Ironman Wisconsin - TriathlonFull Ironman

Boom! The cannon goes off and its time to get yo azz movin'! There was no real sighting for me at the start, just trying to keep up with the mass of humanity. I did try to stay in the draft as much as I could with some of the pack, but with the arms and legs whipping around, the early going was more about trying to not get kicked in the head for fear of any kind of freak out. Over the first long section of the rectangular course, I started to cut in more towards the buoy line avoiding much catastrophie. The corners were a bit rougher at times, but manageable. I did keep my ears open for the occasional heavy kicker. I dont know why, but some folks seemed to be thunder kicking out there and you could hear booming leg drops under water. If I heard feet like that I was looking for who to avoid cuz I dont need that on any day.

Things just kind of went along smoothly and after keeping composed on the first lap of my first IM swim, my left calf started to cramp on the first turn of the second lap. I started flutter kicking a few rapid beats and shook em out. I was kinda surprised it worked, but kept with it a few times and it became a non-issue. I did try and push pace after rounding the third corner and hit a decent groove. Considering I probably tacked on a little distance angling in, I was pleased with the pacing based on my current weak azz swim skills.

The water level was steep so up higher on the rocks. The had folks help you out of the water and then I hit the floor for the wetsuit strippers. They send you on your merry way up the helix which is the three or four story winding ramp to the top deck of the parking structure where transition is. It was lined with peeps cheering the whole way up and a fun atmosphere. I tried to keep tabs on the HR and kept it relatively in check in my jog up.

Nada. Did it according to plan. Guess who is going to start rehabbing their shoulder and also getting some swim help in the winter? :)

This is not your standard transition area by any means. I looked at times for these last year and scratched my head as to WTF people were doing in there. Basically, you have a swim to bike bag in one room and a bike to run in another inside the hotel. Your bag is lined up by number and a volunteer helps find it if you dont get to it first (easy to find really) and then there is a changing room (mens and womens are separate of course). Being 1772 outta the water, the room was a zoo. They have chairs but many were filled so just plopped on the floor, dumped out the bag and was on my way after slugging down some water. You head out of the hotel to the upper deck of the parking garage where they had an army of folks to sunscreen ya. You then run up the ramp and to your bike. Seriously, they gotta add it to the run total, cuz its at least more than a football field. The mount line is at the other end of the helix where ya get on and slowly wind down (one of two no passing zones)

Not much seeing this was first time dealing with it. Others doing the race in the future might want to mark your bags outside of the stickers they give ya (I did do this writing a big 'JSZAT' on the top of the bag, but just thought I would add that for ya newbies to the race.

After rolling down the helix, you bike about a mile to a short (.25 mi?) bike path section that is the second no pass zone. No big shakes really, but I was surprised to see my bro in law, my wife and some other family there (cant recall). There was tons of folks in front of my slow swimming azz and at times it made for some incidents of waiting for someone to pass or not, but after about 20 miles of some light rollers, I had been gaining position like crazy. Nutrition called for three bottles of InfinIt over the ride, concentrated with about 600 cals in each and washing that down with water. S-caps every 30 or so, and try and drain aero bottle of water for refills for every station. I did have my bento box filled with a ton of gels and a granola bar. Special needs bag had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, some oreos and a cliff bar in case of emergency but a sammich couldnt help the issue I had just outside of Mt Horeb. After feeling decent and making ground on the better swimmer types, as I am riding up on a climb, I downshift and to my horror hear a grinding and then my pedals not able to move at all. I take another look and try to switch back to the big ring to get the derailuer to work but no dice. Mid hill, I get off the bike and my chain is basically wrapped around places it shouldnt be and tangled. This is 32 miles into the bike and in the freaking boonies. I thought about that dude that ran with his bike at Kona and said 'yeah dumbazz, I'll bet you can run 80 miles before a marathon'. Ok, plan B I guess.

