Ironman Louisville - TriathlonFull Ironman

Swam at 50% effort and even did some backstroke for about 30% of the swim just to make sure I took it easy and balanced out the effort in my shoulders to save energy for IMWI next weekend. Ended up swimming WAY off course due to the fact that it's a "little" difficult to sight in open water doing the backstroke...oh well.

Nothing

took my sweet ol' time in T1 and relaxed a bit and also made a pit stop in the porto-potty. was in NO rush.

Nothing

Some rookie yelled out during the first 12 miles of the bike to cyclists passing him "Hey slow down you guys, this is a 112 mile bike." I was so flabbergasted and pissed off at the audacity of this guy that I retorted as loud as I could

"Holy #^@ are you serious? I didn't know this was 112 miles. Why didn't anyone tell me this was 112 miles. Thank you so much for letting us know." (that guy was unbelievable)

Anyway, had some minor gastro issues on the bike for about 3 hours starting around mile 30. Tried to amp up my calories to 490ish/hour the first couple hours, but paid for that "experiment" and had to lower my HR from my target HR of 135 down to about 115 for 3 hours or so until my stomach settled down. Finally figured out what I was doing wrong with my nutrition, corrected the problem, stomach issues went away, and I hammered it all the way home well into my zone 2 HR of 145bpm.

First race I did where I peed on the bike. Figured out the best way to do it (downhill with wind blowing) but didn't really like it because I had to go in large quantity about 5 different times so my feet were wet the entire bike and looked like prunes in T2.

Figure out my gastro issues a little quicker so I wouldn't loose so much time.

Again, took my time. Since my feet were sitting in water/urine for a good 4 hours, they were prunes. So I had to put on a thick layer of vasaline on them and dry socks so I wouldn't get blisters in the marathon.

Nothing

Ah yes, the wonderful marathon. I could NOT stop thinking about IMWI next week the entire race so the first 8 miles of the run I instilled a run/walk effort even though I felt great. From miles 8-18 I just focused on my nutrition plan; which was 1 race cap supreme, 1 mito cap, and 1 endurolyte at the top of the hour, 1 hammer gel at the top of the hour, then whatever I felt like in between; which happened to be pretzels and oranges.

Stopped for about 5-7 min around mile 18 to help a lady that looked pretty bad as she gazed up at me and asked me to help her. So I stopped, assessed her the best I could (she was cold and nauseous but not dizzy yet), sat her down and talked her off the ledge. She kept saying she was on track to break 12 hrs with only 7 miles to go and that she was really pissed off about it. I told her it was ok and only a race and not her life. I pointed to a fellow racer passing by to get the cop at the next intersection and have him come back here with his radio. Waited with her until the cop came and then went on my merry way.

Rest of the marathon was a little strange as my RPE and my mental exertion were not in sync. My mental exertion was about 30%-40% effort (i.e. I didn't have to dig down deep at all) but my legs/muscles just weren't responding. Usually it's the opposite for me during an IM. Kinda curious.

Maybe amp up the effort to 50% but I was honestly scared of the Ironman I had to do in a week and felt that I needed to REALLY take this marathon leg easy and not trash my legs in this first race.

10 min post-race massage, the athlete food. then ice bath in hotel.


Well, finished right about where I predicted I would (13ish). Probably could have gone sub 13 but just couldn't stop thinking about IMWI...that idea just kept freaking me out during this race and really made me take it easy the entire time.