There is no way this was 1.2mi long, after being a distance swimmer throughout college I can tell my pace was ~1:20/100m not the 1:09 in the results.

I wouldn't have done anything differently but I wish the waves were separated by more than 3min. It was a VERY crowded swim to say the least.

Well apparently I was the only person in the world that didn't know you MUST wear a shirt in Ironman events. So I got penalized for not having one (good thing this wasn't my 'A' race). As I was at the bike exit the official made me go with her to where my bike was racked to prove I didn't have a shirt. That wasted another 1.5mins in addition to my penalty :)

It was the first ride that I've had where some of the cross winds about blew me off the road. About 20mi into the bike I broke my aerobar arm rest so I couldn't put my weight evenly on them and ended up with some extra stitches in my back. I saw a TON of drafting especially in the beginning of the course and lots of people just chilling in the middle of the lane. Get to the RIGHT OF THE ROAD IF YOU'RE NOT PASSING DAMN IT!

Nothing really, with better roads and non-broken aerobars I think my body wouldn't have taken as much of a beating. With 20mi left in the course I just coasted to try and prepare for the run which at that point I didn't know if I'd finish or not :)

No issues... switch shoes, grab hat, explain to every volunteer I realized that I don't have a shirt on and out of there...

Have a shirt :)

My legs were fine, position soreness from the bike was my main problem. Once I got into a rhythm of one foot in front of the other I was able to shuffle along.

I wasn't planning on doing this race until a month before so I really wasn't trained for it. My A-race for the season was an Olympic so my max bike was ~50mi. I am making my next years A-race the New Orleans 70.3 so I wanted to get one under my belt for learning purposes before hand :)


My pre-race goal time was 5:00 and I ended up with 4:59:09 which surprised me considering how brutal the course was and how unprepared I was. The swim was a little short by ~2-3mins but even so I feel the race taught me a lot and now I won't get a shirt penalty in my A-race next year!