At the time of this writing, it has been about 48 hours since I crossed the finish line and became an Ironman.  My legs are ridiculously sore and my right knee hurts pretty bad, but it was an amazing day! Special thanks to Rackspace Hosting for providing the flexibility to train and some awesome gear to race in and to Erin DeMarines at Tri3Bar for supplying the delicious 3Bars for extra energy! Here’s the recap:

I woke up at 4:00am Saturday morning after only a few hours of sleep.  As much as I tried to calm myself the night before, my mind was already in race mode.  Unlike every other early morning workout where I had to wake up long before the sun, this time I got out of bed easily.  No arguing with myself about hitting the snooze button.  It was time to do what I had been obsessing about almost every waking moment of the last 6 months.

I took a quick, hot shower and ate a simple breakfast of a bagel with peanut butter, a banana and bottle of Powerbar Perform drink.  I needed calories, and had planned on eating more, but my stomach wasn’t in the mood to eat.  I wasn’t nervous yet, but I was very anxious.

My wife and I made our way to the transition area so I could look over my bike one last time and make sure everything was set and ready to go.  Afterwards we walked to the start of the swim to join the other 2700 athletes with their families and friends.  The area was packed with people and full of energy.  Loud music was playing from speakers near the starting area and everyone was going about their pre-race routine.  Some were jogging around, some stretching, some just talking with friends and family and others seemed to stare off into the distance – probably visualizing the long day ahead.

After getting my arms marked with my numbers we made our way to the waterside and sat down to take it all in.  I stretched a little bit, but mostly just tried to relax and conserve energy.  The swim was set to being with a mass start in the water – 2700 athletes all starting at once.  Pretty soon the announcer welcomed the pro triathletes who were competing and asked for everyone else to start making their way to the starting area.  I got into my wetsuit, put on my goggles and pulled my lime green swim cap over my head and walked over to the starting area.

I found myself on a ramp with a lot of others steadily walking into the water and swimming out towards the middle of the lake near some big red buoys marking the starting line.  Since there were so many people, we had to tread water for almost 20 minutes before the gun went off while everyone got into place.  Luckily, the wetsuit gave me a lot of buoyancy so I didn’t waste very much energy here.  I chatted with others in the area a little but mostly tried to keep myself in an area with enough room to prevent getting pushed under at the start.

Number of miles covered each month while training for Ironman Texas.

After the Pros started, the speakers near the water ramp started blaring Ozzy Osbourne’s “Ironman”.  Everyone went crazy and I remember noticing that I had a huge smile on my face.  They did a short count down and the race began.  I don’t remember if they used a gun shot or if it was a buzzer, but suddenly we were all thrashing forward in the water.  Hands grabbed feet and legs, faces were kicked and people climbed over each other in a reckless attempt at making forward progress in an area of water too small to hold the crowd.  I don’t know if I hit or kicked anyone (probably did) but I remember several times when others swam/crawled over my back and across my legs.  My head was kicked twice, causing me to almost lose my goggles the second time.  I did my best at keeping my focus and eventually found an area at the side where I could swim.

As we progressed down and back up the lake I kept having run-ins with others.  I would find an open area to swim in and within minutes others had slowed or speed up to fill it in.  This happened the entire swim so I was never really able to stretch out and glide.  The last portion of the swim brought us through a canal into the transition area.  This part was cool.  Both sides of the canal were lined with people cheering us on.  Finally, I made it to the exit and entered the transition.

My goal for the swim had been to complete it in 1:20 – I finished it in 1:09:53!

Upon exiting the water, a few of the race volunteers stripped my wetsuit off me, handed me my bike gear bag and assisted me with making sure I had everything I needed before grabbing my bike.  The volunteers all over the race course were amazing!  They were the reason the race went as smooth as it did and they were definitely the reason I saved time in the transition.  I had allotted 10 minutes to get out of my wetsuit, get all my bike gear together and on me and get my bike – I made it out of the transition in less than 5 minutes!

Now on the bike, I’m 15 minutes ahead of my goal time and focused on calming myself down.  My heart rate was at 164 as I rode away from the transition area – way too high!  Fortunately, the beginning of the bike course was mostly downhill so I had a great opportunity to keep up some good speed without much effort, which brought my heart rate back down into the low zone 2 range (around 120 bpm).  On the bike, my nutrition strategy was to eat a Powerbar Energy Gel every 20 minutes and alternate Powerbar Perform drink and water to wash them down.  I had my watch set to go off every 20 minutes to remind me to eat/drink and in between I focused on keeping up my cadence and maintaining a low heart rate.

Almost every bike ride I had done in training consisted of hills – tons of them.  This course was hilly, but nothing compared to the Texas Hill Country north of San Antonio that I had been used to.  During the race I found that many times when someone passed me, I would almost always catch up to them, and pass them back on the hills.  I hated the hills in training, but I was loving them now.  Overall, the course was great.  It wound through the Sam Houston National Forest and through a lot of farm land.  Wind was supposed to be bad, but there was a lot of tree cover on most of the roads so it must have blocked it for us – I don’t remember ever having much difficulty with wind.  The entire way people were parked on the side of the road cheering for us and holding up hand drawn signs on poster board – awesome community support!

