Beach 2 Battleship Iron Distance : Official Thread (Page 30)

ok Double congrats

First and foremost let me say it was great meeting all of the BTers this week.  I continue to meet a class group of people at these races.  Martin (Livestrong191), Shellabree and her husband Scott, Dan and his wife(DanielG), Todd(Titeloops), TriBee all were people I met on this Tri with the exception of Todd who is in my mentor group.  It was a blast sharing stories, tips, tricks, and dinner.  I enjoyed the thread while getting ready for this race.

Now my race.  I am happy to say I am an Ironman this morning.  That feels great! I am also happy that I had a few challenges during the race I had to deal with that frustrated me and made me think of hanging it up and trying this again another day.  But I didn’t! 

I was very happy with my swim.  Not because of the time.  1 hour 38 minutes is slow. No this is the first swim I have done in a HIM or longer where I didn’t panic on the swim.  The swim we did Thursday with most of the people I mentioned above was very helpful.

So successful Swim.  Now on to my issues:

The bike.  Came out of the water got on the bike felt great took off and was in good shape going about 18.5 MPH to mile 25 right where you turn off of Hwy 421 on the way out.  I had a flat.  No problem with that it happens.  My problem was the spring from my skewer got lodged in the hub and I couldn’t get the wheel off.  Lost 40 minutes.  Tech car came by and fixed it for me.  I was upset but got back on the bike and got over it.  Kept telling myself to suck it up.  Get 12 miles down the road and guess what second flat.  Now I am in trouble because I don’t have a second spare.  I sit on the side the road and beg someone for a spare and a guy gives me his(remember this because I meet this guy again).  He leaves and I have 46 mm wheels and he has a regular stem valve.  Wont work can’t pump it up.  I am now stranded on the side of the road.  A person in a bus (a bus it was weird) pulls over and ask if I need help.  She gives me a phone number of a tech car and I call them.  They show up with a valve extender put it on the bike and I am up and running again after about 40 minutes.  I am now averaging 12 MPH on the bike! I am really down and thinking I am packing it in.  Again I tell my self I have lost 1 and 10 minutes or so suck it up and go.  I think to myself and don’t know that it is true, but I now focus and say would most people quit at this point.  So I use this as my motivation.  I get going again and running about 18-19.5 MPH and start passing the same people I have passed three times now.  I think to myself and again don’t know it is true but I tell myself these people are wondering how many times is this guy go to break down and keep on going. So I finish the bike from the 12 MPH avg to a whopping 15.3 or so. 

The run I knew was going to be an issue because of the IT band issues I have had during the 20 weeks of training.  I ran the first 13 miles and walked the last 13.  The pain in my knee was killing me and I struggled in my head again but fought thru it.  I start walking with another guy named Patrick who is having bad problems with his hamstring. We are talking and after about 7 miles later he makes the statement that he had to give this poor guy stranded on the road his spare.  I pause and tell him the story of a guy who gave me his spare and it turns out it is him!  That was cool and it perked me up.  I knew at that point it was destiny and I finished 15 hours and 29 mins.  I was a great day and I learned something about myself along the way. 

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Ah yes I do sort of have a mark on my skin where the purple wristband was too. 

Congrats guys, you did great and it's great to read the stories.

I thought the swim was kind of slow, it was my slowest IM swim of 5, but only by a minute.  Many times I had no clue where we were going.  But still it wasn't too bad.  It was funny trying to climb the ladder with numb feet.

The headwind was annoying but I was sort of thankfully that it wasn't so bad that it was discouraging.  I don't know what the wind speed was but it wasn't horribly so.  It did make my bike slower than IMWI though, which is noteworthy because IMWI is supposed to be a tough hilly course (and it is).  Oh, and true to my gut, I overdressed for the bike.

The bike finish was kind of crazy, I had no clue where I was going before the finish and in transition.

The run was pretty nice, though I was a bit surprised with all the hills on the course. :-)

I pushed myself at the end and broke 13 hours by 33 seconds.

What I don't get though, is how people can walk around and function after they finish these races.  I was in that warming tent for 2 hours and I did not want to leave at all, much less gather 5 bags and my bike and go ride a boat back.

It's pretty impressive that they manage to pull off all these logistics.

I think Setup did a great job, the info was absolutely good enough, I found the roads to be mostly smooth and I never saw that boat!!!

But the video on the B2B site sucks! It is not even the same race.

Had a great time!

Here is my humble report

I had a great day-as I read through my post it sounds negative.

I agree with the comments have said.  I didn't think the volunteers in T2 were all that helpful.  I did the half last year and volunteers were right there to get your bike and easily directed you where to go. Not sure if last year the volunteers were better trained or had a different set up.