IRONMAN World Championship Kona 2022

My first IRONMAN was in 2015 which was IRONMAN Texas. I finished but it was a brutal day during which I got second degree sunburn. That evening I called my wife and said never again. The next day I decided I could do better. The next year I did Texas and Chattanooga and then learnt that if I did 12, I could go to Kona and take part in the world championship via the Legacy program which then became the end game, take part in the world championship. This was originally supposed to be 2020 but Covid pushed it to 2021 and then 2022. During that time, I did other events making Kona my 22nd full IRONMAN and the 4th of 2022 after Texas, St George and Alaska. St George was the 2021 delayed World Championship being relocated out of Hawaii for the first time meaning I would take part in two world championships in the same year! Kona was also to be a big family vacation and from day one the plan was for my family to have the IRONMAN VIP treatment where they could place the kukui nut lei round my neck at the end and get to go out on a boat and see the swim up close.

We arrived on the Saturday, giving us a full week before the event to acclimatize and have some fun. It was a very long day, 3-hour flight from DFW to LAX, 3-hour layover then 6-hour flight to Kona but all flights were on time and our luggage made it with no problems! I had shipped my bike with TriBike Transport a few weeks earlier. The Kona airport is very small and all open air. The bags took some time to arrive, but we then hopped on the shuttle to Budget, got our SUV and were on our way to the condo we had rented on the Ocean front. There had been some jumping around where we were going to stay. Originally, we were staying at the Westin but that was about 45 minutes North of the main IRONMAN location, and we heard horror stories about how busy everything would be and wondered how race day logistics would work being so far away. A few weeks before we found the great condo that would enable us to eat at home, was 1-mile from the IRONMAN start so we switched!

Sunday, I woke up at midnight (because of the 5-hour time difference) so I went for an 8-mile run up to the main town then North up the Queen Ka’ahumanu Highway for 3 miles then back again. I showered and then my daughter was also awake, so we went to the 24-hour Safeway to buy essential supplies. $500 later we had vital supplies like Oreo O’s, garlic knots and a lot of other useless stuff that we didn’t end up using most of.

You had to book your check-in time in advance, and I had booked the first available, 9am on the Sunday, and they were extremely strict checking your booking. There was a line forming at 8:45 and after a brief ceremony they opened on time at 9am. I was delighted to be given a coin for the event then all the other goodies; backpack, towel, poster, bib (x2 so you could keep one), cool bike sticker, regular bag and bike stickers. You didn’t get your chip yet; you would get that at bike check-in. Remember, this was a 2-day event. Women and older men were Thursday, rest of men were Saturday.

You also got ANOTHER coin at the finish which is the coin on the right in the pictures.

There were a LOT of things in the store and I decided to buy a lot of T-shirts, T-shirts and hats for family, I bought the event tri-shorts, bike shirt, running shirt, socks. A lot of cookies were spent (the word used for money with the kids). We then took some pictures around the event posters and participant names.

I went and joined Fitness Forever to enable me to train still while on the island which offered a 2-week membership and then at the request of the children we dined on traditional Hawaiian cuisine for our first meal, McDonalds. We went to the beach next to our condo, wandered round the town and then had another local favorite for dinner, Kona Crust New York Style pizza. I took it as a win as at least it had the word Kona in the restaurant title. It was great pizza!

Monday, I woke up early but had to wait until 4am until the gym opened. I trained till 6:30 and loved it. This is the first time I had trained in a gym for 2.5 years since Covid started. I have been training at home but having all the equipment was amazing. When we got home, I started training at Lifetime Fitness again 🙂 I went to the gym every morning except Friday and Sunday.

At 8am there was a Legacy function and I got to meet several legends of the sport! Dave Scott was very chatty and it was great. We talked a lot about weight lifting after he commented I was a big guy and didn’t look like a normal triathlete. He is very much in favor of strength conditioning.

My family had VIP check-in at the host King Kamehameha hotel. We had the boat package which meant they were taken out onto the water during the swim portion of the Ironman, then given great viewing, meals and then would be on the finish line to put the lei round my neck. They each got AWESOME stuff. Full backpack (the same as mine as an athlete), same towel I got but also got cup, USB power charger, an amazing satchel type small bag (which I stole and you see in the gear picture above), polo shirt, pin (shown in coin picture) and more!

For the rest of the day we once again explored the local town but everyone was pretty tired so we took it easy as that night we had the manta ray snorkel night trip. On the way out we saw the most amazing complete rainbow ever! We saw 14 manta rays and they came up so close to us. This was the kids favorite part of the entire trip and I have a great gopro video of the key moments and have linked to a little 5 minute version of some highlights.

Little taste of the awesome experience

On Tuesday my wife and daughter went for a half day horse trail ride while Ben and I found some great scenic areas and messed around.

Wednesday was beach day. We all messed around in the Ocean and I got sunburnt which was obviously a mistake. In the afternoon we met a photographer at a different beach and had a great set of family pictures taken and then some of me swimming and running. When we got back Julie took a few pictures of me in my bike gear. I had to cut the arms off the XXL bike shirt as it cut the blood off to my arms (money well spent). We also discovered Ultimate Burger at lunch which was probably the best burger I’d ever had.

Thursday was the women’s event and we watched most of the day. During the swim we could see them swim past the condo and on the run, they ran past the condo. We were on the TV from an aerial shot. We even picked up cups Lucy and Daniella dropped :D. I also applied lots of sunburn cream as I was pretty burnt from Wednesday. This would prove to be a problem 😀

Friday, I prepared my bags and also went to the IRONMAN village and bought a hat for my Omius cooling blocks (which required me to buy a complete set again) and a race belt with a small pouch. They also had the finisher gear so bought the jacket and t-shirt but didn’t allow myself to look at it until I had earned it.

My registered check-in spot was from 12-1 but they were not checking and a HUGE line in the sun had formed which took about 30 minutes.

Your helmet had to go on the bike then hang up your bags (which were under a shade). You got your chip on way out after being weighed. I had actually lost weight over the past 5 days, also not good.

It was pasta for lunch then Kona Crust pizza for dinner. I had bought a swim skin just for Kona (not wetsuit legal as too warm) but decided against it because of the sun burn and it was cutting into me anyway. I was worried when you added the salt water it would basically just chaff really badly and cause pain. I showered, applied numbers and a layer of sunscreen. I went to bed at 7am with an alarm for 2:30 but as usual slept terribly.

My family had to be at the VIP check-in for 5am and I had 7:20 start so we left at 4:30 for the one mile walk down from the condo. On the walk down I commented on how tired and achy I felt. I’m not sure if it was just the sunburn, had been a busy week or was starting to come down with the cold I’ve been fighting ever since we left Kona on Tuesday.

I had just got an Apple Watch Ultra and decided to test it at this event. I put it in low battery mode and turned off cellular. In my tests it would lose about 5% power an hour during exercise which meant it should handle even the worst day!

Once we hit the village we separated, and I went to transition. You had no access to your gear bags but could put nutrition on your bike (a Gatorade and water for me) and I pumped up my tires to 80psi. I switched to tubeless 25’s which means they run at a lower pressure. I also noticed everyone else had a swim skin, boooooo.

There were huge lines for the toilets but I figured the hotel would have urinals in their bathroom which they did and could bypass the lines so that was a great time saver. At 6am I joined the corral to start lining up. I saw Robert who had participated Thursday who advised to get up near the start as with such big waves may not even get to the start line on time in the water so followed that advice.

At about 7:10 they got my wave into the water where you swam about 100 yards to what is the starting point in the ocean with people on surf boards making sure you hold the line. I went to the far left and back a bit as I knew everyone else would be faster than me. I saw my family in one of the boats, which was really cool and we waved and blew kisses! You trod water for about 10 minutes until it was go time via the air horn. My wife took these pictures of me.

My legs felt pretty heavy, and it was a tough swim. This was my first ever 2.4 without a wet suit and the salt water was not as buoyant as I had hoped. There were also two waves starting after me which as a slow swimmer I knew would catch me about halfway. Sure enough at the turnaround point that caught me and for 5 minutes I was thrown around, punched in the face, kicked and generally abused. I like to think by accident. The water was clear but I didn’t get to see that many cool underwater things because I was too busy trying to sight the buoys (which I struggled with in the choppy waves) and generally focusing on how miserable I was and how much longer would I be miserable 😀

Remember this is the world championship. Nearly everyone there is there because they won age group events and the older men and all women (most also faster than me) were Thursday. The only people that would be slower than me would be other legacy athletes and even among them I was likely slower. My expectation is I would be last out the water and maybe last on the day. I wasn’t but was pretty close to last out the water as the empty bike transition attested. The swim was VERY slow, 1 hour and 42 minutes. My worst ever by a lot. The swim skin may have helped slightly if I had had it on, but that wetsuit clearly helps me a lot normally (as I’m normally 90 minutes)!

I would like to say this is how I looked exiting.

But it was not. These were from the Wednesday photo day. What I actually looked like was:

At the transition I saw my family again as I got my gear bag which was awesome. I put on more sunscreen, shirt, nutrition and grabbed my bike and out I went. As I exited the tent the sun came out. Grr.

There was some wind outbound against you, but I just felt tired. The swim took a lot out of me and honestly with the sunburn, lots of activity all week I was just a bit spent and first few hours were tough. It was very lonely since nearly everyone was in front and as very high caliber athletes I was not catching many people.

On the plus side I only stopped to pee twice 😀 All the aid stations had lots of supplies and even though they were every 15ish miles because of a lack of volunteers (an issue this year because of the 2-day event) it was not an issue and I changed water and Gatorade at every aid station and got a new gel when needed.

The headwind became a tailwind on the way back and I started to feel some strength coming back. The view of the ocean was great but you were basically on a highway for 112 miles surrounded by volcanic rock.

Total time was 6:11 which I was OK with but my average power was very low, around 160 which I think was just a function of how lousy I felt for the first half.

T2 was very slow as I knew my hands had got burnt on the bike as had my legs and was trying to apply lots of sunscreen which at this point could not do much. I had tried to apply more sunscreen during the bike but it did nothing.

Once again I would like to say these were pictures of me during the run.

But once again these were from Wednesday. Most pictures from the actual event would be me jogging, power walking lol.

I saw my family outside our condo on the way out at about mile 1.3 and again at about 5 and they made little signs and it was awesome seeing them.

If the bike seemed lonely the run was even more lonely. At about 6pm it got dark and many of the roads were not lit so I was running alone and in pitch black for large sections. They did warn us up front to have a headlamp if would be finishing late which I ignored although it was OK. You could see the white road line and the roads were in good condition so no tripping up etc. They had started to collapse the aid stations towards the end but still had all the supplies.

I jogged/walked at the start but the day just took its toll and had to power walk most of the last 16 miles but about 10 of those were with someone else power walking so that was nice!

My legs sunburn hurt, my feet hurt and I felt horrible and just tired but at mile 25 that all went away which was all downhill. I just started running and that final stretch down Ali’i Drive with everyone cheering made all the pain go away. Soon would get to see my family again and realize a huge goal.

Hearing Mike call out my name was amazing and then seeing my family waiting to place the beads round my neck was just the best.

You then went and got your morning clothes bag, finisher shirt, hat, medal and athlete finish coin.

You got your picture taken and then food was available in the recovery area but I skipped that to rejoin my family and grab my bike and gear bags. We hobbled to Tri Bike (which was on way to the condo), dropped off the bike then made it back where I collapsed into the chair begging for chocolate milk and pizza.

The Ultra watch was at 19% and for the last mile I turned on cellular so my family got better tracking on me. The only issue I had with the watch was at one point it asked me to confirm I was still training (rude) and at the end the screen was locked stopping me ending the workout. I think it was a mix of water and sleep lock. Holding down the crown eventually fixed it. I had it in manual mode between elements of the triathlon and not automatic as I worried if you paused on the bike it would think you entered T2. You can’t end workout with the action button which I think is a mistake but you do use the action button to switch between phases and to start. Overall, even if it took 17 hours to complete the battery would have lasted. The only other thing I don’t like is the activity details are only available on the phone and not via PC which is why all the detail shots are phone screenshots.

End state!

As usual I got no sleep that night and at 12:30 got out of bed and watched the recording of the pro race. My legs were not that bad Sunday mainly because I just didn’t stress them during the marathon as I just felt so crappy. For the next 2 days we took it pretty easy and headed home Tuesday. Kona airport was fine if pretty minimal. We made our connecting flight even though we were a little late and had to run between the terminals and somehow even our bags still made it!!! The LAX to DFW flight was a bigger plane and we had little mini cabins each with fold flat seats like international business class so that was awesome and the kids thought was the greatest thing ever. It was on this flight I really started to feel pretty sick which is why only posting this race report so late, been feeling under the weather since been back.

