Ironman Louisville - TriathlonFull Ironman

My swim training leading up to this race consisted of exactly 12 swims over the course of July and August. A couple open water swims earlier in July, and 2 swims a week in the pool in the last weeks before the race. I'm a decent swimmer, and comfortable in the water, but this was still less training than I did for either of my previous, wetsuit legal swims. My PR was a 1:07, so I figured without a suit and lack of training I could be closer to 1:15-1:20.

After jumping in at about 7:20, I started off pretty easily just getting into a rhythm. I felt good, no stress or worries. The river was absolutely beautiful along that island heading upstream into the sunrise. The water temp was perfect. A few groups I had to swim around, but the downstream turn came up pretty quickly. My Garmin had decided to not cooperate when I tried to start multisport mode, so I had no idea what my time was, but I felt solid and under control.

I stayed to the right of the buoys and had very little contact. The bridges came up soon enough, and it was really neat to swim under these huge structures. I decided to lay on the gas a little bit and try and gain some seconds. Hit the stairs and saw a 8:34, so I was pretty happy, but since I wasn't sure what exact time we'd got in, I didn't have an accurate time. I will say, swimming without a wetsuit was fantastic. I'll take a non wetsuit IM swim over a wetsuit swim any day. The freedom of movement far outweighs any assistance a wetsuit gives.

Maybe train more, but whatever.

This was a pretty normal transition for me. I keep it simple, and the only new thing I had to do was put my tri top on. Helmet on, shoes on, sunglasses on, race belt on, and I was off. My bike was right on the end of a row near the bike out, so I grabbed it and ran to the mount line. Hopped on, and immediatly felt something wrong. Thunk thunk thunk. Look back: flat rear tire. Are you shi#$ing me???! Pull off right at the left hand turn of the chute in front of about a thousand spectators, and got to work changing it, trying not to get flustered. Of course watching about 5000 people go flying by me made it hard. I took my time, got the tube mounted, added some air from my c02, checked the bead, aired some more, checked again, and aired up the rest of the way. Get all my tools put back in my bottle kit, grabbed the wheel to put it back on, and BOOM! All I hear is the collective groan of all those people standing behind me who had been watching all this go down. I let out a string of expletives (sorry to any kids in earshot) and now very flustered, started all over again. I'm not sure, but it may have just been the bead that popped out..who knows, but I did check the tire for problems and it was fine. Just as I got the second tube in, the SAG scooter rolled up and that guy made my freaking day. Completely took over, which allowed me to calm down a bit. A couple minutes later and I was ready to go. here's where I had the best IM experience so far: when I finally clipped in and started off. Every one of those people that had been watching let out the loudest and most intense cheer I have ever heard. It was awesome and gave me goosebumps.

Since my flat happened just past the mount line and timing mat, the 15 minutes that debacle took is added into my bike time. Per my Garmin however, I rode a 6:02, which considering what an overall miserable experience it was for me, I'm quite happy with. I'm not an uber biker, in fact I cant stand bike training, and do all (and I mean all) of my bike training on a trainer.

Of course when I started out I was trying to make up some time, whether I wanted to or not. I was simply laser focused on getting miles down the road. I had not previewed the course, just read descriptions in various places...so I knew it was "rolling." Hit the out and back section which was fun and scary at the same time. I hit 45 mph in that section and was holding on for dear life. Lots of very poor bike handlers out there on this course. Weather at this point was fine. Not too warm, and I had done a great job staying hydrated an taking salt pills. Nutrition was 2 salt pills every hour, and a bottle of water and bottle of Perform between each aid station. I also had a bunch of Sport Beans in my Speedpack that I munched on. This worked well as I never really bonked or cramped or overheated. I wore my Lazer Tardiz aero helmet and with the water port up top, I stayed plenty cool.
I think it was on the return segment to start the second loop is where I just was done with that bike course. The rollers were relentless. They just came one after another with no reprieve. The lack of people on the course spectating made it an extremely boring ride. The country side was pretty enough, but it was mostly 112 miles of the same thing. The aid stations were awesome, and the people of La Grange were fantastic.
I stopped at special need, peed, shot a 5 hour energy, and loaded up my bento box with peanut butter M&M's. The 5 Hour was like rocket fuel....powered me through La Grange and the middle section of that loop. Once I hit the long stretch before the loop turn, I was just completely over the bike ride. I wanted to be done so badly. I pressed on, really looking forward to the flat 10 miles of River Road back home. Of course that's where the wind picked up and I wasn't able to make up any of the time I thought I could.
Finally got through it, stretched out a bit, and got hit with a huge cramp in my hamstring when I bent down to take my foot out of my shoe. Stretched my way through it, and rolled into T2.

