Ironman Louisville - TriathlonFull Ironman

Swim –
Gun goes off and the line starts moving quickly, the are actually telling people to hurry up getting up to the end of the dock. I had my goggles ready so I did a quick walk, went over the matt yelled Cannonball and went straight off the dock in a nice little cannonball. Unfortunately I forgot to start my watch, which made it difficult later in the day to have some idea of my overall time. The swim was pretty uneventful actually up to the turnaround I had this huge smile on my face and was laughing to myself.. I was actually doing an Ironman. My first triathlon ever was April of 2007 and less than a year and a half later I’ve gone from a local sprint to an Ironman. So anyway, I was able to get a decent draft up to the turnaround off of a couple of different people but after that I was basically alone for the rest of the swim, I would breath on my left side every couple of minutes just to see the shore and bouys. I’d see a few people about 10-15 ft to my left, then when I’d breath on my right I’d see people 10-15 ft to my right but up until the last 100 meters I was basically alone. I did see a barge, started laughing and took in some water since I don’t breath on my left side as well as my right. Does anyone remember the Calvin & Hobbs comic strip?? I still remember the one when calvin was letting out some great belches and his mother asked what he should say after that. He replied “must be a barge coming through” that cracks me up. Which got me thinking about how Calvin would make snowmen in different situations like car wrecks and such. So I was laughing until I got under the first bridge, I literally thought I was going nowhere while swimming. I’d look over and still see the bridge. I checked my internal targeting system and noticed that with the current I was always heading apx 32-34% to the right or into the river just to swim straight which I thought was weird. But it seemed to take me forever to get past those bridges. With the time trail start it seems that in the last couple of minutes everyone caught up to me, so if I started five minutes later I would have had more draft options.


swim faster, and in a straight line

Got out of the water feeling good.. just a note to all the guys, either write your bib number on your chest or wear something other than dark colored swim trunks. I had to go through a huge pile of unknown pics to find myself. Thanks to everyone that yelled my name i could hear you yelling just couldnt' pick you out of the crowd to wave or anything
** Singha Lager rocks, best thai beer ever**
So I got my bag, went into the tent, found a couple of empty seats and dumped out everything, I didn’t realize that you had to ask for help but it didn’t’ matter I took my time, but didn’t think I went as slow as I did. Just made sure that I dried myself off, body glide, changed into my awesome Flag jersey bike top, loaded up all my food and took off. My helmet and shoes were on my bike. I should have put some flip flops in my bag since the ground was wet and my socks got pretty wet, But I got to my bike got the helmet on, bike off the rack and off I went. I didn’t attempt the flying start to instead just take it “easy”.