Did I have the day I wanted? No, not at all. I had done quite a bit of running ahead of this Kona to condition my legs. I had done a lot of cycling and was in great shape. I hadn’t swum enough but I was OK with that. I had hoped to PR at Kona but was obviously far from it. It was just not my day. Whether it was just an off day, the sunburn, the fact it had been a hectic week and I just started the day tired, the start of my cold, maybe everything it was far from my dream day. But I finished like many other of my past IRONMANs. I toughed it out and completed the goal, to take part in Kona and finish number 22. 8 years in the making and definitely once in a lifetime.

And with that this was my swan song for Ironman. I have achieved the goal and I think now it’s time to focus on a different set of challenges. I want to spend some time focusing more on my weightlifting. I want to do the Leadville 100 trail run in 2023. I’ll always find some other crazy thing but my desire to swim-bike-run was completed with Kona.

As always I couldn’t have done this without the support of my amazing wife Julie and it was great she and the kids were there for this one and medaled me at the end. Thank you!! Xoxo

🤙 Mahalo

Ironman Alaska

This is the inaugural year of Ironman Alaska, being held in the capital Juneau. This would be my third Ironman of 2022 (after Texas and St George) and my 21st overall. I’ve never been to Alaska so was excited to be traveling somewhere new. Leading up to the event there had been some stress from participants related to lodging (some limited hotel space but in the end many locals rented out rooms or entire homes) and bike transport (I used TriBike Transport which was awesome as always) but I think it worked out well for nearly everyone.

As it turned out there was another stress, temperature, specifically of the swim :). As we got closer the weather reports were getting worse. Lots of talk of cold temperatures and something called an “atmospheric river” which conjured up visions of solid walls of water falling from the sky but the locals said “we call that rain”. The real concern was the swim was looking like it could be close to 55 degrees with even colder air temperatures.

I had planned to use my sleeveless wetsuit with the extra arm sleeves like for St George however that was 63 degrees. I panicked so on the Tuesday before leaving I rented a sleeved wetsuit from PlayTri and also had an O’Neil thermal shirt. Obviously hugely breaking the “nothing new on race day” but worth it. I already had thermal booties, extra under cap and silicon ear plugs. I had to get an XXL as when I tried on the XL at the store the seam on the arm ripped 😦 They were very nice about it and only commented “you are not built for triathlon and you are not built for our wetsuits”. I also bought a Gore-Tex very light jacket and gloves for the bike and potentially the run.

I flew out on Thursday (for the Sunday event) using Alaska Air which I’d never flown before but they were AWESOME. The food was great, pancakes with sausage at breakfast and a great chicken sandwich at lunch. The view as we approached Juneau was amazing and as we were landing it felt like the mountains were right next to you.

View from the plane

I’d arranged for a car to pick me up from the airport and they were kind enough to quickly take me to the athlete village which was at the high school so I could check-in, collect my race packet, chip and backpack before heading downtown (about 10 miles South) where I was staying at the Baranof hotel. It was in the car where I learnt that Juneau had a temperate rainforest which is why it rained so much there. I also learnt it was in 4 different climate systems which is why you never know what the weather is actually going to be. What it was predicting as I arrived on Thursday was heavy rain (the atmospheric river) for Friday and Saturday and maybe into Sunday. The water temperature for the swim was around 60 but was dropping.

The hotel was basic but clean. Everyone was very friendly which would continue for the entire trip. The locals were amazing. The nicest and most welcoming people you will ever meet. The room was very small but quiet. It didn’t have a fridge which was a disappointment and the reception said they didn’t have any. No chocolate milk for John. I headed to the grocery store which was only 1/2 mile walk away. Grabbed water, sports drinks and a few other things. On the walk back I grabbed a cheeseburger from a street truck, had a little wander around the local stores (where weed was very popular) and back to the room where I went to sleep at 6pm. Remember Juneau is 3 hours behind Texas and I wanted to try and stay as close to Texas time as I could.

Slept great. Got up about 2am and went down to the little gym. Did some running and biking then lifted what weights they had then went for a little walk outside and took a picture of the scenery which was great. During the day there was about 3 big cruise ships where the people would tour Juneau for the day.

I had nothing to really do on Friday since I’d already checked in at registration and bike and bag drop off was Saturday (since a Sunday race). All I wanted to do was go to transition to check my bike had arrived safely. The start, T1, T2 and finish were all at the University campus next to Auke lake which was away from the athlete village (which was unusual) however IRONMAN were running shuttles every 15 minutes from downtown both to the athlete village and then to the transition. This was very well run and I barely ever had to wait. I grabbed the shuttle to transition which dropped you off at the end of a very long road. From the shuttle drop off it was 1/2 mile to the actual transition area. It was raining but I handled it like a champ (not). This would not be the last time I would be in the rain.

My first walk to transition from the shuttle drop off

My bigger concern was doing this walk AFTER the IRONMAN on Sunday but oh well. Got to the transition. TriBike Transport had my bike, I quickly peddled it around to test the brakes (which barely worked in the rain) and could change gear then gave it back to them (since I had no way of getting it back downtown). I then walked down to the swim start (which was about 1/3 mile walk downhill which clearly meant would be 1/3 mile uphill after the swim to transition). Many people were doing test swims and most were saying “It’s cold when you get in but after 100 yards really not bad”. My preparation consisted of putting my hand in the water at the edge and going “brrrrr”. I also stuck my head under the cold shower in the hotel for about 3 seconds but decided that sucked and why punish myself multiple times. I’d just suffer on the day. 🙂 I figured with my long sleeve wetsuit, thermal shirt under I’d be fine. I walked back up to transition then back to the shuttle where a shuttle was waiting and back to downtown.

For lunch I went to Salt where I had amazing French Onion Soup then cheeseburger and fries. Not my normal diet pre IRONMAN but my options were limited and I could find no where to get pasta. Back to the hotel where I did a little bit of work, recorded my weekly Azure update while sitting on the bed as my room had no usable desk then Dominos pizza for dinner. Then to sleep at 5pm which was glorious.

Didn’t wake up till about 4am which was just fantastic as I knew I’d get little sleep for the next 2 nights. I went for a little walk then packed my bike and run transition bags. It was looking very likely the swim would be around 55 and was going to be raining for most of the day. My focus was on finishing the event and didn’t really care about transition times. I therefore was going to wear swim trunks under the wetsuit, I would then change into tri shorts and bike shirt and then at the run would change again into run shorts, thermal long sleeve shirt, fresh socks. I packed my transition bags accordingly. My bike bag also had my gore-Tex rain jacket and gloves and planned to continue the gore-Tex jacket onto the run as well. No food was allowed in the bags overnight as they would attract Yogi and Boo Boo so the food would be added the next morning where we would have access to bike and bags.

I walked to the shuttle, headed to transition, got my bike from TriBike transport (which was soaking wet), put my bike stickers on (forgot a towel so was not great) and dropped everything off. As usual I wrote my number on all my transition bags in addition to the sticker which was especially critical as most likely the stickers would be falling off with the non-stop rain.

After dropping everything off I walked back to the shuttle for downtown. Then Salt again for onion soup and cheeseburger (yes, still terrible as pre IRONMAN food but still limited options), watched some movies then Domino’s pizza again for dinner. Went to sleep at 6. I planned to get up at 2am and leave the room at 4am however I woke up about 11pm and never really went back to sleep.

Shuttles were due to start at 4:15 to transition which opened at 4:30 but I left the room at 3:50 and when I got to the shuttle stop at 4 the shuttles were already there and I got to transition at 4:20 ish. The little 5 minute walk and then time to get ready for the planned 6am start.

Pumped my tires up to 90 PSI based on the expected wet roads. Put some drinks on my bike and added nutrition to my bike and run bags. The transition tent was open so I went in and boy was it heated. Must have been 110 degrees. I put on my booties and wetsuit (I was already wearing swimming trunks and thermal shirt). I walked down to the swim start where I put in my silicon ear plugs, double cap and put Vaseline on my face and hands as I had read that while it would rinse off it would lessen any initial cold water shock. There was also talk of pouring water down the suit before entering but didn’t do that. They were obviously very concerned about people panicking in the cold as they kept announcing “take your time starting”, “exhale as you first put head in the water”.

At around 5:45 Mike Reilly made an announcement “This is an important announcement for the athletes. The water temperature is the coldest measured all week, 56 degrees, and with guidance from our governing body the swim will be a single loop of 1.2 miles. We will start at 6:30 instead of 6:00 and total time available for the Ironman will be 15:50”. Not going to lie, I was pretty relieved as I had been very concerned about the cold. Some around were disappointed but most seemed to agree it was the right call. After the event I heard the volunteers state that the last 1/3 of the people getting out would never have made another lap.

The 15:50 adjusted total time was because the swim normally has 2:20 to complete so when halved you remove 1:10 from the normal 17 hours. Later on they actually changed their minds and the time allowed was the full 17 hours which caused a fair amount of confusion. I’m assuming they extended it because the transition times were so long because of the cold and rain and didn’t want a DNF of 50%.

At the delayed 6:30 they started to get people into the water. They let in 2 people every 5 seconds. That is very spread out compared to the regular 4-5 every 3 seconds. I think this was to give people more time to adjust to the cold and not feel pressured. Also it was a fairly small amount of participants giving them more flexibility. Out of the 914 that checked in only 832 actually started the swim. A typical IRONMAN may easily have 1,500 or more.

Auke lake

People self seeded based on their estimated swim time. I got in the 1:30 group. As I entered the water I quickly got my face in and yes it was cold, but honestly not that bad. My body never got cold for the entire swim and even my face and hands were fine. I was slow, took me 49 minutes compared to my normal 45 based on 90 minute full. I swam a very different line than normal. I did start out on the outside but somehow I found myself quickly on the inside of the buoys (yes I was that idiot that swam across everyone) and quickly had to adjust but I then just swam directly between the buoys which made sighting very easy. The visibility above water was great, under water you couldn’t see much however the water tasted like bottled water but I was careful not to drink much knowing that many in front of me had peed in it! The swim was very easy. A few people bumped into me but less than normal and was no biggy at all. The second half of the swim felt very fast and ended in no time. I think I would have been OK if it had been the normal 2 loops given I didn’t feel cold at all after the 1 loop but who knows. Could have gone down hill and I also had the thermal shirt etc so many would have been in a worse position.

Then the about 1/3 mile run uphill to transition. I didn’t take my wetsuit off at water edge, instead stayed in it to avoid getting cold during the hike to transition. The tent was PACKED but still very warm and I was pretty slow, I think total was 23 minutes which included the hike and then just getting the wetsuit off, getting dressed in bike kit then grabbing bike and heading out. The bike was two loops along the highway.

I think it started to rain nearly straight away as I got on the bike. Lucky I had purchased a gore-Tex rain jacket and gloves which were awesome. The rain didn’t cause many problems as the route was completely straight with only the turnaround for the two loops meaning minimal braking or turning. That part was great. The course itself was tough. It was never flat. It was up or down. About 1/3 of each loop was this chip seal road which made it tougher. Couple with rain and wind made for a tough bike ride. You often shared the road with cars that while considerate was a little close at times.

At about mile 25 I felt like I was sinking and soon was nearly kneeing myself in the face. Yep, saddle had fallen down. I just had it serviced so thanks a lot for that 🙂 I stopped and about 5 minutes later had raised it and off I went but had not raised it enough so shortly after stopped again and had to move it. Also my left shoe was having trouble clipping in which was causing issues and snapped out a few times. Time for new cleats on my shoes I think! Had to stop to pee a bunch of times (no clue what is going on) but overall I found the ride fine. There were a lot of false flats/declines but really didn’t find the ride particularly hard. It was hard to maintain power as was always up or down but my normalized power was around 217 I think. The rain made it a little miserable and you were really focusing on the road so I missed a lot of the amazing scenery. The aid stations were always well stocked and the volunteers were fantastic. Off the charts energy from everyone.

I think my left peddle power is off so much because of the pedal problems.

6:43:17 was my bike time which I was happy with given the toughness of the course and the mechanical issues. My bike was just caked in mud. They had cloths in transition but could do little against the muck all over my legs 🙂 Into completely dry kit and put my jacket back on (but not the gloves). As soon as I started running I had a pretty bad pain in my quad making me limp. I quickly applied some deep heat (had 2 little sachets with me) and after a few minutes it went away. My plan was to jog the downhills and some flat but walk the uphills. I figured this would nicely mix up running and walking but that was not the case. This run course was some kind of mystical MC Escher course and it seemed like you were always going downhill or flat so i was always jogging. This was of course impossible.

