Ironman Arizona - TriathlonFull Ironman

At least for a field this size, I like the deep water start. It's like a mini warmup. That's about all I liked on the swim though. When the gun went off, things started pretty badly. I wore the new tinted goggles and they started leaking right away, then when I stopped to fix them, they got worse with the right eye continuing to fill up like a fish bowl. Also, I put the goggles on under the swim cap to keep them from getting kicked off and I will no longer try that. It takes too much of the normal tension off of the straps. So I stopped at the first kayak and held on with an elbow while I took everything off, tightened the goggle strap and put everything back on in a different order. It got better from there, but I still couldn't see worth a darn.

My swim endurance felt fine and at no point did that seem to be my limiter. But not much of what happens in the back of the pack of a 3,000 person mass start looks like swimming. It was a mess of flailing almost the whole way. The contact is was it is, but was not fun. I even got kicked in the junk once, not too hard, so I had to laugh. How do you get kicked there while swimming? I think that I was executing a very nice body roll at the same time the swimmer to my left was executing a poorly timed breaststroke kick...What did annoy me was the two times that swimmers gave me a straight-arm "push off" so as to claim a few feet of personal space for themselves. I consider this a jerk-off move when there is no open space to be had, but just smiled and kept swimming.

My sighting was terrible, mostly because I couldn't see, but also the mess of the washing machine. My Garmin had me swimming 2.74 miles and I don't think the course was off, I just swam that inefficiently. Had kayakers shouting to get me back on course a few times. After the turn around, things got a little better. There was about 600yds were I actually felt like I was swimming, and swimming pretty well. When I started to get into heavy contact then, I just sped up for 25 yds or so, since I was going slow enough to have some in reserve. Leading up to the race, I was practicing throwing in a lap of breast stroke every 6-10 laps for recovery, but when I tried to frog kick in AZ I had pain in my right groin so just kept doing a slow freestyle, sometimes not kicking at all.
Coming out of the swim, I felt fine but glad it was over and super thankful for the volunteers helping us up the steps.

Not too much. I would have to be way faster to get out of the throng, so if I ever do a race like this again, I'll continue to think of the swim as the price of admission to the rest of the race...

I felt perfectly dressed with my full wetsuit and neoprene cap and never really cold. But the cap I brought with me was too small and I didn't put on body glide or anything, so I chafed the heck of of my neck around the hair line. It got raw and gross for days after. My wife and I have been joking about the gangrene that I picked up at IMAZ.

I had a little abdominal cramping as I sometimes do after the swim, so just took it easy. I spent a little time fiddling with the the tracker GPS but couldn't get it to turn on and the sun was too bright to see the indicator light. Even with that, I don't know where 11 minutes went...

I don't even know where to start... This was by far the most epic bike ride I've done.

The first lap started with sharp pain going from my left groin toward the knee. This is nothing new. I often start with some random pain when biking that goes away pretty soon. This one went away in about 4 miles. Then I settled in to a steady effort on the way out, holding close to what I thought would be my all-day power of 140 watts. There was some headwind on the beeline it sunk in that I would be going slower that I hoped. Also, I had to pee like crazy (this was a theme that lasted all day...). After the turnaround, it was a decline and a tailwind, the last tailwind I would feel all day, and it felt great. But it went downhill at the first porta-john after the turnaround. I don't know what I did when unclipping, but my left calf cramped up and would not stop cramping for a while. I took the chance at that stop to finally turn on the GPS tracker so everyone would know I didn't drown in Tempe Town Lake. The calf cramp lasted all the way back to Tempe and the start of the second lap. At the first aid station of the second lap, I stopped to stretch it out and that really helped.

Lap two – feeling better after 2 pees and no more cramping, I tried to resume holding a steady power, but lower at 130w. But this wasn’t really realistic either. The headwinds got worse and it was getting warmer, so instead I started focusing on HR and keeping that low. While the winds were by no means terrible, they were nagging. And after the turnaround of the 2nd loop, I didn’t even get that nice tailwind, but crosswinds that made my ride back feel less like flying than the first time around and more like constant work.

