Ironman 70.3 Florida - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

I've been work a lot of my swim, so I felt pretty good going into the swim. The water was a lot like what I train in when I'm not in the pool. Not being able to see 2 ft in front of you didn't bother me too much. My sighting wasn't bad but it could always be a little better. I breath to my right and always seem to pull my self a little to the right. It's a lot better than it used to be but still has me swimming a little zig-zag.

Not much. I could have pushed harder but I knew I had a long day ahead of me. My swim has greatly improved and I was happy with my swim.

Once again, I knew it was going to be a long day, so I took my time and didn't hurry very much.

My goal was to be under 7 hours. If I had handled my transitions like I normally do, I would have made my goal. So I should have done my transition normally and not have wasted probably at least 3 minutes.

Let me start out by saying that I live in a flat part of SC and have no where to train on hills. I realize that hills are relative to where you live and some people may say that there were hardly any hills here but the last 20 miles seem to be very hilly to me. The first 30 or 35 miles or so, I felt like I was moving along at a good pace. I think I averaged a little over 20mph for the first part and then it seemed to be all over for my day from there. A headwind seemed to pick up about the time I started hitting the hills. This was about the time the my quads also started trying to cramp, which I still haven't figured out. From that point on, it was a almost a constant battle with quad cramp. I drank plenty of fluids and had a GU or Chomps every 30 minutes just like I've trained. I've been on 65 -75 miles at the same or higher pace and never had trouble with my quads cramping like that before. I guess I can chalk it up to just one of those days but I've got to get it figured out before Augusta and IMFL.

Not sure. Don't know if the cramping came from nutrition or what. I need to go somewhere and train on some hills every once in a while.

Quads were cramping and I was having a big pity-party when I came into trasition.

Quit whinning and get my but in gear.

Probably the worst run of my life. The three loop run was super tuff on me. The first mile of each loop was uphill. On top of being uphill, it seemed like it was in an oven. It was very hot already everywhere on the course but the first hill was brutal. After the first mile or so after each loop, the course shouldn't have been that tuff but I was done. I just couldn't get the cramps to go away long enough to run far enough to matter without having to stop and walk. Like I said earlier, it was the worst run of my life. I was probably having one of the worst pity-parties that I've ever had. Just past the next to last aid station, there was a family that had been encouraging everyone all day. It was about mile 11 or 12 and I was in a bad spot. About that time, one of the fellows put in all into prospective for me. He was making jokes about how Lance came by doing cart-wheels earlier and after a good laugh, he said "Don't worry about it, this is an Ironman, there are no losers. Just cross that line and you really accomplished something." Damn near thought he was going to make me cry.


Lately I always seem to have some excuse to miss a lot of my runs and it definately showed. I'm still not sure about about the quad cramps but the plain truth is, I haven't put the time in on my running that I need. Get off my butt and work on my run.

Laid on the ground and tried to work the cramps out of my quads.


It was hot and my run training has been sub-par lately,


My first race was a sprint exactly one year before this race. I've come a long ways from where I started but I got even farther to go.