A Comedy of Errors

As I didn't do much actual racing, this isn't your typical race report.  It's more of a...pre-race report...

We all know how tapering goes.  Exercising less.  Hungry all the time.  Anxious about the upcoming event.  Every little twinge is a possible torn muscle.  Barely able to hold it together until race day.  This time was no different for me.  Hunter and Joy came down with a head cold 7 days before my race, so it was not a question of if, but rather when, I would also contract this nasty little bug.  However, Joy was so stressed about me possibly getting it and it affecting my race, when my symptoms started 48 hrs later I didn't say anything.  And as H definitely took the worst of it I think she was so distracted with him that I managed to make it all week without her noticing.  No since stressing her even more, she's already sick and caring for a sick baby!  After a couple of days of little sleep and feeling like crap I actually felt pretty good race morning, so it was all good.  At least from that stand point.

I had my usual pre-race checklist, went over it multiple times, and had it all packed and ready for the drive over Friday.  I left in plenty of time for a leisurely drive, and made it to OKC and the race site about 4:30.  To see the insanely long line waiting for the mandatory athlete meeting.  Nope.  Not doing the waiting thing, so just turned around and drove to the hotel, only 10 mins away.  Checked in, grabbed dinner at 5:00 like usual, stopped at Panera to grab a bagel for race day breakfast, and then to the grocery for Gatorade and OJ. Quick stop at the hotel to drop off the stuff, then back to race site.  Line much shorter, but still stood there for a while waiting for the current group to leave the briefing tent.  The website said brief meeting, 1-5 mins.  Ours took 23.  Minutes.  The one in front of us took 28.  Yes I counted.  But after the meeting the rest of check-in was a breeze; got my swag bag, checked in my bike, saw Bird, one of several of my wicked fast teammates, and chatted for a few before heading back to the hotel.

  7:30pm.  Finally at hotel and getting stuff together. Tri-suit, check.  Shoes, check.  Sunscreen, ch...well sh*t.  So it's back in the car, and back to the grocery store.  Same girl at the checkout counter.  "Hey you were here earlier, I remember that little kiddie blue band aid on your thumb."  Me, stupidly, "Yup that was me.  Last trip though."  She smiles, "Until you remember something else you forgot, right?"  I laugh, stupidly, "That's right!"

Several minutes later, back at the hotel and trying to calm down.  Decide to go ahead and shower before finishing getting everything together.  

8:45pm.  Back to it.  Hat, check.  Goggles, check.  Body glide.  Wait, I KNOW I packed the stupid body glide!  Where is it??  A frantic search through both bags, under car seats, in the trunk...reveals no body glide.  Son of a nutcracker!(Elf reference)  Expo closes at 9:00, so no way I'm getting any there.  After consulting my wise coach, she sends me BACK to aforementioned grocery store for Aquaphor.  Luckily, my buddy has since clocked out, saving me any further embarrassment.  Unluckily, they do not have Aquaphor.  So another quick drive gets me to CVS and I'm finally set.

9:30pm.  Back in the room and FINALLY ready for the race.  A few minutes of FaceTime with my sweet wife and boy, then lights out.  So much for an easy rest filled night before the race! 

Race morning.  Wake up and hop out of bed.  As I'm taking my shirt off, somehow manage to tweak a muscle in my right shoulder.  Obviously a torn labrum, right?  I just shake my head and imagine myself swimming with one arm...  Uneventful breakfast and drive to the race.  Now, they have us parking about 1/2 mile from transition.  I always, ALWAYS take my own bike pump.  But I have a long walk and a heavy backpack and they have assured us they will have pumps at bike support.  So I leave my trusty bike pump in the car...

So after getting everything set up, I take my bike over to bike support.  One guy hooks up a pump, seems to be having trouble.  I hear air leaking out of my tire as he fumbles with the connector.  After attempting several times he looks at me sheepishly and says, "Let me get someone else."   The next guy seems more nimble-fingered, but alas, he also can not manage to effectively pump any air into my front tire.  He has the same result with the rear.  "I think there's something wrong with your tires, man."  "You're right," I think, "you let the air out of them.  I came over here with about 120psi and now I have about 80.  Thanks!" 

I head back and rack my bike, and grab Bird, who's about 10 bikes down.  He, smartly, brought his own pump.  I have him hold the connector while I pump, and we quickly have the problem rectified.  Because I haven't bugged him enough, I decide to go all in.  "Hey man, you got any body glide?"  I quickly explain its only for my timing chip, and not for any of my nether regions.  Still skeptical, he slowly agrees and hands over the goods.  

