Ironman Louisville - TriathlonFull Ironman

Overall the swim was pretty uneventful for me. I took advantage of the Gatorade practice swims on both Friday and Saturday, so I felt like I had a pretty good idea of the impact of the current both upstream and down.

Heading up through the channel between Towhead Island and the shore there was virtually no need to site. I was breathing bilaterally and both the island and the the main shore were within site when I would breath, so all I had to worry about was moving forward. Also, this was the part of the swim where I was really able to catch a decent draft. I really don't know how much it helped, but mentally I was thought it was awesome since I was heading upstream.

I knew that if I could hit the turnaround feeling good then the rest of the swim would be 'easy'. I had land marks picked out the entire swim. The first big one was the turnaround point. Then it was truly all down hill, or downstream in this case. From there I just had the clear the island from the other side, then pass the two bridges, then the home stretch. Just before I got the the I-65 bridge, a guy swimming close by started yelling, which broke me out my zone. I popped my head up to figure out what was going on. He was yelling for help and did it repeatedly until one of the kayakers responded. I was a little stunned by the whole thing and didn't really know what to make of it, but as soon as I saw a kayak start heading his way, my face went back down in the water and I set out to wrap up the swim.

On the earlier portions downstream portion of the swim I didn't pay as much attention to siting as I should have, probably due to completely not siting while heading upstream. As a result, I ended up heading further out in the river channel than I intended and that surely cost me a bit of time and energy to get myself into a more decent position in the river. Otherwise I was reasonably pleased with my swim.

From the water exit to the changing tent is a fair distance and I was pretty wobbly coming out of the water. So, I just tried to walk a brisk pace to pick up my bike bag. By the time I got to the changing tent I felt like my equilibrium was back and in check.

They warned us that the changing tent would likely be hot and humid and they really weren't kidding. I put on my heart rate strap, my tri top, shoes, grabbed my helmet, and I got out of Dodge. It was miserable in there. What I neglected to do was take off my watch/hrm. I didn't think that was a big deal, but the damn thing somehow got set to beep with my actual heart rate. I decided not to worry about because I could fix that while I was riding. Mistake!

I took my time during this transition, but I didn't waste time. The only thing I would have done differently was take the extra 10 seconds to remove my watch.

Starting out on the bike, I still had my HRM/watch on my wrist from the swim and it was beeping constantly. I knew that if I held in one of the buttons it would silence the beeps. However, instead of silencing the beeps I accidentally held in the button that locked out all of the other buttons. Now it is beeping and not responding to any of the buttons. I can't even turn the F_ing thing off and I was contemplating just taking it off and tossing it because I couldn't begin to imagine riding for 6+ hours listening to a steady flow of beeps. Fortunately, I finally got the buttons unlocked and turned the SOB off. That almost caused a mental breakdown or the loss of a nice Polar HRM. First crisis averted.

I think I rode this course in its entirety 4 times and rode major portions of it many more time than that, so I knew the course very well and knew what my potential was. I can't think of a single long training ride with which I had any real issues to speak of so this was the part of the race where I had the most confidence. Confidence apparently doesn't amount to much when your nutrition plan goes down the tubes. By the end of the 1st hour my stomach was cramping and I realized that I was 30 minutes ahead of schedule with my Infinit, so my immediate thought was that I was taking in more than my stomach could process. No problem. I backed off the Infinit for 30 minutes and just drank water. That seemed to do the trick and I was back to feeling decent by the 1.5 hour mark. However, I never really got back to feeling as good as I was in the first miles of the ride. However, things were definitely looking up by the time I entered into the 1st loop. The first loop was pretty uneventful. The LaGrange Festival was a nice boost, plus I had a couple friends that cheered me on a few miles before reaching LaGrange. On the back half of the first loop a guy with a funny hydration contraption off back of his bike passed me. I looked at his bib and saw that his name was Bob. That's when I realized it was rstocks3. I caught him and we exchanged a few comments regarding our progress thus far and I said something like "well at least I can say that I passed you once". He of course passed me again and said something along of the lines of "yes, just once" with a smile on his face. Needless to say he was on his 2nd loop at this time.

