Wen the canon went off I waited for a split second to let everyone in front get going and then immediately found some water and started swimming. The first line to the first buoy is always the most chaotic and this was no exception. No major blows on the body, just lots of pummeling. About 1/2 ways to the first buoy I made my way to the inside of them and swam there. There was lots of other people there as well and I tried my best to draft off them.

The first loop went by pretty quickly. Lots of people around and kept up with them and drafted as much as possible. I started the 2nd lap at 33' and change. It seemed that after rounding the first buoy of the 2nd lap it really cleared out. At the top of that lap I was drafting off someone and I must've came up a little too quickly on a few strokes. I caught a heel right to my right goggle and it got kicked off and filled with water. I immediately flipped over on my back, starting kicking, fixed my goggle and got back on pace. After that it was mostly clear water so I kept to myself and just swam away.

This swim wasn't really hard, but wasn't really easy. I was feeling some fatigue in my back towards the end and really wanted to get out of the water and on the bike. I finished the 2nd loop around 67' and all I had left was the short swim back to shore. I wanted to break 70' on the swim and I picked up the pace for the last 150 or so. Got to shore, looked up at the clock and got super excited that I got my goal.

Draft a little better.

As I was running out of the water I unzipped the top of my suit and rounded the corner to the strippers. There was a big dude waving me in so I pointed to him, ran up to him, laid down, put my feet up and let him do his job. They helped me up and I took off running up the helix. My HR was already through the roof at 172-ish, and I thought I ran up the helix and into the T area at a good pace. The HR will calm down on the bike so I went through the T area a bit faster.

On Saturday I had my mind pretty much made up on what I was going to need from T1 to the bike. So, I packed one shoe with a PowerBar and some Shot Bloks and the other shoe with my gloves and my arm warmers for quick exit out of T1. That worked perfectly. I ran in, Lara started SCREAMING "GO ROB" to me (awesome!), grabbed my bag, found a seat, dumped everything out, put my helmet one as well as my glasses. Asked the volunteer to take care of my wetsuit and goggles and he said he would. I grabbed my shoes and number belt and took off to the racks.

I ran to the bikes while carrying my shoes. While I was running I took everything out of my shoes and packed it in my shirt pocket. When I was about 10 racks away from mine I started yelling my number. Volunteers nearly had my bike waiting for me when I got there. I put my shoes on, grabbed my bike, ran to the mount line, clipped in, hit some guy in the back of the leg with my front wheel, apologized and down the helix we went.

Nothing.

Coming down the helix I had my arm-warmers in my shirt pocket and my gloves stuffed down the front of my jersey. Once I got onto John Nolan Dr. I started putting on my arm-warmers while taking it a bit easier to calm the HR. While I was doing that, Sam caught up to me and we chatted for a while. It took pretty much all of John Nolan Dr, mostly riding no-handed or up on the bars to get the arm warmers and gloves on. I wished Sam a good race and off we went.

The plan was to take the first 20' easy and take some Cal. around that time. At the 20' mark I started chomping on a PowerBar and downed that. I thought it was still a bit too early to increase the watts, so I kept it easy until I hit the beginning of the first loop.

There I started to up the watts a bit, not too much, but more than the first 45'. Plan was to ride mid to high Z1 watts for the course, cap the hills off at Z3 watts, and soft pedal the downhills to recover the legs. I rode the loop pretty conservatively and was whipping past everyone. Its basically impossible to ride up the hills and cap them at Z3 watts, so I just sit and spun up them. Kept the cadence up and went up then pretty easily.

I had this one guy go back and forth with me. This kept up until the first hill on Old Sauk Pass Rd. I was sitting and spinning up it, then I watched as he got out of the saddle and started hammering. I laughed a little inside when I saw that. I passed him at the top and not more than 15 miles later he was no where to be seen.

In my normal IM race nutrition plan I would take in a PowerBar around 2:30 into the ride. They said they had PowerBars at the aid stations, but at all the ones I saw nobody had any. I left one in my special needs in case of this. When I got to the guy yelling out numbers for special needs I called for mine. As I was making my way up the line I was yelling my number so I wouldn't have to stop. About mid-way through the line I saw my coach stopping to get his. I went passed him and gave him a slap on the ass. Funny stuff. Anyways, when it came to get mine they were still digging through the bags trying to find it. I had a package of Shot Bloks in my jersey pocket anyways and I didn't want to stop, so I kept going and went without the bag.

