Beach 2 Battleship - TriathlonFull Ironman

I can't complain about the swim time, but it could have been a little faster had I known where to make that left.

Sight better.

No T1 times posted, and I didn't feel up to the math on my own. I took awhile, but that was expected being that I was going to completely change and that it was 40 some degrees out which meant layers, etc.

Nothing

They had two choices out on the bike course to drink: water and Heed. The Heed was terrible. After finishing my own GU mixed bottle, I tried the Heed, but ended up just doing water the rest of the ride.

I was a little out of it as I came into T2. After that wind kicked my ass, I was real happy to be through with the bike. I was again going to change completely, so I knew T2 was going to be 7-10 minutes.

My goal was to beat my Louisville time, and I wanted to run the marathon...not walk. Coming out of T2, I just focused on slow cadence and EZ breathing. There was a large bridge we had to climb just outside of transition, and my goal was to get up and down before I would give into the fatigue in my legs. It is kind of a blur, but I think I did accomplish that goal. Unfortunately, after mile 1 I slowly started to walk more and run less. By the time I finished, I was doing the iron-shuffle. It is disapointing to walk so much, but I gave it what I had. I met another BT guy out on the run. Can't recall his name, but he was wearing the Louisville BT t-shirt. I saw Kristina out on the run and she was suffering too. She kicked ass on the bike as always and was well ahead of me.

I need to tweak my iron training so that I can better prepare my upper legs for the rigors of the marathon after 112 miles of biking. My knees were on fire as well. The most obvious thing to do would be to do longer bricks / transition runs.

Kristina and my buddy Scott were there to cheer me on as I finished, and the volunteers were great. I was a little woozy, so I grabbed a few donuts and some water and took about 10 minutes to gain some composure. Then I went back to the changing tent and put my dry clothes on, and we crammed our bikes into a trolley and headed back to where we had parked in Wilmington.

We got back to the Holiday Inn - Wrightsville Beach and tossed out stuff in the room and headed to the hotel restaraunt for our post race meal! My brother Barry, Scott, Kristina and I chowed down on pizza and replayed the day's events. Saw a few other triathletes and chatted with them as well.

Back to the room and into the whirpool, showered, and passed out.


This distance has kicked my butt twice this year, but I am satisfied that I improved my last Ironman time by about an hour and a half. I tweaked a few things in my training and in my diet since Louisville, and that helped me at B2B for sure. So I need to make some more adjustments to keep improving.


Logistically, this is a tough race - especially for the spectators. With that in mind, I think the organization was good. I would recommend the race, and I highly recommend Wrightsville Beach and the Holiday Inn Sunspree.

My only real complaints with this race were the Heed -- I couldn't get it down, and the run course needed a few more light towers in the park section. There were some places where it was too dark to see where we were running.

The volunteers were awesome. And the spectators gave me some encouragement when I needed it.