Well. The first thing I’ll say is that I didn’t even come CLOSE to my time goal. I didn’t hit my stretch or my “you should easily be able to hit this time”. But, with all that said, this race was one hell of an experience. I learned a ton about my body, what worked in training (or not), what not to do the month and a half leading into a major race, and how it is possible to both totally nail and totally blow nutrition and hydration. Let’s get down to it. I finished 130th out of 176 in the age group and my finishing splits were:

Swim (1.2 Miles)	T1	Bike (56 Miles)	T2	Run (13.1 Miles)	Total
00:34:56	00:04:00	03:12:47	00:03:13	02:37:16	06:32:12

As a frame of reference, here was the “you should be able to nail this” splits I planned on:

Swim (1.2 Miles)	T1	Bike (56 Miles)	T2	Run (13.1 Miles)	Total
00:42:15	00:04:30	02:56:50	00:02:30	01:58:00	05:57:15

Read on for more.

Packing, Athlete Check-in, and Ironman Village

You’d think by now I’d learn my lesson to pack for the major events days in advance, but I always tend to wait until the day before. I was on my feet a lot on Saturday which included packing for Timberman and a family camping trip. All in all, Saturday saw well over 14,000 steps, quite a few more than I had wanted before race day.

As this was my first Ironman branded event, I had no idea what to expect. All I can say is WOW, what a production. The “Athlete Village” was at Gunstock Mountain Resort. Interestingly, I’ve never been to Gunstock, so it was nice to finally get there after so many years living in New Hampshire. Checking in was an interesting production. First you show your photo ID to the Stage 1 check. After doing so, you get a green card with your number printed on it. Stage 2 check presents you with your emergency contact, medical card, and waiver review. You sign these and drop them to Stage 3 check. Stage 4 check gives you your swim cap, number, and race packet. Stage 5 gets you the swag bag. Stage 6 gets you the timing chip. Right between Stage 5 and 6, Andy Potts was checking in. It’s so cool to see the pros mix in with the “regular Joe”.

Of course as soon as you get all your race packet and swag bag, you are dumped into the Ironman official merchandise tent. Thank goodness I brought some extra cash. I picked up the obligatory T-shirt with my name printed on the back of it and two new water bottles. I needed a few new bottles and couldn’t beat $6 a pop. You could, however spend a few paychecks easily in this tent.

As it was very hot on Saturday, I did my best to stay hydrated and kept under the shade of the merchandise tent until the athlete briefing. The briefing was ok. They even admitted there wasn’t going to be much new in there if you read the athlete guide (which I did). However, it was helpful to learn which side of Ellacoya to park on the next day and I learned that once the buoy’s changed from yellow to orange you were at least half way to dry land.

As soon as the briefing was over, I headed over to Ellacoya State Park to do the mandatory bike drop. It was easy enough. I knew thunderstorms were in the area and soon saw the dark black clouds.

At this point I decided to cut town and head to my in-laws place. I’d be staying the night there. I ate some rice and the white meat out of a rotisserie chicken, downed a bottle with Nuun tablets in it, and hit the sack around 8:15 pm. The alarm would be going off at 3 am. It took about an hour to get to sleep, but I otherwise got a solid night’s sleep.

Game Day

Despite getting a good night’s sleep, 3 am still comes fast. I had all my bags packed, bottles loaded, and was ready to exit quietly and fast from my in-laws. My plan was to grab a small Dunkin Donuts coffee on the way to Ellacoya. I hit two Dunkin’s and both were closed. Damn, so much for my game day coffee. I knew I had some Clif Bloks with caffeine so I wasn’t too worried.

I pulled into Ellacoya around 4:15 am and immediately you could see the difference with this race compared to the smaller local races. Wow. There had to have been 70 policemen and women helping park cars and direct traffic. Around 5 am, transition would open. After watching plenty of Ironman World Championship re-runs, I knew enough to bring my headlamp. It was a solid choice as the walk up to transition was very dark.

We got body marked (#1771) and then rolled into transition. I was pretty psyched as my spot was literally right under the largest tree in the entire transition area. It made it extremely easy to spot. I setup my area and went back to my car to take a load off. Over the next hour I watched lots of people come and go, but some where clearly rushing. That’s something I try to never do.

Around 6 am (45 minutes before transition closed), I made one last stop at the port-o-john, then headed in to grab my wetsuit. I saw my buddy Dan who registered for the race on Saturday. He literally was the last person to register for the race and had a massive area to the side of his transition spot as nobody was next to him. We both walked over to the swim start and got back in a massive line for the port-o-john as our wave would start until around 8 am.

