First off, I had a terrific day.  Even though I didn’t achieve all my goals, finishing IMFL @ 12:02 provided tremendous satisfaction considering the challenges I had to deal with.  As coach Mike says, “these things aren’t easy”.  What that means, is that a number of unforeseen issues can occur and derail your plans/goals.  Then the real challenges sets in, overcoming the issues and finishing with some level of confidence.  In order to do this, you have to break the race down into moments.

7:00am – Swim start:
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had two possible decisions with respect to the swim start.  Hang back and walk in the water, or be near the front and run in.  Well, I went for it.  I was very near the front, with only a handful of racers in front of me.  I did wonder, am I fast enough to be here?  Guess I’ll find out soon enough.  Additionally, the ocean was fairly rough.  Decent size waves coming into the beach.  Since it was a mass start from the shore, you had to run in and try and dolphin out into a depth that you could just swim.  All was fine until about the first line of waves.  Its a full contact sport at this time.  I was making progress, then realized, this heads up swimming for the first 500 meters was not a good thing.  I finally calmed down around 800 meters and developed a rhythm.   I came out of the water at the first lap at 34 minutes.  I was 4 minutes behind plan.  Not what I wanted to see.  Made the turn heading back out for second lap.  The second lap was much smoother.  I focused on swimming as consistently as possible and not fighting the conditions.  The waves and current were meaningful.  Exited the water at 1:12.  7 minutes off plan.  Heart rate was right on.  Drank too much salt water.  Which is nasty.

T1 – It was a long run up to transition.  Got my wetsuit stripped and ran into change tent, all was going smoothly.  Once into the tent, I had a great Transition.  Ran out of tent, got my bike and off onto the course.

Bike:
I got settled into my bike, found my position and focused on finding my rhythm.  My HR cap was 150.  I was right at 150 and riding around 19mph.  The course was definitely windy.  Very gusty in parts and since everyone has the wind to deal with, I wasn’t really disturbed by it.  Because its a very long day, the ride is 112 miles and eventually you have the wind at your back.  I rode very conservatively for the first 2hrs. Aid stations passes went very well, my hydration and calories were right on.  I slowly increased the pace with the idea I would negative split the ride.  Meaning my last 56 miles would be faster than my first 56 miles.  I did just that.  Being patient early paid off.  I passed a lot of people.  My other proud moments were riding perfectly legal the whole way.  I saw a number of pack riders.  Drafting is not legal in Ironman.  Apparently not everyone got the memo.  I actually rode past and dropped a number of these packs, just to make a statement.  May have cost me some extra energy.  It was worth it.   I rode 5:31 averaged 20.3 MPH.  Which was right on plan.

Run:
I entered T2 pretty stoked and feeling very good.  Handed my bike off, grabbed my gear bag and into the tent.  Another very good transition.  Changed and out of the tent in 4 minutes.  Over to get some sunscreen, quick pee break and off onto the run course.  I was very excited about how I felt.  The crowd was fantastic.  An absolutely electric atmosphere for the first 2 miles.  I went through first mile at 8:40, knowing this was to fast, slowed up, ran second mile in 9:40, which seemed manageable.  Third mile was about the same, fourth mile started to develop gas.  Bloating gas.  Then side aches started and by mile five aid station went to a porta potty and it had a line so I thought I can make it to the next one.  Each aid station was a mile apart.  I won’t go into detail about mile 6, but it wasn’t pleasant.  I struggled through the next several miles.  thinking I had too many powergels, I just switched to water and coke.  Eventually I started to feel solid.  I was running off and on and by mile 19 was running better and better.  When I hit mile 22 my pace improved, I ended up working with a guy who was running the same pace and we ran together until mile 25 at which time he fell off and I ran into final mile and finish.  The finishing chute was awesome.  Great crown, great race.

I have to review my plan with my coach to determine what may have caused my stomach issues.  Will report back later.  Time to recover before getting back at it.

CHARLES LACOMBE