Well the time has finally arrived... Saturday 9/21/13 Ironman day (or not) for me. The day of the ultimate endurance challenge. I have been training for months and months for this.

On Thursday, I packed my bike in its plane bag, hauled it in my tiny 2 seater car and I was en route for Maryland. It was quite a trip, but after 2 flights and hours of traveling I was finally there. On Thursday night, the organizers had planned a complimentary buffet at the Hyatt hotel. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food. Various roasted vegetables, chicken breasts, pasta, deserts, all delicious. I made sure I consumed food in moderation though.
Friday I woke up around 7:30am. The day was mostly spent going to a pre race meeting, setting up my bike at the transition area (yeah one day before... kind of weird), shopping for a few groceries, watching TV and relaxing in my hotel room.
On Friday, I had also planned a little swim to get my bearings and a few visual markers for D-Day. However when I got close to the water the jellyfish were everywhere... Hundreds of them. So in the end I decided not to swim.

I went back to the hotel, had dinner in the hotel room and tried to go to sleep at 9pm.. Impossible to fall asleep.. At 10:30 I was still up. Eventually I managed to fall asleep around 11.
I woke Saturday morning at 5am, had a pancake, orange juice and cereals and drove to the race start area.
Loud music was blaring and the announcer was commenting on race day facts, interviewing some participants and such.
I set up my bike area , put my bike gear in the bike bag and put on my wetsuit. Then it was time for the national anthem, in front of the flag.
5 minutes before start, I got into the water towards the starting boeys.
I was looking around for jellyfish but I could not see any at this time of the day. It was close to 7am and still a bit dark though.
Soon the announcer started the countdown.
This was a mass start. No age group wave like I am used to. As soon as the countdown ended it was a bit chaotic. It seemed like the water was boiling, battered by hundreds of legs and arms at the same time. I plunged forward in the dark water and could only see the bright orange swim caps of nearby swimmers every time I was breathing.
I took a bit of a beating in this start. A few kicks to the face, a couple of punches at the back of my head, then more kicks to my stomach.. After a few minutes though, swimmers started to spread.
This was a 2 loop swim around a rectangular course, going clockwise.
The first half hour was pretty uneventful. I don't know if it was the current pushing me, but I was always 25 - 50 yards on the outside of the ideal swim line. I tried to correct it but it seemed that no matter what, I was drifting a bit.
In the first half hour, I kept waiting for a sharp sting from the jellyfish but got none and soon relaxed into an easy pace.
The sun started to come up and it seemed to wake up the jellyfish. Soon I started feeling a few stings a every couple of minutes. The stings were not as bad as I had imaged. It felt a bit like stinging nettle. maybe slightly worse. Still it wasn't pleasant, especially on the face. Occasionally I would feel the soft cap of the jellyfish under the tip of my fingers or my palm. Ugh...
I was eager to get out of the water. The more time I spent in the water, the worse it seemed to get. And boy did I spend time in the water...
I ended up swimming 2.6 miles (instead of 2.4) and it took me 2 hours. The third worse time of the day.. Ouch.
Coming out of the water was tricky. The end of the swim was set up on a boat ramp which was extremely slippery due to seaweeds. In fact some volunteers were helping people out of the water as it was incredibly hard to stand up. I lost my balance a couple of time but finally made it out.
I grabbed my pre-transition shoes and ran to the transition tent. 
I then realized that in the process of coming out of the water, I cut my left big toe pretty bad. This could really be a bad problem for the run...
I grabbed my bike and was off

The beginning of the course was an out-and-back and then it turned to a 2 loop (about 45 miles each) until the run transition area (different area than T1).
The first part of the bike was fine. I was averaging 20 to 22mph with moderate effort, but when I started the first loop I met a strong head wind. My pace lowered to 18mph, As I tried to control my heart rate, I had to drop my pace down to 16 or even 15 mph!...
This wind was relentless and even though this was a loop, the only portion without headwind was about 15 miles at the end of each loop. Tough. In all my training I had never been confronted with this kind of headwinds for such long periods of time. I remember looking at my Garmin at mile 38 and feeling already pretty tired.. This was going to be a long day.
In the first loop, my between-the-arms bottle started to give me trouble. The plastic bottle holder was cracked and the bottle was coming off little by little. Towards the end of the first loop I met some pretty rough road and the bottle completely fell off on the road. I stopped, attached it back and pedaled away again. A few miles later it happened again. After the third time I decided to discard the bottle altogether. It is expensive so it was a tough decision but I had no choice. This meant that from now on, every time I needed water, I would have to stop completely to fill my other bottles (behind the saddle).
The second loop was getting tough on my back and it was getting increasingly difficult to maintain an aero position. Occasionally, I would stop pedaling and stretch my back while riding but it was getting painful.
I completed the bike in a little over 6 hours. Okay given the tough conditions...