At 7 am, the cannons boomed and the pro field was off. Knowing that once the yellow buoys changed to orange you were halfway there, the pro men rolled through the halfway point in around 11-12 minutes. They kept that pace, if not faster for the second half. Damn impressive.

The Swim

I had what I thought was a pretty easy time goal. Sub 35 minutes on the swim. I knew I’d need to nail the sighting. Looking at the water I saw tons of buoys. I thought it would be nearly impossible to not nail the sighting…something I’ve had issues on in the last two triathlons. Each of the two triathlons I did earlier in the year had my watch report at least a hundred or two hundred yards extra were added to my total because of poor sighting. I lined up approximately ten people to the left of the right most person (Colin Cook who won the age group). When the horn sounded we all took off. We had a shy less than 200 people in our age group and they split the swim into two waves. I’m not sure the breakdown between each, but let’s just say it was as chaotic as you hear about. People swimming over each other, getting kicked and punched. I made sure to put my goggles on under my swim cap to both prevent leaking and the likelihood of me losing the goggles if the going got rough.

I purposefully started slower to keep my heart rate down. It turns out this was a pretty solid strategy as I never had to pull up for air and started passing people before the first right turn. Even by this first turn I would begin catching people in previous waves. Awesome!

One thing I haven’t done much of in the last month or so is swim. I got a few swims in here or there, but after accepting a new job, swimming took a bit of a hit. I tried breathing on both sides, but for some reason it felt more comfortable breathing on my left side only. I’d say I was breathing 2:1 more on the left vs. right. Close to the second right turn, I began feeling a pulling sensation under my rib cage. This is the same general area as a side stitch. I find this area gets painful for me when I sit a lot for work. I have a standing desk, at home, but haven’t been home much to use it.

I felt really good and very comfortable with my strokes (or so I thought) and finally saw land. As soon as I stood up I felt three things that concerned me greatly. First, was the side stitch area. Weird…probably due to breathing on the left side more. I’m usually “breath right dominant”. Second, my neck was very sore on both sides. Super, so that tells me I wasn’t rotating my body in the water but was turning my head instead. I’m sure that’s totally where the side rib pull came from. But the last issue was I had what felt to be a terrible, terrible cramp on my right glute/hamstring muscle. It was super painful and caused me to limp a bit running toward the wetsuit strippers.

I wasn’t originally planning on using the wetsuit strippers but figured what the hell as my leg hurt. As a side note, I’ve been reading that several other people have experienced the same glute/hamstring issue after wetsuit swims. Odd. I’m going to need to figure that out. That aside, I totally nailed my swim time goal. I did wind up stopping my watch way late (like almost at bike out) after the swim.

I found my big tree, dried off, put socks on and was out for the bike.

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The Bike

Getting out of transition was a bit tricky. Racks everywhere. You had to head out of the racks, down the main artery, left at the pro racks, and out bike out. I wound up walking out of transition due to the glute/hamstring issue. It now was roaring. As soon as I mounted my bike I felt the tightness. Damn. I was not going to be able to push any kind of gear until I got that under control. Immediately out of transition is a hill. In training I was pushing that hill well in excess of 15 mph. Here I was barely able to push 6 mph. Not off to a good start. I got off the bike and tried some hamstring stretches which seemed to help a bit.

It wasn’t until mile 15 did it feel “good”. At mile 10 was a big hill. I knew it was one of the larger ones and just rode it as comfortably as I could push it. I knew once I hit Rt. 106 I could open up. Lots of people were walking up the hill. Wow…it would be a long day for them. Once I hit Rt. 106 I was ready to crank up the tempo, but wouldn’t you know it, I could just feel that glute not happy. Don’t get me wrong, I was pushing over 22 mph in places, but in training it was 25-27 mph on the 20 mile section of false flat/downhill. My nutrition plan was a Clif Blok every 15 minutes or so with Gatorade to be onboard for liquid. I stopped at every aid station. Aid station 1 gave me the Gatorade bottle closed so I only got about 1/3 of it into my between the arm bottle. Aid station 2 gave me the bottle open so it was like a little volcano shooting out the top. Other aid stations were fine in which I primarily took Gatorade. Overall, I drank 2-3 times as much as I did in my dehydrating training rides so I feel like I nailed that aspect.

I knew pretty early on that I was not going to be able to hold my “hopeful” average pace of 19 mph with the glute feeling the way it did. So I did what I could to hang on. I wound up missing the “you should be able to nail this” time goal by around 15 minutes. Not terrible, but not what I was hoping given riding the course twice over the summer and feeling good about it. Sometimes you just need to roll with the punches and move on.