The run course.

After a couple of miles I came across another runner doing the same as me, Matthew, and we ran together for much of the first 16 miles which was great to have someone to talk to. It rained on and off for the entire run. When it stopped running I would take off the jacket and tie round my waist.

Start of the run
Someone to talk to!

The run was two loops and 2 of those miles each loop were through an enchanted forest which was beautiful. There was not aid during that portion but it warned you ahead of time so you could grab extra drink etc. There was even a rainbow at one point during the run. I think Mike Reilly was at the end of it.

Enchanted forest segment

After running much of the first 16 miles I walk/jogged the next 10. In the end my run time was just under 5:45 and was happy with that. Like the bike course the run had great aid support and had equally awesome volunteers.

Run stats

Mike Reilly was there to call me over the line and I even gave him a fist bump as I crossed the line. The medal was huge and awesome and then they gave you your finisher shirt and hat. My total time was 13:51:48 and it felt great to finish. I came in the top half of my division, gender and overall but I never care that much about that. I felt I gave a good effort and am proud of the accomplishment. They had pizza and other food available. I grabbed my morning clothes bag, my gear bags and bike. I dropped the bike at TriBike then took the long walk to the shuttle where one was waiting, to downtown, walk to hotel then into the shower to try and clean off the dirt caked all over me. Had a bagel for dinner as nothing else was open and a bunch of protein bars.

Someone posted this on Facebook.

As usual I couldn’t sleep. I think I drifted off around 1:30 and was woken up by my alarm at 2am as a taxi was picking me up at 3am for my 5:20 flight home!

In the end 725 finished out of the 839 who actually started. Which is a pretty normal DNF rate I think. If they had not halved the swim and not increased the time available to 17 hours likely would have been much lower number of finishers which would not have looked good for the inaugural event. I know some people are grumbling about the change to 17 hours not being clear mid way through but ultimately the “standard” time would have been 15:50 given the shortened swim so anything above that would be a bonus that should not be relied upon.

Overall it was an amazing event. Juneau is a small town but it really got behind the event and I really can’t think of an IRONMAN I have done that had better support. Huge congrats to the entire team, volunteers and town. Thank you for having us!

IRONMAN World Championship St George 2022

I booked this when it was just IRONMAN St George and then it became the World Championship as once again Corona virus blocked Kona (which I was supposed to be at 2020 and 2021 for my legacy slot). When it became the World Championship you were given the option to stay or transfer. I of course stayed! This is the first time ever the World Championship was outside of Hawaii and the course at St George is tougher with 7500 feet of elevation gain on the bike and 1500 on the run. Add to that the heat and the wind, wow. In for a treat!

St George Utah sits at about 3000 feet so a little altitude but really not too bad and its super dry with very little humidity which makes it easy to dehydrate. My uber driver on the way from the airport said “electrolytes, lots of electrolytes”. The weather forecast was around 90 degrees and windy. Great, sounded just like Ironman Texas I had completed 2 weeks earlier (so yes was still a bit fatigued from that!). The practice swim was cancelled because of high wind so something everyone kept an eye on.

I stayed at the Advenire hotel which was 5-minute walk from the IRONMAN village and finish line and it was a great hotel. I arrived on Wednesday afternoon for the Saturday race to give me a buffer from any travel issues.

I quickly checked in and went to the village for athlete check-in and to buy stuff. The Athlete store was at the entrance of the village and only once you went through the store could you walk through the rest of the village and to athlete check-in. It was grander in scale than any regular IRONMAN I had done and it was exciting to be in the midst of it but I suspect Kona will be another level completely. I bought some event swag like t-shirts, water bottles, name towels then headed to athlete check-in.

You were given your number ahead of the event unlike other events where your number is allocated at check-in. It was all digital and very fast. As you entered check-in YOU GOT A COIN!! Yay.

You were given your bracelet, packet with two bibs (one to keep, one to use on run), extra event sticker and then went and picked up the backpack which had all the other gear bags and goodies in it including towel, luggage tag and poster (but no flag). You did NOT get your chip, that would be at bike check-in Friday.

I walked over to TriBike Transport and picked up my bike then back to the hotel. I walked over to Pizza Factory, had dinner then back to the room. There was a huge amount of talk on Facebook about the cold water of the swim, the 60-degree temperature and I started to panic. On Amazon I quickly ordered a second swim cap (so could double cap) and silicon ear plugs which I overnighted to the hotel. Thank you Amazon! Then to sleep.

Thursday was an easy day as I really had nothing to do. I had a great breakfast of egg whites and pancakes, I had a burger at the hotel for lunch and baked ziti at Pasta Factory for dinner. I was playing loose with my normal plan of pasta and chicken for my meals. I would regret this Saturday! I did take some pictures around the M-dot statue.

The only thing I had to do Thursday was to put on my bike stickers and drop back off at TriBike Transport. They were providing a T1 shuttle where they would take your bike to T1 and then have a bus Friday to take you there to do the actual bike and bike gear bag check-in. I did lay out all my gear and put in the clear gear bags. The bags were smaller than the regular bags for other events so was a bit of a squeeze for my bike gear!

Friday was bike, and gear bag check-in. You already selected times in advance online but they never enforced them. I had picked 7am run bag check-in and 8am bike and bike gear check-in. The bike was point-to-point so T1 and T2 were different locations.

I walked to T2 to drop off my run bag at 7am then walked to tri bike transport for the shuttle at 7:30 which arrived at 8am at T2. I got my bike from TriBike then dropped off at T2 and bag in the transition tent. The swim looked like a really nice location.

Then 8:30 shuttle back for lazyish day with just a few work calls. What was nice is both T1 and T2 were in tents so your gear bags were in the shade.

Lunch was ziti again then pizza for dinner. That evening I showered, put on sunscreen then my tri-tats and tried to sleep. I didn’t sleep well at all.

Saturday was the big day. The shuttles were based on swim time based on age. I was the last wave for males so 4:30 bus boarding for 7:30 swim start. I left the room at 4:15 so got up at 2:30. There were lots of school buses and it took about 40 minutes to get to the start/T1. Once there you did not have access to transition bags but you could access the bikes. I pumped them up to 95 psi then just relaxed. I chatted to a few people about random Ironman things. As usual I stopped sipping the Powerade 90 minutes before start time and had my gel and 5-hour energy 60 minutes before along with a final potty visit 🙂 This routine seems to work well for me.

Straying from my pasta and chicken for 2 days prior for lunch and dinner and pizza for final dinner taught me a lesson. My stomach was a little dodgy at the start of the day and some during but not too bad. Live and learn. Back to my strict eating in future!

Much talk had been made of the swim and how cold it was, 59 degrees leading up. On the morning it was 64 degrees, still cold. I only have a sleeveless wetsuit but had purchased extra neoprene partial arm covers and as mentioned had my double gap and ear plugs. I also put on my neoprene booties.

The swim was in waves based on gender and age. Within those waves which started at set times 6 people were let in every 10 seconds. I was in the last male wave and seated myself in the middle. As I got in the water it was a little shock of cold but not too bad, at least not initially. The swim course was basically an out and back with a turn but you swam to the left of the buoys except for the final part. This was hard for me as I always breath to the left so it meant I had to constantly sight lifting up my head making my neck get sore. Also the wind started to pick up so was pretty choppy water. Near the start of the swim I thought a boat went past me as something very fast went past creating a wake. Nope, was a human being!!! It was insane! Aquaman does IRONMAN apparently.

As the swim progressed my wetsuit clearly is not very well fitting as cold water kept flooding in so I never got warm and was steadily getting colder. Near the end my body was shivering and I kept trying to bunch my fingers to try and warm them up a little. I didn’t work and when I eventually finished at 1:38 I was shuddering. On the plus side the double cap and ear plugs worked great. Normally I swim 90 minutes so I was a lot slower. Not sure if that’s the booties, my body just not doing as well in the cold, not swimming straight because of sighting issues. There were wet suit strippers as you exited to help and then into the transition tents where there were lots of volunteers. They had to help me tighten my shoes as I didn’t have control of my frozen hands 🙂 I was looking forward to the bike just to warm up.

At the start of the bike I had my usual challenge of having to overtake people as I’m much stronger bike than swim AND I started last in the men however not as bad as usual as it was overall a high standard of athlete given the world championship status and most were age group winners of other events. There were a few people just riding the left and I’d have to shout out “on your left” however this was only the first 10 miles. One disappointment was the gel at aid stations. Aid station 1 only had only with caffeine and stations 2 and 3 had NONE! Pretty bad but luckily I carried a few for just this type of situation but I was panicking a little. Later aid stations DID have the gels still.

The bike had crazy elevation gain, 7500 feet. It was always up or down, you were constantly changing gears but really got brutal once you hit around mile 65 ish. I knew this so was holding back at the start to ensure I had energy for the hills. On the big ascents I would drop to my lowest gear but kept pushing the button hoping that if I pushed enough times another secret, emergency only gear would appear and help. It didn’t. Many people were pushing their bikes up the hills, many others were zig-zagging across the road (to reduce the slope) and to the credit of the marshals those people were given penalties for dangerous behavior, at least some of them. I was able to ascend fairly comfortably though in the bottom gear. I would stand occasionally for maybe 30 seconds just to stretch my legs.

A big part of the elevation gain were two huge ascents. On the first huge ascent there was someone in front of me with “Don’t Give Up” written on the back of their shirt vertically. As he was bent over as I was approaching him all I could see was “Give Up”. Tempting 🙂 I had not driven the course (I never do) nor really studied it so I was never sure when the ascent part was finished and I kept thinking “this must be the end” but nope, little flat bit then up again. It seemed to last forever!

The benefit of huge ascents are huge descents however in addition to the hills it was hot (around 90) and also a lot of wind. This came into play during the descents as what goes up must come down. You had cross wind gusts that would try to push you over. I didn’t care. I worked for my uphill and was going to reap the reward of the downhill. I tucked into aero and tried to make myself as small as possible. I also willed myself to have all my weight going straight down to be impossible to knock over 🙂 It seemed to work as I bombed down both the huge two descents getting up to 46.5 mph. Weeeeeeee

The combination of the hills, elevation overall (3000 feet base), heat, lack of humidity and wind made it very tough. I was very happy with my 6:29 time but I think I was under hydrated by the end that would hit me on the run. My average power was low but its a function of times I was not peddling at all, then just hard to judge what to do with the unknowns. I was doing about 220-230 up the hills.

My huge fear was true when I got to the run transition tent. My hook was empty. Um. I looked on hooks around and found my gear. I assume someone picked up mine by mistake then found theirs and put mine back on theirs. Thanks for nothing 🙂

I had a stitch at start of the run so struggled to maintain any kind of run/walk. My mouth constantly felt dry, no matter what I drank I could not get quench it. Also I couldn’t get my heart rate where I wanted it. Tried to run/walk and then power walk with occasional runs. The entire run my stomach didn’t feel right and just complete dry mouth. I couldn’t stand the thought of Gatorade or gels in the later half. I think I got dehydrated during the bike and never could recover. I suspect the same for many people. During the run there were huge numbers of people vomiting, I assume it was the heat.

The bike course was hilly, so was the run course with 1500 feet of elevation gain. Most was not shaded and just hot for the entire first loop of the two-loop course. I made it through and had plenty of time so was not worried about not finishing in time.

There was some confusion about time people had. About 75 people got pulled off course during the last 6 miles of the run when they had plenty of time. To IRONMAN credit they made it right and adjusted them to a finish time and are sending them medal/swag.

I finished in 6:09:33 for a total of 14:41:24. Pretty slow but given how tough the course was and the conditions I was happy!

At the end you got your medal which was huge and awesome. It was so heavy it almost hurt my chest as it bounced when I walked. Then you got your t-shirt, hat, got your finisher picture taken and on your way.

There was a food tent but they had run out of cheese pizza and only had stone cold pepperoni. They also had some kind of chicken and rice. I threw the pizza away, got my morning clothes and T1 bag then was directed to pickup the T2 bag and bike from the T2 location. It was late, I was tired so just took my bike back to my room for drop off at Tri Bike Transport Sunday morning. The first thing I did in the hotel was go to the restaurant and order a cheeseburger and fries for room delivery which was awesome!

In the end the DNF rate was 21.9%. Very high compared to the normal DNF which is about 10% I think. Overall I’m happy with my bike time on such a tough course and even my overall time is not too bad for such a tough course on a tough day.