write my bib # on my chest, do a back flip on entry

Right away I started drinking some water and Gatorade that I left on my bike and start on my first cliff bar. I could tell I had a small headache I made sure that I started drinking some water thinking that it would go away soon. I have no idea how I got the headache. I could have twisted my neck wrong in the swim, maybe I swallow something in the water on the swim, or I just had a bad day. My plan was to stay in the small chain ring up to the turnaround and keep my cadence around 100 which is pretty normal rate for me, since the course was up hill until the turnaround and keep my HR down and average around 15 mph. Which I was able to do but my head keep pounding more and more. I keep thinking that it would go away, drank my water and GE but it just got worse. At the out and back there were lots of people on the bike course by then. The only bad part is that it’s a narrow road with some great downhills. I was really hoping to get over 50 on the downhills. On the first downhill I hit 48 mph but the road was so crowded and at that speed no one can hear you yelling “on your left” I was passing people about 5 feet over the yellow line into oncoming traffic of bikers and the course vehicles. This really freaked me out since there was no way I could stop in time for anything. Later I would learn that a bad accident happened there, either a car wondered onto the course or something that a cyclist crashed into at a pretty high speed. Anyway by mile 35-40 I couldn’t put out any effort on anything uphills downhills flats nothing.. since my head was literally pounding so hard I wanted to cry, each aid station I was asking everyone for a Tylenol, or something to make it stop. It was so bad that anytime I put something in my mouth I almost immediately spit it out, it didn’t’ matter what it was water, GE, food. I lost track of the times I would choke something down and would start to throw up, only to catch it in my mouth and attempt to reswallow it, which only made me sicker I think. So in the future when you need to hurl, just let it out baby, spew away. So basically from mile 45?? on all I had were sips of water, sips of Gatorade maybe one bottle total and two bites of a banana. Oh yea I did stop at special needs thinking I threw some advil in there. But all I had was an uncrustable, I did manage to keep two bites of that down. I wish I could remember the bike course more but the only thing I really remember was wanting to quit. I knew I wouldn’t actually quit, even though I saw a lot of people on the side of the road just sitting under trees for shade. I was really hoping that a car would just run into me and end my day for me. Or that a tree would fall on me..that's how bad I was hurting I didn't want to stop but if something happened to stop me I can't honestly say how much effort I would have put into finding a way out of it. I knew I wouldn’t quit on my own and I just keep thinking that all I needed to do was to get to the next aid station and maybe someone had something there I could take. Around mile 75ish I figured that I was also over heating with my aero helmet.. my bib numbers were covering up the vents so I wasn’t getting any ventalation, and there isn't a lot of vents to begin with so maybe that’s what caused my headache, but that headache started pretty early maybe an hour into the course?? Once I figured out that I stashed some Alieve in my run gear bag and if I could just make it back by the cutoff time. I would be able to survive the run and finish. So I guess I could have summed this up as one big headache, barf fest. Out of the four gel flasks I took I had three full ones at the end and a little left of the fourth. What I later also learned was that my back brake was rubbing for how long I don’t know but nothing went right on this ride. I know I wanted to quit not only this bike ride but triathlons all together. What really helped was knowing that I had people following me online. I don’t think anyone of you can realize how much that helped me. I keep remembering that quote someone has that “you can quit no one will know but you will” or something like that, which helped me. I just keep thinking make it to the next aid station then decide if you can keep going. ** hey security is talking some lady away during the Palin speech at the convention. What happened??** I don’t considering this that dark place that people talk about when they discuss their IM experience, there was no way I could have prepared for a headache that hits me maybe once every eight or nine months.




not have a killer headache, wear my regular helmet with more vents, fix my rear break before the race
I should have picked the pink bag at registration, I look good in pink

I got in someone grabbed my bike, and I was walking really slow to get my bag, I got to the changing tent and basically just sat down staring at my bag, someone brought me a cup of water which I dumped on my head and it made me feel better. I very slowly got changed. I went against the nothing new on race day and put on my new compression socks. I was still just sitting there with my garmin in my hat with my bandana. I was there with my head in my hands looking straight down at the ground. By this time a couple of other people and volunteers were asking me if I was ok, did I need help. I just keep repeating that “I’m ok” I knew if I said it enough I could convice myself. Then that scene in Bravehart popped into my mind.. that one where they are deciding if they should go into battle and the guy says “well I didn’t get dressed up for nothin” that put a smile on my face. so I started to put on my garmin. I looked at the garmin only to notice it was off. I thought I turned it on so I hit the power button again,, nothing but the message that said battery dead. I doubt it got turned on by accident while in my bag, more than likely when I turned it on the day before to locate the satellites I just forgot to turn it off. Again I just smiled and wondered what else could go wrong. Then I decided I would group that garmin in with the crappy bike ride and go out for a nice little run. As I was leaving the tent I saw Roger, sparty on BT and basically just a great all around guy so we went over got some sunscreen on and went to the run course


not much I was really amazed that I made it out of there. having my garmin would have been nice, but I can do the math in my head and lets face it I really wasn't going fast, I just wanted to keep moving forward anyway