Back to transition was a reverse run of the way out. Down the pro aisle, right at the main artery, and find “my tree”. Nailed it. Spray some sunscreen on (note there was actually a table of volunteers spraying people with sunscreen, but I brought my own.

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The Run

I was so hoping that after the swim and the bike, the side stitch-type issue and the glute/hamstring issue would have worked its way out. Not so much. In the first few steps out of transition, I felt them all. Ok, this was going to be a long half marathon. Hell, you’ve gotten this far, what’s another 2 hours?

I run in Asics Noosa Tri running shoes. I didn’t pick them because the word “tri” was in them or even that they were triathlon “specific”. They just happen to fit best. I always gave them a batch of crap for saying stuff like “Optimizes moisture drainage and improves breathability.” Yea ok…until Sunday. Wow. The volume of water poured over myself and I sloshed through with sprinklers really drove this point home. You get freaking soaked in a mid-summer half-Ironman. Feet were sloshing around, ice was poured down back, and a Coke or two was had. I’d be lying if I said I actually think the damn shoes did what they say they do.

It was a refreshing surprise to have an aid station every mile. I did bring my Nathan Race vest, but honestly, didn’t need it. All I need for a race like this is a way to carry nutrition (again, more Clif Bloks). I only took half of what I planed…more on this later. I took stuff from the aid stations.

Mile by mile, step by step, I was only able to run a few hundred hards before I felt my side or glute/hamstring get ready to pop. It was most certainly not comfortable. But as miserable as the running experience was, the race volunteers and even participants were all awesome. People were cheering each other on as you got passed or as you passed others. Going through the first loop was such a tease to see others finishing just to know you had 6.6 miles more to run. We got it done though. I made a few rules. Every downhill must be run. You must run at least 8 telephone poles, but can only walk 4. Didn’t you know it, there was 6 miles to go, 5 to go, 4 to go, 3 to go (and turnaround), 2 to go, 1 to go…and then you hear the announcer. We’ve got this.

Zip up the tri suit and start running the finish chute. Hundreds of people shouting your name (they were printed on the numbers). It was one hell of an experience. This rivals finishing the Green Mountain Stage race stage with a wall of people at the top of Appalachian Gap.

It was my worst half marathon time…ever, but so gratifying to finish 70.3 miles feeling the way I did.

Grab the hat, get my medal, bottle of water…now where’s the food?

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Post-Race

As I wound my way over to the food tent, I started feeling a bit sick (common I’m told in events like this). I tried eating some food, but nothing really tasted good. I decided it would be a good idea to get changed, hit the rest room, get my stuff, and join the family camping up north for dinner. But then a wave of nausea hit. No more details necessary, but the next 5 hours would not be fun. Note for next time, work more on what you eat, when you eat it, and making sure to try some “natural” and “real” food. Clif Bloks, Gatorade, and Coke for 6.5 hours couldn’t be good. Maybe try a bit of active cooldown too.

I got home and passed out around 7:30 pm. I felt so much better in the morning and wasn’t even close to as sore as I expected to be. The good news about a hamstring holding you back is you couldn’t hammer. The lack of expected pain also tells me my time goals were probably realistic. Of course Timberman is getting a rematch.

What I Learned

So much was learned out of this race. In no particular order:

• Make sure you rotate your body, not neck on the swim…your neck and other parts of your body will thank you later.
• Figure out the glute/hamstring issue.
• Consider changing up the fuel (maple syrup, bananas, etc). Probably too much Clif Bloks.
• 40 ounces of liquid per hour was perfect to consume on the bike. Felt good and not dehydrated.
• Get a rear bottle carrier so you can carry more liquid and perhaps a bottle of Perpetuem.
• Cramping wasn’t much of an issue in the legs so sodium intake was good.
• Garmin Heart Rate monitors suck. I talked to a guy who liked his Mio Link so I might try that. Honestly don’t know if this race was accurate at all for heart rate.
• You can totally complete a 70.3, so now do it faster.
• Didn’t need Nathan Race Vest on run with so many aid stations. Get a Fuel Belt or some other pouch to carry nutrition.
• Pack at least two days prior to the race. This includes having the bike clean.
• Stay off your feet more day before the race.
• Ironman puts on spectacular events.
• I still have no interest in doing a full Ironman (or running a full marathon).
• My RoadID hat and socks (by Defeet) were great. No blisters = winning.
• Next year work on increasing Bike FTP, Half Marathon Pacing, and keep working on the swim mechanics.