Ironman 70.3 Rhode Island - Triathlon1/2 Ironman

GOAL - under 35 min.

Conditions were nice with medium (maybe 5 feet) waves breaking. That's the way is should be with an ocean swim. Beach start, I got off well and the first 400 yards I was just happy to have open water. I started away from the buoy because I was looking for open water. I caught one elbow in the eye that knocked off my goggles, but was happy to not lose my contacts.

After the first 400 yards I found some feet and quickly found another guys hip to draft off. I bounced around from one guy to the next and tried to keep a draft. At the first turn things got crowded as we came up on slow swimmers from previous waves, things were pretty congested for the next 400 yards as people rounded buoys. I swam over a few slow swimmers and felt bad, but I didn't realize what was happing until it was too late. My breathing was good and I never really felt out of breath from working too hard.

Kept working to draft and before I knew it I was back at the beach. My RPR was very easy; I wish I went a bit harder. In reality I think I could have been a few minutes faster.


Swim straight and hard!

gotta love the wetsuit strippers! took my time with everthing here and made sure all my stuff was packed up correctly.

I guess I could have eliminated a few things from my transition (headband)

GOAL - under 3 hours

Mostly a very enjoyable ride. Traffic was well under control (by the police) and turns were very clearly marked. Generally flat for 15 miles, rolling for 20 miles and flattish again for 15 miles....last 5-7 miles were through a rough part of town, not too ghetto but with lots of potholes and traffic.

Eat 2 raw bars and 5 gels. Drank 95oz water (some w/noon) and 16oz Gatorade.....maybe I took too much fluid, but I think it was actually pretty good. I wish I took less solid food and had perpetuem instead. I also sent 1 water bottle flying in the rough part of town.

first 25 miles I averaged better than 20MPH, then I took it a bit easy on the hills....I wish I worked harder because this could have been a great bike split for me. I'm happy with my time, but it could have been smokin....at the end of the bike I stopped to pee, even though I really didn't need to. Pee was dark yellow....I can't believe after all that water it was still so dark (dehydrated?).


go faster! i noticed almost everyone who passed me was really mashing while I was spinning....should i have been pushing bigger gears?

took a few minutes to put socks and shoes on.

go sockless and wear flats - my feet got destroyed bu my running shoes

GOAL - under 2 hours

What an awful run.....left transition feeling good, took 2 Advil and 3 ecaps w/ water at the first aid station. Ran easy (or so I though) until the first turn around. at mile 3ish I look at my watch for the first time and find that I’ve been running 8:20's which is too fast for me, but I am on pace to finish in 5:31 WOW, my PRE was low so I just tried to keep going. At the next aid station I take GU and Gatorade and almost immediately my body stops working. I'm not sure I’d call it a digestion issue, but my body quite cooperating. Run/walk (mostly run) the next 3.5 miles to the turn around.

By the turn around I'm about 1:02 into the run. I think ok I can still go 5:40-5:45 so I try to pick it up. Walk up the hill and keep running. Again I have to walk as my mind says run, but my body won't go. 4.1 miles to go! Run /walk, mostly walk for the next 2 miles. The funny thing was I had 2 speeds today walk and run. when running I kept telling myself just take it easy and jog, but when I would run all I could do was run hard and pass people. With 2 miles to go I was able to mostly run to the finish.

Nutrition - I just took whatever whenever including water, Gatorade, coke oranges and gu. I think the coke actually really helped while I think the Gatorate an gu were probably overkill. Ice in my hat really helped with the heat

My run time was very disappointing. My goal was to run under 2:05 and finish 5:35-5:45, after 3 miles it was so close I could taste it, but I guess sometimes it is not meant to be. This is especially heart breaking because until now I thought I could will my body to perform well even when it didn’t want to. I think I learned a lot today and still went under 6 hours

Also worth noting that I decided to wear my running shoes instead of flats because I didn’t want to have foot issues with blisters, toes, etc. Ironically my feet got badly chewed up with socks and my regular distance running shoes on. I will clearly lose 4 toenails now (they were just starting to grow back from over the winter) and have several badly blistered toes in addition to blisters on the bottom/ball of my feet. I’m just guessing that some of this is from all the water my shoes collected on the run…next time I’ll go with flats.


Factors that contributed to a poor run...

1 - Series injuries leading up to race (back and toe) limited run training
2 - Light brick volume leading up to race day (one good brick in 3 weeks)
3 - lack of long runs - did only one run over 10 miles in 2 months before race
4 - No nutrition plan for run - just did whatever
5 - Poor pacing, I can't count on PRE on race day
day

none - drank water and gatorade - got my stuff, packed up and went home


poor mental and physical prep for the run


Ironman does a world class event woth lots of great volunteers although poin-to-point thing was a real pain!