Lap three – I gave up all hope of a sub 13 hour day, power, and HR, and just focused on keeping cadence above 80rpm and not losing focus and crashing. I got a hot spot on my left foot that would not let up and I just kept hoping that it wouldn’t stick around when I changed for the run. Aside from being really tired at that point, I liked that last lap. The course thins out since everyone who was passing/lapping me before was already long gone. The volunteers at the aid stations were a ton of fun, wearing themed outfits and playing music. I did a lot of singing on that last lap to keep going and not think about the fire in the ball of my left foot. I would try to remember “name” songs from the spectator signs and from other riders’ bibs. There were a lot of signs out there for someone named Kerry Sue, but that became Buddy Holly’s Peggy Sue, in my head, and there were about a dozen others.

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised that my bike split wasn’t slower, I was injury-free and very happy to pass my bike to yet another helpful volunteer at transition.


Nothing, on race day. My bike performed fantastically and the wheels were a good choice. I was probably over optimistic about what I could put out on a sunny day after a long swim. I had the training to finish strong, but not any faster.

Correction. I should adjust my hydration. I blame the AZ dry air, but since my mouth and lips were always dry, I just kept drinking. So in addition to the swim, I made 3-4 stops on the bike and still went again in T2. And each time, my pee was as clear as a mountain spring. Sorry about the urine-focus of this RR, but it really gets to me.

I took my time, sat down, changed my socks and prayed that the hot spot would go away. I carried sunscreen into the run with me and skipped the volunteers doing that. I'm glad I did it myself. I had the raw neck and wanted to use the stuff I brought with me. Plus, if you can do it moving, why do it standing still?

This run made my day!!! It started out as usual with my post-bike rubber feet moving faster that I really want them to, but I just let them go for about 3 miles and then started to assess what I needed to do to have a good run. The hot spot disappeared when I changed socks and shoes and I had no pain. I felt like any other training run when I had done a big bike ride the day before. After the rubber legs wore off, I tried to work on my HR and get it below Z3, but that wasn’t happening on lap one, so I settled for low Z3 and tried to just hold steady until things got bad, paying close attention to my legs. I resisted going crazy at the buffet that is the aid stations and stuck to water at every stop and a gu evevy 3 miles or so.

I started slowing continuously, but not too bad. On the second half of my second lap I paced off of a couple who were racing together with close to a 9:00/mile pace. It was great to have them, but they were on their 3rd lap to finish in 11:xx and I sadly had to see them turn into the finish when I had another lap to go.

On the 3rd lap, the miles really started to seem further apart, but I maybe walked 1/4 mile. It started to get harder to navigate the sidewalks and the aid stations, to keep running, but it was fantastic to see all of the inspirational people on the run, that you don’t really see on the bike. The famous fireman was there, a 78 year old man getting it done, and two separate women with prosthetic legs.

I wasn’t really sure when I would see Eileen and the kids, so that actually help me smile and stand up straight wherever there were people to see. My vanity won’t let me have the kids see me looking like a cadaver :-). I saw them with 5 miles to go, stopped to say hello, give kisses, and tell them I’d see them soon at the finish. That really helped with the next 3 miles. The last 2 miles, I just went deep inside, plastered what I hope looked like a smile on, and kept moving.

This course is super. It weaves in and out of tons of people who cheer you on the whole way. At the finish, the lights are so bright, I gave up looking for my folks and just waved, feeling great. The volunteers, spectators, and folks at IM really know how to make a going-on-middle aged accountant feel like a pro athlete. Thanks to all…


Not a thing.

Biking, silly. IM is a Biker's game and I need to figure out if it's for me in the long term. I'll think about it over the winter, while running my ass off...


Favorite sign of the day "Lance Armstrong Never Did An Ironman, Neither Has Chuck Norris"