This is a really good time for me, a PR for this distance, in fact.

The deep water start is sort of anticlimactic. A running start is like a top fuel dragster taking off, all panic, commotion and action. Very exciting. A deep water start is more like a locomotive leaving the station. Ho-hum.

Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of opportunity for contact. There's no question that I'm swimming with a hundred other sunsuvbitches.

I start out in a nice easy pace and all is uneventful through the first half of the first leg. Crossing under the bridges here, you can expect some fairly shallow water just on the other side for a few hundred yards or so. I have fairly long arms and although i could not see the bottom, i could occasionally feel my fingertips brush the smooth gravel riverbed. Its also really shallow at the far turn buoys.

I pace myself comfortably for the duration of the swim. it bothers me not at all that before the first turn, i am being overtaken by caps the color of the next wave, and WAY before the second turn, i'm seeing many caps from the wave after that..... I'm desensitized to it by now. Also, a break for the wetsuit endorsement. I love my wetsuit, its like I'm paddling on a surfboard. There's no WAY i achieve this body position in the pool.

One time the guy in front of me uses his foot to flood my goggles, several times I exchanged unintentional and halfhearted zombie-like gropings with other swimmers, but all in all, a relatively low drama factor to this swim.



Work on speed, which for me means taking some lessons.

I made a deliberate decision to take this easy. I'll save the full panic giddy-up yeeeehaw T1 for my next oly.


Yeah, arright. Maybe go a little faster.

Preface: It's HOT!

I started out okay. My strategy was to take this somewhat easier than last year so that I could have something left for the run. I would run my own race and not get lured into any petty cycling duels by other riders and I would spin away nice and comfortably. If I even feel like I might be going too hard, then I'm going too hard. My plan was to run a half hour slower than last year.

I.... I can't..... I tried. I started with all good intentions, but then quickly relented to the urge to chase faster riders and stand up on the smaller uphills. Bad... Bad. I know I'm being bad. My heart rate confirms this at about 160. Too high for this distance.....

Based on my time at the end of my first lap, I could easily better last years time by a good half hour or more. Yes!

As it turns out, fortunately so for my run effort, a tiny thorn broke my destructively competitive pattern. About 20 miles into the second lap, perhaps a mile beyond the first aid station, i get my first ever flat tire during a race.

Now, really, who practices changing a tire for speed..... you do? oh. nevermind.

It takes me the better part of 20 minutes to change my rear tire. This was a pathetic scene. I have witnessed more small motor skill acumen watching a runaway circus elephant attempt to mount an abandoned airstream trailer. I stumbled and tripped and dropped things all the while emitting a string of obscenity that would have made the demon spawn of a beer wench and a stevedore blush. I managed to temporarily lose my skewer, mangle the daylights out of one of my skewer springs by somehow getting it jammed in rear derailleur pulley, and finally to apply a spectacularly artistic chain grease tattoo to my right calf, the pattern of which will survive the indelible ink of my body markings by days. At one point I actually had to stop what I was trying to do, calm down and collect myself before I caused some irreparable damage. This tire changing chore was made more difficult by the fact that i am entirely dependent on my aerodrink bottle for hydration, the two rear seat mounted bottles full of gatorade having long since reached the approximate temperature of the surface of the sun. The aerodrink bottle is precariously balanced on the uneven mulch surface in the only nearby shady spot. i don't look at it for fear that it may fall over. If this happens in this kind of heat, i know I am backtracking to the last aid station out of necessity.

Damage done and tire finally changed, i get back on the road with a new goal. Forget about bettering last year's time, forget about the bad luck with the tire, forget about the clumsy, shamefully inept tire change.... , at this point, lets conserve energy for the run. Back to plan A, a good plan.

Practice changing tires. Do a better job of executing my planned race day pace.

Again, a deliberately plush T2.

In hindsight, I would hurry a bit more. Free time.

