I got in the water about 30 minutes before the swim start so I had a lot of time to think. I kept looking around and thinking to myself. "oh my god, I'm at the swim start of an ironman" I had to take my goggles off 2 or 3 times because I got emotional and they were filling up with tears. I just can't put into words the feelings I was feeling. Surreal is probably the best word to use.

I was most worried about the swim because I've never done a mass swim this big. I spent weeks researching and watching start videos to find the "best" place to start.
So, I decided to stand on the rocks at the far right of the pack towards the front. I figured I'd much rather have people swim up on me versus me swimming into peoples feet.
About 1 minute before the cannon went off I saw a larger opening up front about 10 yards off the shore so I swam up there and boom, the cannon goes off.
I had plenty of time to calm my nerves so I had zero problems with swim panic and breathing. I just hit it and felt awesome. After the start there were a couple rows in front of me that zoomed off and I had clear water in front of me. There was a gradual flow of people swimming around me because i'm not that fast of a swimmer, but it was very calm and I literally had zero contact on the whole first stretch. The water visibility was a good 15-20 feet. I've never done a swim like that so I had a smile on my face just watching everyone swimming around me and I was confident swimming on the faster swimmers feet and drafted better than I ever had before. Every time someone would pass me I'd lock on as long as I could, it was so cool.
At the first turn I stayed a good 15 yards or so off the buoy to keep the contact down. I had some light contact, but nothing other than some gentle bumps here and there. I heard everyone mooing and that made me laugh. Loving the race so far
At the second turn it was more of the same, I continued to stay a good 15 yards or so off the buoy line and just had some light bumps, but no major contact and then I was in clear water again.
About halfway through the back stretch I had a lady pass me and she hit my goggles with her hand and pushed them off just enough to fill with water. I just rolled to my back real quick and cleared them and was back on my way.
I had planned to gradually work closer to the buoy line, but it was just so clear 10-15 yards off the line and I had a steady supply of people to draft off of so I just decided to stick with it. What's another 5 minutes on an ironman if it keeps the stress down.
Another thing that was very cool is that I almost never sighted during the whole swim. Visibility was so good that I just watched the swimmers around me and stayed with the flow. I'd look up every 50 or so strokes just to make sure the pack wasn't going off course, but I could have done the whole swim without looking up. It was awesome.
I knew I was capable of swimming it in 1:15, but figured I would shoot for a sub 1:20 with my elongation of the course. I came out of the water and saw the 1:19 on the clock and was ecstatic. I saw my wife off to the left yelling and screaming at me. I waved with a big smile on my face. :) One down, two to go

Absolutely nothing. Best swim of my Triathlon career. :)

With this being my first Ironman I wasn't concerned with time so much as I was with nutrition and taking it easy to conserve energy. I put a small collapsable cooler in my T1 bag with a Naked Protein Zone Mango drink so I could get a good nutrition base going before my bike. That took a good minute or more to drink, but I wasn't concerned.
I grabbed my 2 cliff bars and put them in the pockets on the back of my tri top and also had a small container of body glide I put in my shirt pocket just in case. Put on my race belt.
I got my helmet on and put my arm coolers on all the way in the changing room. This added a good minute or two as well, but I almost crashed in HIMKS trying to pull up my arm coolers on the bike so I took the time hit.
I grabbed my shoes and just carried them up to my bike. grabbed my bike and ran to the mount line and a volunteer held my bike while I put my shoes on. Jumped on the bike and I was off.
My wife was set up at the bottom of the helix and I was concentrating on the road so I missed her there. :(

nothing really. I could have sped things up, but I wasn't really concerned with adding a few minutes to my total time. :)