The rest of pre-race goes well, and before you know it I'm in the water waiting for the start.

SWIM:  Overall not bad.  Started off a little slower than usual but felt really strong throughout.  I lost the lead pack rather quickly, and as such spent a good portion of the swim by my lonesome.  I finished in 36:09, and I'm not in my best swim shape, but I knew with that time it had to be a bit long.  Think I was 7th in my AG out of the water.  But the main thing was how GREAT I felt coming in to T1.  No lower back or hamstring tightness, breathing and HR nice and steady. Lets get it ON!

T1:  Wetsuit strippers were amazing and set me up for a quick T1.  Got to my bike, wetsuit down, socks on, pick up my left bike shoe...and out falls my body glide.  Not one to pass up comfort or a fortuitous turn of events, I quickly unzip my tri suit, reach down and apply liberally :-).  Get everything else situated, grab my bike and head out of T1.  Get to the mount line, put my hand on my aerobar, and notice it's very bouncy.   I look down and see that my front tire is flat.  Completely. F'ing. Flat.  After a short litany of expletives, I turn around and head back into transition.  At this point I'm thinking, surely it's not a leak?  Maybe I just left the valve open or something.  Bike support quickly pumps it up(no trouble this time, different guy), I pray that's all it is, and head out again.  

BIKE:  Did I mention how good I felt?  I quickly put the hammer DOWN man.  Usually I have to take the first 15 mins to settle in and get the back and hamstrings in line, but today I was just able to lay into it from the get go.  I was able to start picking people off immediately, and had no one pass me.  Then a little after six miles I hit a bump in the road and it felt a little jarring.  Sh*t.  Continued to ride but after two more bumps I could tell it was almost out of air.  I sat up and coasted/cruised to the next intersection where there was a cop directing traffic.  Hopped off, hit my lap button, and started getting down to it.  Took a bit of work to rip the tubular off, but still managed to get all my stuff off the bike, tube off the wheel, and ready to switch the valve extender in under five minutes.  So off comes the valve extender and I go to put it on my spare...wait a minute.  My spare is your standard presta valve.  Apparently my race tubular isn't.  Who uses this crazy-@ss sh*t anyway?  Apparently the guy who I bought the wheels from 3 years ago did.  I've never had a flat before with these wheels, so why would I take a perfectly good race tire off my race wheel to know it wasn't a standard valve extender and presta valve.  I look around in slowly dawning disbelief--my race is over.  My RACE is OVER!  GGAAAAAAHHHHH!!  I want to start flagging racers down, HELP ME!  But help me, how?  Anybody got a spare valve extender lying around?  Idk, maybe people have a valve extender already put on their spare tubulars.  I just always assumed I'd switch it out if I ever flatted.  I have yet to see a SAG car so I just gather my things and start slowly walking back towards transition.  At least I got to cheer on my teammates as they came riding by! 

                                      EPIC. FAIL.  

I eventually make it back to another intersection, and see not one, but two SAG cars.  Sweet!  They are helping a man take his front wheel off.  I start chatting with him while they load his bike up- turns out he took a nasty spill and ended up with a concussion.  At least I didn't have that happen as well!  He asked about me and I told him my sob story--he offered to let me use his front wheel!  How freaking cool is he?!  I looked at my watch-48 minutes since I hit the lap button.  I said thanks, but I was ready to call it a day too.  

Let me just say I'm not complaining about the SAG AT ALL.  Everyone was very helpful once I got to them.  Turns out there were a couple of other nasty crashes in addition to the one I walked back to, and so they were busy with those people, as they should have been.

Upon my arrival back to transition, as I walked by bike support they asked what was going on, so told them my story.  They pulled out a standard valve extender and said, want to change it and get back out there?  Ummm, no thanks...

In hindsight, maybe if I'd stayed in T1 and attempted to change it out then, I could possibly have gotten a valve extender, and gone on to have a great ride and finished the race.  Or I could have flatted again at mile X with no spare.   