At T2, I grabbed the run gear bag, put on my run shoes, attached my race belt and started running.
As usual in my triathlons, I started the run too fast. I always have this tendency. But thanks to my training and prior experience I quickly corrected my pace down to 8:30 per mile.
I started the run feeling actually completely spent. My toe was hurting, and I had a general sense of exhaustion that I have only felt towards the end of my marathons. But the most concerning was my back. Pain was shooting from my lumbar region up to the middle of my back at every stride.
I felt like the back muscles were ready to seize up and cramp. I knew that if that happened I would not be able to run. The pain was intense at the start of the run and getting worse by the mile.
After about 5 - 6 miles though, my back started relaxing.
I had a multitude of issues to solve though. The cut foot was okay. At this point my shoe was all red from the blood but the pain was manageable and I knew this would not stop me from running. However, another concern was the humidity. Never before have I run a marathon in such a humid environment (95% humidity on the day. A far cry from Utah's ultra dry conditions). The temperature was okay (~27 C or so at the start of the run) but the humidity made me sweat much more than I should. Given my condition I decided to stop at every mile rest station to drink. I alternated water and Gatorade,
The run was an out and back course repeated 3 times. On the way out, the wind was against me but this meant that the way back was a bit easier.
After about 15 miles I was feeling extremely bloated from taking too much fluid. This was very uncomfortable but I was still thirsty. Very strange and new for me.
Mile 20 was a turning point for the worse. I was feeling bloated and slightly nauseous from fluid intake and threw up a couple of times on the side of the road. My pace dropped significantly to 10 - 11 min per mile. At this point a light rain had started and was somewhat refreshing but it also made my feet worse and blisters soon appeared on my right foot.
After one last turn around though, I knew the end was near and I pushed hard to avoid walking.
The finish line was reached after one last lap around the high school stadium and at this point I had nothing, really nothing left in the tank. I must have looked like a zombie desperately trying to make my way to the finish.
I wasn't even able to pick up the pace in the last quarter mile around the stadium.
I lifted my fists in the air as I crossed the finish line.
My total time was a bit over 12.5 hours which leaves some margin for future improvement. But given the conditions and everything I went through that day, the victory was very sweet indeed.

     I   AM   FINALLY   AN    IRONMAN

I am entering the final couple of weeks before the race. Last Sunday, I completed my longest bike ride ever and my last long ride of the training, 115,15 miles.
This ride hurt a bit. Since I repaired my saddle the settings are not quite the same and after just 20 miles I was feeling already a bit uncomfortable. The back hurt, crotch was numb...
After the ride, I remember thinking there was no way I would be able to run a marathon. Well..  I will have to do that in just a few days...
When I look back on my training here is what I can conclude so far.
     -My swim training has been pretty good in terms of teaching my body  endurance but I am still slow. Moving forward I will have to do a lot more speed drills. For the race though, I think I have done enough to at least get me ready to cover the distance. If I am fair to myself, it is quite an achievement since I remember that I could not swim more than 50 - 75 yards without stopping just a few months ago.
     -The biking has been so-so... I am very disappointed that I missed 2 or 3 long ride when it counted the most (top of my peak phase). For the future I will have to maintain consistent training for a few years if I am to become good at this sport. I would also really benefit from buying a trainer to focus more my training (intervals, speed drills...etc)
     -The running has been great. I have not really missed any critical training sessions and I feel ready.
     -Transition work has been okay. I feel like I have learn enough during my practice races and training to avoid major mistakes. There are still a few unknown with this coming race (ex: getting rid of salt water before biking..etc). I now know that I will need socks on the run and probably on the bike as well even if I had planned not to initially. I know how to organize my transition area, and I am confident I will get the job done on D-day.
     -When it comes to nutrition, I have a basic plan which comes down to this: feed 300cal/ hr and see what happens. With a good breakfast in the morning, I think it should work even though there are probably n degrees of potential refinements which could bring about better performance.
     -The big unknown is putting it all together. The Utah half race I just did gave me a hint that I am ready for a full Ironman. But my training has still left some questions marks. Rarely have I felt ready to run after a long ride. and I have only done the 112 miles once...