The bike is by far my strongest portion of the race, so I could have hammered it but I made a conscious decision to baby the heck out of the bike. I hadn't ridden any of the hills but based on riding my century rides in the hills at home I figured I could do a 6:30 time with very little effort and that's how I trained. I'll admit it was hard to let people pass me and not want to just go smoke them, but I stood fast with my plan and stuck to it.
The down hills were insanely cool and as an adrenaline junkie I was loving it. Hit 50 mph on several occasions just coasting. haha
The uphills were certainly steep, but I was so refreshed from taking it easy I just motored on up them with little stress. I just sat back and soaked in the atmosphere of all the fans going nuts. That was truly my favorite part of the race with everything from a Yeti sighting, seemingly naked women hiding behind signs and clowns coming out of the cornfield. So fricken cool
When I hit Verona after the first loop I saw my wife and mom sitting on the side of the road. I gave them a big wave and I love you as I passed. Special needs was a few miles up the road so I stopped there and had to go pee. grabbed my nutrition reload and hit the road again.
I was slightly ahead of my pace so I babied it a little more on the second loop just to make sure I was plenty fresh on the run.
My nutrition plan was to have my Naked drink in transition and eat a clif bar every hour on the hour and a serving of GU chomps every half hour. At special needs I had a bologna sandwich in another collapsable cooler and a bag of fritos. I ate the sandwich and fritos on the bike as I was riding. I shared some fritos with people who were passing me, it was kind of funny seeing the look on peoples faces when I'd hold the bag out and ask if they wanted some fritos. :)

When I was coming in on the last leg of the bike I felt like I could go pee again. I could have held it for transition but saw an open restroom and made a quick pit stop. Like I said I don't care about a few minutes here or there, I just wanted to finish and enjoy the experience.
I strolled in and didn't notice the time, but figured I was around my 6:30 pace so no worries. Mission 2 accomplished and I felt GREAT.

absolutely nothing. had a plan, executed the plan, and felt awesome

came into transition and a volunteer grabbed my bike. I just left my shoes on and walked into transition grabbed my bag and found a chair.
I had my shoes, sunglasses, hat, and some GU and GU Chomps for nutrition. I loaded up my pockets with nutrition. I didn't race to get through there, but I wasn't overly slow. I did make one mistake by not taking my arm coolers off. I put everything in my bag and gave it to a volunteer and then realized i still had my arm coolers on. They chafe my underarms so I can't run in them. I took them off but I had no idea which volunteer grabbed my bag and no clue where he put it. doh
So I just tossed my arm coolers (there goes $30)
I jogged out and saw the sun screen station and figured I better stop just in case. I had five ladies attack me with sunscreen. One on each leg, one on each arm and one rubbing my neck and back. They were done but I told them I wasn't done yet and they all laughed and kept rubbing and told me to let them know "when I was done" haha, it was like a mid race massage and felt great. :)
I did have to go to the restroom again so I hit the porta potty on the way out and then I was off for my run