Lessons learned:

ALWAYS bring your own pump

KNOW your equipment: don't assume anything

A true friend can be coerced will let you borrow their body glide

Little bit of this, little bit of that

As my wife pointed out in a recent post, I've fallen off the blogging bandwagon.  She's right, I have. I suck at writing.  Joy does not.  I write what I think is a great post, then go and read her last two or three posts and throw my hands up in the air. Her posts are STORIES, man.  They have a point.  They're funny and insightful.  Mine are just word salad.  Not even the edible kind.  It's more like the stale, limp, kinda slimy word salad that's been sitting on the back of the shelf for a few too many days.  But i digress...

We've now been in little rock for two months, and there are so many things to write about that trying to cram it all into one post is ludicrous.  But I've never been one to shy away from a challenge, so get ready for another onslaught of my train of thought :-).(yes that rhymes, and yes I thought I was pretty witty coming up with that, so BACK OFF!)

The first five weeks here I was gratefully not working, which gave us plenty of time to get unpacked and settled in our beautiful new house.  All the boxes have been unpacked put in closets, furniture has been arranged, rugs have been placed, and things are more or less where they belong.  

Home ownership has brought on more honeydo projects than I could have imagined.  An older house needing some updating, i could understand.  But it's a brand new house!  Luckily I never have to tackle anything alone, as I've got a partner who loves working with tools almost as much as I do.

Measure twice, cut once daddy.

I think we need the 3 1/2 inch bolt...

Sweet!  I can use this drill on EVERYTHING!

You missed a spot, here, let me get it.

As far as racing goes, I pretty much took last October through this June off.  I trained for about three weeks and did a sprint in April, but otherwise, nada.  I literally swam once a month--if that.  I probably averaged one bike ride and one run a week through those nine months.  Put on a few pounds and put a lot of time into getting through those last few months in New Mexico with my sanity intact, getting ready for the move here, and just general life stuff.  However, I did start a nine week training plan to get ready for the Redman Half in Oklahoma City on Sept 21st.  There's a great group of triathletes here and I've been able to tag along on some group rides, and it has been SO NICE.

O yeah, the JOB.  Man, I can't express how much I love my new job.  As many of you out there(crickets chirping) know, my three years at Holloman were frustrating to say the least.  Surrounded by incompetence and having people with less education, much less intelligence, little to no common sense and no moral compass telling me how to do MY job and run MY clinic--well, you can imagine how well that went over with me.  But like all things, it did finally, wonderfully, come to an end :-).  On May 31st I drove off that base for the last time, and for the next thirteen hours on the road to Little Rock, I never stopped smiling.  I suddenly felt a thousand pounds lighter.  But back to the new job.  It's so great working with a group of people with similar ideals.  The nurses are amazing, as are all the other staff, from the front desk to phones to billing and lab and research.  They all do their jobs very well.  And not only that, but they all go out of their way to make sure my job is as easy as possible! Novel concept, huh?  Totally different experience compared to my previous place of employment.  And to top it all off, I have a four day work week, with Wednesdays off, which is HUGE for me as it gives me another whole day each week to spend with H and J.  

Of course I can't finish my post without pitting just a few more pics up of my sweet boy, so here are some randoms from the past few weeks.

Nom nom nom

Showing Mammo his art

Chillin with E

Helping Daddy get Mommy's bike ready for Muncie 70.3

Dad, you've GOT to see this!

Beach time!

Until next time my friends!

Hanging On

39 days.  As of today, that's how many working days I have left here at Holloman.  That's not counting my 5 days of outprocessing, that's just days I have left in clinic doing my job.  I found out this week that I won't be getting my two full months of terminal leave that had been promised to me for the last 6 months; instead I'll be getting half that, so we are stuck here until May 31st.  And I should feel lucky that I'm getting that, so I'm told.  And that additional leave that I had saved up-forget about using it, the Air Force will be glad to 'buy it back'; after taxing it first, of course. 

I have much more to say about my time here and the people I've worked with and for, but I'm saving that book post for a little later on. 

I lead with the above just to say please pray for me.  Pray that I make it through the next three months of what has become a very malignant working environment; pray that I keep my spirits up; pray that I can leave work at work and come home each night and enjoy my family; pray that I can keep my cool and just ride the storm out. 

And now, so this post won't be a total bummer, let's take a look at what makes everything I do put up with worthwhile.

Saturday morning naps

 Mommy's Little Helper

Having fun at White Sands National Park

 

Until next time, cheers!

 

Augusta 70.3 RR

Wow what a great race all around!  The fans were fantastic, the course was great, and the weather was pretty much perfect!  Overcast the entire day with high of maybe 75, occasional misting until the rains really came down after 3pm.

