Ironman Louisville - TriathlonFull Ironman

So this is where I'll admit that I severely under trained for this event. My family had been relocated from the midwest to the east coast in July and it really blew a hole in my training plans. Most of my swim practices were 45 minutes or less and only once did I swim a 2 mile practice session. That being said, my goal was to push to make the turn and then take advantage of the current that Louisville is famous for.
The reality is that the current was almost non-existent this day, but I still had a very good swim. Just kept things nice and steady with only occasional pushes to get past slower swimmers.
I made a decision to take the turn wide and swim further out in the channel and I think this was good as most of the swimmers tried to stay very close to the island and I heard many talk about how chaotic their swim was. For me, I really didn't encounter many people until close to the final bouy when I had to turn in towards the shore.

For my swim, I don't really think I would do much differently. I actually liked not having too many "long" swims and felt this kept my shoulders and body fresh. I was actually 2 minutes faster than my previous Ironman swim time. I've always been a pretty strong swimmer and don't know that I could do much more to improve my times.

What can I say, I'm a slow transition person during a full Ironman. It was a long run up the beach into the transition tent and then again to the road, but I didn't do much running and I took my time to dry off and catch my breath in the transition tent.
Because the early morning was so cold, I took extra time to dry off and put on my arm warmers before leaving to grab my bike.

I should probably stop slacking in transition, but what can I say? It's going to be a long day no matter what.
My biggest issue in transition was that right as I was coming in another competitor stepped on my big toe with his bicycle cleat! Needless to say, that would come back later in the day...

So again, undertrained. I never rode more than 60 miles during my training and knew this was going to be rough. However, I decided to just go for it and leave it all out there. I will also say that I underestimated just how hilly this course would be and the strong headwind on the backside of the loop and on the way back to transition was just murder.
I'd been working all season to become a stronger biker and really wanted to try to keep my average pace over 17mph (compared to 15 in my first IM). This seemed to be working, and for the first 60 miles I had almost an 18mph pace despite the hills! Sadly, by the time I finished the first loop, I knew that I would be in trouble and from mile 60 to 69 I hit the hills and the wind and my average speed dropped all the way to a 12! The rest of the way, I was able to hold a 16.7 average to slightly recover myself, but I also knew that I was burning myself out and would pay on the run!


Keep training, I know that I've still got room to get better on the bike. Also in the future, more long rides to try and prevent such a drop-off in my performance

Pulling into transition, I actually lost my legs once I got off the bike and almost spilled. Thankfully there was a volunteer right there who caught me and I handed over my bike and took off down into transition once more! I took a few extra minutes in the tent to rest my legs and my backside from that ride, but tried not to sit for too long or I might never have gotten up. So I got my shoes and visor on, strapped on my race belt and headed out for a little 26 mile run...

I just really need to be better about getting in and out of transition

So as I mentioned several times already, I knew I was going to be in for a long evening thanks to my lack of training. Included in this was a decision to try something different and not carry any of my own water or nutrition, but to rely on the course. Although they always say nothing new on race day, I've done it a few times with success and this was no different. I will probably do this in future events also. Finally, because my legs were fried from that bike, but my plan was to just do a very easy run and put a walk break in every half mile. This pattern worked out perfectly with the aid stations, so it basically looked like run .5, walk .2, repeat. I did this perfectly for 13 miles, but then my legs just wouldn't go any further, and it really became much more of a walk. I went from a 10:45 average and dropped to a 13 and all the way to 17 for the final section. Honestly at the turn I wasn't sure if I even wanted to keep going, but thankfully the crowd there was great and my wife actually ran out there for about 200 yards just encouraging me and telling me not to stop. So as painful as it became, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other.
At mile 24, I decided that it was time to just do whatever was necessary and "run" the last two miles. It hurt, but let's face it, everything hurt by then, so I just kept pushing. Within a half mile, I could hear the music and the crowd and started to get that final burst of adrenaline! I made the last turn onto fourth street and there it was! Nothing left but to run down into that yelling crowd and the finisher's chute! I was giving the crowd high fives and smiling all the way to the arch and got to hear those awesome words, "Arick Tuhro, You Are An Ironman!" for the second time!! I'm pretty sure that no matter how often I hear that, it will still be amazing.

better training

Walked down through the chute and just rested against a railing for a minute. My wife and sister-in-law were there and handed my flip flops over so I could pull my poor feet out of those running shoes. Talk about the best feeling ever!
I left the chute and we walked over to one of the several restaurants by the finish line for a little food and a post race beer!


Lack of training


So I'm glad that this race was moved to October as the weather was beautiful for a race! However, I think the swim start was very chaotic and stressful trying to get all your stuff on and organized with a line that just took off. Lots of people struggled to get on their wetsuits and I saw people forgetting goggles and swim caps. Otherwise, the swim was really nice and the volunteers throughout the day were just awesome!
The bike course is extremely tough, and the unusual headwind made it even tougher. There are really only two complaints that I have about the course. 1.) It was very lonely for the most part with only a couple of sections that had a lot of people. 2.) The extra out and back that they put in was awful! It had two monster climbs that you had to do and because bike traffic was going both directions, you would often get stuck on the climb behind slower people that just killed your momentum. That section was apparently new this year and was just brutal.
Despite the cool idea of the finish being in that section of fourth street, I actually thought it lacked the energy of my previous Ironman experience. I also thought it was horrible to have the finishers food and stuff be set up a few blocks away in the expo center. I know it sounds really pathetic to complain about a couple blocks when I just went 140.6 miles, but then again, I just went 140.6 miles! Would it be too much to ask for food and an area to sit down be right outside the chute? Also, when I finally got into the expo center all they had was cold pizza and water and soda. No chocolate milk, no alternatives, just greasy pizza. I walked out and went into a nearby restaurant for some real food.
The city of Louisville really comes out and supports this race, and it is a beautiful town. That being said, I would not come back and do this race again.