Ironman 70.3 Boulder - Triathlon

Seeded just back of the front as no one seemed to want to be there. Swam freestyle for a good 300-400 yards and then settled into my free/breast routine. Shoulders were pretty good all in all and I actually swam a fairly straight line. Tried not to drink too much water and stayed consistent. Got pretty choppy during the last 300 yards for some reason and I was worried about my stomach.

Not much.

Had the goggles, arm sleeves, etc. off by the time I hit my T spot. Wetsuit came off well. Put on the bike shoes, helmet and went.

Kept the first 20 minutes in high Z2 to get through the false flat and let things settle. Legs felt good but I was burping a lot. At 20 minutes I was along the foothills and started to wind things up a bit. Started with UCANN at 25 minutes and sipping NUUN. First half of the bike felt great and I hit the halfway at 1:15 with HRs in Z2! But my stomach started feeling wonky soon after and I was still burping a lot. Managed to get my 2nd serving of UCANN in and worked on the NUUN but it was getting worse. It was also worse being in aero position. Started having visions of previous performances so I backed off on the bike and tried to stay comfortable.

Not sure what this was. I've worked on nutrition this year and felt like I had a good plan going into it after switching to UCANN and NUUN and eliminating all of the sugary crap. I think this was fluky.

Took a few extra minutes to compose myself and use the bathroom. It was super hot in the transition area, which was totally unexpected as it was only supposed to 79 degrees out. Put on socks for the run, crossed my fingers, and headed out.

Get more sunscreen. Got fried out there.

Started out and my stomach didn't feel too bad but I knew I would have trouble getting my fluids and nutrition in me. First 3 miles were right where I wanted them: goal pace 6:56 +30 seconds. But at 3 miles I couldn't kick it up any without my stomach getting worse. To boot, it was getting really hot! At 6 miles I walked through my first aid station and started drinking coke. I had to do something different and I immediately started feeling better energy and stomach wise. Rich was out there and told me if I couldn't go sub 5 that I had to at least go under 5:08 and beat his PR. That helped me as I knew sub 5 was going to be very hard at this point. Maintained a steady pace the last loop and continued with Coke at every aid station and water over my head. Everybody was suffering at this point but it felt good to be running and passing people. Definitely getting flat by the last mile but kicked it in to pick up one last AGer.

Poor nutrition/fluids on the bike set up the sub par run. This wasn't by choice but I do have to figure it out.

Found some shade and sat down with some ice and a bottle of water and tried to cool down. Was definitely feeling nauseated and crappy. Ran into Guy and Mike but couldn't find Rich and Kevin. Tried to find more fluids and it really wasn't apparent where they were at. Started feeling a bit worse and decided I needed to get out of there. Packed up, got to my car with A/C, and headed for the nearest gas station for fluids.


Nutrition and heat. I was super ready for this race and had a sub 5 all set up coming off the bike. Unfortunately race day was by far the hottest day of this year and no one had a chance to acclimate to the heat. I still feel like my nutrition plan is good, I just need to train more with it and do more swim/bike or swim/run.

I can still take time off the bike and run and T2 and get down closer to 4:45. But I met all of time goals going in except the run and was only about 8 minutes off that even with the heat and stomach issues.


There needed to be an area close to the finish for fluids, carbs, shade, etc. After the fact, I found out that if you walked all the way back through the village to registration they had pizza and fluids but that was hardly intuitive.