Ironman Louisville - TriathlonFull Ironman

I am a warm water person, so the water temp was absolutely perfect for me! I loved it. I sighted every 6th stroke, more often when it was crowded, less often when I had a long clear shot of the buoys (on the downstream portion). Some jostling, foot tapping, not bad. I tend to keep my eyes closed except when I'm sighting because it helps me "feel" the water and anticipate swimmers around me - so no kicks to the face, etc. I steer away from other swimmers and keep as straight a line as possible to the buoys. I kept to the left side and very close to the buoys, no issues. Drafted when possible for short periods of time when someone would pass me - - didn't want to waste any extra effort trying to keep up, so let them go if they were faster than I wanted to swim. Pretty cool that they have these floating docks in the middle of the river the first several hundred yards. People could grab a handle and rest or adjust goggles if they needed to. Buoys are colored (yellow on the way out, orange on the way back) and numbered, so you know how far you are - this was helpful. Also, I was measuring by the bridges (a pedestrian bridge and then a regular bridge) we swam under and looking for the big green lawn (close to the finish line and easier to sight than Joe's Crab House or the finish buoys). A little congestion at the finish ladder, but not bad - -folks helping you up the stairs. Extremely well supported. Boats, kayakers, paddle boarders (the ones standing on the paddle boards were easy to see and perfectly spaced so even if you couldn't see the next buoy they were lined up perfectly between them - just aim for the person).

nothing - - this was a PR for me - -and I didn't have a wetsuit! I felt pretty buoyant without it - maybe that's the warm water?? Felt like I was wrapped in a blanket - -loved it :)

This was the first time using my new garmin910xt and I was trying to use the multisport mode. I had problems at the swim start - so just ignored the watch during the swim and ended up walking a lot of T1 as I was trying to get the watch set to track my bike - - I gave up on the multisport mode and just reset to bike only. Bike bag handed to me, jogged to tent - - too crowded and too hot, so just stayed outside and switched my gear. I was wearing my trisuit - so no change of clothes. Finished and jogged out to get my bike and was 20 feet from the bike out - when I realized I didn't have my sunglasses on!! Oh no - - I threw my bike on a rack (checked the number so I could find it when I came back) and ran back to the changing tent. Fortunately, my bag was still sitting on the ground where I left it and my sunglasses were there. Put them on and RAN back to the bike. Very cool sunscreen process. Half a dozen volunteers standing under a tent with blue gloves on covered with sunscreen. You walk by and literally get slathered with sunscreen as you run past. Yeah! no sunburn this time :) Also left a gel in transition because I'm always hungry after a long swim - - so ate the gel as I ran to my bike and sipped the icy cold water from my bottle to wash it down.

Not put my sunglasses in the soft case - - leave them in my bike helmet so I SEE them and put them ON before I go get my bike. Also, JOG from swim exit to tent --and not mess around with my watch (although I'm glad I did, because it's really important to me to have the data from my watch).

My plan was to take it easy on the bike. Keep HR between 130-135; never exceed 135 watts - ever - sip malto mix and water continuously, have a gel at the top of each hour and salt tablets as needed. I had watched the videos of the Keys to IM Louisville (highly recommended) and followed the advice to drink lots of water and to use water to cool down during the race. At each aid station I would grab two water bottles - using one to pour on my back and my chest during the ride and the other to drink. My frozen water bottle and frozen nutrition bottles were still nice and cold - so it was great to have icy cold water until that first aid station. The out and back was not as bad as I expected. I just got into my granny gear and spun easily up the hill, watching folks come screaming down the other side at up to 40 mph. My coach's voice is ringing in the back of my head - don't think for a minute that you can let your HR go to 138 and it won't make a difference - it will make a huge difference on your RUN. The bridge with the pot holes had been repaired, so no lost bottles. Since I'm slower on the bike when it came to my turn to careen down hill, I had it all to myself and could let her rip, sweet! The spectator support is unbelievable. Every church and school had crowds of people, intersections had tons of people and the town of Lagrange was so cool - with the announcer, music blaring and hundreds of folks cheering. I got a little goofy and was waving madly at the crowds and was thrilled when I heard MY name over the loud speakers - how cool is that?? I took a salt tablet every 2 hours on the bike and a gel every hour. I grabbed a banana at one of the aid stations - on impulse as the volunteer claimed it was a banana daiquiri - sounded pretty good to me at the time :). Grabbed some perform at several stations to supplement my malto/gatorade mix. Perform has a funny taste to me, so I don't drink a lot of it (practiced with it a few times to make sure I didn't have any stomach issues) - but it was nice to have a cold change of pace from time to time. I was surprised to see we could access special needs at mile 36 - I thought it was ONLY at mile 66 - but skipped it as I had practiced getting my stuff at 66. Then at 66 when the volunteer opens my special needs bag - she is surprised to see that my bottles (inside ziploc bags, wrapped in washclothes, then bubble wrap and finally the disposable insulation bags) are completely frozen solid! The only problem is that they are my RUN bottles. Whoa - now I'm surprised - what to do now?? I didn't really need the nutrition, I had plenty on my bike, but what about my run? I realized my bike bottle was in my run special needs - so no worries - wrong container and slightly more concentrated mixture - but still available on the run if I need it. So the volunteer tells me to take the bottles with me anyway - but where am I going to put them? She tucks the two solid bricks of ice (two 8 oz bottles) in the back pockets of my tri shirt and off I go. It was the best thing that could have happened. There is NOTHING better than two ice packs on your lower back between miles 66 and mile 80 something of a bike ride. I was in heaven. The temps were slowly climbing to the upper 80's/low 90's, the sun was in full force, shade had disappeared hours ago - this was such a great mistake, I might repeat it again :). By this time another cyclist and I were playing leap frog; every 30 minutes or so, one of us would pass the other. At one point she apologized for being annoying - I told her I was happy to have the company and it didn't bother me at ALL. I was hoping to beat my prior IronDistance (The Great Floridian, Clermont, Florida Oct 2012) of 8:11, so kept monitoring my progress. I had also planned to take it easy on the first 30 mile loop and then pick up the pace on the second loop. As the day got hotter, I opted to stay at the same pace, and not pick it up the second loop - wanted to stay hydrated and knew I had a marathon to run after this (that was going to be even hotter than this bike ride was getting to be).The last 22 miles though, things picked up. I realized I was moving faster (at the same HR) and just kept things steady. The downhills and the flats were a welcome relief. I started passing folks stopped on the side of the road - at one point there was a group sitting under a tree. I knew my hydrations was on target - had to pee 4 times on the bike (literally......). Ate a rice krispy treat at special needs and refilled my gels on my bike (lost one on the ride).