My goal for the bike was to finish in 6 hours, maintaining an average of about 18mph (I figured the hills would slow me down as much as the Hill Country hills always had).  I finished the bike in 5:49:23, just over 19mph averaged!

Entering the transition to prepare for the run I was about 25 minutes ahead of my goal time.  Once again, the volunteers made things incredibly easy for me and I ran out of the transition area in 5 minutes flat, putting me 30 minutes ahead of my goal time.

My strategy for the run had changed somewhat in the last week before the race.  About two weeks before, I started having terrible pains on the outside of my right knee.  I did everything I could to heal it before race day, but I knew there was a real possibility that I would have issues during that final leg of the day.  My goal time allowed me enough time to finish the run with a moderate amount of walking, but not a lot.  In order to beat my goal, I had to run the majority of the race.  So, my strategy for the run was, during the first hour, to run the first 3/4 of each mile and walk the remaining 1/4.  I figured if I ran the first portion at a 9min/mile pace, then I could walk the remainder and average a 10 minute mile.  After the first hour, if the knee was ok, I’d run a few miles without walking to test it.  If it was clear at that point, I’d run the rest of the race.

For the first hour, I stuck to my plan.  Six miles went by and I had averaged just under a 10 min mile on each.  Unfortunately, in mile 7 when I started back running the knee pain came back.  And it was bad.  I immediately started walking again and kept walking for about a quarter of that mile.  When I started running again I found the knee had become crazy stiff and running was near impossible!  During this time my mind started flooding with thoughts of missing my goal time and I was getting frustrated.  Mile 7 was walked mostly with some short painful runs mixed in.  I thought as long as I could run/walk, maybe I could get close to my goal.  In mile 8 I found that the more I walked the stiffer my knee got.  Bending my knee even just enough to walk through the stiffness caused a tremendous amount of pain!  Somewhere in the middle of that mile I caught myself wondering if I was going to be able to finish at all.  Almost in the same instant I got really angry at myself for thinking like that and forced myself to start running.  I can’t describe how badly it hurt to run.

They say that God works in mysterious ways.  Before the race I had prayed and prayed for something that would keep me motivated to run at the end of the long day.  At the point in mile 8, where my knee hurt too much to walk and I began painfully running out of sheer frustration, something happened.  After about 30 seconds of running, the stiffness in my knee loosened up just enough and I found a way to keep going.  I found that if I just used my right leg as a crutch, sort of landing flat footed, then used my left leg to push myself forward over my right leg, I was able to keep going and minimize the knee pain.  The instant I started to walk or change from this awkward stride, my knee started getting stiff and screamed at me.  If I walked, I wouldn’t finish, much less hit my goal time.  So the decision was made, I would run (awkwardly) the rest of the way.  My motivation to keep running didn’t come in the form of something positive and uplifting, but rather in sharp pain that made it impossible to walk – the need to keep the pain away kept me running.  As far as I’m concerned, my prayers were answered.  Not necessarily in the way I would have liked, but answered with a desirable result at any rate – I guess beggars can’t be choosers.

I am so thankful that the run was set to loop 3 times around the course.  -Since it was a smaller area, the entire course was lined with people yelling and cheering.  Complete strangers, along with family and friends, offered encouragement the entire way and it kept me motivated to try and slowly pick up speed.  Every so often I glanced at my watch and found I was keeping up a pace under a 10 min mile (the majority were between 9:15 and 9:30).  Around mile 20 I realized if I kept up the pace I would kill my goal.  I pushed as hard as I could and dealt with the occasional sharp knee pain from losing my form until I had 1 mile to go.  That last mile was awesome.  The people screaming on the course seemed to be yelling louder and I was running faster and faster that entire time.  -My last mile was under 8:30.

When I ran into the last 100 meters of the run, it was full of people.  Everyone was yelling, loud music was playing and it got emotional.  This was the moment I had thought about every day, through every workout and every time my alarm clock went off for the last 6 months.  This was the moment I had sacrificed so much for and I couldn’t hold it in.  The last 25 meters I yelled as loud as I could and threw my arms in the air as I crossed the finish line and became and Ironman.

I used every ounce of energy, determination and endurance I had that day.  After crossing the line, once again, the helpful volunteers were there – this time to catch me from falling.  I gave it my all and didn’t even have enough left to stand.  I sat in the provided wheelchair for a few minutes, unable to hold back tears and couldn’t believe I had done it.  Then I saw my time.

My goal at the beginning of training in January was to beat 13 hours.  I cut down a good portion of the time being fast through the transitions and fast on the swim and bike, but if it wasn’t for the run during the last 18 miles, I wouldn’t have been able to cross the line at 11:25:38 and secure a top 10% finish!  Killed the goal and became an Ironman.  I did it.

The Finish

My official time sheet for Ironman Texas