Roger and I were walking when I told him just to take off that this would be a long slow walk for me. A couple minutes after he left I put those three brick workouts I did to good use and started a slow shuffle. I just wanted to get to that first aid station to get some food in me. This year it was up the 2nd street bridge so a little hill but once I got to the first aid station the first guy asked if I needed a cold sponge. Well I knew I was overheating and if I didn’t address that first not only would I not hold food down but I would hit a point where I just couldn’t continue. The last thing I wanted was to have someone dump water on my head since that doesn’t ‘ seem to work so well for me, it only runs down my back and either soaks my legs or causes chaffing issues so I asked him to step aside, took in a deep breath and plunged my entire head into the huge bucket of ice water and sponges. That lasted what seemed like 60 seconds but most likely was only 20. Once I pulled my head out, the guy was looking at me like I was crazy, so I did it again. Then I put ice in my hat, and my bandana which I tie so the ice is on the back of my neck. Now I had a cold chills so I went up to the food and ate a couple of oranges, bannanna’s, Gatorade and coke. Just stuffed as much into my mouth as possible. Attempting to make up for all the calories I missed on the bike. I have no idea why but I can eat easier on the run than the bike sometimes. Plus I know I can hurl while running if I have to without breaking stride. The other great thing about being up on the bridge was we had a great cool breeze coming through. Which brought my temp down a little bit more.. So once I got off the bridge I see Roger who was just finishing up talking with his family. We started off running together and with his garmin he was able to pace us. Somehow we kept speeding up to just under a sub 10 min/mile pace and I figured that my legs/stomach were coming around and just kept running. After a bit he let me go and I did some math in my head. I knew that I wasn't going to be doing 10min.miles for long and I would end up walking. so if I could just shuffle around a 11min.mile and take a min break at each aid station I would be ok. Remember I had no idea what my swim time was, just my bike and transition times. So I’d look at my watch and think I just have to get in before midnight, the only problem was I couldn’t remember if I set my watch to eastern time or not. So my thought was just avg around a 12min/mile for as long as you can.. My first goal was just to run the first hour, say screw it and start walking, then after an hour I didn’t feel so bad. So I figured I’ll see if I can make it 90 min, then 2 hr and so on. I was actually amazed that except for the aid stations and I ran until mile 21 then I just stopped mostly to talk with some people. I lost track of all the BT’ers I saw on the course, but I did my best to say hello to them all. Sydney, David, Roger, Mike, Abbie, Karen, Amy, Kattie, Bob, Shawn,Grit-nuggut, see what I mean there are more..At one point Aaron came out of no where to check in on me and give me a quick pep talk,, thanks dude.. later on he was even trying to give me a monster drink but there was no way I was even trying that after all the issue’s I had on the bike. every aid station was the same, coke, Gatorade water and more ice for the bandana. What’s weird is that’s a couple hundred calories per station, at four/five stations an hour so I’m taking 800-1000 calories an hour running, with no stomach issue’s..except for the aid station around mile 5, where I took extra time to chat up the cute volunteer but she wouldn’t give me her number.
Right after the first loop you get so close to the finish then you head back out, right then I decided screw this I’m walking the 2nd loop about ten seconds later I see Jonny, Karen boyfriend/support crew, who started bribing me if I would just keep going. It worked. I just keep doing my slow little shuffle. I was amazed at how many people were walking, at this point, it was total carnage out there. People were dropping like flies, The 2nd loop was pretty uneventful since I just kept moving forward. Of course right at the end my left hamstring was acting like it might cramp up, but only when I would take a walk break. Miles 22-23 were just as quick as a walk as possible.

Coming into that finishers chute was amazing, really for the whole day I never had that mentally break down feeling that people talk about just a horrible headache on the bike. But I was happy it was over, even still I was thinking as I crossed that I could easily go another 5-6 miles to make it a 50k instead of a marathon.. anyway I just did an easy walk over the line and was smiling to myself. It was over, my first and only Ironman was over. Just call me mr one & done J


not much I blew off lots of long runs, I trained well for the bike and swim, and i'm actually amazed at how well I did on the run given the fact that I had very little run training. most of my long runs were maybe 60-75 min. with only a couple around 2 hr and one 3 hr one. I bought into the train well for the swim and bike so you have something for the run and I can't complain, it's not my fastest marathon but I was able to keep my little shuffle going

the guy that I got my post race massage from is the massage therapist for the dallas mavericks, so I got a nice long massage as we talked hoops. the first thing he asked me when he found out that I live in dallas and I'm a huge mavs fan was about avery leaving.. I asked him if he heard of the fireavery.com website..:) bonus points for me


carrying fifty extra pounds on my body. thinking too much about the easy mon IM that I'm trying to get an invite to


well I've said that this was my one and only IM distance race.. Yet I've just signed up for it again next year.

one the car ride back to dallas, Sydney was telling me about Nuuns, salt tablets and other electrolytes. I don't use any. ever. i'll do gatorade but that's it. so for this whole event I had two bottles of gatorade on the bike and a cup at each aid station usually. I need to look into that more since it might help me?? I think she was amazed that I had no clue about this type of stuff and never use it