I am not freaking out just yet, take another look at the problem and the chain is around the pedal somehow. Oh look! I bet an Allen wrench could go there! My plan was to take the pedal off. A stream of bikers whizzed by the whole time but I am more concerned that this is something that I cant fix and that I am focked. The only thing that I felt was going to stop me to becoming an Ironman was some kind of mechanical failure or massive dehydration in hot temps but mother nature nixed the latter. Suddenly I hear a 'You OK?' and its TriDDS who I passed a little back. I think I muttered something obscene about my bike but cant recall. Still tinkering and the pedal is on so tight I cant budge the thing. Shortly I hear another "You alright?" and I am like 'no, not really'. I am still ok cuz I know there is a lot of day left and bike techs are somewhere on the course. So this is a dude who gets off his bike to look at mine and I tell him I appreciate it, but I dont want you getting DQed for helping out or anything. He asks if its my first Iron which I say 'uh-huh' and seems this is his tenth and he didnt seem too concerned about it. He helped me get everything untangled on going again. I tried remembering his bib number to buy his azz some beer and located it the following day. All in all by looking at the down time on the Garmin, I was on the side of the road goofing with this thing about 10 minutes but it seemed like an eternity.

So I was back on the road and climbing a good size hill, right into another . It was then that I noticed my aero bottle was empty, cuz the bike was flipped to get the chain sorted out. Problem was the last water station was about 2 or 3 miles back. Since this is the first loop, I have no idea how long I have until I see water again. They said an avg of every 12 miles but this seemed spaced out a bit more, maybe cuz I didnt want my nutritional plan to go off the tracks. All I had was concentrated InfinIT and gels to work with so basically I had to put my nutrion on hiatus. I did start cautiously sipping the InfiIT again as I got nearer to where I thought something should be coming up, but didnt want to get too overzealous. Finally I hit the next stop and could resume my plan. Since it got thrown off on the timing, I adjusted when to take the s-caps and gels, about every 40 on the caps and 30's on the gels.

The ride continued on towards Verona proper and I knew my wife and two oldest along with her fam would be on one of the climbs. I gave her a guesstimate sheet on when I would be there with what I saw as a reasonable best and worst case scenario. Can you guess which I was closer too? I still scraped inside that worst case guesstimate for the first loop and saw my fam along with a ton of others cheering us up the hill. Actually, there were three hills in Verona with tons of crowd support, one with about 10 feet of width, if that, with folks cheering and clapping, egging ya on for the climb. I stayed seated most of the first loop but would stand to stretch the legs a bit and cuz some fatigue was setting in. Not too bad overall, felt solid most of the ride.

My family fans were going to come out to see me on the second loop I was told after the race but missed me cuz I didnt have a mechanical failure and was able to ride the second loop pretty well. Winds switched so the last 10 or so into town saw a lot of action dead nutz into the wind from the north. With the history of the events weather in the past and how gorgeous it was, I wasnt going to complain and I knew I would soon be off the bike. My neck and shoulders were kinda sore cuz I never switched my positioning from a more aggressive aero set up when I bought the bike. Geez, if I can ride 112 on that maybe its time to look even more aggressive for next year. Heading into transition, by bike back up the helix which was kinda fun cuz it seems sloped in a bit. After the bike I was at 870, having passed 902 people. FWIW (which is jack squat), the Garmin had my moving time at 5:52:36. Having hit that with no chain issue would have put me in the wheelhouse for my super secret goal of 11:30. But I was just happy to still be in the game.

Get to learn more bike mechanical type stuff in case something similar happens and to understand how to fix issues that might come up.

I left my bike with the valet (volunteers just take your bike for ya) and headed back into the hotel, grabbed run bag, changed, got quadruple teamed by the sunscreen folks cuz the traffic was a bit thinner with 900 better swimmers behind me now plus those that swam behind me. It was time to run a mary. Yay!

Nada. Not too much dilly dallying and in the context where I should have been with this set up.

I headed out into the streets of Madtown and saw cubefarmgopher a few blocks into the run. It is fun running around the capital and state street. Tons of crowds, etc. It is a pretty urban course with some respite around the lake section, but cool nonetheless. Cloud cover rolled in and the winds settled a bit from the bike it seemed. This would be perfect conditions for a heavy sweater like me to actually survive.

At about mile 3, you get to Camp Randall stadium and get to run a lap around the football field. Kind of a neat touch and you get to do it twice.

My run plan was kind of boring actually and much more conservative than stand alone stuff I put out. My biggest issue being a big sweater and having had meltdowns at the end of two marys and one HIM in the past. With that, I was hitting water and gatorade or sometimes just water at the aid stations. Generally it was pouring water over my head as well or using the sponges to help keep cool. All this pouring made for some squishy feet the whole time. Outside of hitting what I felt like at the water stations, I also did gels on the :15 and :45 and scaps on the :00 and :30's. For those two things there was no optionality, just followed that to a T. I did throw in the occasional banana too.