Swim:
I was looking forward to the wave swim start, as I knew it would lead to less congestion and hopefully lend itself to me having a better swim time.  I was in wave 14 which means my race didn't start until 8:24 am, almost a whole hour after the pros started at 7:30.  My time quickly approached, and I made my way down the ramp to the dock along with another 120ish 35-39 year old males.  After jumping in the water and making my way to the starting buoys, the current quickly became apparent as we had to continually push bckward to maintain our position.  The airhorn goes off and I shoot out of there like a cannon!  I quickly find my rhythm and find myself in the lead group with about 8 other people.  I find some feet for the first few minutes then make the pass as I feel I can go a little bit harder.  I do my own thing for the next few minutes, then look around and realize I don't see any other white caps.  Holy sh*t you mean I'm actually LEADING the swim wave?  I flip back over and get back in the rhythm.  Occasionally I see a white cap come up along side me for a few strokes before falling back. 
This is definitely the fastest swim on the 70.3 circuit in North America.  Swimming downstream in a river will do great things for your swim time!  Slowtwitchers have said it typically takes about 5 mins off your normal 1.2 mile swim time,and I think that was pretty accurate.

Bike:
Super flat and fast course with just a couple of rollers.  First 30 minutes legs felt really tight, glutes were screaming at me so knew something wasn't right.  Cadence seemed to be a little high and I had to keep telling myself to slow it down.  Stood and stretched a couple of times and tried to find a good rhythm and finally clicked into one about :40 into the ride.  From there smooth sailing, big gear and steady cadence.  Bike time of 2:32.

Run:
 Right off the bat I could tell my run was not going to be as strong as NOLA.  I felt OK and was clicking off 7:30ish miles for the first 2 or 3 but could tell I wasn't gonna be able to do that for the full 13.1.  Pushed along at 7:40-:50 pace until 10.6 miles, when my damn calf and soleus seized up.  I've been having some plantar fasciitis and tight soleus issues on that side for the last six weeks and it reared its ugly head with a vengeance.  I'm just glad I made it through that much of the race without any issues.  Managed to keep moving with just two one minute spans of walking slowly trying to ease the cramp.  still managed 8:40ish miles for the last two and a half miles so not terrible, but brought my final time down from a 4:45ish to 4:48.

Overall very happy with my race!  HUGE PR by over 31 minutes!  Good way to end the season, and possibly career.  Time to spend some more time with the wife and baby!  Feel a huge amount of guilt every second I'm training and not spending with them, so think I'll switch gears for a while and just try to be a better husband and dad.  Until next time!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Yesterday was my mom's birthday, and I just wanted to give a quick shout out to the most inspirational person in my life.  I would not be the person, father, husband, friend(or any other hat that I wear), without the amazing love, guidance, and support you have given me over the past 34 years.  Only as I've gotten older and look back on my childhood and adolescence do I realize how much you sacrificed so that I could have a better life--all those basketball camps, snack money for all those away games even if it meant you wouldn't get lunch at work, an occasional video game when you needed new shoes or jeans, and so many other little things, given selflessly with no concern for yourself.  Not to mention all the words of wisdom and guidance.

As I start my adventure into parenthood, I look back and don't see how you managed to do it.  I could not have asked for a better mother or role model, and just keep telling myself if I can be half the parent you are, I'll have done a good job.

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM, I LOVE YOU!!!

Five months already??

To start with, this blog is really nothing more than a thinly veiled excuse to post baby pics.  I will try to provide a little bit of story, but basically, just look at my cute baby! :-)

First, a short bit on my training, or lack thereof.  It's been seven weeks since my Ironman, and I did absolutely zero training for the first three weeks after it.  This was followed by three weeks of, eh, I'm not really feeling it today, I'll just do something tomorrow.  Which led to three weeks of about 3-4 hours of exercise.  This last week I finally had to buckle down though, as I do have another race scheduled to end my season with next month.  As I'd like to not totally bomb it, I actually put in a shocking 8 hours of training this week(Gasp).  Believe me, it was hard after the last six weeks.

OK enough of the boring stuff--here's what I've spent most of my spare time doing!

This is Hunter's FAVORITE thing to do--ride in the Bjorn.  I come home from work everyday, change clothes, and in he goes.  He LOVES it!  As soon as he sees me pick it up to start putting it on he smiles really big and starts flailing those arms and legs.  We walk around the house, go out to the garden, help mommy cook dinner, and sit with the cats on the porch.  Usually he's babbling or shrieking with excitement.  And he loves to dance with mommy!  We'll help with dinner prep, and usually have the music playing, and he gets so tickled when she stops and comes over to see him and dance. 

