I used the same plan I've used forever for the swim start. I hung back on the beach and went in after most people were in. It worked very well and I had less contact in this swim than in some smaller races. I just was amazed that I was actually doing my first Ironman swim. The water was clear enough that I saw the jellyfish that I stung my finger on in time to try to avoid it and so that was good. what a jellyfish was doing in the Medeterranean sea is anyone's guess. I was concentrating on my stroke and breathing for the whole swim. By the end of the first loop I was very nauseated from the rolling waves I guess or maybe drinking sea water. That was a bummer. Also I got confused at the turn around because I heard the announcer say it had been one hour and I forgot that the second loop was much shorter so I thought I might miss the swim cutoff. Luckily that wasn't the case. I had estimated my finish at 1:30 and I beat that. Yeah!

I need to do a better job of swimming with my mouth closed that salty water gets yucky fast. I have heard that some folks take dramamine to avoid the seasickness feeling so I will try that too.

What was I doing for 11:35? I think this time had to start at the swim out mat because that's forever. Transition was huge. I did do a change of my shorts and I put on arm coolers but I felt like I was not wasting any time.

Not sure actually but I would like to go faster here obviously.

So I'm very happy with my performance. I was nervous about this bike course because I have no hills to train on. But I did fine. It's a long ride :-) I stopped twice - once at special needs to refill my bottles, once to reapply chamois cream which for a nearly eight hour ride I think is pretty good. There are no porta-potties on this route ... it's bushes for everyone.

Be less of a chicken downhill. But honestly I'm thrilled with how I did.

12 minutes. What was I doing. Who knows. The volunteer as I got off the bike said something like congratulations you have just completed a very hard ride. He was right. I was elated to be finished. I did change my socks and shorts and shoes.

Not sure.

I wasn't sure how I would feel about the 4 loops but it's fine. As I learned at that point it's all mental and I just worked my way through it. I had no idea how I would feel or do at this point in the race since it was my first IM marathon. My plan was to just keep moving and that's what I did.

My watch died after the second loop. So I had no idea how fast or slow I was going. I got really scared that I was running super slowly like maybe 15 minute miles so I was really afraid to walk I just kept shuffling and it all worked out okay.

This is the one area where I wasn't sure I'd trained enough. So I do wish I'd run more and done more strength work for the run. But I made it through and I'm very happy about that.

I stumbled into the athlete area and got some food because I was pretty sure that even though I had told my husband I would need to eat that he was thinking that meant after we walked back to the apartment :-) I was right.


Who knows. My goal here was to finish and I did that. I'm thrilled.


How can I not rank my first IM as Best? One benefit to finishing close to the end my kids got to see the fireworks show at the finish. They loved that.

It's a great race. I'm no expert on Ironman races but if you're up for a challenging course this is a good one.