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 Swim
Comments: This may have been the best swim I have ever had in a race, definately the best swim ever at this distance. I had LOTS of open water and really focused on making my stroke as efficient as possible. We are 6 months into 2010 and I have roughly 120,000 yards of swimming in versus 56,000 yards for ALL of 2009! I felt very comfortable on the swim. What would you do differently?: I probably should have pushed a little harder on the swim but I knew I had a long day ahead of me and I tried to keep telling myself that the race doesn't start for me until halfway into the run.  Transition 1
Comments: T1 went well. As I began to close in on the swim finish, I began to run through the steps of T1 that I had written out "cross mat, goggles up, wetsuit off, watch to back pocket of jersey while running to bike, etc...(my plan was to take off my Ironman watch after the swim, put it in my back pocket, and not look at it until I got to the finish line...more on that later) What would you do differently?: I have learned that there is no reason to try and mount your bike AS SOON as you cross the mount line. I was trying to run by the congestion with my bike to mount on the shoes that were already on my pedals when the guy in front of me decided to squat RIGHT IN THE MODDLE of the bike exit to get on his bike. I almost ran right over him, but veered to the right, jumped on my bike while running and was able to get my feet in my shoes and shoes tightly strapped BEFORE the big hill on the exit road.  Bike
Comments: While my bike time is not as good as I would hope, it's better than i expected for this course. My training rides on the course have been slower than this so overall I was satisfied with this ride. What would you do differently?: Figure out SOME way to become a faster cyclist!!!!! Transition 2
Comments: Had a good T2. This was the first time of the day that I got to hear my family. They knew where my T2 spot was so they were waiting there to cheer me on!! As i entered T2 and headed to my bike spot I could hear them cheering so loud. I got my bike racked, got my shoes on in a hurry, slapped some more sunblock on my head and headed out. I had to go to the bathroom since about mile 40 of the bike and decided to wait until T2 to take care of this so my T2 time was probably 45 seconds longer because of the port-a-potty stop. What would you do differently?: Nothing...all went well.  Run
Comments: This is the part of the race that I have failed miserably on in my prior 3 efforts at the 70.3 distance and at mile 3.5 or so I thought I was on the same path!! I was afraid I was about to hit that wall again, but I got to the next aid station, ate the second of my two magic muffins ( I ate the first at mile 45 on the bike), downed some gatorade and threw about 6 cups of ice water over my head. After I walked through that aid station, I felt MUCH better and got back to running. I guess the thing that I am most proud of, on the run, (considering my prior efforts), is that I never walked on the run except at the aid stations where I dumped MUCH cold water on my head, drank Gatorade and Coke where available. Also, the support on the run course was UNBELIEVABLE. I don't think if you would have sent me out on a 13 mile out and back course with no fans, I would have been able to keep running. Between my family screaming for me and the unknown lady that screamed "YOU GOTTA DIG DEEP, LET's GOOO" at mile 11, the support was a HUGE help for me out there!! What would you do differently?: I started out the run a little too quick. My plan was to start the run at 8:44 pace and then try to pick it up the last 2-3 miles and see how much I could lower that overall pace. (this strategy worked well in training) Instead, I started out at about 8:35 pace and then I just watched that pace slowly slip away from me over the course of the rest of the run. Post race
Warm down: Got my medal and went to hang out with Brent, Peter, Monty, Peter and Ty. It felt so great to be in good spirits, and not miserable like I have been every other time I tried 70.3! Jumped in the ice bath, ate a burger, took a shower and gathered all my stuff to head back to the car. As I was heading out of Lawrence I actually dozed off while sitting at a traffic light so I grabbed my phone and called my folks to give them a race report. By the time I got back to KC after talking to my foks about how happy I was with the finish, I was on top of the world and wide awake!! What limited your ability to perform faster: Came out of T2 too fast. Needed to do a better job of easing into my pace. Event comments: My goal going into this race was to 1) Finish Strong with a smile on my face and 2) Not feel like I want to throw up my shoes! I've never broken 6 hours at this distance because I have always ended doing the death march on the run and basically blown up on all three previous tries. As I was coiming down the finishing shoot, I decided it was time to grab the watch out of my jersey pocket and see what the final result would be. 5:40!!! The smile on my face almost didn't fit in the finisher's chute!!! I crossed the line, and let out a HUGE YEEEAHHHHHH!!!! When I looked up Chrissie Wellington was standing right in front of me laughing with all of the spectator's that heard me scream. What a great topping to a great moment!! CLOSING THOUGHT: There is no way I could have completed this race without the direction of my good friend Coach Ross!! It all started about 7 months ago with him reviewing my past years' training logs and saying "Where's the Rest" Those of you that know Ryan know that he is not all about volume, but he taught me how to increase my volume with smart targeted training to prepare myself for a respectable 70.3 finish. THANKS RYAN!!! Last updated: 2010-03-04 12:00 AM
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United States
76F / 24C
Overcast
Overall Rank = 709/
Age Group = 40-44
Age Group Rank = 113/
Woke up at 3:30AM and headed downstairs to start my day with some time reading the Bible and praying. There's no better way to start the day, but it felt a little weird opening up my Bible to study at 3:30 in the morning. Spent about 15 minutes in prayer and devotion, grabbed my nutrition and water bottles from the fridge and headed out the door for the trip to Lawrence. I'm not normally the guy prerace with the IPod shoved in my ears, but for some reason I packed it for pre-race. When I got to the race site and parked I happened to fall in with a large group of Team in Training teammates in the shuttle line and their "WOOTWOOTS" were coming a little early for me. I grabbed my ipod, headed to the last seat on the bus and eased into my morning. Arrived at T1 in the dark and was glad I remembered to bring my headlamp to set up transition. Because there were 2 transitions I spent the time earlier in the week to write up lists of what I needed for each transition as well as an order of what I needed to do when I came through both transition areas during the race. So the set up was just a matter of following the directions I had written out earlier in the week. Got T1 set up and headed down the hill to T2, once again, cranked up the IPod for the walk(I normally don't like to hear athletes' nervous conversation prior to the race so the ipod helped me to stay focused on my day and my plan.) All of the transition set up went very smooth with no last minute drama and that was fine with me. I couldn't get over how many athletes were just making their way to T2 as I was headed to the swim start!
I was in my wetsuit and ready to go roughly 1 hour prior to my start time in hopes that I could get into the water and do some warmup strokes, but there was no access to the water prior to the start so I had to settle for the roughly 50 meter swim to the start line as my warmup.