It was a descent swim. I expect better, but I am satisfied. My pace at Augusta was 1.20/ hundred yards. I expected to do better than that but it is what is and I am ok with that. I stood around with Doug, Neal, and Sarah just before the swim. I got over to the far left because I do not like swim in the crowds of crazy people,particularly around the first buoy. I kept everyone to my right for the first part until the crowd thinned out a bit. It was not real cold, but my toes did go numb even though I had wetsuit socks on. I figured they would because they go numb pretty easy. The sun was directly on our right which was a bit of problem for me. I kept seeing spots from looking directly in the sun. I started thinking it would have been nice if I had learned how to breathe on my left side . I swam for a while with my eyes closed, but it was like some psychedelic thing going on, dark -bright orange-dark-bright orange-dark-bright orange-dark-bright orange-dark bright orange. That was kind of weird. I went back to just trying not to look directly at the sun.

I did not push too hard on the swim since it is such a small part of the day. A couple of times during the swim, I felt little twinges in my leg/knee which only gave me a slight concern. I thought it would not be a big deal, so much for that. As I said my plan was to keep everyone on my right which worked ok until we got to where you turn at the swiggly man. The next thing I knew, everyone was on my left. Not too much later, everyone was on my right again. Somehow everyone managed to get on my left one more time before we got close to the dock. At the very last buoy, some guy wanted to wrestle with me for some reason, then he managed to get somewhat caught up in the buoy lines. I thought he deserved it. Somehow he managed to push it towards me as he got loose and I kind of got caught up in it too. I thought I did not deserve it. :) I got a cramp in my hamstring trying to get loose. I got another cramp when I tried to get out of the water, but neither of them were bad.

The wetsuit strippers were all busy so I decided to just take mine off myself at the changing tent. Saw Bep directing people to T1. Tough job. ;) They had her stripping wetsuits later though, which is the toughest job.

Nothing really, it would probably be a good idea to learn how to breathe on my left side, but I probably won't.

I am always slow in transition. This was ok. I saw Doug and spoke with him a second. Since my toes were already numb, I put on two pairs of socks and plastic bags on my feet. I had already used duct tape to wrap around the toes of my shoes for extra warmth AND I put on toe warmers. My toes were still numb for about three hours of the bike ride.

Nothing unless the wetsuit strippers were open. I do not think I lost any more time doing it myself than I would have if I had waited.

I enjoyed the course. There were a fair number of spectators. A few of them had cute signs like "smile if you peed on your bike", "taint sore?", and some others that I can't remember right now. I saw a lot of signs like "GO DAD". It made me miss my daughter who has been in college in Jordan for past six months. She sorta wanted me to wait until she got back to do an IM. The course was pretty flat, but it was not pancake flat. It was flatter than Augusta though. It got a little windy toward the end. At one point, I went by three flags that were all pointing straight out in the opposite direction that I was going. I never like seeing that. :) I saw Bep right at the end of the bike course just as I was heading into transistion.

I was pretty pleased with my bike. I felt really good. I did not push myself too hard. I was feeling great to start the run. Nutrition was going good on the bike and I was feeling like a real Ironman. I crossed the timing mat coming out of T2 with a total time of 7:20:xx on my watch. I was pretty sure that I could do the marathon in 4:30 to 5:30 at the worse since I am not a runner. I was thinking 12:30 to sub 13:00. I was already hearing the Sandbagger taunts from my friends in the North Atlanta Mulitsport Club ... Things went south... quickly...

I took my time in T2. That was my plan all along. I saw James Hatcher in the T2 tent. I chatted with a couple of people and one of them gave me an oatmeal raison cookie. If I do another IM, I am going to have a couple of oatmeal raison cookies in T2. I took a quick restroom break and headed out on the run feeling great. I crossed the mat with 7:20:xx on my watch feeling really good.

I probably would have gone through T2 a bit faster.