So this is where I might have gotten into too much of a good thing. I kept chipping away at a solid pace, but my system started getting too much fluid, or so the need to hit a port o let about 8-10 times on the run would indicate. I was peeing clear so I knew I was hydrated well, but I wasnt about to break of plan based on my history and considered that the lesser of two evils vs dehydration. Yeah, it cut into my time a bit but todays goal was to finish an IM and hopefully under 12 hours and I was still on target.

My wife and brother in law were now stationed just outside of Camp Randall and cheering like crazy for everyone. Again, the crowds were great and many made comments about the donkey top shirt, especially after passing through the same section repeatedly and having other donks out there. It was also fun seeing all the other donks out there on the run.

The game plan for the whole day mentally was to treat it like a loooooong commute to a 5k race. With 4 miles to go and lots of time til midnight to get the first IM finish under my belt, I decided to take a stab at the mythical properties of Coke on the course along with some water. Oh man does that stuff taste and feel awesome after a long day. With that and the boost that I would soon be an Ironman, I bounced out the last three miles at 7:53, 8:12 and 7:53. It was kinda funny too cuz I zipped past my wife and bro in law the last time and they tried running with me but I told em to hurry cuz I was going to be at the finish soon. I headed up State Street and around the capital and pushed strong into the chute. I felt strong like I could have pushed earlier but today was about conquering the distance for me. There was a dude doing a mad dash to the finish too and I let em have his few seconds so I could get a decent pic. It wasnt sandbagging so much as not turning on the burners cuz he was moving. To be honest, I dont recall much detail from the actual chute, including the infamous hearing your name. The crowd was nuts and I was excited for sure but the details are not all there for some reason. The actual feeling was spectacular though.

I will have to find a happy medium in what works at what temperatures and so on with hydration for these longer events. More is better, but I think I overshot it today. I could have probably been a little more ballsy and started a push at mile 20. I did to an extent, but it was more spurts vs a sustained pace like the last three. This is simply a learning curve I think.

Two catchers nabbed me and asked if I was ok and all, guided me to the finishers photo wall and then I saw my wife and bro in law. I hugged my wife and it was one of the best feelings cuz I could tell how proud she was of me and I think she knew how much I appreciated her pulling for me all day. She sported a wind vest with the donkey logo for myself and the team and if that aint love, I dont know what is. :) It was funny when I spoke to her the day after too cuz she was hoarse from cheering all day for myself and others.

Ate some pizza and a sub as well as other stuff at the finishers tent, got the post race massage, put on some dry clotes, mosied to the Great Dane a little later to try and eat more but only a little bit. I did put down a chocolate milk and half a stout though. Then headed back to the finish to watch others cross til about 11.


Experience at this distance. My MO the past few years has been doing the first race at a distance conservatively as I have some issues to work out. To have a long workout of 7 hours in training and anticipate being out there for 11+ can be a bit daunting, especially as the build phase of a IM plan has your azz worn out and doubting yourself at times cuz of the built up fatigue. This is as far as I go distance wise in tris (ok, for at least a few years anyhow). I know I am capable of doing the distance so training for the next one I can be a bit more aggressive and most certainly in racing #2. So mentally I just didnt want to fail and was a bit conservative. From a skills standpoint, swim needs work but will take this considering a) I could barely freestyle 500 comfortably at the end of last season and b) I had a shoulder injury in the winter that wiped out swim lesson. This hydration thing might need some kind of technical analysis as well cuz I cant hit the mark on the perfect amout to stay hydrated without constantly going like I did this day. Maybe an anomoly, but will continue to the process to get the fourth key in nutrition figured out.

If anything, I think my plan was too conservative in some spots, but so was my training. Still, it successfully got me where I wanted to be. Mission accomplished! Avg HR for the day was 130 with a max of 173.


I know there are some folks that look at the price tag of these events and balk, but they put on a good show and take care of you. The logistics to get volunteers, support of the community, etc, etc, etc....just top notch. I will be back for more down the road. Being local, it was awesome having family and tons of Donkeys out there cheering on the crew. EEEAAAWWW!!!