At this stage, it is point less to worry about what was done or not. I think I have done enough to complete the distance. I will have to pace myself according to how I feel and race conditions.
I am looking forward to the adventure!

This was my first ever half Ironman. A race that I eagerly anticipated because it would give me a good indication of my current fitness and help me get prepared for the full Ironman in September.
I got up around 5:00. My being part of a triathlon club means that we have a dedicated rack for the transition area. This means that there is no need to rush to get a good spot in the transition area which translates to 30 min more sleep. I had prepared all my gear the day before so there would be no last minute stress. But when I started loading the bike in my car, I noticed that the rear tired I had just changed a couple of days prior was already flat. This wasn't a good sign. Could there be a slow leak? I inflated it back up to 105 psi and listened carefully for any hissing from an air leak. It seemed okay, so I loaded the bike and was off.
I arrived at Utah Lake at around 6 - 6:15am, pulled all my gear off my beloved Ogio bag and set up my bike. This time I opted to use my Brooks Ghost 5 for the run. My new Zoots are great in transition but they left me with a superficial sking injury on my Achilles last time I wore them. The Brooks have been a work horse of the shoe that I ve used throughout my training for a while now. This will be one of the last time I wear them as they need to be changed.

After a the race briefing, I walked to the shore to prepare for the swim. The wetsuits were not allowed so this would be another first for me: a long open water swim without wetsuit...
The swim was launched in successive age group waves with 2 minutes between each wave.
After a 10 second count down, I was off with the 40-44 age group.
The swim course had been changed at the last minute and I later found out that it was longer than the 1.2miles it was supposed to be.
I felt okay during the swim. Like every time I swim though, I was feeling impatient, bored and wanted to move on to the biking. Boeys looked like they were swimming away from me, never getting closer. I just felt slow. And I was...Pretty much every one passed me on the swim. A few times, I stopped. The water was so shallow you could almost walk in places.
It took me 1:00 to complete 1.38 miles. Slower than in training... Disappointing, but at this point I do not know how to address it. I have been going to the pool almost every day and it does not seem to help wih my speed.
Coming out of the water I grabbed my pre-transition shoes to run to the transition area.

I am not sure this is extremely efficient to use a pair of shoes there but earlier, I had walked bare foot around the transition area and hurt my foot walking on loose gravel / stones. These pre-transition shoes are old trainers which I modified by cutting the heel vertically so they're easier to but on while they still allow me to run when on.
It works well but I think I'll have to modify them further so that they're easier to slide in with wet feet. I think I lost about 20 seconds putting them on.
The plan on the bike was to ride in cardiac zone 3 (low 3) the whole time.
I started a bit too conservatively. In the first mile I felt a bit confused about where to go and still running a mental checklist of things to do (did I forget anything? Did I need to eat something...etc). After a couple of minutes I was finally in the race, stabilizing at my planned pace. 
The bike ride felt great. The temperature was great, in the 70's not too cold or hot and I was passing a lot of people. 
I ate about 300 cal every hour or so and didn't stop at any station. I had just one 30oz between the arm bottle and had packed all my nutrition on the bike.
I averaged every 5 mile split between 20 and 22mph. My ironman goal being 18mph, I felt pretty good about it. The pace felt great too. Somewhat hard, but a hard I could maintain for a while. Only one biker passed me during the first 40 miles of the ride. Then, at mile 42, the my worst nightmare happened..
I was going hard on a straight when I saw Jen, one of my tri-club co-coach, cheering me on. Shortly after that, I prepared to enter a tight right corner.
I inclined the bike accordingly and as I was entering the corner, my front tired slipped a bit on loose gravel, forcing my trajectory to a wider turn. I slowed down as much as I could but the road was fairly narrow and I went off road on very loose gravel. My front wheel completely slid to my left and before I knew it I was on the ground absorbing the kinetic energy with my bare skin on the ground. It hurt. Soon my forearm was bleeding profusely. A few bikers that had taken me miles to pass, passed  me again as I picked up my bike and jumped back on it. I was off again. My time split was screwed. I was in the 18mph range.
As I focused to finish the race hard, I had more bad news. My saddle had become loose and I was rocking back and forth, unable to stay in aero postion. A minute later I started losing nuts and bolts from the saddle and soon the situation went from bad to worse. I had lost all the hardware under the saddle and now it was not attached to the seat post.
I had to balance on the saddle while keeping it between my legs. Loosing the saddle completely and it might be the end of the race for me...
I was counting the miles, not worried about speed anymore, but wondering if I could actually finish this ride.
The ride was a bit short (53.3miles) which I was grateful for. 
My bike split was 2:37

