Felt fantastic immediately. My "dream" time was 1:15. My goal was 1:20. I came out in 1:14. I knew most of the swim that I was KILLING it. I was passing people, drafting very well, no sighting issues. Just had an all around great swim. While in a pool I can swim faster for this long, I think this was pretty close to an ideal race-day IM swim for my current fitness level. I didn't do much wrong. I did use some breast stroke when I swallowed some water when a passing guy hit me, but that was maybe 2 minutes.
The swim down river seemed to take a long time, the bridges just kept seeming far away. I just kept cruising at the steady pace I knew I could easily handle with no problem.
It was sad that coming out of the swim I was unable to see Jordan or Lauren, but I was faster than I had given them so I stopped looking and moved to T1.


Not much. I felt undertrained compared to where I WANTED to be, but ultimately this was not true, I was in great shape for the swim.

This was prtty good too. A long run, easy gear I use in transition, but had to pee and get sunscreen. Otherwise I think it was pretty normal.

Nothing.

So as it turns out I did exactly ZERO rides this entire YEAR with ANY hills. I logged a lot of miles, outstanding of my crash during peak, but NO hills.
I WAS NERVOUS. To show how nervous, I told my spectators to EXPECT a 17mph avg. Clearly I bested that quite well. Hills were not that bad for me, this was a good time. I kept reminding myself I lost 10-12 days of biking from my accident and another 7 days from vacation in late June. Less than ideal conditions for IM training, but I did log good miles overall.
On race day I felt pretty good. VERY strong the first 50 miles from a power perspective. I dropped my chain FOUR times in the first 50 miles. All on uphills so getting back started was HARD. Obviously I have never had to do this before.
Seeing the La Grange loop at 38 and seeing Lauren and Jordan was a real lift. I barely saw them until the very end of the festival and I Gave Lauren a thumbs-up. It was no lie either, I felt GREAT. My position was keyed in, my cadence was perfect, I was pushing healthy gears on the the flats and had adapted to climbing quite well. I opted for no special needs on this loop (and the next) and hustled to mile 68 to see them again.
I slowed down a bit miles 75 to 95, but then ramped it up again the last 27 miles.
I was shocked I never stopped to pee, but really proud of it. Only T1 and T2 did I pee.
Hydration was HARD as it was HOT but didn't feel that hot due to the downhills, but when you were slow on the ups.. oh man.. roasting.
The course was amazingly fun. It is the aspect of the race that has me most saying "i want to do THIS IM again".
I absolutely want to do this course again. The bike course was beautiful, fun, and challenging.


Nothing really during the race. However, I'd traing some hills if I had the time to do so. Between EMBA, Work, volunteering, family, I just didn't have the time to drive an hour to go bike 6 hours to drive home an hour to train.

Roughly same as T1 - happy.

Nothing

A death march. I executed my race plan for the first 6 miles. I jogged slowly the first 4, then did run/walk for the next 2. My race plan was to adjust at that point and the wheels fell off.
I was walking a mile at a time for a bit and unable to run. The bottom of my feet were SO sore and my lower back was dying. I wanted it to end. As I rounded the turnaround I couldn't believe there were 14_ miles left. I thought it would never end. I had no doubt I'd finish, but you just can't mentally plan for how long your first IM 26.2 will feel like.
Seeing Jordan, Lauren, Steve, and Jodi at the turnaruond was a HUGE boost. While I kept walking a bit after seeing them, I was mentally HIGH. I knew it was almost done and I'd be an Ironman and get to learn a LOT for next time.
I also knew I was WAY undertrained for the run due to my accident and PF issues, so I was no hard on myself about pace. This was a learning event. If I liked the distance I'd use the knowledge to PR my next time.
Miles 20-22 were the hardest miles I've ever walked/run in my life. I honestly couldn't reach my toes, couldn't drink ANYTHING, couldn't think about eating, and wanted to sit down. I knew I would miss my pre-crash goal of 13:30 so i had nothing else in mind other than finish.
I never stopped though. I kept moving for the entire time. Ended under 13:50 with which I was THRILLED.
The finish line was exactly what I had imagined. I was definitely very proud, ended strong, was capable of continuing to move and was absolutely elated. I had two thoughts just before crossing the line in the last .2 miles.

1) I can’t believe that after my crash I was convinced I would not get to finish
2) How thankful I was of my family letting me do such an amazingly difficult event


Run more. I'll get better at this as I work through my foot issues. Also in the future I would avoid crashing my bike which made running very hard for a while.

Walked the finishing chute with a volunteer, got my picture taken, enjoyed it. Drank some water. Sat.


No hill training, bike crash, limited time.