The amazing volunteers throughout the entire course really were the best and it was just an amazing event. The town was amazing, the people amazing. Just a great experience. THANK YOU EVERYONE and kudos to IRONMAN for organizing something so special.

As always I couldn’t sleep a wink. Combination of stress on the body, adrenaline, lots of caffeine and sugar. At 6:30 I left the room to get a medal picture by the M-dot statue then queued for the store to buy one of every finisher item. $500 later my shopping was complete.

I walked to a bakery to buy a sandwich for lunch as I knew the tiny airport had no food then went back to the room until I ubered to the airport. There my Uber driver was an amazing 84 year old. He was the baby in Gone with the Wind, was married to Raquel Welch and basically Ubers to get out the house now during his wife’s medical care. Amazing! He told stories about being friends with Fred Astaire and also when he was 11 Clark Gable drove him in a jaguar and noted they snuck the jaguar into the portrait at the very bottom in the middle!! You can see it.

So my first World Championship of the year! Now on to Alaska then Kona. Time to work on my swim and run.

IRONMAN Texas 2022 Race Report

The one with all the wind

Well, IRONMAN full distance number 19 done and overall I think it went well and enjoyed a fair amount of it despite what was a tough day during the bike portion.

This was my sixth time taking part in IRONMAN Texas (2015,16,17,18 and 19 done previously) so I felt very comfortable with the course and logistics (which are very simple) which helped minimize stress ahead of time. Leading up to the event the weather looked good in terms of temperature, maybe 85 high and no rain. It looked likely it would be wetsuit legal. All good. As the days got closer it was looking like it was going to be windy though. That is not good for the completely exposed 80 miles on the toll road. This would end up ruining the day for many people!

Prior to the event an athlete check-in time was selected online via the Active website. As normal the check-in was available on Wednesday and Thursday (3 and 2 days prior to the event day). You also received a QR code via email that you presented at the onsite check-in. You were not told your bib number ahead of time. Like 2021 they are allocated at athlete check-in which also means your name is not on the bib.

I arrived at the Woodlands about 10am and even though my scheduled check-in time was 1pm I checked in straight away and they didn’t say a word. It’s all digital now, no more paper forms. You show your QR code and ID and that’s it. If you had any waivers to sign you sign them on the iPads the volunteers have. First they gave you your chip. Then you walked to another table and they fetched a packet, I was 1004, just 3 away from my dream 1007 (Bond, James Bond) and they were going to switch if for me but they had already scanned it. So close. They put on my wrist band, quickly ran through the packet content, wrote number on a swim cap then I went on and collected the event back bag, the 5 event plastic bags for gear and yes the flag was back! Awesome. This whole process was less than 5 minutes.

As you exited you picked up a ticket for the bike and gear check-in time on Friday. This was to simply spread people out but as it turns out they didn’t pay any attention to this at all.

The exit from check-in did not lead straight to the merchandise store which is the norm but I walked through the village and bought a few things. They did not already have the finisher gear out which they did for the races in 2021. And that was it. All told I was there for about 15 minutes. I did run into Kevin who I chatted to at Ironman Tulsa in 2021 and was nice to catch up and we grabbed a bite to eat that evening. I really just relaxed the rest of the day. Pasta and chicken for lunch then egg white omelette, potatoes and toast for dinner at Cheesecake Factory (it just sounded really good). To bed at 7:30.

I slept well and woke up around 3am (my usual). I did a bit of work, laid all the gear out for the bike and run bag. Put stickers on the bags, bike and helmet, packed up the bags and got things ready to take to the bike and gear check-in at transition at 10am. It’s just shy of a mile walk from the finish/athlete village so I set out about 9:30 and they never asked to see the check-in time ticket. They didn’t take pictures of the bikes this time (like they have at previous Ironmans). You just racked your bike then gave the volunteers your bike and run bag at the two bag stations (you didn’t place them on the floor yourself in the rough position like at other events). Like athlete check-in it was very fast and efficient.

It is a shared T1 (swim to bike) and T2 (bike to run). The swim is a point-to-point with an out and back for about 1.5 miles then the remaining down a canal to get to transition.

I bought a few things at the HEB opposite the transition then walked back to the hotel. I had to have lunch in the room (was staying at the Westin which is at the finish line) as I had a work call so did room service pasta which a chicken breast on the side which while tasty was a tiny portion of pasta so was still hungry. I had bought some little Debbie oatmeal crème pies which I intended to eat during the bike so a couple of those helped numb the hunger 😀

I watched some movies and then had my traditional pre-race evening pizza for dinner. I wanted to try something new with my goggles that often fog up so I sprayed the anti-fog solution on and decided to just let it evaporate over night and not mess with it again. Totally worked! Back at the room I showered, applied a layer of sunscreen then put on my race tattoos. Chatted to my family then to sleep. While I woke up a few times I actually slept the best I ever have before an Ironman and got up feeling pretty good at 3am when my alarm went off.

I ate a bagel and drank a chocolate milk (my regular pre-training food) then browsed Facebook etc. I saw a great post with a way of thinking about the day:

“Make your race a playground not a proving ground”

I really liked that and decided to make that my motto for the day. I would focus on enjoying it. Transition opened up at 5am and so I decided to leave the room at 4:30. I packed my drinks to put on the bike and had a Powerade I would sip on till about an hour before I was due to start and another half a bagel to nibble on. I also had my gel and 5 hour energy I would take 45 minutes before due to start.

I walked down to transition and even though it was not 5 it was already open. I went straight to my bike, they had the regular technicians and bike pumps available but my bike neighbor offered me his pump so I pumped both tires up to just below 100, put on the drinks and set off on the 1 mile walk to the swim start which is a pleasant enough, easy walk and helps you relax. At the transition they also announced water temperature was 75 and wetsuit legal. Woo hoo!

Once I got to the swim start I just hung out. The age groupers were starting at 6:40 and it was the regular self-seeding into 10 minute groups based on your estimated swim time. I always swim 90 minutes so go to the 1:21 to 1:30 group at the back. This means I would be getting in the water about 7am. Within each group they let in 4 people every 4 seconds (or something like that). It helps spread everyone out and takes a lot of the stress out of the swim. It’s also a very wide course so its easy to just swim on the outside (which is what I do) to avoid most people. It was a very clear day so sighting was super easy. At 6:15 I put on my wetsuit, dropped off my morning clothes bag, ate my gel, drank my 5 hour energy and joined my swim group.

Saw this on Facebook that was taken by a photographer whose name I now can’t find 😦

I had not done a huge amount of swimming leading up to this race just because of, well, life. I had done a few 30 minute swims in the pool over the past couple of weeks and that was it. At dinner with Kevin he had given some swim tips (him being a good swimmer) that I had decided to focus on during this swim.

  • Thumb and index finger enter the water first. This then encourages elbow up since already in that direction
  • Be long, i.e. reach out for the apple then put it in your pocket as your hand exits by your hip
  • Rotate your hips with your shoulders when you breath

And that is what I did. I treated the swim as a training exercise and just tried to focus on those 3 things. I took it SUPER easy. I finished in 90 minutes as usual and felt great! The out and back in the lake was uneventful. They added an arch near the turnaround on the swim that you swam under (to make sure didn’t cheat). I also focused on keeping my head relaxed. Often on the bike my neck aches looking up and I realized a lot of it is from straining during the swim. This helped greatly during the bike portion and didn’t get a sore neck.

I kept to my plan of swimming out about 20 feet from the buoys and no one got near me. When you turned down the canal part for some reason people turned into idiots. People were swimming all over the place, I got punched in the face twice but kept telling myself they didn’t mean it and were likely stressed. The canal was dirty as ever and with each swim stroke you got stringy crap in between your fingers. I mean the main lake was solid brown and you couldn’t see anything but the canal was worse.

Emerging from the depths of gunk 🙂

One problem I commonly have on previous Ironmans was needing to pee during swim and having to pee constantly on the bike. My new sipping on Powerade and stopping hour before solved it. So thats my new routine! They had wetsuit strippers to help remove your wetsuit then a short run to grab your bike bag, into the transition tent to apply the various lubes, PR lotions and sunscreen. I took a really long time (15 minutes) but honestly not a worry for me. Lots of volunteers in the tent and most of talk was about how brutal the canal portion was with people flinging fists everywhere. They had sunscreen available in transition (1 and 2) both pumps and individual packets you could take which was great.

Then out onto the bike course which is about 22 miles to get to the Hardy toll road where you repeat 2 out and backs of 20 miles each way (so 80 miles on the toll road). The toll road surface is smooth, has a few rolling overpasses but is completely exposed. There was plenty of aid stations on the course that were well stocked and as always the volunteers were awesome. The weather forecast had not changed. It was expected to have 25mph wind coming head on for the outbound but then would be tailwind for the 20 miles back. Obviously, twice.

Sure enough as soon as you got on the toll road the wind hit you and it was pretty discouraging putting out 200 odd watts and going 13 mph. Within the first 5 miles one of the good people on their second loop shouted out “do you have bike tool?”. His aero bars had fallen off and were dangling down. I pulled over with him and spent 7 minutes getting his aero bars back on and he was on his way 🙂 7 minutes was really going to make little difference to my total time but he was very stressed. I kept telling him to relax, it’s OK, we’ll fix it. We did and he was on his way.

My repair stop and dropping a drafter on the second loop.

It took about 80 minutes to go Northbound as you battled the 20-25 mph headwind and was pretty miserable. BUT, then you turned round and weeeeeeeeeee. Many times I was going vroom vroom as I effortlessly went 30 mph and completed the southbound 20 miles in 40 minutes. Then you did another u-turn and had to repeat for another 80 minutes misery but at least you knew you had 40 minutes of awesome coming. Another bright spot was only had to stop to pee once at about 30 miles. I drank the on course Gatorade and then water with Nuun. I stuck to the planned nutrition.

  • Ate an oatmeal crème pie (170 calories) in T1
  • Half a waffle at minute 20 and 40 of the hour
  • Tootsie roll snack bar (50 calories) at minute 30 of hour
  • Mauten gel on the hour
  • Another oatmeal creme pie at mile 56 and another at T2 before the run

That’s a lot of calories. With the Gatorade likely about 400 an hour on average but I felt great. Never struggled on the bike. Heart rate never went particularly high. One good thing was while it heated up to maybe 80 on the bike, the sun was not super strong. I alternated Gatorade and water with Nuun every 10 minutes.

My cadence and power was pretty constant. Obviously my speed varied depending on if was going into the wind or had it behind me.

While the wind made things harder than usual I really didn’t find the bike that bad but I consider the bike my strongest discipline. I know some found it very tough which is likely why some people were drafting. On the second loop into the wind someone was trying to draft me which is where I went up a gear and just dropped the hammer and left him. Go cheat off someone else. There were quite a lot of people in penalty tents which was good to see. Also on the first loop because I start the swim later and am slow on the swim there are lots of slower cyclists ahead of me that I have to overtake and many of them were not staying on the right so I was constantly having to shout out “on your left” so I could get past safely. I heard 300 people DNF‘d (did not finish, i.e. had to stop) on the bike portion alone.

Vroom vroom

Once you finished the toll road portion I think it was about 8 miles on the small roads to get to the finish which was quick enough and soon I was at T2 where a volunteer took your bike for you, grabbed the run bag, into the tent (for a 10 minute transition as I reapplied sunscreen etc) then out for the run! The only real problem I had for the entire bike was sweat in my eyes. I’m going to try something different for St George with the little channel stick on brow thing.

My plan for the run was 2-minutes run, then 2-minutes walk for as long as my quads would take it! As it happened was for about 15 miles which I was very happy with. The run course is great. It’s flat and 3 loops of a very pretty course that has great crowd support and lots of aid stations each mile that were always well stocked. You also go through Hippie Hollow that the rule is you have to run through 😀

At about mile 15 I had some bio freeze applied to my quads which helped and I still attempted to run a little however I had so much time there was no danger for me and my goal was simply to come in under 6 hours which would ensure my total time was sub 14.

It was around this time I realized how brave many people are. Because my swim is OK and my bike is strong even on a bad Ironman I still have 8 hours for the marathon part meaning I can walk slow and would still have time to finish. I’m not really worried about not finishing (outside of a medical/equipment issue). There are many people who have very real concerns about not finishing in time but still push through for 17 hours. That is amazing to me and shows great strength of character!

For the run my nutrition was a Maurten gel every 2 miles along with a lick of base salt. I would drink Gatorade at the water stations and also had a little bottle I carried with water with Nuun that I would refill at the stations. I felt pretty good during the run. The last 8 miles was a lot of walking but i found someone to talk to who was walking at same pace as me which was great.