I had a plan and I executed the plan - - it worked!!

This was a PR for me - 22+ minutes faster than my first Ironman race.

Actual HR: 133 bpm
Avg Watts: 92 (pathetic)
Norm Power: 96 (ugh!)
Cadence 76
Elevation according to Garmin: 6,319 ft. (compared to my training course of 4865 feel elevation)
Cal/lb/hr: Total of 1705 calories on the bike (762.50 maltomix, 800 gels, 90 rice krispy treat, 53 banana) - equals 1.91 cal/lb/hr


I REALLY need to get stronger on the bike so I can go FASTER at the same HR.

I dropped down to 2207 overall after the bike from 2099 after the swim (so I think this means that 108 people passed me on the bike).

not sure why this transition took so long. This time I went inside the tent, so I could sit and unwrap my nutrition bottles and put them on my fuel belt. Oh....maybe the time to change my socks took longer (wanted dry socks for the run - they were wet from pouring water over me on the bike), grabbed visor and headed out.

not sure - not use my own nutrition? I barely consumed any of what I prepared.

The run is flat for the most part (although there is a 500-600 ft elevation coming out of transition). The sun was burning and the temps were in the upper 80's to low 90's (in the sun). My target HR was 130-135, so I had to walk quite a bit the first mile to get it to stay below 135. I also know from experience that my nutrition will not digest if my HR is over 135 - so very important to KEEP it below 135. I was unsure whether I would run 10 minutes and walk 1 minute or just walk one minute at each aid station. I usually run a 10:00 mile pace and if the aid stations are exactly a mile apart, this works well. If they are not, I end up walking more than I want (once at 10:00 and again at the aid station). So knowing that the aid stations are 1-1.5 miles apart, I decide to just walk each aid station. Unfortunately, the first aid station is more than a mile from transition - - I kept wondering where it was - it seemed more like 2 miles. Glad I had my own nutrition, because I was drinking it. My plan was also to make use of the aid station food and eat whatever I felt like eating at the time. Getting my nutrition in early on the run is critical. I kept having to jog super slow to keep my HR down, but just kept glancing a LOT at my watch. I sipped my gatorade/malto mix and water. I continue taking the salt tablets every other hour. I noticed the malto wasn't going down so well, so stopped the malto and sipped water. I grabbed a couple cola's and some perform, some chips (they were good - but I was worried about the grease in my stomach since I don't usually eat chips) - tried the pretzels - yuck! how DO you swallow those, they are soooo dry. I ate three gels on the run (the last two at miles 18 and 23). I put a cup of ice in my sports bra at each aid station, refilled my water bottle with ice water, poured a cup of ice water over the back of my neck (leaned over so I would not get my shoes wet). At about mile 6 or so, my vision seemed blurry and was making me feel a little dizzy - - I took off my sunglasses and realized it was just that I couldn't SEE with them on - - it was too dark. lol Just put them over the top of my visor and all was fine. Stopped to pee once and had the urge to pee a couple more times, but it went away (a sure sign that I need to drink MORE). The firetruck with its hose spraying the intersection was great - however I avoided it as I didn't want to get my shoes and socks wet so early into the run. Ran into my friend Sarah from the bike. We played leap frog a few more times at the early aid stations, then I lost track of her. The announcer at the turnaround was great. You could hear him long before you could see him and it drew you onward. I can't say enough about the spectators. They were all along the route, so you never felt like you were out there alone. This was also the first time that I was seeing a lot of other athletes. As I'm heading out on my second loop, a lot of them were finishing their second loop and a lot of them were starting to walk. I skipped special needs - did not need my malto - still had some on my fuel belt and plenty of gels as well. The chicken soup was good and I refilled one of my bottles with chicken soup so I could sip it along the way. My only dark moment was at about mile 18'ish when I REALLY wanted to walk - there was one section of the run where the aid stations were pretty far apart and I'm thinking it might be about here - - but I thought about all the folks back home tracking me online and that motivated me to keep going. There was another place where the aid stations were like a block apart - weird. You hit an aid station, then turn left for the short little out and back - and on the "back" there's another aid station - - didn't I just stop at an aid station? It was tempting to skip this one, but I was afraid the next one might be TWO miles away. I wasn't actually timing myself through the aid stations, but never dawdled at them, kept moving and as soon as I hit the first trash can, started running again (there were two or three trash cans as you exit the aid station). At the 3.5 hour mark, most everyone around me was walking. There was one girl in front of me who was keeping a slightly faster pace - I would pass her at the aid station and she would pass me. At mile 21, I knew I only had 5 miles to go.....time to pick up the pace. I kept my HR around 138 for the next two miles, took another gel to give me that jolt I needed to finish, then just started running the last 3 miles - never looking at my HR. It was great hearing the comments from other athletes cheering me on. Several yelling "girl power" and one person saying "honey, you can SMELL that finish line - - GO GET IT!" The best was the volunteer who was standing in the middle of the street telling us that we had just finished 140 miles and that we only have .6 miles to go!!! That was it for me. I was hoping to finish my run in under 5 hours and wasn't really sure what my time was......I knew I would be mad at myself if I jogged the last portion of the run and missed 5 hours by a few seconds or a minute, so I just focused hard on the police car lights in the distance and the sounds from Fourth Street Live. It is a truly spectacular finish line and it felt great to finish strong.

