Ironman Arizona - TriathlonFull Ironman

first of all swimming is not my forte. however, i did train to finish the distance. I expected a time maybe as low as 1:20 - 1:25. again, i'm a slow swimmer. I lined up to the right, not quite towards the front, maybe 20 yards from the front, enough to give me what I felt was a cushion. the water wasn't as cold as I expected either. I had a full wetsuit. My adrenaline was pumping so that's probably why i didn't feel it was cold. when the cannon shot, I started swimming. within a minute I lost my breath, looked up and saw all these people swimming towards me. I PANICKED. i stopped to catch my breath but people started bumping into me. one guy noticed i was freaking out that he even told me, calm down and relax. I tried swimming again, only to have it happen to me again. I Panicked. I got scared. I thought, all these months of training to stop now. thoughts quickly rushed through me thinking I wasn't going to be able to do this. I swam over to the right. The wall was my safe zone. I started swimming parallel to it and was able to finally get into rhythm. i noticed other athletes sitting and waiting for the rush to die down. I didn't stop after that. That fiasco took about 5 minutes, but seemed like an eternity.I stayed consistent with my stroke. i got hit twice and i may have accidently hit someone twice.

with exception of my panic attack, i feel i swam what i expected. i could have probably swam 5 to 10 minutes faster. my ultimate goal would be to get in a good time. Maybe I simply need to swim more.

overall it was a good transition. I didn't feel it took 7 minutes, but i guess time flew afterall, i did put on socks, shoes, jersey, shorts, gloves, helmet and glasses. oh, and some sunscreen. it was nice to see my family cheering me on. i had given them expected split times and I was able to hit most of them.

i don't think i'd do too much differently. i knew it was going to be a long bike, so i wanted to be comfortable.

it was fun. I knew that i didn't want to push it too much because i had a marathon to run after 112 miles. I also had never done an ironman so I wanted to save a little. the first lap was good because there was a tail wind on the way in. split 1; 18.8 mph, second lap the wind direction changed and we had a headwind coming in. split 2: 17.39 mph, i believe the wind was pretty even both ways on the 3rd lap. split 3, 17.96 mph. I stopped 3 times to use the restroom at the top of loops. I saw people peeing on the bike as well as read about it, but i felt that the 1 minute stop would help refresh the legs. i didn't have a very strong time goal other than to get under 13 hours. I tried well enough to do so. Even though there were 3 loops, it was nice to see my family 3 times which motivated me to get back out there and do another loop. Thankfully i didn't have any incidents like a flat or a fall. i had rented some race wheels and wasn't in the mood to try and change a tire. I took in about 400 calories per hour and took in salt pills. I had done 2 centuries this year and experienced cramping after mile 90, I didn't want that to happen during this race.

I may have pushed a little more. but when you have a 4 hour marathon coming up, you have to save some. maybe in training, i would do more hill repeats.

had a good transition. the volunteers help put everything in the bag and I just had to take off my jersey, put my shoes, hat, gel belt, and race #.

I wouldn't do too much differently. I did think that my time was longer than i actually took.

I was really happy to get off the bike and get into the run. I knew getting off the bike, regardless of what happened, i would be an ironman this day. i started off very well, i actually had to tell myself and make myself slow down. my RUN SPLIT 1: 2.5 mi 2.5 mi (20:27) 8:10/mi
RUN SPLIT 2: 11.5 mi 9 mi (1:14:23) 8:15/mi
RUN SPLIT 3: 20 mi 8.5 mi (1:25:56) 10:06/mi
RUN SPLIT 4: 26.2 mi 6.2 mi (1:10:14) 11:19/mi
TOTAL RUN 26.2 mi (4:11:00) 9:34/mi
i stopped to walk total of maybe 4 minutes throughout the 4 hours. I stopped once to use the restroom and 3 times to get some ben gay like cream put on my legs. i forgot what mile they were at, but i was excited to know that i would have this done at each lap. i had a nice pace until the last 6 miles, i had to slow down some because i didn't want to cramp up and end up walking. i average 11;19 for the last 6. when i saw the finish line, i was so excited to finally reach the end. i goal that i had set 5 years ago was finally coming to pass. i saw my family and knew I had made them proud too.


i took in the gels and 2 tylenol, tried to drink water and soda at every aid station. i don't think i would have done too much differently

saw my family of which they said i looked really good. i guess they were expecting me to be completely wiped out and on the floor rolling in. thats actually what i didn't want to happen. i grabbed some pizza and fries, chatted a bit with some friends and headed out to eat


i was 167 for the race, trained hard, mentally ready, i felt for the 1st one, it was perfect


by far the hardest physical day of my life, but yet the most rewarding. can't wait to see what 2012 brings. everything is sold out, any recommendations?