Ironman Louisville - TriathlonFull Ironman

When you are near the back of a line of a time trial swim start with 2500+ participants, you have some waiting to do. The line began to creep forward but it took nearly 35 minutes to finally get through it. In the end, I think there were only about 100 or so athletes behind me. This does confer a kind of advantage since you can be sure that nearly anyone you pass out on the course is someone you are genuinely ahead of. But still, it sucks to have to have burned nearly 300 calories on just about 3 miles of walking before I even took to the water.

But eventually I did get down to the boat docks where athletes jumped in six at a time. Thanks to the practice swim the previous day I knew what the water was like so I settled in to a decent stroke early on. It also helped that the field was very spread out and my contact with other athletes in the water was very limited, but initially we swam in a fairly narrow channel which did bunch people together. If you look at the map in the Garmin Connect link, you'll see that we swam upriver for about half a mile before making a turn downstream. So, the first half mile of swimming was quite slow even by my pathetic standards. However, once I made the turn downstream all of that changed. I started swimming 500 yards in 8:13, 7:37, 7:37, 6:41, and finally a 6:19. That current was seriously amazing and I was utterly shocked at my swim time when I finally emerged from the water.

I would say the entire swim was fairly uneventful and I was comfortable the whole time. Easiest open water I've ever swam in, that's for sure. Only issues I encountered was a serious inability to breathe bilaterally later in the swim. I was fine on my right side, but if I tried to take a breath on my left side it tightened up my left calf muscle. This is just poor swimming mechanics and it's something I need to work on. Also, my right underarm got extremely chafed while my left underarm was practically clear. Over 2.4 miles of swimming, mechanical flaws definitely express themselves and it's good to know what I need to work on. Also, that was the first time I had ever swam 2.4 miles.

I did the best I could given my training and the conditions. Obviously I need to start doing masters swim and train better.

Yeah, my transition times were slow for this race. The main reason for this was because my primary goal was to just finish the race. Rather than utilize the changing tent, I opted to go through the contents of my bike gear bag at a leisurely pace outside the tent. I proceeded to chug down the 20 oz of Gatorade I had also mixed a scoop of CarboPro into. From there I put on my HRM and bike jersey which already had two CO2 carts and two spare tubes, plus my tire levers and multitool. Helmet and glasses followed and then I pulled out my bike shoes. After putting in my swim stuff and making sure that I had everything I needed I carried my shoes over to my bike and pulled it off the rack and began the run to the mount line.

Next time I will obviously be better at transitioning. I was ultra-conservative because this was my first Ironman.

I don't want to call my bike ride flawless, but it sure felt like it. Crossing the mount line and timing mat I dropped my shoes on the ground and put them on, then took off down the exit chute. There must have been over 2000 athletes still in front of me by the time I was out on the course given the relative emptiness of the bike racks, so I knew I would be in for a crowded course and a lot of passing having to cross the center line of the road.

The first section of the course is a pancake flat 12 miles. My heart rate was under control already and I was able to sustain a 21 mph average through here without having to barely even work at it. I could have easily blazed out at 25 mph but that would have been utterly foolish. I was executing my game plan from the start. About 12 miles in is the first hill climb, and much of the rest of the course is nothing but a series of short rollers with some longer hills thrown in. The hill at 12 miles is fairly steep and it slowed me down quite a bit, but I was in good shape once we leveled out and got above the Ohio River valley.

In order to get the distance for the bike course, there is a 10 mile out-and-back section not too long after with two-way bike traffic. There are two high speed descents here and the road does not have a shoulder to boot, so it's quite dangerous given that your average Ironman triathlete can't handle a bike for shit. While traversing this section I encountered my first good problem of the day. I really, really had to pee. Already having done so twice during the swim, I figured that this was a great sign that I was extremely well hydrated. But what to do now? Go on the bike? Yeah! So, for the first time I learned how to pee whilst riding a bicycle on that course. It meant I had to use some of my water to rinse my crotch and legs down, but otherwise it wasnt't so bad. I tried to make sure nobody was close to behind me, but if anyone did get peed on I am eternally sorry for that.

