Ironman Coeur d'Alene - TriathlonFull Ironman

What can I say, This was totally different than anything I have ever done before. All I ever swim in is a indoor pool. None of my other IM's or halfs were anywhere near this rough. This was very choppy, had some currents... It was just plain tough. I am not a great swimmer (not by a long shot) so the chop and current kicked my ass. All I could say when I saw my time was 'F**K! I knew right away my chance of making sub 12 hours would be much more difficult.

Not too much I can do. There is no place around here where I could mimmic these conditions nor even do open swimming so it was what it was.

We weren't allowed to have shoes clipped in so we all ran to the bike in our shoes. No big deal, except I couldn't get clipped in due to mud in my left shoe. A few whacks on my crank and it was all better. T1 was fairly smooth otherwise. I shaved a couple minutes off of my Lake Placid time so I made back a couple of minutes.

Nothing really, all went pretty well.

I don't like excuses. With that said I will not make excuses for not making my goals during this race. There are, however, some things that I could not control on race day that doomed me to failure. The first being the swim but we all had to deal with that.

All went pretty well on the bike for a while. I have trained all year with gatorade so I could work with the stuff on the course. I also only used gel's as food. This worked pretty well. That was the plan for race day. I brought one bottle of Gatorade and one scoop of perpetum on the bike just to get a little protein. This was the mix I have used many times with good results. I also brought a gel flask with about 5 servings of gel. This was only to give me a little variety from whatever flavor was on the course.

Once on the course I drank my bottle and grabbed a gel at one of the early aid stations. It was green so I thought it would be apple cinnamon. Sweet, one of my favorites. I squeeze it in my mouth and almost spit it out, it was green apple. YUCK!!! Holy shit that was nasty, I instantly flashed back to the Harrisburg Marathon where they had Cytomax on the course which made me sick. I swallowed it and continued on knowing there were other choices. Next stop I grabbed another flavor... Tangerine OH NO !!! it was as bad as green apple!!! Now I'm a little pissed and worried, How can this be happening. The only other choice was vanilla and I already know I can't tollerate that so what to do... I started using the gatorade and power bar bites. It seemed to be OK, I was grabbing a piece at most stations and things were going along fairly well.

Other than nutrition I had 2 other F-ups. First, I never re-calibrated my race wheels and computer so it was off by 3-4 miles over the course which made my averages too high, I could have ridden harder but I tried to keep it cool cause I wanted to run well. Second, I use endurolytes all the time, somewhere on the first loop I dropped them. Believe it or not I found them on lap #2 but I had started to take a banana about every other aid station to try and get a little extra to help stave off cramping. Bananas and I have a love hate relationship. I love them but sometimes they upset my stomach.

All of that said the bike course went pretty well. In hind site I screwed this part up by not having some type of back up plan. I should have had my own gel's on the course and only taken gatorade from the course. I WILL NEVER MAKE THIS MISTAKE AGAIN.

NEVER AGAIN!!!!! Never will I count on a course for the gel's. I will bring my own and will have plenty of extra in special needs bags. and later on the runs. I will also have replacements of my endurolytes along the way.

Nothing special here, About 90 seconds faster than LP. I took time to put on my toe socks and compression socks but I wanted to find a balance between speed and screwing up 'cause I forgot something.

When I got off of the bike I was feeling great, I knew I had little chance of making my projected time but I felt that blowing away my old PR was pretty likely. When I started to run my legs felt great. I had to slow myself down cause I was running way too fast. I kept up with my splits throught the first 9 miles and you can see I was trying to get into a sustainable rythym. I knew the sub 8.5 min miles I was running weren't sustainable. Slowly but surely I honed in on 9-10min/mile which I figured I could do. Unfortunately, as I started to get settled in my stomach became quite un settled. It was obvious that I wasn't digesting anything I was eating. My stomach felt like a washing machine. I knew this was big trouble. I continued on walk/running for several more miles but it was clear that things were falling apart. When I got back in the transition area section of the course I felt like I was going to throw up so I went off course behind some bushes and puked. Instantly I felt much better. I tried to run but couldn't muster much and I didn't feel like I could eat so it became a matter of survival. I walked and ran as much as I could for several more miles till I finally felt like I could start eating again. I started with some chicken broth which was a god send. Within a few minutes I started to come around. I remembered that I had a couple of mint chocolate gels that Beth and Andy gave me before the race. I took one in and voila I started feeling much better, so good that I could run again. I was able to use those 2 gels to get me through the final 6 miles or so of the run without walking. I finished dissapointed with my results but I felt much better. By the time we went out on the run, the wind was pretty strong blowing off of the lake and it started to rain. It was friggin cold. Somewhere along the way I picked up a mylar blanket and ran with it for the last 6 or 7 miles but ditched it before I made my last turn. Thank god for it 'cause it was COLD and drizzling. I was told 51 degrees but I can't say for sure. I believe it.

I said it all already. Once again it comes down to race execution...

I said it all earlier, lack of back up plans for nutrition is the most basic failure!


A great race in all aspects. A beautiful area and a great course. The weather was cold and windy and rain started on the run so be prepared for anything but all in all it was a place where I will be returning because I have unfinished business here. I have no doubt that if i had not made a couple of important mistakes, I could have easily nailed a new PR by quite a bit. Lessons learned...