Mike Reilly was there to call me across the line, “John Savill, you are an IRONMAN”. YAY! As you crossed the finish line there were the catchers to ensure you didn’t fall over and helped you through the various stages. You got your medal, finisher shirt and hat. The medal is awesome and doubles as a belt buckle! Finisher picture and then I grabbed 2 slices of cheese pizza which I quickly devoured.

Because I travelled on my own I had to grab the morning clothes bag from the finish, walk the mile back to transition to get my bike and bags. I then tied the bags together, put them round my neck then rode the bike BACK to the finish which is where my hotel was at. Once in my room I ordered a burger from room service, drank a chocolate milk, ate a Twix, called my wife, showered then my burger arrived which I ate some of.

One first for me is I didn’t crash post event. Yes I was tired but I had no tingling lips, no body shaking. just, tired which was AWESOME! I will be sticking with my nutrition plan from this Ironman for every other!

Then to bed, which as usual offered me no sleep. I can NEVER sleep after an Ironman. I just laid in bed unable to sleep. At 2:15 I gave up. I got up, packed and by 3am was in my car where I drove back home arriving about 7am. On the way home I stopped at Buc-ees and ate 2 sausage, egg and cheese breakfast burritos.

Many people wrote about how brutal the event was. Yes, the bike was tough but overall I felt it was a great day. Obviously I live in Texas so I am more used to the heat and humidity. If you came from a colder climate then I’m sure the heat combined with the windy bike really took it out of you. I think many others I have done were far tougher because of the course or heat or other conditions. I really enjoyed this Ironman which is great as the Tulsa and Coeur d’Alene of 2021 I found pretty miserable.

In the end I think about 400 DNF’d. 2232 started and 1838 finished. Therefore about 17% DNF compared to 10% regular so definitely a high DNF.

So that’s it. Overall very happy with my performance and more importantly very happy that I enjoyed the event. As always a giant thank you to the organizers, police, other support and the amazing volunteers.

Only change for next IRONMAN is ensure get sunscreen on hands more (as they burnt) and on my back at shirt edges (as burnt there as well a little). Key wins from this IRONMAN

  • Nutrition and drinking
  • Swim technique and relax neck during swim
  • Spray goggles night before

Now, St George!!!!

IRONMAN Coeur D’Alene 2021

My second IRONMAN of 2021 (4 weeks after Tulsa), and while this got off to a rocky start (American Airlines changed terminal 3 times and then delayed the flight by 3 hours as they couldn’t find a crew) once I was actually at the Coeur D’Alene (CDA) resort (where I stayed) I quickly started to love CDA! The driver that picked me up from the airport (Steve) was just the nicest person and had lived in CDA a long time. I choose to arrive on Thursday for the Sunday event in case there were flight issues and obviously glad I did. I had registered for a 9am Friday IRONMAN registration time so it really didn’t matter what time I arrived Thursday.

A week before all talk on the forum had changed from water temperature (definitely wet suit legal, around 65) to the outside temperature which was at one point up to around 102 but in the end it was 100 degrees so, well still horrible. My plan (like Tulsa) was to basically drink water with Nuun (electrolytes) for the 3 days leading up so I would be well hydrated. Water on it’s own will actually flush out your electrolytes and they even stressed that during the athlete briefing.

This was a few days before and made me cry slightly.

Check-in at CDA resort had been online so once I arrived it took 30 seconds for them to check my name and give me my room key. Up to my room in the tower (5th floor) and WOW. The view was just amazing. I unpacked and tried to get to sleep.

I woke up at 1:15am (2 hour time difference and I normally get up at 3am CST) and hotel gym didn’t open until 6am so that was no good. I therefore decided to run outside. So at 2am I went for a 6 mile gentle run around the town and must have said to myself at least 5 times “wow, this place is beautiful”. It had lots of nice little stores, the kind you see in the movies in small towns. This is where I need to retire to! Once back to the room, showered, did a bit of work and at 5:40 went for the 1 mile walk to the Lakeside store to buy milk and a few other things (that opened at 6am). Was a nice little store and the checkout lady was very friendly and chatty.

So beautiful at 5:30 am!
I had to get a picture with the moose 🙂

Back at the room ran to they gym for 15 minutes of quick weights, attended a work meeting then had cereal. The IRONMAN village was 5 minutes from the resort so at about 8:45 I headed out for registration which was super fast. No flag, no poster and a generic back pack (booo) and like Tulsa you got your number assigned at the registration so no names on the bibs, I got 1087. You also picked up a card for bike check-in time slot for Saturday. I grabbed a 9-10.

Then through the store where bought a few things and, like Tulsa, the finisher gear was already available. Quite a few vendors in the village and then grabbed my bike from TriBike and back to the hotel counting the minutes until I could eat lunch!

Lunch was pizza at Fire Pizza which was tasty. I looked around the stores, bought some things at the dog store, toy store and candy store (for the family, honest) and then back to the hotel. On my way into the resort I saw Lionel Sanders and he was kind enough to take a selfie!

I had to record my Azure weekly update video which took about an hour to record/edit and then packed my “bags”. Now, CDA in 2021 is a “traditional” transition and this was evident (and had been communicated in advance) that there were no run or bike transition bags. You got a morning clothes bag (not really sure why) and then bike/run special needs. With a traditional transition you have a larger area at the bike rack but all you gear is just at the bike rack however you organize it. They said they had six bikes per rack instead of the normal ten to give you more space. This means you basically take everything down with you Sunday. The only thing you drop off Saturday is your bike! I always put my gear in a zip lock bag anyway so I just prepared my gear the same way. All of my nutrition is in the fridge hoping to try and keep it slightly cooler for as long as possible.

I watched the athlete briefing (there was also in person options). Dinner was spaghetti bolognese at Tito’s (and cheesy garlic bread AND the awesome garlic loaf they just brought out, so much food) and after that was just back to the hotel to relax. Sleep at 7 and hopefully up at 3.

Well, woke up at 2am and had a little 2 hour walk at about 4am and it was already starting to get light. It is because of how early it gets light IM CDA starts at 5am for the professionals and 5:35 for the age groupers. The 5:35 is to allow the pros to complete the first lap before us age groupers get in their way. I sat around watching movies then checked my bike in at 9am then proceeded to just focus on relaxing, hydrating and pizza for lunch then pasta with chicken for dinner. Like Tulsa I showered, put on my tritats and applied my first layer of sunscreen. 7pm bed time with alarm set for 2am since transition opens at 4am.

I didn’t really sleep well and at 2am got up had some chocolate milk, a blueberry bagel and just continued hydrating. I put on another layer of sunscreen and tried to relax. At 3:50 I left the room and headed to the single transition that would be home base all day! Weather forecast was still calling for 100 degrees!

This next part is after the event as I sit at the airport waiting to fly home. Brutal, that is the only word that sums it up, just brutal. The air temperature did indeed hit 100 however when you consider the roads radiate the heat (and are designed to for melting snow) the actual conditions were worse. When the pros finished (which was just as it was getting the hottest) a reporter on the local news showed the asphalt was 135 degrees so no clue what it would have been 5 hours later after 100 degrees. You were being cooked from both directions. My bike computer said it registered 109 as the max. After all the smoke cleared out of 2085 people who started the day, only 1535 finished, 26.4% DNF (did not finish) including a number of pros like Heather Jackson and Lauren Brandon. Lionel Sanders also suffered stomach issues and finished an hour behind the winner, Sam Long. The average DNF for IRONMAN is 5% (7% for Kona).

Pretty much summed up the day

But I did finish, it was just hell pretty much for the majority of the time 🙂 Let’s rewind.

You setup everything at your spot. I opted to just put my bags under my bike, I didn’t lay anything out but others laid down a towel and arranged everything ready. Whatever worked for the individual.

Great lake swim

The swim was a basically an out and back two loop affair. You get out of the water briefly between loops to run over a timing mat and then back out again (this proves you actually did 2 loops not 1). It was a self seed based on estimated finish time and they let 3 people in every 5 seconds. There was the opportunity to quickly get in the water so acclimatize then rejoin the queue if you wanted to (no thanks, I’ll just take the shock when I start :-)). The water was about 70 degrees and felt great. I had no issues in my sleeveless wet suit other than my hands getting a little cold. The water was pretty clear and overall a nice swim. I got kicked in the head pretty hard once and hit in the head once which was mainly people zigzagging around. I think everyone is a bit out of practice 🙂 I really liked the two loops, the swim felt shorter being broken up into basically 4 parts, swim out, swim back then repeat. I’m going to try and focus on that in future swims as often I have no clue how far I’ve gone nor how much further. There were great volunteers to help you out the water between loops and at the end (but like Tulsa, no wet suit strippers, you were on your own). Swim time was 45 minutes first lap and 50 the second lap. I think the second lap was slightly longer if you consider lap 2 you have to cut back over so overall I think were similar speeds.

On to the bike. My transition was very slow (15 minutes). I was taking time to apply more sunscreen etc but honestly given the projected heat I knew it was going to be a “finish” day as opposed to any time goal. The bike was two loops. There was lots of discussion about how much elevation gain there really was. Officially it was 7000, some bike computers said 5300. My watch said one number and the bike computer a completely different one but I would say it was hilly. There were a couple of very LONGGG climbs. Now what goes up must come down and you got to go down fast which was fun but you spent a lot of time going up hills. There was a do not pass section on one of the big down hills which was understandable given the bit of road we had but frustrating. I along with a few others got stuck behind someone just riding their breaks the entire time down on the first loop. They need to ride their race and it was no wrong doing for them, just sucked it impacted us 🙂

There were plenty of well stocked aid stations and made a point of replacing water and Gatorade at every aid station to get cold ones. The heat was OK on the first loop and as I started the second loop I was feeling pretty good and confident. That would not last.

Great picture from Justin Luau

It was getting hotter as I started the second loop and everything was just a bit tougher. I stuck to my nutrition and drinking (a waffle every hour and a gel every hour combined with water/Nuun and Gatorade) but for the entire second loop didn’t pee once (compared to twice on the first loop) and it did occur to me “I’m not drinking enough”. It was just harder. I wasn’t a huge amount slower but was slower. I wasn’t putting out the same power. Towards the end it was at the 100 degrees (but actually hotter because of the ground radiation) but it was very dry so you were not pouring with sweat, it just evaporated. My shorts and shirt were just crusted with salt. As I was finishing my loop 2 I saw people starting the loop and about half were pushing their bikes up the first climb. Very rarely have I seen people pushing bikes up the hills and these were not super steep, just very long and I remember feeling so sorry for these people that were going to be pushing bikes up a lot of hills in bike shoes which would be torture. My feet were hurting a little and I think they were basically cooking. But all that said I was quite happy with my bike time given the hilly course and very tough conditions. I sat for nearly the entire ride and my cadence was about 70 the entire time and tried to keep average power about 190 when peddling but obviously with all the hills there were periods much higher and periods of 0 (when I was going wheeee down hill).

At transition my leg cramped up for about 3 seconds when I lifted it over the bike to dismount but that was the only time I had any cramping in my legs (phew). Once again I took time to put on more sunscreen but my protein bar had melted into sludge and was inedible and my 5 hour energy was the temperature of coffee and not drinkable. I had put them both in a little thermal wallet so that test failed 🙂 back to the drawing board. My gel was also really hot but that I had to just take. My plan for the run was to adjust my speed to keep heart rate below 135. Well, my heart rate was 135 before starting so, yeah. Also I didn’t need to pee at T2 so I was pretty sure I was dehydrated big time so decided to walk a little to try and rehydrate but the problem is once you go into a deficit its hard to recover especially when you are still moving in 100 degree sunshine with more radiating up from the pavement under you.

My nutrition plan was a gel every 20 minutes and occasionally grab some potato chips when available. I had some Nuun to add to water in a little bottle but didn’t have many left after the bike so that was a problem. For the first hour I was able to run/walk and did the first of 3 loops in 2 hours however as I started the second loop I realized a number of things.

Firstly the crowds were amazing. The locals were so supportive. So many people were out with hoses drenching us to help cool us down. There were people giving out ice pops during loop 1 & 2 (they had gone by loop 3) and those ice pops were almost life changing events. In my head angels were singing. In total I had 2 orange and 2 grape ice pops. Those people are hero’s and statues of them handing out ice pops should be forged in bronze and put out on the lake shore to remind us of them forever. But I digress. All those amazing people with hoses soaking us was great, it helped cool us but there is something else jets of water does, it washes off all the sunscreen that was not even applying that well anyway because of how messed up my skin was. So as I started loop 2 I realized my legs, hands, back were all getting burnt. I kept applying more sunscreen but was not applying well and then could not use the hoses anymore so wasn’t cooling down. I decided not getting badly burned was more important than cooling given I got second degree sunburn during my first IRONMAN back in 2015 Texas.