put my arm coolers in the bag

My plan was to take it easy on the bike and run a 9:00 pace marathon with walking the water stops. When I took off on the run I seriously felt like I hadn't even done anything, I felt very strong and was thinking "cake walk baby"
I ran along at a 9:00 pace taking my gu chomps every 45 minutes and drinking a full cup of water, full cup of perform and or coke while walking the water stops. Ended up averaging around a 9:30 pace overall the first half marathon.
I felt very strong through the first half of the run, but I noticed I was starting to not like my GU Chomps anymore and feeling a little nauseous every time I grabbed one. I grabbed a banana and it went down ok, but this started happening around mile 9 or 10. It gradually got worse where my stomach just didn't want anything and the only thing I could get down was water and perform. the wheels were coming off my nutrition plan, ruh roh raggy.
I was very smart about it and realized what was going on right away so I had a contingency plan in place. I hit the water stop and then ran for about half the distance to the next one and then walked to the next water stop, but even this plan wasn't working because I just didn't have enough fuel in to even make half the run. grrr
By about mile 15 or 16 I was pretty much walking full time and sucking down as much perform and water as I could get at the water stops and would grab some chicken broth, grab a couple pretzels, just anything I could get down.
The frustrating part was my legs felt great, I could go run stairs if I wanted, but I just didn't have the fuel to do it and when I'd start running I'd feel nauseous.
At about mile 19 I had a couple guys go zooming by me speed walking and they asked me if I wanted to tag along and I said sure. I looked at my gps watch and we were clipping along at 12 minute miles walking and it actually felt great. I thought, hey this could work. haha
Fortunately after I hit mile 20 and doing my speed walking I thought, I'm going to try running again and sure enough I was back in business. Everything felt great and I had no more stomach pains. YES, my nutrition caught back up to me.
I just started thinking, I've only got a 10k to run and that's around an hour. I figured I needed a goal so I was going to shoot for a 13 hour time. Lets do it.
So, I took off again at an easier pace of around 10 minute miles and just walking the water stops. I made it all the way to the 25 mile point before my stomach started acting up again. I saw I was more than 20 minutes ahead of 14:00 so I didn't bother pushing it. I walked to the next water stop and fueled up good.
Then I rounded the finish line corner and got to experience the absolute euphoria of finishing an ironman. The streets were lined as far and as deep as you could see. I just wanted to hear "Tony Underwood, you are an Ironman" so bad it hurt. I looked around me and made sure I had plenty of distance between the guy in front of me and nobody within half a block behind me. I was making dam sure Mike Riley was going to call my name. haha
Then as I was running down the chute I hear my wife yell out at me and I stopped and turned around to give her a big hug and a kiss. I was grinning ear to ear and went for my victory run.
I started pumping my fists in the air over and over just smiling and laughing and crying all at once. Mike Riley was calling out all these names but not mine. What the heck, there was a group of about 5 people who came up behind me on my little XO stop that he missed my name... NOOOOOOOOOOO
OK, I didn't care that much because I finished and I am now an Ironman.

There was this great lady who caught me at the finish line and asked me how I was doing. I told her I felt great and nothing at all was wrong. She looked a little surprised and stayed with me for a while. She wanted to known how I felt and I just proceeded to give her a verbal race report. haha. She was awesome and eventually took me over for my finisher pic and told me congratulations Ironman. :)

Obviously the wheels fell off my nutrition plan, but I practiced and trained with it so many times that I really was confident in my plan. The only thing is I never ran a 13 miler or longer after a century bike ride so I need to incorporate some of those in my training to get a better (more realistic) training experience with my nutrition.
I peed 4 or 5 times on the run course so I'm pretty sure I was getting enough fluids and I was taking salt tabs every hour so I had plenty of electrolytes.

did some light stretching, but that was about it. I walked to the minivan and camped out while my wife grabbed my bike and transition bags.
I wanted to get online to see how all my BT buddies did as well as see what kind of crazy stuff people were putting on my facebook page. lol


Nutrition plan on the run was really it. I easily cost myself 90 minutes plus with my little walking spat. It was frustrating, but overall I wasn't really disappointed. I was really happy I was able to run it most of the way in .
I had absolutely zero muscle fatigue, soreness, or joint issues the entire race so that made me feel very good with my training level and pacing plan.


Truly the best Tri experience of my life. The venue is absolutely incredible and I cannot recommend it enough. The bike is tough, but hey it's an ironman what do you expect. The run is epic with a capital epic. So many fans calling your name throughout the whole course. I felt like a rock star the whole run.

There were several times during the bike and run that I seriously started to sob. I just couldn't believe that I was doing an Ironman. So much work to get to this place. I just couldn't believe it.

There's so many great things that have come out of this. My wife caught the bug and started doing Tri's this year. She lost over 60 lbs. and completed several sprint Tri's. Next year she's moving up to Oly's. I have a whole new group of friends in the Tri community that are so supportive. I've got so many BT friends that are the nicest people on earth.

What a great great feeling!!! Awesome Awesome Awesome