This was pretty tough. The first straight away wasn't too bad. I guess I expected the contact and it didn't bother me. I started to get frustrated at the first turn buoy. Everyone told me how congested it got there but this was horrible. People were just stopping. I had to just keep swimming and I'm sure I swam over some people. I felt bad, but I am not a good swimmer and I sort of started to panic so I knew I had to get back into a rhythm. The way back to the beach was nice because waves were pushing you back in. Came in at about 36:30 for the first loop. I was happy with that but I knew the next lap would be slower. My navigation for the second loop was terrible. I kept ending up inside the buoy line and I was getting pummeled by the waves. The turn buoy was just as bad if not worse on the second loop but I still had that awesome feeling of knowing that I was about 15 minutes from getting through the Ironman swim. I could hardly swim a year ago when I signed up for this. So to be at this point in the race felt so good. I finished in 1:16 which is about where I though I would be.

Try and swim straighter.

Wet suit strippers are great. I came out of the water with a lot of people so the change tent seemed packed. I just plopped down on the grass and put my stuff on. Handed my stuff to a volunteer and off I went.

nothing.

The beauty of being a slow swimmer is that you get to pass people the whole time. I passed about 500 people on the bike. I started out feeling good as far as my legs went but my stomach was bloated from swallowing so much lake water. I still stayed on my nutrition plan of gels and accelerade but I could feel my stomach hurting. The first loop went by great. I felt good and was pretty much cruising. Then about mile 65 I felt terrible. I knew I needed a porta pottie stop so I handed my bike to a kid and stepped into the outhouse. After riding for 3 hours I was little unsteady to begin with and add into that the fact that I had bike shoes on and I think I nearly knocked the outhouse over as struggled to stay on my feet. 5 minutes later I felt better, but I had lost some time. I decided at that point once I got back to govt. way I would just take it easy and get ready to run. Thats what I did and I got passed by a couple people but I just didn't care at that point. Got into t2 and I knew all I had left was a marathon.

I'm not sure what to do differently. It was a GI issue that limited my speed. I was on pace for a 5:12 bike after the first lap but, I just started feeling like crap.

Volunteer took my bike and another one got my run bag. I went into the change and It was almost empty. This was great! I sat down and a volunteer came out of nowhere and dumped my bad out. I took off my shoes and socks and told him what I needed. He even put my socks and shoes on.

I had to make another bathroom stop and that slowed me down.

Run went great. Not sure what else to say. I felt pretty good the whole way. This being my first race I wasn't sure how much to push. I think I could have gone faster which is encouraging for the next time. Coming down that final stretch was the best feeling!! I had quite a few friends and family there so I was high fiving people and the crowd was yelling. It was awesome feeling!! It was everything I had pictured it to be in all my long training days. That made it all worth while.

Run faster

Not much. Just went and got my bags and waited for my friends to finish


This being my first race I think I held back quite a bit. I plan on pushing harder next year.


I loved this race!!