Not my best swim ever, but since it was my first IM swim I can not compare with anything else. I was aiming for something around 1:16/1:18 so I was 3/5 minutes slower than what I expected.

The start of the swim was brutal, it was like a cone where we had less and less space to fit in as we were swimming. I never felt in a washing machine like that swim. Kick, fist, elbow etc etc I can assure you that I experienced all of those :p

When we finally had some room to swim I tried to get into a nice beat and I think I got into one pretty good. After what seems to be half of the swim I was at 36:xx on my watch which made me think that I was right on for my 1:15 or so. I am not too sure if I just faded or if I took it easy since I had a good time but for the second part I had more and more person passing me. That made me think that I was slowing down. At that point I was not too sure what to do, push it to keep the pace or just swim easy and not burn too much energy. Since I had really slow in the water I decided to just swim it easy and keep my energy for later.

Not too sure, maybe not look at my watch in the middle of the swim ;)

Strippers removed my suit, then I ran to the changing tent, I'd say a 400 meters run. I saw some friends from the tri club and then I saw Isabelle my coach which was there to cheer on us.

On my way to the changing tent I heard someone yell "Lets go Bob!" I turned, and turned again to make sure and saw someone which was looking like Steve, but I knew he was not there since he could not come. I waved and kept running.

Once in the I got my bag, got my shoe, helmet, race number etc. I put everything on except for my bike shoes, I decided to run with my shoes in my hands since I figured that it would be faster. When I got to my bike I put the shoes on and got out of the transition zone. When I got out of the transition I saw my wife and my daughter :)

T1 was a bit slow, but I expected it since I didn't run like mad through it. My plan was to keep some energy for the rest of the day ;)

Not much, maybe run a bit faster when out of the water ;)

Going into that Ironman I had two concern, one was that I had never rode more than 160km. I never though that it was a big disadvantage but it surely was not perfect for sure. So when I started riding I knew that this would be my longest ride ever.

I decided to take it one piece at the time, start with the first loop and don't push it too hard was all that I had in mind. When I race the HIM in June I rode that loop in 2h35, I knew that I could ride it fast but I wanted to make sure not to. I tried to keep my pace at 31/32 km/h max.

I started a bit too fast even if I had plan not to. After that I got into a nice pace where I was not pushing too hard. I finished the first loop with an average around 31.6 km/h, at that point I was happy and I was pretty sure that I could keep that pace up until the end. My wife and my daughter were on the side of the road by the special need bags which was cool because I could see them twice. It sure helped a lot to have them there yelling at me :)

When I started the second loop I heard "Lets go Bobby Boucher" And I know that only one person call me Bobby Boucher, and this is Steve :) He then asked how I was doing and I said pretty good thanks and you? :p

It was so nice to see that my friend Steve drove all the way from Quebec to cheer on me for my race, I really appreciated that, Thanks Steve!

When I got into the second loop I tried not to think about the 180km overall, but instead I kept telling me that it felt like I just started biking and that I only had to ride 90km.

When we got back on the 117 the wind had started to blow a little bit stronger, and it was like all over the place. Sometimes we had in headwind, other time it was downwind. Really hard to keep a steady pace. So I tried to just keep watching the watts and push not too hard. After all I had a marathon to run after that ;)

That plan was not too bad I guess and my nutrition was going according to the plan. I only had some problem to eat my last cliff bar, I guess that by that time I wanted something else :p

Pretty happy with my bike split, my plan was to ride the course in about 5h45/5h50 so I can say that I was not too far off.

30 km - 33.37 km/h
60 km - 30.52 km/h
30 km - 31.84 km/h
60 km - 29.02 km/h

Not much, pretty happy with my bike

Ok I will say it out loud, from now on I want a volunteer to grab my bike at every race :D

Ran to the tent, grabbed my stuff, got my running shoes on and ate a yummy honey stinger chocolate :) Then started running.

Nothing really

I started the run trying to keep a pace around 5-5:15/km thinking that if I was walking the aid station I would be able to go for a 3h45 mary probably.

For the first loop everything went mostly as planned, I was running at a good pace and my body was feeling pretty good. Around km 17/18 I took a coke and my stomach got pissed at me. That was bad news since I knew that I still had at least another 2 hours to run. At that point I started to only drink water slowly trying to give a break to my stomach so it could restart working a bit. After 5-6km I finally was able to restart eating a bit, at that point I was on chicken broth and orange with water.

My left knee started to really hurt around km 25 or so, not too far after that I had to walk more and more. By km30 I was walking all the aid station and a 30sec at every other km. By that time I was not worried with my pace anymore, I just wanted to keep moving and if possible while running :p

At 37.5km or so I had a rock in my shoes and I knew that I had to stop, sit down and remove it. But I didn't want to sit down because I was scared that I would stay there :p I finally stopped, removed it and restart running like if I was at km 2, made me happy. Weird how little thing make us happy after 11 hours or so on the course :p

At the 38th km people from the tri club were at the aid station, it was so nice to see them there and to have so many people cheering on me :)

21.1 km - 5:26/km
11 km - 6:16/km
10.1 km - 6:45/km

Hope that my knee would hold for 42.2km ;)

Not much, I was frozen by that time since the rain was a real downpour.


Awesome race, and in my back yard :)