I felt great to start the run. I had a good plan for me. Since I am not runner, I was going to take my time in transition, take about 12 minutes for my first mile, do the next 13 at an 11 minute pace, and then start speeding up as long as I felt good and as long as my HR was in a good spot. That plan lasted for one mile. My knee started hurting just a bit. I walked and stretched. My HR was good to go, but my knee was in charge of the whole process. As the pain increased in my knee, the pace decreased. I used my Garmin for inspiration to just make the next mile. I did that a lot of times. I saw several people that I know or had met over the weekend. At one point I could walk without pain as long as I did not bend my knee. I was moving along as fast as I could looking like a peg-legged pirate running for his life. Moving with that gate caused a huge blister to come up on the ball of my left foot and it also made the ankle on my right leg start hurting in addition to the knee. As I continued, the knee started hurting whether I bent it or not. Even worse than that, I would occaisionally not get my foot up enough as I swung it around and the bottom would drag and force my knee to bend a bit. Each one of those times, I seriously contemplated DNFing. Seriously contemplated but knowing I would keep going unless it just gave out completely. As you can see by the time of each mile, I was getting to that point during the last three miles. During the run each mile seem to add a bit of discomfort. It was like granules of pain dropping through an hour glass making a pile of agony. At first no pain, then it would increase when I ran, but not when I walked, then it hurt whenever I ran, but not walking, then it hurt to walk but not if I did not bend my knee, then it hurt even when I did not bend my knee, then the ankle started hurting below the knee, and then the blister on my other foot started building. I was a hurting puppy by the time I crossed the finish line.
mile - time - HR
1 - 11.44 - 129
2 - 12.41 - 128
3 - 13.26 - 127
4 - 13.12 - 127
5 - 13.57 - 121
6 - 13.08 - 123
7 - 15.35 - 119
8 - 15.52 - 113
9 - 16.29 - 111
10- 16.19 - 111
11- 15.55 - 112
12- 15.16 - 113
13- 16.24 - 110
14- 18.25 - 110
15- 17.47 - 109
16- 16.47 - 110
17- 16.45 - 111
18- 16.49 - 109
19- 18.04 - 108
20- 18.26 - 109
21- 17.47 - 110
22- 18.03 - 109
23- 19.21 - 109
24- 19.36 - 107
25- 20.19 - 104
26- 20.17 - 109

I hobbled into the medical tent to let them look at my knee. I really did not need to warm down because I could not walk fast enough to need it with my knee hurting so badly. At least I did not have to go and gather my stuff. David had already gone and picked up my bike and all those bags. That was worth a million dollars. I was hot when I went into the medical tent, but I was freezing when I stepped outside. One of the things that I will always remember about doing an IM is that insisted on me taking one of those aluminum foil blankets for warmth. One of the dumbest things that I have done was to throw it in the first trash can that I came to. It is amazing how cold I was when I stepped out of that tent.


My knee. I felt great aerobically throughout the day. I had taken it easy so that I would have plenty of gas left for the run. I was feeling really good until my knee started bothering me. I had suspicions that I might have problems but I never dreamed that they would be as bad as they were. After all of the work that I have put in over the last several months, not starting or finishing unless I was in the hospital or worse was not an option for me since it was my first 140.6, at least I finished.


The best part of training for an IM is that you learn some things about your capabilities and how far you can push them and how to push them. The worst thing is that you do not get to do nearly as much social riding. I have always been the guy that hung back whenever there was a beginner rider in the group because I have that "caretaker" kind of personality and want to promote the sport. It was too difficult for me to leave those people to fend for themselves during group rides so I just started riding by myself most of the time. While training gave me a lot of self satisfaction, it also took a lot of fun out working out by riding alone and like the time I needed a cane to walk on a Sunday because of a back injury from heavy lifting and swimming Tuesday and riding Wednesday because I was already behind on training due to back issues the previous couple of months. ... and the time I ran sixteen miles with a fever at 11:00 at night trying to get my running back on track and went home and shivered in bed with socks, sweatpants, and a sweatshirt on ... and all those times I put working out ahead of my friends. There was something good about those times and more, but something not so good too. That is the difference between training and working out for fun. If any of my friends that feel I have neglected them over the last few months read this, I apologize. I will now have some time for fun... before I get ready for my next one... ;)