Ironman Lake Placid - Triathlon

I have had a bad habit of going out a little too hard on the swim. It's my best of the three sports and usually place well here and push a little harder than I should to get a good swim time. However this time I kept it nice and easy.

Probably could have pushed a little harder, I felt fresh coming out of the water, fresher than any other race, including sprints.

This is a long transition so I'm happy with the times. As I jogged out to my bike my face shield started to dangle and I asked a volunteer what was up. Turns out a screw was missing, rather than bike with the shield half on I ripped the plastic off and the volunteer took it away. A little bummed that I had to do that, but stuff happens.

Not break my helmet face shield.

This is where I started to struggle. First loop felt great and I decided that I would take in a little more gatorade before the descent and let my stomach deal with it on the downhill. This had worked well on the first loop, but I apparently had too much and went over a tipping point. Once on the downhill section anytime my HR got up to around 60-65% I would get sick and puke. So the rest of the bike was limited to 65% and that meant that each hill I was very sick by the top and had to pretty much coast down to recover.

Stick more closely to my nutrition plan. Train with more variety and do some longer rides to really hammer out my nutrition issues.

Took a LONG time in transition. After the nutrition problems on the bike I had to just sit for more than 5 minutes before I was able to actually start my transition.

Not have too much on the bike causing me to become sick.

After letting my stomach settle I was able to start strong. Had some calf cramping that I was able to keep under control with walking.stretching at the aid stations.Then the nutrition started to bug me again. My stomach was upset and I was getting nausea again. I slowed down and drank some coke which helped. Once my stomach settled I was too far gone and my hip was starting to bother me. The rest of the marathon was walk/shuffling to the finish.

Stick to my nutrition plan on the bike and practice pushing through the stomach aches.

My fiancee was waiting for me at the finish. I grabbed a mylar blanket and ate some pizza and drank a coke. Then headed over to the massage tent. Finally a nice 1+mile walk back to the house we had rented, going to try to avoid that in the future.


Consuming too much on the bike put me over the edge and caused some GI issues during the bike and continued on the run.


Great race, glad I finished bummed I wasn't a little faster.