After the out and back I was much happier but knew the real work was about to begin. The double loop part of the course is where all the rolling hills are and it was here where I had to resist the urge to mash the pedals to get over the hills. My plan for the hills was pretty simple though. If the hill was preceeded by a descent, I carried as much speed as I could into the climb and kept a cadence of about 90ish going all the way through it. I clicked through all my gears as needed and for longer hills I dropped into my little chainring. Often times I flew past people going up hill by doing this. Longer hills eventually slowed me down and required I drop into easier gears and start spinning, and the few times I got passed on the bike was by the overzealous mashers overtaking me on the hills. I always seemed to pass them right back on the descents though. Very few people made a legitimate pass of me where I never saw them again.

The exciting part of the loop was the ride through Lagrange, a small town situated along the loop. Lots of people in town were spectating as well as friends/family who took a shuttle bus out there from Louisville. My family said they made it out there but I never did see them on either lap of the loop. I made it to the 56 mile mark about at the end of the first loop in just under 3 hours and I still felt I had a ton of energy in the tank. I kept to the plan though and didn't burn any harder. Any parts of the ride where you see me going over 20 mph is where I had more downhill than uphill to gain speed. Lap 2 of the loop was a little bit slower as I was concerned with energy conservation, but also a roughly minute-and-a-half stop at my special needs bag. It was there I weighed myself down with another spare tube and 2 CO2s. I also grabbed my very chilly bottle of Coke and Snickers bar. The ice we packed in kept everything so cold that the Snickers bar actually froze!

I did some easy riding for a couple miles after the special needs stop to get the Coke down safely since it didn't have a squeeze top. I ate about half of my Snickers bar before deciding that I didn't want to take in any more solid food. I spent the last hour and a half of the ride drinking down the second nutrition bottle I picked up at special needs. The second lap of the loop was as uneventful as the first. I was still mad pissing on my bike, so I was definitely staying perfectly hydrated. My electrolyte needs were also perfectly met by the two Saltstick caps I was taking every hour. As I made the turn back to Louisville I knew I could finally let my legs out just a little bit. I began running the mental calculations in my head and realized that I would probably arrive at T2 in roughly 5:45. Way faster than I was expecting! My heart rate was still averaging right around 140 though, so I didn't feel like I needed to slow down.

Once we reached mile 100 it was all downhill and flat the rest of the way. I resisted the urge to lay down the hammer and just kept nice and steady with my effort. The miles clicked away and I knew I would be in a great spot when I arrived in T2 to get out to run. Everything was going according to plan in terms of pace, effort, and nutrition, and my body rewarded me with a stronger performance than I could have hoped for. In the course of the bike I had passed more than a thousand people and made up roughly 100 places in my age group. I came into T2 feeling terrific and had no problem doing a flying dismount. It was about this time I was in 80th place in my age group. Still more folks to reel in and pas on the run!

Carry less tools to save on weight. Maybe skip the Snickers bar in special needs. Be willing to drop the hammer more on descents and flats. Drink just a little bit less so that I have to pee less on the bike.

The run into T2 was tough because I had so much weight in my jersey pockets. Anyway, I spent way too much time in T2. It's incredibly rare for T2 to take longer than T1, especially since we had bike catchers for this and I could proceed directly to my run gear bag. Rather than brave the changing tent I just found a shaded spot next to the tent to plop down and take a bit of a breather. I took off my helmet and bike jersey and shoes and got my socks and running shoes on. I took some water that was offered to me and packed my bike gear into the bag. I went over to get sunscreened and then waited for a port-o-john to open up so I could take a piss. Time to pound pavement!

Another ultra-conservative transition in my first Ironman. This will get faster.

Everything I had done to this point was to put me in position to have a great run. I did not want to have to walk or stop at any point between aid stations, and I wanted to finish the run feeling like a million bucks. With that in mind I paced myself early on to 9:00 miles. The run course was fun for the first couple miles, but as we got out of downtown Louisville and into the residential areas the crowds thinned out and it became a real boring slog. It doesn't help that if you look at the GPS data, it's more or less straight out for 7ish miles and then straight back before heading back out to do it all over again.

