Ironman Coeur d'Alene - TriathlonFull Ironman

Wow!! I've never seen that many people in the water at once. The swim was a complete washing machine. I was feeling nice and relaxed until my mask got knocked off after rounding the second bouy and starting back. After that, I couldn't get the mask resealed and had to deal with water in the mask. I got a little panicky for a bit but pulled it back together after 30 seconds or so. I tightened up strap when I got to the shore but it never did seal right. Therefore, I ended up doing the last 1.7 miles of the swim without being able to see well. I couldn't see out of the left eye at all (filled with water) and the right eye had a little water in it also. Thank god I was in the MOP so I could just focus on the swimmer in front of me or it would have been even more interesting.

Go with goggles instead of a mask for a mass start.

I was dealing with bleary eyes for this entire transition. I decided to take my time through the transition to allow my eyes time to clear up from the swim mask fiasco.

The first loop was fun. I was comfortable and enjoying the ride. Unfortunately, I took in too many calories in the first 90 minutes of the bike and then started to have problems. The main problem being I just didn't want to drink. Thus I got dehydrated as the ride went on and just fell apart on the second lap.

Drink more and spread out calories more.

At this point, I knew my race was over so I just took my time. I decided to change out of the tri-suit and put on a singlet and shorts to be more comfortable.

Hot and dehydrated. I went into the run dehydrated so the the run was just a long slow walk/run slog.

Not drink chicken broth. I took the chicken broth at one of the aid stations because it looked so good. Needless to say, that was a mistake.

Training and dehydration


This was a totally different race for me. The M-dot races are very slick and very well produced. That said, I definitely think they are pushing the envelope on how many people they have in an event. FWIW - I think they ought to cut back the number of people at each event (2500 spots -> 200 spots) and add another event.