The second thing I noticed was the idea of Gatorade, gels was now repulsive to me. I just didn’t want to drink Gatorade or eat gel. I knew I needed the calories but my body was just rejecting it. I could force down sips of Gatorade and a bit of gel but not much so that meant now I was dehydrated and not getting enough calories. Yay, only 17 miles to go. I decided to not really try and run on the second loop and to instead try to focus on getting my body working again by drinking more but ultimately all I could do was slow the decline 🙂 By loop 3 I was struggling and any running was exhausting. My sun burn was worse BUT at least the sun was setting during my 3rd loop so less direct sun and more shadow so the sun burn problem went away. About 4 miles left I drank a bit of chicken broth and Pepsi and helped a little. At this point my lips and hands were tingling a lot which for me is a sign of imminent crashing (I think its blood sugar too low) and the Pepsi/broth helped. With only 2 miles to go I was struggling so much.

During this whole time I was passing people passed out on the ground being tended to by the amazing fire department and volunteers. People were throwing up all around. I made a point to ask people if they were OK which is pretty stupid really “oh yes I’m fantastic, I just decided to stop and pretend I’m dying laying on the ground/throwing up over this tree, thanks for asking”. No one replied like that but mentally they all said that to me.

I had not slept well last few nights and it was now late so I was mentally tired as well consider the 2 hour difference from Texas and the fact I normally go to sleep at 8pm. Even though I only had 2 miles to go it actually crossed my mind to just fall on the floor so this would end but I quickly came to my senses and plodded on. As the finish line approached and I turned the final corner I started “running”. In my head I was running but I suspect my body was doing something no one else would call running but whatever. As I crossed the finish line and Mike Reilly called out “John Savill YOU ARE AN IRONMAN” it was worth it. I remember looking up at him, giving him a thumb up and he gave me a big old smile.

As I crossed the finish line my legs just went and the volunteers caught me. They proceeded to hold me up, get my medal, hat and t-shirt then walked/carried me to the photo spot. “You better be quick with this one” they said to the photographer. They kept asking if anyone was with me and seemed concerned I didn’t and wanted to take me to medical.

Survived!

I told them I just needed food so they got me to the food tent and it was bratwurst in buns!! I thought it would be pizza and it did not seem appealing but I needed food. I got a brat in a bun, put on ketchup and took a bite. Fireworks exploded into the sky, harps gently played. It was amazing and I instantly felt better. I ate the whole thing, went to transition and packed up my stuff. Took my bike to Tri Bike Transport then went back to the food tent to get a second one which was an equally life changing experience as the first. I walked the few hundred yards to the resort and collapsed on the bed.

Once I had a little rest I had 3 glasses of chocolate milk, a Twix finger, showered, applied silver skin lotion on my burns and went to bed where I didn’t sleep a wink all night as usual. At 4 I just got up, showered again and went for a little walk. I took some pictures of the medal 🙂

IRONMAN even used my picture in the Medal Monday post which was cool 🙂 The Facebook forum was full of people discussing how it was the hardest IRONMAN ever and it was the certainly the hardest one I have ever done. The bike course was tough and the heat just destroyed. Kudos to everyone whether you finished or not. If you DNF’d don’t let this stop you from trying another. This was an anomaly and they are not normally THIS hard!

My standard finisher pose 😀

I would just like to thank everyone involved. It was a fantastic day even in harsh conditions. The IRONMAN team, the volunteers, the crowds, the police, medical, fire department, everyone was just awesome. Without them I never would have finished. You are all amazing! Thank you!

Finally a huge thank you to my amazing wife for supporting me on my never ending crazy goals 🙂

IRONMAN Tulsa 2021 Race Report

2020 was supposed to be a big IRONMAN year for me culminating in Kona as part of legacy program but Covid stopped that and so all 5 of my 2020 races were postponed. Texas in 2021 got pushed to October (which I can’t do because its the same weekend as Kona so no 10th anniversary belt buckle for me 😦 ) which makes Tulsa my first IRONMAN in 18 months and my first in this new post-Covid world. I still have CDA next month, pretty sure Mont Tremblant won’t happen and then Kona.

I’ll start out saying I was completely unconditioned for this race. I only started swimming again 3 weeks before the event and had literally done no running. My bike was the only thing I had really been training so my expectations were super low for the marathon portion! I don’t think I actually believed it would happen 😀

The lead up was fairly standard except no race numbers were given in advance (I’m AWA and still didn’t get in advance), and the athlete guide was only available a couple of weeks before. A lot of this is because they were not sure the event would actually happen which is apparent in a number of other ways. Also at the last minute the CDC changed mask guidance however there were still a number of distancing measures. I thought I’d summarize all of them quickly but note, there seem like a lot BUT none of this really took away from the amazing day.

  • Register in advance for registration time. This was not enforced, and I was able to actually register earlier than my time slot
  • Virtual athlete briefing and welcome video
  • Only athletes allowed in village
  • Bib etc. not personalized
  • Gear check-in time slot given at registration (bike and bag drop off for T1/T2)
  • No poster or flag
  • Swim cap was generic IRONMAN, no event name on it
  • Shirts don’t have date on (but did have participant names on the back)
  • Finisher gear was for sale straight away in the store
  • Wear mask on bus from T2 to T1 at start of day
  • No body marking or sunscreen people
  • Staggered swim start but that was fairly standard anyway and there was no social distancing that I could see other than different wait sections (corrals) but within those everyone bunched up 🙂
  • No wetsuit strippers but did help with zip and getting out water
  • No changing tents (but then someone said there WAS one at T2 no one knew about!)
  • On run did not hand drink/nutrition to athletes mostly. Nutrition and drinks were handed to you on bike
  • Gear is left with bike or bike rack if point to point (like a half)
  • Mount own bike at T2 but you are going there anyway
  • Handed you medal in hat, shirt, did remove chip for you. Still helped if needed. Picture at end still taken
  • Finisher medal – no date on it
  • Family cannot pick up bike/gear (no ticket)

One big change is a couple of weeks before the event you had to register for a packet pick-up time which was a one hour window on one of the two registration days leading up to the event (Thursday and Friday for a Sunday event). I picked a 3:00 Thursday session since was driving up Thursday morning.

I left home about 7:30 am and it was pouring rain all the way up to Tulsa. I arrived about 12:00 and went straight to the athlete village. Even though my appointment was 3pm it looked pretty empty (it was still pouring with rain) so I headed over and they didn’t even ask. There was no temperature check they just asked basically “any Covid symptoms” and then let you on your way. You got allocated your race number as you arrive (I got 418 as obviously was one of the first). The downside is no name on your bib etc. You got your timing chip, race cap, stickers etc as usual. Got your 5 gear bags and backpack but NO poster and NO flag. This is because of the cost of printing things that I think they were not sure would happen.

Tulsa is the most logistically complex event I’ve ever done. There is the swim start which is a mile walk from T1 which is a 20 minute drive from T2 which is a half mile walk from the finish. This means IRONMAN have various elaborate options to make your life easier. For example you could get a voucher and TriBike Transport would take your bike from T2 to T1 and rack it for you (you would drop it off to them Saturday and take your bike transition bag with you on Sunday morning). They also had shuttles picking people up from downtown to take them the 1 mile to T2 on Sunday morning and then from T2 another shuttle to T1 and then you walk to swim start. If you were going to drop your own bike off at T1 Saturday you picked a time slot and got a little card for when you would drop the bike (and bike gear) off at T1 yourself and then you would drive to T2 to drop off run gear bag. If on race day you were not getting a shuttle you picked a parking pass for T2 or downtown. You get the idea. Honestly I found the sheer logistics kind of stressful as did others. One problem is the T2 (where you have to go at the end of the day to pick up gear) is a mile walk back to downtown hotels (where they had shuttles in the morning) but you can’t get on shuttles with a bike after so basically you are faced with walking a mile with all your gear at the end or driving. Unlike previous IRONMAN events only athletes are allowed at the village, start, finish and T2 (meaning family can’t pick up gear for you). I decided to take my own bike to T1 on Saturday and would walk back at the end on Sunday.

In the store they did have Tulsa gear (no date on any of it) but they did have names on shirts and what was interesting is they also had finisher gear out (jackets, shirts etc). I did buy the finisher shirt as it meant I didn’t need to get to the store at 6:30 AM Monday to get one. The finisher gear was black on black soooo you can’t really see much and if I remember this t-shirt was $90!

I didn’t get to really see the village because, well, there was so much rain and I just ran to the car. One thing they seemed to go above and beyond was communication. They texted updates including water temperature on Friday which made it clear it would be wet suit legal (it was 68 Friday night) and I really think were trying to do all they could to communicate to help the athletes. The athlete briefing was also virtual but gave great detail.

I stayed at the Hyatt which was a nice hotel, was a mile walk to T1/village and had a really nice restaurant which I used for burger and pasta 🙂 I also visited Hurts Donuts and Andolini’s pizza.

Saturday came and all the worrying about logistics was (as normal) not required. There was lots of parking at the lake (T1) to drop off the bike and bike gear bag. They did not take a picture of your bike and your bike bag was just left with your bike. At T2 you dropped off your run gear bag at the bike rack where you will leave your bike. As had been notified, no changing tents were visible which made sense with the gear bag next to the bike, you change there as required. The process was very smooth though. For the rest of the day I just kept sipping on electrolyte water, had pizza for lunch and pasta with chicken breast for dinner.

The other worry was the roads were described as something out of a horror movie by everyone that drove them. Pot holes everywhere, gravel, mud, you name it. Also the weather forecast was constantly changing but as we got closer it became clear it would be raining for the entire bike ride (and it did). So wet roads and poor road conditions. Yay. As it turned out this was not an exaggeration.

At 5:30 I had a shower, applied my Tri Tats then put on a layer of sunscreen. At 6:30 to bed.

Alarm went off at 2:00 am but I was already awake as for some reason slept terribly. I got up and had a protein shake, half a bagel, applied another layer of sunscreen, put on my tri shorts, timing chip, tri watch, Ironman wedding ring 🙂 Also a shirt just to wear in transition and some comfy flip-flops. I had decided to just walk to T1 and that at the end of the day I would just handle the 1 mile walk back with bike and bags.

I left the room at 3:15 as was bored just waiting so got to T2 (where the buses to T1 were leaving from) at about 3:40 and they already let people in to T2 to check their run bag and there were buses letting you on already so I hoped on. They had masks to give you if you needed one. This was the only time you needed a mask all day. It was maybe a 30 minute drive but had a great conversation on the bus.

At T1 as usual there were bike pumps available and bike mechanics if you needed help. The headlamp I always carry was super useful as it was pretty dark. I pumped my tires up to 95 PSI as rain was forecast and with all the pot holes people talked about I felt 95 was a compromise as I really had zero clue what to do 😀 We knew it was going to be wetsuit legal but they announced 67 degrees. I only have a sleeveless wetsuit and was a little worried about getting cold but it was totally fine.

They walked us over to the swim start which was about a mile walk away. They walked us over based on our estimated start times. The idea being when we got to the start we would be in corrals to help separation but that didn’t work out as I get the feeling the plan changed. We were originally told to have throw away shoes for the walk from T1 to swim start but on the day they said morning clothes drop off would be a swim start so you no longer had to throw them away. Also at swim start you could put on wetsuit if you wanted so they walked us over on projected swim time but then once you were there they did not put you in corrals, you just all mingled until you felt like going into a corral which meant the corrals were no longer time based but all mixed together. People attempted to move between as they asked people what time they thought they would be but was a bit of a cluster 🙂 I don’t think it was a huge problem and a minor teething issue.

As they released each corral you lined up into about 4 lines at the swim start arch and we were going in every 3 seconds I think. As I entered the water it was “wow, this is cold” but forgot about it pretty quick. The course was a point-to-point but really just a rectangle single loop (with one side longer than the other obviously 🙂 ). The water was just thick brown, you could see zero, not even your own arm. On top of the water the visibility was good and I had no problem sighting the buoys. I used clear goggles and was using “snake and pig” brand which were awesome, no leaks! Support on the swim was great with lots of canoes and I read many stories of people helping swimmers who were struggling, talking to them to calm them and helping them regain themselves and carry on. That really was a theme, the volunteers, the spectators and the IRONMAN team were all amazing. Also there was not really any mad clashing with other swimmers as you were pretty spread out. Towards the end of the swim my hands were getting cold but overall it was totally fine. It also started to rain. Oh good I thought.