The 2nd loop is where things really got ugly. I made to special needs and decided there was no need to stop as there wasn't a thing in my bag that sounded remotely appealing. It was also starting to get really hot. Shortly after special needs was the LaGrange Festival again. This time I had several friends and my parents waiting to cheer me on. Once again this was a great boost. However, it only last for another couple miles, roughly mile 70, and realized that I was in trouble again. I was really having to force myself to take in water and Infinit at this point. For some reason I just blew right by the next aid station. I really needed to regroup, but I just sucked it up until I made to the aid station around the 90 mile marker. By this point I was feeling awful and was starting to have some serious doubts. I pulled off the course and sat down. One of the volunteers at the aid station brought me a bottle of Gatorade, which much to my surprise went down fairly easily. I guess that I sat there for about 5 minutes when I decided that I needed to get back on my bike and see how well I could move along. As it turns out the Gatorade was doing me wonders. I was getting extremely hot and I was keeping my hydration/nutrition plan on par with my training rides, which were usually in 80's, not low to mid 90's, and I wasn't compensating for the difference. However, by this time I really had lost my tolerance my Infinit mix and didn't think to ditch it and grab a bottle of Gatorade for the rest of the ride. Now I'm desperate to make it the final aid station to get my hands on more Gatorade. I finally made it to last aid station and I needed water and Gatorade, so again I decided to stop. The guy who got my bottles for me was a guy that was in a running group that I used to meet up with last fall and who raced IM Louisville last year. I spoke with him for a brief moment, drank a bit of a bottle of Gatorade, tossed my Infinit bottle, replaced it with a fresh Gatorade bottle, and wrapped up the final miles of the bike course feeling quite a bit better.

Pay much more attention to my nutrition. This wasn't a great concern to me going into the race because I nailed on all of my training rides. I consumed too much early on then not nearly enough later when it really started getting hot.

I was really starting to feel pretty decent again by the time I made it to T2, which was great. Facing the entire run with the heat and not feeling well would have been very rough.

The lady who handed me my run bag was the same lady who got me checked in a few days prior, which I mentioned to her. She said "number 888, I remember that" I find out after the fact that it was Tammy Nickerson (tnickerson), only because she offered to email video clips she had taken at the finish and recognized my number when she emailed mine to me.

This transition was slower than the first, but at this point I was in no mood to rush through things, so I just tried to relax and make sure I had what I needed before starting the run.

Nothing

After the roughly 20 mile nightmare portion of the bike ride, I actually started the out feeling pretty good on the run. I had a friend waiting for me at the turn around on the 2nd Street bridge. He asked how I was feeling and I told him that "I am as fresh as the morning dew". I don't think he bought it though.

My game plan was to run from aid station to aid station, drink 1 cup of gatorade and 1 cup of water, take an Endurolyte pill every 3rd mile and a gel the mile following the Endurolyte, which worked until mile 3. The terrible feeling I was having on the bike course set back in and I started walking. I walked a couple miles and finally had to sit. Once again I was worried that this could end my day. I truly had to force some fluids down. Nothing sounded appealing, but choked down my cup of water and a cup of gatorade. After a few minutes I started walking again. A few minutes later, I thought I would try to run some more. To my surprise, I was back! Although at this point I just ran for about 5 minutes and would walk for 1 minute.

Somewhere along the first loop I caught up with Mike Rogillo. He and I were moving at a pretty comparable rate, so I stuck with him several miles. Eventually we got separated at some point before the start of the 2nd loop.

The split for the finishers and the start of the 2nd loop was basically right at the finish. When I found this out I was thinking that it would be torture to see the finish and have to head back out for another loop, but the finish was so intense with all of the cheering people and the music that it completely invigorated me. As soon as I turned out of finish area I saw another friend of mine and his wife, which was a double boost. From there on out I would run from aid station to aid station, when I felt that I could, but at least I didn't have to walk for extended periods of time any longer since I had recovered and was sticking to my 1 water and 1 gatorade per station protocol.

With a few miles before the final turn I caught up the Shaun (CubeFarmGopher) and another guy. Shaun was walking mentioned that he wasn't doing well. I walked with him for a couple minutes and picked it back up. I continued on this way until I hit mile 24.

I had to make a pit stop and grab some more fluids, but I knew that I could make it from there. I made my stop and grabbed a couple cups and walked for a minute or 2 to let it all settle then I was off to the finish. The closer I got the finish the more people were cheering and encouraging me to keep up the pace and stronger I started feeling. When I turned down the final block before the finish I felt like I was really picking up the pace. In reality in might have been a slow trot, but in my mind I was cruising! I made the turn into 4th Street Live and immediately saw several of my friends. By this time it had been dark for quite a while. The bright lights, the pumping music, and the massive cheering crowd was intense beyond words. I knew that it was over and that I was an Ironman. As I finished that final few yards to caught site of my wife and parents, but I just kept running until I crossed the finish mat. Its beyond words how it felt to cross the finish line.

Nothing!

I walked with my parents, Anna, and a couple friends to the convention center. Several other friends caught up to us shortly after. Maybe 10 minutes or so after finishing the adrenaline rush from the finish ended and I started feeling pretty rough. None of the food sounded good and I was getting pretty weak feeling. After I got some fluids in me I started to come around and by the time I made it home I was feeling pretty good again.


I was completely impressed with the organization of the entire event from the initial check-in to the finish of the race.

Unbelievable feeling to be able to complete my 1st Ironman in my hometown with the support of my friends and family. They were there with me throughout virtually every part of the course. When I didn't see them I would see one of the BTers that I met over the weekend. I couldn't believe how lucky I was to be surrounded by people I knew during the entire day.

Many thanks to all of my friends and family that were able to be there to support me, with much love for all of you.