Drove out from Los Angeles on Friday. Easy drive very little traffic until we hit Tempe. Registration was a breeze, very few other athletes were around when we registered at 1:00 or so on Friday. Weighed in and was shocked! I know I have been a little lax and that I'm a little soft in the middle right now but I weighed in 5 pounds heavier than expected. Ughhh, maybe its time to lay off the beer. Checked into the hotel (which is about 1 mile from the start) and relaxed in the air conditioning until the athlete dinner on Friday night. The dinner was nice there was a lot of people and other athletes in attendance. The host acknowledged the oldest competitors (76 and 77 year old men, 66 year old woman). The 76 year old guy is planning 4 IMs this year! Damn, I'm just hoping to be alive at 76. They also acknowledged the athletes in attendance who have done the most IMs...one guy has done 45 (one of which was last week) and another guy has done 46. Again Damn! Got the run down on the course and the rules and went back to the hotel to get some rest. Watched a movie in the hotel (Ice something or other with John Cusack) and got to bed early.

Saturday:
Slept great on Friday night and then went in search of breakfast. Dropped off the bike and the transition bags at the event and tried to get back to the air conditioned hotel room as quickly as possible. Did I mention that it is hot? Well it is damn hot! Expected to be 90 tomorrow. Ugh. Not quite ready for that kind of heat but you can't control the weather so here we go. Unexpectedly spent much of the day working remotely which ordinarily wouldn't be so bad but it was clear that we were taking heat for other people failing to do their jobs so I spent a lot of the day proofing other people's work and resending out all of the work we had previously sent them over 3 weeks ago. Very frustrating. Got all of my nutrition for the next day sorted out and tried to get some sleep. Ended up sleeping from 9:30 until 4:30 which was great. It was nice to be able to sleep the two days before the event. Usually I have a lot of trouble sleeping so this is a nice change.

Sunday:
Bagel and bottle of Heed. Got to the transition area at about 5:30. Dropped off my special needs bags, got bodymarked, looked around and waited. Wore trishorts under my wetsuit and put bodyglide on most of my body. Drank a bottle of water and took a gel just prior to the start.

I got in the water near the front of the age groupers which meant I was in the water for an extra 15 minutes or so. If I had to do it over again I would have done like many others and stood on the bank after getting into the water. While the water was plenty warm enough after 10 minutes of floating on my back I was starting to get a little chilly.

I intended to go slower than this but this pace felt comfortable at the time and is certainly well within my normal range of times. Started at the line but on the outside. At the gun, I got clear of everyone and found some feet to hang onto and away I went. No collisions and no bumping it was one of the cleanest starts I can remember.

In retrospect, I would have gone out a little slower. I'm not in the same kind of swimming shape as I have been in the past year and I swam this swim like I was. I should have gone easier like I initially planned. I wish I had taken a look around at the half way mark just to see what 2,000 people swimming at once looks like. If there is a next time maybe I'll sneak a peek.

I decided to go for comfort on the bike. Changed into bib shorts, a cycling jersey and arm coolers (to keep the sun off of me). The transition went fine. I was a little disoriented and did a couple of dumb things but such is life. Thankfully I had put a towel in my transition bag since the grass was sticking to everything in sight. Onto the dumb things that I did, when I put on my bib shorts I didn't pay attention to wear the bib part was and ended up with both sides on one side of my body which was very confusing to me at the time. You probably had to be there but it took me a couple seconds to work out what I had done and I probably looked very confused.

The transition was fine. I don't think I would do anything different except for put my clothes on properly. Over the course of the day I think the comfort of changing into more padded shorts was worth it. As the day unfolded I became increasingly happy that I had gone for comfort. The arm coolers worked great and kept me from getting sunburned which is a major energy killer for me. My skin is fair enough I always seem to get burned if I don't keep it covered.

I had many ups and downs on the bike. One of the problems with being fast out of the water and slow on the bike is that there are just that many people behind you that go by you. It's alright I got to check out a lot of very nice bikes. :) The first lap I was struggling with my legs on the uphill. They seemed to come around by the time I hit the turnaround but the feeling was fleeting since on the second lap I was having a lot of trouble. My legs were cramping somewhat (so I took some salt tablets which seemed to help the situation) and my stomach was doing cartwheels. I was never in danger of puking but I was always dreading my watch going off telling me it was time to drink more. Thankfully, by the third lap my legs seemed to come around and I got home.