I finally made it to the transition area where a volunteer grabbed the bike and I quickly slid in my running shoes.
I must have had a lot on my mind because I put put my right foot in the left shoe first. A mistake I have never made in my life before (triathlon or not).
I ran out of the transition area pretty fast. It felt good at first but I quickly realized I was running way too hard (I was going under 6:00min/mi).
I gradually slowed down to about 7:00min/mile which progressively turned to about 7:45 after a few miles. 
A good lesson for me...I think I left a lot of energy with that quick start.
I paid for it in the second loop of the course. The heat of the mid-day along with the accumulated fatigued and poor early pacing sapped my energy in the final miles. I also had a bathroom stop at mile 6 which took an extra minute or so, but when nature calls...
I finished the 13.1 miles in 1:38. Not great but not horrible.
In the end, my final time is 5:18
I would have wanted a sub 5 hour time, but I guess that for a beginner triathlete's first effort at a half ironman this is respectable.
I can't help being both disappointed and frustrated at my swim performance.
I think I could do better at the bike too. But given all the unknowns for the pacing and the bike, the accident  and ensuing technical diffulties, I guess the time was respectable. My potential improvement on the run is more marginal. Maybe 5 minutes with better pacing...

There it is.. My first half Ironman. I have mixed feeling with this race. On the one hand, I am happy I could finish it and that I felt good throughout the race. On the other hand, I feel like I could have gone harder at it. I am worried I'll never improve my swim times and therefore never be able to compete for the podium of my age group.
I have to remind myself that this was a training race though. I was there to gain experience and gain the confidence that I'll be able to complete my first Ironman in a few weeks. And from that point of view, I accomplished all my goals.

The time has come for a true test to evaluation my Ironman readiness. I set my alarm for 4:30am tomorrow. By 7:30am I will be starting the 1.2 mile swim. 
Last week end I tested my open water swim endurance with an unprecedented 2.4 mile swim. I finished in 1:49. Pretty slow, but at least I acquired the confidence that I can swim this distance in open water. Tomorrow, however, the wetsuits won't be allowed due to the high water temperatures.
I am not too worried about the swim. 1.2 miles is a distance I have performed numerous time at the pool and a few times in the lake. Sure, my training predicts that I will be slow, conceding maybe a half hour, but I hope I can catch back up on the ride and the run. Even though I improved my endurance in the water quite a bit, swimming speed improvements remain elusive.

The bike ride worries me a bit because it is very hard to memorize with many critical turns. So if the markings are not great, I will be in trouble.
My plan is to stay in low zone 3 for the whole 56 miles. This should leave me with enough stamina to finish with a relatively strong run.
Nutrition will be 200 - 300 cal / hr during the ride and 4 - 5 gels on the run.
This is my very first half and will give me a good indication of where I am at.
Full Ironman is about 4 weeks away now..!!
Full race report to follow...

