Ironman 70.3 Boulder - Triathlon

I had another freak out moment on this swim. I did a 2 mile swim 6 days before (well...attempted to do that triathlon). During that swim I freaked out due to the chop, well here I freaked out since I thought I would freak out. I know... Anyway, I treaded water a lot before the first turn. I had it in my mind that I should give up. I had a ton of self doubt after last week's race where I DNF. Well I told myself to suck it up. It wasn't even choppy. After I rounded the first buoy, things started to click. I swam way on the outside to avoid people but I was doing fine. I didn't need to stop other than every 5 minutes when I lost sight of a buoy and I was way calmer and got my form back.

Not freak out. I wanted 35 minutes or lower (and ~33 minutes being the real goal). Considering how much I treaded water, I guess it wasn't too bad of a swim.

3:51 for T1 is actually one of my better ones... I thought I did worst since I put on bike shorts over my tri shorts since I can't bike more than ~20 miles in tri shorts. Sort of talked to guy next to me and let him use my water to clean off feet.

Be faster :) I walked out of the water since I was exhausted but started to run ~5 seconds after that.

I made a huge gain on the bike. Like I said, it was super easy course. I averaged 21.6 @ 225 watts for 2 hours during a training ride 2 weeks before hand with race wheels (no aero helmet though). That was a flat but windy ride. I averaged over 23 mph with less power on this ride. Shows how much easier it was. I liked the course except that first 15-20 miles or so were open to traffic.

I kept myself calm on this ride. Since it was 5,000 ft higher than what I'm used to. Anytime I heard myself breathing hard I told myself to calm down and my breathing went back to a relax light effort breath.

My goal was actually 225 watts for this. I faded at the end. For some reason I had it in my mind I was riding 52 miles and at 51.6 miles it finally hit me it's 56 mile on the bike. No idea what I was thinking. I slowed down a little and lost a little composure after that.

I almost mounted my bike backwards and then realized it before I set it in place.

Remember where run out is. I ended up running towards bike out, which was on the other side of transition.

I made two huge mistakes on this run:
1. I started off way too fast. I had it in my mind I was going to do a sub 1:40 run and I got too ambitious at the start. I should have started slow and then worked myself faster. I knew this...
2. I drank Gatorade the first 3 miles. This ALWAYS causes me to have stomach cramps when I first start the run. I don't know what the hell I was thinking.

After mile one, I couldn't get any air. The entire time I was gasping for air. I think the elevation finally hit me. I ran a marathon 2 years ago in Denver and it really never affected me but I was going no where fast on this run. My run cadence was 160 too...which is 18-20 below my average. This wasn't my run today. I walked through every aid station and even between a few of them. On the last mile I grabbed a Gatorade and it tasted awful...like super super concentrated. I instantly felt like I was going to throw up. I had to walk almost a full half mile on my last mile.

I watched a lot of people in my AG pass me. Very heart breaking. I then picked it back up and saw someone with the same age as me sounding like he was doing to pass out at any moment. I saw I had .2 miles to go and I wanted to beat him. It gave me something to try for. Well I picked up the pass and finished and at the finish I was gasping for air (did beat the guy by 10 seconds though). I was breathing but it felt like I wasn't. I grabbed onto a medal poll and started to almost black out. 20 seconds later things started to feel better and I could move and my vision was back to normal.


Start slower and drink water only the first few miles. I was 20 minutes off goal time and doing this correctly could have saved me 5 minutes for sure (still accounting for the altitude thing).

No stretching. I just grabbed a recovery shake and found a place to sit and I sat for 10 minutes and then looked for my friend. We found a shaded area and sat and talked for 20 minutes or so.


Altitude? Maybe. I hate to say that was what caused me to blow up on the run. I did bad things to myself but I think the elevation took it toll on me at the end too.


I liked this race. I didn't see any food though. I'm sure there was but I looked at the finish line and to the exit and they only had bottled water and the protein shake.

The swim was well organized. TONS of boats out there. Bike course was super easy but the open traffic for 15-20 miles sort of sucked. Trying to pass people safely at this part was a little difficult. I liked that the course was one giant loop so I didn't have to loop to the slower people and it helped keep packs down to a minimum.

Run course sucked, imo. I did not like the trail part. The fist sized rocks everywhere meant you needed to step with care. Not horrible by any means but I'm sore from trying to balance my tired body on them for 13 miles.

Overall I liked this race.