Actual HR: 133 bpm
Ave Pace: 11:43
Time: 5:07:08
CAl/lb/hr: Total of 817 Calories (malto 317, gels 300, potato chips 50, chicken soup 100, perform 50) equals 1.42 cal/lb/hr.

I moved up from 2207 overall to finish 1724 overall - which if I understand this correctly, means I passed 483 people on the run.

nothing. This was a PR for me - - 18 minutes faster than my first Ironman.

The catcher at the finish line was great - however, I was not taken to the finisher photo and I am SOOOO bummed. I needed water and to walk since I had just sprinted the last mile, so he took me to get my finisher shirt and hat and walked me to the end of the block where he let me go. I headed to the convention center to pick up my morning bag and decided to get a massage - awesome - however the convention center was freezing and I was soaking wet - so I got chilled. Space blanket and chocolate milk and I was doing fine. Slice of pizza was okay. I knew I needed to get my bike and gear, and wanted a shower first, so headed to the hotel. It was while I was in the shower that I realized I hadn't done the finisher photo and wondered where it had been and how I had missed it. Headed over to get my bike and it was missing. The volunteers were great, they spent a good hour looking for it (the stadium lights had gone down and it was pitch black).. Eventually, we exchanged phone numbers and agreed to touch base in the morning. Bike was found before noon the next day (great communication from the event director and the bike transition manager).

At the end of the day, this was a great race. PR across the board, no tylenol (before during or after the race), I finished strong and was super excited to talk to friends and family back home. I am very disappointed that I didn't experience the full finish line hoopla....a lot of that is my fault as I was so focused on finishing, I chose not to slap the high 5's being offered along the final shoot - I was afraid they might knock me over :) - and not having anyone to meet me at the finish was a bummer (need to plan better for next race). The absolute best part is that I felt fine after the race, walking up and down the stairs at the hotel and over to transition to get my bike, were great unintentional recovery aids. The only minor issue is potentially losing a toe nail (left foot next to big toe, ouch). So I am thrilled that my solid training paid off in spades with an easy recovery.

Solid nutrition and hydration - consumed a total of 2862 calories (including before swim gatorade, granola bar and gel). At 115 lbs, and 14:45 hrs, that equals 1.69 calories per pound per hour. BadaBOOM!



need to get stronger on the bike - - - my change in diet (nutrient dense whole foods only - nothing processed, no sugar, no salt) combined with my strength training really made a difference. I need to find someone to work with me on the bike. This year I was able to make smooth gear transitions and kept my power, cadence and HR steady on the bike - but now I need to step it up several notches and seriously move the power on the long distance rides.


This is the BEST race I have ever done. The courses are wonderful, the event coordinators are great and I can't say enough about the volunteers and the spectators. When combined, it really makes you feel honored to be participating - how did I get so lucky?

The one downside is the host hotel. They do not have microwaves or refrigerators in the room, the wi-fi is non-existant (although I paid for premium, I was not able to get it and had to leave the hotel to get service) and the wait for the elevators was crazy long (glad I was on the fifth floor, I could take the stairs to the 3rd floor and ride the escalator to the 1st floor).

Disappointed at not having a finisher photo, but will definitely pay attention next time!

Love this race, highly recommend it. Louisville is a great city with lots of friendly faces!