It was told to me that Iron distance racing is mostly mental. Here are my thoughts on that. Imagine being full. Completely full, not hungry at all. Now imagine your absolute least favorite vegetable. Your most loathed. For me it's Lima beans. Now image being seated at a table, given a spoon, and served six large bowls of lima beans. Eat up. go on..... This is how I felt at the beginning of the run. One huge size bowl of lima beans for each of the six 4.3 mile long run legs. Do I really possess the mental facilities to deal with this?

I have never run a marathon before. I have no real background in running. Running is by far my worst subject. On a very very good day, my run split will actually take less time than my bike split. All of this is what I am thinking as I head out on the run.

My plan was to "run" (not entirely sure that what I do can be called running) between aid stations and walk each of the aid stations, take everything they have to offer before "running" to the next. If I get tired I will take a one minute walk break between aid stations.

I set out executing my plan. It goes well for the first leg. It goes so well that I decide to try skipping an aid station. I also get a little too ambitious with the water at the aid station and manage to thoroughly soak my left shoe. As I slosh into the transition area to change into a fresh pair of socks, i note my time on first lap as roughly 1:45. plus 5 minutes or so to change the socks.

At the end of each lap you are given a bracelet to indicate how many laps you have completed. At one point during the second lap, I offered somebody $50 cash for their bracelet. No deal. Too bad.

I still feel good at the start of the second lap. A quick endorsement for the out and back course, you do get to see many familiar faces several times. I decide to skip another aid station. This was probably not the best idea I had all day. I don't know exactly when but somewhere during the first leg of the second lap, i could feel my heartbeat throbbing in my ears and I was starting to get cold, goosebumps, despite the 95 degree plus temperatures. I start to feel wobbly and a little dizzy. Megrims notwithstanding, this is really the first time all day that the thought of DNF entered my mind. I stop running and walk to the next aid station. What is wrong with me? Something with my nutrition? I'm not even halfway through the run.

Wait. Could it be... is that? It is..... COKE! There's coca cola at the aid station. Coke to the rescue. I drink coke and walk to the next aid station and then the next. Coke. Miracle elixir. I feel better by the end of the third leg and manage to get back onto a modified version of my program. This consists of three minutes "running" and one minute walking. Feeling better now but still riddled with self doubt, my time for lap two as I come by the finish chute and T2 to start my third lap, about 2:10.

The temperature is starting to drop as I set out on the third and final lap. My plan of 3:1 run walk is working well. I start to settle into a rhythm and as things cool down, i start to pick up the pace a little as I round the cone at the far end of the "out" leg. The temperature is somewhere in the 70's as the last traces of daylight dwindle. My megrims are fading into the rearview mirror. I have now passed by many of the same faces four and five times, they're almost like family to me at this point. We've laughed, we've cried, we've washed down a thousand lima beans with dixie cups full of coke together.....

The final lap, about 1:40. I feel good. I have the energy to pick up the pace and run (not "run") down the finish chute.





Practice the race day nutrition a bit better. Start with a more conservative run - walk program

They actually pull the tape across the finish line for each finisher. How thoughtful of them..... I ran through that tape like i'd just won the gold in Beijing. There were volunteers to give you water, adorn you with a finishers medal, give you a vineman t-shirt and ask you if you need to throw up.

A quick and efficient "T3". I find Peedra who has been one hell of a support throughout the entire race, hurry back into transition to grab my gear, and we waste no time getting packed up and outta there. 9:45 at night... Its been a Looong day.




All mental. By simply keeping my head about me and not doing anything stupid, I have no doubt that I could easily shave at least a half hour off my time and more likely and hour or more.


What a great experience. This is truly a spectacular race. Supremely well organized, plenty of volunteers, a truly breathtaking course.

Drawbacks (out of the race director's control, clearly) the heat and the pavement condition. But, really... what fun is it if there's nothing to bitch about?

I have no idea what the rules are nowadays, the waters being somewhat muddied out there in the river of public opinion as it relates to "have you earned your M-dot?" Are you worthy of the title "Ironman?" I have no idea.

I do know for damned sure, I'm a Vineman. I'll be back next year.