Ford Ironman Arizona - TriathlonFull Ironman

First mistake of the day, I have been steadily improving in my swim so I thought I would start at the front in the middle, BAD MOVE. The cannon goes off & I get thrashed by arms & legs. For some reason my wetsuit starts feeling too tight around my chest & I can't breathe. I stopped, looked around & then the thought crossed my mind that I can't finish the swim like this, is my day over? What the hell is going on? That's what I said to myself and it was a sinking, no pun intended, feeling. I decided to head to the river bank & maybe just hold onto something & catch my breath and at about 50 yards from the side, in clear water, all of the sudden this calm comes over me, the wetsuit isn't tight anymore, I turned to the buoys and started swimming.

Swam just fine to the turn where some guy comes from behind and tangles in my legs almost pulling off my timing chip. Now I have to stop again and try to secure the chip around my ankle. This is not easy and as I'm trying to tighten it and stay afloat my legs start cramping. I decide to take the chip & put it around my wrist but after a few strokes it didn't feel like it would stay so I took it off and stuffed it in my wetsuit and continued on to the finish.
Weird thing in a mass start like this, I'm swimming downleg in clear water and a few times, out of nowhere, bodies come knocking into me. I'm swimming a good line & I just don't know where these swimmers are coming from...

I executed poor strategy. My first IM and had I started back further and to the side I think I would have completed this in a much better time.

I get out of the water a little dizzy as normal but had the presence of mind to grab my timing chip as the strippers took of the wetsuit & secured back around my ankle.
Into the changing tent & coming in from the bright AZ sun it's dark and a little disorienting at first, I found an open chair towards the back corner & got the bike gear on.
Walk out to the bike rack, still a little fuzzy from the swim, and I'm searching the rack for my bike that is being held in plain sight by a volunteer! Get this...I then take the bike & try to mount it right there as the volunteer says "sir, you can't mount the bike in here." Oh yeah, I know that...That may have been the my last laugh of a long day but probably not for that volunteer.

Nothing, 1st time so next time I'll know what to expect & of course I already know about that "don't mount the bike in T1" rule...

Enough has already been said. One of the toughest rides I've ever done. Worried about dehydration, I started out drinking lots of fluids and had to stop at most of the aid stations to urinate. BTW - I'm not peeing on my bike, I understand why a pro has to & what you do on your bike is your business but I ain't doin that to my bike.
The outbound legs were easy, the return legs were the ride from hell & the wind increased from loop 1 to loop 2 & 3.
I tried to maintain nutrition & I probably consumed too many gels which I think caused my problems on the run.

Maintain a better nutrition plan. With all of the effort and difficulty dealing with the wind, I fell off my nutrition plan & can't really tell you what I consumed other than many gels & several bottles of water and Gatorade.

As I recall, this went pretty smoothly , didn't seem like it took 10 minutes though.

The plan was to run 2 mile segments & take about a 1/10 mile walk break as I had done in training. got through the first 2 & the legs were just not responding yet so, I decided to walk it a bit& try to get the legs back. About mile 5 or so a headache starts to settle in and every time I start to run my heart rate spikes, I thought this was from the cold but it was classic symptoms of dehydration. I was drinking fluids at every aid station & also hitting the port-o-let because it was not being absorbed. Probably the result of too many gels & Gatorade.
I couldn't wait to get to SN at mile 14 and retrive a long sleeve jersey and get some Tylenol. The jersey helped knock off the wind and it took about 3 miles or so for the Tylenol to take effect.
I walked about 90% of this & tried to keep it brisk. Met and chatte with several people at various stages several of whom had been really slammed by the bike segment. Many of thos had done this race last year in 11 or 12 hours and were hoping to do better this year.
Hit the final bridge and of course ran from there down the finishing chute. Pretty cool, I just finished an Ironman!

NUTRITION!

I was really looking forward to a massage but the massage tent closed the minute I came across the line...not happy about that.
My wife & son met me for french fries & pizza.


We enjoyed Phoenix, saw the Bodyworlds exhibit and since my wife is an architect we also took a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West studios.
What a great experience the Ironman is and I think I learned a few things:
1. Follow the advice you give others, advice like "make a plan and stick with it"
2. If your'e going to start with the big dogs, you had better act like one.
3. IM is quite a logistical challenge especially flying across country so make lots of to do lists.
4. I enjoyed the experience and can't wait to do the next one