Notice the glazed eyes, slouched position, and small amount of drool on the chin?  According to Joy this is Daddy's classic watching TV pose.  He learns quickly.

Lounging in the recliner watching the Olympics.  Wait, walking is an Olympic sport??

I would really like to taste you, but I can't seem to get any closer to you...  And look at those chunky arms!

Daddy, you think YOU'VE had a long day...after countless reps of putting my feet in my mouth and all that tummy time that Mommy made me do I am just exhausted...

Must.  Eat.  Everything.

I can't believe its been five months!  It's truly been so amazing watching my little guy grow and learn new things, as well as starting to show his personality.  There are times when I think he is just like me, and others where I think he couldn't be more like Joy.  Hopefully he'll end up with the better qualities of both of us :-) 

IM CDA race report

It was SOO nice to get out of New Mexico for a while, and the Spokane/CDA area was just beautiful.   Mountains covered in green spruce trees, green grass everywhere, a river and gorgeous lake.  And everything was just so green.  I mean, GREEN.  Living in the desert you kind of forget what that color is.  But anyway, on to the race!

Race morning arrives and the alarm goes off at 4:30.  Lucky for me, sunrise was at 4:48 so it was already light outside, which makes waking up that early SOO much easier.

 The gun goes off at 7AM start and 2600 crazy people make a mad dash into the water.  I thought the mass swim start at Arizona was bad!  In the swim at AZ I pretty much did my own thing; I swam WAAY outside so I could go at my own pace and not have to worry so much about everyone else in the water.  I knew coming into this race though, if I wanted to improve any on my time, I'd have to mix it up with everyone else.  I spent the first 15 minutes just trying to survive, and finally found a little bit of breathing room after the turnaround buoy.  I also had an A Ha! moment somewhere during this time.  Up to this point, I'd always shied away from any contact in the water, always felt like I was just in the way of all these faster people.  But then I started thinking, hey, I have just at much right to this water as anyone else!  Then I thought, just treat this like a basketball game.  Lord knows I never shied away from contact playing basketball, even though I was often the slimmest player out there!  After this occurred to me I became a lot more aggressive with my swim; I swam where I wanted to and didn't care who was in my way-just like everyone else seemed to be doing :-).  I wouldn't say I was LOOKING for the contact, but I definitely started dishing out more than I was taking :-).  I made it back to the start and jumped out of the water for my short beach run before starting lap 2.  Glanced down and smiled when I saw my first split, 32 minutes! 

The second lap started out well. The crowd had thinned out by this point, but I noticed the water was a LOT choppier than the first loop, despite having fewer people.  Guess the wind had picked up.  About 10 minutes into this lap, though, I started to notice a strange thing.  I couldn't seem to grip the water.  Apparently my hands had had enough and were calling it a day.  I couldn't force my fingers together!  And I couldn't even keep them stiff!  I had developed a case of what I call spaghetti hands.  I didn't feel all that cold in my wetsuit, but apparently my hands did.  My feet had gone numb within five minutes of the start, which was fine as I'm a horrible kicker on a good day when it comes to swimming.  I somehow managed to stay in a good draft though and came out of the water with a 1:07!  I slowed a bit during the second loop but felt it was a good time considering the chop and cold hands!

T1.  Nightmare.  I ran to the wetsuit strippers, and with my lifeless hands had not even managed to unzip the damn thing by the time I got there.

My enthusiastic helpers did not initially notice this and attempted to rip the thing from my shoulders down to my ankles in one fell swoop.  After several attempts I finally managed to yell "Hold it!" after which they slowed down, unzipped me, pulled it off my arms and then the rest of the way off.  I grabbed it, my T1 bag, and headed into the changing tent.  I definitely wasn't in shock, but I was a little out of it, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, I almost felt disconnected from my body.  Is that what hypothermia feels like?  Who knows.  I found a seat in the changing tent and couldn't grasp anything in my bag!  Come ON hands, we have a race here!  I finally just dumped it all out on the ground, managed to scoop up my towel, and held my cold lifeless hands inside it for a little bit to try and get some feeling back.  A quick rubdown got most of the water off, then I attempted to peel the speedos off and put the bike shorts on.  After much fumbling and bumbling, I finally had all my gear on--except my arm warmers.  I just looked at them dumbly for a second, realized I had no chance of putting them on, so stuffed them in my pocket and headed out.  T1 time 11:52, good grief!

