Seeing as how I had not done any swim training since the end of August, I was pleasantly surprised with my swim. The course was a rectangle, swimming in a counter-clockwise direction. Water temp was 86 degrees, so no wetsuits. Wore my Huub swimskin, which I think helped a bit. Contact was fairly minimal. The ocean was fairly calm until we hit the half way point. A rather large swell came in and pushed the athletes all over the place. I managed pretty well, but it threw us off course. Converting yards to meters, I swam 4,000 meters, an extra 200 meters. Had I been able to swim straight, I probably would have been closer to 1:19-1:18.

The salt water wasn't too bad, but I swallowed a few gulps and it began to bother my throa

Swimming a 1:23, Ocean Swim with virtually no training for 2 months, I was pleased. I have a strong swimming background, so I was not concerned with completing the swim.

Sighting was a bit of an issue since the bouys were 200m apart, we were swimming due East on the way back into shore, and the sun was quite bright.

Not much here. Just took my time making it through. The freshwater showers were not overly effective, so I just sucked it up. My bike rack was very close to the changing tent, which meant I had to run ~250 yards to the end of transition. This was pretty inconvenient, but that was just the luck of the draw with my bib #.

Not too much. It was a rather long transition, so could not avoid a longer T1 time.

First and foremost, I had ZERO intention of being on my bike for 7+ hours....but, that's the way it played out. Heading out of transition, there is a pretty challenging hill to overcome. I just spun up it in my highest gear and turned onto the highway. The roads were in excellent shape....probably the best I have ever ridden on. I knew the ride was going to have some elevation, but the 4 long grinding hills were a lot to handle. Powering up them was not ideal, so i spun up them to the best of my ability. The heat really was intense between 10:00am and 4:00pm....basically the entire time I was on my bike. There were some really fast descents, which I am not overly comfortable with....especially in aero. I decided to sit up a bit and ride the brakes, simply because I didn't want to crash, or hit a seam in the road and risk not finishing.

The ride was pretty uneventful..... since there were only 345 of us, we were spread out across a wide range. I would chat with people when I could, but basically just kept my eye on my cadence and HR and tried not to let either one spike. I knew that if I pushed too hard on the bike, I would walk a good chunk of the marathon. That was not at all desirable, so I just took my time and clicked off the miles.

Nutrition was pretty good. 3 bottles of EFS (4 scoops per bottle), 1 GU every hour, 2 salttabs at the top of every hour, and god knows how many bottles of water....Aid stations were packed pretty well, so I took 2 bottles at each one....probably close to 30 bottles of water....either drank or poured on my head.

My watts were laughably low....a NP of 150, was almost embarrassing, but I was proud i kept my HR at an average of 126. Knowing the heat could have spiked that very quickly, it was not worth it to suffer.

My goal coming into this was was to try and break 13 hours. However, given the extreme heat, I quickly had to reassess my goals, and simply finish the bike without pushing to hard.

Obviously train on more hills and heat, but that is a bit difficult to do in Michign and doing 90% of my rides on a trainer.

Getting off the bike, I looked at my Garmin, and realized I was 5 miles short....shit.....I asked around in transition, and they were all short too. So, I just chalked it up that the bike course was 5 miles short. I'll take it. I didn't feel too bad getting off the bike....there were plenty of people in T2 who were in much worse shape than I was. I could tell my inner thighs took a beating from the ride....I think I will need to play with my positioning when I get home. I switched to a Cobb JOF 55, and while I like that it is a bit more narrow than my Adamo, I had quite a bit of chaffing.

Not much.

As I headed out of the tent, the best thing happened to me....the sun start to set....woo hoo!!! Although the heat index was still in the mid-80's, it was much more bearable. The run consisted of 3 loops. It had some small rolling hills, but nothing too challenging. Lap 1, I felt really good. I would run in between aid stations, walk the aid stations for water and pretzels, and repeat. They had aid stations each mile, so that was nice. I thought about switching to pepsi, but I did not want to have any stomach issues. I took in a GU every 30 minutes, and then water and pretzels.

Since there were only 300 of us on the course, it got pretty lonely. There were sections which were completely dark....only the moon provided light... I didn't really like this too much, so I tried to find anyone to chat with. Luckily, the run course passed by our hotel 5 times, so I was able to see my wife and the boys a few times.

Lap 2 I realized I started to slow a bit and I started to have some GI issues...no cramping....but my all liquid diet was catching up to me....this same thing happened in Cozumel and Muskoka, so I will need to figure out a better nutrition plan. I don't think I lost too much time due to my bathroom breaks, but it started to become annoying. There was fairly good crowd support during portions of the run, but only in the populated areas. There were parts where we didn't see people for a mile or tow (besides for the aid stations), and it was a little bit of a let down. The buzz by the finish line was pretty good, but nowhere close to Cozumel. Cozumel was electric.....Muskoka was pretty good too....Cabo was ok....

The last lap I ended up running with a 18 year old guy from Texas. It was his first IM, and he was walking. I told him to keep up with my slower pace and I would get him to the finish line. It was fun to chat with him and took our minds off the last 6+ miles.

I had a good running base coming in, but I was obviously not in a place to win my age group, so I just took it easy and finished with some pride.

After I crossed, a volunteer helped me through the warm-down area. I was not stumbling or anything, but he wanted to make sure I knew where things were. Grabbed 3 pieces of pizza, a coke and hopped in the ice bath. Sat there for 10 minutes and relaxed.

Afterwards, they had local massage students offering complementary massages. Had to take advantage of that. :)




I had a challenging time training for this IM. I have 3 small children (7, 4, 1), and the baby has not been a wold-class sleeper. My boys (7 & 4) are quite active in sports and other activities, so structured training was a challenge.

I initially hired a coach in October 2015 to prepare me for the 2016 season. My goals were: Sub-5:00 70.3 & sub-12:00 IM. Nicole was great when I initially started to work with her: http://www.cnsathlete.com/ (Shameless plug :) ), but as I got into the spring, I simply could not dedicate the time to training and I ended up suspending my coaching. When I know I have the time to fully dedicate to training, I will absolutely go back to CNS. Nicole and her partner Jamie, are amazing. I learned so much in the 8+ months i was working with them. I highly recommend them!


So-so end-of-the-season race. If you are looking for a destination race with warm weather and a good atmosphere, I would choose Cozumel over Los Cabos. However, if you are comfortable racing in the heat, and are in the 10:00-10:30 IM range, KQ is achievable. 40 spots went to 345 participants.However, due to DNF & DNS, only 269 people crossed the finish line. 40/269 = 14.87% - These are pretty good odds to get to Kona....much better than any other NA race.