I was 95 minutes so a bit slower than my normal 90 but considering I had done almost no swimming I was fine with it. There were people to help you get out the water and while there were no wetsuit strippers there were still people to help unzip the wetsuit to at least get you started. You ran to the bike rack (where your T1 bag was as well) where you got changed as there were no change tents. Not going to lie I missed having a chair 🙂 There were volunteers to make sure you were OK. You put your wetsuit etc into the T1 bag, grabbed your bike and on your way. On my way with my brand new Canyon I’d only done about 5 miles on in total.

The bike was a standard 112 mile course with a couple of big hills but overall the elevation was fine. My Garmin said it was 5,300 feet of elevation gain and in total it took me 6 hours 10 which I was fine with. But it was raining so the roads were wet and the roads were bad. So many pot holes, so much gravel and put that with the wet roads it meant I was actually going faster UP the hills than down them as I was squeezing my poor new breaks who really were not doing very much 🙂

The bike had aid stations every 15 miles or so and they were handing out the nutrition like any other IRONMAN. I had to pee at every aid station and it took me 2 hours to realize I was drinking too much. I was used to training in my garage in the heat. Well in the cold rain I was not sweating so I slowed down my drinking and that fixed that.

The bad roads really were not exaggerated. To IRONMAN’s credit there was orange paint everywhere warning you but there were sections of the bike course that were a disaster scene. So many people with flats, people with broken bikes, people had crashed. You just needed Adagio for Strings playing and it would have been complete. I think if it had been just the bad roads or just the wet roads it would have been OK but both together was just a nightmare. At many times there were signs “Poor road conditions ahead” and in my head I was thinking “WORSE THAN THIS???”. I had images of parent bikes telling their little trike children if they were bad they would be sent to ride on Tulsa roads.

I was lucky and escaped issues. The bike ride actually went pretty quickly, I think because you were not just mindless peddling. It was like a video game really focusing on the road to map out your line to try and minimize impact on the bike and bunny hopping at certain points. I’m much stronger on bike than swim so I was pretty much constantly overtaking people which was tough because people were not staying right because of road conditions and nervousness. Understandable, but made it challenging. I think the bike course was nice, the aid stations were well stocked but honestly I don’t remember much about the course because I was just laser focused on the road pretty much the entire time.

During the bike I ate a waffle each hour and 1 gel each hour. I used the on course gels as I switched to them (Maurten) during training and actually now prefer then over Gu. It’s a strange jello type consistency but I like it. I drank some Gatorade and some water with Nuun.

The bike was point to point so into T2 I went. The bike went to plan. I averaged about 180 watts (which is what I trained at) and I got off actually feeling pretty good. You rack your own bike (because you have to go there anywhere as that is where you T2 bag is) and I changed socks, shoes, hat sitting on the floor at the bike rack. NOTE we were told no changing tent but the next day someone posted to Facebook “I was volunteering in the changing tent at T2 and no one came in”. It seems like they had a small changing tent but never told us. I didn’t bother putting on sunglasses as although the rain had just stopped there was no sun (although somehow I still got slightly burned?). Off onto the 2 loop run along the park that had loads of great crowds and it was a nice, flat course.

My original plan was to run/walk 1-minute intervals until my quads gave in due to lack of conditioning which I figured would be about an hour and then walk the rest. I did this at first but quickly realized if I did this till my quads failed I’d then be hobbling and slow for the rest of the marathon. I therefore changed plan and power walked, figuring I’d try and do random little runs where possible. This worked but was obviously slow.

Aid stations were every mile and were well stocked. Volunteers were not supposed to hand you nutrition but made sure cups etc were easily available and never ran out of anything. I spoke to a few people but generally I was too slow for the people running and too fast for the people walking so was generally pretty lonely. At one point I caught up to the guy I had spoke to on the bus who was having hip problems and walked with him for about 10 minutes but then went off on my power walk again.

With about 400 yards to the finish a member of the crowd ran up next to me (as I was still power walking) “come on big fella, you’re inspiring me, run with me” so I started running with him and he ran with me until we basically got to the last turn where I carried on running across that finish line. Slow but happy! Thank you random stranger 🙂

At the finish they handed you the medal in a hat, got your finisher shirt for you and took off your timing chip.

Once again very well organized. Got your picture taken and on your way!

You then grabbed your morning clothes bag and went to the food tent. Now this was a disaster for me. It was burgers, hot dogs and steak but the line was insane. I was too tired to stand in a line for 10 minutes so I figured I’d grab food somewhere else later (a mistake).

There was a shuttle to take you from finish to T2 to collect bike and bags. I asked people where it was but no one really seemed to know. I went in a general direction and there was a flag saying shuttle but no one was there and I wasn’t sure if it was correct. Fortunately a family were walking to T2 and they knew the way so I walked the .5 mile with them, grabbed my bike and bags then walked the 1 mile back to my hotel. Where everything was shut and no food available. Nooooooo. I had a protein shake and a donut. That was it 😦

I’ve said it already but the IRONMAN team, volunteers and crowds in Tulsa were amazing. Some of the best I’ve ever seen at an IRONMAN. The negatives of Tulsa (roads, rain) were really nothing IRONMAN could do anything about as I suspect were the logistic complexities as they have to work around road access, locations for transition etc. but they did a good job of removing as much pain around the various locations as possible.

Up next CDA!

IRONMAN Maryland Race Report 2019

I’m going to make this pretty short as

  1. I’m really busy
  2. I’ve done so many of these that lots of aspects are very similar
  3. I’ve left this till 6 days later and my memory is failing 🙂

I’ll focus on some of the key features of the IRONMAN. This was my third and final IRONMAN of 2019 and overall it was a great experience. Every IRONMAN has something special to remember it by and this one will be jelly fish but I’ll get to that!

I read a quote just before this trip. “When you think you’re done you’re only 40% done”. I think it’s from the Navy Seals and I love that and I reminded myself of that quote throughout the run! It really speaks to powering on and is similar to another quote I have on my wall, “the mind will quit a thousand times before the body ever will”. Just keep going!

I flew in to Baltimore Washington International Airport from Dallas which is about a 90 minute drive to Cambridge which is where the IRONMAN is held. I flew in Wednesday afternoon to have plenty of time before the Saturday race since final day of registration is Thursday. I decided to try Budget to rent a car who true to their name had run out of cars and so I had to wait nearly an hour along with 50 other people to actually get the car I had booked.

I typically try and stay walking distance from the start/finish but there were no hotels that close. Instead I stayed at Cambridge Comfort Inn and Suites (which was clean and did the job) which was a few miles drive away. Some people rented houses which were walking distance. Prior to arriving I had heard lots of talk of parking problems and while they did close off the streets close to the start, there was lots of parking a few minutes walk away and really was not an issue in the days leading up to the event. For the actual day of the IRONMAN you could buy a parking pass for the actual transition area if you were quick enough (there were 200 of them) which I got and was awesome!

Registration was uneventful and well organized as always. One of the things you hear about Maryland is how great the community and volunteers are and they were not exaggerating. There were signs everywhere welcoming the IRONMAN and everyone was just so friendly. It was great. During check-in you got a hand made card from a kid at the local school which was very special.

Eating choices were fairly limited in Cambridge, especially for a picky eater like me. I therefore made the drive to Easton which was about 20 minutes and had more mainstream restaurants (like Olive Garden and Panera Bread, I’m so brave in my food choices). I had Olive Garden for lunch on Thursday and Friday and pizza for dinner both nights (yay Dominos delivery). That being said Cambridge was a lovely town, lots of little stores that embraced IRONMAN and I picked up a few cool things including a little mason jar with sand from where we swam!

I also walked the one mile between the athlete village (and finish line) and the swim/bike (T1/T2) transition at the newly named Gerry Boyle Park (after the race organizer who sadly passed this year). My bike had just arrived and went and looked at the water where the second thing, aside from parking, people had talked about, the Jelly Fish. It had been very hot with little rain, perfect conditions for Jelly Fish. As I looked in the water my only thought was “oh crap”. There were so many.

Ahhhhhhh

There was so much talk about this on the Facebook groups. I wasn’t super worried though. I am a slow swimmer so I figured everyone else would have moved them out the way by the time I get there and I would also cover my arms (sleeveless wetsuit), face and feet in Vaseline. As I would learn on Saturday morning, I was wrong not to worry.

Really should have been a jelly fish not a crab 🙂

Friday I went and checked in my bike, run bag and bike bag. It was very fast and I literally did nothing all day. I sat in my room and watched Have I Got News for You on YouTube. Before bed I put on my TriTats ready for the big next day. I slept really well Wednesday and Thursday night which was great. Even Friday I didn’t wake up till about 2am so got nearly 6 hours sleep so felt well rested.

I woke up and ate my protein shake, apple sauce and bagel. I headed out about 3:50 and got to the parking area at 4am which opened at 4:30 for a 5:00 transition open time. I’m a nut, what can I say. I always get to places early. At Canada by the time I got out the water I was nearly wetting myself I needed to pee so bad so this year my plan was to stop mostly drinking 3 hours before start. For the next 90 minutes I had a small bottle of electrolyte water which I stopped drinking 90 minutes before the start which is when I also ate a Gu. 30 minutes before swim start I drink my 5 hour energy. I only had to queue and use the port-a-potty once which was lucky as they were a cluster. There were 20 for about 2000 people. If people were complaining about one thing it was this. I’d never seen such a small amount of toilets for an IRONMAN.

The IRONMAN started about 6:40 and as usual was a self-seeded rolling start. I put myself at the back of 1:20 to 1:30 group which is about right for me. Because of all the Vaseline I couldn’t see very well and my goggles were tinted and a bit foggy anyway and it was dark. The sum of this was I couldn’t see and had a hell of a time sighting the buoys during the swim but that was the least of my worries as it would turn out.

The swim is two loops with the second loop a different turn point to come into the shore. Nearly as soon as the swim started people were more aggressive than usual and there was more contact in this swim than in all 14 of my other IRONMAN swims put together. I got kicked and punched in the face more times than I can count, sometimes pretty hard. I think people were basically freaking out because of the jelly fish. Which were BADDDD.

It wasn’t long into the swim when I felt the tentacles over my arm and they stung me. Again and again and again. A few times I think they actually got stuck on me and were with me along my arm for some strokes. I read you shouldn’t try to pull them off so I let them along for the ride as they continued to sting me. The stings hurt but really were not that bad. My face and feet never got stung, just my arms and hands which must have been about 50 times. All I could think was Monica from Friends, “damn all the jelly fish”. I think I was “lucky”. I heard of people that started vomiting after being stung and had to be pulled from the race 😦

Ouch

There was also a current at times which you had to fight against to stay straight which combined with the difficulty sighting made it tricky at times and added to the overall stress of the swim. I kept pretty straight though. I actually forgot to keep going straight on the second loop initially until someone reminded me!

Just a little wonky 🙂

I exited the swim in 1:30:06 which was pretty fast considering it was a literal beating. As you got out the wetsuit strippers quickly helped you out the wetsuit and they then sprayed you with vinegar to help with the stings. I could feel them and would continue to as my arms were basically just solid red and bumpy for the first hour of the bike but after that they really didn’t bother me much.

On to the bike and what can I say, it was flattttttt. My bike computer was never outside -2 to 10 for the altitude. It was just continuous riding which for me is fine. That’s how I train, constant power and I did pretty good on the bike, 5:43:35. There was some wind at certain stages but really wasn’t a big deal. My one complaint is the aid stations were few and far between. I typically always change my Gatorade at every aid station and it never gets empty. It did on this course. It wasn’t even very hot and there was good cloud cover so I wasn’t drinking a lot, they just had really spaced out aid stations which considering its a 2 loop bike course I really didn’t understand. My average power was 183 watts which was fine as I was taking it fairly steady, saving for the run as my training going into this had not been great since IRONMAN Canada two months before. Basically you just need to train for constant work. There was no variation, no rest for your legs as you go down a hill as there aren’t any hills. With that said it went pretty quick and the scenery was nice.

After another transition (which included racking your own bike which was a first for me but understand in a small community its hard to get enough volunteers and not a big deal) it was time for the run. It was warming up and the clouds were disappearing. The course is 2.5 loops and there were lots of times there was no cover. Also there was lots of black concrete to run on which just radiated the heat back at you. You did start to feel the heat but once again it was super flat so at least you were not battling hills! Thankfully there were lots of aid stations, at most a mile between them. I think the heat really got to people, I saw a lot of people passed out on the side of the road or throwing up. Overall there was a 10% DNF (did not finish) for those that actually started which is high for Maryland. There was amazing crowd support, especially near the finish which you went past 6 times (as each loop when past it twice).