Wow I cannot believe it. I am less than 2 weeks away from my half ironman prep race and just over 5 weeks from my A-goal Ironman race.
These last weeks of training are critical. I am hitting all the big mileage on the long rides and trying to keep up in the other sports.
It is quite a challenge. I have been making sure to hit my bike mileage / time per the training plan. However, I have not been great at meeting the volume of running and swimming at the same time.
Last week-end, I did my 90 mile ride and wanted to follow with a 20 mile run but the weather was so hot (~95F) that I stopped at just 8 miles. I figured that at this stage, I cannot afford to completely heat exhaust myself which, at the very least, would compromise the next couple of weeks of training. The most critical weeks in fact.
This week end for the first time ever, I came out of my long ride not feeling completely exhausted. The secret to that I learned is intransigent pacing.
I stayed between zones 1.5 and 2.5 (cardio)  the whole 5+ hours.
Yeah, pretty low intensity, but now I know that the only way I can run after a long ride is through good pacing. I will experiment the next few week ends to see how far I can push this pace. I suspect that as long as I stay around mid zone 2 cardio zone, I will be ok. 
During the ChesapeakeMan race, I should be able to control my heart rate very well because the course is very flat (unless there are very strong winds...). This might be more challenging to do on hillier courses.

I am getting a bit worried that I have not done a long run in 3 weeks, so this week, one of my absolute must do is an 18 to 20 miler. I have about 3- 4 weeks of high volume training and I need to have a long run each and every week.

As to the swim, in the last few weeks I have done good keeping up with a nearly daily swim routine. I have managed to swim 5 to 6 times a week.
I am still slow (my speed does not improve that fast) but I feel more comfortable in the water. One of my big concerns is that I have never gone over about 1.2 miles. I really need to find the time to squeeze in a few 1.5 to 2 hour sessions.

Last week end, I had the opportunity to do another tune up race. A short (sprint) triathlon at Herriman Black Ridge.
I had practiced the swim in the pond with my club a couple of days before the race and had not managed to stay in the water more than 10 minutes (without wetsuit). Sooo cold!!! I took me a good 30 minutes to recover from that. Despite my hypothermic adventure, I opted not to wear a wetsuit on race day.
In a sprint triathlon, the race is so short that spending a couple of minutes stripping out of my wetsuit would be a waste of time.
It turned out okay though. I did not feel cold and while I finished at the back of my wave (as expected) I am fairly satisfied with my swim. As the map below suggests, my sighting, while not great yet, is getting better

I got out of the water, grabbed my pre-transition shoes and tried to slide them in. I was still dizzy from the swim and could not keep my blanace. I almost fell over twice trying to put the shoes on.
I definitely lost 30 seconds there...I still think pre-transition shoes are a good idea. For one, I have a very fragile and blister prone skin and the 0.2 mile run out of the water to my bike may actually do some damage to my feet. Further, I realized that with a good pair of shoes, I can actually run much faster out of the water than all the other guys surrounding me. 
I just have to execute it a bit better.
I ran to the bike rack and jumped on my bike while running. Wow, just like a pro. I had done a quick session a week before to learn that skill and I think it is worth doing on a sprint tri, especially since it is not as hard as it looks.
After the swim. I had a lot of catching up to do but I was eager and confident. I had rehearsed the bike course twice a couple of days before and I knew exactly what to do.
The beginning portion of the race is a fast (40mph) downhill section.
While most competitors around me where just letting the bike drift downhill, I attacked hard, pushing on the pedals, determine to pass as many people I could.
At the end of the first mile, while riding downhill at maximum speed my rear tire exploded. I felt the rear wheel shaking and nearly coming off the bike. I controlled my bike trying to slow down without losing my balance.
Soon I came to a stop. I examined the tire and it was completely torn with a 3 inch opening. Race was over...
Some generous people took my bike on their truck and I went to T2 to watch the race.
As I arrived there, the guy leading the race was entering the transition area.
It was Rory, a member of my triathlon club. He was part of the elite wave and seem so have now a comfortable lead on the second man.
As I watched him put on his running shoes, I decided to do the run with him. I ran to the transition area put on my shoes and started the chase.
He was about 200 yards in fron of me coming out of T2 and it took me about a mile to catch up with him. He probably ran this first mile at about 6:00 pace.
Eventually I caught up with him and paced his run  for the remainder of the race.

I was a disappointing race for me of course but I think I made of the most of it. I was happy to see my club win and vowed to represent at the next race (Utah Half).

