Ironman Arizona - TriathlonFull Ironman

I beat people!!! Woo woo!

Ok, I'm a weak swimmer, but this was a pretty good swim for me. Tried to seed myself towards the back, but I'm pretty sure I wound up in the middle of the pack. It was a little hard to tell. Cannon went off, and I just started swimming... and swimming... and swimming... and swimming. Got lightly kicked a couple of time. Wacked a couple of people. If you are one of the people I wacked, I appologize.

I felt like I was moving pretty well, until I was across from Sun Devil Stadium. I probably didn't slow down, but the stadium is so big that it just felt like I wasn't moving at all. I had my watch on, but I decided I really didn't want to know how close I was to the swim cut off.

Mostly, I think that I had a pretty straight swim, especially when I was bi-lateral breathing. I wasn't sighting a lot, because I really couldn't see the bouys into the sun. On the last turn to the stairs, I started picking it up a little more, and breathing to one side. Then I started pulling to the left a little.

More practice. A good swim for me would have been a 1:50, so this was very good for me.

Felt slow. The strippers were great. Then I ran/walk to the changing tent, got my shoes on, made sure everything was packed, and then had the girls put sun screen on before grabbing my bike.

Push it a little harder

Got on the bike, and was feeling REALLY good. The bike is my strongest event. I wasn't really pushing it, just moving along, getting warmed up. THEN....

At mile 3, I wound up on the ground, having ridden off the side of the road at about 19 mph. The side of the road was loose gravel, so I completely lost control. I banged up my knee pretty badly and knew I had scrapped my shoulder and left arm. A cop was there almost immediatly, and was very nice in sticking around making sure I was ok. The cool thing was that EVERYONE was asking if I was ok, the age groupers going out and the pros who were finishing up their first lap. Anyway, the cop was asking if I needed a paramedic. Oh... I wavered, but it didn't feel like I broke anything, and the bike seemed ok, so I decided to keep going on.

Did I mention that this happened at mile 3? Only 109 miles of biking and 26.2 miles of running to go.

OK, so I stayed in aero for most of the first lap, but my shoulder started to stiffen up, and it didn't feel good on my forearm. Waved at my parents, wife and kids working at special needs as I went out and back. I was starting to look for a medical tent, but I managed to miss them all.

Grabbed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at Special Needs and chatted with my family, which is when I started to figure out how badly scrapped up I really was.

On the last lap, coming back, a group of us started alternating. There was no drafting, but there were times when I was riding 2 bike lengths behind after I was passed, because they would pass me and then start to coast. A referee on his motorcycle pulls up next to me and yells out "Brian" and all I can think is "give me a break, I'm going to be penelized" He just wanted to make sure I was ok, which was a relief.

Oh... let's see.... NOT RUN OFF THE SHOULDER???

Got to transition, and they were asking me if I needed medical. I waved them off, got my shoes on pretty quick, and then changed my mind about medical.

I've now discovered that there is a worse thing than being ignored in an emergency room. It's having 3 medical techs treating you at exactly the same time. They were wonderful at getting me out of medical quickly, but OMG, having 3 people cleaning out 4 seperate wounds at the same time is a new definition of torture. They put some ointment on and got me out pretty quickly.

Not need medical?

Started off a little bit fast around 8:30 minute miles. At around mile 2, started doing a run/walk - about 2 min run/1 min walk. This deteriorated over the rest of the marathon. At mile 13, I just settled into a fast walk. I was worried about my banged up knee, but it didn't really start to bother me until about mile 20.

Everyone passing me was very concerned about the road rash, which wasn't really bothering me at all.

Ok, the thing that REALLY bothered me at the end. I had made arrangements with my 13 yo daughter to run over the finish line. She comes out, about 200 yards from the finish line and starts running with me which was cool, except that she was supposed to be in the family finish pen. I waved her off, because I didn't want to be DQed at the finish line. She tried to tell me that they weren't enforcing the family pen, but I wasn't really in any shape to understand. I got over the line, and then wandered aroound, watching other families, including groups do exactly what she did. If they are going to make a big deal about the family finish pen, then they should make it a big deal. She was looking forward to finishing with me, I was looking forward to finishing with me, and both of us were very disappointed.

This is the same problem that I had at Vineman. I've really got to get a better bike to run system going. I'm a stronger stand alone runner than this. I probably wasn't pushing hard enough, because I knew I was going to finish at the beginning of the run.

Wandered around for a bit, cheered on some finishers for a half hour. Got in the car, and was driven back to the hotel. At this point, I realized how banged up a really was. My shoulder was so tender I had to have my wife take off my shirt.

Other than my road rash, I was actually in pretty good shape. My legs hurt, but after the first night with some Ibuprofen, only my shoulder and left knee hurt.

My family was great, and spoiled me like mad after the race. Roxanna washed my wetsuit, and helped me get changed for bed. They had sandwiches available, for when I woke up hungry in the middle of the night.




It was only my first year of triatlons. As my wife pointed out, I did have a lot of goals this year. I lost 80 lbs, learned to swim, did my first marathon. Next year, I'll have a better base.


I'm subtitling this race as: Blood and Gatorade. I got to one aid station, and they hadn't tightened the top of the bottle well enough, so I was cleaning out my leg wounds with Gatorade. Weird stuff.

It was a great race. My coach really helped prepare me, and my family was wonderful. The volunteers were great and the race was well organized.

It was a good race, especially for my first season. My daughter and I have signed up for next year. I'll do better next year.