The heat wasn't as bad as I was expecting and it felt like any other training run in the Hawaiian sun to me. I was taking one Clif gel block (roughly 35 calories each) every aid station. One pack had extra sodium packed in while the other pack had caffeine. However, I was having a bit of intestinal discomfort from the getgo. About 4 miles in I could feel that it was going to slow me down and I made a tactical decision to stop at the next port-o-john. I skipped eating a gel and at the mile 5 aid station I found an open port-o-john and jumped in. I could feel the time ticking away inside as I desperately tried to push out whatever it was that was giving me discomfort. I wiped my ass as clean as I could and then took off out the toilet. I had lost my time buffer to make a 4 hour marathon and was about 2 minutes behind now.

I knew that I didn't have to run my ass off though. If I kept making 9:00/mi I could still up my pace at mile 18 and make a 4:00 marathon a reality. I just focused on keeping my core temperature down and taking whatever hydration/nutrition I could at the aid stations. Extra water was poured on my head and ice down my shorts. Eventually my shoes got squishy but I ignored it. Just after the 7 mile mark we made a turnaround and started back toward downtown Louisville. I still felt fantastic and had no particular discomfort. However, around mile 10 I felt another intestinal tweak and at mile 12 I once again decided that I had to make another toilet stop. Fortunately the second stop went much quicker and I think I lost only about a minute. However, I was definitely falling behind at this point.

Mile 13-14 returns to downtown Louisville. The absolute worst part of the run is a point where you turn north and can actually see the finish line. There are two lanes, left to the finish and right to the second lap. It's utterly cruel and unusual punishment to people, but at least for me I was feeling good enough to put my head down and make that turn back out to run the same course again. The run special needs was just past this turn and I grabbed two more packs of Clif gel blocks and a dry pair of socks. I had taken just over 2 hours to run 13.1 miles and I knew that I could not afford to stop or make any mistakes. I actually never bothered to put that pair of socks on.

Fortunately, my GI issues seemed to disappear and I was able to run through the entire second lap, walking only through aid stations and keeping to my nutrition plan. Like most marathon runs, I started getting quad pain around 15-16 miles in that I had to simply ignore. I knew mile 18 was where I'd make my gut check and decide whether I really had a sub-4:00 marathon in me that day. When the moment came I decided that it was just annoying pain that I was dealing with. There was no reason I couldn't run 8:30 miles from that point and overcome the roughly 2-3 minutes I needed to. So, at mile 18 I upped my pace. Still walking through aid stations, I was actually running at a fairly faster clip. I knew I could survive 8 more miles of pain. My feet felt fine and I just went for it. Once I hit mile 20 I did the math and realized that I would make sub-4:00 if I just held the pace I was now running at. At mile 23 with just 5k to go, it was starting to feel like I had it in the bag. Finally, when I crossed mile 25 and saw 3:49 on my watch I knew it for sure. My first Ironman had been executed to near perfection. I made the right turn and veered left for the finishing chute. There was a woman in front of me I could have easily run past since I think I still had the juice to break into a full sprint at that point. But, I decided that I had my time goal in the bag and let her in front of me. Nobody was behind me, so I would definitely have that finish line to myself.

I ran hard and did not begin to celebrate until I was across the line. "Michael Bischoff of Honolulu, Hawaii, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!" Clenched fists, I jumped up and down and screamed in complete joy of my accomplishment. My mom was there so I went over and gave her a hug before being led through and out the finishing area. I got my medal, hat, shirt, and picture taken, then walked over to greet all of the family that had come out. Many pictures were taken. I was in incredibly good spirits and didn't need any medical attention or help of any kind.

Figure out what may have caused my GI distress so that I don't have to waste precious minutes. Drop the hammer even harder over the last 8 miles.

Lack of experience mostly. I know much better now what my body is capable of.


I can't say too much but good things about Ironman Louisville. The volunteers are amazing and the race director did a fantastic job marshaling her resources and put on a fantastic race. I'm not sure if there is a good solution to the swim line and to discourage the really slow swimmers from lining up super early. The out-and-back part of the course is incredibly dangerous with so many inexperienced cyclists out there and I would hope that those 10 miles could be added elsewhere to make the bike race a bit safer. The run course could be modified to make it more interesting, but I'm not sure if Louisville can really offer much more than it does.