On to the bike!

 I spent the first ten minutes shivering uncontrollably.  I mean COME ON!!!  I decided there was no way I could continue to go on like this, so I stopped and spent over three painful minutes trying to pull my damn arm warmers on.  I ended up using my teeth.  But it was definitely three minutes well spent, as I quickly stopped shivering.  I rode for about 1:15 before my bladder reached  its bursting point.  I was almost to the top of the biggest climb of the day and knew I had a big descent coming up.  Perfect timing.  At least 4-5 minutes of coasting would be a great time to go!  Of course I've never yet been able to pee while on the bike, but I knew I wouldn't have a better chance.  Plus, you would think screaming down the road at 40+ mph would literally scare the piss out of you, right?  Well guess who still hasn't managed to pee while riding.  Yeah, this guy.  I managed to make it back to the top of the next climb but had to pull off and spent over two minutes parked on the side of the road--grr I hate losing time like that!  I had one other bathroom break on the bike that also lasted about 2:30, but otherwise had a pretty spectacular bike!    I finished the first loop right at three hours, and still felt really strong.  The second loop was fairly uneventful as well, I felt great right up to the dismount.  Final bike time 6:11:xx, 18.1mph avg.  I was super pumped; I felt coming in to the race that at best I’d do about 6:00 to 6:10, and I almost hit that even with my stupid three pit stops.  I felt even better than night when I looked at my garmin

 and realized that I’d climbed over 6000 feet!  That’s 25% more than the 4660 advertised on the website!  BAM!  I crushed this thing!  :-)

T2.  Much better than than T1!  I ran immediately to the port-o-potties, and spent the next 2:11 on what would be my final pee break of the day.  Yes I timed it; I am that Type A.  I finished up, grabbed my transition bag for a quick change of clothes and shoes, got lathered up with sunscreen by a group of gray haired ladies (come on where were the young hot women??), and headed out!  Final T2 time 5:04.  MUCH BETTER.

RUN.  After only about 45 seconds out of T2, I saw my sexy wife and beautiful baby boy cheering me on!  Of course I had to stop and give them both a quick smooch, then off I went.  The first 6.5 miles went very smoothly, I settled into a very comfortable 8:45ish pace and just enjoyed the experience. 

Most of the course is an out and back along the shore of Lake CDA, and it is beautiful!  I hit the turnaround feeling great and started back in.  The next 6.5 miles went fairly well, I continued to feel great until around mile 11.  I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what was wrong, but I just started feeling blah.  My legs were good, my lungs were good, no stomach  issues up to this point, so what gives?  I kept my same pace and finished the first loop in just under two hours.  I passed Joy and Hunter twice in town, and told Joy I was really hurting as I went by.  I don’t remember what exactly she said, but I think the gist of it was along the lines of HTFU J.  I didn’t know what exactly was going on, but at the aid station at mile 14 it was time for another gel, I reached for it then realized I didn’t want the f’ing thing.  I was suddenly, desperately, craving salt!  I decided instead to go with some salty Lay's potato chips.  That seemed to hit the spot!  I was still running a bit slower than the first loop, but I wasn’t walking dang it!  I did this for the next 5 aid stations as well, and could feel myself coming out of the hole.  I did walk up the hill on the way out on this second loop :-/.  However I was feeling pretty good at the turnaround, only 6.5 miles to go!  I managed to run jog up the backside of the hill on my way back in to town, and picked up the pace once at the top.  I think I kept it at about 9:00 miles for the last quarter of the race.  I was super proud of myself for coming back and finishing strong!  Final run time 4:16:xx.  I had hoped to do a little better, but still a 36 minute improvement over my first IM run!

Final finishing time 11:52:30, a whopping 30 minute PR on a much tougher course than Arizona!

 I couldn’t be happier with my race!  I drastically cut my weekly training hours after Hunter was born, so I was really uncertain how that would affect race day.  However I did increase the intensity of most of my workouts, which really seems to have paid off!  My coach is pretty smart :-).

I do think this will mark my retirement from the full Ironman distance, even though I know this will be disappointing to my wife.  I really just want to spend more time with my family now.  I still love triathlon and racing, but it’s definitely a much less important part of my life.  Until next time friends!