I felt good while I was out there. I didn't get caught up in the mess of people at the start and felt as though I got to the first turn buoy pretty quickly. While in big crowds I was taking short choppy strokes but when I had room I was stretching out and taking long easy strokes and feeling good.

This was probably the best I've ever done sighting and staying on course. Even after the turn around at about the half way point when pretty much the entire group went off course. I was confident that I was headed in the correct direction and stuck to my course.

Coming out of the water I saw my time and was surprised and dissappointed that it wasn't a better time but I've sinced changed my thinking. I heard a lot of talk about it being a tough swim and I felt good. My overall swim rank was 347 out of 1655 men, I'll consider that a good swim.

Draft. I kept looking for some feet to follow but never really found the right ones.

Very average transition. Nothing really bad, nothing really good.

My bike plan was to set up my run. I didn't want to overcook the bike at the expense of the run but I also didn't want to go slow either. I thought a 3 hour bike would be the correct pace.

I settled into a comfortable race pace, pushing just a bit extra into the headwinds. The winds were pretty strong, even pushing harder into the wind my speed would jump a good 3-4 mph as soon as I turned out of the wind.

After 28 miles I was 1 minute ahead of my pace to finish around 3 hours. I felt great and decided to dial it up some. I biked the second half 8 minutes faster than the first half. Some of that was due to having the wind at my back, much of it was deliberately picking up the pace. Even picking up the pace I was certain that I wasn't over cooking the bike. I eased up the last 2-3 miles. Mostly to just spin the legs more before the run but also b/c the roads were very rough and I didn't want a flat w/in 2 miles of transition.

Speaking of flats, the roads were very rough in areas. I've never seen so many flats on a race course. Nor have I seen so much ejected equipment...water bottles, aero bottles, nutrition, tubes, CO2 cartrides. A lot of stuff was being ejected off bikes.

Not a bad transition. A bit slow but it was b/c I took the time to apply sunblock.

Leaving Transition: I felt incredibly fresh and was genuinely looking forward to the run. I was certain that I had a sub 6 hour HIM wrapped up. All I had to do was average 11 minute miles.

My plan was to run smart for as long as I could and then fight the urge to let up whenever it hit. Part of running smart was to incorporate a 1 minute walk at each aid station, essentially 1 per mile but I really wanted to find that line and go as far past as I could, this part of the day was all about mental preparation for Louisville.

Miles 1-3: Easy and effortess running right around 10 minute miles (including the 1 minute walks at aid stations). No doubt in my mind that I was breaking 6 hours.

Miles 4-5: My left IT band started to bother me. I have not had even a twinge from that IT band in almost 2 years. I won't say it hurt but it was VERY uncomfortable. My head tried to convince me that I needed to walk so that I'd be ok for Louisville. I decided that for the sake of Louisville I'd be better off learning how to race while uncomfortable. As a concession to myself, I added about 10-15 seconds of stretching at some of the aid stations. I was still doing right around or just under 11 min/miles.

Miles 6-8: I think this is the part of the race where I learned to most about myself. I really wanted to take more and longer walk breaks. It was clear at this point that something was wrong with my nutrition, I was getting more and more fatigued, and my IT band was getting worse. I walked more than my plan but not by much, I was still being pretty disciplined about the run. My pace was slowing to right around or just over 12 min/miles. Sub 6 was slipping away.

Miles 9-10: DONE! Wow, did it all come crashing down on me. My IT band hurt but it didn't matter b/c I don't think I could have run much more even if it was fine. Worse, I was starting to have spurts of feeling dizzy and off balance as well as shortness of breath and feeling like I couldn't get any air. It felt like an asthma attack. I did a lot of walking these two miles. Sub 6 was gone.

Miles 11-13: After two miles of much more walking than running I decided that it was time to suck it up and see how much running I could do the last 5k. I started run walk intervals increasing the length of run from 1 minute to 5 minutes while keeping the walk interval at 1 min. Even with the longer run intervals my splits were very slow.

I had a nutrition problem but I'm not all that sure what it was. I'll have to figure that out.

Run is my weakness. This race proved it. I came to the race prepared and I biked smart. None of it mattered, the run fell apart.

A bit of a blur, talking with Kristen then Courtney and Kraig. The dizzyness continued as did the shortness of breath. Went to the medical tent for an IV and to be covered in ice bags. By the end of the first bag of fluids I felt back to normal. They wanted to give me another bag but i wanted to get back to the post race festivities.

Continued to hydrate and ate some post race food.


I pushed until I couldn't (or wouldn't) push any further and I PR'd by 27 minutes. I know there is room for improvement but I'm happy with this race.


This was a great race, probably the best run and most organized race I've done.