I'll take long sustained climbs of relentless little rollers any day, so I'll be picking races from now on that are geared more towards that. Already signed up for Lake Tahoe, so it looks like that's exactly what I'll get.

It was really really humid down by the river, so I took some extra time in T2 preparing myself for the run. Got geared up, stopped to pee, had a cup of ice water and headed out.

I started the run with zero expectations as I wasn't sure how I would handle the heat. I've had identical 4:45 runs in my first two IM's, but with a recent 3:30 standalone marathon I would like to think I can be a 4:00 IM runner.

At this point I hadn't seen my brother or buddies on the course at all, so I was happy to see my brother Josh on the bridge. He was heading back out as I was heading to the turn...so about 4 minutes ahead of me. he yelled for me to catch up, and I had every intention to do so until my left hamstring cramped on me again...big time. I had to stop and stretch it out on the railing of the bridge, and within a minute or so it eased off.

Started my way back down into and out of town, just trying to keep a steady pace. I walked the aid stations, and a few other little breaks here and there, and luckily the heat wasn't getting to me too badly yet. I hit the sponges, ice water, perform, at every stop. A few salt pills too, and the occasional orange slice or coke. Was feeling pretty low at about mile 6 when I ended up next to another guy maintaining the same pace, and we ran together almost all the way to the turnaround, which made that time fly. We separated soon after that, and I made my way back towards town at a bit slower pace as I got hotter and more tired. Finally made it to the turnaround for the second loop, and saw my brother a few minutes ahead. At about mile 13 I caught up to our friend Jeff, who was feeling about how I was, so we decided to join forces to catch my brother. When he had passed Jeff, he said he was hurting, and peeing brown, so I knew he would be slowing down big time. We finally caught up to him at mile 20, right after the turn for home, and at that point we all said f-it to meeting any arbitrary time goal (at that point we may have been able to go sub 13, but my brother was hurting big time and it seemed way more fun to stick together and finish this unique race experience together. I was feeling better than them, and did my best to motivate/harass them to run here and there. We talked trash about each other, oogled all the hot tri chicks (and there were lots of them at this race!) and enjoyed the moment for what it was. Convinced them they needed to run the last 3/4 of mile since it is in front of all the spectators and they didnt want to be seen as a couple of babies, and they listened. It was a slow shuffle, but we all enjoyed that last bit through the crowds and the chute together...loving every second of it.
My time was 13:06:15. Of course, had I not got the flat, i would have been under 13....or I could have left my partners and gone sub 13...but in the end, what does it matter? It's just a number, and I know I'll remember those last 6 miles long after I've forgotten how long it took.

The finish line at 4th Street live is fantastic...easily my favorite part of the entire race.

Nothing.

Got our finshers gear, took our pictures and had a seat in the chute to wait for our friend Tom. He ended up only being 10 minutes behind us, which was awesome since it was his first IM. We had a 2 minute walk back to our hotel, showered, then went back down and camped out at a Pub adjacent to the finish line and gorged ourselves on food and beer till midnight. It was freaking awesome.


Louisville is a great city and quite beautiful. Aid station support was awesome, and as usual WTC puts on a great event. My only complaint (and probably only because I'm comparing it to other races I've done) is that there is very little community support. Nobody out on the run course (which is almost exclusively through residential areas) other than other athletes cheering sections. When you asked waiters at the restaurants right there at the finish about the race, they knew nothing about it, hotel employees knew nothing about it, etc. Don't get me wrong, they were all very friendly, but it was obvious that they had nothing in common or much interest with the athletes invading their city.

Still, it was a great experience...and I loved it.