Ironman Arizona - Triathlon

I am an adult onset swimmer. I have dedicated huge chunks of my life to swimming every year for the last four years with almost no improvement in my race paces. I am a thousand times more comfortable in the water and I come out of the water feeling great and ready to start racing. I just can't seem to get faster. Frustrating. With that being said, this is my fastest IM swim ever by four minutes :( . This was an amazingly physical start to a race. I positioned myself right in the middle, about four rows back and when the gun went off I went with the masses. There was a lot of contact for sure.

I was very happy with how I felt in the water. My sighting was good and I swam very straight (in 2012 I was all over the course). Never really got out of my comfort zone. I tried to draft off of faster people but in the end I just swam my own pace and did what I had to do.

Because this is a one lap course and I am a slow swimmer it feels like it takes forever to get to the turn around. Make like Dory and "just keep swimming."

Start swimming at age six.

More than two minutes faster than 2012. Partially because I wasn't frozen like a popsicle this time and could actually feel my hands.

No socks! :)

Forgot to bring a towel and could not get all of the dried grass off of my feet. I rode 112 miles with my feet covered with dried grass because I didn't bring a towel.

In the three days leading up to the race there was barely any wind. Mother nature laughed at us on race day and gave us 15-30 mph winds out of the Northwest that meant we rode a lot of the race in to the teeth of this wind. It made what is usually considered an "easy" IM bike significantly harder.

The first lap I had a lot of energy and the trip out to the turnaround, while tougher than expected, went pretty quick. The return trip with the wind at my back was awesome. I tried to concentrate on putting out the same power in both directions. This is sometimes kind of hard because I spend so much time on the trainer and not out in the real world. One thing I will say is that I think the wind really broke the field up significantly. In 2012 the field was crazy crowded and I spent my entire first lap surging and/or easy pedaling to avoid getting caught up in draft packs. This year I was able to ride my own race on all three laps. I saw almost no drafting at all. I know that people complain about drafting at AZ but I sure didn't see it today :)

Second lap was hard. Wind was more. It seemed to take forever to get to the turn around the second time. It began to get a lot less fun. The return trip was once again a lot more fun. I was averaging about an hour out to the turnaround (18.5 miles) and then 45 minutes or so back if that gives any indication about wind speed...... On the second return trip I got my front tire in a groove in the pavement and it about caused me to wreck. It scared me. Then I started to think, "if only I had crashed back there I wouldn't have to do the third loop." My brain was trying to talk me in to quitting instead of fighting against that wind for another hour. Fortunately I decided that I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I gave up so I turned around and slogged back out for the third lap. The other interesting thing on lap two was Jordan Rapp passing me at about mile 65. I was going 29 MPH at the time and he passed me like I was watching from the sideline. The pros are a different species.

Lap three was more of the same with the wind being even more fierce and more gusty. It wasn't a particularly pleasant trip out but I tried to keep myself in aero to cheat the wind as much as possible and just get it over with. Once at the turn around I knew I would make it and tried to make up a little time on the way back in to town. Mile 105 a tumbleweed blew across the road and I went right through it. Scared me. Luckily they are a bunch of nothing but it was still a bit shocking.

Nutrition on the bike. Started the race with 2 x 24 ounce bottles with two scoops of custom Infinit plus one pack of U-Can per bottle (about 400 calories per bottle). Finished those off by about mile 48 or so. Supplemented with water from most aid stations. Picked up two more bottles at special needs of the exact same mix and drank both of them over the next 56 miles.

This was pretty good for me. I always seem to miss my power goals by about 5-10 watts so I am going to start to set the goals just a little bit higher. That way when I miss the goal I will be hitting what the real goal power was. Does that make sense? I feel like I could have ridden 5-10 watts higher and not adversely affected my run.

decided to leave my bike shoes on and run in them instead of picking up another layer of dried grass on my feet.

First time I have tied a pair of shoes in T2 in three years. I have been dealing with PF all year and wearing Hokas as a result. Wanted them tied nice and secure to protect my foot.

Nothing.

My run fitness has been a little bit off all year. This year has been more bike focused (because I need a lot of work on the bike) and I have not been as fast on the run at any race this year as I have been in the past. I knew this going in and didn't have any illusions about going faster on the run than 2012. I ran four minutes slower this year and I am happy that I was that close to my previous performance. In 2012 I thought I might be able to run 7:30s for the race but wisely started slower and finished with a slight negative split.

This year, as I said, I had lower expectations. I figured that I could put it at 8:00 pace and keep it there for the race. And that is what I did. I didn't get caught up in any one else's fantasies about IM running pace. I am pretty sure that every single person that passed me in the first 13 miles of the race, I eventually caught, repassed and never saw again. There might be one person that I didn't but I'm not 100% sure. I ran a 1:44ish first half and a1:46ish second half for the 3:30 :55.

The first 13.1 was relatively easy. I knew that dark times were coming so I didn't do anything foolish. As usual, things got mentally and physically tough from miles 15-20 or so. At that point you are playing all kinds of games in your head to keep going. I realized that I had not yet stopped running and decided that my goal was not to walk a single step in this marathon. Whenever my will got weak I just thought about not walking.

The turn around of the second out and back was almost exactly at 21 miles. At 8:00 pace that meant there was only 40 minutes left and I started counting down.I actually had enough left in the tank to finish the last three miles at just under 8:00 pace and get this race behind me. That last 1.2 miles seemed to go on forever but at that point you are done and just need to hang on.



Better run training. Not have hernia surgery nine weeks before the race.

First time that I have not walked at all in an IM run.

I felt OK for the first five minutes or so after I finished. A little disappointed that I wasn't going to need to go to medical :) Then I started to feel pretty crummy. My wife says that is the worst she has ever seen me look at the end of a race.

Eventually I drank two big cups of broth, drank a water, ate a couple slices of pizza, had a cookie......and started to feel like a human again.

Went back to the car and changed in to street clothes (started to get very cold in my sweaty tri suit) and ended up meeting my coach (the Overall AG winner) for dinner.


Surgery. Not my best summer of training and racing.

Looking forward to a bounce back year next year.

Honestly, I don't think I had much more to give. With the fitness I had on race day, this is my best executed race to date. Maybe I could have gotten 5-10 more watts on the bike but maybe not.

Very, very satisfied with this race.


Thank you to the volunteers for helping us through this very long day.

Thank you to my wife and kids for putting up with all of the training and racing.

Thank you to my coach, Steve Johnson, Darkhorse Triathlon, for having me ready to race all season long and dealing with my crazy schedule.