Ironman 70.3 World Championship - Triathlon

This was the roughest swim I have ever participated in. I got kicked above my left eye so hard that I had a bruise for a week. I briefly wondered if I had a cut.... Just a tremendous amount of contact on all sides for the first 400-600 yards and rounding every buoy. It wasn't until the return leg that I felt like I had any open water to swim in.

I did feel like my drafting was better than in the past but that was partially because there were so many of us swimming at the same pace that it would have been almost impossible not to draft.

I felt very good during this whole swim. I swam hard and expected a good time. 35:00 is my best HIM swim this year but it is nowhere near where I want to be. My pool performance is still not translating well to OWS performance. I am comfortable and feel good but I am not fast. At about the half way point of the swim the sharks from the wave behind me caught me. I can see them swimming and just knifing through the water and making it look so easy but I cannot figure out how to do it myself. Frustrating!

Long T1. At least 1/4 mile from swim out to the bikes. I passed a lot of people running here but for some reason it is hard to motivate myself to totally sprint through transition. Need to work on this.

Still considering going without socks. It would make a faster T1 but at what expense in T2?

Sprint faster from swim to bike...

Last year when I raced this course I felt like I did not have a good bike. This year I felt like this was a much better performance. I pushed hard but in retrospect I probably could have gone even harder.

Got up to pace very quickly and got near my goal watts and just tried to keep at it.

At the last several races I have been passed by almost no one. At the smaller regional races (Muncie, Steelhead) I am slowly becoming a factor. At this race I was a very little fish in a very big pond. I got absolutely consumed by all of the fast people out there on the bike course. I really tried to stay true to my watt goal both climbing and descending. I got passed by a lot of people on the ascents but passed a lot of them back on the down hills and flats.

A comment about drafting..... There were some huge packs of people drafting/working together. I got passed by three of them. It is amazing how much faster you can go on minimal watts while in a pack. When one of these packs would come by I would get sucked in to the tail of the pack and if I wanted to, I could cruise along at 22-25 MPH on minimal output. I had to consciously sit up and soft pedal to let the pack get ahead of me and get out ot the slip stream. If 'you' just keep pedaling at your power goal you will be joining the back of the pack because of how much faster you go on the same or less power. I don't race that way. One, because it is wrong. Two, because I don't want to get a drafting penalty. Except on this day, they basically decided not to give out drafting penalties which really irritates me. I know that I could have (and many people did!) ridden 10-15 minutes faster if I had joined one of these packs. I know that a lot of people got a "free" ride for big chunks of the race. Frustrating but true. Anyways, enough of that. I wasn't going to be a factor at the front of a race of this caliber anyway so I raced my race.

I felt very good for the majority of this ride and had some energy left to finish the last segment strong. Glad to be off the bike but no longer is a 56 miles the agony that it once was :)

800 Calories of U-Can/Infinit mixture in two 20 ounce water bottles + another bottle of water from an aid station was my nitrition/hydration for this segment.

Draft, like about 150-200 people I saw in big packs with no sequelae........

Went well. Thought about stopping in the bathroom but decided that was crazy talk even though I was way back in the pack.

I didn't go quite hard enough. I felt pretty good during this whole segment of the race (except for the brutal uphill through the village each time). In retrospect, you aren't supposed to feel like this. I should have been pushing to get a little closer to the ragged edge instead of staying comfortable. This was a very respectable run on this course but I think with a little more 'push' on my part I could have been faster.

Water and Cola at every aid station that offered it. Occasionally some ice in the tri top but this wasn't too warm which was nice.

Push, push, push.

Beer, Poutine, find my wife.


Mental fortitude.

Interestingly, I raced this whole thing with an inguinal hernia that has been getting progressively larger. Approximately 49 hours after finishing the race I went under the knife and had it surgically repaired. I don't think that it affected my race too dramatically although it gave me an excuse if I wanted to pull back a little bit. I have also been dealing with plantar fasciitis and some left knee pain that has mildly affected my training for the last month or so. It is my hope that both of these things improve significantly during my forced two week lay off from training.


This is a spectacular venue. Great race. Well run. Beautiful course. Definitely on my list of must do races if anyone asks.

The only down side on this was how crowded the finish area was. I think it is a function of this being the WC with so many athletes finishing in close proximity to each other because I don't remember it being like this last year at the standard MT 70.3. It was difficult to get food, drinks, find family, etc. Again, it was not like this at the non championship 70.3 last year.

Thanks to my coach, Steve Johnson, of Darkhorse Triathlon for holding my feet to the fire and getting me in the kind of shape where 4:51 is a mild disappointment and not a huge victory. The guy really knows what he is doing if anyone is interested in a high-level coach experience.