a little dark for me but I am positive I was just not eating enough. I was bonking pretty bad around mile 90 and didn't get any real food in me until mile 100. I had run into a friend and was riding with him as much as you can. We rolled into T2 together and as I jumped off my bike I saw my main training partner jump off of her bike at the same time. We exchanged a few words and went on our way.ea

Eat more and eat earlier. You underestimate the calories you burn on this thing.

No trouble getting my bag again and just went over into a corner by myself to collect my thoughts before heading out.

I decided to stop for a bathroom break as I left T2 and my main running partner came out of the bathroom as I was headed in. I told her I was going to catch up and to keep moving. It took me about 2 miles to catch up to her. We trained together every day of the year so it was amazing to hook up out there and we made a plan after about mile 5 to walk the water stops but run the rest. This was no problem for us and we had a great pace going. We walked observatory hill and our families were on state street so that was awesome. We had 5 other friends racing and we saw all of them.

Made it through the half at 2:04 and we realized we were in big trouble! The rest of the way pretty much sucked but we tried to keep up just walking the water stations. We were on a good pace still until we got back into campus the second time. Once we got back around to state street we were walking more but we knew that we needed to pick it up to get under 12 hours. I wasnt able to eat anything and knew that if I pushed it I would end up in the medical tent so I sent her on her way. I walked more and more but I knew that I was going to finish so I just kept moving forward.

With about 3/4 mile to go a friend from college, 12 years ago, jumps off of the sidewalk as I round a corner and runs up the street with me. That gave me a burst of energy to finish it strong.

I was really ok after the race but I was happy to get some pizza. I had three friends in the medical tent including my running partner who was getting an IV. I really just wanted to get my shoes off and have some pizza. We waited for a while for the people in the med tent but they were never released so we started walking back. Luckily my dad went and got my gear so I just had to worry about me. My wife stopped and got me some ice cream and fried rice on the way back to the hotel. While I was eating I started to get the chills and was shaking uncontrollably which was funny.