This week and next I am reducing the training intensity before ramping up again. It's funny to think that I am calling this a recovery week because I still trained 12 hours this week. Much more intense than marathon training... In a couple of weeks I'll go back up to about 20hours a week!! 
This is proving to be a very time consuming endeavor. But I am committed. I think the Ironman race in September will require every minute of the training I am going through to be able to complete without a trip to the emergency room.

I am finding myself to be in good shape on the run, but I have a lot of catching up to do on the bike and the swim. 
In fact, it will probably take a couple of years of persistent training for me to reach a level that I find satisfactory (top of age group shape). 

I am slowly getting more comfortable on the swim. I now swim 2000 yards several times a week and it does not feel terribly hard as it used to. When I switch to open water though, I seem to lose my bearings. I can't swim in a straight line, I don't feel comfortable, my wetsuit seems to pull on my shoulders... I am really not there yet. Sure I can swim a mile, but my already slow swimming pool pace collapses in open water. I am trying to do one open water session a week now to try and find my groove.

On the bike, I am a bit better, but very far from where I want to be. On the rides with my tri club, I can really measure the difference of fitness between the triathlete that have been riding for years and me. I am still one of the slowest riders of the bunch which is not a pleasant feeling.
Furthermore, I rarely (if ever) feel ready to run after a long run. Somehow, I am going to have to start practicing that soon.

Transitions have been a total disaster in all of my races so I will need to practice that seriously.

7 WEEKS before the Ironman race! I still feel far from ready...

The date is approaching fast and while I feel just about ready to complete the course, I don't feel any confidence at all to be able to 'race' this distance. None of my long rides have gone particularly well. I usually am completely out of energy past 3 hours of riding and I have never quite been able to complete the planned long ride times on my schedule.
The half Ironman distance demands more respect than other races I have participated in. I will probably be on the course for about 6 hours so I better take it seriously and have a good plan to handle the rigors of the race.
It is quite challenging because I have no experience racing for that long especially not in a triathlon.
This race is my B-race. I signed up for it to gain experience for my Ironman distance race in September.

I have been thinking about this race for a couple of weeks now and the more I try to think about the details of the race, the more questions I have. What pace should I go for on the bike? Should I go really easy to make sure I can run afterwards? In any case what does easy mean on a relatively flat course? Should I use heart rate zones exclusively to pace myself? How fast will I be able to run? My experience running sub 1:30 half marathons may not be relevant here and I probably need to adjust my expectations. But by how much? How should I pace the different parts of the run? How about nutrition??

Just thinking about it does not help without a method.
With all these questions in mind, I decided to learn by reading on line blogs, forum posts and articles.
With all that information, I created a detailed racing plan from the pre-race stages to the end of the race (below).
The main concern for me is proper pacing. I am worried to pace too slow because I know I will be disappointed with an average time, especially if I don't push myself hard.
I have to try to remain realistic though. I AM a beginner triathlete and this is my very first half Ironman. This is a B-race which main purpose is to learn.
This means that everything considered, the result is not that important but it also means that I can allow myself to find the upper limit of my ability on this distance without too much fear of bonking.

With all these ideas I designed a plan for a sub 5-hour target finish time. I think for my ability, this would be a best case scenario time, but right now, from the comfort of my armchair, it does not seem completely impossible to achieve...

I entered the peak phase of my Ironman training a couple of weeks ago and I am really starting to feel how much of a commitment to the sport this really is.
Last week I ran 33 miles (well more like 36 - 37 if I include the warm ups), I biked 130 miles and swam about 10000 yards (if I include club swims). And this is just the beginning. I will ramp up the bike training a couple more notches as I approach the weeks leading to the event. This is so much harder than marathon training! Well it really is 3 times harder...

Sometimes I dread going out for a long (~5hr) ride by myself. But in the end, it's always worth it...

I love races. They keep me motivated to train, they're exciting to participate in, and they always offer learnings, insights and a good reality check.
I booked so many races for the end of 2013! It's almost idiotic. Probably too many.. I just can't help it . I just love races! Check out my race calendar!
In fact, I still have in mind that elusive sub 3 hour marathon.. Might squeeze in a couple of marathons before the end of the year to try my luck again. I'm not getting any younger but maybe I can still get a bit faster!