I hit the second loop feeling pretty good. And, pretty amazed actually at the pace I was holding. I was sitting way above my time goal if I kept that up so I rode the 2nd loop the same as the first. Around mi 75 I passed some people and then found myself all alone on the course. Nobody in front (that I could see), nobody in back; all by my lonesome. It was kinda weird being all alone during a race. Once the hills hit I spun up them as normal and really coasted the downhills to keep the legs as fresh as possible. I was feeling really good still and probably could have pushed a bit harder, but I wanted to run good. The wind was picking up from the west and once I hit the top of the loop it was pretty easy sailing. Kept the watts low, speed up and just spun it out. The 2nd half of that loop I was able to increase the speed a couple tenths, which I was really happy about.

After the 2nd loop was down, the wind helped push an easy trip back into Madison as well. Not many people to pass there and I rode it out pretty good, keeping pace and keeping the legs in really good condition. I was doing the math in my head and realized that I was on pace for a sub 5:15 bike split. After I realized that, I pushed *a little* harder on the flats to make that happen.

Towards the end on Whalen a motorcycle pulled up next to me and just hung around. There was a dude holding a camera off the back of the bike, but nobody was riding behind me. I asked them what they were doing and they said "filming for Ironman". Thought that was kinda cool and I kept on riding. A little bit after that he asked me if I minded if they asked me a few questions. I was riding pretty easy, not out of breath, not struggling at all, so....sure, why not? So, they gave me a three question mini-interview while I was on the bike. Turns out they used a little of that footage on the DVD they handed out after the banquet. Cool!

So, I made my way back into town and was riding through the AEC parking lot. I knew for sure that a sub 5:15 bike split was in the bag as I was only 2 miles out. All of a sudden I hear a loud, ppffffffffttttt. I freaked out and started checking my tires. Well, I was passing a small area where Semis were parked and one was letting out some pressure while I was passing. That was quite a scare. Shortly after that, on John Nolan Dr, I saw a guy running back to the Terrace with his bike. He must've flatted with a mile left. Sucky for him.

I got to the helix, spun up it and at the top I unstrapped and rode to the dismount line and hopped off.

Nutrition/Hydration: Filled up aero drink at every aid station (not always totally empty), PowerBar after first 15', then 7 Gu alternating every 15' w/ bottle of 2 srv Perp and 6 srv Gu20, 6 shot bloks around 3 hrs, 4 S-Caps, mostly taken towards the last 2.5-3hrs of the ride. 2300 Cal total. 440 Cal / hr.

Maybe push a bit harder, but its hard to say that. If I pushed harder, how would that have affected my marathon? Who knows. All I know is that that ride was easy and I came off feeling really good. I avg'd lower mid Z1 watts, which is actually a tad lower than my normal training zone.

I've been having a small issue with my left hip flexor coming off the bike over the past 2 weeks before the race. I hopped off my bike and it was really really tight. I was basically limping while running into T2 to get my bag. I wasn't too concerned about it as in training it loosened up pretty quickly then it wouldn't bother me after that.

I ran in, started yelling my number, got my bag and ran to the chairs. Sat down and a volunteer dumped out my bag before I was unclipping my helmet. Put on right sock, right shoe, left sock - wait... minor freak-out as I couldn't find left sock. It was just out of my sight and I found it, put it on and left shoe. Grabbed my Gu flask and container with my salts and took off.

On the way out I hit of a porta-john outside of the building. I could hear Amy and my mom yelling "Hurry up, Rob!" while I was in there peeing. That was the only time during the whole race that I peed. After I got out, I ran over to Amy, gave her a kiss (what?! It was in my race plan, seriously!) and took off running.

Nothing.

I was feeling really good and after only a couple of minutes my running legs were right there waiting for me. The plan was to take the first 5-10' easier to get the legs switched over. The first couple of miles are a bit deceiving being that they are on a slight decline. I was running faster than my plan called, but my HR was in check and it felt really easy. Although, about 10' into the run I could feel my quads cramping slightly. I downed 2 S-Caps and that took care of that. Two of my S-caps that were in there busted open somehow. So it was like taking 2 pills and one poured out onto my hands. Gross.

