Cancun Ironman 70.3 - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

Not a bad swim given my preparation level. I'd been keeping a sore shoulder at bay for the last several weeks, which limited my swim time, so I expected to have a pretty slow swim. But I found someone going about my speed maybe a quarter of the way into the race, and stuck with her pretty much the rest of the way. For the first few hundred yards after I started drafting off of her, I kept sighting every few strokes, but she was staying on course so well that I pretty much just put my head down and swam. Got tired a third to half way through, but settled in pretty well in the second lap.

Execution-wise, not much. Maybe find a pair of feet earlier, but I didn't wait very long as it was.

Kind of a long run from the swim finish to the TA.

Remember to put a pair of socks in my bike shoes, not just in my running shoes.

Okay, here's where things started to get interesting. My legs felt fine to start off with, although my shoulders were tired from the swim and I could feel it when I was on the bike. But whatever. Kept it pretty easy to start off with, not even going aero, just letting the legs warm up a bit more. It was really nice having the whole road closed to traffic! But the surface was chip seal, which I always find pretty draining. The vibration and the reduced "gas mileage" take a toll after a while. The road surface was in good condition overall--no potholes, though there was one area where there was some rough concrete or something on the road (and a bunch of water bottles scattered around it)--just that annoying chip seal.

The scenery was nice--lush, tropical jungle--but I have to say, it got kind of boring because it was the same stuff mile after mile after mile. And because the jungle came right up to the side of the road, and the terrain was completely flat, all you saw was this narrow corridor of homogeneous green. It was, as I said, a little boring. Pretty, but boring.

Hit the first aid station pretty quickly and grabbed a bottle of Gatorade to supplement my aerodrink and one other bottle (both of which had water). Realized that the bottle was too narrow to fit securely in my rear cage, so I poured as much as I could into my aerodrink and dumped the rest. Kept an eye on my HR and cadence, sipped water and gatorade, and ate a total of two fig newtons: one at around 30 minutes, the other at 1h20 or so.

I picked up three bottles of Gatorade from the aid stations, and probably drank the equivalent of about 2-2.5. This was both too much and too little. I felt thirsty, and I knew that as hot as it was, I'd need plenty of fluids, so I felt like I needed to drink a lot. But by two thirds of the way through the ride, I could tell that I wasn't processing the stuff as well as I normally do. I wasn't pushing the pace at all, just staying in a comfortable gear and spinning the legs at 85-90 rpm, so I don't think that my exertion level was wreaking havoc on my digestion. Nor do I think it was the Gatorade, since that's what I trained with. It was, however, hot and very humid, and the heat and humidity only got worse the longer I was out there. I'm pretty sure that I got slower as the ride went on, not least because the headwind was picking up, but perhaps also because I was starting to be a bit dehydrated. It did not bode well for the run.

Given that I wasn't processing the fluids, maybe just not drink as much? I was worried about dehydration, but if I wasn't absorbing anything, maybe it just wouldn't have mattered.

Bit slower than usual, but not by a lot.

Nothing much.

Yeah, this was just all kinds of awful. I got off the bike and my legs felt fine, but the rest of me felt completely trashed. "Bleak" is the word I'd use to describe my outlook at the beginning of this 13.1 mile slog. I'm not a very good runner yet, so I've had a lot of really uncomfortable runs ("runs"), but this has to be one of the very worst. I don't think I even ran a quarter of a mile before I started walking. I probably walked 75-80% of those 13.1 miles. My stomach felt like a huge balloon, and nothing seemed to help it. I took a sip or two of water at each aid station, but most of the water went on my head and neck. Ice, too, in my suit and on my head.

I desperately wanted to stop, lie down, and put an ice pack on my head, and that desperation only got worse as the miles ticked agonizingly slowly by. Worse than the fact that the conditions were miserable and I was overheating was that I didn't care about the race nearly as much as I once did. My PR hopes had been dashed by illness and a car accident in the month leading up to the race, and I felt like I was just going through the motions--for the sake of not quitting, or something, but feeling pretty empty about it. I had started off my season so upbeat about my prospects for the HIM, so on target with my training, and so just hitting my workouts... it just felt so sad that it had all come down to--with apologies to Judith Viorst--this terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad run.

Anyway, eventually I developed a headache, and after a while some nausea as well. I couldn't tell if I was still sweating--my skin was always wet from the water I was pouring on my self--so I didn't have that yardstick, but the headache was that special kind you get when your brain's too hot. I really, really wanted to stop, but more than that, I didn't want to DNF. Must. Not. Fail. I found a guy who was running and walking at roughly the same intervals I was, and paced off of him for a while. Eventually, much to my surprise, I passed him. No one looked good on that run--everyone looked miserable. I figured at least it wasn't just me having such a hard time, all these bad-ass-looking people are feeling it as well. It applied a little salve to my ego, which at that point was feeling as trashed as the rest of me.

I saw Steve on the out (he was coming back), and then on the back (he was heading out on his second lap), and then on the out of my second lap as he was heading in. We were both pretty miserable each time, but I must have looked bad enough to worry Steve. He insisted that he didn't care about the race, and he turned around to accompany me the rest of the way. At one point, when the nausea got bad enough, I sat down in the shade for a minute. And then onward. There was an ambulance at the turnaround, and Steve kept asking me if I was sure I didn't want to stop. I just really didn't want to lose/fail/whatever. He said later that he seriously considered forcing me to stop. Maybe that would have been more prudent, but anyway, we kept going. During the final three miles it rained quite a bit, and I was able to run more than I had been. We ran intermittently, a bit more as we neared the end, and I dug deep to finish out the run going pretty hard. It doesn't really show in my finish pictures, but I felt like I was moving pretty well.


I don't know. I'm incredibly disappointed in the run, and in the race as a whole, but under those specific circumstances, I'm not sure what I would/should have done differently.

Sitting in shade = good. Cool water on head = good. Seriously considered visiting the fine folks at the medical tent. Probably should have, but didn't. Ate some cold, bad pizza and sipped water and Coke. Mostly just sat in one place and tried to cool down.


Heat. Humidity. The decimation of my training for the ~6 weeks prior to the race. I train in a temperate climate, so the heat and humidity shocked the hell out of my system.


Great volunteers, well stocked and numerous aid stations. Chip seal road (ugh), no bathrooms on the run (!). I wouldn't do this race again, simply because I can't train for the climate, but for those who are acclimated to heat and humidity it's a pretty well run race.