On the first loop of the bike course I saw my friend Steve about 5 miles behind me which was a good indication that I was suffering since I knew I would beat him out of the water by at least 1/2 an hour. Next time I saw Steve he was in the median talking to a race official just as I finished my second lap. I assumed he must have passed me while I was in the bathroom but wasn't really sure. I found out later that he called it quits but more on that later.

Train the bike more. Put aerobars on the new bike and learn how to ride in them for long periods of time. I feel like I was much faster last October when I did the half then I was this weekend when I did the full. Looking at the logs that makes a lot of sense since I had been cycling a lot more last year leading up to furnace creek and the half then I did leading up to the full. It was very impressive to watch the other athletes cycle. I am always amazed at how fast a large number of them are...hopefully with some more specific training I can close the gap a little. On the bright side I used the new bike and was much more comfortable than on the old bike still no aero bars but first things first.

The transition went fine. Once again I changed this time into running shorts, shirt and hat. I decided to leave the amphipod behind since I was having a lot of trouble stomaching my nutrition. Usually it would not be a problem but after it had been cooked in the sun for hours it just was not appealing. At this point I knew today was about finishing and that I could finish without the amphipod. Off I went.

I might have taken the amphipod and tried to see how it worked out on the first lap. I could have always dumped it into my special needs bag. Unfortunately, this idea did not occur to me until after I saw the special needs area. Also, I would have checked my socks and shoes much more carefully but more on that later.

At the start of the run I had not peed since 60 miles into the bike which was really starting to worry me. In addition, I was unable to pee on the first loop so after seeing a guy passed out on the ground completely unresponsize I decided it was time to start getting some fluids into me. Managed to do so with some stomach irritability but on the whole stomach discomfort was much less on the run than on the bike. The first lap went fine, I walked the uphills and the aid stations but ran the rest. My pace was quite slow but it had already been a very long day so I was fine with that. On the second lap I started having a little more difficulty and my walking pace slowed dramatically but I was still running most of the way between aid stations until I hit the last 3 miles of the second loop where I ran into Steve. Unfortunately, Steve (the guy I drove out from LA with) had massive stomach cramps on the bike, most likely due to the swim, and ended up dnfing. We talked for a bit as I walked. He's more of a runner and cyclist and may have had enough of triathlons. That would be a shame since he makes a good triathlon buddy. Started to run again back to the start of the third lap. On the beginning of the third lap the blister that had formed on my left little toe popped and running became very painful. It also felt like I was walking on porcupines the balls of my feet hurt so much. I would later come to find that not only did I have a blister on my left little toe but a huge blister covering the front middle of the ball of my right foot.

On a more interesting note I had a couple JeepFleeb sightings on the run. It was amazing to see him run holding that huge flag. I could hardly hold myself up at some points and here he was moving right along with this massive flag. Very impressive. I also saw his support crew with the "I love JeepFleeb" tshirt. I know that was someone from here but I'm not sure who (my guess is Comet based on the pics she posted but I'm not sure).

I should have paid more attention to my socks. I should have also got more running in and specifically practiced running off of my long bike rides. Due to a lot of factors I didn't end up doing the training that I should have to be able to go faster at this event.

Took off my shoes to see what the porcupines were. Hobbled around and got some pizza, picked up all of my gear and went back to the hotel. Took a shower and was amazed at the amount of salt crust I had accumulated over the day. I know I'm a salty sweater but the amount of crust was ridiculous.

In retrospect, I do not think I took in enough electrolytes on the bike. In addition, I clearly could have trained more. Blisters.

As one would expect this was an extremely well organized and well thought out race. The volunteers were all wonderful and the aid stations were well stocked. The spectators and the participants were all great.

I'm glad I finished. I can now say that I have done an Ironman. I'm not sure I ever want to do one again but at least I can say I have done one. Not that I have shown that I can finish the full distance I think it is time to consider concentrating on getting faster at the shorter distances and then possibly down the line try another one of these suckers to see what I can do.