I did a steady 2 minute run, 2 minute walk for the entire marathon coming in at 5:23:29 for a total time of 12:58:09 which I was happy with. I came in the top third overall for the event and the top half of my age group.

At the end you got your medal, hat, finisher t-shirt and flag. They had tacos at the end (which I passed on) and I picked up my morning clothes bag (which they had transported from transition). However your bike and transition bags were still a mile away at transition which I then slowly walked to carrying my morning clothes bag (I would have preferred they had left it at transition 🙂 ). I got my bike and bags, dropped off my bike at TriBike (who were right there) and walked about 50 yards to the car where I just sat for a moment before driving back to my hotel.

I drank a protein shake, ate a candy bar but couldn’t face eating pizza yet. As usual I completely failed to sleep so just watched TV. At midnight I was able to eat my pizza and sleep for about an hour. At 5:45 I headed to the athlete village to get inline at the store for its 7:00 open where I bought my sports finisher tech t-shirt and polo shirt then headed home.

I would definitely recommend this IRONMAN. It’s comparatively easy compared to other events because it’s so flat. Even with the jelly fish the swim really was not that bad and the community and people are just awesome!

That’s number 15 done.

Next year I have 5 including two that are on back-to-back weekends (Texas and St George) and the world championship in Kona thanks to the Legacy program. I’ll also be doing the inaugural Tulsa IRONMAN and Mont-Tremblant. Why 5? Because Kona is on 10-10-2020. By doing 4 before Kona that will make it my 20th 🙂 10-10-2020 20th 😉

IRONMAN Canada 2019 Race Report

Before the race

It’s 3am on race morning so figured I’d start writing this events race report as I kill time until 4am when I’ll leave the room and head down to T2 to drop off nutrition in the run bag then take the shuttle to T1 to pump up tires, drop off bike nutrition and place a drink on the bike. You can’t leave nutrition over night for Canada because of the bears. If you leave food in bags the bears will come down and have a pic-a-nic as Yogi Bear would say.

I’ve been looking forward to IRONMAN Canada for a long time. I’ve always wanted to visit Canada and so my family has made this a vacation giving us 10 days in Whistler. We arrived on Wednesday to Vancouver where a quick shuttle got us to the Enterprise off-site parking (which was very efficient) got us into the SUV we hired for the trip. The 2 and a bit hour drive down was great. The Sea to Sky highway section has amazing scenery and time flies. We got a 2 bedroom suite at the Westin which is walking distance to the IRONMAN village but also gave us a bit of extra space since I typically get up very early and having a separate room for the kids in addition to a separate living area gives everyone the ability to operate at their own hours 🙂 A great hotel and the room has a decent kitchen will half-size fridge, microwave, dishwasher and even a stove top. Hotel also had an ATM so I could get out Canadian dollars at a great exchange rate compared to the terrible exchange rate they try and give you at the airport. I needed to keep getting cash as a lot of places including the IRONMAN store did not take American Express. The view from the room is amazing! Also although the fitness center was not advertised to open until 6am every day during my trip they unlocked it for me at 4am so I could get my training in.

I was surprised how busy Whistler was. When it’s not ski season its mountain bike season and the mountain bikers were everywhere but all friendly and Whistler is an amazing town. Because of the population of skiers and bikers most restaurants are pizza or some kind of draft house. There are a few others but it definitely seemed like the majority. Food actually seemed very cheap in Whistler which surprised me as well as I expected it to be overpriced as mainly a tourist town. There were also a number of grocery stores and many ice creams stores as my family quickly discovered. I was told the tap water is straight from the mountains so you don’t need bottled water.

Thursday I went and checked in at the IRONMAN registration (while my family did the VIP check-in) which was fast as always except no flag this event which was a bummer (post race edit – however you got it at the finish line instead). Also because of some customs issue none of the Canada merchandise was available yet in store. It wouldn’t be until Friday afternoon you could buy the race kit and it was by Santini this event. One cool difference was the names of all the athletes were on the tri-top (and bike shirt if you got that).

Friday was just a relax day. My family did a horse riding trip while I watched a movie in the car (horse riding hurts my knees, don’t ask me why!) Saturday was bike and gear drop off. The T1 was at Rainbow Park and you had two options. The first was to head over to T2 (a parking lot near the IRONMAN village and basically in the village) and drop off run gear then get a shuttle to T2 with your bike and bike gear OR they had labelled a trail from Whistler village to Rainbow Park. It was about 2.5 miles which is what I did. I rode the bike there using the backpack they provided to carry the gear along the paved trail, dropped off bike and bike gear bag then walked back. It was a nice little ride and walk. The walk back took about 45 minutes which really wasn’t bad. I then grabbed the family and the run bag, had lunch then dropped the run bag at T2.

Saturday night to sleep at 7pm and while I woke up a few times I managed to sleep till about 2am which is a record for me. I got up, put on a layer of sunscreen and then my timing chip, watch etc. It’s going to be about 50 degrees while I wait so bought a light sweatshirt to wear and the forecast shows about 75 high however in the sun it still feels pretty warm. At 4am I’ll head out to walk to T2 (about a mile walk from the Westin) where I’ll put my run nutrition in my run bag then catch the shuttle to T1 to pump up tires, check bike and put bike nutrition in bike bag. Transition opens at 4:30 for a 6am start time which is actually a fairly short amount of time. They start very early here I think for 2 reasons; 1, because the half is at the same time so they want all the full people swimming quickly so they can start the half once the fulls have started the second loop of the two loop swim and 2, to get us off the highway as soon as possible.

Well, I guess nothing more to say right now. I’ll finish this race report once the day is done 🙂 I’ve done quite a lot of cycling leading up to this one but once again barely any swimming or running because of injury. Plan is to as always easy on swim, go about 210 watts on the bike then try and 2 minute run-walk the marathon.

Post Race

Today is Tuesday, 2 days after the toughest IRONMAN event I’ve done. They were not joking about the hilly bike ride but we’ll get to that!

I left the room at 4am and got to T2 at about 4:15 and they were already letting people in to drop off nutrition in their run bag which I did and also checking everything was still there. I didn’t need body marking as I applied tri-tats the night before. I hopped on a bus which was about a 15 minute ride where I put my bike nutrition in my bike bag, put a bottle of gatorade on my bike and pumped up my tires to 100 psi. As usual there were bike techs to pump your tires up in addition to pumps around the area you could use to pump the tires yourself (which is what I did). After that you hung around a bit. It was about 50 degrees so I had a sweatshirt on and held off putting on my wet suit until about 30 minutes before the start. The view was amazing and the picture below was posted by someone on Facebook.

Amazing sunrise at Alta Lake

The pro women started at 5:45 (if I remember correctly) and the age groupers at 6 (there were no pro men). It was rolling start and I put myself in the 90 minute group and they got you in fast. I was in the water by about 6:05 I think. For Canada the half IRONMAN is the same day and I think the half people start at 7:20 am so they try and ensure all the IRONMAN full participants are on the second loop before starting the half (its a two loop swim of a rectangle course).

I wore a sleeveless wetsuit and I think the water was around 65 degrees but I wasn’t cold and it felt fine. The visibility was good and sighting the buoys was actually pretty easy except for a short part on loop 2 where the sun was directly in your eyes. I had some cramping issues which was odd and for portions of the swim I either wasn’t kicking at all and just dragging my legs or had to straighten my feet down which acted like a break. Apart from that I actually felt like I was swimming well. I did get caught by the half-IRONMAN participants on the second half of the second loop which I was expecting since I’m a slower swimmer and that knocked you around a little as their pace is obviously faster since they are doing half the distance and the people catching you are the people at the front anyway. It wasn’t too bad though as I stay on the outside. As mentioned its a rectangle swim and you don’t get out the water for the second loop, you just turn left again at the T4 red buoy to start the second loop and when you are finished the second loop you just swim forwards at the T4 buoy to exit. During the swim I felt like it had been a good steady swim however I was actually pretty slow, 1:35 which is 5 minutes slower than my normal 90 minutes. I hadn’t done much swimming as I’ve injured my right shoulder and it hurt to swim (and still did a little) so the lack of training may have been the cause or the cramps in my legs but still I got out feeling good and hadn’t drained myself.

Into the transition training tent after the awesome volunteers handed me my T1 bag where I quickly dried off, put on my tri shirt (I wore the same shirt for bike and run), applied some anti-chafe and put on some sunscreen (which they also apply as you exit the tent, the sunscreen, not anti-chafe, that would be awkward 🙂 ) . As I was walking to my bike I turned on my bike computer (don’t leave it on your bike, there were reports some were stolen during this event :-(, also people had stuff stolen like glasses from their bags) so it had GPS by the time I started the actual ride. Hopped on the bike and off I went. For some reason my transition was super slow as well, 15 minutes!!!! No idea where the time went other than I had to pee really badly which took a while 😀

The bike course is two loops and to sum it up its brutal. The weather was great. Sunny but only about 75 degrees high temp but we did have some wind on second loop but didn’t seem to impact much except it seemed to try and blow you over when going fast downhill. I’m not exaggerating when I say there is no flat on the course. You are going up or you are going down. There is one part in particular, Callaghan Valley Road, oh boy. I had heard people say the name with dread and I now know why. I think it was about 10 miles of just hard up hill riding. There were large amounts of time I was going about 7 mph. It was amusing that there was a sign near the start of the road saying watch out for bears the next 10 km. I wasn’t sure if this was just to try and get you to peddle faster up the hills :-). I was actually bummed that I never saw a bear during the event.

I just need to ride faster than the other guy 🙂

The good part of all the hills was you got to go down them. 10 miles of basically zooming downhill with only a few turns was pretty awesome. I got above 40 mph for a number of segments as my bike computer showed. My plan of 210 watts went out the window as there were times you were going much harder then times you were doing nothing (downhill).

Bike Stats

Because of the low temperature I was not sweating as much as usual but I was still drinking a lot so I had to pee about once an hour which actually lost me about 15 minutes overall stopping. Every hour I consumed 1.5 bottles along with a waffle and Roctane Gu (which I carried with me). The scenery during the bike was breath taking and the miles went fast (except when you were going up hill). The first loop was pretty busy as you shared the course with the half-IRONMAN participants but was much quieter on the second loop.

There were aid stations roughly every 10 miles and like everywhere else on the course the volunteers were amazing. One thing different from other IRONMAN events was the drink was Base Hydro instead of Gatorade Endurance. It was OK from a nutrient perspective but I didn’t like the peach mango flavor they had but that’s just personal preference. I do find it a little harder on my stomach but not by much but definitely added to the time of one of my breaks 😀 They had bananas, bars and gels at the aid stations in addition to the base and water bottles.

Bike total time was 6:30 but moving time was 6:15. Given how hard the course was I felt good with that time and beat the 7 hours that Lake Placid took me. I got to see my family once on the bike course so that was nice and was towards the end so that kept me going. I actually felt good during the bike and got off the bike feeling OK. This was expected since I’d done a lot of cycling due to being unable to run or swim much.

T2 was pretty quick. Grabbed my nutrition and off onto the run. My plan was to run for 2 minutes then walk for 2 minutes. This kind of worked out for the first half where I averaged 5mph but definitely slowed down on the second half which turned into walk up hill and run downhill 🙂 My knees were hurting as was my little toe on right foot which I had sliced open the day before on a chair. It took me a while to work out how far a marathon was in kilometers as I tried to work out half way (21km as I now know).

The run route had some rolling hills but wasn’t that bad. It was mostly paved with a few miles of gravel trail. Aid stations were every mile that were stocked with all the usual stuff. My run was pretty slow, 5:37:40 which gave me a total time of 14:05:16 but overall I’m happy. I beat my Boulder and Lake Placid times which were easier than Canada!

At the finish time you got the great medal, t-shirt, hat and flag. Then you got your pizza and fries.

That night I didn’t sleep a wink (as usual) so at 5:30 headed to the store where I was second in line. I bought the athletic finisher t-shirt, finisher polo shirt and the finisher puffer jacket (which I planned on not getting but when I saw the puffer style jacket I couldn’t resist).

IRONMAN Canada was the toughest IRONMAN event I’ve ever done but also one of the best and I highly recommend it. Whistler is a great host town and I’m sad this was the last year IRONMAN Canada will be in Whistler but I’m sure it will still be great in the new (old) host city of Penticton. Now IRONMAN Maryland in 2 months time.

Number 14 done and despite being tired was an awesome event!