During the first loop I wanted to run it a bit easier, which I did. I kept the HR around lower 140s and ran at the pace that gave me (6:50-7:05). Perfect. Just kinda zoned out and started reeling people in. About 30' in I started getting some gut-cramps. I hate gut cramps. I tried to hold them off, but they hung around for a while. I took in another 2 S-caps and drank a lot of water at each aid station. That took care of that.

When I was nearing the 2nd loop I was feeling thirsty. The aid stations felt too far apart so I yelled for my special needs bag, which I had put my Fuel Belt into. I crossed the turn around on started the 2nd loop. As I was rounding the corner I was calling out my number to grab my bag. As I was about to grab it I noticed that the girl who had it was looking in the bag, not watching who was coming. I yelled my number a couple times to get her attention, she didn't budge - staring inside the bag. Must've been really taking notes what I had in the bag. I grabbed the bag out of her hands and I think I surprised her a bit. Sorry.

I put my Fuel Belt on while holding the bag in my mouth. I ditched the empty Gu flask and salts container from the first loop and grabbed the full flask from my bag. I fished around for the new salts container, but I guess I forgot to put it in there as I couldn't find it. I ran with the bag for about 1/4 mi while digging around for the salts and finally ditched it on the road. Not having those S-Caps made me a little nervous for the 2nd loop.

Thankfully, I had no problems with cramping after that. I wanted to neg split this marathon so I started to running harder. The plan was to increase pace by :10 from 13.1-20, then by another :10 on 20-24, then all out whatever I had left from 24 to finish. Well, the harder effort didn't translate into faster pace on the last 13.1. I pushed it harder, but the legs didn't move much faster. I was holding the same pace, so that was fine with me. The 2nd lap is always fun. Lots more people on the course makes it go by pretty fast.

A few miles into the 2nd loop I started passing a couple pros and the leading pro women. Around mi 18 I had Biscay (who was in 2nd at the time) in my sights so I tried to catch her. I caught up to her and was put into a trance by her flicky-foot running style. So weird... About a mile later I caught up to lead woman who, to be honest, looked like junk. I was sure Biscay was going to catch up to her very quickly.

As I hit 20 and 24 I kept putting up a harder effort, still with the same outcome as before. As before, I wasn't fading so all was good. I saw Coach sometime around then and he started yelling to me to bring it home. I also saw a few other people along the way that were cheering me on and that helped immensely to try and pick it up a bit. Its amazing how a little cheering from someone you know can give you such a boost.

Running those last 2 miles always hurt. Its a slight incline that really gets to ya. I pushed up what I could and made the last corner to the finishers chute. Started celebrating as the clock said 9:44 and I was pumped to have broken 9:45 (read below on that), ran a low 3 hr marathon and I was 99% sure I was going to Hawaii after that race.

Total elation. There's no other feeling in the world than running down that chute knowing that you gave it your all and accomplished your goals.

Nutrition/Hydration: water at every aid station, plus from fuel belt on 2nd loop. ~8 Gu, 8 S-Caps, a couple cups of Gatorade on 2nd loop. 850 Cal total. 280 Cal / hr.

Nothing on the run. While crossing the line, don't try to grab the banner and hold it up. Those girls got the death grip on that thing and they don't let ya do that. Let me tell you it makes for the worst finisher photo ever. Oh well, it had the wrong time on the clock anyways (again, read below on that).

I got caught by some fellow donkeys which was aweome. I got my finishers gear, my photo taken and went to walk around for a while. It wasn't until about 3-4 minutes after crossing the line that someone told me that my time was 9:34! The time on the clock when I finished was the pro time. They also said I was 2nd in my AG. Now I was 100% sure I was going to Kona!

Hell yeah! Hawaii, here I come!

After celebrating a bit more, I walked around, got some food/liquid in me, chatted with some friends and headed inside to get a massage. After the massage I started shivering pretty badly. Like teeth chattering shivers. We walked around looking for some clothes, but I forgot that I gave my warm-up clothes back to Amy and they brought them to the hotel after the swim start. We checked out the med station and they didn't have anything. Some volunteers were standing around chatting and one saw me shivering pretty good. He ended up giving me shirt off his back as he had an extra one. Thanks dude! A t-shirt never felt so warm.


I need to learn how to swim better. But other than that, I did everything that I was capable of doing on this day.


Perfect day or an IM race. I set my goals, followed my race plan and destroyed them beyond what I knew I was even capable of accomplishing. The organization of the race, volunteers and fans are incredible. Definitely a race I will return to.